Retirement and Hometown
“Is that so?”
If it had been the Saintess who loved me—or rather, the one I remembered—she would have been thrown by my frosty words. She would have asked whether she had done something wrong, or whether something unpleasant had happened at the palace that day.
But what came back was a dry, flat reply.
It was not the word “breakup” itself, yet the meaning was unmistakable: we were finished. Even so, she showed not the slightest pain, as if she had known all along that I would say something like this.
She was nothing like the woman I had known.
“I’m happy.”
The woman who had smiled at trivial stories on a rainy day, in moments so perilous we never knew whether we would live or die. The one who had sneakily skipped grueling training to steal over the high walls of the Holy Cathedral with me for thrilling, secret trysts that set her heart racing. From her mud-streaked face to the face of the Saintess—I had thought I had seen every one of her faces in the time we spent together. Yet the face before me now was one I had never seen in my life.
She accepted it so calmly, without a shred of lingering attachment or resentment.
Perhaps this was for the best. If she had begged, my resolve might have wavered—but now there was nothing left to fear.
The imperial palace, where far too much had happened in the two years I spent fighting in the North. I had cut that sprout out with a single stroke.
“Let’s never see each other again.”
An old tree that had already grown rotten from the roots up. If I could not fell it in the name of affection—this thing that failed to draw nourishment from the ground and only spewed foul stench—the whole area would soon be contaminated and unusable. Hoping that my bond with the Saintess would end here, I forced out the order to dismiss her.
This was the last mercy I could offer for the memories of the time we had spent together.
A few days later, my retirement ceremony was held with great pomp. The comrades and subordinates who had lived alongside me were a mess of tears, while General Krasis, who had come down from the North, snorted with barely contained rage and emptied a whole cask of liquor with a thunderous slam, drinking like a madman.
The palace nobles and those angling for the scraps of my influence kept asking if I might return even as an advisor, but I refused them all.
I was sick of it.
The dawn of the empire I had forged by grinding my body to dust for a lifetime. From the Emperor at the top down to every person I had loved, they had all betrayed me.
Disgusting.
Now that I—the only one among the Three Pillars of the Empire who had truly devoted himself—was gone, it would be amusing to watch how the empire rolled on from here.
And yet.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
After the retirement ceremony, while everyone else was suffering through their hangovers, I slipped out of the imperial palace in the early dawn. My body had long since become one that could drink any amount without getting drunk—only to sense a familiar presence. Familiar footsteps overlapped with my own trudging ones; when I turned, Metis was walking right behind me.
“Why aren’t you staying in the imperial palace?”
“Me? Well, the place I follow was never the empire—it was you, General.”
He shrugged.
“I have nothing left now. I’m no longer even the War Hero.”
“I know. But I dislike the idea of going back there even more.”
He kicked a stone that had gotten under his foot.
“Even before you left, they were appointing a successor to erase the War Hero’s afterglow. You think that’s going to be easy? They even made an offer to me.”
I had found it strange that the palace side hadn’t tried harder to stop me—turns out they had already been working various schemes behind the scenes.
“Anyway, the newly appointed general is going to have a rough time of it. He’ll have to dance to the imperial family’s tune while also carving out his own merits so he doesn’t get swallowed by the achievements you built.”
Metis laced his fingers behind his head.
“I figured that would get annoying, so I quit.”
He had always been the type to act on whatever struck his fancy, even when he was still in the army.
“Do as you like.”
Staying with me might bring even more bothersome matters, but the thought that I had at least one subordinate who trusted me enough to follow wasn’t a bad one.
“Good grief! You always ride horses, General, so how are your feet so fast? Slow down a bit!”
“I’ve fought on plenty of battlefields without a horse. You’re just slow.”
Trading bland jokes like that, we made our way back to my hometown. Not long after settling in, I heard rumors about the person selected as my successor—and the fact that it was Kepsi, my childhood friend, came a little later.
Meanwhile, in the deep, lightless recesses of the imperial palace, only a woman’s agonized screams could be heard.
“Aaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!”
Crash!
“P-Please calm yourself, Your Highness!”
“Do I look like I can calm down, you bastard?!”
Arhen ducked frantically as a plate came flying at him. The one that had just sailed past shattered into pieces against a pillar.
“Who even are you?! You’re not the usual one!”
“The usual attendant is… not feeling well, Your Highness.”
“Don’t make me laugh! I’m the one who isn’t feeling well! Why is he the one who’s unwell?! And he just takes leave without my permission?!”
“Please, I beg you, calm yourself, Your Highness.”
How many days had this already been? Arhen had only come to fill in as a substitute, and now he was brushing against the edge of death every single hour. He was at his absolute limit. He kept bowing and pleading for her to calm down, but the princess paid him no mind.
Once the War Hero, General Beren, had been her patron. After his retirement she had been left completely adrift. Before receiving a permanent post, Arhen had been covering shifts for various palace officials—and this time he had drawn the absolute worst lot.
“Irritating! Irritating! Irritating! Irritating! Just drop dead already!”
This time she slammed the cushion she had been clutching against the floor over and over. At last it could not take the force; it tore open, and stuffing began drifting through the room one wisp at a time.
“Have you gone insane?! Why the hell is he suddenly quitting?! After everything I did for him! What does he even get out of quitting?!”
Her hair had become a wild tangle. She snatched up the liquor beside her like a madwoman. She no longer seemed to notice whether the drink was going into her mouth or simply cascading down her throat and soaking her clothes.
The word “lunatic” fit her perfectly.
Watching her, Arhen recalled what a friend in the Palace Affairs department had told him before he took this shift.
“Hey. Keep this quiet. This is precious intel. The princess has completely lost it lately.”
As one of the Palace Affairs nobles who moved through the imperial household the most, their circle always heard the news first.
“Originally three of the children were being mentioned as candidates for the next emperor. But now that General Beren has retired, the youngest princess is completely out of the running.”
“Why? Last time you said the youngest had a high chance of becoming the heir.”
“That was when General Beren was still around. He isn’t now. Who wants to push a daughter born of low birth as the next emperor?”
His friend had scolded him as if it should have been obvious.
“Hey. What am I supposed to do? I have to attend Princess Roana as a substitute today.”
“You’re screwed. Stay as quiet as you can and look after your own neck.”
Why had he only told him that afterward? If he had said it before the shift, Arhen would never have been stuck here groaning. Being trapped, unable to advance or retreat while reading the room, was pure misery.
“You.”
“Yes! Please speak, Your Highness.”
“Who did you serve originally?”
“Pardon?”
“Are you deaf?! You said you came as a substitute—so who did you serve before this?!”
“G-General Beren!”
The princess’s arm, raised to hurl the liquor bottle, froze mid-motion.
“I didn’t mishear that, did I?”
She staggered to her feet and closed the distance to Arhen.
“Yes! That’s correct! General Beren!”
Not understanding why she was reacting this way, Arhen answered while trembling like a leaf under the approaching dread. Her hand settled on his shoulder.
“You’re in luck. You’re from Palace Affairs, so you must know something. Tell me Beren’s weaknesses or secrets. How dare that bastard just walk away like he was so great? Does that even make sense?”
The pressure of her grip on his shoulder steadily increased. If he said the wrong thing now, he might not leave this room alive.
Arhen swallowed hard.
The moment we reached my hometown, we headed for the house I had bought in advance years earlier.
“Wow… this place hasn’t been maintained at all.”
He swiped a hand across the table and came away with a palm full of dust.
“I didn’t have enough money to hire a caretaker.”
“Even a War Hero doesn’t have that kind of money, I see.”
In truth a fair amount of coin had come in, but I had poured every bit of it into the Holy Cathedral under the pretext of helping the less fortunate, so I was flat broke. I had also never expected to retire and return so quickly.
“Then we’ll have to earn some money first. How about mercenary work?”
“You look strangely excited about that.”
Back at the palace Metis had almost never shown emotion; lately a whole range of expressions had begun to surface on his face.
“There were too many things to be careful about in the palace. Now that we’re out, I finally feel like I can breathe. Let’s go register as mercenaries right away.”
He dumped our luggage any which way and then shoved me toward the mercenary office. When we stepped into the small shop whose sign simply read “Mercenary Office,” a little old man greeted us.
“Who’re you?”
“We’ve come to register as mercenaries.”
“Someone actually came to register as a mercenary in a backwater like this. Hand over the money first.”
“I heard there was some kind of test?”
“A test? Hah. Listen here. Do you think this is some big city?”
The old man clicked his tongue at Metis’s puzzled face.
“If you two were actually any good, there’d be work piling up in the big cities and you’d go there instead. Just pay the fee and take a nameplate. What business do a couple of soft-looking young gentlemen have becoming mercenaries anyway?”
He held out his palm without the slightest recognition of my face. Watching him, Metis let out a quiet snort of laughter.
“Well, it’s not as if the retired War Hero would ever come up here, right?”
“Why would someone that great come here? There’s a rumor this is his hometown, but that’s nonsense. High folk belong in high places. Why would he come all the way out here?”
“Right?”
Metis looked ready to keep teasing me, so I cut him off and simply handed the old man the money.
“Two young ones, so look after yourselves. If anything on the board out front takes your fancy, just pull it down.”
Once he had the coin he answered with the same cynical tone as when we walked in. With that half-hearted advice and our mercenary tags in hand, we stepped back outside.
“I am the real War Hero, Beren!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I am the real War Hero, Beren!”
On the way back we passed a corner of the square where children were brawling over who got to be the War Hero. Metis shot me a sidelong glance. Even in this tiny rural village my empty reputation had spread far and wide.
“The famous real War Hero is right here. Do you think those kids know? Or rather—are we rookies now?”
“Quiet, Metis. I don’t want to cause any unnecessary fuss.”
Right now I simply wanted to rest for a while. I had kept him at my side because he was the quiet type, yet somehow he had turned out to be this light-footed.
“One more time and I’ll send you packing.”
“Understood. I will mind my place and act accordingly.”
He bowed his head politely, so I decided to let it pass this once.
“Was this your doing too?”
“…I swear on my life it wasn’t.”
A carriage bearing the blue eagle that was the symbol of the imperial palace stood in front of our house.
“Beren! I came because there’s something I absolutely have to say to you!”
And with it, a restless princess.