The Master's Past His Disciple Barely Knew
“Hmm. Come to think of it, I never told Sera about that Balik guy.”
When I hung up my mercenary life and went into seclusion, I cut every tie from the past. I’d wanted a quiet life alone from the start, so severing those old connections had felt like the natural choice. Parting ways with fellow mercenaries was easy enough. For a mercenary, goodbyes are just part of the job—of course it was simple.
But there was one person who made it difficult.
Balik. A guy who, for a mercenary, always seemed to let his emotions run wild rather than thinking or acting with any real sense.
I’d taught that guy quite a lot. Teaching him had been a genuine ordeal—he was thick as a brick—but for all that, he was a powerhouse with a genius combat sense. So even though drilling anything into him was exhausting, of everyone I’d ever trained, Balik was the one who best learned how to stay alive.
I never once imagined he’d end up claiming the title of Mercenary King—a seat that demands both brawn and brains.
“Still no disciple of his own? Well, that was always a long shot.”
I recalled the last conversation I’d had with Balik.
“Jade hyung! Next time we meet, I’ll definitely have a disciple of my own and bring him to meet you! That’s a promise!”
“Then I guess we’ll never see each other again. It’s beyond you.”
“Just you wait! I’ll make a disciple and introduce him to you no matter what! Until then, I won’t come looking for you!”
“Not that I planned on telling you where I was going into seclusion anyway…”
“Just you wait and see! I’ll come pay my respects for sure!”
“Knowing that guy’s personality, he’s probably still holding himself to that promise and hunting for a disciple. But considering a Hero candidate ended up with me of all people… maybe even the Mercenary King… Do those bureaucrats have even a shred of conscience?”
Even if I’d been close with Balik—even if blood ran thicker than water—any honest answer still had to be that taking a disciple was beyond him. If those bureaucrats were human beings, they wouldn’t have sent a disciple his way.
“Anyway, if she were my disciple, that guy would probably help out a lot… No. There’s also the chance he’d claim her as his own and try to teach her something weird, so I can’t rule that out.”
In the end, I concluded that not telling her about Balik had been the right call.
But that guy’s doing fine, right?
A Mercenary King wouldn’t go around getting beaten up…
He’s definitely doing fine!
“Hahahahaha! Who would’ve thought you were Jade hyung’s disciple!”
“……”
Sera found herself feeling something hard to put into words. To think one of her master’s acquaintances was the Mercenary King! She knew him well enough. She’d never lived as a mercenary herself, but she’d had plenty of dealings with them. And as a Hero candidate, the mercenaries she was most connected with were naturally the high-ranking ones—the Mercenary King above all.
Knowing him well didn’t mean they were close, though.
The Mercenary King had been quite bitter that no Hero candidate had come to him as a disciple. From his perspective, it was like watching a kid who might have been his student go off and become someone else’s disciple—and then thrive. So whenever he saw Sera, always the Hero candidate, he’d stick out his lip and grumble, leaving them in an awkward relationship. Still, for all his complaining, he always ended up granting her requests, so she’d never felt it was a purely bad one.
But on the matter of disciples, Sera could never agree. She knew the Mercenary King’s training plan all too well. Not that she’d been particularly interested—the man would start rambling about it the moment he got drunk, so she couldn’t have avoided knowing even if she’d wanted to.
Even Sera, who had endured every kind of brutal training under every kind of bizarre master, could never endorse the Mercenary King’s methods. He himself insisted, “Do this and you’ll become the strongest—of course this is how you raise them!” But the difficulty was so severe no human body could possibly manage it. Drawing up a plan impossible for a human body and then crowing “Achieve this and you’ll be the strongest” was no different from handing a complete novice mage a ninth-circle spellbook and saying, “Master this and you’ll be the strongest.”
For reference, a mage aspirant who hasn’t even built a proper foundation will have their brain fried the moment they look at a ninth-circle grimoire. What the Mercenary King proposed was no different. And that was the conclusion of Sera, expert on masters—so the credibility was very high.
She’d heard him say something like this once:
“This industry senior who taught me a lot told me I’d never have what it takes to teach anyone. When we parted, I made a big claim. I said I’d introduce him once I’d raised a proper disciple. It’s a regret that because of that promise, I still haven’t gone to see him. …Hmm? If I miss him that much, why don’t I just go? Once you’re a man, you’ve got to stick to your pointless stubbornness to the bitter end. Heh heh.”
“Jade hyung taught me so much. He was such a good senior that I wanted to go pay my respects no matter what… But then I went and made that big claim—‘Next time we meet, I’ll definitely have a disciple and come introduce him!’ Who would’ve thought Jade hyung, who swore he’d never take a disciple, would raise such an outstanding one before I did and show up right in front of me like this! Hahahahaha! Drinks! Bring more drinks!”
…So that “industry senior” had been her master all along.
Thinking about it, the period when her master had been active as Steel Jade lined up perfectly with the time Balik the Mercenary King had been talking about. But even in the same industry, with so many mercenaries and so many regions they operated in… to think the senior Balik had always talked about was Jade…
Even for Sera, with all her knowledge, experience, and street smarts, not knowing this wasn’t strange at all.
“Hahahahaha!”
Bandaged from head to toe like a mummy, the Mercenary King was still knocking back drinks and enjoying the moment. The healing mage had clearly told him not to drink… but no one stopped him. Sera didn’t stop him either. She knew full well that Balik the Mercenary King was the kind of man who, once he’d decided to do something, would do it and enjoy it in the moment—no matter how much he’d suffer for it later.
“Never thought even Jade hyung would get a Hero candidate. I figured once he retired right when his fame was about to spread across the whole empire, those empty-headed imperial bureaucrats would have forgotten him long ago. Well, thanks to that, I get to meet Jade hyung’s disciple, so I’m glad. Is hyung doing well?”
“…Yes, he’s doing well.”
“Hmm? Speak casually like before?”
“…I couldn’t possibly.”
Speaking casually to her master’s acquaintance—Sera could never do that.
She’d already caused every accident there was to cause, so it was far too late, but still—wasn’t this the time to shut her eyes and at least pretend to reflect? Right now, no matter what anyone said, Balik the Mercenary King held all the cards.
If today’s events reach Master’s ears…
Terror.
Fighting the Demon King would have been better!
She was more afraid of what that mouth might say than of all those countless failures against the Demon King!
Even the time her soul had been stolen by that mad Demon Sword and she’d become a slave hadn’t been this frightening!
“Hahahaha! What, did Jade hyung raise you by just beating you se—”
Shing!
“…Hey. Threatening to kill someone while using formal speech is more fake than just talking casually, don’t you think?”
“…I’m sorry. That was a mistake.”
For a moment, that mouth running off about her master had looked like the Demon King’s snout, so she’d just… Or maybe some dark desire inside Sera—something like Wouldn’t it be better if that mouth never opened again?—had seized the blade.
“Hahaha! Just kidding. A joke. I know better than anyone that Jade hyung isn’t that kind of person.”
“Is that so?”
Sera took the bait. Jade rarely talked about his past. Given that he’d reached A-class mercenary status—something not just anyone could achieve—he’d surely lived a colorful life, and it wouldn’t have been strange for him to share stories with his disciple. But Jade almost never spoke of his past, as if it weren’t something worth telling a student. At most it was along the lines of “Something like this might happen. I’ve faced it before…”—and only ever as much experience as he thought Sera needed (or rather, as much as Jade mistakenly believed she needed).
So for Sera, Balik the Mercenary King was one of the precious few people who had closely witnessed her master’s past. The fact that she herself had beaten him half to death remained a very serious problem, of course.
Still, with stories of Jade’s past coming out, Sera couldn’t help but react.
“I look pretty dumb at a glance, right?”
“……”
“…If that’s how it is, just say ‘yes.’”
“I’m sorry.”
“Whatever. Anyway, I look dumb at a glance. But maybe in exchange, I was strong and had a sharp combat sense. Becoming a mercenary was practically my destiny. The problem was that mercenary work isn’t just about strength. You might make a name for yourself with strength alone, but surviving long as a mercenary? That was a different story. But even that obvious fact was lost on me back then. Just a brat drunk on his own power—that was me. Then one day I met Jade hyung.”
Sera imagined it.
Balik running wild on pure strength. Jade spotting that mercenary. Jade swinging his sword magnificently, teaching him his place…
“It was a battlefield. He rounded up every strong guy around, dumped them all on me, and casually walked off.”
“……”
…So it wasn’t a story about beating him down.
From a disciple’s perspective, that was truly unfortunate.
“Then, right when I was sure it was a real crisis, Jade hyung showed up and cleaned them all up like it was nothing. His skill was so overwhelming you could tell at a glance he never needed to pull a cheap stunt like that. So I was half-dead… pretty much the same state I’m in now.”
“……”
On that point, Sera could find nothing to say, so she kept quiet.
“Looking down at me like that, Jade hyung said, ‘A thick-headed guy like you who’s ridiculously strong and has a sharp combat sense can only learn by experiencing it with his own body.’ Then he went on: ‘You’re clearly destined to be a mercenary, but looking like this, you’re not long for this world—you’ll die young.’”
“And then?”
“Hmm? And then?”
“Yes, what happened after that?”
“Nothing.”
“……?”
“He just left those words and walked off. I was completely speechless. He makes a guy roll around nearly dying, dumps every insult he can on him, then vanishes without a trace. How ridiculous do you think that felt?”
“……”
At those words, Sera fell quietly silent.
Hmm.
Did even their master have something like that stormy period young knights so often go through?
She blushed at the thought.
Not because she felt embarrassed as a disciple for learning of her master’s shameful side.
It was simply…
I want to see Master from that time. He must have been adorable…
…just a symptom of being far too deeply smitten.
Anyone watching would have sighed, “Ah, youth is wonderful.”