Could You Help Me? (2)
"Linus...?"
"Dian! It's been far too long!"
"Linus!"
Before I could even wonder why the protagonist had shown up here, the sheer joy of seeing him won out. I vaulted the wall in a single bound and sprinted toward him.
Startled by my sudden charge, the knights stepped in front of Linus as if to shield him. I hadn't expected them to intervene at all, and I couldn't slow down in time — I slammed right into them.
"Gah!"
"Urgh!"
The knights, colliding with my unarmored body, went tumbling across the ground in a noisy heap.
"Whoa, sorry about that. Jumping in like that all of a sudden really doesn't help."
"Ten years later and you're still the same, Dian."
Linus looked down at the groaning, writhing knights and let out an awkward laugh. I helped the fallen men to their feet and asked,
"So what brings you here, anyway? No word beforehand?"
"I came because I missed you. Brought a gift, too."
Linus pulled a bottle from inside his coat. That long, sleek, streamlined silhouette, shimmering with a peculiar red in the warm sunlight...
"Whoa!? Is that Armand de Brignac?!"
"I knew you'd like it."
"Come on, let's go inside. Hurry."
I led Linus and the knights into the house. Olicia was already waiting with the front gate open.
"How about taking the armor off? This isn't the imperial capital — it gets pretty hot around here."
I asked the knights as they entered the small garden, but they shook their heads.
"The Imperial Guard does not remove armor just anywhere."
"This isn't the Imperial Palace. I don't think it'd be a problem..."
I glanced at Linus, and he smiled as he addressed the knights.
"Take off the armor. I won't breathe a word to the Captain of the Guard."
After a moment of hesitation, the knights finally began peeling off their stifling leather breastplates one by one.
"Olicia. Get these people each a glass of lemonade. This fellow here, too."
"Yes, Master Dian!"
I sat the knights down on the living room sofa, and Linus and I headed out to the terrace.
"You've been living in a truly wonderful place."
Linus said it brightly, looking out at the view of the city and the sea below the terrace.
"The sea, the seagulls, the sailing ships, the market. A place overflowing with romance. I'm truly envious, Dian."
"I'm pretty content myself. Now do you understand why I left the Imperial Palace that night?"
"It's taken me ten years to grasp that grand vision of yours. You really must have the ability to see the future."
I turned the Armand de Brignac this way and that and burst out laughing.
"I keep telling you I don't have any ability like that. If I did, I'd have already known you were coming."
"Anyway... it's really good to see you, Dian. I've always wondered what you were up to, and I've missed you."
"Eh, just living like this, more or less. Unlike you, who's always busy. By the way..."
I set the Armand de Brignac down on the side table and asked,
"You're not Captain of the Guard anymore? From what I overheard earlier — something about the Captain of the Guard — sounds like your post changed."
"I recently moved to a different post. Sitting too long in a key promotion slot like Captain of the Imperial Palace Guard and blocking everyone else's path isn't the decent thing to do. It was just a symbolic position anyway."
"The Imperial Palace, guarded by the Hero of the Continent! Something like that, I suppose. Then again... there's no way they'd have stuck a guy of your caliber as a mere Captain of the Guard. So what are you doing now?"
Just then, Olicia arrived with two glasses of lemonade for us.
"Put this wine in the kitchen cupboard for now, somewhere cool. It's insanely expensive, so be careful with it."
"How expensive is it?"
"Ten bottles of this would buy you an Imperial battleship."
"Eek?!"
A startled Olicia clutched the Armand de Brignac in both arms and shuffled into the kitchen, trembling. Watching her, Linus smiled and asked,
"A maid? She seems a bit young for a maid."
"Bought her off a slave ship that stopped here. She's a war orphan. The captain of the ship she boarded — after being told they'd evacuate her to a safe kingdom — sold them all to a slaver."
"What a tragic story. You made the right call, Dian."
Linus nodded, took a sip of lemonade, and smacked his lips, declaring it cool and delicious.
"So how did you know I was here?"
"Ah, that. Recently the Imperial Palace intelligence bureau picked up some intel related to the Perencino Merchant Guild. The moment I heard it, I knew it was you."
"The intelligence bureau knows about even that kind of small stuff?"
"Small stuff? A man who single-handedly beat down thirty members of the thug outfit that runs this whole region — how could that possibly be small?"
Saying that, Linus shook with a low laugh, as if he found it endlessly amusing.
"Dian, didn't you leave the Imperial Palace because you wanted to live quietly?"
"I did. But not everything in this world goes according to my wishes."
"True enough. Still, thanks to that little incident of yours, I was able to find out where you were. So it worked out well, actually."
And with that, Linus smiled brightly again. Even after ten years, that distinctive, wholesome air of his hadn't changed a bit.
Linus.
The one and only Hero, called the salvation of the continent and the calamity of the demonkin. The original protagonist of this fantasy novel I'd been transmigrated into.
Golden hair, blue eyes, a tall frame, and a well-sculpted muscular physique — looks that wouldn't lose to any noble scion. At a glance he might seem arrogant and high-nosed, but Linus wasn't that type at all.
He was the son of a serf from a tiny, obscure fief in some forgotten corner of the Empire. He'd farmed alongside his parents since childhood, then abandoned everything and left the fief to enlist the moment war broke out. He'd heard of the war's horrors and simply couldn't bring himself to tend fields in personal safety. I already knew Linus's nature, but hearing that story from him directly, I thought he was insane.
Then we ended up in the same platoon, fighting together, and I became certain of it. This guy was a lunatic.
Linus was humble and righteous by nature. A gentle smile always played at his lips, and his eyes were nothing if not kind. He couldn't stand injustice, and if he believed something was right, he'd charge in without hesitation even if it cost him his life. A truly excellent specimen of what a "Hero" ought to be.
And that was the problem.
Linus grinding it out as a rank-and-file soldier in the legion was background setup for the original story. The original's prologue begins with Linus, having survived countless battlefields by the skin of his teeth, being recognized for his merits and promoted to officer. Which meant this idiot had to not die for the next several years just for the story to even start. And thanks to his overflowing passion and sense of justice, he'd nearly gotten himself killed more than once or twice.
One example: in the worst possible situation, with our platoon wiped out and just the two of us punching through an encirclement, Linus charged straight into combat to save a civilian village under attack. If I hadn't helped him then, they probably wouldn't even have found his body. If that wasn't a lunatic, then who was?
And so, crossing the line between life and death together more times than I could count, I somehow managed to keep Linus in one piece all the way to the prologue. After that we were promoted side by side, and later we were selected for the special task force that would raid the Demon King's stronghold — in other words, the Hero's party. From there, it went according to the original story.
So Linus was, to me, both the original protagonist I had to support and an irreplaceable comrade who'd shared life and death with me.
"Anyway, Dian. Let's have dinner together tonight. I'll treat you at the best restaurant in town."
"Sounds good. But let's eat at my place instead of a restaurant. I was going to grill some meat tonight anyway. So how long are you staying? If it's a while, I'll clear out a room."
"No, no need for that."
Linus shook his head.
"I have to head back to the capital at dawn tomorrow. I'll sleep on the ship."
"Must be ridiculously busy. Can't be helped. The savior of the continent living like some unemployed bum wouldn't make any sense anyway."
"Hearing that from you is so embarrassing I don't know where to put myself. Then we'll eat here tonight."
When I sent Olicia out to buy more meat and various other things, Linus assigned a few knights to accompany her.
As the sun slowly set, we grilled meat on the wide terrace overlooking the sea.
While Olicia and the knights ate at a table off to one side, we sat at a separate table and talked about the past. Stories from our days as rank-and-file legionnaires, the time we were selected for the special task force that would later be called the Hero's party, infiltrating the Demon King's Castle with Celine and the rest of the party, and so on.
Even after the sun had fully set and stars began to glitter in the sky over the eastern sea, the stories showed no sign of ending.
By the time we'd emptied the entire bottle of Armand de Brignac and a pleasant buzz had settled over both of us, I asked Linus,
"Linus. Why did you really come here?"
"I told you. I came because I wanted to see you."
"Linus, you..."
I pointed a finger at him.
"You're a simple guy. You've got zero talent for hiding things or lying."
At my words, Linus tilted his glass and smiled faintly.
"So just spit it out. Why are you here?"
"Haha. You really are something."
Linus said it gazing at the flickering lights of the harbor below the hill.
"Do you remember the day we parted ten years ago? That thing you said — that you'd help me if I ever needed it."
"I remember. So, you need my help?"
"Yes, Dian. There's something I can only ask of you."
"What is it? Don't tell me the Demon King resurrected again?"
"It's more difficult than that."
More difficult than killing the Demon King? Was there even such a thing in this world?
"Have you heard of the Imperial Special Task Academy?"
"No. What's that?"
"It's an institution the Empire recently established, to train experts in domestic and foreign intelligence gathering, among other things."
"A spy school?"
"Haha. Well, to some extent. But not everyone there does that kind of work. Simply put, it's a place that produces all-weather civil servants for the Empire."
"So? You're not about to ask me to teach kids there, are you?"
Linus didn't answer.
"...You're serious?"
"Dian."
Linus set down his glass and looked me straight in the eye with the most serious expression in the world.