Rejoice, the Savior Has Come (5)
Only after being tossed into the air again and again in a raucous celebration did I finally get my feet back on the ground. I hadn't expected a welcome quite this enthusiastic.
"Sir Dian! You've finally come!"
"We've waited so very long!"
As I tried to smooth down my rumpled hair, the villagers crowded around me, calling out greetings in a noisy clamor. I studied their faces one by one, and before long I recognized several of them and smiled.
"You're all still alive and kicking, I see."
"That's all thanks to you and Sir Linus!"
"How is it that after ten years, your face has barely changed at all?"
"But it looks like the other gentleman's had a rough time of it. He's aged a lot."
"Hahaha!"
Remembering the villagers' faces wasn't because my memory was anything remarkable. Back then, when we'd driven off that platoon of the Demon King's army, the village had already been collapsing in flames. The people had been reduced to refugees who'd lost their homes, and if we'd dawdled any longer they would have been sitting ducks for the advancing demon forces.
So Linus and I had decided, after some deliberation, to take the villagers with us on our retreat to battalion headquarters. Among them were toddlers too young to walk and elderly who could barely move, stretching what should have been a two-day return into a four-day ordeal. And since there hadn't been all that many survivors to begin with, I remembered most of their faces.
Mercifully, we didn't run into any more of the Demon King's forces during those four days, and everyone made it to headquarters in one piece. That feat earned Linus and me a medal.
A woman stepped out from among the excited crowd.
"Alright, everyone, settle down."
"Hello, Sir Dian. Do you remember me?"
"Hmm. Can't say I do."
When I failed to recognize her, the woman smiled brightly.
"You really don't remember? I was the one who said I'd grow up and marry you."
"Wha—?!"
I startled so badly that the villagers burst into a roar of laughter.
"Of course he wouldn't recognize you. You've shot up like a weed in ten years."
"So are you two getting married now, Merylda?"
"Hahaha!"
I stared at her with wide eyes, and Linus answered with a laugh.
"That's her, Dian. The same little girl. She's the village's acting administrator now."
"Acting administrator?"
"That's right. She majored in public administration at the Imperial Public Academy. Sharp as a tack, that one."
"Huh... Ten years in Brunswell, and the world's gone and changed on me..."
That girl was the reason this village had been saved. More precisely, she was the reason Linus and I had decided to save it. We'd seen her trip and fall while fleeing with her infant brother strapped to her back, and the two of us had raced into the village without a second thought.
She was still a snot-nosed little kid back then. And now she's all grown up? On top of that, she graduated from the Imperial Public Academy with a degree in public administration and now serves as her own village's acting administrator?
Ten years in an adult's life and ten years in a child's are completely different things, aren't they.
"It's all thanks to the support you and Sir Linus provided. I was able to attend school because of the money you two sponsored."
I was about to point out that Linus had been the one who'd given them the money, but he quietly shook his head, cutting me off.
"Rather than standing around like this, why don't we show Dian what the village has become?"
"Yes!"
"Let's go!"
The villagers cheered at Linus's suggestion and, with Merylda at the head, began herding me along. I was swept into the village with them like a dinghy caught in a tide. Linus followed at the rear of the procession, a contented smile on his face.
"Huh? What is this?"
The moment I stepped through the village entrance, a gasp of wonder escaped me before I could stop it.
Tatanok Village had left the horrors of ten years ago behind and transformed into something unrecognizable. The houses that had burned and crumbled back then had been rebuilt as neat, sturdy brick homes, and flowers planted at every doorstep lent the streets a bright, cheerful air. At the center of a spacious plaza paved in wide flagstones stood a great fountain, sending up cool jets of water.
White marble statues rose from the fountain. One was obviously Linus, and the other was... surely not me?
A pair of small statues depicting Linus and me stood side by side, arms slung over each other's shoulders, each clutching a severed demon soldier's head. How embarrassing.
All around it, little children who had no idea who Linus was or what a reconstruction festival even meant splashed in and out of the fountain, laughing and running about in pure delight.
That alone would have been astonishing, but over there they had even built a school. This world had no system of compulsory education the way my previous life had, so the mere existence of a school in a village that wasn't even a proper city was something I could barely believe even seeing it with my own eyes. And yet that building really was a school, complete with several classrooms.
The village's more learned residents had volunteered to teach the children there, and as a result Tatanok now boasted the highest academy admission rate in the entire region. In terms of my previous life, it would be like kids from some tiny rural hamlet almost all getting into the capital's most prestigious universities. Academies in this world were elite institutions of higher learning that were extraordinarily difficult to get into in the first place.
"This is... I'd believe you if you told me this was a completely different village."
"Right? Everyone worked so hard for ten years. And the greatest credit goes to the support you and Sir Linus kept sending us all that time."
Merylda spoke with a face full of pride.
That Linus. I knew he had money, but I never thought he had enough to bring a whole village back from the dead. Then again, for the Hero of the Continent, that much was only to be expected.
The village had grown so large that simply walking through every part of it took a considerable amount of time. At this point, calling it Tatanok Village hardly seemed right. Tatanok City was more like it.
"As a matter of fact, we're planning to apply for city status soon. We've recently met every last requirement."
Merylda answered my observation with a look of complete confidence.
"Once that happens, a proper administrator will be assigned to our village, and we'll be able to develop even further than we have now. And all of it is because you and Sir Linus saved us. If it hadn't been for the two of you, there would have been no village — everyone would have died that day."
She went on.
"We've all been waiting for you to visit. Sir Linus comes to see us every year, but you haven't come even once in the past ten years. I so wanted to show you what your decision and your courage that day accomplished."
Merylda spread both arms wide, gesturing at the village that had grown to near-city proportions.
"Look, Sir Dian. All of this was made by you and Sir Linus. You saved the lives of everyone here — and the lives of every child born since."
"Yeah... I'm really glad. Seeing everyone doing so well."
What a strange feeling.
Tatanok Village, which had been helplessly burned to the ground by a mere thirty-odd soldiers of the Demon King's army, was now on the verge of being elevated to a city. The child we had saved had graduated from the academy and was serving as acting administrator, and everyone else was alive and well. Some had married and had children of their own, and the village had steadily grown into a place this peaceful, this good to live in.
After we had seen the whole village, we headed for the village hall. The interior of the large building was laid out like a wedding banquet, tables groaning under heaps of food. A feast, they told me, prepared to celebrate my visit.
"Sir Dian. Please say a few words. Everyone's waiting."
Merylda nudged me up onto the dais, and every gaze in the hall turned toward me.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Dian. It's already been ten years since we parted ways."
The villagers nodded, warm smiles on their faces.
"I can still vividly remember that pitch-black night — leaving the burning village behind as we headed for the rear together. Funny enough, I remember it being a rather warm, breezy night."
Murmurs of agreement rose from here and there around the hall.
"To be honest, I was certain the village was gone for good. I never imagined it would rise again looking this magnificent. It's truly remarkable."
"It's thanks to Sir Linus and Sir Dian!"
someone shouted.
"I heard that Sir Linus kept sending aid in both our names. But that's secondary. Without your will to rebuild, you could have poured a fortune into this place and still never created the Tatanok Village of today."
The villagers applauded. Some of them began to sniffle, tears welling in their eyes.
"If I'd known it would turn out like this, I would have come sooner. I'm not looking for the world to acknowledge that I saved you that night. I just... I realized that the things I turned my back on and left behind, telling myself I just wanted to live quietly, meant this much to someone."
"Thank you, Sir Dian!"
"Sir Dian saved us!"
The scattered sobs spread like a wave, and before long most of the villagers were clapping through their tears. I glanced over at Linus. He was nodding, the gentlest smile in the world on his face.
What on earth was she hearing right now...?
Flattened against the roof of the village hall, Lina blinked stupidly.
Professor Dian and Sir Linus did what now...?