Chapter 250 : Chapter 250
Side Story 9. The Rohan Brothers (2)
The foolish twin boulders.
I had not called the Rohan brothers that because they were truly foolish.
After all, anyone worthy of being my right and left hands naturally had to be extraordinary.
They merely had a tendency to be so steadfast that it sometimes bordered on stubborn stupidity.
That side of their personalities became particularly pronounced whenever their loyalty to me was involved.
For instance, despite not possessing even a fraction of my strength, they would insist on staying dangerously close to me on the battlefield under the pretext of protecting me.
Or whenever I needed something, they would obtain it by any means necessary before the sun rose the next morning.
Things like that.
‘But looking at them now, I suppose they really were just fools.’
They had spent seven years tilling barren wasteland beneath this scorching sun for absolutely no purpose.
Worse still, they had sentenced themselves to this punishment out of guilt for failing to serve me properly.
There could hardly be a more foolish story in the world.
“Who the hell are you!”
Ash shouted in a voice that was nearly a roar.
Emon, who was marginally more rational than Ash, noticed that the weapon in my hand was the Holy Sword.
“Do not tell me that sword is...!”
“That is right. Holy Sword Bastian. You recognized it immediately.”
“What! It really is the Holy Sword! How the hell do you have it!”
Ash immediately swung his pickaxe at me again.
I had expected him to calm down after seeing the Holy Sword, but instead, he became even more agitated.
BOOM!
BOOOOM!
The pickaxe blade tore mercilessly through the air.
Of course, against me, it amounted to nothing more than a futile struggle.
BOOOOM!
In the end, he was overwhelmed by force and knocked backward onto the ground.
But Ash immediately regained his footing and sprang toward me like a coiled spring.
“How dare someone like you—!”
BOOM!
“Wield our lord’s sword!”
BOOOOM!
He had clearly reached a serious misunderstanding.
Johan Raven had been missing for seven years.
Then the Holy Sword had suddenly reappeared in the hands of a complete stranger.
It was the perfect set of circumstances for imagining the worst possible scenario.
BOOOOM!
Even so, he should have thought things through before attacking.
If he truly assumed the worst, then he should also have assumed that someone like me represented the worst possible level of danger.
Yet Ash did not hesitate or retreat in the slightest.
Instead, he began gathering even more power.
“Emon! I leave the rest to you!”
“Ash! You cannot possibly mean—!”
“We have no choice! You can feel it too! That bastard is a monster we cannot defeat by ordinary means!”
At that moment, golden light appeared in Ash’s eyes.
‘Do not tell me!’
A thought flashed through my mind.
The Rohan brothers had once casually mentioned their family’s secret art.
It allowed the user to burn every last trace of mana they possessed into a single strike.
In terms familiar on Earth, it was essentially a suicide attack.
The price of the technique was the user’s life, but they had claimed that the resulting blow could even injure a Sword Master.
Judging by the swelling flow of mana inside Ash, he truly intended to use it.
‘You damned fool!’
The situation was on the verge of exploding.
I summoned mana and launched blades of wind.
SHOO SHOO SHOO SHOO!
“M-Magic?”
Ash faltered in surprise, and under cover of the rushing wind, I moved behind him.
Then—
TAP!
I lightly struck the back of Ash’s neck.
At the same time, the mana that had been concentrated into a single point began to disperse.
“Cough!”
Bright blood trickled from Ash’s mouth.
Emon, who had been watching, immediately charged at me as well, but he too took a blow to the abdomen and collapsed in much the same position.
“You fool. What were you thinking, trying something like that?”
“Cough! Shut up!”
“What were you hoping to accomplish by throwing your life away? Did you think Emon, who is only slightly less foolish than you, would somehow manage to defeat me afterward?”
“W-What?”
The expressions of the Rohan brothers stiffened at my words.
“W-Who exactly are you?”
Foolish Ash, and the slightly less foolish Emon.
Those were phrases I had often used to describe the two brothers.
“How can you speak exactly the way our lord did...?”
“Curious?”
“What the hell is going on!”
“Would it not have been better if you had tried talking from the beginning?”
I looked at the Rohan brothers and grinned.
***
It followed exactly the same pattern as before.
I revealed that I was Johan Raven’s disciple.
They did not believe me easily.
Then, little by little, they began to accept it.
And in the end, just like a perfect copy of what had happened before, they became obsessed with Johan Raven’s whereabouts.
“I cannot tell you that.”
“Please tell us! Did our lord perhaps enter a Dragon’s Nest?”
Emon’s question made me flinch for a moment before I could stop myself.
‘So they knew after all.’
Back when I was Johan Raven, I had never told anyone about my final movements.
Not even the Rohan brothers, who had been my closest retainers.
And yet, they had pieced together the circumstances from that time and arrived at the correct answer.
As expected of my right and left hands.
“I am sorry, but I cannot tell you anything regarding his whereabouts or condition. However, I came to you because I can convey his wishes in his stead.”
“Our lord’s wishes? What are they?”
“That you stop blaming yourselves and live your own lives. What happened to him was something neither of you could have prevented.”
“....”
The brothers were unable to speak for a while.
“He said this as well. Those foolish brothers are undoubtedly blaming themselves over something pointless. So he told me to put an end to their foolishness and make them live freely.”
“D-Did our lord truly say that?”
“He also told me that if you asked that exact question, I should answer like this: ‘How have you two still not broken the habit of asking again after hearing something perfectly well the first time?’”
“Th-That....”
“...That certainly sounds exactly like something our lord would say.”
The brothers scratched their heads at the same time and sighed.
“So the two of you will make me one promise here and now.”
“Tell us.”
“Promise me that you will stop wasting your lives doing this nonsense in the wasteland and that you will begin living anew.”
Both brothers nodded simultaneously.
“Understood. If that is our lord’s wish.”
“We swear it.”
They did not raise a single objection.
Just as they never had before.
“There is one thing I want to ask.”
“Please do.”
“Did the two of you move here because of the Dragon?”
According to Cheonra’s information, the timing roughly matched.
After a Dragon’s Nest appeared in this area and then vanished, the two brothers had abruptly relocated nearby.
“That is true.”
“We hoped that perhaps we might find some clue to our lord’s whereabouts.”
In the end, I had appeared here, so from their perspective, their effort could be considered a success.
“It seems you still have not discovered anything unusual here.”
“That is correct. In a way, we are relieved. Contrary to what we feared, it seems our lord did not enter the Dragon’s Nest after all.”
I had never said that.
‘Hmm.’
Still, if that was how they chose to interpret my words, there was no need for me to correct them.
“This may sound strange to you two, but....”
“Not at all. Please say it.”
In truth, it was something I had wanted to say from the moment I first saw them.
“Let us go into the city and have a drink.”
I could not share a drink with them as their lord, but I still wanted to talk about anything and everything.
How they had lived all these years.
What they intended to do from now on.
And how they could finally escape the shadow of the past.
I simply wanted to drink with them, talking and listening to whatever came to mind.
“We will lead the way!”
Their faces immediately brightened.
These were men who liked alcohol more than women, yet they must have gone without it all this time.
“By the way, how many travelers usually pass through this area in a day?”
“Normally, we do not see so much as a single ant all day. This is barren wasteland in the middle of nowhere, and it is not even connected to any major road.”
“I see.”
That made sense.
Which was precisely why it bothered me even more.
Because I could sense someone approaching us from far away.
***
“I am lost.”
It was a boy.
His face was expressionless and almost entirely devoid of color.
He was walking barefoot across the wasteland.
Ash lowered himself to one knee so that he could meet the boy at eye level.
Then he gently patted the boy’s shoulder and asked,
“Where are your parents?”
“They are dead.”
“...I see.”
Ash looked at him with pity.
It was not an act.
Although he had never married, Ash had always turned softhearted whenever he saw a child.
“My parents were murdered.”
The boy calmly volunteered the information without being asked.
He spoke as though he were recounting something that had happened to a complete stranger.
There was no trace of sorrow on his emotionless face.
“Oh dear.”
Ash seemed more distressed by the story than the boy himself.
He continued asking questions.
“Then why are you wandering around a place like this by yourself?”
The boy’s answer was unexpected.
“Because I have to find the person who murdered my parents.”
Ash sighed.
“I am sorry about what happened to your parents, but I am more worried about you. What if something happens to you while you wander around recklessly like this?”
“I cannot help it. I have to find them no matter what.”
The boy’s voice remained firm and calm.
“Do you know what that person looks like?”
“No.”
“Then were you there when it happened?”
“No.”
“Hmm.”
Ash’s expression became serious.
“All right. I understand. You must have been deeply hurt by what happened.”
“....”
“But I do not think the way you are going about this is wise. You will never find the person you are searching for like this.”
“No. I can find them.”
“How?”
“I will know once I meet them and see them.”
Ash tilted his head, unable to understand.
“All right. Then what do you intend to do once you find this person? Wandering around alone like this is dangerous enough. Even if you manage to find them, you could be putting yourself in great danger.”
“I am going to kill them.”
“Ha....”
“But I will not simply kill them.”
“Then what?”
“I am going to make them suffer more than anyone else in the world. First, I will tear their mouth open with my own two hands. Then I will shove a ball of fire down their throat. They say the greatest pain a human can experience is being burned to death.”
Ash’s eyes widened as the boy spoke of such things without the slightest emotion.
Emon, who had been watching from beside him, reacted the same way.
Then both brothers looked at the boy with pity.
They probably thought the shock of losing his parents had worn away his emotions until he had become like this.
“Do not stay out here like this. Come with us.”
With that, Ash pulled the boy into a tight embrace.
“Could you let me go?”
“...Hmm? I am sorry. I should not have hugged you without permission.”
“That is not why. I think the person who killed my parents is here. I need to check.”
The boy was pointing at someone.
Me.
Our eyes met.
Heh.
The corner of my mouth rose slightly.
In truth, I had known from the beginning that the boy recognized me.
‘How fortunate.’
I had thought it would take longer.
Instead, he had come to me of his own accord.