Chapter 115
Chapter 115
After the fight with the Majin was completely over, I returned straight to the city wall and helped take down the remaining monsters.
Honestly, I had long since surpassed my limits after dragging out every last ounce of strength I had, but every time I swung my sword, it meant saving one more life.
That was why I remained on the battlefield until the monster horde retreated, and the moment everything was over, I headed to the Leipzig estate faster than anyone else.
On the way, the Count of Leipzig expressed his gratitude to me, and the knights and soldiers spat out words that were roughly praise or cheers in my direction.
Petra, Alice, and Werner, who followed along beside me, also chattered nonstop as if they had many things they wanted to ask, but with both my body and mind completely exhausted, all I could manage was nodding vaguely or waving my hand in response.
After returning to the estate, I roughly washed off the blood and chunks of flesh stuck to my body with water I couldn’t even tell was cold or hot, downed a potion I pulled out of my subspace pouch, and immediately lay down on the bed.
As a thick, dense energy seeped into my internal organs, drowsiness poured over me on its own.
How long had I been lying there like that? When I opened my eyes with hunger gnawing at me, faint moonlight was shining through the curtains covering the window.
“…Is it dawn.”
When I returned to the estate, dusk had just been falling.
That meant I must have slept soundly for at least ten hours.
My body felt much better, but having skipped two meals left me starving.
I got up and looked around, noticing traces of several chairs having been moved.
The others must have stopped by.
I left the room and headed into the corridor, where a quiet atmosphere greeted me.
Not wanting to wake anyone, I snuck alone into the kitchen.
“There’s no food prepared?”
For noble households, it was the rule rather than the exception that food prepared that day was dealt with that same day.
There were plenty of items meant for aging, but unfortunately, I didn’t know how to cook those.
The only cooking I knew how to do were simple things I had learned while living alone back in reality.
As I seriously debated whether I should just chew on an onion or a green onion, a storage container tucked away in one corner caught my eye.
“…This should be fine.”
A large chunk of beef was wrapped tightly in plastic and being aged at low temperature.
It was probably meant for tomorrow morning’s meal.
I felt sorry for the head chef, but satisfying my hunger came first.
I didn’t really know how to make steak, but I remembered watching several broadcasts by a chef who shouted a lot.
One of them had shown how to make a simple steak using red wine, so I revived that memory and tried making it myself.
Sizzle.
As the steak turned a light brown and gave off an appetite-stimulating aroma, I poured some wine from the spice rack over it and tossed in mushrooms and several other vegetables of unknown names, roughly chopped.
Beef got tough if cooked too long, so I grilled it just until the bloodiness disappeared, placed it on a plate, and brought it to the dining room.
Honestly, it was a lot for one person, but with hunger that felt like it was stabbing into my stomach, I clamored for meat as quickly as possible.
In the dark dining room, I lit a few candles and cut the meat alone.
“The meat is good, but…….”
The silence was a little hard to get used to.
In reality, I had lived alone, so aside from lunches at work or the occasional dinner gathering, eating alone had been my everyday routine.
At the Imperial Palace, Parsi had always been by my side, and at the Academy, my friends chattered like sparrows, never leaving a moment of quiet.
Of course, it wasn’t as if I had never eaten alone back then either, but perhaps because it was after such a fierce battle, my nerves felt unusually sensitive.
“That aside, I really didn’t expect those two to come.”
While chewing the meat, a laugh escaped me on its own.
In the midst of the crisis, two beams of light had illuminated my left and right.
Since this was a novel that followed the laws of clichés, I naturally thought it would be my masters—the Sword Saint and Archmage Chris—but my expectations were utterly shattered.
Chris, who had gone alone to South Yorkshire because of Leipzig’s affairs, for some reason sent Alice and Werner to me instead.
Thinking about her going alone to the Sheffield estate to find the two of them even struck me as a little amusing.
‘I don’t know what she was thinking, but.’
She had already clashed with Aloken once before.
I didn’t want to reveal Chris’s existence, but given who the opponent was, it had been unavoidable.
Even so, a small sense of regret lingered in one corner of my heart, wondering if there might have been a better way to handle it.
However, demons were fundamentally hostile toward one another.
Because of that, Isabel didn’t seem to be aware of Chris, as if her existence hadn’t spread to another faction.
She had only looked wary, as if thinking, ‘Is some outstanding mage trying to help him?’
“River.”
I casually called her name to ask about the Majin.
But River, like me, seemed to be recovering from her expenditure of strength, and no response came.
That made me feel apologetic.
‘What a lousy master.
She said she hadn’t fully recovered yet, and I keep calling her out and working her.’
Relying on River in battles against demons or Majin couldn’t be helped, but it mustn’t become blind dependence.
In fact, hadn’t I suffered greatly when Excalibur hadn’t been summoned while facing Gremory in South Yorkshire?
“Good thing I obtained Prometheus’s Flame.”
When I softly recited an incantation, a blue sacred flame flared up at the tip of the knife I was using to cut the meat, as if responding to my will.
As I touched that flame, which was neither hot nor cold, I suddenly sensed a presence approaching this way and swung the knife to extinguish it.
“…Ostia?”
The blue-haired man stopped short as he entered the dining room, his eyes widening in surprise.
I raised one hand toward him in greeting.
“Good evening.”
“…It’s less night and more like dawn’s about to break.”
Werner chuckled and sat down across from me.
He looked slightly put off as he glanced at the food spread across the table, but soon spoke in a relieved voice.
“Still, I’m glad you seem to be okay now. No one expected you wouldn’t wake up for four weeks.”
“…What did you say?”
At his words, I dropped the knife I was holding with a clatter.
Werner was the one who looked flustered by that.
“What, didn’t you meet anyone on the way here?”
“There was no one.”
“…Ah, you said you were just going to catch a bit of sleep earlier.
After being cared for that devotedly, I guess it makes sense you’d be tired.”
At my reply, Werner nodded as if he had figured something out.
I gestured for him to explain in more detail.
“Literally that.
After the fight, you slept straight through for four weeks.”
Seeing me collapse into bed, the others had simply nodded.
Although the war against the monsters had ended in a much shorter time than usual, hadn’t I fought fiercely against countless powerful opponents?
Because of that, even when a day passed and then two days passed with me still asleep, they hadn’t thought much of it.
But when it became three days, then four, they had begun to feel something was off.
“Well, since there were records of this happening before, everyone thought you’d wake up within a week at the latest.”
My care had been handled by Petra and Alice together.
Given my status, if word spread elsewhere that I hadn’t woken up, there was no telling what kind of danger might come my way.
“They were incredibly devoted.”
The two of them split the day in half to tend to me.
Feeding me gruel, wiping my body with a damp cloth—it was their daily routine.
And all the while, they prayed earnestly for me to wake up safely.
“On the tenth day, when people started saying we really ought to send you to the Imperial Capital, that person came.”
“…That person?”
As I was feeling a little touched by the attitude of the two women Werner described, I narrowed my eyes at the unfamiliar term that came out of his mouth.
“The mage who sent us here from South Yorkshire.
I think her name was Chris? She said she was an acquaintance of yours.”
“She came here.”
Chris, seeing me lying unconscious in bed, had smiled softly and told the two girls not to worry, saying I was merely asleep, before gently patting their heads.
‘…I’ll have to thank her later as well.’
Not only had she sent Alice and Werner this way, but she had personally come all the way here out of concern for me—revealing her own existence in the process.
“I told the other friends that because of things here, we’d regroup at the Academy once the term started. They were pretty disappointed.”
“I am too.”
At his words, I let out a bitter smile as well.
Right after the fierce battle with the Majin ended, I had planned to rest thoroughly until just before the Academy term began.
I really did rest thoroughly—but I never imagined it would turn out like this.
Tadadadak-!
While I was talking with Werner about this and that, the sound of hurried footsteps echoed through the corridor leading outside.
I wondered who could be causing such a ruckus at this early hour with no sense of decorum, but when the dining room doors burst open roughly enough to seem like they’d break, both Werner and I flinched.
“Huff, huff…….”
There stood Alice, her eyes half-closed, her face drenched in sweat as she gasped for breath.
It seemed she had run so frantically that she hadn’t even been able to worry about who might see her—her hair was a mess, and she was still wearing thin sleepwear.
Werner let out an impressed “Oh,” and turned his head away, but she stomped forward roughly, heading straight toward us.
“…An attack?”
My face hardened at that.
With no news for four weeks, it wouldn’t be strange for some kind of reaction to come from somewhere.
Those damned two older brothers—no, it could be a Majin, or Sword Marshal General Isaac, who had joined hands with them.
But she clenched her small hands into fists, then struck my stomach with all her might.
Bang crash-!
Never once had I imagined she would hit me, so I went flying, smashing several tables before crashing into the debris.
“…Uh.”
Even with a body and mind that had reached the level of a Sword Master, it was a situation I could hardly react to.
As I let out a dazed sound, Alice came over, her face close to mine, her eyes brimming with tears.
“If you woke up, you should have said you woke up.”
Then she grabbed me by the collar, buried her face deep into my chest, and began to sob quietly.
Perhaps drawn by the commotion just now, the surroundings quickly became bustling.
Soon several knights rushed into the dining room, but after seeing Werner’s awkward expression, the wrecked state of the dining room, and the sight of us clinging to each other, they made faces of realization and quietly withdrew.
‘Hey.’
Still held by Alice, I wiggled my fingers toward Werner, who was standing by the doorway, asking for help.
But he clasped his hands together as if in prayer, bowed his head to me, and slipped away along with the retreating knights.
“…….”
After a while, Alice seemed to calm down and lifted her body.
Her face was a mess of tears and snot, making it clear just how much anguish she had been through.
“I’m sorry.”
At those softly spoken words, Alice’s eyes welled up again, forming trembling teardrops.
Panicking, I grabbed her shoulders and spoke with a pitiful expression.
“I’ll gladly accept my punishment later. So…….”
Could you move aside for now?
From that single blow earlier, it felt like at least three or four of my ribs were broken.