Apostle of the Goddess of War

Ch.197 Apostle of the Goddess of War

It was around the middle of a harsh winter.

When he came to his senses, he was in a tavern.

Sion took a sip of cheap beer he didn't even enjoy and set the glass down on the creaking table.

'Has it already been a month.'

He had left the capital, Elim, and wandered like a cloud with no destination. Sometimes he walked, sometimes he caught rides on merchants' carriages, and sometimes he took ships.

Then he arrived at a small port village and, unexpectedly, found himself drawn to its simple atmosphere—so he had been staying there for the second day.

'This place reminds me of home.'

It was a hometown whose name had now grown vague. The scent and appearance of the village weren't clearly drawn in his memory either. In truth, any shabby village felt like home.

'I should make plans soon. Should I go back….'

It had been a month since he left under the pretext of finding the next Apostle of the Goddess of Protection. There had been no particular results to show for it.

In the human world right after the World War had ended, it was difficult to ask people to pick up swords again, and since the human population itself had dwindled, finding someone with real talent was no easy task.

Being a wanderer, free from the life of an Emperor, had only felt liberating for about a week. After that, he was nothing more than a piece of driftwood floating in a vast ocean.

With no chattering Goddess beside him, loneliness tormented Sion every night. He had to sleep with loneliness as his blanket.

Then came the realization.

'I… can't be alone.'

Even during his days as an Apostle, the Goddess or Garfenn had always been by his side. Even when he was technically alone, there had been no room for idle thoughts, so there had been no time to feel lonely. Now, for the first time, he had the leisure to look back at himself.

In this one month, Sion had come to realize many things about himself as a person—how fragile an existence he truly was, and how many things he didn't know how to do, far more than he had expected.

'When I get back, I should study a bit as well.'

Being skilled with a sword was all well and good, but for the life ahead of him, there were many other useful abilities worth having—building structures, accumulating agricultural knowledge, learning history, or taking a deeper interest in the overall work of governing the nation as Emperor.

Whatever it was, he wanted to contribute even a little to the lives of his people.

In his brief time wandering, he had learned and felt a great deal. The things he wanted to do and the things he needed were slowly being sorted out in his mind.

'Now that I think about it, it hasn't been a fruitless journey after all.'

Sion took another sip of the tasteless beer and made a quiet vow.

'Even after I return, I should come out and wander from time to time.'

Hiding his status and experiencing the lives of ordinary people from the ground up, with his own skin.

'You can't truly understand the world by being locked inside a castle, only scribbling on paper.'

Receiving reports and actually seeing, hearing, and feeling things firsthand were entirely different dimensions of understanding. Sion vowed not to lose sight of that—to serve and devote himself without growing complacent.

It was a burden entrusted to him by so many people, and a future worth moving toward. He had no intention of wasting it carelessly. He cast aside the arrogance of living loosely, of wasting time.

Under the watch of the New Goddess Religion, Sion made his vows again and again over the beer he'd complained about—vowing to give his all as Emperor.

Tap.

"Ah, but I really can't drink this."

It had reached the point where it was genuinely difficult to stomach, and he was slowly about to stand up.

Boom—Bang!

The old door of the tavern burst open and splintered apart. Some fragments flew into Sion's beer glass with a splash. Even so, it was just wood—nothing more.

'What is it now?'

Wondering what was happening, he lifted his head. Standing in the broken doorway was a boy who looked to be about fourteen years old, breathing hard.

'A sword?'

The notable thing was that he was holding a weapon far too large for his age.

Sion himself had held a sword and killed people from a much younger age, but for some reason, looking at this boy, a sword felt out of place on him—it felt like a weapon in the wrong hands.

'Hmm.'

Sion rested his chin in his hand and watched the boy step inside. He had a feeling something interesting was about to happen in this quiet countryside.

"Hey! Pits! Where is that son of a bitch?! Come out right now!"

Sion immediately reconsidered.

'Not interesting—grim. What's going on?'

Even the words that spat out were far from ordinary. The speech was rough, like decades' worth of hardness compressed into a teenager's mouth.

Sion watched the situation with cautious eyes, setting aside any thought of entertainment for the moment.

'If things go wrong, there will be blood.'

He would intervene if it came to that.

That was the moment he decided so.

Thump!

"It's me, you rat-sized little punk. Who do you think you are, barging in here? Huh?"

The man presumed to be "Pits" kicked his chair aside and stood up immediately. He was a massive man—at a glance, radiating a brute force that the boy who had stormed in couldn't begin to match.

'This….'

Sion tilted his head. Even without knowing the full story, a fight was clearly inevitable.

'To challenge a man like that—does that kid actually have some skill?'

Looking him over roughly, he seemed ordinary. His walk and stance were nothing special. Then again, that could simply be because he hadn't received proper swordsmanship training. Sion himself had been like that at first.

'Perhaps.'

A flicker of expectation arose. This could be the moment he unexpectedly discovered the successor he had been searching for.

Sion began watching the confrontation, forgetting even the wood fragments floating in his beer.

The boy pointed his finger and shouted.

"Pits! You piece of trash! How dare you lay your hands on my siblings?! You hit them—you kicked them?!"

The man named Pits snorted and stepped toward the bold boy.

"Ha! So what? What are you going to do about it? Huh? Kill me with that toy sword? Me?"

"What if I do?"

"Then try it. Go ahead."

"This isn't a toy sword, Pits. The moment it touches your skin, your guts will spill out."

The boy tightened his grip on the sword and issued the warning with steady eyes. Pits, unfazed, laughed it off and went on talking nonsense.

The tavern guests burst into laughter. The boy had become a subject of ridicule.

Sion cheered for the boy silently.

'Show me what you've got.'

Taking a life was something the world no longer easily forgave, but Sion judged there was room to look the other way in this case.

'You're trying to protect your sibling.'

He could see his old self in the boy's actions. If things turned truly dangerous, he would step in—but not yet.

'Just land one hit. Come on!'

Sion gripped his beer glass tightly. Without realizing it, he had become the boy's only silent supporter.

"I mean it. Don't come crying later."

"Heh heh! Come on then, you little runt!"

"Aaaaah!"

The boy swung his sword with a shout.

Thwack!

Pits casually lifted one leg. The boy was sent flying and rolled right out through the doorway of the tavern.

"Aha-ha-ha-ha!"

"That kid again. He's going to get a beating, as always."

"I wondered why he'd been so quiet lately."

"All mouth and no substance, that Rudy."

Sion shut his eyes tightly.

'Talent my foot.'

His teeth ground at the result, which was even more dismal than he had feared. For some reason, his face felt hot.

Thwack! Thwack!

Outside, the sounds of the boy named Rudy being beaten carried into the tavern.

"……The beer tastes wonderful."

Sion muttered to himself as he fished the wood fragments out of his glass.

Then he drank quietly until Rudy had taken all the beating that was coming to him.

Because sometimes, a loser needs a lesson—not sympathy.

***

Rudy was kneeling on the ground, dripping with dried blood. Her face was battered in so many places that it was hard to tell what she originally looked like—not that Sion had seen her face before, anyway.

'What should I say?'

Sion had no talent for comfort.

He had never, in his entire life, been beaten one-sidedly by anyone, so he couldn't fully understand what that felt like from the inside. Clumsy sympathy and forced empathy are worse than saying nothing at all.

Sion held out a dirty rag he'd taken from the tavern.

"Wipe yourself off."

"……Who are you?"

Sion let out a small laugh at the response.

Even in this state, her pride stood like an iron fortress. Whether that made her gutsy or simply reckless was hard to say.

There was no human quite as foolish as one who couldn't see themselves clearly—but this girl wasn't that hateful. Besides, she was still young.

"A passerby. Or perhaps your benefactor."

"Get lost."

"What?"

"I've got nothing to do with you."

"Hmm."

Sion felt the urge to hit something. A raw, instinctive irritation rose in his chest.

'Should I start with a lesson in basic manners?'

He shook his head a moment later. He needed to use calm conversation as his weapon.

Right now, he was not the Apostle of the Goddess of War, but the Apostle of Protection. The real reason Sion held a sword was not to fight—it was to protect someone.

"Hoo."

While Sion exhaled a breath of hard-earned patience, the girl named Rudy grabbed her trembling knees and pushed herself upright.

Something seemed broken, but she was enduring it without a word of complaint. She was stubborn enough to have asked for help long ago, and yet she hadn't. That stubbornness, at least, was no ordinary thing.

Sion quietly followed her as she walked away. Rudy ignored him entirely and went her own way, step by heavy step.

After walking for a while and leaving the village behind, she finally turned around.

"What do you want?"

"Huh?"

Sion caught himself using a tone more fitting for a tavern thug than anything else.

It had slipped out automatically while dealing with such an insolent kid. It seemed people didn't become rough around the edges entirely by choice.

"Why do you keep following me? What is it?"

Rudy snapped at him. Given the situation, a little caution was understandable—but it was still baffling to treat someone who had offered help so openly with outright hostility.

"What are you trying to get out of me? Can't you tell just by looking? I'm a penniless beggar."

"I know you're a beggar."

"Then what do you want?!"

"It's getting harder to watch the longer I look."

That was the moment the kid named Rudy finally exhausted the last of Sion's patience.

Smack!

Sion's hand came down firmly on the top of Rudy's head.

Thud!

Rudy crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, her eyes going blank as her mouth fell open.

Sion bent down and met her gaze at eye level, his expression sharp.

"Hey, kid. When someone offers you help, the basic response is 'thank you.' That's called common sense and manners. Understood?"

"S-screw you! Who asked for your help?! If you were going to help, you should have helped when I was getting beaten half to death out there! You were too scared to come out then—so who are you to act high and mighty now?!"

Sion was momentarily speechless.

Because the words weren't entirely wrong. Handing over one dirty rag and calling it help was, admittedly, a bit of a stretch.

"You've got a sharp tongue."

Sion scratched his cheek, feeling slightly awkward, and tapped Rudy on the head one more time.

"Ouch! What the hell, you—!"

"Why did you challenge that man earlier?"

"What?"

"Is it true that he hit your sibling?"

"Yeah!"

"Why?"

"Why, you ask?"

Sion sighed.

"That man wouldn't have done it for no reason either."

"……"

"Can't answer?"

"We stole."

"What?"

"This and that. We had no choice—we had to eat and survive."

"So your sibling got beaten for stealing."

"Yeah, and I already said we had no choice!"

Sion ignored her while picking at his ear. That too was starting to hurt.

"The fact that you did wrong is still true."

Rudy glared at Sion as though she could kill him with her eyes alone—red and swollen from both the beating and from crying.

"He did wrong first."

She seemed genuinely resentful. Her fists were trembling. She dropped her head as if trying to hold back that resentful feeling, and tears fell silently onto the ground.

'She really looks like she's been treated unjustly.'

There was clearly a deeper story here.

Come to think of it, were there any children living among thieves who didn't have a story?

Sion's heart softened. He rested a hand on Rudy's shoulder and said,

"Take me there."

"Where?"

"To where your siblings are. Let's go and I'll listen to everything."

"Who even are you?"

"Me?"

Rudy stared up at him with sharp, wary eyes, still breathing hard. Sion thought for a moment about how to answer.

"……The strongest man in this world?"

Rudy snorted and muttered something under her breath.

"What on earth are you talking about?"