Mushoku Tensei: Life and Strife.

“Laurel! Uh-huh-huh, I’m sorry, forgive me, sniff-sniff…”

“...”

When I first heard about it from Geese, I was intending to kick Paul to the curb—quote unquote, "was." I had even made a cast of an illusion spell so I would look exactly like when I last saw him just in case he couldn’t recognize me.

I was ready to kick his chair… But seeing him like this, wailing and crying while begging for forgiveness, even I, someone who steeled my own heart to be unfilial, felt like that was going overboard.

I stared at the old drunkard who was hugging me with tears and snot on his face and stared back at one of his subordinates—specifically a woman wearing nothing but a bikini armor and my coat that I had halfway forced her to wear. No, seriously, what’s up with this guy?

I mean, yeah, I know the guy had a lot of flaws. He was impulsive, arrogant, the kind that’s childish and useless at times, and all that… But Paul was… I mean, Paul’s Paul. He’s like… the man, you know? Like… There’s no better description than that; Paul was just that good. So… What the hell?

Like, I did read the original novel enough to know that he had been drinking due to depression, so I gave him a letter telling him to man it up, and then here I found him wailing my name as if I had died.

In the end, I had to keep patting his back and listening to all his sobs. Basically, his story was the same: Dude fought and searched desperately here for everyone, but no one was found, so he was despairing.

Eventually, he started to ask himself, "What if they’re hurt?" What if they fell ill? What if they’re already dead? The more he thought about it, the more worried he grew.

Then, news reached him that I not only walked out alive from wherever I had been, found the missing Philips couple, got in contact with Geese and Ghislaine, and… Okay, maybe I did more than just walk out alive, but anyway…

I got Rudeus’s information that he was with Eris, basically sent a carload of Asuran gold, which was the most expensive kind of gold, mind you, and found Lilia and Aisha… sounds miraculous and filled with hope, no?

Just when things were getting better, news came implying that I was missing. Not dead yet, but missing, though there were many implications that I wouldn’t have made it out alive, which was true had there not been a teleport trap underneath me back then.

Last seen, I got my forearm blown off by Kalman III, as in the North God. No matter what kind of insane expectations he had for me, expecting me to win was probably ludicrous.

… I mean, yeah, I barely won at the last minute, but still… Anyways, I went missing for an entire year. And so, this old bastard, like he always did, blamed someone. Himself. Paul blamed himself.

He was frustrated at himself. Why had he spent his days saving strangers when his family was missing? What did he do as a parent? Thinking back, in the novel, Paul and Geese had once talked about it.

Rudeus was just a kid. It was an idea that Paul himself had reflected upon when he saw Norn, whether Paul would have lashed out in anger if Norn had survived her first adventure. Would he have put so many expectations on Rudeus had he been just an ordinary eleven-year-old?

Looking back, perhaps he had thought of me as well. The things I did may have been my own choices, but to him, it was as if he had sent his eleven-year-old kid to the jaws of death expecting that he’d succeed in something Paul couldn’t.

The guilt, the self-hatred, the anger and despair… all of it gnawed at him until it drove him mad. He was deeply depressed and in so much pain that alcohol was probably the only thing that kept him moving. But even so…

“It’s not your fault, old man. We were just unlucky, that’s all.”

When everything came crashing down all of a sudden, and you had to do something, even if it was stupid, and then you ended up regretting it. Such was the nature of life. In that sense, Paul, who had suddenly lost his family overnight, wasn’t at fault.

Paul, who had chosen to hunt down slaves all over Milis but couldn’t find a single trace of his family, wasn’t to blame, and neither was Rudeus, who had been flailing about on the Demon Continent. If anything, it was mine. The teleport incident and the things I did, as well as the fight against Kalman III.

Those choices and the consequences of my actions were mine and mine alone.

“More importantly…”

I pulled out the letter in my pocket. The plan originally was to find Angel to patch me up before meeting Paul, but Angel wasn’t at the Guild, and instead I got a letter waiting for me. It’s contents?

“You don’t intend to show your wives that pathetic look, are you?”

“?”

Paul seemed confused. I mean, I would too if I were in his shoes. I really didn’t expect the Guild Master to actually go to and conquer the Teleport Labyrinth either… Damn, I really got to hand it to her. Didn’t expect her to keep her word on that matter.

“Zenith! We found Mom. We’ve found everyone. Lilia and Aisha, Mom and Rudeus. We can go home now. Let’s go home together.”

“I see.”

… The heck? I see? What’s up with this bast—ah. Right. This drunkard… He’s still dreaming, isn’t he? Probably still thinking along the lines of, "I'm dreaming that my amazing son who had died turned out to be alive and brought back good news, or something." Well, turns out you’re not dreaming, old man.

Still, he looked like he had it way~ too rough… Perhaps it would be better to let him sleep on the matter. He’s old, after all… Like in his late 20s or something… Whatever.

“Yeah. We’re all happy and safe now, old man, so stop blaming yourself.”

“I see.”

“Right? So go to sleep. You’ve done enough for today. When you wake up, everything will be over, just like a nightmare. Yeah?”

“Right. Yeah.”

Paul nodded, trudging his way back to bed. If he had glanced back, he would probably see a bastard with an eyepatch sitting where his son was. After all, I changed a lot. Both physically and mentally.

“You there.”

I pointed at the bikini-armor subordinate… What was her name? Ah, forget it. It doesn’t really matter either way.

“Gather everyone.”

I remained seated on my chair, stabbing the cane straight towards the ground as I exuded pressure using Aura. They were Paul’s subordinates, which also meant that they were all related to his rescue operations. So…

“Gather the list of all the locations of Fittoa slaves we haven’t rescued, enemies, and everything. All places where combat power was insufficient, I want all of them.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breathe. This was going to be one hectic night.

“Tonight, we’ll deal with every last one of them.”