Book 14 Chapter 39

The Hero's Hometown,

In the Central Empire (8)

"Mom, I'm here. Well, I have to leave again soon before Dad catches me, though."

Lysta visited her hometown one last time before leaving it.

Here, even the sound of grass crunching under boot soles is not just a sound. It stirs the heart with a familiar, deeply moving resonance because of its familiarity.

Whenever her mother, whose illness had worsened to the point of making movement difficult, wanted to visit her grandparents' graves, Lysta would always accompany her, supporting her as if propping her up.

"It feels like those days were just yesterday, but now I'm a hero, and Mother is going to heaven."

Her mother was already dead, but coming here, she liked being able to call out "Mom."

That address was like a passage connecting broken ties… and suddenly, it felt as if her mother might answer from beside her, "Is that so?"

During her lifetime, her mother's face always bore a deep trace of sorrow. The deeper her illness became, the deeper the trace.

- Lysta, your mother won't be able to live past this year.

- …?

- Your mother abandoned the path of a hero. It was because I loved a man. Reiland believes that I couldn't enter the <Weeyong Sword Academy> because he defeated me, but that's not it at all. As a disciple of a hero, I had great trust from my master and could have gone there anytime, in any way.

However, her mother said she did not go to the <Weeyong Sword Academy>.

Her heart gradually began to lean towards the audacious boy who never fell, never broke, and grew stronger with each meeting, saying, "If I defeat you, then you don't have the qualities to be a hero, do you?"

She said that was the biggest regret and lingering attachment in her mother's life.

- If I hadn't chosen Reiland then… Reiland wouldn't always be on the frontier because of such a sickly wife. He would have married a healthy wife and built a normal, happy family.

- Mom…

- I told him countless times that I was truly happy, but he doesn't believe it. He's constantly abusing his own body and mind in self-reproach, believing that I and Lysta became unhappy because of him.

It was probably from that moment.

That she came to harbor the resolve to become a hero.

Lysta's wish was for genuine smiles to blossom on her father's and mother's faces. That wish expanded further, leading her to dream of a world where everyone smiled.

- Mom, then I'll become a hero. The happiest hero in the world.

- Lysta?

- Dad won't believe it if I just say it. So, instead of Mom, I'll become the most famous hero in the world, the strongest hero in the world, and I'll also build the happiest family in the world.

When Lysta clenched her fist and declared, her mother covered her mouth and smiled.

- Lysta, hohoho, heroes can't get married.

- So I'll speak not with words, but with my life! That both Mom and I lived so, so happily. That Dad didn't give up and confessed to Mom, and being born into that family made us this happy.

Her mother, who had been smiling with her hand over her mouth, suddenly embraced Lysta tightly. Lysta felt hot drops repeatedly falling onto the top of her head.

- Lysta, being able to live and die as the mother of a child as lovely as you was the greatest gift the providence of creation gave to my life.

- For me, that's you, Mom!

- Ah… at that time… not choosing the path of a hero… I'm truly glad…

Remembering that day, that warmth, even now as an adult, the overflowing tears make it impossible to see…

"Over here!"

She heard her younger brother's voice from when she was stifling her sobs.

Lysta hastily wiped away her tears and hid behind the graveyard ahead. She wasn't quite sure herself why she was hiding.

A boy of similar height and build was with her brother. It was Lynn, a comrade from the hero's party. Huh? Why? Could Lynn have been looking for me…?

"I come here when I'm about to make a decision. It's where our ancestors rest. Grandma, Grandpa, and… Mother are here too."

"Is that something to brag about? You don't have a mom either."

Lysta felt a quiet satisfaction at Lynn's attempt to lighten the mood with a joke for her brother, who was starting to get unnecessarily gloomy. …It was a joke, right?

"I'm hungry. Can't we talk while eating cake?"

"You're leaving today, aren't you? I told them to pack it in a pouch so you can eat it on the way."

"Good."

"You can eat one more before we leave. Of course, I packed some for Sbal too."

"Great!"

Gid, standing before his mother's grave, gave a wry smile.

"Yesterday, I saw your fight with sister. Watching it, I clearly understood. I can't become like my sister, nor like you."

So Gid also comes here at this time?

This quiet morning hour, with the gentle remains of dawn dew and mist, and the sound of grasshoppers neither loud nor silent…

Her mother had also visited this place at this hour. Accompanying her children if they wished to come along.

"That doesn't mean I'm giving up on swordsmanship or magic. Rather, since I have no talent in either, I'll try to grasp both. I thought that way, I might find an answer, even if just a small one."

"Oh, good luck with that."

"Mother told me that father was a tremendous hard worker. She said his endless efforts somehow started to look lovely to her. So I too… though I'm mediocre even in the realm of effort, I thought that if I keep trying, someday I might be able to please father."

Gid…

Lysta had always felt uneasy, a part of her heart uncomfortable, as if her own prodigious talent was actually tormenting her younger brother.

"It won't be that hard."

"Huh?"

"There are tons of gorillas in the magic tower where I was. They dream of being mages but can't even memorize the multiplication tables. Against guys like that, the level of expectation itself drops so low that even a little bit of success brings out automatic praise."

"Are you calling that comfort?"

Gid laughed.

In Gid's and Lysta's eyes, Lynn seemed to be smiling back as if it were a joke.

- Ugh, how can you not even do this! These good-for-nothing bastards.

- Eeek, big brother is angry!

- Heeeh, big brother is getting angry!

However, at that moment, the boy wasn't looking at Gid but somewhere else, and smiled unconsciously.

That place was his hometown.

The days of accompanying peers like Gisella or the "Wind Four" younger siblings, who were the most familiar among the other disciples of the magic tower.

"What are you doing, keeping such an important person tied up with trivial matters like this? You have a long way to go to join the hero's party."

Just then, someone else appeared at the graveyard. Lysta and Gid trembled slightly for a moment.

It was a middle-aged man, whose entire body was almost completely covered in bandages, evidence of fatal wounds that would have instantly killed anyone else.

Reiland Apheltas had rejected the suggestions of his butler and maids, and, leaning on crutches, had finally come here, to his dead wife's grave.

"It is far. But it's okay if I eat cake before I go."

"Ah, alright… Let's go, Lynn. We shouldn't disturb Father."

As Gid tried to hurry Lynn away, Reiland spoke.

"You're old enough to have played your fill, so now, as the successor of the Apheltas family, you must begin learning the family's secret swordsmanship."

Gid flinched and stopped.

His father had never taught Gid swordsmanship. He was always out or managing the city.

He had practically neglected his son, but since Reiland was the only successor to the Apheltas family's secret swordsmanship as a son-in-law, only he could teach it.

So this statement now means… he intends to personally teach Gid.

"We'll start right away this morning. Go and change into your training clothes. Let me tell you first, I will merely teach. I will not interfere beyond that. Whether you mix beast-kin magic into that swordsmanship, or do anything else, that will be entirely your choice."

"Yes, yes!"

Gid couldn't express his emotion and excitement by just clenching his hands, so he started running towards the mansion.

"Thank you, Lynn! I'll master all the beast-kin magic you taught me, and I'll show it to you properly next time we meet! And please tell Sister Lysta that her younger brother always respects and loves her!"

And he shouted that, looking back at Lynn who was left at the grave.

"Yo, where are you going? You gotta leave the cake. I'm not coming back here. I've read all the books I needed. Yo?"

Reiland, who was offering flowers at his wife's tombstone, glanced sideways at Lynn's profile, who was about to chase after his son, with a look of disbelief.

- Practice smiling, Reiland.

- …?

- Lysta said she'd become the happiest hero in the world. Won't she bring a man home someday? Will you still be scowling like that all the time then?

- A hero cannot be with a man. And my face has been like this since birth.

- That's why I'm telling you to practice. Lysta is a sensitive child. She always smiles, but she actually reads adults' expressions more than anyone. So don't frown for no reason; even if you can't smile, just give her some good words of encouragement. Will you promise me?

His daughter knew nothing yet about heroes, about that arduous and cruel path, so it was merely a playful remark. Even if she brought someone, it would be a party comrade, not a lover.

His wife might also be making such playful remarks because her illness was worsening.

Therefore, Reiland had nodded at her bedside then, accepting his wife's stubbornness.

"You can get as much as you want if you go to the mansion kitchen. Just say I ordered it."

Lynn, who had been about to chase after Gid, paused and then gave a thumbs-up.

"Oh, thank you very much, father-in-law."

"Father-in-law?"

For a moment, a sharp glint flashed in Reiland's eyes.

No matter how incompetent a father he might be, as a father with a daughter, there was an honorific he instinctively could never easily concede.

Lynn replied.

"Isn't he Gid's father? So I called him father-in-law. Was it a mistake? Should I have said 'Lord Swordsman'?"

Lysta, eavesdropping on the conversation feeling like a third party, had to constantly strive to suppress the chortle that threatened to escape.

'What do you think, Dad. Isn't our Lynn, so innocent and pure, truly adorable?'

Of course, that voice couldn't reach him. Reiland sighed, finding his own reaction pathetic.

"How has the hero's party's journey been so far?"

Lynn tilted his head with the straw hat a couple of times at the question, then replied.

"It's oddly different from what I expected, but it doesn't seem impossible. Sometimes it's even fun."

Fun…

Is that child having fun too…?

His daughter used to seem to force a smile, but when she was with this boy named Lynn, she was laughing purely, like a child…

"Lynn of the Osarius school, what I'm about to say is a soliloquy in front of my wife's grave, so you don't need to listen or reply."

"?"

"I have always only failed. I loved someone I shouldn't have loved, and I couldn't give love to someone I should have. But becoming the parent of those children was the greatest success in my life. I will engrave that firmly in my heart and try to change now. Towards making fewer mistakes."

Was it a confession for a new life? Reiland, who had been speaking towards his wife's tombstone, finally looked at Lynn.

"…I am an incompetent father who has neither the right nor the shame to say such things, but I ask you to continue to take good care of my daughter."

Reiland's lips, though covered by bandages as he said that, were clearly smiling.

Lysta's eyes opened wide.

Even without seeing the smile, even if she couldn't see it, she could instantly recognize the love contained in that single remark.

'Mom, I think it's been conveyed a little now.'

Lysta leaned her back comfortably against the tombstone.

'Has the dream I told Mom back then, perhaps been conveyed to Dad to some extent?'

The sky, which she looked up at with her neck fully tilted back, had fluffy white clouds weaving patterns of peace. It was the same sky as when she had revealed her aspirations to her mother.

'Thank you, Lynn.'

On Lysta's face, a smile bloomed, more serene and peaceful than the patterns in that sky.

'For helping me convey a little bit of my heart, and Mom's.'