Book 19 Chapter 10

Intensive training on the side,

Raising the First Disciple (2)

"I found him."

And so, Rin and Tureina finally arrived at the fortress city, <Elsvarh>, after 23 days, joining the hero party.

Their companions had already arrived nine days earlier and had fought a couple of battles.

<Elsvarh> was the main fortress of the 'Dirbeta Front,' a defense line stretched across the region of <Langbard>, the city of pleasure.

"Hey, say hello."

Tureina, who was hiding behind Rin's legs, peeked out her face and nodded in greeting to the heroes of the hero party.

"Cute, cute cute cute!"

Rista clapped her hands and ran over, hugging Tureina tightly and rubbing her face against her head.

"You're feeling a bit better now! Your body is, but your heart still hurts, doesn't it? You don't have to answer."

Fride smiled, holding her pipe in her mouth.

"It's a relief to see some life in her expression; it seems Rin didn't do anything bad."

"What's 'anything bad'?"

"What else would it be? All the foolish things men, no different from wolves, do. Especially you, the vessel of the [Strongest Swallow Tribe], you're a particular target of caution."

Fride chuckled, blowing a long stream of tobacco smoke into Rin's face. Nils Blantz spoke.

"But what are you going to do? This is a fortress city. We won't have the luxury of looking after children."

"Well, how urgent can it be, even if it's urgent?"

"At least it's not a relaxed situation. They say that the fortresses of the <Langbard> defense line, that is, the Dirbeta Front, are being annihilated one by one by the Uruk and Troll allied forces. And… we found something strange."

"Something strange?"

As Rin tilted her head, Fride placed her conical hat on her head and glanced at Tureina.

"Let's solve this problem first. I'll use my connections to send her to the rear somehow. Although we don't have a single person to spare, who would defy a command from me, the top of the Republic?"

Rin and Nils simultaneously opened their eyes in a disapproving gaze.

"Phew, refreshing. This is why she's a trash shrine maiden, true to her reputation."

"A statement befitting a shrine maiden who routinely engages in racism…"

"That was just an embarrassed afterthought! These little brats who have less subtlety than a toenail clipping!"

"What did you say? Look, racist remarks again!"

Tureina, quickly catching the drift of the conversation, clutched Rin's sleeve tightly with a terrified expression.

"…"

At that moment, Rin was projecting her past self onto Tureina.

Her past self, who was always afraid of being abandoned by the dean…

Fride, reading that emotion from Rin's expression, warned her firmly.

"Rin, don't think strange thoughts. Taking her to the battlefield would be even more cruel."

Rin couldn't bring herself to shake off Tureina's hand then.

Because it wasn't Tureina's hand, but her own hand as a child.

Had the dean ever once pushed away or rejected such a desperate hand? Had she never, not once?

"…Wouldn't it be good to have a porter, at least? It's not like she's going to the battlefield."

Fride's eyes widened.

"Porter, what porter? Do you know where we're going now? The front lines! We're fighting on the anti-demon front, not the rear anymore. How old is she now? Seven? Eight at most?"

Fride, as if to hide Tureina, first pressed Rin's forehead with her pipe, then her chest.

"It's not just her physical safety that's the problem. Her mind! Her mind will completely break! She'll see screams and corpses every day. Do you know what kind of negative impact that will have on her mental development?"

In the slum, I saw so many people die. Some starved to death, and some were murdered and then abandoned in the slum.

Seeing that…

I never thought about fearing death or anything like that. I thought it was something that would eventually come. But after meeting the dean, I became afraid.

'What was truly scary wasn't death, but solitude…'

Perhaps the fear of being alone again was more terrifying than death to young Rin. Now, this child must feel the same.

"She can already use 1-star magic in the Yorhen style. She can also use 2-star magic as beast-kin magic. It takes a bit of time, though."

"What?"

"I've been steadily training her on the way here, and her growth rate is fast. If the battles are going to get more intense, I think she'll definitely be useful somewhere. Her talent might not be on par with mine, but it's probably close enough to reach my feet."

Fride sighed and shook her head repeatedly.

"This isn't an age to judge usefulness or talent, I'm telling you! Rin, look at her. At that age, she should be spending time laughing and learning with her peers. She shouldn't be smelling blood and gore on a battlefield of killing and being killed."

Rin looked at her companions one by one with eyes pleading for help, but they all seemed to agree with Fride with nods and shrugs.

'Too young, much too young…'

'I thought Rin was also excessively young, but her absurd genius eventually made me accept it…'

'But that child not only couldn't possibly have such talent, but she's also much younger than Rin…'

Rin paused, resting her left hand on her chin, lost in thought, then suddenly blurted out,

"Then should I leave the hero party?"

A statement that confounded all members of the hero party, and even Nils and Link! Was that child more precious than her hero party companions!

Tureina's shock was even greater!

Was she really that precious to this person? So much so that he would abandon his great mission as part of the hero party!

"Calm down. I think it's fine, but you all can't accept it, right? As you all know, I'm incredibly picky, but she really has talent."

As you know, Rin's social skills at the time were despair itself!

Originally, after learning some magic, she herself had sought out and beaten up robbers and monsters one by one, so she couldn't understand her companions' reactions.

Since she herself had achieved such feats (?) at that age, she judged that Tureina could certainly do it with her talent.

"I'll take her with me for a while and train her. If I find she has no talent, I'll send her to the rear. If she has talent, then we can just take her along and join, right?"

It was a statement born from such a simple, straightforward thought process, but…

A wave of emotion stirred in the hearts of her companions when they heard the reason for her shocking declaration of leaving the hero party.

'Rin…'

'She's growing up…'

'He can't leave that monkey kid alone, can he…'

How could Fride be any different!

If the person who raised her like a father had told her to go to the battlefield, Fride, no matter how young she was, would have forced herself to follow.

Fride scratched her head irritably from under her conical hat, then deliberately turned her back to Rin and said,

"You idiot, what's the point of leaving the hero party if you're going to travel together anyway? Just travel together."

"You said you didn't want to. Why change your mind?"

"Of course I still don't want to! So I'll set a condition. I'm backing down, so you back down too."

Fride suddenly blew pipe smoke towards the doorway.

And at that moment!

The smoke became a black barrier, perfectly dividing the market office and the hallway of <Elsvarh>.

"Rin, just you come over here for a moment."

Rin, now almost instinctively, deployed water-attribute magic all over her body and easily passed through the smoke screen.

'It's hot…'

If she had tried to pass through it bare-bodied, it wouldn't be a powerful burn, but it would have enough heat to cause blisters all over her body.

"If she can cross this barrier without anyone's help, I'll agree to take her. As a magician, she'd need to be able to freely use power somewhere between 1-star and 2-star. But if she can't, absolutely not. This is the minimum condition, got it?"

"!"

"Don't make that face. Think about when you first learned magic and answer honestly. How much time did it take to cross a barrier of this level?"

"The time it took to fully master 1-star magic and move on to 2-star magic… was it half a month?"

And that was only because the dean taught her from the basics; if the current Rin had taught young Rin, it would have been possible within 3 days.

"Good, then if she has talent similar to yours, as you say, she'll be able to cross that wall within half a month. How about that?"

"Not on par with me, but below me."

"Then 20 days."

20 days, Rin thought.

Come to think of it, back then, she had diligently studied magic even more fiercely, afraid of being abandoned again.

It might be that this desperation would also positively affect Tureina.

"Alright. As Fride said, if she can't even cross that, she won't be able to serve as a porter and will just get in the way."

Rin expected to have a hard time explaining these contract terms to Tureina, but Tureina nodded in agreement as soon as she heard them.

Yes, you were that kind of person.

From the very beginning, your entire process of growth was similar to mine. That might be why I formed an attachment to you faster than with any other person I've known.

"So, what's that strange thing Nils mentioned?"

It was a corpse.

It was a body interred through a respectful ritual!

Rista said, "Before Rin came to join us, we attacked an Uruk outpost, and this is a corpse we found there."

"Is it different somehow?"

"Fride says… there's no spirit in it."

Not understanding what she meant, Rin tilted her head both ways, and Fride, stuffing tobacco leaves into her pipe, said,

"Every person has a soul, and when the breath of life ceases, the soul ascends to heaven, and the spirit remains in the body. The ritual to send that spirit to where the soul is, is a funeral. But this body has no spirit. Not just this one, but other bodies too."

"Uruks performing funerals? They're sweeter than they look?"

"You imbecile, do you really think so! This has been absorbed! Both the soul and the spirit… some bastard forcibly took them."

Suddenly, the casement window broke open, and yellow dust surged in through the open window. Its particles felt hotter and more stinging than usual.

"Soul harvesting… As far as I know, only the direct retainers of the Lizard Lord can use this power. They are the 'Ancient Nobles' directly under the Lizard Lord, known by the name of the Extinction Lord, Asaracalt."