NOVEL NEXT Chapter 59: Knights (4)
PR: Ford 53 & Alive Sigh & npc
It had been about a week since he went to Herman Inspiration’s Forge.
The guilt and the grim memories of that day had become dulled and pushed to the back of his mind.
Time really does heal all wounds.
Elric, who had been pretending that he was fine, only realized the truth this evening.
“The armor is here!”
Veron had come to the manor.
Elric didn’t know why his stomach turned at the sight of the boy’s face.
“Elric, are you okay?!”
Once recognized by others, discomfort is rarely able to hide itself.
The memories he didn’t want to recall began to bubble up to the surface and his breathing became labored again.
He tried to smile and respond, but it didn’t work.
It shouldn’t have been like this, but, in the end, it was Tyria who replaced Elric in doing his work.
“May I see the condition of your armor?”
“Oh, yes!”
She reached for his hand.
And her gentle touch immediately brushed away the grime.
Elric’s gaze shifted to Tyria.
Did she know something? No, he couldn’t tell.
But she must have.
“How are you, Milord?”
It was as if she could see right through him.
Elric felt his stomach churn unnecessarily.
“…Excellent. Herman’s skill really is unrivaled.”
“Hehehe, my grandfather was so excited. It’s been a while since he’s made full plate armor.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes! Oh, and…”
Veron blurted out after a pause.
“…Well, you know, just in case, really, just in case.”
There was a hint of eagerness, of anticipation in his voice.
“If you’re recruiting knight squires, I’d love to try out!”
His scarlet eyes blazed with dreams.
Tyria’s grip on Elric’s hand tightened.
Then she said.
“It’s not time to think about that yet. The direction of the Knights hasn’t even been decided.”
“Ah… so that’s how it is, right? I’ve been so rude…”
“But I’ll keep your words in mind should the need arise. Now go.”
She spoke to Veron in her characteristically raspy, rigid voice.
There was a strange sense of trust in her voice, and so Veron went back with his dreams.
And with that, Veron left.
“Let’s get you to your quarters.”
Elric was led by Tyria’s hand to his office.
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Tyria asked no questions along the way.
Nor did she ask him any questions when they reached the office.
She let the embarrassment of the moment pass and went right back to her work, as if she wasn’t curious as to why.
Thus, Elric looked at her curiously.
Unnecessarily stung by her nonchalance, he asked a question.
“Why aren’t you asking?”
“About what?”
“…About what happened earlier. No, I should probably start by thanking you for covering for me.”
“Of course I should. It’s the business of the estate after all.”
She said, her eyes scanning the papers.
“Besides, I don’t want to pry into anything you haven’t told me first.”
“Even if I never tell you?”
He wondered what answer he himself was hoping to hear.
He asked himself this, the question rising in his mind.
Tyria’s head snapped up.
She was sitting with her back to the window, her expression hidden by the shadows.
“Do you have any bad memories of him?”
“…Not really.”
“Then did you ever do anything wrong to him?”
“Not that too.”
“If that’s the case, it must be something else. With my limited ability to guess, I’m thinking that perhaps another child of his age might have had a negative encounter with Milord.”
She was right.
Whether she had intended to, or not.
Elric narrowed his eyes, trying to see her expression more clearly, but it was futile. [1]
All he could still see was her figure, haloed by the light pouring through the window, and the twitch of her lips.
Those lips spoke.
“I do not know what those years of your life have been like.”
Slowly,
“I do not know whether those years were painful or joyful for you.”
Once more, bluntly,
“So I won’t ask, for if they were sorrowful, it would be to open a wound that I wouldn’t be able to heal, and so I can only hope that if you do open up sometimes, you will tell me what happened to the kid, too.”
There was an odd sense of trust in her words.
Elric knew it.
That such trust couldn’t have come from lies.
There was sincerity in Tyria’s words.
Come to think of it, she was always sincere with everyone.
He could feel it.
On his skin and in his heart.
The reason for him not being entirely happy despite her courtesy… what could it be?
Funnily enough, it was amusingly the sudden realization that her kindness wasn’t exclusive to him
She must have been feeling pretty bad to be bothered by his actions in the middle of all her work.
One thing was for sure though, her words were comforting.
Maybe this was what he needed to hear.
Maybe it was a weakness, a need to vent to someone about his past.
Or maybe he wanted to tell her what he had been hiding from her.
…No, he just wanted to ask her if it was okay for him to be here, living off the fruit of her hard work.
Elric’s lips twitched.
But he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
What he did manage was to blurt out.
“…I once met a child exactly his age.”
“Did you?”
“I can only remember his face as a blur, but I can clearly see the contorted shape of his expression.”
“What kind of child was he?”
“It was in the West, Milady, and he was a boy soldier.”
“That’s unusual. I thought they didn’t enlist boys in the western wars.”
“…They could fight if they wanted to. It’s not a very humane place to be.”
“Then the boy went into the fray of his own accord.”
“I assume he went to avenge the death of his father.”
“Did he die?”
“Yes, and I can still see him.”
“And that vision haunts you?”
“It seems so. It makes it hard for me to look at Veron.”
“If that is the case, I can understand.”
Tyria stood up abruptly.
She walked over and wrapped her arms around Elric’s shoulders.
“Battlefields are frightening, and although I don’t know because I’ve never been there, I do know that you know the horrors of it, and I understand that it breaks your heart.”
She was currently holding a scent different from the earthy smell of the wheat-field estate.
“I realize that any consolation I can give you won’t mean much, so instead, I’ll give you a promise.”
“A promise?”
“I won’t make you deal with that child until you feel comfortable enough to do so, and if you ever do have to, I will deal with him for you.”
He laughed out loud, realizing how ridiculous this sounded.
At the same time, he felt relieved.
He was relieved that she actually meant her words.
It was truly inexplicable why someone like him, who only uttered feeble words, would receive such comfort.
At the same time, he didn’t want to disappoint her by relying on this kindness.
“…Thank you, but you don’t have to.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Of course I’ll be fine, but there’s something I’ve noticed while wandering the continent.”
“What is it?”
“That no matter what you face, you eventually become numb to it all.”
Elric nudged Tyria away.
He could see her face now.
It was a subtle change, but he could feel it.
Her entire focus was on him.
She was listening to every word he was saying.
Even though she didn’t know the meaning behind any of it.
“Fear, my friend used to say, tends to grow in size the more you try to run away from it.”
“You have a good friend.”
“So I will face the child myself, if only to face my fears.”
It was easier now that he’d said it out loud.
Or maybe it was easier because he was in front of Tyria.
Even if it was just a shallow desire to please her, there was nothing he found bad in it.
“Perhaps a squire would be a good idea. Perhaps he could accompany me on the day of the knighting ceremony.”
Who he was in Wiven was not Kasha, the ghost of the battlefield.
Elric wanted to make that clear.
Here, he was a cripple, a runaway who had lived without a care in the world.
He was also a cripple who found solace in the hem of his wife’s skirts, even though they could barely call each other by their names yet.
The ghosts of his battlefield nightmares did not belong here in this place.
They would have to be shaken off.
“I apologize for my shameful words.”
He said with determination.
“It’s only natural for one to share what’s bothering them.”
Was her reply.
To which Tyria chimed in with an old-fashioned comment.
“We’re married, aren’t we?”
At the mention of the word “married,” Tyria’s rigid tone seemed to crumple like a subtle illusion
It felt ticklish, but was delightful.
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[1. Nah nah nah, this is bullshit. No way mana can’t do anything about that. You can’t be telling me that his one weakness on the battlefield is glare from the sun, cause he’d be dead due to the sheer number of swords reflecting the sun’s glare everywhere. No way can you convince me on this…]
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