Chapter 34
Jane was one of the children abandoned by the World Tree.
The charge was that her father had betrayed the World Tree.
But that charge was such a brazen lie that even she could recognize it at a young age.
“My father was a councilor. He argued that if the elves cut off contact with the outside world and locked up the forest, they would inevitably decline and destroy themselves.”
Her father brought the matter before the council.
But no one supported him.
The citizens cursed Jane’s father as a traitor and threw stones at him, while even the other councilors who had usually debated ideas with him turned their backs.
- “How dare you suggest joining hands with those lowly humans!”
- “That man is trying to sell his own people to the humans!”
Branded as traitors in an instant, Jane’s family was driven from the forest.
The councilors who had claimed that all opinions were equal and deserved respect used those very tongues to condemn her family,
while it was the elven knights who had extolled their own nobility that pointed spears at them and pushed them out.
Thus, a belief took root in her heart that the authorities were vile hypocrites who merely pretended to be righteous.
After leaving the forest, her family reached their second homeland.
It was a small village.
A small utopia where humans, demi-humans, and beastmen lived without discrimination.
Though their lifespans, races, and ideologies differed, they knew how to respect one another and coexist.
Outside the village, a culture of classifying people by race was widespread, but at least within that small village, they were equals.
She had no doubt that this utopia would last for a long time.
Until the sky turned black.
“One day, a higher species came to the village. It was a black dragon.”
The Empire considers every demi-human other than humans to be lowly.
But higher species were treated as an exception to that culture.
Just as everyone knows to mind their manners when faced with a gun, no one dared point a finger at a dragon and call it lowly.
That was why dragons could receive the treatment of nobles despite not being human.
The black dragon who came to the village was also a noble of that Empire.
“He was the heir. Claiming that he needed a fortuitous opportunity to surpass his father, he demanded tribute from our village.”
That tribute meant human sacrifice.
Of course, it was not a wise method.
Human sacrifice was a means of accumulating far too much evil karma.
But that dragon had a strategy of his own.
There are not many Eighth-Tier beings whose existence has been confirmed in this world.
At the time, the heir was Seventh Tier, and he calculated that if he advanced by one tier, he could crush the karmic retribution through sheer power.
Thus, the heir demanded human sacrifices from the villagers as though they were his possessions.
Naturally, the villagers could not offer up their families and resisted.
Jane’s father, true to his reputation as a former elven councilor, had reached a level where he could fight the heir.
The villagers resisted fiercely and severed the arrogant black dragon’s wings.
The dragon fled in an ugly state, making a mockery of his dignified entrance.
A week later.
The sky turned black.
At the hands of the black dragons the fleeing dragon had brought with him.
***
“That was how the village was destroyed.”
Under the dragons’ rampage, she lost her parents and her homeland.
Thanks to her parents’ sacrifice, she was able to hide in a storeroom that led underground.
- “You mustn’t let go of this stone.”
Her parents pressed their only barrier stone into her hands and drew the dragons’ attention away.
The tearful smile she saw as the storeroom door closed was the last image she had of her parents.
After the door closed, horrifying sounds came from outside the storeroom.
The horrible sounds of flesh being trampled beneath feet and bones snapping between jaws.
“The dragons saw this as an opportunity and feasted on the villagers. They thought that those who had defeated the heir were worth eating.”
Her father, her mother, and her neighbors. They all became the dragons’ meal.
While the dragons feasted aboveground to the accompaniment of the people’s screams, she sobbed silently.
The precious barrier stone her parents had given her hid her from the dragons’ keen senses, but it could not protect her mind.
Then, that terrible time that seemed to last forever took an unexpected turn.
The dragons who had been rejoicing amid their feast began to scream.
- “Keidra! Rudra! Alidra! Answer me!”
- “My eyes... I can’t see...”
At first, Jane thought it was an auditory hallucination.
She thought she was hearing the villagers’ screams in the dragons’ voices.
But only after hearing the sounds of the huge bodies collapsing one after another did she accept that someone was bringing down the dragons.
“When I opened the storeroom door, there was only one swordsman standing in the burned village.”
Although I could not examine his appearance closely because he was covered in dragon blood, I was certain that the swordsman was a handsome young man with sharp features.
The swordsman, overcome with emotion amid the dragons’ corpses, belatedly noticed Jane and approached her.
- “Are you from this village?”
She nodded fearfully.
Having witnessed too many atrocities committed through force since childhood, she could not help but fear what the swordsman before her might do.
Perhaps the swordsman guessed how she felt, because he stroked her head and gave her a piece of candy.
- “If you’d like, I’ll take you to another village.”
Thus began the short journey between the swordsman and Jane.
After seeing her safely to the village, the swordsman vanished as though his business were finished.
“He was like a mirage.”
She wondered if he might have been a hallucination she had created, but before long, she became certain that the swordsman had truly existed.
“There’s a statue honoring that swordsman here in the marquisate.”
They were the crude sword statues found throughout the marquisate.
In other words, it meant that others besides her had seen him as well.
Afterward, she searched for the nameless swordsman who had saved her.
But she was never able to meet that swordsman again.
“He was murdered by the man known as the Godfather of the Mafia Alliance.”
At first, she did not believe it either.
How could a swordsman capable of slaughtering a horde of black dragons have been murdered by some mere mafia boss?
But even after that mafia boss swallowed up the entire marquisate and smashed every statue honoring the swordsman, the swordsman never appeared.
Even so, the citizens refused to believe that the swordsman was dead and took up their swords.
“That happened about a hundred years ago.”
When the Empire was collapsing, the marquisate was in the midst of a war with the mafia gangs.
That war ended when the Godfather displayed the swordsman’s severed head in the square.
As though his purpose were to plunge the people into despair.
In reality, the Godfather’s strategy was highly effective.
The citizens who had risen up to resist the mafia gangs lost their will to fight the moment they saw the display of the swordsman’s severed head.
Thus, the marquisate came to be ruled by the mafia gangs.
After the Empire fell and the marquisate was incorporated into the Esirik Kingdom, the domain remained a den of mafia gangs.
“That is why I took up the sword.”
***
Most of the resistance members either gave up or grew old and died over the course of a hundred years.
But she was an elf, and thanks to her naturally long lifespan, she could still wield a sword.
Taking the crude sword the swordsman had shown her during their short journey as her guide, she taught herself and made it this far.
“I must have my revenge.”
Otherwise, the past hundred years would have been for nothing.
It was the only thing that kept her going after she lost both her family and her homeland.
But...
“To be honest, I don’t even know what’s what anymore.”
A hundred years was long enough for even hatred to be worn away by time.
She had pursued revenge out of inertia, but after achieving it with Dominic’s help, she could not tell what she was feeling.
“It isn’t emptiness, but it isn’t satisfying either. I don’t know what this feeling is.”
Dominic, who had been quietly listening to her story, nodded.
“You are afraid.”
“What?”
“Aren’t you afraid that once everything is over, you won’t be able to return to being an ordinary person?”
At the old butler’s precise observation, her lips pressed tightly together.
Dominic gave her a benevolent smile, as though he understood her. Just as he always did.
“Don’t worry. You’re different now. Even if it isn’t revenge, haven’t you come to realize other precious things?”
Her eyes widened at his words.
That’s right. I do have something precious...
“You’ve even developed a hobby of seeking out the best crepe shops.”
“That’s right. Cre... Hey!”
Ha ha ha.
Dominic laughed and rose from his seat.
As though her condition were nothing at all.
It was not because he was taking her lightly.
It was consideration meant to ease her anxiety.
“I suppose I should go buy groceries for dinner.”
The old butler casually patted her, then turned away.
“I’ll make the hamburg steak you like for dinner tonight.”
The old butler left the room after saying that.
The hamburg steak Dominic mentioned brought Jane’s thoughts back to the past.
- “Kiddo. Since it’s the last time, I’ll treat you.”
The hamburg steak was the meal the swordsman had made for her before they parted for the last time.
That was why it had become one of her favorite dishes, but...
‘Why does it feel familiar.’
The hamburg steak the old butler made somehow tasted familiar.
She tilted her head, then shook off her thoughts.
The swordsman was dead.
She had clearly seen his head hanging in the square.
She renewed her resolve and opened the pendant.
‘It’ll be over soon.’
She left thoughts of what would come after her revenge for later.
*
Meanwhile, Dominic, who had gone out to buy groceries, thought,
‘Why does this sound familiar.’
Could it be some kind of hero legend passed down in this region?
Duke had experienced so many incidents over the course of two hundred years that he felt a sense of déjà vu no matter what he encountered, but her story felt especially familiar.
‘Have I ever been to this region?’
He didn’t know.
Duke had simply wandered wherever his feet took him, and without a map, he had no idea where he had been or what he had done.
‘I don’t know.’
Duke stopped dwelling on it and decided to focus on the present.
Thinking hard was not his preference.
What mattered now was which of her convictions he would end up clashing with.
As it happened, there was a point where the old butler’s convictions conflicted with hers.
‘She said she didn’t trust the authorities.’
Dominic, the old butler, began planning how to part ways with her.