Chapter 32
My life began in despair.
I was born the daughter of a merchant who traveled from place to place.
I think I spent a hectic childhood watching my parents rush about whenever we arrived in a big city.
Since we never stayed in one place, I never made anything like a friend.
To begin with, I apparently wasn’t very good at talking to people. Whenever we settled into temporary lodgings, I would spend my days quietly watching the time pass inside our room.
“Surena, you’re such a quiet, well-behaved girl.”
My parents would say things like that to me.
It wasn’t that I felt unloved, but my parents were always busy earning our daily bread. They may have had far less time for me than most parents have for their children.
I vaguely thought I shouldn’t get in my parents’ way. If that made a good impression on them, then I was glad.
As always, from city to city, from country to country.
We carried plenty of goods and hired the bare minimum of guards.
Those days came to an abrupt end.
“We’re under attack! It’s huge!”
I don’t remember very well what happened then.
The carriage suddenly jolted violently, everyone around me began rushing about, and after a little while, shouts and screams rang out.
“Surena! Run!”
The last words I heard from my mother were filled with anguish and despair.
My mother shoved me out of the half-destroyed carriage, sending me flying from it.
Something very big and very frightening.
I couldn’t look at it for long, but its image was seared into my mind. It instilled a purely instinctive fear in me, and I ran about blindly, with nowhere in particular to go.
“Hey, little girl! Are you all right?!”
I had no idea how long I’d been walking.
Looking back, it’s amazing my little body had that much stamina.
After reaching the outskirts of Beden Village, a remote hamlet far from the trade route, a villager found me and took me in.
After that, I seem to have lost consciousness, so I don’t know what happened.
When I came to, it seemed I’d been taken in by someone. I saw an unfamiliar ceiling, and my own body, which had been treated for its injuries.
“Hey, you’re awake?”
“...”
Don’t go with strangers.
I remembered my mother’s words, which she’d repeated to me until I was sick of hearing them.
Even if I’d ended up in this situation by happenstance, I knew even as a child that relying on a stranger was a bad idea. Still, the most I could manage at such a young age was to keep quiet.
“What’s your name?”
“...Surena.”
The person who’d found me patiently put up with me.
After ignoring them again and again, the only thing I could finally manage to say was my own name. It was terribly rude to the person who’d saved my life, but I never felt like telling them what had happened or why I’d been there. I didn’t even want to remember.
Looking back, I’m ashamed of how shameless I was, but I was young at the time, so I suppose it couldn’t be helped.
After that, I spent a while idly passing the time while staying with that family.
Though I was still young, I had a vague sense of what had become of my parents, since they never came to get me. The threat that had attacked them had been terrifying enough for even me to understand right away.
“...What’s this?”
“A wooden sword. How about it? Maybe it’ll take your mind off things.”
I wonder how long I spent that way.
One day, the person who’d taken me in came to invite me along, carrying a wooden sword.
That was when I first learned that he ran a swordsmanship dojo.
“That’s right. Haha, you’ve got a knack for this, Surena.”
“...”
With nothing else to do and having settled down a little, I swung a wooden sword at the dojo as he suggested.
I didn’t particularly like swinging a sword, but I didn’t dislike it, either. More than anything, moving my body like this distracted me a little more than sitting around doing nothing.
He looked after me a great deal back then.
I wanted to repay him, even a little, for his kindness.
So I thought it over, young as I was, and swung my sword.
The young man I’d first met as a stranger had somehow become a kind young man to me.
“You’re quite nimble, Surena. I bet you’d look good with a pair of swords, too.”
“...”
I never got the chance to wield twin swords during the roughly three years I spent at the dojo, but his words stuck with me for some reason.
Looking back, taking the initiative to do something had been a first for me.
When I was with my parents, I’d never had the time for it, and I didn’t want to trouble them by being selfish.
But, somehow...
I really can’t say why, but I began to think that following the path of the sword might be nice.
Perhaps it was revenge, perhaps an escape, perhaps admiration.
My feelings back then have long since grown hazy, but it’s true that a path opened up before me.
“Surena, take care.”
Time passed, and I was placed in the care of my adoptive parents.
Today was the day I was introduced to them.
A man and a woman, both looking kind and a little older, turned their gazes toward me.
Starting today, I was to be more than just Surena. I was to become Surena Lisandera.
Or so I was told.
“Sensei.”
“Hm?”
Since he’d taught me swordsmanship, I decided I shouldn’t call him “young man,” and began calling him Sensei instead.
Everyone called him that, too, so I don’t think it felt strange. For some reason, though, he looked a little conflicted whenever I did.
“Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome.”
I’m sure that was the first time I’d ever thanked him.
After staying in his care for three whole years, it felt a little late to say it, but I meant those words to convey everything I felt.
My new parents were good people.
They neither spoiled me nor disciplined me harshly. I think they let me live freely and happily.
When I said I wanted to become an adventurer, they were surprised, but they didn’t oppose me. They simply wished for my safety, which made me feel strangely bashful.
There were several reasons I wanted to become an adventurer.
One was that, since my parents had traveled the world for work, I wanted to see it with my own eyes and walk it on my own feet.
Another was that I wanted to put to use the swordsmanship I’d learned from the young man, even if it had only been for three short years.
Another was that I vaguely wanted to become stronger.
And another was that, if possible, I wanted to save people going through what I had gone through.
Every one of those reasons could easily have been dismissed as a child’s dream.
But my parents didn’t oppose me.
So I became an adventurer for the sake of my own desires.
As I trained and took on quests as an adventurer, I gradually began to understand how amazing the young man really was.
At the same time, the confidence I gained from having received instruction from someone like him pushed me toward ever greater heights.
“Huh... ah... Beryl... Sensei...?”
It was a shock. I was utterly stunned.
After becoming an adventurer, I kept at it steadily through hardship and setbacks, and before I knew it, I’d climbed all the way to Black Rank, the highest rank.
I think I’d made it this far thanks entirely to my own hard work and to my parents, who’d given me a body suited for it. But I never forgot the young man who’d been the beginning of it all.
When I met him again after nearly twenty years, he had a lot more wrinkles.
But his kind nature was still there, plain to see at a glance.
“I wanted to come tell you, but after I started working as an adventurer, I could never find the opportunity... This reunion was entirely unexpected.”
The words I said to Sensei, after somehow managing to make him remember me, were half true and half a lie.
If I’d wanted to see him, I could have.
My quests certainly kept me busy, but once I reached Platinum Rank, I had money to spare. Hiring a carriage to Beden Village would have been no trouble at all.
How do I put it? Well, you know, it can be embarrassing to visit someone after so long.
That must have been it. I’m sure of it.
Finding out that he was with Citrus of all people was completely beyond anything I’d expected. What was that about being a Special Instructor? That wasn’t fair. I wanted him to teach me again, too.
But I was already the highest-ranked adventurer. I was no longer in a position to ask others to teach me. If anything, I spent far more time teaching others.
Lately, the Specially Designated Subjugation Targets (Named) had been acting strangely, and while I was thinking about that, the rookie training was coming up...
That’s right. The rookie training.
Naturally, that meant we needed a supervisor.
And a truly skilled one, at that.
This was it.
“Actually, I’d like to borrow Sensei from the Adventurers’ Guild for a little while. I came to ask permission. I have a letter from the Guildmaster, too.”
I made a hard sell to Guildmaster Nidas and managed to get him to agree.
If this worked, Sensei and I could go together, and I’d get to see his skills for myself. How about that, Citrus? Bet you didn’t see that coming.
...It wasn’t that I disliked Citrus personally. I thought he was a fine person.
It was just that the memory of being attacked by monsters on the trade route had made me distrust the Knights as an organization.
“Drop dead, you bastard!”
“Goooooaaaar!!”
Sensei’s sword pierced Zeno Grayble’s mouth.
――As expected. How many adventurers could possibly keep up with that speed? Sensei had tracked Zeno Grayble with ease, despite the monster moving at a speed unimaginable for something so huge.
I never expected to run into a Specially Designated Subjugation Target here, but the monster was unlucky. It had appeared when I—and Sensei, of all people—were here.
“――You sure caused quite a mess, you bastard.”
Still, I should be grateful.
I got to fight alongside Sensei like this, after all.
As thanks, I’ll kill you quickly. Rest in peace.
“Would you be interested in becoming an adventurer?”
“No, thank you.”
We’d returned to the Adventurers’ Guild after everything was over.
I desperately held back a laugh at the exchange between Nidas and Sensei there.
There was no way Sensei could be confined to the narrow role of an ordinary adventurer.
If anything, it was strange enough that Sensei had ended up with the incomprehensible position of Special Instructor for the Knights. Couldn’t you have found him a better position, Citrus?
I stole a discreet glance at Sensei’s profile as he turned down the offer.
His usual kind, gentle expression was there.
If Sensei kept achieving things like this, then one day, swordsmen across the country—no, across the whole world—would recognize him.
Along with the title of Sword Saint.