Awakening

Telesia was shouting beside Rodan.

“Y-You? This can’t be! R-Rodan, nooooo!!!”

Rodan had been brought home covered in blood on a makeshift stretcher made from poles and cloth. Telesia rushed to his side. Rodan lay motionless with his eyes closed. She screamed and sobbed, begging him to open his eyes and wake up. But Rodan didn’t stir.

“It’s all right, Telesia. We used medicinal herbs.”

“Huh? No, that can’t be…!”

Telesia looked at Gerda as if to ask why he was offering such empty reassurance. Rodan’s clothes were soaked black with blood, and his injuries hardly looked survivable.

“It’s true. We used a Mylase flower.”

“What? Huh? No, there’s no way we could afford something like that…”

It seemed to be medicine far beyond a serf’s means. As Gerda kept assuring her that it was true, they carefully carried the unconscious Rodan inside. They laid him in the bedroom he shared with Telesia. About twenty men had brought him home. It seemed they were all the serfs who had taken part in the hunt.

“Hey, Bess and Bodro, sorry, but go fetch some water.”

“Yes, sir.”

In Telesia’s place, Gerda began giving orders. Apparently, they needed to heat some water. Allen went into the living room and started a fire.

(How did this happen?)

He had no idea what was going on, but he did what he could.

“You can all go get your share of the meat now. We’ll be fine here.”

“What?!”

The men cried out, as if to ask why Gerda would say that. The commotion woke Mash, who began crying in fright. A crowd of strange men had suddenly filled the house. Telesia hugged him, trying to calm him down.

“You understand, right? Having this many people here is actually a nuisance. I’ll take care of things from here, so go home.”

“All right.”

“And one more thing. You know what I mean, but don’t do anything rash.”

“What?! This happened because of those damn commoners, didn’t it? Gerda-san, you think so too, right?! Let’s all teach them a lesson!!!”

Bess, who had gone to fetch water, shouted in disbelief. The others joined in, breathing hard with anger. Outside, the spears leaning against the wall gleamed ominously in the bonfire’s light. Mash was startled again and burst into loud tears.

“Bess, I’m handling this. So take your meat and go home. Answer me. Understood?”

“I-I understand…”

Gerda’s words were low and forceful. His anger was different from Bess’s, but it was there all the same. Overwhelmed, Bess and the other men answered him.

The men apologized for the trouble and headed back the way they had come. In the end, everyone except Gerda went home.

Telesia and Gerda stripped off Rodan’s blood-soaked clothes.

“?!”

Telesia was shaken by the wound on Rodan’s stomach. It looked as if he had once suffered a terrible injury and someone had forcibly welded his torn abdomen back together.

“I told you—the Mylase flower really worked. We were incredibly lucky the apothecary happened to have one.”

As he spoke, Gerda helped clean Rodan’s body with rags wrung out in warm water. Telesia had calmed down a little and noticed that Rodan’s chest was rising and falling faintly as he breathed.

“But why did you have such a precious medicinal herb?”

“…The knights gave me some gold coins when they came the other day. Good thing I saved a little.”

Allen had finally gotten Mash, who had cried himself to sleep, settled in the children’s room. After laying him on his bedding, Allen came to ask them about it.

“What happened? Did a commoner really do this?”

Telesia and Gerda were surprised by Allen’s manner. He wasn’t usually a child who spoke like that. His eyes burned with anger at the thought of someone doing this to his beloved father. Telesia looked at Gerda, too. She wanted to know how this had happened.

“It’s a long story. Sorry, but get me some water.”

Allen drew water from the jar and poured it into a wooden cup for him. Gerda must have been parched, because he drained it in one go.

“The Village Chief had been asking us for a few years now to let commoners join the boar hunts.”

The hunts had always been carried out by about twenty serfs. The commoners, on the other hand, hadn’t been happy about that. The reward for a boar hunt was a slab of meat—a hefty one, weighing as much as ten kilograms. Those who carried it from the place where the boar was killed and helped butcher it also received meat as a reward, about a third as much. Around fifty people took part in the butchering, and they were serfs, too.

The serfs killed the boars, butchered them, and ate their meat. The only way any reached the commoners was through trades for essentials like firewood and salt. Even then, they got only a little. If they wanted more, they had to buy most of the remaining meat from the Village Chief. But Rank C meat wasn’t something commoners could casually afford. Most of it was processed and sent to the city where the lord lived.

“That’s why the commoners want boar meat. The Village Chief wanted to get them involved in the hunts, too, but no one volunteered.”

The Village Chief wanted them to go, and the commoners wanted the meat, but they couldn’t bring themselves to join. Going on a hunt meant fighting magic beasts. It wasn’t as if the serfs took them down without fear, either. In fact, several people had died over the past ten years. Even so, they kept hunting.

He didn’t say why they took part in such dangerous hunts. The reason was right in front of them: their families.

“Then why did the commoners join this time?”

Allen asked.

“…Maybe because a hero emerged among the serfs.”

A Sword Saint had appeared among the serfs. And when the Knight Commander praised someone in front of the village’s influential people, it wasn’t the Village Chief or any of the notables at the banquet. The person he praised—even quoting the lord—was Rodan. After the banquet, the story had spread all over the village.

“The Village Chief called Rodan and me in at the beginning of this month. He said there were about five young men who wanted to go, and told us to take them along. It was pretty much an order.”

They’d trained because it was the Village Chief’s command. That had been about ten days ago. They gathered everyone together a few times to practice how to take down a boar. The young commoners were reluctant to join a group led by a serf, and their attitude wasn’t very good. Even so, Rodan patiently trained them.

Then today, the day of the hunt, arrived. They followed the plan and did everything as they’d practiced.

Allen had asked Rodan about hunting Great Boars many times. The method was simple: lure one out, surround it, then use spears to bring it down together.

“It takes experience to lure one out and land the finishing blow while it’s thrashing around. So we made the commoners take the wall position.”

They’d given them the easiest job. But they’d failed. The men assigned to hold the line froze when they saw the magic beast in front of them. The line broke, and the hunt turned into a chaotic melee with the boar.

“Rodan was gored in the stomach by the horn on the boar’s snout. And that’s how we ended up here.”

In the end, there was no plan left to speak of. They did manage to kill the boar, but Rodan was badly injured.

Saying that was all he had to tell them, Gerda headed home as well. His wife and daughters were waiting anxiously for him.

After Gerda left, the house fell quiet. Telesia held Rodan’s hand, though he still hadn’t opened his eyes. She told Allen to go to bed, and he did.

The next morning, while Allen and Telesia were both awake, Gerda came by carrying a large piece of meat. He told them it was Rodan’s share. Looking at it, they realized all over again how much Rodan had risked his life. Telesia sank to her knees on the earthen floor and broke down crying.

“Has Rodan still not woken up?”

Avoiding any mention of Telesia’s tears, Gerda filled the empty water jar for her.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get through the winter. You just focus on having the baby.”

Gerda promised to see them through the cold winter and told Telesia to have the baby without worry.

“Oh, th-thank you…”

Just then…

“W-Where am I?”

Rodan woke up. He looked completely disoriented, as if he didn’t know where he was.

“R-Rodan!”

Telesia threw her arms around Rodan. He groaned, apparently because his wound hadn’t fully healed yet. Mash clung to him, too, shouting, “Papa! Papa!”

The three of them held one another and cried.

Allen watched the three of them embrace.

(W-What have I been doing?)

Allen thought about it. Honestly, he hadn’t cared about being born a serf. Serf was the only option available, so he’d become one. He wouldn’t have minded being a prince or a traveler, either. Anything would have been fine. Back when he was Kenichi, he’d played all kinds of games. He’d been playing games since he was seven or eight, and not once had he chosen a game based on who the protagonist’s parents were. It didn’t affect how he enjoyed the game afterward.

But he had been born to Rodan and Telesia, who were fighting tooth and nail to survive as serfs. He had a younger brother, and a new life was growing inside Telesia. He realized that there was something he needed to do in this world.

He felt something awaken within him. At six years old, it was as if he had finally been truly reincarnated—as if he were standing on his own two feet in this other world for the first time.

“Oh, you’re awake, Rodan.”

Gerda said this as he looked at Rodan, who still seemed to be in some pain.

“Gerda? Was I still alive?”

“Yeah, you got lucky. You feeling all right?”

“Yeah.”

Rodan tried to stand, but a sharp pain shot through his stomach, and he sat back down on the bedding. It seemed his wound still hadn’t completely healed.

“Can’t be helped. We’ll handle the boar hunts, so don’t worry. And I’ll look after your family through the winter, so you’d better get better by then.”

His longtime friend offered him some rough but reassuring words.

“I-I see. Thanks.”

“No, Dad.”

“Hm? Dad?”

Rodan’s attention was drawn to the unfamiliar word. Something about Allen seemed different. Telesia looked at him, too, as if to ask what was wrong.

“Leave the house to me. Take it easy and focus on getting better.”

“Huh? Oh, I appreciate that, but do what Gerda says…”

Rodan couldn’t finish his sentence. There was such resolve in Allen’s eyes.

“I’ll protect this family, no matter what.”

It happened at the end of autumn, the year Allen turned six. From that moment on, Allen began to take an active role in the village in earnest. This was the day Allen awakened.