Chapter 48
While stealing sips from the captain's drink on the table.
“So….”
“Ah, yeees….”
Apparently unable to bring myself to interrupt Huey's increasingly long-winded explanation,
I looked over at Ms. Marie, who stood there with a troubled expression and cold sweat beading on her face.
“That reminds me, Ren.”
“Huh?”
As we took a brief break, Lucy cautiously called out to me in a small voice.
“What are you two to each other?”
“Me and Ms. Marie?”
“Yes. I think this is the first time I've seen you use honorifics for someone else.”
…Come to think of it, I really don't use honorifics for anyone but Ms. Marie.
“It just happened that way.”
In the first place, it wasn't for any particularly important reason.
It wasn't something I particularly wanted to tell other people.
“It’s simply more comfortable to call her that now.”
“…Is that all?”
Apparently dissatisfied with my answer,
Lucy looked at me with a disappointed expression.
“Yep. That's all. If you try to learn more, you'll get hurt.”
I snickered at Lucy,
making it clear that I had no intention of answering her.
“It would be best to give up. This guy won't tell you even if he dies.”
Apparently having opened his eyes at some point,
the captain spoke with a nasty grin.
“What, you're awake already?”
“How am I supposed to sleep with you yapping beside me? Hand over the drink.”
After roughly snatching away the cup I had been sipping from with both wings,
the captain, who was about to toss it into his mouth without even looking at the contents,
“Huh?”
“You drank it all.”
He shook the cup and glared at me as though he couldn't believe it was already empty.
“What are you going to do, glare at me?”
“…Damn.”
The one at fault was the guy who'd snored away without even touching the drink I'd brought him.
I was shrugging and scoffing when it happened.
-Wham!
“Peep―!?”
A powerful impact suddenly struck my head.
I turned around, clutching the crown of my head with a wing, the pain making tears spring to my eyes.
“That's what you get, punk.”
The captain stood there with his fist raised, looking at me with a thoroughly satisfied expression.
“When did you…?”
Despite having watched the captain sitting across the table, Lucy seemed genuinely surprised that she'd missed his movement.
She widened her eyes and murmured.
“What happened!?”
“Peep, peep… pfft.”
Apparently my scream had interrupted Huey's explanation.
Ms. Marie approached, laughing at the sight of Huey looking startled and me clutching my head, and asked what had happened.
“Nothing to worry about. I’m just correcting our little brat’s bad habits.”
“Who are you calling a little brat… Ow, that hurts.”
In response to the questions from Huey and the other two,
the captain tapped my head, which I had wrapped in my wings, and
“See what happens when you act up, fool.”
began openly mocking me.
“…Just wait until I get my body back.”
“Please do. I’m having a hell of a time too.”
After glaring at the captain as he needled me from beside me,
“So, are you done with your story?”
“Not yet.”
Huey said regretfully that he still had more to say,
but when I saw the color drain from Ms. Marie's face behind him, I decided it was about time to make him stop.
“Ms. Marie. The red horn Huey’s holding? We got it from a mutated ogre guarding an altar we found in the forest over there.”
“…Oh!”
Perhaps Huey's story had been that boring.
Ms. Marie approached with a beaming smile.
“I figured it would be best to have it investigated, so I brought it.”
“Yeah! I’ll have the guild people investigate it! Thanks!”
Immediately afterward, I watched Ms. Marie practically wrest the red horn from Huey's arms and run away.
“…Am I perhaps bad at explaining things?”
“You’re only realizing that now?”
“It’s not just that you’re bad at it—you’re at the point where you simply shouldn’t explain things, Master.”
Huey muttered blankly, looking stunned.
At least he knows now, I suppose.
“Lucy’s right. You’d better just not explain things.”
“Honestly, whenever a subject he knows comes up, he gets needlessly long-winded.”
As Lucy and I continued berating the dejected Huey,
“…Unexpected.”
the captain's surprised voice came from behind us.
“Huh?”
“No. I never thought I’d see you get this close to someone else so quickly.”
…Huh.
“I didn't think Ren was so unapproachable….”
“Exactly. He's a little prickly, but isn't he friendly?”
Come to think of it, the old me definitely was….
“No, no. You two don’t know him well, but this guy used to be—”
“Captain. Shut up.”
After glaring at the captain, who was about to say something useless,
“…Sorry. I’m going outside to clear my head for a moment.”
Holding my head, which had started throbbing a little while ago,
I headed outside, ignoring the voices of the three people calling after me.
…….
Apparently,
far more than I realized,
the person I am now
has changed in many ways compared with who I was in the past.
* *
After Ren left the guild building,
“Oh dear. He really had no idea.”
Violette stared blankly after him, then clutched her forehead.
Seeing Violette like that, Huey and Luciela voiced their confusion.
“What’s wrong?”
“What on earth was Ren like before…?”
At their questions, Violette sighed deeply and began speaking.
“It’s only because he’s improved so much over the past few years. He used to draw his sword just because someone spoke to him, I’m telling you.”
It got so bad that I even had to make manuals and hand them to people who specifically requested Ren.
Violette pulled a small notebook from inside her coat and handed it to Huey.
“…The Proper Way to Handle Ren?”
“Back then, we’d even have clients sign a contract absolving us of responsibility if they ended up chopped in half for failing to follow it.”
At Violette's words,
Huey and Luciela quietly opened the notebook and skimmed through its contents.
“Do not speak to him while his eyes are closed. High probability he’ll reach for his sword.”
“Do not approach from behind while suppressing your presence. He’ll faint.”
“Do not suddenly make a loud noise. He may wet himself from killing intent.”
“Don’t even think of touching him. Death.”
There were enough other rules to fill a small notebook.
The contents described things they could never have imagined from the Ren they had seen until now.
“You’re not joking? This is real?”
“People actually commission him even with something like this…?”
Huey and Luciela looked at Violette incredulously, but
“What kind of person would make something like that and carry it around if they were just joking?”
Violette, for her part, said she wished it were a joke too.
“What’s even more surprising is that requests specifically naming Ren never stopped coming in, even though contracts like that were necessary.”
“Why on earth…?”
As Huey questioned this incomprehensible fact,
Violette began speaking with a sly smile.
“Do you know what that guy is called among people who know him?”
At Violette's question,
Huey and Luciela recalled all the stories in which Ren had boasted about himself, but
“…No.”
“Come to think of it, he’s never said anything like that.”
Aside from stories about what he could do,
they realized that Ren had never once talked about his past as a mercenary.
“It’s a title he absolutely hates himself because he says it feels like he’s following in someone else’s footsteps.”
Then, with a serious expression, Violette told them:
“The Second Sword Saint.”
Long ago, in the stories of the first hero and his companions,
there was a swordsman who severed the right arm of a wicked god known as the Demon God.
The Sword Saint, Cardros van Nuada.
A swordsman whose strength and courage so impressed Aldebaran, the god of courage, that he specially granted him a surname.
He is called that as Cardros's reincarnation.
“Well, no one calls him that openly, since he gets furious and says he’ll split their mouths open if they call him Sword Saint.”
Violette added that she'd had a hard time restraining Ren ever since he acquired the title.
“Anyway, be careful. He’ll get extremely angry if you call him Sword Saint.”
If you call him that while he can't even hold a sword in his current state, he'll surely come at you intent on killing you, she said.
Violette delivered the warning to Huey and Luciela with a grave expression.
“Sword Saint….”
“I thought he was just putting on airs, but he’s surprisingly an incredible person.”
As they mulled over Violette's story, neither Huey nor Luciela could hide their surprise.
“Anyway, that’s how it is.”
Looking quietly toward the direction Ren had left,
Violette smiled bitterly.
“Are you sure it’s okay to tell us this?”
Perhaps recalling the way Ren had glared at Violette with a murderous tone just before storming out,
Huey looked at Violette worriedly.
“He looked like he didn’t like it.”
“Oh, that?”
At Huey's concern, Violette smiled brightly and said it was fine.
“If he really hated it, he wouldn’t have bothered saying anything—he’d have attacked me. Besides, whether he likes it or not is none of my concern.”
Watching Violette add that if he took issue with it, he could stop her by force,
“Ah, ahaha.”
“…You two are rather alike in some ways.”
Huey laughed awkwardly, while Luciela muttered incredulously.
“He’ll be back to his usual expression after a little while anyway. In the meantime, relax and get some rest.”
After telling Huey and Luciela to rest comfortably,
Violette rose from her seat.
“Whoa, where did all those storm clouds come from so quickly?”
As she looked at the sky outside the window, now filled with dark clouds,
she quietly muttered.
“Is it going to rain…?”
The sky looked unusually ominous today.