Chapter 101
Kaeha listened to me talk, occasionally nodding along.
Somehow, I'd been away from this dojo for more than ten years, so I had plenty to tell her.
I helped my dwarf master forge mithril, securing his appointment as the next king, and then traveled to the Fordl Empire to fight vampires.
I also delivered the finishing blow to the emperor after he had turned into a ghoul, then returned to the dwarven nation and finally made trade with the elves a reality.
Besides that, I had brawled bare-handed with dwarves, discovered hot springs, and fought monsters in volcanic regions, so I truly never ran out of things to talk about.
...Well, an ordinary person probably wouldn't believe a story like this, no matter what.
But Kaeha was one of the few people who never doubted anything I told her.
She laughed, looked exasperated, and occasionally got angry, but she kept listening to my stories.
Even after the tea had gone cold, our conversation didn't end, and I asked for several refills because my throat kept getting dry.
How long had I gone on talking?
There would be no end if I went into detail, but after I'd told her the general outline,
"Eisa, if I take my eyes off you for even a moment, you're doing something outrageous. You're just like a hero in a story. ...No, I suppose you've been like that since long ago, even when I wasn't looking."
Kaeha said that and smiled, narrowing her eyes.
A little, maybe?
Well, ten years was by no means an overly long time for me, but for Kaeha, who was human, it must have been a sufficiently long time.
"There are several things I'm curious about. For one, the hot-spring pond said to be in the east, where the Yosogi School came from, was so close to here. And then there's the fact that you decided to learn how to fight with a sword."
Ah, so there really had been hot springs in the east.
As for the sword, I wanted to learn from Kaeha all over again how to fight with a sword, this time as a swordsman.
Even if Shizuki had become head of the Yosogi School, Kaeha was still my teacher.
"But right now, the thing Eisa is most concerned about is Win. So let's start there and ask you point-blank: Do you want your child to surpass you now?"
Kaeha looked me straight in the eye and asked.
It was a truly difficult question.
There were so many answers within me that I couldn't settle on just one.
The joy of seeing him grow, and pride in him, were certainly there.
That wasn't a lie.
There was also a fear that, once I acknowledged his growth, Win would leave the nest and go somewhere.
The weakness that made me feel lonely and pained by that.
And, though it was terribly late in the game, now that Win's departure was near and I'd seen how much he had grown, I inexplicably felt that I didn't want to lose to him so easily.
In short, my heart was a complete mess.
Yet even as I bared my inner feelings, unable to settle on an answer and at a loss, Kaeha smiled happily.
"What a coincidence. I passed the headship on to Shizuki, too, but while I'm happy to see that child grow, as a swordswoman I still don't want to lose to him. I still believe I haven't lost."
She said with a laugh that we were alike.
No, were we really alike...?
My feelings seemed much more pathetic than hers. Or were they?
"Eisa, feeling lonely when your child becomes independent is only natural. Shizuki inherited the dojo and remains here, but Mizuha became an adventurer, went to the house you gave her, found a partner there, and had a child."
Kaeha said that it was both lonely and happy, and that was why we were alike.
Maybe she was only saying that to comfort me, but her words made me feel a little lighter.
I realized that I wasn't the only one with a tangled mess of feelings inside, and that contradictory emotions could be reconciled and live side by side.
After that, Kaeha closed her eyes and fell silent, as if thinking something over.
I simply waited.
It might have been ten minutes.
Kaeha remained that way, but suddenly opened her eyes with a snap.
"Then shall we have a match? I'll face Shizuki, and Eisa will face Win—a battle to acknowledge our children's growth while showing them that, even so, they still can't surpass us that easily."
She suddenly proposed it.
How had we gotten onto this?
I could understand a match between Win and me, but Kaeha and Shizuki were going to compete too?
Seeing my confusion, Kaeha stood up.
"For the next three years, I'll train Eisa, and I'll have Shizuki train Win. After that, settle things in a match."
She picked up the sword lying beside her.
That was the sword I'd reforged before.
"Even if Win is going to become independent, you'd feel safer if he honed his swordsmanship a little more first, wouldn't you?"
At Kaeha's words, I nodded.
It was true... though that was only my subjective impression, Win did seem a little hasty.
Even if it was only for three years, having Shizuki, now head of the Yosogi School, train Win would be a tremendous help.
Of course, since Kaeha would be training me herself, I couldn't afford an easy defeat either.
If I took the time to give it my all, I'd be able to accept the result, whatever it was.
How Kaeha, Shizuki, and Win felt about it was, naturally, up to them.
Still, I felt that it probably wouldn't end badly.