172 The Grave of a Nameless Man

 

「Are you sure this is the right place for the grave? He didn’t have any ties here.」

「I heard he was born far to the east, but he said his hometown was burned down in the war. I doubt he had any attachments left.」

「So, a classic case of having no one and nothing. But seriously, who was Meister-san, anyway?」

He had no known relatives, no one to claim the body. I never even knew his real name. Didn’t know where he was from, either. And in the end, we were enemies. But still—none of that changes the fact that I owe who I am today to him. I owe him more than I can say.

That’s why, right after the incident in Fathie, I pulled some strings to retrieve his body.

「It’s hard to say who he really was. He’d lost everything, and still he kept striving, learning, pushing forward more than anyone I knew…」

He collapsed from illness, met me, got back on his feet—and died fighting me. That’s about all I could say as I stood before his grave.

Honestly, I didn’t even feel like I won. If I traced the thread of fate, the turning point in that fight was when Altora—pushed by him—refused to throw away his pride. That misread sealed my master’s defeat and let me live. And once he realized he’d lost, my master returned everything to me—knowing full well it would cost him his life.

I was saved by someone I shouldn’t have relied on. I won by wringing victory out of a man who’d already lost everything.

I wasn’t detached enough to call that a true victory.

「If I’d had more time to talk with him… Then again, maybe the outcome would’ve been the same.」

I’ll never know what goal he had in mind when he climbed his way back up from nothing. But judging from how he was back when we first met, I doubt it was some grand tragic ambition.

He was born with two legs like any man, and so he walked forward—aiming higher.

And he kept walking until those legs gave out. That’s all he did. And maybe that’s why he was so remarkable. If our paths had crossed another way, we probably still would’ve fought.

「Well, he was still the enemy. But I hope he’s grateful we gave him a proper burial.」

「No doubt about that.」

We’d been so busy with postwar cleanup and farming that we hadn’t even had time to carve a gravestone. But now, at last, we could put a close on the battle of Fathie.

On the way down the mountain, just before reaching the village entrance, I was met by a pair of rice-colored ears and matching hair.

「Shizuku? You were waiting for me?」

「Is it over now?」

「Yeah. Thanks for convincing everyone to let me bury my master near the village. He should be able to rest peacefully now.」

「No matter how it ended, he was still a benefactor to the king. That helped. Also, we Werewolves aren’t really the type to fuss over graves.」

「Wait, really? Now that you mention it, Gelli doesn’t think she’s ever seen one.」

「Werewolves are supposed to die on the battlefield. The flag we plant there becomes our gravestone. Even after we started living in hiding, a lot of us still hoped to meet our end in battle—like inside the Farthest Ends of the Blue.」

「Y’all are straight-up warriors to the core…」

Shizuku had been waiting to bring news—Bellman had returned. Apparently, they’d finally made progress in treating the central government’s drug dependency and he’d come back to report.

When I got back to the king’s estate, Bellman’s squad was assembled along with Koe-san, Asagi, and the other key figures. The report Bellman brought detailed the situation in the capital—mostly good news.

「Looks like things are going well, Bellman.」

「But of course! I hear you gained great glory beyond the mountains, Marge-dono, but we’ve been no slouches on the domestic front either! Isn’t that right, Asagi-dono!」

「Boasting again, are we… Everything we accomplished was thanks to Marge-dono, after all.」

Asagi looked exasperated, but there was no denying their achievements were impressive. The rebuilding and reform of the kingdom were well underway.

「I’m counting on you. Are you lacking anything for the work in the capital?」

「Not at all. Duke Abik’s banner flies over the royal capital now. It’s not easy work, but there’s no reason for us to feel lacking or anxious. Even the knight orders no longer pose a threat.」

「The knight orders… What’s going to happen to them, in the end?」

「They’ve lost both power and appeal. They’ll fade into irrelevance—kept alive just to absorb the last grumblings of the anti-demi-human faction.」

「I see. If the demi-human hunts end, then I’m all for it.」

「Duke Abik now holds command of the national army, after all. The knight orders are powerless! Ha-ha-ha!」

One scholar once said that in any age or nation, true power belongs to the one who commands the military. And right now, that man was Duke Abik.

The kingdom’s nobility was heavily corrupted by drugs, and the knight orders had even violated national borders under the pretext of demi-human purges. Amid that mess, news of an attack by the Narshe military sent the capital into chaos—on the verge of collapse without a single battle fought.

The border guards had held firm, but the nobles in charge had failed to function, leaving them leaderless. Just as the defensive line was about to fall, the elite Abik army arrived at the border in time to win the first engagement—a forced march from one end of the kingdom to the other.

About a month had passed since. While minor skirmishes continued, no major battles occurred. According to some sources, the Narshe military was stuck due to internal discord within its own government.

But a standing army bleeds a nation dry. At this rate, the Narshe forces—unable to act—would soon run out of funds and withdraw without ever really fighting.

The chaos began when a certain minister suddenly reversed course on government policy, but the reasons remained unclear. Some say the Elves were behind it, others deny it.

「While Narshe hesitates, Duke Abik is seizing the opportunity. Government and military functions are steadily recovering. The royal family—having grown fat off their vested interests—are now scrambling to reclaim their lost authority…」

Bellman chuckled darkly.

「But it’s too late! The royal capital belongs to Duke Abik now! And with the cure for addiction in our hands, no one can oppose him!」

「You’ve done a great job. Truly.」

Alongside the military, the recovery of the drug-addled government was another critical task. The medicine used by the Elves was incredibly potent. Even with intel bought from Remonde and Angelina’s expertise, we expected the cure to take a long time.

But the one to overturn that expectation came from even farther west than Fathie.

「Can I continue to rely on you for treatment, Apothecary Mello Brandy?」

「Of course! I’ll see it through, no matter what.」

「…You’ve really changed. You’re not the same person who left the village.」

「Heh-heh-heh! I look a little smarter now, don’t I?」

Formerly a scout in Bellman’s unit, Mello Brandy was the one who originally held the [Stealth Action] skill that evolved into my [Idle Shadow].

But she was no longer just a scout.

Now she was a rising-star apothecary, trained in the scholar’s city far to the west.