Chapter 9: Leaving the Nest

The afternoon passed in a vaguely restless, fidgety atmosphere.

Walter closed the clinic a little earlier than usual and gathered the three family members in the living room.

The topic, of course, was about the matter of the squire.

“Abel. Today, I want to tell you about my father and my origins…”

Walter was a naturally cheerful man. He wasn’t one to wear a gloomy face.

Abel thought of him as the complete opposite of himself.

But now, Walter wore an unusually grave expression.

“You might be surprised, but the truth is… my father is none other than Count Barth Highwand. In other words, the Count is your grandfather, Abel. Well… not that you should ever think of him as family….he never acknowledged me.”

It was an incredibly blunt confession.

Abel was left speechless with his mouth hanging open.

Wait… wasn’t the count just his employer…?

“Why is the Count my father, you ask… My mother used to clean the stables at the Count’s mansion. She came from a farming background, the sixth or seventh daughter, I think. With too many mouths to feed, she went off to earn money and ended up as a maid at the Count’s house.”

“Apparently, the Count had this habit of getting very lustful after hunting trips. And one day, by chance, there happened to be a young woman with smooth skin in the stables. She was of extremely low status, but… it was just youthful recklessness, I guess.”

“And so he got my mother pregnant. Normally, a nobleman with a shred of decency would provide her with a place to live and some work, which meant basically he should keep her as a mistress. It’s not an unusual story… But Count Highwand didn’t do that.”

“At the time, the Count was already married and had children. An affair was bad enough, but the woman was just a stable cleaner. She was far too lowborn. Or so he claimed. That’s the nobleman’s excuse. Disgusting. Makes me sick.”

As Walter spoke of his origins, he seemed to grow truly angry.

He clenched his fists and started trembling with fury.

“At first, the Count ignored my mother when she told him she was pregnant. But, of course, her belly started to show. She became an eyesore. If his highborn wife were to find out, it would be a huge scandal.

“So, the Count decided to pay her off and cut all ties.

“He supposedly gave her several hundred silver coins. I don’t know the details. My mother never told me exactly.”

“Anyway, my mother used the money she’d received as capital to start a small shop. I grew up in that shop. I didn’t have a father, but I wouldn’t call it an unhappy childhood. In fact, it was pretty fun.”

“I was eight when it happened. I’d always had some magic in me, so I’d managed to pick up basic spells on my own. But then, I discovered I also had a gift for healing magic.”

“That’s when my mother wrote a letter to the Count herself, in clumsy handwriting. She did it on her own. Given the nature of the letter, she couldn’t exactly ask someone else to write it for her.”

Walter took an uncharacteristic swig of wine.

Normally, Walter hardly drank at all. He said it was because if he ever got badly drunk, he wouldn’t be able to respond to an emergency patient.

“The Count sent a messenger to me right away. He’d been told I looked like him, and so he decided to meet me. In other words, the Count saw a use for me.”

“Abel, listen carefully. This is important.”

“In the fifth rank of healing magic, there is a spell called Life Extraction. Among healers, it’s considered forbidden. Why? Because it only works with exceptional effect on blood relatives, but in exchange, it consumes the caster’s own life.”

“The first time you use it, you’ll just feel tired.”

“But the second time… even a young man will end up like an old one. It is a terrifying magic.”

Abel was starting to put the pieces together.

“Nobles are cruel people. They talk about serving the Emperor and the nation, but in the end, it’s all about their own gain.”

“To them, commoners are nothing but livestock.”

“I was chosen to be the expendable piece when the Count or his heir was gravely wounded in war or political intrigue… as a wielder of Life Extraction.”

“When I first met the Count, I didn’t realize it.”

“Incredibly, there was a shadow of hatred in Walter’s expression.”

The man at Abel’s core couldn’t help but feel a sens of deep, bitter kinship with Walter.

—Walter… is he just like me?

Someone who hates his parents so much he can hardly stand it?

“Father… do you hate your father?”

“Well, yes. Not so much now, but back then, I wanted to punch him in the face.”

“…If you hit him, and it killed him, would you regret it?”

“Ugh. That’s a tough question. Let’s see… I’d like to think I never went so far as murder. I suppose I would regret it.”

Abel nodded. So it was only that level of hatred.

If you truly, utterly hated someone, you wouldn’t regret killing them afterward.

If anything, you’d feel lighter.

It would settle in your heart as just one correct answer.

“Ah, I got sidetracked. Anyway, I entered the Highwand Knights under the pretense of being a distant relative of the Count’s family, serving as a squire. I worked hard for the knights, so I earned a decent evaluation, but I took plenty of bullying from the Count’s eldest son and his relatives. They said I was nothing more than the illegitimate child of a lowborn mistress.’

‘But that didn’t matter to me. I am who I am. I enjoyed the work, I honed my skills, and I made friends. Before long, I’d fully settled into the knights.’

“Then it happened. The fool of an eldest son let slip while drunk that I was the Count’s illegitimate child. The next day, half the castle was staring at me like I was some strange creature. Just when I’d finally started to feel comfortable there, the whole atmosphere turned sour…”

Walter took another drink.

His face was starting to turn red.

“I was seventeen at the time. The war with the Kingdom of True King was only growing fiercer, and the Highwand Knights were finally ordered to march to the Central Plains.”

“I was placed directly under the eldest son’s command. War is a rotten thing…you end up killing people you have no grudge against.”

“The first time I killed someone in battle, I thought hard about my life. Sure, I earned honor for it, but it made me wonder if fighting to the death was really worth it.”

Sensing Walter’s condition, Ayla handed him a wooden cup filled with water.

He drained it in one go.

“And then… that damned day I don’t even want to remember came. In the middle of the war, the fool eldest son screwed up. Trying too hard for glory, he walked right into the enemy’s trap and was badly wounded. The Count was absent at the time. The fool ordered me to use Life Extraction on him.”

“Now hold on a second….his injury was serious enough, sure, but not life-threatening. With time, normal treatment would’ve been more than enough.”

“But he insisted on magic. I refused. And then he called me a traitor. Said I was nothing but a dog kept for that very purpose, and now I was disobeying my master.”

“He hated me; that much was clear. So I decided to leave the Count’s household. I left a letter of resignation for the knights and ran off.”

“Father, but now you’re under the Count again, aren’t you?”

“Well, I’ll explain in order. I quit the knights, or rather fled and became an adventurer for the time being.”

“I’d made some ransom money during the war, so I had a decent amount of coin. I figured I’d be fine. The first place I went was the non-human lands.”

“Turns out beastkin and non-humans aren’t the sort to attack indiscriminately. Some of them are decent folks… I traveled here and there, switching companions now and then, enjoying the wandering life.”

“When you’re a fifth-rank healer, you’re welcome almost anywhere. And since I hate doing anything cruel, I made it a point to find good people and join their group.”

“And then, one day—”

“I met Ayla while I was making a living hunting, selling herbs, and guiding people in the Ararat Mountains. She joined our group, and we started traveling together… and, well, before I knew it, we ended up together.”

Abel listened with interest to the story of how Walter and Ayla first met.

He had a feeling that when you go adventuring together, you either grow very close or end up completely hating each other. There was no in-between.

“So then Ayla got pregnant, and we had to decide whether to keep adventuring or not. If we were going to settle down, we also had to choose between the Empire and the Kingdom. The non-human lands have too many conflicts; it’s just not a comfortable place to live.

“I’d fought against the Kingdom, even if just temporarily. So the thought of moving there didn’t sit right with me.”

“In the end, we decided to return to the Empire. But I figured I should at least offer an apology to Count Highwand. If we got caught sneaking back in, I could’ve been charged as a deserter. So I wrote a letter of apology and sent it.”

“The reply said this—”

“The overseer had already explained the falling-out with the Count’s eldest son. Since the fault wasn’t all mine, my resignation would be overlooked. However, the letter also said I was expected to return as a subordinate and use my healing magic to help stabilize the territory. Well… I guess, from the Count’s perspective, this was the best compromise and deal he could offer.”

Abel asked the most important question.

“Is the reason they’re calling for me because they want Life Extraction?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? Personally, I don’t think so. For one, they’ve likely learned their lesson. That if they try to force it, they’ll just get people like me who refuse and run away.”

“Secondly, the letter said they plan to eventually make you a knight. I think they’re actually serious about that. Under Imperial law, you have to be a noble to open a healing clinic that uses magic. Which means that even a low-ranking noble is required as a successor. If you don’t become a knight, they’ll lose one of the clinics helping to stabilize the region.”

“……”

Abel thought hard about what to do.

But it was too big a decision to make alone.

He wanted to hear Ayla’s opinion as well.

“What do you think, Mother?”

Ayla looked at Abel with her sky-blue eyes and gave a firm nod.

“If it doesn’t suit you, I won’t push you. But you do have talent. That’s why…I want you to go. Even if you don’t end up becoming a knight, it’ll be a valuable experience.”

“Tenana is a nice place to live, but if you stay holed up in such a small town, I think you’ll grow up small, too. The knights’ order is bound to have people with all sorts of skills. Not just physical strength; reading and writing have ranks, too. You’ll probably be able to learn a lot of valuable, traditional knowledge.”

Her words were filled with passion, but she made sure to add one last thing.

“Of course, if you really don’t want to go, then don’t. Becoming a noble isn’t the only dream a person can have. If you have another path you want to follow, then you should take it.”

“If I start and end up hating it, can I quit halfway?”

Walter nodded with a gentle smile.

***

That night—

I had trouble falling asleep.

My mind was spinning.

About my family, about my life.

My thoughts wouldn’t settle, and a sticky sense of unease welled up inside me.

I stayed in bed for a long time before finally drifting into a shallow sleep.

I had a bad dream for the first time in a while.

It was from the time I was studying while working part-time jobs.

One day, my old man told me to hand over some money for the house.

Probably because he’d run short on booze money.

But I was barely scraping by myself.

Tuition, various expenses, food…

I had to save some money too, or I’d be in trouble after I got accepted.

I tried explaining that I didn’t have anything to spare, but he just started swearing and launched into one of his long lectures like always.

He said stuff like, “You’re too dumb to get into Tokyo University, and now you won’t even help out around the house?”

And then he beat me with a stick.

Begging him to stop never worked.

After hitting my back and thighs until he was satisfied, he started preaching again…

Why are you so stupid?

Why are your grades so bad?

Why couldn’t you get into a better high school?

And you’ve got asthma. Your body’s weak, too.

Your life’s already set to be trash at the bottom of the heap…

Every single word tore into me.

I couldn’t say anything back.

He’d been doing this to me since I was a kid.

I wanted to say, Even if I’m not good at studying, I could learn a trade and work hard. Isn’t that good enough?

But I couldn’t.

It was pointless to say anything; he never listened anyway.

I ended up handing over my cram school tuition.

He sent my mother out to buy booze.

And I cried alone in my room.

No one knew about my tears.

No one understood my pain or suffering.

No one came to help me…

I was completely alone.

***

Abel woke up.

He was drenched in cold sweat.

His heart was pounding like it was going to burst.

It was still before dawn.

He closed his eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come.

He felt awful.

He didn’t want to keep lying around like that.

So he forced his sluggish body to move and got up.

He did some light exercises, then sat cross-legged on the floor.

He focused on the swirling of mana in his abdomen, imagining it rotating inside him.

Lately, when he did this, he could feel something like mana concentrating in his chest and hands, too.

Before long, his whole body was lightly sweating, filled with a sense of magical power.

Abel picked up his wooden sword and stepped outside.

He breathed in the clear morning air.

The dawn sky, shifting from deep blue to red in a gentle gradient, was beautiful.

He kept swinging his sword over and over.

When he filled his body with mana, he felt an illusion. As if nothing was impossible.

But in reality, there were far more things he couldn’t do.

Once, he had the idea of flying through the sky and tried to imagine it. But his body didn’t lift off the ground.

He couldn’t even make a pebble float, let alone himself.

However, after mastering the Fourth Rank Weather Magic “Extreme Gale” that Walter had taught him, he’d once managed to snap a tree in half with the force of a violent wind.

If he were to blast himself with that wind, technically, that might count as flying.

But he hadn’t tried it. Because landing was a problem.

A bad fall could easily result in every bone in his body breaking.

Magic and mana were still completely beyond his understanding.

One thing Abel didn’t understand, for example, was chanting.

Chanting expresses the structure of phenomena in the form of a metaphor.

However, Abel could activate healing magic without chanting.

When he focused on cells and DNA to cast healing spells, he didn’t need to say anything aloud.

It was probably because he had a strong awareness that genes were the foundation of all living things.

That much, he understood.

So then…could it be that words and will were what shaped mana particles into the desired form?

It was a mystery.

This world never ceased to fascinate him.

When Abel struck a wooden stake with a full-powered slash, it shattered into splinters.

Apparently, breakfast was ready. He heard Ayla calling him.

Warm food was laid out on the table.

Barley porridge, thin slices of salt-cured pork, vegetable soup, and eggs.

Everything tasted great.

Maybe because it was meant to help her son grow, the portions were generous too.

The man at Abel’s core remembered the meals he ate in his past life.

His mother never really cooked.

Since he was a kid, he mostly ate expired convenience store meals or instant noodles.

There was one time… back when he was in elementary school.

He saw a dish on TV and wanted to try it, so he asked her to make it.

“Someday.”

…is what she said.

He wondered, when would that be? Tomorrow, maybe?

But three days passed, then a week, and she still didn’t make it.

No matter how many times he asked, it was useless.

So he never asked again.

Ayla’s cooking was truly delicious.

She’d been born into a hunter’s family, so she knew how to handle meat from the ground up.

Even though the only seasonings she used were herbs and chili peppers, it felt more refined than any dish from his past life.

“Abel. So, about yesterday…. can I take that as a yes?”

After the meal, Walter brought it up again to confirm.

It was a decision, so he had probably given Abel a night to think it over.

Abel thought to himself.

He couldn’t rely on Walter and Ayla forever.

He needed to become strong enough to live on his own.

He couldn’t stay in the house forever.

Now that the time had come, it was time to leave.

“Yes. I’ll try becoming a squire. It’s not that I want to be a noble, though.”

“Alright. Then we need to get you ready.”

The two of them brought something from their rooms.

“We have a gift for you, Abel. Mine first.”

What Walter brought was a dagger.

He drew the blade from its finely carved sheath. It was double-edged and slim, and the blade extended from fingertip to about the wrist.

It had a mysterious, bluish metallic sheen.

“This is a magically enchanted dagger. It bears the name of a famous magical tool craftsman from about a thousand years ago. The blade’s name is Heartbind. If you even graze someone with it, their heartbeat will be forcibly stopped for about three breaths.”

“They won’t die?”

“Unless they’re an old man on death’s door or someone with a heart condition, they won’t. But when the heart stops, the body doesn’t work properly. It even worked on magical beasts. So long as they had a heart. But there’s one thing to be careful of. It doesn’t work more than once. The effect of Heartbind only applies to the first strike.”

“Still, that’s amazing. Where did you get it?”

“Back when Ayla and I were adventurers, we used to go relic hunting. We found it in a hidden room of an ancient ruin. If we sold it, it’d be enough to live comfortably for ten years. But it’s better not to sell it.”

“And you’re giving me something that valuable?”

“Yeah. It’s yours. But listen, don’t let anyone know you have it. Just possessing a magical tool like that will make people wary, and some will try to steal it. I haven’t used it since I quit being an adventurer.”

Ayla brought out a necklace.

“And this is from me. We found it in the same room as that dagger. It’s called the Twin-Eye Pendant. See these two crystals set in it? They can be separated. Now, place the smaller one on the table. You hold the larger one, go outside the house, and then bring your eye close to this crystal and look through it.”

Abel did as he was told.

Through the gem, he could see the inside of the room.

It looked a bit distorted, like through a fisheye lens.

He couldn’t hear anything.

Still, he could see what was going on.

“This is a handy tool. Is it something common?”

Walter explained.

“No way. There are only sparse records of it being made during the era of the Great Empire a thousand years ago. The method of creation is unknown. The two orbs continue to function even when separated by a considerable distance, but if a magical barrier is in between, the image cannot be seen. Royals, nobles, and high-ranking mages are aware of such magical tools. They’ve probably developed countermeasures, too. Still, it should be useful to you, Abel.”

He accepted the gift.

The man at Abel’s core was trembling.

Tears began to fall.

Why do these people love him?

Is it because he can use magic?

Because he had a cute face?

Even if that weren’t the case, they probably would’ve done the same thing.

Even though he still can’t fully trust people, even though he kept distance from two people like them…

The real Abel died back then, in that horse accident.

And now, someone like him… a loser with nothing has taken his place…!

Walter and Ayla noticed that Abel was crying.

“Abel, what’s the matter? Why are you crying?”

“Mother… thank you for always making such delicious meals.”

—My real mother never made anything for me…

Ayla smiled.

“It’s only natural for a mother to take care of her child. You’re so cute, Abel. But it’s about time you became independent, right?”

“Yes.”