Chapter 2
The madness of the battlefield was relentless.
It was a cruelty that forced one to accept things as ordinary—seeing someone you just shared a meal with as a cold corpse, facing a barrage of blades and arrows from all sides, and spending nights on end hacking away with a sword.
The delusion that the death shrouding the battlefield would somehow pass you by is usually shattered in the first skirmish.
The anxiety of not knowing when you might die was a toxic companion that would never leave as long as you remained on the field… no, it was a shadow that wouldn’t vanish even after leaving the war behind.
After ten years of drifting through such places, Elric’s mind could not possibly be intact.
Furthermore, since he swung his sword with a death wish, it was only natural that he was twice as devastated as those who fought to survive.
Yet, there was one reason Elric was still alive.
His physical fortitude had managed to endure the erosion of his sanity.
A beast that charged into enemy lines as if he were to die today, never stopping his blade until nothing living remained before him.
The crimson eyes one must never encounter on the battlefield.
The epithets describing the Sword Demon Kasha were that malevolent, and the soldiers’ awe toward him bordered on a form of religious worship.
But in truth, his legend was born from a combination of luck and a level of martial prowess that backed his recklessness.
Everyone who had experienced the twenty-year-long war for hegemony in the Western Continent claimed that the Sword Demon Kasha was a ghost that would never vanish until the war ended, but to Elric, such talk was merely a ridiculous rumor.
Crrrk—!
No matter how strong one was, as long as they were a living being, there came a time when they would break.
Elric was no exception.
‘It’s a serious injury.’
It had been a dire situation in the middle of a border dispute where he had to hold off a thousand soldiers alone.
As always, he had eventually emerged victorious, but in the process, his right knee joint had been ground to dust.
It wasn’t an irreparable wound, but it wasn’t a shallow injury that would allow him to return to combat immediately, either.
In fact, he wondered if normal daily life would even be possible. For the time being, he would be forced to live as a cripple.
The essence of a mercenary is that they are replaceable manpower to be used for money.
Of course, Elric’s martial power was at an irreplaceable level, but in this state where he couldn’t properly utilize that ability, he had to be treated no differently from any other mercenary.
How could he wreak havoc on the battlefield when there was no one left to hire him?
For that reason, Elric left the front lines for the first time in about four years.
It was still a war zone, but the rear was relaxed enough that one could sit in a bar and read a newspaper.
After four years of living obsessed with nothing but the sword, Elric encountered written words other than operational codes.
“A newspaper from the East. Are you from those parts?”
Elric ignored the bartender’s words.
It wasn’t that he felt the man wasn’t worth answering; he was simply that captivated by the newspaper.
And why wouldn’t he be? The East was the home where he was born and raised.
Even after all this time, there was a nostalgia that refused to fade. There was a scene he chased, despite the terrible way they had parted.
The golden wheat fields of Wibin and the childhood memories of playing there were exactly that.
Since humans tend to chew over their memories as death approaches, Elric, who always stood beside death, found himself floundering in the hallucinations of those days.
[Princess Ecclisia’s Tea Party.]
The newspaper featured a photo of the brightly smiling Princess and the young noble ladies gathered to make her shine, and below it were brief introductions and interviews regarding the tea party.
‘Is there no news of Wibin?’
As he flipped through the pages with that thought, Elric let out a small, hollow laugh.
Of course not. Wibin was the most unremarkable wheat field even within the Eastern Ferdin Kingdom.
Shaking his head at his own foolishness, Elric continued to turn the pages.
It was at that moment.
[The First Anniversary of Hoven Portman’s Death.]
Elric’s body froze.
His eyes widened as if they might tear, and his breath caught in his throat as if someone were strangling him.
His thoughts also came to a sudden halt, screaming as they tried to process the abrupt information.
The face of a man he could never forget was printed small at the edge of the newspaper.
Though it was in black and white and the face had more wrinkles than he remembered, Elric recognized him instantly.
His father, who had been so cold and hateful, was there.
In a form he had never imagined.
What he looked back on was a long-standing resentment.
When he first ran away from home, Elric had waited for him with a sliver of hope.
No matter how much he changed his name and crossed borders, considering the wealth his father had amassed, he should have been able to resolve such difficulties with ease.
He knew now that it was a truly childish sentiment, but he had been too young back then.
Moreover, since his mind was unstable due to the atmosphere of the battlefield, it was inevitable that his emotions would veer in a strange direction.
At any rate, driven by that stubbornness or whatever it was, he eventually held out until years had passed, and by then, he found himself unable to return to Wibin out of shame.
Even after his feelings toward his father had hardened, he had kept postponing his homecoming, thinking, ‘I’ll go back eventually,’ until it reached this point.
Emotions like regret or indignation welled up, but they soon cooled.
‘As if I even have the right to feel that way.’
It was self-mockery.
What was truly strange was that, despite how much he had once hated the man, the only emotion that arose at the news of his death was a faint sense of pity.
Was there sadness? He wasn’t sure. But one thing was certain.
He now had a reason to head to Wibin.
Though he knew how it would look to shamelessly show his face now, a year after his father’s death, he couldn’t not go.
Chugga-chugga!
Elric boarded the train.
It was a steam locomotive that would deliver him to the East within a week.
Since he hadn’t spent much money while drifting through the battlefields, he had enough to travel in first class.
The pain in his right knee joint eased as he took his seat.
He let out a long breath.
The scenery outside the window was quite red.
Autumn.
It was the harvest season, when his hometown of Wibin was at its most beautiful.
Nostalgia flared up again.
Choo-choo!
With a vigorous blast of the whistle, the train departed.
A week of sitting and watching the passing scenery.
His body, which had rolled through battlefields without a single day’s rest, could not adapt to the peaceful situation and screamed in protest the entire time.
Finding no way to calm himself, he would writhe only to be reminded of his place by the pain in his knee.
The only saving grace was that time only flowed forward.
By enduring and enduring, he finally reached the end of the tracks.
“Have a safe journey, -nim!”
The staff member who had brought him meals while he was seated bowed deeply.
Elric gave a dismissive wave and stepped out of the station.
‘It’s Wibin.’
The panoramic view of Wibin spread out before his eyes.
It was a landscape that hadn’t changed a bit despite the ten years that had passed.
The streets, dyed red with autumn leaves, were tranquil, and the people walking beneath them carried the leisurely air unique to the countryside.
There wasn’t a trace of the sharp tension of the battlefield.
If he looked a bit further, it was all golden wheat fields.
Seeing that scenery, smelling those scents, and feeling the atmosphere of the people, Elric felt a sting at the tip of his nose.
Elric immediately began to walk forward, dragging his limping leg and leaning on a cane.
Despite the searing pain, his pace never slowed.
With every step, memories of living here in the past seemed to overlap vividly upon his retinas.
As he walked, the straight path leading to the manor came into view.
The Portman manor was located a bit away from the village; if one pushed through the wheat fields, it would stand alone in its modest beauty.
Thump.
The cane supported his weight in place of his injured leg.
Elric began to walk through the wheat fields with slow strides.
Playing hide-and-seek with the village children there.
Getting scolded by the maid for dirtying his clothes with soil.
The butler, who stood in for his father, announcing it was dinner time when the sun began to set, and hiding in the wheat fields waiting for his father to come find him.
Everything was so vivid it felt as if he could touch it if he reached out.
Elric’s thoughts eventually moved past those memories to picture the face of a young lady.
‘I wonder how the Young Lady is living.’
On the Western battlefield, there was no way to know how the Young Lady of Wibin was doing, so he had heard no news of her.
She probably wasn’t doing poorly.
Since she was such a beautiful woman, someone must have snatched her up.
It was at the moment he moved far enough for the manor to come into view while harboring such thoughts.
Rustle!
A sound came from the wheat field to his right.
Elric’s body flinched.
His head turned quickly toward the source of the sound.
Immediately following that.
“…Ah.”
An exclamation escaped.
It wasn’t Elric’s.
It was the voice of a woman who had emerged from the wheat field.
A voice with a quiet pitch yet a clear and decisive tone.
That was the characteristic of the girl who had shaken Elric’s heart during his impulsive boyhood.
That was it.
The girl had become a woman.
Her mysterious and elegant aura remained, but the youthful air in his memory had vanished, and she no longer felt fragile.
A breathtaking beauty, even more so than in his memories, surrounded her in a quiet stillness.
Her eyes, which were wide but naturally downturned at the corners, pointlessly captured his gaze.
His lips moved vacantly, and Elric asked without thinking.
“Why…?”
Why are you still here?
At that, the woman, Tiria Wibin, closed her lips for a moment, let out a long breath, and composed her expression.
Her gaze lowered.
Only then did the words flow out.
“Because I am your wife, that is why I am here.”
She was still Elric’s wife.
Contrary to his assumptions.
