Chapter 8
Responsibility and Duty (3)
The battlefields of the West were brutal.
It was the continent’s melting pot where one empire and seven kingdoms fought for hegemony, a living hell that used human beings as kindling.
It burned with the blood spilled by countless souls and swallowed the blood of many more; how could its viciousness be anything less than horrific? And how many stories must those who became kindling have carried?
There were those who were swept into the battlefield after living truly unfortunate lives.
A certain young nobleman Elric met was one such person.
「I am Elbus Grayman. Are you Kasha?」
It was right when Elric turned seventeen.
At the time, Elric was a rising star in the mercenary world, just beginning to adapt to the battlefield, and the other man was the third son of a family leading a territorial war.
The two were in a relationship of employer and employee, and the battlefield that day was a fortress wall guarded by a hundred-man matchlock unit.
Elric and the young noble were on the besieging side, tasked with breaking through that wall.
「We must breach that gate. The knights of our Grayman family will charge on horseback. The soldiers will follow to conduct the siege. The defending forces will swarm toward us. You are to infiltrate inside during that opening.」
The young noble was only twenty years old at the time.
Since it is an old memory now, Elric cannot recall his exact features, but his intelligent, clear eyes remain vivid to this day.
Curiosity had risen within him as to why a young master of a noble house, barely twenty, was commanding a battlefield, but Elric didn’t ask.
His duty as an employee was simply to do the work he was paid for.
「Cha-a-arge!」
There are things that always drift across a battlefield.
The cold, fishy scent of steel and blood intertwined; the yellow-brown mist rising as dust scatters; and the war cries and roars that disperse them all.
Elbus Grayman was in the very heart of it.
He had joined the battlefield not as a commander, but as a knight, seeking to pierce the enemy’s walls himself.
His struggle was so desperate that it was palpable even through the thick dust.
Elric had watched that scene from a step away from the fray.
「Kasha, let us begin as well.」
「Understood.」
To speak only of the result, the war was a victory.
It was because Elric had taken the enemy commander’s head and captured the lord’s bloodline.
However, it could not be called a complete victory.
The young noble Elbus Grayman became a cripple, never able to stand on a battlefield again.
Such things happen.
Were there only one or two people who became disabled on the battlefield? He should be lucky he didn’t lose his life. Moreover, since he was a nobleman, his life wouldn’t be entirely uncomfortable.
It was on the day Elric visited the Grayman estate to receive his promised payment while harboring those thoughts.
There, Elric caught a glimpse of Elbus Grayman’s unfortunate life.
It was from the servants of the manor.
The servant class always enjoyed scandalous stories to shake off their boredom.
「What will the third young master do now? Poor thing.」
「Sigh, what sin is it to be born as a concubine’s child that he was pushed all the way to the battlefield…」
「Did you see? Even though he’s in a state where he’ll never walk again, he came back smiling. He went straight to the Duke to give his report.」
「Even so, the Duke won’t even bat an eye…」
Everyone has a sore spot that hurts when poked.
Even that brilliant young noble must have had such an Achilles’ heel.
Elric drew a rough picture in his mind.
Perhaps the young noble had delved into the heart of the battlefield specifically to escape the persecution of being a concubine’s son.
Perhaps he dreamed of making a name for himself as a general if he couldn’t inherit the family.
Or perhaps he simply wanted to catch his father the Duke’s eye.
The reason Elric couldn’t stop thinking about the man’s inner heart was likely because of a sense of shared sympathy.
The seventeen-year-old Elric hated his father intensely and was someone who could spend all day lamenting how miserable a child unloved by their parents could be.
Being someone who was naturally poor at holding back, Elric asked as soon as he faced Elbus Grayman.
「You look like a mess. You’re suffering much because of a pathetic father.」
「Ah, you’ve come?」
「Don’t you resent your father?」
「Hmm?」
Elric had wanted to join him in cursing his father to their hearts’ content.
However, the answer that came back was unexpected.
「Well, I did not go to war to catch the Head of the family’s eye.」
Sometimes, a human encounters someone on a completely different plane from themselves.
Because they live in such a different world, one might even feel a sense of dissonance at that person’s very existence; that day was like that.
Elbus Grayman was a man who boasted a sparkling intelligence even while looking haggard, half-sitting on his bed.
With eyes that held not a shred of doubt, he firmly denied Elric’s words.
「I am fulfilling my duty. There is no other reason.」
He said.
That one born as a noble naturally carries appropriate responsibilities and duties.
That as much as one is in a position others look up to, one must set a proper example.
That this war was merely a place to fulfill those responsibilities and duties.
At those words he couldn’t possibly understand, Elric had mindlessly tossed out a question.
Thinking back, it was a question so rude that he wouldn’t have had any right to complain even if his head had been cut off.
「…Are you not a concubine’s son? Half-commoner.」
Even at those words, Elbus Grayman replied with a smile.
「To put it differently, I am half-noble. And by fulfilling half of my responsibilities and duties, I have lost half of my body. Hmm, good. It seems it would be nice to live the rest of my life leisurely like a vagabond.」
In fact, he lived exactly like that afterward.
He took a step back from the boiling, furnace-like battlefields and enjoyed what he could as a young noble, and he even got married a few years later.
The reason Elric knew this was because they had met several times since then.
The strange and unique concubine’s son, Elbus Grayman—he was one of the few friends Elric made while living as Kasha, and a man who had inspired him during his youth.
…Anyway, there was a reason Elric was recalling that past now.
‘I am Tiria Portman.’
That was the answer the departing Tiria had left when asked why she hadn’t returned to her family and instead stayed to protect the inheritance.
Her expression had been peaceful. There wasn’t even a hint of disturbance, as if she were stating an utterly obvious fact.
It was profoundly noble.
That was why he couldn’t help but think of it.
Responsibility and duty.
Regarding a certain weight they naturally shoulder.
Skritch, skritch—
Elric was sitting at the desk in his room.
In his hand, the dagger he always kept on his person was unsheathed, scratching at the top of the desk.
It was a dagger with a completely dull edge. He didn’t intend to sharpen it.
The dagger was merely a charm Elric carried to suppress the anxiety in his heart.
Skritch, skritch—
Even though he was drawing with such a dagger, dozens of long scars were carved into the desk.
The scars had deepened as long as he had been agonizing.
Elric stared at them, repeating the same words.
‘Responsibility and duty.’
Perhaps that was the true meaning behind her answer, ‘I am Tiria Portman.’
For Elric, who did not know her well, he had no choice but to link her noble attitude with her answer.
Then, what were the responsibility and duty she shouldered?
He asked a series of questions and sought answers.
‘As the wife of a noble.’
What was it that they did again…?
As far as Elric knew, they were the ones who took care of the internal affairs while the master of the noble house looked after the outside.
They were the ones who supported the center of the family and maintained order.
If so, wouldn’t Tiria’s answer be the same?
‘Portman.’
As Tiria Portman, she had protected what remained of the Portmans.
Not for personal satisfaction, but to fulfill her responsibility and duty.
The answer she gave, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, must refer to the morality she had upheld.
Shame began to torment his insides anew.
Responsibility and duty were things Elric had turned away from and fled.
Between the two of them, she was the only one who had maintained the morality and faith of a human being and a noble.
He gripped the dagger tightly.
Elric continued his thoughts while looking at the dead blade.
He couldn’t compensate her for the ten years she had sacrificed.
Elric didn’t have the ability to turn back time.
However, that didn’t mean there was absolutely nothing he could do.
‘Another letter will come.’
A letter telling her to bring the inheritance.
There was no way something that had come consistently for a year would stop now.
A point to consider regarding this was that while the Wibin family demanded a reply, they had never visited this place.
It was right to assume they couldn’t come.
It could be his father’s will, or it could be Tiria’s.
‘She won’t answer even if I ask…’
If she were the type to do that, she would have already mentioned the letters.
From what he had observed, she wasn’t the type to show her feelings in the first place, so she wouldn’t come to him with grievances.
But fortunately, there wasn’t a total lack of ways to find out.
Elric stood up from his seat.
He left the room, leaning on his cane.
“Aldio.”
“Yes.”
“Could you prepare the carriage?”
“Hmm? Where do you intend to go?”
Elric gave a thin smile.
“I’m thinking of paying a visit to the Wibin house.”
It was a small help, but if those letters were truly troubling Tiria, he could resolve it. He just had to tell the Wibin house to stop sending them.
Even if it were the opposite case, Elric could handle it. If she couldn’t communicate with her family because of his father’s will, he just had to reconnect them.
A frontal breakthrough.
That was Elric’s favorite phrase.
The Wife Waits in the Wheat Field (Serial)
