CH 28.1

All my senses were dull.

It was as if I wasn’t myself and the sights I was seeing were shifting independently of my will.

Before he knew it, Ren was watching his own back.

Like a shadow following, he followed at regular intervals.

———-The village was on fire.

Unlike the current Ren, the Ren carrying only two little boarrs was walking dumbfounded along the field road.

The knights walking next to him were speechless.

“Mother….?』\

Suddenly, Ren threw away the little boars and started to run.

The knights who started running as well ran shoulder to shoulder, and the group rushed to the Ashton family mansion.

……..The house was on fire when they arrived at the destination.

Ren saw this and almost fell to his knees in weakness.

However, he approached the mansion with his body trembling.

My mother must be in that house.

Unable to think of anything else, he wished only to hear his mother’s voice.

But he was stopped.

The knight pinned him down and he was deprived of his freedom.

“You can’t! 』\

“Let go of me! My mother is —-!』\

“No… If you jump into that fire, you will be …… too! 』\

Ren still continued to resist.

But he was weak.

The figure I saw was so weak that I could not believe it was me.

“I made a promise to my father at the end of his life that I would protect her……. 』\

Then, there it was.

“Retreat! Quickly! 』\

A girl’s voice came from behind, mingled with the sound of hoofbeats.

When the two Rens turned to look at the voice, a dazzling light enveloped the entire area.

—- Soon after, a new scene unfolded.

This time again, he could see himself from behind. A self that wasn’t him.

It was the evening sky.

Ren was on a plain at the edge of the village, standing in front of a number of burlap sacks lined up between his eyes.

“Dear Ren, it’s Grandma Rigg……..”

“I know……. I was already prepared for this.”

Ren answered without turning to the knight, his shoulders shaking.

The knight bowed his head behind him and walked away.

Then Weiss, his armor stained with soot, appears in his place.

“—- boy.”

Weiss took the stunned Ren in his arms and gave him a powerful hug.

Weiss soon has tears streaming down his cheeks. After a few moments of this, he apologizes again and again.

“I’m sorry. If only we had arrived earlier.”

“It’s okay……. It’s all because I was weak.”

“But …….”

“No…… it’s the same with my father. The night he died, I should have gathered up my courage and gone to pick rondo grass. Then he wouldn’t have died and I might have been able to handle today’s banditry.”

“Not so! It’s our fault!”

“Some of the knights lost a hand or a leg fighting for us. It was thanks to them that we were able to defeat Thief Wolfen, whom my father had driven back.”

So it’s not their fault, Ren says.

“And they helped my mother. And Weiss-sama wiped out the bandits, too.”

“…… No, I let one of them get away. I’m sorry. If only I had gotten there a little earlier.”

“Stop it. If I let you keep apologizing, I’ll get in trouble with my father.”

“And besides,” Ren continued.

“The one you mentioned now is the young lady… right? I’m just seeing her for the first time.”

“Ah, yes. The young lady was so traumatized by the winter of the Thief Wolfen that she came with me to this village on behalf of my master…….”

“The saint is amazing, isn’t she? She can dispel the flames of the mansion.”

“………Oh.”

“I’m so grateful to her for saving my mother’s life. I can’t resent Weiss and the others for that.”

After he finished, Ren sat there helplessly.

He hugged his knees and fell face down in front of the human-sized burlap sacks that lined the plain.

A few moments of silence passed, and Ren stopped to think.

What am I going to do from today?

We can’t live in this village anymore.

Most of the houses have been burned down and there is very little food left.

The uncertainty of the future slowly began to occupy his mind.

“I’m going to sit next to you……. ”

Then came the voice of a girl —-, Licia.

Ren looked up and saw her.

Licia with bandages covering her fingertips, grazes on her cheeks and other parts of her body.

“I treated your mother’s body and the other villagers as best I could…”

Licia did everything in her power to rescue the villagers, despite her wounds, without regard to her own status.

“Thank you… that was…”

“But we need to treat her better. I don’t think she’ll wake up. So I will escort everyone who survived to my town and other villages.”

Licia looks at Ren’s face as she finishes.

Licia then uttered that the bandits were probably from the Heroic Faction or the Imperialist Faction.

The Clausel family was involved in a factional war. Those who were working to expand their faction would have attacked the village in a forceful and brutal manner.

However, nothing was forseen. There was no element of forewarning, in this case.

Weiss and his men’s arrival was just a coincidence and without that coincidence, Ren would have lost his mother as well.

Still, Licia and Weiss were saying that it was all their fault.

Licia, in particular, was willing to do whatever it took to make amends.

“…… honestly, I don’t know what to do. I can’t afford to hold a grudge against you. I’m too busy with my mother, who is seriously ill, and the villagers.”

Licia said nothing, but nodded with a somber look on her face.

“But my father told me that we’re knights in the service of the Clausel family, and we protect this village with our lives. So it’s not reasonable to hold a grudge…… and I can’t think of anything else to do…..”

Tears spilled out of Ren’s eyes.

He’d been able to put up with it all this time, but now, his strength failed him.　

Licia gently embraced him.