Side Story: Of Endings and Beginnings
Part 2: Lieutenant Colonel Rose
Few people ever visited the rescue team. For one thing, many of Llinger Kingdom’s citizens were apprehensive of the team itself. In other words, they were scared. A simple thing, but a decisive factor all the same.
Then there was the simple fact that it was rare for anyone to be hurt so badly that they required the rescue team’s help in the first place. In the vast majority of cases, Orga and Ururu had everything covered at the infirmary.
These two reasons were why visitors to the rescue team were few and far between. But today, a young boy arrived at the gates. His name was Nack. He was twelve years old. He’d come with a letter of introduction written by Usato himself.
“Things have gotten a whole lot livelier around here,” I said to myself.
I leaned back in my chair and looked at the candle that illuminated my quarters. A new team member was a good thing, but I never imagined that it was going to be some twelve-year-old kid. That said, it looked to me like Nack had guts. I could tell he was hellbent on getting in.
Back when I’d founded the rescue team, I never would have believed we’d grow to the size we now were. I had to laugh; even now, I still couldn’t quite believe it.
A moment later I heard a knock at the door. I knew who it was by the strength of the knocks.
“Come in,” I said.
“Excuse me,” said Orga, poking his head in a little hesitantly. “Do you have a moment?”
I watched him as he entered the room. His blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail, making his gentle features all the evident.
“Sure,” I said, gesturing to a chair. “What’s up? I figured you would’ve gone back to the infirmary already.”
“Ururu insists on staying the night. I’m worried she might get in the way of things, so I’ve decided to stay for a little longer.”
“I see. And where’s Ururu now?”
“She’s with Nack and Felm at the moment.”
“Hm.”
The ever bright and bubbly Ururu probably wanted to keep an eye on Nack. She always was fond of playing the big sister role.
“I’ll make sure things are fine and then return to the infirmary,” said Orga. “To be honest, I also wanted to make sure that everything is fine with you, too.”
“What are you, my mother?”
“I merely sensed that more was playing on your mind than you let on at dinner, that’s all. Like you were brooding over something.”
This guy. Puts on the aloof act, but he’s always got his eyes peeled.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I wasn’t brooding.”
“Oh, I apologize,” said Orga. “I couldn’t think of a more fitting word for it.”
He chuckled. I knew what he was referring to though. It was the story I’d told about the time I’d discovered my training methods.
“However, I couldn’t tell exactly what was on your mind. Was it your past? Was it Nack, the new rescue team member? Either way, there was something a little different about you today.”
For a time I said nothing.
A little different, huh? Well, he’s not wrong.
“And you want to know why, huh?” I said finally.
“Actually, I thought you might like someone to talk to about it.”
“Ha, you’re a funny one, Orga.”
“To be honest, I wonder if I’m being a little too bold in making such an offer.”
Well, there are worse ways to spend an evening.
I turned to the window, where the lights of the castle glimmered beyond the darkened scenery. I looked at them, hovering in the darkness, and I began to talk.
“Today marks the rescue team reaching a total of ten members,” I said.
“Indeed.”
This was good news. News worth celebrating.
“We have Usato, who was summoned together with the heroes. We have the demon girl he captured. And today we have the boy he trained for a short time. Usato just keeps on finding ways to get himself into trouble, over and over again.”
Orga laughed.
“Yes, everything Usato does is something of a surprise, isn’t it?”
On one hand, you could say that Usato’s actions lacked foresight. This was fine, at least for the time being. He was young and inexperienced, so all he had to think about was running on ahead as fast as he could. But one day, I knew, he was going to slam straight into a wall. That was fine too. Impediments and challenges would mark a chance to grow. If for some reason his spirit started to break, then I’d be there to pick him right back up.
“What do you see in Nack?” asked Orga.
“He’s still maturing,” I replied. “He’s got a base to work from, but he’s also got a few problems.”
“Problems, you say?”
I passed Orga the letter that Usato had written to me. He scanned its contents, then paused and frowned at one line in particular.
“Nack was unable to heal anyone except for himself for a period of time?”
“It would appear to stem from some kind of mental issue. He doesn’t seem to have any such trouble at present, but he isn’t completely back to normal, either.”
“What are you going to do?”
“All we can do is get him used to things,” I replied.
At present, Nack could heal others, but he had only just recovered from whatever mental block he’d been suffering.
“But there’s also the fact that he’s only twelve years old,” I said.
“Still a child, you mean.”
“Putting a child through rescue team training will only break him. In a worst-case scenario, it might even hinder his body’s natural growth.”
I’d been lucky to escape such a consequence, but it was true. Training Nack irresponsibly could result in warped bones, or even stunted growth. If that happened, we’d have much bigger problems to deal with than simply making him stronger.
“How unexpected. You really care about him,” said Orga, impressed.
“Of course I do. I’m not so monstrous that I’ll just watch a boy destroy himself through impossible training and do absolutely nothing,” I said.
“Though in Usato’s case, you did look incredibly harsh.”
“Usato is different.”
Usato’s spirit was unbreakable. He would yield to nobody. Having seen his training myself, firsthand, I knew that fact better than anyone.
“That’s why he’s the same,” I added.
Orga paused for a moment.
“As you, you mean?” he asked.
“Ha. Funny,” I replied.
“Um, what?”
Orga didn’t get it at all. I ignored his confusion and went on.
“He’s the same as a former soldier of mine.”
“A former . . . You’re not talking about Alec and the others, are you?”
“Long before them.”
As it dawned upon Orga exactly what I meant, his expression froze. This wasn’t surprising. He already knew that I’d served as a knight for the Llinger Kingdom.
“I see,” he said finally. “So you see something of that soldier in Usato?”
“Not everything. But he’s growing and improving in a way that brings back memories.”
Usato was impudent, he didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘manners’, and he’d developed a warped sense of attachment. In that sense, he was just like her. And every time I thought of her, I was reminded of the fact that I could not let the same mistake happen a second time. I could not allow for a life to be lost again, not when it should have been saved.
I had vowed to myself that I would carry my past sins as punishment, until the day that I died, so as to never forget the faces of those who once served me.
“May as well tell you about her,” I said. “No better time than the present.”
“Are you sure?” asked Orga. “I’m sure it can’t be easy for you—”
“You idiot. I’m not so weak that I’ll let myself be crushed under the weight of old memories. It would be worse to forget it all and never be able to talk about it.”
I would never allow myself to forget. Not ever. I would never allow myself to look away from the past either. If I turned my back on it, closed my ears to it, and ignored the pain of it, then I would be no different from a walking corpse.
That was why I decided to talk openly of the past I so despised.
“What I am going to talk about happened five years ago,” I said. “Three years before the Demon Lord’s army attacked and one year before the rescue team was founded.”
“Five years . . .” Orga uttered, nodding.
I turned to look at the moon through the window.
They were old, nostalgic memories. Tragic and dark. But they were also memories of brighter days. Memories of the people I trusted, who trusted me in return. In those memories was the story of how I went from “Lieutenant Colonel Rose” to “Rescue Team Rose.”