“I’m home.”
“Mm, welcome back.”
The days were gradually getting hotter. After finishing my duties at the office in the early afternoon, I made my way home and was greeted by Mewi, who was now completely accustomed to living in this house.
I was pretty tired, but it’d been a truly fulfilling day of training—it’d been the first time in a while that I’d had the chance to supervise the knights alongside Allucia.
Normally, it was best to have fewer supervisors. Multiple mindsets on how things should be run could lead to schisms in leadership. There were those who could adjust and work together and those who couldn’t. There were even those who couldn’t agree on a single stance or swing of the sword.
Luckily, Allucia and I had no such miscommunication between us. We’d studied the same style, so we shared the same mindset—and with the commander around, we had twice as many eyes on the knights. If anything, this way of teaching was more efficient. Her behavior also implied that she thought the dojo’s technique—the swordplay that I’d learned and had passed down to others—was good enough for the knights. It would be problematic to stubbornly stick to one way of doing things and become too narrow-minded, but I wanted to believe we were handling it fine so far.
“There’s food. Want me to warm it up?” Mewi asked.
“Sure, please do.”
“Mm.”
I’d eaten in the morning before going to the office, but after exercising, I was famished. Mewi sensed this quickly and got the pot ready. She’s adorable.
I’d spent a lot of time on expeditions recently, so Mewi had often been in charge of the house. She’d only gone to the magic institute’s dorm that first time. On every other occasion, she’d been living alone.
Thanks to that, her household skills were improving considerably. She’d always been skilled with her hands, so she was quick to learn things. Nowadays, chopping and slicing ingredients was a specialty of hers. That first fish she prepared was way better than mine.
Mewi tossed a bunch of firewood under the pot, quickly got a flame going, then tossed in some more. She’s improved greatly these last few months. She kept her eyes on the pot the entire time.
“Oh, right,” she muttered.
“Hm? Something happen?”
“Letters came. I put them on the table.”
“Oh? Thanks.”
I turned my attention to the living room table and spied some letters that hadn’t been there yesterday.
Hmm, letters? Not that many people even know where I live. That left only a few possible candidates. I’d gotten a letter from my dad last year, but that had been addressed to the order’s office.
“Let’s see...”
It probably wasn’t Lucy or Ibroy. If those two needed something, they were the type to drop in unannounced rather than bother with a letter. Well, maybe I was jumping to conclusions with Ibroy, but still. They could have come from my dad—I’d talked to him about living with Mewi while I’d visited him in Beaden.
“Oh...”
With those thoughts in mind, I picked up the letters. There were two of them. The seals and quality of paper were different, so they’d come from two senders. One seal was a splendid family crest. It was one I recognized too.
“Shueste, huh? Now that I think of it, it’s been a while.”
It was House Flumvelk’s crest. I doubted Warren or Gisgarte would send me a letter, so that meant the sender had to be Shueste. Since her confession, winter had come to an end, and spring was on the verge of summer. Over these two seasons, this was our second correspondence.
When I wasn’t away from the city, I went back home pretty much every day. I had more than enough time to read a letter and write a reply. But that wasn’t the case for Shueste. As the eldest daughter of House Flumvelk, she had many tasks to see to. Compared to me, she had an absurd amount of work. It seemed she was still tending to the garden too, so her days had to be a constant flurry of activity.
The fact that she’d found the time for me honestly made me happy. It was also a little embarrassing. However...I couldn’t just enjoy having someone to write letters to, especially after my talk with Allucia. I’d lost my ability to be carefree about it.
“Now then...”
I did my best to set such negative thoughts aside. They were things I had to consider, but getting too caught up in them and falling into a pit of self-loathing wasn’t going to solve anything. That said, I didn’t have that much time left—in all sorts of ways.
I broke the seal and opened the letter. Just as expected, it was written in Shueste’s beautiful handwriting. The actual contents were whimsical and not particularly serious. It started with a courteous greeting, went on with a report on recent affairs, and was sprinkled here and there with Shueste’s feelings. It ended with words of consideration. The letter really gave a glimpse of her skill when it came to stuff like composition and vocabulary. Even if I wrote about the same things, I wouldn’t be able to produce anything like her letter. I always did my best to write something that didn’t come off as rude, but there was a clear gap in education.
I had enough schooling to run a swordsmanship dojo in the countryside without any issues, but I was clearly lacking in every other way. Should I put some effort into improving that from now on?
Around the time I finished the first letter, Mewi called out, “Food’s done.”
“Mm, thanks.”
She put a bowl of pot-au-feu before me. A calm, composed part of my mind was whispering that it was about time for me to stop being so moved by every one of her actions. I couldn’t help it, though. The Mewi from before we’d started living together hadn’t been the type of girl to take the initiative and show such consideration for others.
“Okay...”
I decided to take my time writing a reply to Shueste later. I grabbed the second letter. From what I could see, the seal was a simple thing that only served to keep it closed. There was no sort of design on the wax, so I could eliminate the possibility that it’d come from someone important like a noble. It was probably frowned upon for them not to emphasize their status on correspondence.
That meant it was probably from someone without such status, but of the few people close to me, I couldn’t really think of anyone who would go out of their way to send me a letter. Kenny and my other commoner acquaintances would just send something to the office instead.
I’ll just have to open the letter and find out. I tasted a spoonful of Mewi’s pot-au-feu and savored the simple flavor. I could never get tired of this. Then, I broke the seal. The paper was of an entirely inferior quality to Shueste’s. To put it a bit rudely, it was kind of cheap. That made me feel like it really had come from my dad or something.
However, the moment I shifted my focus to the contents of the letter, my expectations were blown away completely. First, it wasn’t my dad’s crude handwriting. Not that I was really one to talk. My handwriting wasn’t exactly pretty either.
“I’m glad she’s doing fine...”
The sender was Rose Marblehart. What was more, she’d signed the letter not as the White Maiden, but using her own name. In other words, things had reached a point where it didn’t matter whether she left behind evidence of her identity.
It wasn’t that strange for me to get a letter from Rose. She already knew I was living in Baltrain, and we’d had a short opportunity to chat during our collaboration in Dilmahakha. At the time, I’d mentioned having a house.
The incident in Dilmahakha had certainly been nothing to celebrate. The people would never have wished for an event to shake the nation like that, and it’d definitely left behind major scars that had yet to even start fading.
Regardless, the survivors had moved on. This letter showed that Rose had finally managed to look to the future. The incident itself was still tragic, though.
“Mm, delicious.”
I had another spoonful as I read on. It really is tasty.
Rose’s letter started with an apology for what had happened, followed by words of consideration. Though she didn’t go into any specifics, she reported that she’d managed to settle into a relatively stable life. The letter finished with her desire to meet and talk with me once more one day.
She didn’t mention anything specific about recent events, likely due to the risk of information leaking. After all, there was no guarantee a letter would always reach its destination. It was okay to publicize her name, but not her activities.
In all likelihood, she was doing some kind of work under Prince Glenn. Even in the battle against the chimeras, she wouldn’t have joined the fray had the crown prince not commanded her. It would’ve been weird for him not to have known her identity by that point.
Meanwhile, the group in black that we’d assumed was Hanoy’s Verdapis Mercenary Company was still staying in the holy capital. Sphenedyardvania couldn’t afford to be careless. Maybe it was a good thing that they temporarily had the mercenaries on their side, though. I could only pray Prince Glenn and Princess Salacia were handling it well—there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
As I continued wolfing down the pot-au-feu and reading the letter, Mewi suddenly raised her voice.
“Hey.”
“Hm?”
“Ain’t it, umm...rude? Reading and eating, I mean.”
I froze for a moment before nodding. “Uhhh, yeah.”
“What?”
“It’s nothing. You’re totally right.”
Mewi was now capable of worrying about table manners. Not only that, she did so for someone other than herself. This was coming from the girl who’d once said that etiquette didn’t matter as long as she could eat without hurting herself.
My household wasn’t strict on table manners. I, myself, had just been caught reading and eating. Nonetheless, Mewi had criticized me. Her life at the magic institute was having a significant influence on her growth.
For better or worse, people changed with their environment. Here, Mewi was changing for the better. I was extremely glad to see it, and I felt my spirits soar at the sight.
But on the flip side, I had to be careful so that my daily habits weren’t a negative influence on her. I hadn’t been ignoring them before, but I had to pay more attention now. If she ever ended up saying, “I can’t stand living with this old fart anymore,” it would be a serious blow to me.
“I’ll be more careful,” I muttered. “Yup, gotta be more careful.”
“Ah, no, I don’t...think you need to correct it or nothing...”
“If you say so...”
I was her guardian, not her actual father. Still, I had to do things properly, at least until she became independent. This little exchange reinforced that idea in my mind.