“I’m gonna grow up big and strong to save my big bro and big sisses!”
“They saved us, so now it’s our turn!”
“They’re always looking out for us. I wanna return the favor.”
“We’re gonna look out for the town, too, alongside our big brothers and sisters!”
“’Cause that’s what they do. They look out for people. We gotta do the same for them, you know?”
Those tiny, tiny hands did not take up swords to repay a debt. The reason was oh so much simpler. It was just a desire to save when one had been saved and protect when one had been protected—and, most of all, to give kindness when kindness had once been given to them. Payback wasn’t always a bad thing. Payback didn’t have to mean debt. Sometimes, payback could simply take the form of working one’s hardest every single day.
“Our big brothers and sisters have been so kind to us! We wanna be just like them!”
That was the orphans’ reasoning. A ridiculous goal, an impossible goal, one built of love and admiration, held in those tiny, tiny heads. It was that ridiculousness that spurred them on. They wouldn’t have worked so hard if their goal hadn’t been so out of reach.
The light in adventurers’ and soldiers’ eyes changed once the news spread. Expressions morphed on every adult face. I think something shifted inside all of us once we knew all our peace, all our happiness, was safe to leave in those tiny, tiny hands.
The housewives were the most affected. That’s when the Militia changed.
Now armed with the true wonder of protection, the women who once knew nothing but domestic labor left their houses, grinded for levels, saved up spellstone after spellstone, and outfitted their homes with every magical appliance known to man—magical washing machines, magical refrigerators, you name it. They filled their spare time with the spirit of cooperation. They flew to monster hunting with an unmatched zeal.
Now, they outranked any of the adventurers as the fiercest fighting force in the land. Their names struck fear into the hearts of any who heard them. Ogre women, they were called. Any who mistook them for orcs, it was whispered, would meet a painful end. Their children, too, grew in strength.
Taking a page out of our older sisters’ book, we housewives swore it would hurt our womanly pride were any child to be hurt. We armed ourselves with clubs, magical dresses, and armored aprons, and we terrorized the frontier’s monster population from here to kingdom come. A Merry Maidens of Omui Militia formed, and I joined up in a heartbeat.
The militia gave me an apron and dress for self-defense, and a broom and dustpan for my weapons. A mithril broom and dustpan. I was told such weapons could best an orc in hand-to-hand combat. In my first ever battle, guarded by a contingent of housewives, I exploded a goblin with a single strike. I felt a bit guilty then—in my ignorance, I’d been using my new weapons as cleaning supplies—and from then on, I treasured such powerful gifts like they deserved.
And then there were our high walls, our steadfast protectors—our soaring, resolute fortress walls. Just past them, just past the walls of a city once too dangerous to set foot outside, lay fields of verdant prairie as far as the eye could see. The demon scythes kept it mowed, and from time to time, people held picnics. (I attended a few myself.) The first time the town children truly saw the outside world, they were blown away.
Picnicking was the latest fad. For too long, we’d been terrified of the outside world, fearful of the threat of monsters. Now, at long last, the great outdoors was ours once more. Now, weapons, armor, and potions were everywhere to be had, and we who’d only known fear learned that we had claws and fangs of our own.
The orphans were our guides. Any low-level first-time picnicker could go down to the guild and ask for an orphan to come along. The orphans, you see, wore special backpacks everywhere they went. These were “nuclear warhead” backpacks that would protect against monster stampedes, and they were gifts from a certain worrywart we all knew and loved.
At long last, when there was strength aplenty in the frontier, soldiers and adventurers made quick work of the dungeons, and everything was merry. The town was alive with laughter. The future looked bright as stars.
…But through it all, we were lonely. Something was missing. Our eyes kept straying to places…places they were not.
“…Goodness.”
Where was the boy always at the center of the chaos yelling that it wasn’t his fault? Where was the source of the pandemonium denying blame to his last breath? Where was the sheepish person who came to me begging for credit on his rent because he’d spent all his change jumpstarting the economy?
I must set the record straight—we’d never asked him to pay for his lodging. My family had refused to hear of it. Really, we should’ve paid him for the renovations! He’d built us this new, palatial inn building; these now-empty rooms; this now-silent dining hall.
The stronger I became, the more levels I gained, the better I understood why the girls worried for Haruka. Now that I was level 20, I understood the fear all too well. Never in my wildest dreams could I defeat a dungeon king. Strength had nothing to do with it—it was simply impossible for the likes of me! That’s why it was such an accomplishment, such a miracle, when great adventurers cleared a dungeon. That’s why we swept those people up on our shoulders and christened them heroes.
So, I trained every single day. Baby steps, I told myself. Baby steps until I can beat a dungeon king. Haruka was only level 24, and I could reach that. Haruka had fought in the bowels of dungeons time and time again. And he had no money! He had nothing to show for it.
He hadn’t even been level 10 when he’d first come to us. He hadn’t been strong, not at all.
“…I guess that’s why I want to protect him, huh?”
That’s what protecting meant, the way the orphans meant it. The person who kept us safe from all the calamities native to the frontier was weak. So very weak. I’d mistaken him for a mighty hero at first, and for a while, I hadn’t understood why his friends worked so very hard to protect him. Now I did. Oh, now I very much did.
“Which means I need to put in the work too—”
The gates were opening. The restless muttering turned to shouts of joy. Suddenly, everyone was running forward, yelling “Welcome home!” and mobbing the carriages. Stalker Girl popped out of one with a wave. The girls were there, and so were the nerds and the jocks. And…and a pile of orphans…?
“Welcome home! Oh, welcome, welcome home!” they sobbed.
The crying, clinging children brought a tear to the eyes of every townsperson. These hardworking, upbeat, polite, and so very, very good children were, deep down, working as hard as they possibly could. Loneliness came easily to them. They knew just how much happiness meant, which was why they strove not to let it slip through their tiny, tiny fingers once again. They hugged, and sobbed, and hugged some more. They had all the reason to. They had very good reason. Our disastrous calamity was home at last.
“We’re back! Who missed us?”
“I have souvenirs for all of you!”
“Er… By ‘have,’ she means we’ll have them for you shortly! …After we remake them.”
“…After we what now?”
“I mean…Haruka-kun made a bunch of Theocracy-themed luxury manju, soooo…”
“So you ate them all?!”
The respective pebbles and boulders of orphan mountain peeled off and ran over to us townsfolk, eager to share the news. Things were back to normal at last.
“Heh heh heh! Why hello there, poor plebian Poster Girl. ’Tis I, Richy Rich McGee, here with a souvenir for you, if you could just—get off, you—move—ugh! Poster Girl, could you give me a hand? Yeah, could you peel these orphans off for me? They are very heavy. Urgent evasive action is needed; we are currently experiencing a barrage of orphan glomp attacks from all sides; mayday, mayday; captain, we are going down… Oof, you weigh a ton! Could you—urgh—Poster Girl, could you at least get the tiny tanuki off? She’s the heaviest of the bunch. Damn, girl, when did you put on so much we—” CHOMP, CHOMP “—YEEARGH! Yeeargh? Oh, here. Piping hot, freshly made souvenir for you. ’Cause I’m back? And stuff?”
Back to normal. Like it was all written in stone. Same old, same old Haruka. So, just like I did every other day, I said, “Welcome back.” I bit back a sob and managed, in the tone I used every other day, to say, “Your room is ready and waiting for you.”
Happy times were here again. Chaos had returned, and with it, the smiles filling our streets.
They were home.
They were home at last.
✦ ✦ ✦
