Early the next morning, before the sun rose, I returned to Sharia. Between the new office currently under construction and rubble left from the old, there was a makeshift accommodation where Zanoba—our acting director of construction—and the others were sleeping all packed together. Zanoba! He’d been a big help, too. I hoped we could go on being the sort of friends who always had each other’s backs.
“Goodbye, Rudeus,” he said as he ushered me onward. “Until next time.”
The same went for Orsted. On the outskirts of the town, we parted ways. I walked on through the streets in the morning mist. I was carrying presents from the Biheiril Kingdom—largely soy sauce. So long as I had this soy sauce, I’d never be at a loss for what to eat again. Soy sauce goes with everything.
Well, everything might be an overstatement.
I looked around. Sharia was just as I remembered it. The people were the same—farmers heading off to their fields, adventurers training in inn courtyards, and a man in a robe who might have been a professor at the university. Snowdrifts lined the road I walked on as I passed each traveler, heading toward home. I went through the central square to the residential district. Seeing it made me feel somehow nostalgic. It was a street I walked down practically every day, and yet seeing it felt like I was coming home for the first time in my life.
From the street, I turned down a back alley. This alley, too narrow for carts, provided a tiny shortcut that I’d used often. Coming out of the alley, I could see my house. Byt was coiled tightly around the gatepost and opened the gate for me as I drew closer. I passed the garden and the slightly neglected vegetable patch. Dillo the armadillo spotted me and came to rub himself against my legs. I crouched down to rub his head, at which he rolled over to show me his belly. As I rubbed his tummy, he purred happily. He was a cute little guy.
Then, I heard a loud noise from the entrance to the house.
“Dada!” A little girl came running out. Her hair was the same shade of brown that mine once was. It was Lucie. She came sprinting over like she was going to tackle me around the knees, so I crouched down to meet her. With a sizable thud, a ball of softness and warmth threw itself into my arms. This was unusual—she was always hiding behind Sylphie.
“I’m home, Lucie.”
“Welcome back,” she said eventually.
“Have you been a good girl?”
“Yes! I’ve been looking after Lara and Arus and Sieg!”
“Have you really? You’re a real big sister now, aren’t you?” I said. Lucie’s arms squeezed even tighter around me, spurring me to pick her up. I walked up to the house with her in my arms. From inside came a smell that somehow put me at ease—the familiar smell that hung around our house. Since we’d first bought this house, the number of inhabitants had increased. As we’d lived in it, it had changed, but I was so used to it that I didn’t notice how it smelled. But now, coming back after a long time away, and from a brush with death, no less, I felt all the tension drain out of me. My heart was at ease. It was a smell that let me know I was home.
“Hello, Lilia. Hello, Mother.” As I stood filling my lungs with the smell of home, I saw Lilia and Zenith in front of the stairs.
Lilia bowed deeply when she saw me. “Welcome home, Master.”
“Thank you for looking after the house while I was gone, Lilia.”
“Not at all, Master. I’m so glad to see you safely home.”
“It will be a little longer before Norn and Aisha come back.”
“Thank you for letting me know. Oh, but I am glad you’re safe… When the Dragon God’s residence on the outskirts of the city was attacked, I was beside myself with worry. I am so glad, so very glad…” Lilia made normal conversation for a while, but it wasn’t long before she put her hand to her mouth as though she couldn’t hold it back any longer. Her shoulders shook. She started weeping.
“I’m sorry I made you worry…”
I’d had no means of contacting her, so there was nothing I could have done. It did make sense that, after the company I was working for was crushed by a rival one, she would have been beside herself. And in truth, things could easily have turned out as she’d feared. And not only for me; any of the others might have failed to come back from that fight. I had done everything I could to ensure everyone did come home, but it was a miracle that none of the people I cared most about had died.
On the other hand, I couldn’t honestly say that I could stop anything like this from happening again.
“There shouldn’t be another big battle like this one for a while, so please, don’t worry anymore.”
“That’s good,” Lilia said. “I’m so very sorry you had to see me go to pieces like this.”
I realized that Zenith was rubbing Lilia’s back. Had I made Zenith worry too? She seemed to have lost her negative emotions, but I thought she’d at least worry about me. She was that sort of person.
Anyway.
“I’m home,” I said. I took a step into the house. It finally felt real that my long battle with Geese was over.