When I awoke, I was in bed. It was a truly massive bed, big enough that three people could have slept comfortably in it, and it was soft. My back was a little damp, which I didn’t love, but it was pleasant otherwise. There was no one sleeping beside me. I could move my eyes and my neck, but not so much my body. It was like the blanket was too heavy. I moved just my eyes to look away from the bed and saw a girl with red hair sitting there. She had single-fold eyelids and a determined line to her chin—the spitting image of Eris, although she wore her hair in an unassuming braid and was far smaller. Both in terms of height and cup size. I expected that much: she looked about five years old.
When her eyes met mine, she dropped what she was holding and leapt to her feet. The chair fell over with a crash and she looked like she might fall with it. Right away, I propped her up. How did I prop her up when my body wouldn’t move? I couldn’t tell you myself. She just put her hands out and caught herself in mid-air, then righted herself. No sooner had she planted her feet on the ground once more than she left the room.
“Mama! Mama! Great-Grandpa’s awake!” Listening to the patter of running feet, I looked at the item she’d been holding. It was a bracelet engraved with the Dragon God’s emblem. I didn’t remember taking it off, but—ah, yes, I suppose she must have taken it off while I was asleep. I reached for the bracelet, my arms trembling. It was so heavy. No, scratch that. It wasn’t heavy. I was weak. My arm had grown so thin that I couldn’t even pick up a bracelet.
Just then, my eyes found the mirror in a corner of the room, and I saw an old man slumped in bed who looked like he might die at any moment. He had a white beard, white hair, and deep wrinkles. The shadow of death was visible in every line of his face.
Ahh, I remember now. I turn seventy-four this year.
There was something odd about thinking that. Everything else, I couldn’t really remember. It was like a fog hung over my memories. Had there been a room like this in my house…?
“Rudy?!” A white-haired woman who looked about forty came bursting into the room. A proper middle-aged lady. When our eyes met, she came straight to my side and gripped my hand that lay on top of the blankets.
“Sylphie…?”
“Yes… That’s right, Rudy. It’s Sylphiette,” she told me gently. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yeah… Yeah, I know you. What…happened to me?”
“Nothing happened. It’s just, you were asleep for a long time.”
So I was just asleep. Right. I did feel sleepy.
“But why can’t I move?”
“Yes, well… Yes…” Sylphie didn’t answer me. She just stroked my hand sympathetically. Like she was humoring a forgetful old man…
Wait, you don’t mean… Am I senile? Is that why I have no memories? What?
Seventy-four shouldn’t be old enough for that…but was I actually seventy-four? Maybe I’d aged a lot more. Maybe I’d been senile for much longer.
Just how long had I been in this bed for, anyway?
“I’m scared…” I said.
“You’re okay. I’m here with you.” Sylphie squeezed my hand harder. Just that was enough to relieve some of my fear. But not all of it.
In the next instant a torrent of people poured into the room. I saw a redheaded child, a blue-haired child, a blonde child. Some of them were young, some middle-aged, some elderly, and they all came to stand around my bed. They looked like people I knew.
“Look, Rudy. Everyone’s here to see you.”
“Yeah…”
For some reason, I couldn’t remember a single one of their names. Ah, one of them I knew. The one who came in slowly behind everyone else, then shut the door behind her. It was a small girl with blue hair. She wore it in braids, just as she always had.
“Roxy.”
“Rudy.” When I said her name, she looked for a moment like she might cry. But she came straight to stand beside Sylphie, then gently stroked my head.
“Rudy.”
“Thank you, Roxy…” Then, the word slipping out of my mouth, I said, “Master.”
Tears spilled from Roxy’s eyes. She hastily wiped them away and tried to look cheerful, but her mouth only twisted, unable to form a full smile.
A question struck me.
“What about Eris? Isn’t she here?”
Usually, she’d have been rushing in first, but I saw no sign of her.
“Oh, Rudy. Eris already…she went on ahead.”
“Went on where?”
“She’s waiting for you, Rudy.”
Oh, now I see. I see.
“Was I there for her?”
“Yes, don’t worry. You cried for three days straight, but you got through it.”
That’s right. It was hazy, but the memory was coming back to me.
Eris had kept on training hard past seventy. But then one day, after going for a run and doing her sword drills, she’d come home, fallen into bed, and that was it. She never got up again. By the time I realized, she was already dead. I’d cried because I thought perhaps if I’d noticed sooner and used healing magic on her, maybe I could have made her better.
I’d even forgotten that. That meant I couldn’t have long either…
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “You’re all here for me, but I don’t know who’s who.”
“I know, don’t worry. Let’s see… From over there, we have our grandchildren—that’s Lucie’s son, Roland, see? And beside him—” Sylphie went through pointing at each of them and telling me their names. They were almost all my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Where were my kids? Ah, that’s right, they’d all left the nest and moved to live far away.
“And over there, with the red hair, the girl who looks just like Eris. That’s Arus’s granddaughter—your great-granddaughter—Feris.”
“Ah, the girl who woke me up.”
The red-haired girl looked a little embarrassed. Probably nervous that she’d get a scolding for trying to pinch my bracelet. I had the feeling I’d seen her somewhere before.
Right. She’d been in my dream about the Man-God. I was pretty sure she’d been in that group of people. Yeah, that was it. It had been her, for sure. She’d been a good deal older than she was now, but I knew it was her.
“Come here,” I said, and she obeyed, tears prickling her eyes.
“Did you take this off my arm?” I pointed at the bracelet. Tears began to pour down her cheeks. I guess now that she knew getting in trouble was inevitable, she was trying to cry her way out of it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just so pretty.”
“Is it now? Well, then, you keep it.”
She gaped at me. “Really?”
“In return, you’re not to take people’s things without asking ever again.”
“I promise.”
“Good girl.” I reached out slowly and patted her head. She might get scolded later, but ah, well. It wouldn’t be my fault if she turned out spoiled.
“They all look healthy.”
“Yeah, they are.”
That put me at ease. Everyone had to be doing well if I had this many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“Glad to hear it. All that work was worth it…”
As my strength faded, my hand slid from Feris’s head. There was murmuring around me.
Relax. I’m not going to snuff it quite yet. I plan on staying a bedridden old man for a while yet.
Someone came into the room. He was tall, with silver hair and a scowl on his face.
“Rudeus,” he said.
“Sir Orsted.” The moment he appeared, the mood of the room changed. Was it tension? Fear? But no, it was more relaxed. It was reassurance, and trust.
“You don’t need to wear the helmet?”
“No. Your grandchildren cry when I put it on.” Laughter broke out around him, along with calls of “I won’t cry anymore” and “Man, I really bawled back then.”
“People don’t fear your face anymore?”
“No, the curse remains. Only your children and grandchildren are unaffected.”
Orsted’s expression was much softer than it had been when I’d first met him. He was still scowling, but I suppose you could say he was relaxed.
“Actually, Sir Orsted, that reminds me,” I said.
“What is it?”
“Just before, when Feris took the bracelet from me, I dreamed of the Man-God.”
There was a pause. “Are you a disciple now?”
“Well, I dunno about that. It might’ve just been an ordinary dream…” I said. “If I had become a disciple, what would you do? Would you kill me like you did all the others?”
“Naturally. I do not suffer traitors,” Orsted said, dead serious. Despite that, I immediately picked up that he was joking. Everyone around him laughed, for one thing, and I didn’t feel any hostility coming off him. It felt like poor taste to say that sort of thing in front of a bedridden old man on death’s door…but maybe it was one of those surefire lines that always got a laugh.
“In the dream, you’d defeated the Man-God. He was bound with magic.”
“A good dream, then.”
“Yeah, really good.”
Could that dream have shown future events? It felt real, but then, dreams always did.
“I hope you’ll do your best to make it come true,” I said. Orsted gave a solemn nod.
As you’d expect, after fifty years of knowing him, I could read his expressions incredibly accurately.
“You lived well. May you rest in peace.”
“Ha ha… It’s a bit early for resting.”
I wanted to stay awake a bit longer. I felt okay. While I couldn’t really move, the sunlight on me was warm and pleasant.
“I’ll stay a little longer. Just a little longer…”
It wasn’t like there was anything I really wanted to do. I just wanted to look at all the faces around me for a little longer. That was all. I suppose you could say I was a little sad to be leaving them. I just wanted another hour or two with them—even another ten minutes would be enough.
I didn’t have anything I needed to say. I didn’t have any lingering regrets. Right now just felt nice in a small way. That was all.
“Just a little…”
My eyelids began to close, drooping down little by little. The last thing I saw was the girl who looked just like Eris, and Sylphie and Roxy’s faces.
Then my eyes closed.
And just like that, I was gone.