Several days after the Hero’s party’s visit to the Magic Academy, Connie was on his way to Agnes’s mansion with his friends Franz, Hagen, and Emmeline. However, Emmeline was acting strange.
“I know it’s a little late for this, but I’m feeling nervous. Will I be able to properly greet Lady Agnes?” Emmeline’s face was flushed with excitement and anxiety.
“If you feel nervous, I might start feeling nervous too,” Franz teased her.
“But we’re going to Lady Agnes’s home.”
Connie’s friends knew that his great-grandmother was Agnes, a member of the Magic Council, but for mages in the making, her position felt as out of reach as the clouds above. That was especially true for the overserious Emmeline, who was especially restless. Furthermore, Agnes’s mansion was currently home to several people who stood higher than even those proverbial clouds.
“Welcome home, Connie. Are these the friends you mentioned? It’s nice to meet you; my name is Ferd. I’m a friend of Connie’s great-great-grandfather.”
“Welcome home. It’s nice to meet you; my name is Elrica.”
The students were greeted in front of the mansion by Ferd and Elrica, a wrinkly, elderly couple who had been basking in the sun since early in the morning.
“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Franz.”
“I’m Hagen.”
“I’m Emmeline.”
Franz and the rest greeted the old couple like normal. To note again, the names Ferd and Elrica had been common to begin with, and after the end of the war, many people had named their children after the Hero and the Saint, so for a time, it had even been said that you couldn’t turn a corner without bumping into a Ferd or Elrica. There were many students with those names in the academy today too. As a result, for the youngest generation of Franz and the others, since the names Ferd and Elrica were so ordinary, they could only accept that they would sometimes show up together.
It really is an incredible scene... On the other hand, to Connie, who knew the truth, even just the sight of this half-legendary couple merrily basking in the sun together felt amazing.
“My, my, thank you for coming. I’m Agnes, Connie’s great-grandmother.” Perhaps having heard voices outside, the owner of the mansion, Agnes, appeared.
“I-It’s a pleasure to meet you!” Franz and the others, who had been simply courteous to Ferd and Elrica, greeted Agnes nervously.
“What do you two plan on doing now?” Agnes asked Ferd and Elrica.
“I think I’ll stay out in the sun for a little longer.”
“So will I, honey.”
The relaxed couple had decided to stay outside under the sun for a while longer.
“Very well,” Agnes replied. “Now please, come on in,” she then said to Connie’s friends.
“Thank you for having us.” Urged by Agnes, the kids bowed to the elderly couple and went inside.
“Young people these days all have great manners,” Elrica commented, also thinking back to the students of the academy as well as Franz’s group.
“They certainly do, dearest,” Ferd agreed with a big nod. “When I was young, I was, well, you know.” He had a distant look in his eyes as he remembered his own youth.
“Oho ho ho ho.”
Both as a farmer’s son and as the Hero, Ferd had never had the time to learn polite language and manners, so he’d been rude quite often, and now that he thought back on it, there had been many incidents that even he realized made him look bad. For example, he’d once told the pope of a certain church that if he had time to sit back, put his hands together, and pray to his god, he should swing a mace or something. These nigh-blundering acts of rudeness hadn’t been recorded in history, but the man involved remembered them clear as day as he sat and stared into the distance.
“Hmm? Oh, Sazaki and Lara are back.” While Ferd was thinking about the past, he noticed that Sazaki was back from buying alcohol for the trip, along with Lara who’d gone with him.
“I noticed three unfamiliar distances. Are they the friends Connie was talking about?” As usual, Sazaki seemed to have his own strange method of noticing that Franz and the rest were here.
“Yes, they just arrived.” Ferd couldn’t understand his friend’s senses at all.
“Buddies are a real blessing, aren’t they?” Sazaki seemed happy that his great-great-grandson had brought over friends, but his wide grin ruined everything.
“If you hadn’t said it with that expression, I would have nodded along eagerly.” Ferd, Sazaki’s buddy—to borrow his words—nodded begrudgingly.
However, Ferd had never doubted their friendship for a second. Sazaki was the man who’d casually walked into certain death—despite not having a death wish—just because his buddy was going to defeat the Great Demon King and he’d figured he might as well help. In plays and stories, the Hero and Blademaster were very accurately portrayed as best friends; it was just that Sazaki’s sensibilities were a little peculiar.
“Well, maybe the meaning of the word ‘buddy’ has changed a bit from the past,” Sazaki said, shrugging his shoulders.
During Sazaki’s generation, human nature had been laid bare because of the adverse circumstances. As a result, although there had also been selfish people, many who had been tempered by the chaotic times had similar views on friendship as Sazaki. But prosperous times gave birth to pretense, and friendship might be becoming nothing but a formality.
“I don’t think so. Both friendship and buddies still exist where they need to.” Ferd rejected Sazaki’s words. He may have appeared as just an ordinary old man to youngsters, but his countenance was truly that of the Hero who’d fought for light and life.
Meanwhile, as Connie’s nervous friends were being shown around the mansion by its owner, Agnes, they noticed something strange.
“Hey, Connie, who is that?” Franz couldn’t help but ask while looking at the odd individual.
Through the window, they could see a spacious courtyard that was like a training area. Stein, who was unusually dressed since Connie’s friends would be coming, was sitting on the ground with his eyes closed and legs crossed.
“Why is he on the ground?”
“Is something happening?”
Stein’s incomprehensible behavior had confused not only Franz, but Hagen and Emmeline too. But a trained observer could tell.
W-Wow... Connie was in no position to answer his friends’ questions. He could only marvel at Stein’s perfect sitting posture using incredibly simple vocabulary.
Holy crap... Is he really human? Agnes was similarly shocked, and her inner thoughts, free of her usual pretense, concisely described Stein’s situation.
“Oh, are these the friends you mentioned? Hello, I’m Max, a buddy of Connie’s great-great-grandparents.”
“I-It’s nice to meet you. I’m Franz.”
Max appeared before the group that had stopped in its tracks.
How do I put this...?
This man...
His age and appearance are a bit...
But even though the legendary Dragonsbane Knight had arrived, Franz and the rest weren’t particularly impressed, instead focusing on his accessories, clothes, and tone of voice, which didn’t suit a man his age at all.
Even during the great war, Max had occasionally used a different name, rarely appeared in public because it would be an issue if his secret got discovered, and worn full-body armor, so he was considered among the two most mysterious members of the Hero’s party. Therefore, Franz and the others, who weren’t part of the generation involved in the war, couldn’t possibly have realized Max’s true identity, and thus they only considered him an incongruously dressed old man.
“Ah, you’re curious about him? What was it called again... Right, tree sitting. It’s one of a monk’s basic training exercises. Have you learned that Life Wave monks harbor the power of nature and sometimes try to unify with it?” Max asked.
“Y-Yes.” Emmeline, an honor student, responded with a nod.
“Then this will be easy to explain. That’s one of the methods to achieve that. It’s the most basic of the basics, taught to new monks from their first day. I’m sure that if you visit the Boiling Mountain, the monks’ headquarters, you’ll see this stance everywhere. But if you completely master it, your consciousness will become one with nature and you’ll be unable to return to normal, so you should give up on it if you plan to pursue the path of the monk.” Max, who in the past had commented about Sazaki really being a caring individual, also gently instructed the young ones.
Even though it’s one of the basics, it has amazing results if you master it. Meanwhile, Connie had been constantly observing Stein.
Tree sitting was certainly a basic exercise, but the story was different when it was being performed by Stein, a man described as an unparalleled genius even by Albert, one of the founders of the monk way. Just like Max had explained, Stein had gone much further than simply harboring the power of nature and drawing closer to it: his boundaries as an individual hadn’t just become blurred but vanished completely, and the force field that all living beings should possess had disappeared. Something like that was normally inconceivable.
Those with a high level of intelligence, even children, should possess some kind of force field, such as a wave, mana, or some other presence emanating from their soul. This established them as individuals in nature, which was nothing but a simple aggregation of life-forms. However, Stein was currently perfectly blended with nature, and his individuality had vanished. Doing this would undoubtedly shatter and dissolve one’s ego. Even the elves, who lived in harmony with nature, and dragons, overwhelmingly powerful creatures, would fear this as a state of no return.
Stein had achieved this state while still in his mid-teens, without losing his sense of self, and had been on the verge of mastering the Life Wave. Today, even when he was simply training while sitting down, he was at the highest pinnacle of monks in history. Despite being a monk, he didn’t believe in the gods, and after dabbling in the Death Wave, he’d started walking a different path. It was no wonder that Albert had asked him—practically begging—to stay, and he still kept his membership and position in his sect.
“Anyway, see ya later.” After finishing his explanation, Max waved at the others and left.
“Th-Thank you very much.”
Max then headed to the courtyard, and not only Connie but Franz and the rest unconsciously followed him with their eyes.
“Hmm.” After stepping into the courtyard, which was something like a training ground, Max casually felt like re-creating an old habit he’d had with Stein, so he picked up a spear-like pole that was leaning against a wall in the garden and spun it around.