Chapter 7:
A Small Guardian
I FIND MYSELF THINKING a lot about what it means to be an adult lately. What does it mean to come of age?
In my previous world, I thought that I was an adult, that I’d grown up, but that wasn’t really the case. Here, I realized I was an inexperienced brat, and I’ve worked hard to mature since then. I’m still a long way from growing up in reality, though.
Kids become adults in the blink of an eye, but from our perspective, there’s still plenty of immaturity in them. It’s like our children have no idea how immature they still are. But is that really the case? Maybe they do know, but they don’t know how to make the right choices.
I’m not sure if that immaturity is something you should get rid of. I don’t know if that’s really what growth is.
—Passage from The Book of Rudeus, Volume 29
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We found Aisha and Arus on the Millis Continent. They were in a small village along a river at the edge of the Holy Country of Millis, living in a little house.
It was Roxy who figured out where they were.
More specifically, an adventurer found them first. One of the adventurers operating in Millis dropped in on the village to complete a job and happened to find Aisha and Arus. We’d put out a request for information on them at the Adventurers’ Guild, so they sent that straight to Ruquag’s Mercenary Band. However, since Aisha had laid the groundwork beforehand, that info got swept under the rug.
Things didn’t end there, though.
I stopped Roxy from going out to look for them all the time, but she secretly used teleportation circles to collect info from around the world regardless. I should’ve expected as much from my ever-reliable teacher.
The guild had a duty of confidentiality, so when it came to intel-collecting requests, they never handed info over to anyone but a client. Fortunately, Roxy had an old friend who worked as a clerk at the Millis Adventurers’ Guild. Thanks to that friend, Roxy got her hands on the sighting info and learned that the mercenary band had swept said info under the rug.
In order to confirm the pair was actually there, Roxy rushed to the village and observed them from afar. She decided to avoid contacting them then and there. Instead, she headed back home—where I had begun to freak out over her disappearance—to fill me in on things.
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I ended up at the village as well, along with Sylphie, Roxy, and Eris. Lilia wanted to come as well, but I’d her hold down the fort back home. I felt I needed to talk to Aisha myself.
It was a peaceful village, but there was little to it. From what I’d heard, the village was a relay point for transporting timber, so the Logger Guild played a big part in running things. Workers collected the timber coming down from upstream, then handed it over to the merchants. The merchants had connections to organizations that would then carry the timber off to the larger towns.
They also raised livestock and farmed—the basics required for day-to-day life.
Despite how near the woods were, there were few instances of monster attacks, and the village rarely made requests of the Adventurers’ Guild. Since the village would naturally empty out once the logging work upstream came to a close, the place didn’t even have a name, and it wasn’t on any maps. Most didn’t even know there were people living here.
Aisha and Arus lived on the outskirts of this village.
It was a small single-family home, probably used. Next to it was a tiny water wheel, a small field and flower bed, and a little chicken coop.
I stood in front of that house. I wanted to go inside and talk to Aisha, but I couldn’t because there was a small guardian standing in my way: Arus. He glared at me with a fierce, determined look in his eyes. They were strong eyes. They looked like they held killing intent. None of my children had ever looked at me like that before.
Just like that, I found myself on the verge of tears; I wanted to turn around and go home. Obviously, I had no intention of doing that, but…
“Arus,” I said.
He waited a beat before replying. “Dad.”
It was my first time seeing him in a while, and he looked much more mature. Was it because of his attire? He was wearing leather armor and had a sword, just like an adventurer. However, everything was dirty. There was something wild about him that wasn’t there when he lived with us.
I needed to talk to him, not just Aisha.
“Arus… Was this the right choice?”
It’d been a year since I decided I needed to talk to him. Everything I wanted to say had long since vanished from my mind, so those were the words that slipped out from my mouth.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Your relationship with Aisha, running off, your whole situation… Do you regret it?”
“I…was prepared for this.”
I asked him if he regretted his choices, not if he was prepared. Either way, he didn’t hesitate. I could feel a stronger determination from him than I’d anticipated. He made me feel as though he hadn’t just followed Aisha along like a little duckling.
“I wish you’d acted like this that day,” I told him.
“You’re right. I should have.”
“And I should have spoken with you.”
“I don’t think I would have been able to answer you properly back then,” he said bluntly.
Was he implying that he’d changed in the year since?