“What?!”
Rosetta’s eyes widened with surprise, her appealing face suddenly in shambles from the shock. Somehow, the startled expression was so cute on her that she didn’t lose a drop of her beauty.
“Mhm, but of course. My method is the most efficient, no matter how you look at it,” Ginger said.
“Ha ha, now I can finally jump into busting some heads. Sorry in advance if the power of my youth makes a dinosaur like you jealous!”
Marquess Ginger and William left the room shortly after, both extremely satisfied with Alan’s decision.
✦ ✦ ✦
After Ginger and William left, Rosetta and Alan remained in the small office.
“Argh! What the hell is wrong with them?! How dare they talk to Master Alan, a legendary hero, like that?!”
Rosetta’s eyebrows were raised as she stomped on the floor like her frustration was a bug she wanted to squash. Alan tried to soothe her in a calm voice, almost as if he was a butler trying to pacify his stubborn mistress. The line between master and servant was completely blurred.
“You’re also at fault, Master! Why didn’t you defend yourself against them?!”
Rosetta turned her anger loose on Alan’s attitude as well. Her pretty face could wield a very intimidating glare. Alan was reminded of the time he fought a female red fenrir. The red fur, sharp glare, and constant yapping bore a striking resemblance.
“Well, Lord Ginger’s proposal made sense,” Alan said. “He also had the approval of William, the representative of the new recruits. Besides, it’s true—I am just an old man who left the front line long ago.”
Because of his abrupt promotion to knight commander, Alan had not seen actual combat since helping defeat the demon lord twenty-five years ago. That was a long enough time for a kid to grow up into an upstanding adult. Precious few of the current knights had actually seen Alan fight with their own eyes.
“I don’t think you’re that old, though,” Rosetta said with displeasure.
“I am old from my generation’s perspective. Back in the day, few got to live to this age.”
The world had been different twenty-five years ago. The century-long war with the demons was at its worst during Alan’s time, so young humans were immediately sent to the front lines. It was rare for people like knights, whose lives revolved around combat, to survive past twenty. Despite growing up in such times, Alan made it to forty-two in what seemed like moments. When he thought back to all his allies who died young, Alan couldn’t help but agree when people called him old, a fossil, or senile.
Quite contrary to Alan, Rosetta bitterly gripped the skirt of her uniform as she said, “But I know that you really...”
✦ ✦ ✦
Rosetta Reinel was the only daughter born to an ordinary peddler couple. Her parents traveled from place to place selling their wares, so her life had been a nomadic one as long as she could remember.
Her parents always used to say: “It’s all thanks to the heroes putting an end to the war that we can safely travel between kingdoms like this.”
When the war was still waging, anyone could be attacked by the demon army the moment they took a step outside the kingdom. As if that weren’t enough, starving human raiders attacking merchants was an everyday occurrence. If anything, the kingdom itself, with its thriving logistics network, was a target for bandits. Even if merchants stayed within the country, they could be attacked wherever they went. Every journey was a matter of life and death.
Compared to those times, the demon army was now gone and peace had returned to the kingdoms. It was safe for merchants to bring their children along with them. Rosetta’s parents often expressed their gratitude to the heroes, and even though she was too young back then to properly understand what they meant, she took their words as fact.
That was, until ten years before the present, when Rosetta had been swept up in an unfortunate incident. She was only seven years old at the time.
While travel between kingdoms was much safer than before, it still carried some risk—namely, attacks from wild monsters. However, the path Rosetta and her parents were traveling along was supposed to be an area without any dangerous monsters. The worst one could encounter were monsters the size of a small animal. They were weak enough that even Rosetta’s father could repel them with a weapon.
At least, that should have been the case.
In the blink of an eye, a five-meter-long wyvern came from nowhere, killing Rosetta’s parents before they could even raise a weapon in defense. The young Rosetta couldn’t lift a finger as she trembled before the overwhelming might of the beast approaching her. The only thing in her mind was what her parents used to say:
In the past, everything was a matter of life and death.
In other words, this used to happen all the time. She could feel the terror her parents once knew on a daily basis crawling across her vulnerable skin. All that was left was for the wyvern’s enormous fangs to run her through, and then she’d be swallowed whole.
Somehow, in the next moment, a broad back stood between Rosetta and the wyvern.
“It’s okay now. That must have been awful, you poor little girl.”
Then, he drew the sword at this hip, and—
A flash of light.
The ferocious monster that was filling her with dread moments earlier was cut down in a single strike. Alan Granger, then thirty-two, was only a little older than her father.
The battle over, he embraced the trembling Rosetta in his arms with a gentle smile that was quite unlike the immense strength he had just displayed.