When we arrived at one of the city’s inns later that day, all of us were still feeling completely baffled.
Randolph certainly hadn’t fallen; in fact, it had never actually been attacked by monsters in the first place.
“So the story being spread around the capital was false information, then...?” Commander Bolton muttered to himself, seemingly unable to comprehend what had happened.
“It certainly seems that way,” I confirmed.
“The story might have gotten more embellished as it passed from person to person,” Seira theorized.
“Still, rumors without a single scrap of truth to ’em don’t spread too well,” the commander countered. “Somebody had to have been making a concerted effort to keep that fire burning.”
“Isn’t it fantastic that the attack wasn’t real, though?” Seira offered a smile to ease his concerns. “That means your wife and daughter are safe!”
“Yeah... Yeah, you’re right.” Letting out a huge sigh, he hung his head forward, seated in one of the chairs in our room. It appeared that his perpetually tense nerves had finally loosened up.
“So what do we do now?” Spinoza asked him.
“We head back to the capital as soon as possible. The rest of the guards are fighting those monsters even as we speak. We can’t afford to sit here on our asses.”
“But the sun is already setting,” Seira pointed out. “It would be dangerous to leave right now.”
“Seira’s right,” I said. “There’s no point in us rushing out now and risking getting caught in a surprise monster attack. Let’s get out of here first thing in the morning,” I suggested.
“Yeah...okay.” Commander Bolton nodded weakly, convinced by our reasoning. “Sorry about that. My judgment is complete garbage right now, huh.”
“Not at all! And you don’t need to worry—Leobolt and Alma are there at the capital. With them, our defenses would be able to hold out even if demons attacked!”
They were two of the most skilled individuals in the entire Guard Corps—they could definitely drive off a pack of monsters or something similar without any of us needing to be there.
“So that means we’ve got nothin’ to do ’til tomorrow, huh?” Spinoza gave a wicked grin.
“Don’t you dare go to the pub.” I glared at her.
“I didn’t even say anything yet!” she grumbled.
“You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face. We’re leaving first thing in the morning tomorrow, and I don’t want you to end up getting plastered and immediately going missing on us. You’re staying at the inn for the rest of the night.”
“Tch. Fine, fine,” Spinoza agreed with great reluctance. “Instead of booze, then, how about we have a fun little story time or somethin’? Speakin’ of, how’d ya end up breakin’ up with your wife anyway, Commander?”
“Spinoza, you are unbelievable...” Fam groaned.
“You really should have a bit more tact,” Seira chided Spinoza gently. “Though I do have to say, I’m actually quite curious about how you and your wife first met, Commander—tell us about the start of your romance!”
Apparently, she had been interested too. Seira enjoyed hearing about people’s love stories more than just about anything else in the world. According to Alma, even in her princess days she would always ask her servants about their romantic interests.
Though she seemed to have zero love stories of her own to share...
“Hearing about how a middle-aged guy like me got together with his wife would just bore you to tears, I bet.”
“No, I’d really like to know!” Seira insisted.
“Ah, fine, not like I’ve got anything to hide about it. We first met...I think it was over ten years ago now.” Commander Bolton began to slowly recount his tale. “I had just gotten fired from the coal mine I was working at for a dumbass reason. I was just your average punk, gettin’ drunk as hell at the bar every day, constantly gettin’ into fights.”
“So you were a total loser, huh,” Spinoza said with a smirk.
“He wasn’t that far off from describing your life, you know,” Fam pointed out.
“Needless to say, the other townsfolk didn’t think too highly of me—they all kept their distance. I figured I’d end up dead in a ditch someday. That was when I met my now ex-wife. She was workin’ at the pub. At one point she got right up into my dirtbag face and just laid into me. Told me a grown man shouldn’t sit there sulking like a baby for his whole life. Said it was pathetic. Told me to get a job.” He smiled a bit at the recollection.
“Normally I woulda gone off about it. Everyone else thought I was gonna too. But after she yelled at me, I ended up crying. Maybe I was happy somebody finally took the effort to confront me about it head-on. I fell head over heels, and I started swinging by the pub every day to try and win her over. We tied the knot a year later. Guess she finally gave in to my nagging.”
“Wow...!” Seira gasped.
“By then, she was already pregnant. I had already been workin’ here and there for a while as a day laborer and whatnot, but if we were gonna have a kid, I was gonna need to get a real job. That was why I figured I’d join the Guard Corps. If there was anything I had any confidence in, it was my own brute strength. That, and they said anybody who had any skills could get in, since they were short on manpower.”
“So that’s how you first joined the Guard Corps, then?” Seira asked.
“Yep. Once I got in, I worked my ass off. I was older than most of the other guys, so I had to put in more effort than anyone else—enough to make up for all the time I’d spent being a lazy slob. It was backbreaking work piled on top of more of the same every single day, but I knew I was doing it for my wife and kid, so it didn’t bother me. Pretty soon I got promoted to squad sergeant, and I was even put up as a potential candidate to be the next commander.”
Upon reaching that point in his story, Commander Bolton’s expression darkened.
“Problem was, I ended up putting my work before my family. We had a daughter by then, but by the time I got home every night, she was already asleep. I was always exhausted, so I would always go straight to bed, barely saying a word to my wife. Then I’d have to leave early in the morning, before my daughter woke up. I let my wife raise the kid on her own, and to me it just seemed like the kiddo kept getting bigger suddenly. I had no idea how to interact with my daughter either. My parents were a couple o’ scumbags, and I didn’t remember ’em talking to me a whole lot when I was a kid.”
The commander gave a self-deprecating smirk. “Bloodlines can be pretty scary. When I was a kid, I had thought my dad was a piece of shit, but somewhere along the line, the piece of shit dad ended up being me. By the time I realized it, an impassable rift had formed between my wife and me. And eventually, we ended up deciding to break it off. I thought I had joined the guards to protect my family, but instead it ended up destroying it. Pretty damn ironic, if ya ask me.”
In an effort to bring a little cheer back into the room, Commander Bolton put on a smile. However, it was so obviously fake that it was almost painful to look at.
Seira must have noticed as well, because she suddenly decided to speak up. “Why don’t you go see your wife and daughter, Commander?”
“Eh?” His eyes shot open at Seira’s sudden proposal. “Me? Go see them?”
“Yes! You came all this way, I figure why not talk to them again after such a long time?” Seira said. “Aren’t you curious about how they’re living their lives?”
“I mean, sure, but...” The commander was hesitant. He might have wanted to visit his family, but he probably wasn’t sure whether it would be a good idea. “...Doing that would probably just bother ’em.”
“You don’t know that, though. They might feel differently now that so much time has passed. I’m certain you’ll regret it if you leave without trying.”
“You’re tryin’ to push this on me pretty damn hard, Seira.”
“You love your family, right, Commander? If they mean that much to you and you’ve been given this opportunity to see them, I think you should take it.” She stared straight into Commander Bolton’s eyes. “Because once they’re gone, you’ll never get that chance again.”
Seira’s most beloved family member—her father, the king of Sorcera—was gone forever. She had slain him by her own hand to save her kingdom.
“Ugh, ya ass-draggin’ bastard. Like you haven’t already bothered ’em a ton in the past. You’re just too chickenshit to go see ’em,” Spinoza groaned in irritation.
She must have hit a sore point; the commander’s face scrunched up in embarrassment.
“Don’t just stand there with that mopey look on your face. Get your ass movin’ already! Hurry up and get your wife to spit on you so we can get this over with.”
“Spinoza, mind your phrasing...” Seira chastised.
“No, she’s right,” Commander Bolton muttered. “I do want to see my wife and kid. I’ve just been too scared. It’s pathetic, really.”
“Commander, we still have time before we leave. Why not see your family once first? We’ll even help you find them,” I offered.
After an extended silence, he muttered one short phrase in response: “All right.”
With a decisive nod, he addressed us all. “We entrusted the defense of Astaroth to Leobolt and the others so we could come out here. If nothing else, I wanna see for sure whether my family’s doing all right.”