WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Ode of the Brave ◈

Chapter 155

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It was the kind of place only locals, or people familiar with the surrounding terrain, would know about.

The shallow cave offered shelter from the rain and was stocked with various travel supplies.

It was like a resting place for travelers battered by wind and rain.

The gloomy rain could not dare intrude upon their hearts, while the cozy campfire seemed to gently soothe their souls.

The knights shared one fire among themselves, while the people from the Order shared another. An awkward distance hung between the two groups.

Ricart and Ice were different. Leaning against the wall shoulder to shoulder, they warmed themselves by a fire meant only for them. Not even the fire's warmth could compare to their tender friendship.

Still, what should they say? Nothing in particular came to mind. Yet whenever they looked into each other's eyes, smiles naturally spread across their faces for no reason at all.

Their days together came back to them now and then. Days beautifully wrapped in the name of memory.

The hardship and unspoken pain of those times were now only memories of the past. Being able to live well and meet again with smiles made everything feel forgiven. Whatever it had been.

“Should I call you Father now?”

Ricart asked first, half-joking.

“No. Father? I haven't even received approval from the Holy Imperial Court.”

“That doesn't matter much. What matters is whether you're happy.”

“I am. It's all thanks to you, Ricky.”

Ice answered without the slightest hesitation. Embarrassed, Ricart looked away.

“What did I do? You achieved it all yourself.”

“Even though I disappointed you so many times, you never abandoned me.”

“Hm? No, that's not right. I think you've got it wrong.”

Ricart spoke as though asking what Ice was talking about.

“Huh?”

“You've never disappointed me, Ice.”

He meant it. Ricart might hide his feelings, but he had never lied when expressing them.

This time, Ice lowered his head with a smile, seemingly embarrassed. Then he looked back at Ricart. The reddish firelight seemed to have melted into his silver hair.

“...That sounds like you, Ricky. You haven't changed. You're strong and warm.”

“Is that so? I don't know. Anyway, it hasn't been that long, but it feels like it's been ages since someone called me Ricky. I've been using my real name lately.”

“Ah, right. I heard bits of news on the wind. I heard you were in Adelorne, but I had no idea you were leading a knight order. Nobles often have the same names, after all.”

It was hard to imagine that someone in Adelorne would board a ship, be shipwrecked, pass through the holy site, go through all sorts of things, then lead a knight order across into the Empire.

“Armies don't fall from the sky or spring from the ground. I just put in the legwork. Luckily, my sincerity got through to them.”

“That’s good. So are you heading to Adelorne with the knight order? I already feel sorry for your enemies. By the way, do you have any children?”

“No, not yet. I don't know whether we'll settle down. There are things I need to do for the time being, but who knows what will happen later?”

“Still, it sounds like you're doing well. Sometimes I wanted to ask how you were, but I held back because of Marie.”

“What do you mean? Why Marie?”

“She doesn't like me.”

“What? That's the first I've heard of it.”

It was unexpected. Even when there had been trouble involving the Church of Judgment and Ice, Marie had been the one defending him.

And if there was someone Marie might have felt awkward around, wouldn't it have been Daisy? Ice saying this was surprising.

“Back when we stayed in Ernberg, she would glare at me whenever you weren't looking.”

“Marie did?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would she...?”

“I think she felt inferior about swordsmanship. She wasn't a Sword Master then. She seemed like she was being chased by something, like she was upset all the time. But I'm not exactly friendly either, so maybe that was just how things were. I'm not saying she's a bad person.”

Ricart carefully looked back on the past. That might have been when he rejected Marie's first confession. In the buckwheat flower field.

It seemed ridiculous now, but at the time, it had been the most important thing in the world to Marie.

It was not easy to restrain and control desperate feelings when one was immature. Was that why she had felt resentment toward an innocent person? He did not know.

“I don't need to apologize on her behalf, do I?”

“Haha, you can if you want.”

“Anyway, that's a relief. At least I didn't marry a bad person.”

“Hahaha...”

It was not an important conversation. Just trivial stories from long ago, the sort of conversation close friends might have.

Then Ricart noticed something gleaming through a gap in Ice's clothes. He seemed to be wearing armor underneath, and Ricart recognized it from only a glimpse. It was the breastplate made of jin silver that he had once worn.

“So you had this.”

There was about a four-year age gap between Ricart and Ice, but their builds were similar. It would have been too big for Bori and too small for Volka, but it seemed to fit Ice perfectly.

“Huh? Ah, this. Back then, you took it off and just left, so... I couldn't find where you'd gone. Do you want it back?”

At the time, he had simply been in that kind of state of mind. The side of the breastplate had split, so he thought he had taken it off, tossed it aside, and left the Holy Temple.

“No. I'm glad you have it. Keep wearing it.”

“It must be worth quite a bit.”

“Money comes and goes. I don't worry about it.”

“Then, even if it's late, I should thank you.”

“If you want. Anyway, how have you been? As a monk, do you attend services every day and copy books or something?”

“Haha, no. I just teach the children swordsmanship and patrol with them. I attend to the sisters, and the sisters take care of the children...”

It sounded as though they ran an orphanage. Though each monastery had a different function, monasteries generally served as local administrative institutions, providing social services such as hospitals and orphanages, officiating marriages, and conducting funerals.

The Mikela Sword Order was more unusual. It was an armed monastery that protected the nearby region, took in children with nowhere else to go, and taught swordsmanship to those with talent.

“So that's why you were killing bandits? I saw the bodies on the way here.”

“That's right. Snake-Eyes Ashtad. He leads a group of deserters. He took control of the villages a few years ago and kept growing his forces. The lords are busy gathering armies of their own, so nobody could touch him, and he's become too powerful. So what else can we do but step in?”

“Couldn't you kill them all alone? You're a Sword Master too.”

“Not every Sword Master is like you, Ricky. If we get stabbed or cut and our wounds fester, we die.”

“So do I.”

“Anyway, we need to approach this carefully. It's dangerous work for the children too.”

Ricart turned toward the entrance of the cave, where the Order's boys and girls sat gathered together. They looked between fourteen and eighteen years old, around Ricart's age.

But there was an unbridgeable difference between them and Ricart in talent, experience, skill, and enlightenment. Even if people lived through the same years, the depth of those years differed for everyone.

The Order's children were staring in their direction. More precisely, they were looking at Ice, fascinated because their instructor, who was not usually so expressive, was smiling so much.

Though he had improved greatly from before, Ice often came across as cold without meaning to.

It was not that he taught harshly, but he rarely smiled and was not especially affectionate by nature.

Yet now, having met an old friend, the smile never left his face. The children felt as though they had discovered a rare wildflower.

So their instructor could smile. So that was what he looked like when he smiled. He was the most beautiful person in the world. Such thoughts naturally came to them.

And naturally, they became curious about the man who made their instructor smile. His blond hair was like pure gold, and his nose was straight. Yet somewhere within his calm gaze, they sensed an inexplicable chill.

More than anything, there was an aura about his otherwise ordinary appearance. Something difficult to explain, something with unfathomable depth, as though he did not belong to this world.

Ricart looked away from his friend's students and turned back to Ice.

“Do you keep in touch with the others?”

“Not often. Volka gave us money when we bought the abandoned monastery and cultivated the nearby farmland. I'm always grateful to him.”

The Mikela Sword Order's main source of income was operating something like an estate. They were mostly self-sufficient and supported themselves by selling what they gained from defeating robbers and bandits.

Ricart nodded.

“Everyone is walking the path of the sword in their own way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bori seems to be taking the path of a scholar, in a way. I think he's trying to turn swordsmanship into an academic discipline. Volka seems to be doing business, and you, Ice, seem to be using the sword as a means to cultivate your faith. You all share the sword, but you're each walking a different path.”

“Isn't there one more thing we share?”

“What?”

“You. We've all been influenced by you. Volka couldn't have grown this much without you. And that goes without saying for Bori, Marie, and me.”

“No. You all grew on your own.”

“You get embarrassed when someone praises you, don't you, Ricky?”

“It's humility, humility.”

“Let's call it that.”

The conversation was light. Nothing weighed on them, and it flowed easily. As that comfortable mood continued, Ricart casually asked,

“Are you not getting married? You're older than me, Ice.”

“I took a vow of celibacy. In any case, I chose the life of a monk.”

“That's strange.”

“What is?”

“The people in my knight order had all taken vows of celibacy too. But I made them stop.”

“Why?”

“Because it seemed like they'd lost their way. In the end, there are few things better than building a family and raising children with love. To be honest, I grew up in a happy family. My mother's love, my father's approval, and the affection between siblings. I have no doubt those things made me who I am today. I'm certain that a parent's love is a sacred strength that lets a person endure the long suffering called life. That's why I showed them that path. That doesn't mean I force anyone to marry, of course. You know what I mean, right?”

The difference between Ice and the knight order was whether they had lost their way. Ice had not, so Ricart did not force him to start a family.

Still, Ricart's words seemed to have stirred something in Ice. Ice quietly looked at Ricart, then turned his gaze toward the fire. He looked as though he were thinking for a moment.

“You know, Ricky.”

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Back then, why did you spare me...? You killed everyone else.”

By back then, he meant what had happened at the Church of Judgment's Holy Temple four years ago. Ricart had spared quite a few people besides Ice, including the nuns. Of course, he had killed many times more.

“...I don't remember very well either, but I think I felt that I had to break the chain. The chain of hatred and more hatred. And how could I kill you? I'd rather die myself. Don't say things like that.”

“No, I was just curious. Ricky, aren't you really some messenger of God or something? Have you ever heard God's words?”

This time, Ricart looked quietly at Ice. They were not sitting across the campfire from one another but shoulder to shoulder, so their eyes were close.

There seemed to be the faintest lingering attachment in Ice's silver eyes. A lingering attachment to religion.

Ricart knew the deepest pain within Ice's heart. The ineradicable guilt over his younger sibling. Whenever it seemed to have eased, it resurfaced and clung to him like a shadow.

“I killed my older brother with my own hands. My beloved Billy. His trembling eyes and frail body at the moment of his death are still vivid before my eyes and in my ears. But do I look like I'm suffering, Ice?”

“...”

“It isn't pain that is tormenting you. You're the one holding on to pain. Accept hurt as hurt, and keep it in your heart. Don't cling to it. Earlier, you said you were happy. Focus on that. That's the way to hear God's words.”

For some reason, Ice's heart suddenly ached. He turned his head away. He did not sob, but when he closed his eyes, his long lashes grew wet.

Ricart's words were not shallow comfort. They were not words he had desperately made up despite not truly understanding.

They were the words of someone who had touched upon truth, who knew the weight of sorrow, who understood pain and suffering better than anyone.

Ice's nose stung, and he took a while to compose himself. When he spoke again, there was a slight tremor of tears in his voice at first.

“At least, ahem, at least to me, you're God's messenger.”

“Really? Then can I give an order as a messenger?”

“What order?”

“You and I should trade faces.”

“Hahahaha!”

Ice laughed heartily at Ricart's silly joke. His laughter echoed loudly through the shallow cave, making the knights and the Order's children look over.

Even so, he kept laughing. The tears disappeared completely.

“Let's rest for now, then when morning comes, let's teach the bad guys a lesson. What do you say?”

“Sounds good.”

“It'll feel like old times.”

Ricart said with a confident smile.

There was no need to call up the soldiers resting below and put them through unnecessary trouble. With Ice beside him, he was confident they could kill even the largest bandit gang.

In truth, he could do it alone as well, but that might become messy. They needed somewhere to shelter from the rain, after all, so he could not simply set the place on fire.

Looking at Ice, Ricart felt as though he had returned to when Ricart was about ten. In contrast, Ice had overcome those anxious years, grown, and now seemed at ease.

That ease came from confidence in the path he walked. And it was obvious that confidence had begun with Ricart.

The children who had once swayed like reeds were now like trees firmly rooted in the ground. And those trees had become places of rest for others.

Outside the cave, rain still fell through the pitch-black night. The smell of burning firewood made them feel drunk without a drop of alcohol.

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