WeTried Translations
Translator: Goku
Editor: Sty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The War Hero in the NTR Game Wants to Die ◈
Chapter 017
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Fading Flowers (5)
A thin wisp of smoke rose from the cigarette that had fallen on the floor.
Unable to even think of grinding it out with my foot, I just stared at her.
The sound of wooden swords clashing in the training ground outside the window faded into the distance.
It felt as if the air in the room had suddenly stopped altogether.
It was Arin.
The girl in my memory was much younger than the woman before my eyes.
Sun-tanned cheeks, hair faintly tinged with pink.
What should I say about that face, the one that used to call my name and wave at me at the village entrance?
Now, it was as if the innocence unique to a child had vanished.
She was thin.
Her hair was slightly faded, and the coat the guild must have given her hung loosely on her shoulders.
The nape of her neck exposed between the coat collar, and the knuckles of the hand gripping the hem of her clothes.
I had planned to search the bottom rungs, find her someday... and approach her only after preparing myself mentally.
Meeting her so abruptly like this was not my cup of tea.
I had replayed this moment countless times in my head.
This moment of meeting Arin again.
Though I hadn't imagined we'd encounter each other in a place like this.
Whether I grabbed her by the collar, turned my back, spat out some words, or we just hurled insults at each other... I thought I'd do something...
Not that we would stand dumbfounded like this, unable to say anything to each other.
I couldn't tell if I was happy to see her or if I wanted to throw up.
Outwardly, I showed nothing.
I had to.
Feeling dazed, but trying my best not to let my hands tremble, I took out a cigarette from my pocket.
Then I stuck it in my mouth and lit it.
Even with the smoke, my dizzy head didn't clear up properly.
"You... started smoking?"
She was the one who spoke first.
She swallowed what she really wanted to ask, and instead used a cigarette to start the conversation.
"It just became a habit. If you don't like it, I'll put it out."
"Oh, no! It's just, it's surprising. I thought you wouldn't do something like that."
It felt like I was talking to a dead person.
I am not the Riehen she knew, and this woman before me is not the Arin I knew.
Both of us were merely awkwardly imitating the faces we had left behind in that village.
"Um... can I sit here for my spot?"
She had said she was dispatched from the guild.
Meaning, one of the two neat desks in the lab was hers.
"Sit anywhere. I'm new here too, so I don't really know anything."
She chose the seat in the farthest corner, perched only on the edge of the chair.
Then she turned her chair slightly towards me and sat stiffly.
Just like a student being punished.
"Anyway, um, how did you end up here... no, I mean... a professor? Before, you clearly said you were joining the knight order."
"It just... happened."
Laying out all the long-winded reasons would only make us both uncomfortable.
"I did think someone like me wouldn't even be good enough for your league... but I didn't expect it to be this much."
"So back then, you clearly... no, well. Those days."
Instead of an answer, Arin just twitched her lips and stopped.
So this time, I spoke first.
"Anyway, how have you been all this time?"
Her thin face, however, already told me how she had been.
".....Just, I've been doing reasonably well."
"You said you were from the guild?"
"Oh, yeah. Since I didn't graduate from here, this was the only way to work in this place."
"And about becoming an adventurer? Even the bakery lady in the village was sad you weren't sending letters."
"......For now, I'm still an adventurer. I belong to the guild. And sending letters back home... it's surprisingly expensive, yeah. So I couldn't send them."
The cigarette I was smoking burned down to the end, and ash fell onto my hand.
I flicked the ash, ground out the butt on the floor, then pulled out a new one, stuck it in my mouth, and lit it again.
If I didn't smoke this, it felt like something would well up from inside me.
"It doesn't feel like much time has passed since we last met... Riehen. Back then, you said you couldn't follow me to the capital."
"I did."
"You didn't even give a reason, just said you couldn't follow..."
Arin met my eyes, then averted her gaze, looking at the cigarette butt on the floor, and pressed her lips tightly together.
Then she slowly exhaled a sigh, finally opened her mouth... and spoke in a low voice.
As if stifling her breath.
"But why are you in front of me now?"
I pondered how I could explain that I should have died after being dragged to the battlefield, but unluckily survived and somehow ended up here... then realized there was no particular way to explain it.
"Somehow... I gained the ability to come this far. So I just came."
"To you, I must have seemed pathetic, right?"
"Arin."
"A girl with absolutely nothing, lost in her dreams, came up to the capital and is living like this, and you must have thought..."
"You shouldn't be saying that."
"......What words?"
"At the very least, you shouldn't be saying that."
Since she had denied 'Riehen' completely and left, even if she was now miserably living on the streets of the capital, she shouldn't deny herself.
Then what becomes of the 'Riehen' who was denied?
What becomes of me, who pleaded with her to stay by my side?
If you, who followed another person despite my desperate clinging and begging, utter such words, then I, my heart...
Someone knocked from outside.
Arin heard the knock, lowered her eyes, and moved quite a distance away from me.
As if we were strangers, or like a subordinate she had just met.
"Professor Gryan, may I come in?"
"Come in."
Then an unnamed staff member came inside.
"The Dean is calling for you."
"Tell him I'll be there shortly."
"Normally, as soon as you arrived here..."
"Tell him I'll be there soon. Leave."
At those words, the staff member frowned slightly and left the professor's office.
I also got up from my seat and spoke to Arin in the corner.
"...I'll be back soon, so wait here. Don't go anywhere. Right here."
Though she wasn't going to leave anywhere, the words came out of my mouth without me realizing it.
So these weren't my words.
Though I wonder if it even makes sense to distinguish that now.
* * *
After knocking, I entered the Dean's office, where he was holding a cup and stirring it with a spoon.
Judging by the slightly sweet scent, he seemed to be dissolving sugar in a drink.
"Professor Gryan, you certainly have a knack for making people wait."
The Dean said, raising his cup.
"Care for a drink?"
"No, thank you."
"Well, sit down first."
The Dean gestured, telling me to sit.
"Anyway, considering your family background, to think a failure like you has become a professor. To think they still hold the appointment power they used in the past."
After I sat down, he moistened his lips with the sweet-looking tea and spoke in a low voice.
"You've risen in the world, haven't you?"
"Dean."
"......Dean? Are you calling me Dean right now?"
"Yes. It's said that if an old man wants to receive even minimal respect, it's best to shut his mouth and open his wallet."
I got up from my seat and approached the Dean.
He was from a mage family that had been loyal to the Empire for generations, but... he was a human with elven blood mixed in.
Thanks to that, he was famous for not aging and holding the Dean's position for a long time.
And since he wasn't incompetent, he was indeed respected by many.
But would the church be pleased with this mongrel?
I walked right up to the Dean and met his eyes.
However, the Dean wore an expression as if he were looking at a mere junior, and did not avert his gaze.
"When I went to the battlefield, nothing I learned here was of any use. Though I didn't learn much on the front lines either."
There was no need to cause trouble on the first day, but... he resembled him.
That fucked-up bastard who caught me on the front lines and flayed my scalp alive.
Or perhaps it just seems that way because he's the same pointy-eared bastard.
"However... this one thing I learned properly. That demi-humans are cruel, barbaric, and vile creatures that should not be allowed to live."
"...Such remarks cannot be tolerated within the academy."
"Is that so?"
"Do you think I can't dismiss you on your very first day?"
"I hear that recently, within the academy... there are increasing numbers of those who worship strange things and oppose the Empire."
"......."
"Well, if it's a school that embraces countless people from all over the world... wouldn't there certainly be at least one cultist?"
Only then did the arrogant Dean's face, which had just moments ago seemed to be looking down on me, begin to sour.
"Because there's always the possibility, you see."
There might be.
It cannot be definitively said that there isn't.
I know these words are a stretch, but there's no way he'd have a countermeasure.
Because if the opponent is irrational to begin with, there's no way to refute them with rational words.
And... though I said all this, whether it's a cultist or whatever, I don't care.
Nor do I have any intention of catching them.
I needed to talk with Arin, and I didn't want to waste time on this.
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