Chapter 5
An Unhealing Wound
“Thanks for your help, Red.”
“You too, Megria. I’ll be going now.”
I squinted in the dazzling sunlight as I left the Adventurers Guild.
The weather was nice today.
After the homecoming, I’d joined Galatine and other prominent figures in Zoltan, as well as everyone running a stall at the Harvest Festival, for a meeting at the Adventurers Guild.
The Harvest Festival would also serve as a celebration of those who’d returned home and as a memorial for everyone who had died in the war. Although there were only two days to go and we had no time, the Adventurers Guild, who were sponsoring the event, had wanted to celebrate as many things as possible.
Galatine and Moen had been particularly vocal about wanting to do something for the returning soldiers. And really, everyone wanted to do something for them.
“It’s a pretty big schedule change. A medal ceremony, a memorial service for the dead, a gifting event with children, free tickets to use at stalls, and rearranging some stalls that don’t have much to do with us… It’s a lot to deal with.”
During the meeting, though, no one had thought it impossible. They’d just focused on how to deal with it.
At seeing how thoughtful everyone was, there was no way I wouldn’t pitch in, too.
“Security and directing guests, huh? Reminds me of back when I was a knight in training.”
I had volunteered to help out with an event in the middle of the day.
The head of Zoltan’s church, Bishop Shien, was personally directing everyone involved in the gifting event, so they were really using everyone they could.
There was talk of having Rit or Ruti take part in the events, but both of them had only come to Zoltan after the volunteers left. I pointed out that it probably wouldn’t mean much to them, being celebrated by a bunch of adventurers they didn’t know, so the idea was dropped.
“Oh yeah, I might as well go by Ruti’s place, seeing as I’m already here in the northern district.”
I had the seeds I’d been planning on giving her later with me, so it was a perfect opportunity.
Taking a bit of a detour, I headed toward Ruti’s plantation.
I walked through the fields of grain beneath the clear fall sky.
Just as the plantation came into view…
“Looks like there’s some sort of argument.”
A woman was talking to Ruti in a forceful tone of voice.
She was one of the volunteer soldiers I’d seen earlier.
“I’m begging you, just sell me some rubercanis. I can’t handle it without that.”
“No, that’s used for anesthesia; it’s not for general sale. Especially not if you’re going to smoke it.”
“They let us smoke it on the battlefield. Just one pipe of that, and I can sleep in peace.”
“No.”
Ruti was firm in her refusal, but the woman kept desperately pleading.
“Ah, Red,” Tisse called out, having noticed me while she worked.
Mister Crawly Wawly swayed on her head, looking troubled.
“Morning, Tisse. Is there some sort of disagreement?”
“Yes, it seems this woman has become dependent on a medicine she used on the battlefield. It’s terrible that they gave her rubercanis for something like that. There are much better sedatives.”
“The good medicines probably weren’t given to less vital divisions, due to lack of supplies.”
The order of priority for receiving supplies differed for elite squads and for divisions that—for lack of a better phrase—had just been thrown together from everyone else. If there weren’t enough supplies for everyone, then they were distributed in the most efficient manner. It didn’t feel good to weigh the lives of soldiers against one another, but it was a reality of war.
“We can’t sell her the herb, but it seems like convincing her will be difficult.”
“Yeah… All right, I’ll take care of it.”
“You will?”
“That’s why I came here in the first place.”
“What do you mean?” Tisse asked, visibly confused.
I gave her a reassuring smile, then walked over to Ruti.
“Big Brother.”
“Hey, Ruti. I’ll take over.”
I stepped in front of her and faced the woman.
“You’re her brother? Please, I’m begging you. Just think of it as helping a poor soldier who suffered during the battle.”
“Rubercanis is highly addictive and toxic when smoked. If you keep using it, your internal organs will break down.”
“I know that already! But my anxiety’s killing me!”
“Ruti.” I handed her three of the seeds I’d brought. “Can you crush these in your hands for me?”
“Sure.”
You’re supposed to grind them to make medicine, but with Ruti’s strength, she could squeeze out the extract.
“What are you doing?” the woman snapped in annoyance.
I took Ruti’s hand and held it up to the annoyed woman’s face. A pleasant smell wafted through the air as Ruti opened her fist.
“…Huh? My anxiety doesn’t feel so bad.”
She looked at Ruti’s hand in a daze.
“This is a sedative without any dependency issues. Smelling it like this has a calming effect. As you’ve just experienced, it’s both fast-acting and effective.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m an apothecary. I even have medicine that can help with the psychological scars of war. The reason I came here today was to give Ruti these seeds, which are used to make the sedative, so she could grow them for me.”
“I understand. Leave it to me,” Ruti said.
She put a hand to her chest and nodded.
With how her plantation was now, Ruti wouldn’t have any trouble growing them.
“So if you ever need to talk about psychological scars from the battlefield, please come to my shop. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“Ha, haha, thanks… Sorry for all the trouble I caused your sister.”
With her anxiety fading, the woman was coming back to her senses. She looked depressed, having realized what she’d done.
“It’s pathetic. I’m back in my peaceful hometown, but the anxiety and fear just won’t go away. I didn’t even really fight, just carted stuff around… A shameful, no-name grunt.”
“You’re not pathetic at all,” I said firmly. “You volunteered to fight for the sake of people you don’t even know. That’s an incredibly brave thing to do, and I respect that from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.”
“…Maybe I won’t regret my choice if there are people who say that.”
She smiled awkwardly and then left.
I understood the psychological trauma of the battlefield.
During my travels, I reached a point where the anxiety of not having a sword within arm’s reach was painful. I hadn’t even been able to sleep without a weapon nearby. No matter how tired I was, my brain wouldn’t accept that it was safe to sleep.
That was why I’d always had a sword with me when I first came to Zoltan.
It was only after my battle with Ares and Shisandan that those scars had started to fade. Realizing that my journey hadn’t been pointless but was instead the reason I was able to be with Rit and also was what had freed Ruti of the Hero blessing, I could finally let go of my sword.
“There are things I can do now because of that.”
There were hardly any doctors in Zoltan who dealt with psychological trauma, and almost none who had any military experience. I doubted that many of Zoltan’s medical experts could understand a soldier’s psychological scars or know how to effectively treat them.
Fortunately, I had both the knowledge and the experience.
I wanted to do what I could for the soldiers.
“I…didn’t understand the feeling of fear when I was fighting,” Ruti murmured.
“You had Immunity to Fear.”
“So many soldiers followed me and fought…and I didn’t understand anything about the pain they were feeling.”
The Hero was different from normal people, but they had been created to fight alongside people and give them courage.
I wondered what Demis thought of that contradiction.
Now that Ruti was able to control the Hero’s skills, she’d become able to understand the soldiers’ anguish.
If that isn’t growth, I don’t know what is.
That evening, Harmon had dinner with his family for the first time in six years.
There was so much about the lost time they must’ve wanted to make up for, but the conversation was awkward and stilted, with long periods of silence.
I’ve changed…
The main reason the discussion faltered was because of Harmon’s changed perspective. After six years at war, his values were just too different from those of his parents living in peace in Zoltan.
He went back to his bedroom. Looking around the room he’d had as an eighteen-year-old, he laughed a little at the childishness of it.
And then, finally, Harmon took off his traveling clothes.
Starting tomorrow, he’d be wearing light, comfortable, everyday sorts of clothes. Realizing that, he felt anxiety swell in his heart.
I can’t remember what days were like when I wasn’t fighting.
When he looked out the window, he saw flying demons trying to get into the room. He needed to block it with the table to stall for time. In the hallway, spear-wielding demons were closing in.
There was no way to protect the house.
Why had he rested in such an indefensible place?
He was filled with regret.
Harmon picked up his sword and was about to rush out of the room to join up with his fellow soldiers, when…
He snapped out of it.
“Haah, haah.”
There wasn’t anything.
Just a simple room in peaceful Zoltan.
Covered in sweat, he wiped away the unpleasant dampness.
Harmon realized he was still clutching his sword in his hand.
“Yeah, I really am broken.”
Letting go of the weapon, he covered his face with a hand.
He looked closely at the sword he’d survived the battlefield with and saw the blade was chipped and cracked.
The next morning, at Red & Rit’s Apothecary.
The Harvest Festival was tomorrow.
Before Rit and I opened the store, we double-checked our plans for the day.
“I’m going to make deliveries to three clinics this morning,” she said.
“Thanks. People from the Adventurers Guild and the colosseum will come by the store to pick up disinfectants and salves for wounds, but I’ll take care of that.”
“Must be for any incidents that happen at the festival. I can’t wait to see our books for this month!”
“Yeah, our sales are looking pretty good.”
“Oh, right,” Rit said, suddenly remembering something. “There might be a lot of people coming by to get medicinal cookies today.”
“Cookies?”
“Yes, there were some people talking about wanting to use them as prizes or freebies during the festival.”
“Ahh, if it looks like we’ll run out, I’ll bake some extras while watching the store.”
“Hehe, people really love your cookies.”
“I’ll close the store at noon and start setting up the stall for the festival in the afternoon.”
“It’s a plan!”
Rit and I high-fived.
We’d do our best and enjoy ourselves again today.
You’ll hurt yourself if you get too excited at a festival.
It was something that even children understood, but getting excited and running around was part of the fun.
That’s why there were lots of customers looking to restock on medicine before the festival started, and inside the shop was livelier than usual.
“Gimme three days’ worth of this!”
Plenty of people were also buying hangover medicine, just like Gonz was now.
“Wait, you’re planning to be drunk for three days?”
“It’s gonna be an even bigger celebration than normal, with everyone coming home, right? So I’ve gotta drink my share, too!”
“You always drink as much as you can…”
“Listen here, Red, there comes a day where every man has to overcome his limits, and tomorrow’s that day for me.”
“That’s a limit that doesn’t need to be overcome.”
“There’s no way I can work the day after I’ve overcome my limits, so I’ll take that day off. And with this year’s festival being such a happy occasion, it’d be rude not to drink the day after it if I’m off.”
“Haah.”
“And I need some hangover medicine for the day after that because of course I’ll drink some, reminiscing in the afterglow of the festival.”
“You sure are something.”
Gonz really was hopeless.
I’d heard he’d just finished up a big job and his schedule was free, but still…
I should tell Nao to switch out his drinks for water partway through.
I was sure he’d be too drunk to tell the difference anyway.
“Big Brother.”
Ruti had come by while I’d been listening to Gonz’s nonsensical story.
“Welcome.”
She had a big bag on her back.
“What’s in there?”
“Medicinal herbs.”
All the customers in the shop watched as Ruti set the bag down.
I looked into the bag…
“These are the ones I talked to you about yesterday!”
They were the herbs I’d given her the seeds to grow the day before. There were also others that could be used for sleep medicine and to help with psychological trauma.
“I went to the mountain to gather them last night.”
“You did?”
“Mhm. It takes time to grow the plants, and I wanted to avoid not having enough for the people who need the medicine.”
“And you gathered this much? Thanks!”
It was a relief to have all this.
I patted Ruti’s head and thanked her again.
“I’ll check through it once things are a bit less busy in here, so can you take it into the back?”
“Sure.”
“All right, I’m going to get some tea for my sister while she waits, so everyone just wait here.”
“You’re gonna make your customers wait as well?!”
Laughter filled the room.
Nobody there was mad.
This was just a normal day in Zoltan, where time flowed at a tranquil pace.
Clang.
The doorbell rang.
“Welcome.”
It was the woman I’d met at Ruti’s plantation yesterday.
“Thank you,” she said, a little embarrassed. “I was hoping maybe I could talk to you a bit…”
“Ah, of course. The herbs to make your medicine just arrived, so you don’t have to worry; I should have it whenever you come in.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“My sister went out to the mountain to gather them.”
“Really?!”
“I’m proud to have such a helpful little sister.”
The woman smiled. Her eyes were bright, unlike yesterday, when they’d been clouded by pain and self-loathing.
“Since you came by, we can talk in the back.”
“You look busy. Should we do it some other time?” she asked reticently.
“Don’t worry ’bout that. We’ll watch the shop.”
“We’re regulars here, so we know everything Red does.”
Gonz and another of the regulars chimed in.
“Whoa, now, don’t say it like it’s so easy. We’re dealing with medicine here.”
“And we’ve been using your medicine for over a year now.”
They were brimming with confidence, but still…
“Ruti, sorry, but can I ask you to watch the shop?”
“Mhm, leave it to me.”
“Aww, what?!”
The crowd started booing, but I ignored them.
“Now it really feels like I’m back in Zoltan,” the woman said, her voice trembling slightly.
The customers looked kindly at the local girl who’d come back home.
“Ah, right, a friend of mine is in pretty bad shape, too. Could you talk with him as well?”
“A friend?”
“C’mon, don’t just hang around outside. Come in already.”
The woman left the shop, then came back inside a moment later, dragging a man by the arm.
He had an arrow wound to his forehead and wore a padded doublet that normally went beneath his armor.
Standing there, his balance looked a little off. Most likely, it was because he’d spent so long wearing a sword at his hip every day.
He was the man Mrs. Cotton and her husband had hugged… Harmon, I think his name was.
“Welcome in.”
I greeted him with a smile.
Harmon slowly looked around the room, and his eyes widened at seeing me and Ruti.
“Uh, uh…”
Seeing his eyes, I could tell what he was going to say.
I couldn’t stop him, and I’d expected this moment would come someday.
His mouth slowly opened.
“Hero Ruti and Sir Gideon! The twin wings of humanity’s hope are in Zoltan?!”
He said our names in a voice loud enough to be heard outside.
The air in the shop froze.
“Wh-what?”
A speechless Gonz looked back and forth from my face to Harmon’s.
“…Haha, you sure you’re not getting me confused with someone else? I’m Red, an apothecary.”
“I would know you anywhere! You saved my life!”
The culture of Zoltan was to not dive too deeply into the pasts people wanted to hide. Yet Harmon had been away from Zoltan, fighting for years now. The battlefield was an extreme place where you had to have the same values as the soldiers who stood beside you if you were going to survive without losing yourself.
I couldn’t just feign ignorance with Harmon. Not with something so important.
“Big Brother,” Ruti said, looking at me.
I could see concern in her red eyes, but also resolve. She was telling me she didn’t want to lie to a soldier who’d fought for the sake of the world.
Yeah, she’s right.
“Everyone, I’d like to tell you something, so can you stay here for just a little longer?”
“S-sure.”
Gonz and the others all looked nervous, but they nodded.
“Thank you.”
I took a deep breath.
“…My real name is Gideon Ragnason. And this is my little sister, Ruti Ragnason.”
“?!”
“I’m the former second-in-command of the Bahamut Knights and an ex-member of the Hero’s party.”
“And I,” Ruti continued softly, “was once called a hero and fought against the demon lord’s army… Ruti the Hero.”
We’d finally revealed our identities in Zoltan.
“R-right, it makes sense now why you’re so strong.”
Gonz nodded over and over in a mixture of confusion and acceptance.
“Still, isn’t Ruti Ruhr a bit too simple an alias?”
“Ruti isn’t that rare a name, but her name means a lot to her.”
“Haha, you really do love your little sister,” Gonz said with an awkward smile.
For a few moments, no one said anything.
But then…
“Excuse me!”
Harmon looked Ruti in the eye.
He hesitantly asked the obvious question.
“Why are you in Zoltan and not fighting the demon lord’s army?”
How should I answer that?
It would be simple enough to give a perfunctory excuse to convince him, but…
Looking at Ruti’s eyes, I understood it wasn’t my place to answer here.
This was something the ex-Hero, Ruti, needed to overcome herself.
“The reason I fought was because the Hero blessing forced me to, not because I wanted to.”
“…Huh?”
“I’m sorry, but that was Ruti the Hero. I believe the true heroes are brave people like Van, Escarlata, and Prince Salius, who chose to fight of their own free will.”
“But you were the ones who stood and fought in front of me. It was your backs that I followed while I fought.”
It was probably the first time Ruti had come face-to-face like this with a soldier who’d fought on those battlefields.
She was silent, seemingly unsure of what to say.
“We soldiers were weak, but we fought because we wanted to support the Hero, even if we could only help a little…! I got my courage from you, and you’re telling me it’s fake?!”
“No, it isn’t fake at all!” Ruti shouted desperately.
“I don’t know what to think anymore…”
“Wait!” Ruti yelled at Harmon’s turned back.
But he ran out of the shop without so much as a backward glance.
“Harmon!!”
The woman who’d brought him looked unsure of what to do, and her shoulders slumped.
“I was pretty much always at the back, so I don’t know anything about the Hero’s battles…but he was on the front lines the whole time. Even though everyone else was transferred to the back after half a year of fighting.”
“Yeah, I know about that… I was one of the people who wrote the manual for maintaining morale,” I said.
“You were, Mr. Gideon? Thanks to that, a lot of people managed to avoid getting totally broken…but not Harmon.”
At the very start of the war, when I was still fighting as one of the Bahamut Knights, I had predicted that it would be harder and longer than any conflict up to that point. So to stop soldiers from feeling so worn down, I’d tried to put some distance between them and death.
There were some people with blessings like Soldier and Infantry who were able to handle it, but even then, they stopped being able to do anything more than obey the impulses of their blessings, and their own judgment would often dull.
That was why the manual on troop management given to a commander of the allied forces had a section about always gradually swapping soldiers at the front and back.
But apparently, Harmon’s commander hadn’t followed the book.
“Big Brother, I’m sorry.”
“Ruti…”
“There’s something we need to tell him, but I don’t know how to say it. Right now, I think he needs to hear those words.”
“Yeah. Can I leave things here to you?”
“Mhm… I’m counting on you.”
I nodded and smiled slightly to reassure Ruti.
“Got it.”
But even as I turned my back to Ruti and opened the door, I felt rattled.
Did someone like me, who’d given up the fight, really have any words that would reach a wounded soldier who’d kept going…?
Ruti’s and my identities had also been revealed.
The war was over, and Zoltan was excited about tomorrow’s Harvest Festival and the celebration for the returned soldiers…yet I guess the time had finally come for us to face our past, for the sake of our quiet life.
Unease and anxiety swirled inside me.
In a park in downtown Zoltan, Harmon was sitting in the shade of a tree, looking down at the ground.
“Harmon, right?”
I’d caught up with him along the way but had waited for him to stop and catch his breath before speaking to him.
“Sir Gideon…”
“Around here, I’m just the apothecary Red, and I don’t need the honorifics… I’m younger than you, after all.”
“Eh?”
“I’m twenty-two. I heard you’re twenty-four.”
He looked surprised.
“You’re so young.”
“Where was it that you fought with me and Ruti?”
“The west checkpoint of Avalonia’s capital.”
“Ahh, then I would have been eighteen at the time, and Ruti would’ve been fifteen.”
“Fifteen…”
“I’m sorry…but I want you to understand how I felt about my little sister having to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders because of the impulses of her blessing.”
“Yes, sir…”
If she didn’t fight, everyone would die.
If she lost, everyone would die.
It was her blessing that made such a young girl bear such a heavy burden.
I sat down next to Harmon.
“The reason I fought was to protect my little sister. I became a knight and built up my strength for the sake of my sister, who was destined to set out on her journey one day.”
“You did…? Even so, we…”
“…You can’t accept it. At the time, all we could do was ask people to fight alongside us because the Hero was fighting for the sake of the world. But still, I don’t think we ever chose a strategy that wasted the lives of soldiers.”
“I understand you did it to raise morale.”
“Thank you…but you don’t have to force yourself to say that.”
“…I’m sorry, I understand it in my head, but my heart just can’t accept it.”
“If we were on a battlefield, I could’ve said something I didn’t believe to convince you.”
“On a battlefield, if you can’t convince soldiers today, everyone will die tomorrow.”
“But this is Zoltan, and I’m just the neighborhood apothecary Red. You’re going to be living in Zoltan, too, right?”
“Yes, sir… Well, no…”
“What’s wrong?”
His expression changed, as if he’d remembered something, and Harmon shook his head.
“No, it’s nothing. I intend to live with my family now, but after a little while, I was thinking of going to see if I could work at a masonry place my uncle runs.”
“Lonsdale Pearlman’s shop.”
“You know him, sir?”
“Of course, I’ve been living in this neighborhood for over two years now. I’ve even been to his house to do some cooking experiments with the neighborhood women.”
“What?! You did, Sir Gideon?!”
“Ruti was there, too.”
I smiled at seeing his eyes widen.
“We’ve been living in peace…thanks to all of you who fought.”
“I was just a simple soldier; I didn’t do anything that determined whether we won or lost…”
“Infantry are the backbone of an army. I know that full well, since I was a commander.”
Harmon finally smiled, just slightly.
“If you’re going to be living here in Zoltan, we’ll get to talk plenty. Ruti and I both want to talk with you about lots of things, the important ones as well as the trivial.”
“You do?”
“You’ll be living in the same neighborhood as us, so we’ll be able to chat… We’ll talk as many times for as long as we need, without any lies or twisted words, until you’re able to accept it.”
Harmon slowly nodded. And finally, it looked like his shoulders untensed.
“With that said…”
“Hm?”
I continued in a cheerful tone, trying to change the mood. “We need to take care of today’s goal.”
“What’s that…?”
“You came to see me about getting some medicine, didn’t you?”
“Oh, right.”
He laughed a little. It had completely slipped his mind.
“You might need to talk about some difficult things, so shall we head back to the shop to talk?”
“Yes, sir… Please.”
The two of us stood up and started walking back.
“If you’re troubled by psychological trauma from the battlefield, then I’m sure I’ll be able to help.”
“You’re incredible, Sir Gideon. I can’t even manage to deal with my own problems.”
“Not at all,” I said cheerfully. “Until about a year ago, I couldn’t get a wink of sleep without a sword within arm’s reach.”
“You couldn’t…?”
“No matter how safe a place was, even here in the middle of Zoltan, I always had a sword at my hip. Not having one made me incredibly anxious.”
“…”
“I’m the same as you.”
“And you got better, Sir Gideon?”
“It took over a year.”
“That’s…”
“I’m planning on living here in Zoltan from here on out…so you can rely on me for any matters related to sickness. And if there are any other wounded volunteers, please let them know about my shop.”
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