A month had already passed since the Sword Saint's memories came to me and I received applause for the first time in my life.
During that time, I went to the dojo steadily and devoted myself to training.
By speaking with the Master, I made up for what I currently lacked and came to understand and accept the Sword Saint's memories more deeply.
I also devoted myself to physical conditioning.
At fifteen, in the midst of a growth spurt, I would grow stronger in proportion to how much I trained.
Another month had passed since I began investing every moment except sleep into becoming stronger.
I was clearly and certainly stronger than before.
Now that I had completed the minimum preparations, it was time to take another step forward for the future.
“I'm off!”
“All right. Be careful!”
Leaving Mother's affectionate send-off behind me, I left home.
The cherry blossoms had all fallen from the streets, and fresh green trees welcomed me.
Aliati.
It was a place where Peninsula-style clothing, such as robes and jackets, blended freely with Imperial clothing, such as tunics and long gowns.
Unlike the Empire, which was quite conservative and rife with open and subtle discrimination, it was a land where people were not discriminated against for their clothes, appearance, or race.
I liked this country.
Aliati had not seemed that way in the Sword Saint's memories, but at least that was how it seemed to me now.
“Hello, Uncle Davide!”
“Oh, I have been seeing you often lately. Your face has brightened, too. Thanks to you, Mr. Jeong has been looking brighter lately as well. It is good to see!”
It was not just the scenery.
There were also the greetings I exchanged with Uncle Davide, a regular customer at our shop.
“My! Is the dojo closed today? Are you going out to play with your friends?”
And the greetings I exchanged with Mrs. Emilia, who had helped my parents in many ways.
“No, I have something important to do today.”
“Really? Well, you are already fifteen. You must have a lot on your mind.”
The people around me, who had always been so warm, felt new to me.
“Haha, I have already made up my mind.”
“What will you…? No. What use is there in asking already? Whatever it is, I hope it goes well.”
“He will do well! If not, he can inherit the Jeong family's shop!”
“Hoho, that is true. Johan will do well.”
In the past, I had judged people's goodwill as I pleased.
Like tossing a chunk of meat to a dog with a broken leg, I thought their kindness was nothing more than an empty display thrown at a cripple.
I thought they were drunk on the superiority of being ‘a good person who treats even cripples warmly.’
It had all been a misunderstanding.
When my heart changed, the way I saw the world changed; and when my eyes changed, pity laced with mockery became pure goodwill.
If I changed, the world would change as well.
Only at fifteen did I realize this simple truth.
“Thank you for the encouragement!”
After greeting Uncle Davide and Mrs. Emilia, I sniffed once at my stinging nose and continued on my way.
Crossing countless canals and passing through San Marco Square, I arrived at my destination.
‘Adventurer's Guild’
As I looked at the words carved into the shabby wooden sign, I quietly closed my eyes.
A leg that had been short from birth.
I would heal this leg, which even the Sword Saint had ultimately failed to heal.
I knew that there were people who loved me even though my leg was strange.
I knew that my leg was not the cause of every problem, but I still wanted to do it.
This was not a matter of reason.
It was something like a curse stamped upon my heart like a brand.
I knew it would not be easy.
But that was no reason to give up.
The Dragon's Heart had failed. The Holy Grail had failed as well?
‘Then there must be something else.’
That was what I believed.
Even if nothing but despair waited at the end, hope still had meaning.
In this mysterious world, nothing was utterly impossible.
“Is anyone here?”
I opened the wooden door of the building, which looked like an ordinary house, and called out cautiously.
Silence answered me.
It was not because there was no one there.
Eight people were sprawled across tables here and there or playing cards, and one person sat at the reception desk.
Every one of them watched me in silence.
I hesitated for a moment under their heavy stares, then gave them a sheepish smile.
“Um, hello?”
“What a cute little one. Do you know where you have come?”
Only after my repeated greeting did the silence finally break.
The person who answered was a woman leaning on the reception desk as she watched me.
She was a beautiful woman with long ears, golden hair as if it had been spun from gold and elegantly pinned in a coil with a silver hairpin, and a bright yet refined red jacket that suited her well.
A Fairy.
They resembled humans, yet were different from them.
Even in Aliati, where there were more Fairies than in other countries, there was perhaps only one Fairy in a thousand people.
Their way of life was quieter than that of humans, so they were seldom seen.
Seeing a Fairy for the first time in my life, I was naturally quite flustered.
Fortunately, I did not commit the discourtesy of showing it.
“Isn't this the Adventurer's Guild?”
“You did come to the right place. Sit here for now.”
Fortunately, she gently accepted the answer I had offered while pretending to be calm.
The reception desk was more like the sort of table one might find at a bar.
When I sat on the backless stool before it, she poured me some milk.
“What a good boy. So what favor does our cute little friend want to ask? Let me warn you in advance: we do not take requests to beat someone up or make their life miserable.”
On top of that, she had the attitude of someone soothing a child.
She did not see me as a client.
Still less as an aspiring Adventurer.
Rather than getting angry, I gave her a gentle smile and took a sip of milk.
“Well, if I wanted to hire someone to assault another person, I would have gone to the mercenaries, would I not?”
“You have done more research than I expected.”
Adventurers were different from mercenaries, who made their living purely through combat.
As their name implied, exploration and excavation were their main work.
Of course, Adventurers needed combat ability as well.
They had to travel through remote places and ruins full of every kind of danger.
It was simply that they had to be capable of more than fighting.
I subtly and indirectly let her know that I understood the difference.
Had she noticed the faint displeasure behind it?
The woman's smile deepened.
“Then why has our bold little sweetheart come here?”
“To become an Adventurer.”
At my calm answer, silence settled over the guild building.
The eyes of those who had been watching me in their own relaxed postures gleamed.
The stares they gave me held a wordless question: You?
It was not strange.
They had seen me enter with a limp.
Combat might not have been an Adventurer's trade.
But Adventurers still had plenty of fighting to do.
Monsters, bandits, worshippers of evil gods, and even mysterious lifeforms.
There were more than enough things that sought an Adventurer's life.
Even if not as much as for mercenaries, combat ability was one of the important standards for Adventurers.
It was only natural that they would find a limping person who wanted to become an Adventurer strange.
The me from not long ago would have shrunk beneath those stares.
Sword Saint Johan in his youth would have flown into a rage.
I was neither.
“I am fifteen years old. And I heard that there is something special that can only be done at fifteen.”
“Apprentice Adventurer.”
The Fairy woman recited the words wistfully.
It was an educational course that taught various things to aspiring Adventurers who had not yet reached adulthood.
For someone like me, who wanted to walk the path of an Adventurer step by step, it was an appropriate foothold.
“It has been a long time since I heard that. Hardly anyone tries it these days.”
The Fairy woman looked at me and smiled alluringly.
Her delicately curving eyes and red lips were quite provocative, but I was not swayed.
I could see the age befitting a Fairy in her eyes.
The Sword Saint who was with me had experienced too much for me to be swayed by appearances, even after seeing ages unimaginably long.
When I returned her gaze without the slightest reaction, she smiled as if deflated.
Then she took out a ceramic bottle of liquor from behind the bar, poured herself a drink, and spoke.
“You are quite serious about becoming an Adventurer, are you? You do not intend to stop at being an apprentice, do you?”
“Yes. I will live as an Adventurer. Perhaps not for my entire life, but for quite a long time.”
“Do you even know what it means to live as an Adventurer?”
The Fairy woman downed the liquor in her small white porcelain cup in a single gulp.
Her white throat bobbed as the liquor went down.
As the gazes of the guild members naturally followed her figure.
The moment she set down her cup, she pulled a dagger from beneath the table like lightning and drove it down at me.
“You never know what might happen. I understand that well.”
Even though my hand trembled beneath the strength of an experienced Adventurer, I smiled calmly.
From the moment she deliberately drank liquor to draw everyone's attention, smiling sweetly to coax me into letting down my guard.
I had been looking at her intent rather than her appearance.
Thanks to that, I caught her wrist and stopped the dagger she drove down like lightning.
“I think I have passed the first test, at least. Let us move on to the next one quickly, Big Sis.”
At that moment, I earned about half the right to stand at the starting point of the path I would walk.
After all, starting was half the battle.
The Fairy woman's blue eyes widened, rendered speechless by my words.
No one made a sound, and only their breathing could be heard.
Then, all at once, someone's loud laughter shattered the silence.
“Puhahaha! Big Sis? He called her Big Sis!”
“Old Hag Sujin, did you have a good dream yesterday? A kid three hundred years younger even called you Big Sis!”
Was that laughter a signal?
The guild members all burst into raucous laughter at once.
Someone hammered a table—BANG! BANG!—until every cup spilled over.
Someone else clutched their stomach and rolled over and over across the floor.
Grandma Sujin watched the scene with a lovely smile. Then she drew two more daggers from beneath the table and flung them.
One pierced the topknot of an uncle who had been roaring with laughter, while the other cleanly cut through the side lock beneath the ear of a young woman rolling on the floor.
“You impudent brats dare make fun of an elder?”
“Come on, honestly, it is funny. I have seen plenty of kids get taken in by the old hag's face alone, but I have never seen a kid like him before.”
“Shut up. You interrupted an important conversation because of your noise! If you are loud again, all of you will be barred from entering for a month!”
“Boooo! The Branch Chief's tyranny!”
As I watched them bicker in amusement, Grandma Sujin looked at me and smiled.
It was a soft smile entirely different from the one she had worn while scolding the guild members.
The natural change, as if she were changing masks, sent a chill down my spine.
I could understand why the Sword Saint had been more wary of the elderly, women, and children.
“You certainly will not die from being stabbed in the back on the road.”
“Um… Thank you?”
“So why does our little sweetheart want to live as an Adventurer?”
Grandma Sujin's attitude, which had initially been seductive, changed.
She now felt kind and comfortable, like a real grandmother.
Thanks to that, I could answer more comfortably.
“To heal this leg. Oh, and my name is not Little Sweetheart. It is Jeong. Johan.”
It was also a declaration that someone who looked at me properly should call me by my proper name.
“All right, Jeong Johan. I will remember it. But I do not know whether you know this: unlike an illness or injury, a disability is difficult to heal. To be honest, it is impossible.”
“I know that as well. But the continent is vast. Is there not a method somewhere?”
“That is an Adventurer's answer. You could give up.”
“I used to be like that, but I do not intend to be any longer. If there is a place you want to go, is it not better to try walking there, even if you collapse along the way?”
I thought I had answered rather well, but had I said something strange?
All at once, the atmosphere within the guild grew solemn.
Then someone shouted heartily.
“Hahaha! That is a fine attitude! Adventurers are people who dream! People who choose romance over wealth and glory! Ah, money is still important, though.”
“Old Hag, let us just accept him. It is not difficult to work as an Apprentice Adventurer, is it? Adults are supposed to protect children's dreams.”
“Enough, all of you. He says he is serious about becoming an Adventurer, so what is this talk of an Apprentice Adventurer?”
Only adults could become Adventurers.
Naturally, the only thing I could become right now was an Apprentice Adventurer, but Grandma Sujin spoke of my future despite knowing that.
She was acknowledging my resolve.
Pleased by that, I gave her a sheepish smile, and Grandma Sujin looked at me with eyes as if I were so adorable she could die before asking again.
“Then what kind of Adventurer do you want to become? I am not asking about your mindset—.”
“You mean among combat, exploration, and analysis?”
“There is no need to explain them separately. If you have thought it over beforehand, go ahead and tell me.”
Combat went without saying.
Exploration specialized in traps and finding paths, while analysis investigated ruins and relics.
Even Adventurers did not usually do all of those things.
They focused on one main field and learned the rest only to a shallow degree.
I was no different, so there was only one obvious choice for me.
“Combat. I am interested in the others as well, but combat is what I am best at and most confident in.”
I had expected that, even if they did not openly mock me, I would at least receive looks that asked, You?
Surprisingly, no one did.
Instead, everyone looked at me with serious eyes, as if they acknowledged at least my resolve.
The experience of being acknowledged by strangers warmed my heart.
Together with the realization that I had to throw myself into anything, my narrow world shattered once again.