Vol 1 Chapter 23 (2/2)
He was to meet with his comrades exactly at noon.
“Ah, My body is trembling a lot!”
Unable to just stand still, he left his room, and moved to the back of the building.
“Hmm?”
He recognized the boy laying face-up on the ground.
Hey, that’s Wynn isn’t it!
To Abel, he was more than just an employee of the restaurant.
“Oh? Abel? What is it? You look happy.”
Abel puffed out his chest, as Wynn stayed on the ground, merely turning his head towards him.
“I became an adventurer!”
“Adventurer!? You did?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Today at noon, I will be going with a party to complete a request.”
“Good, so Randell-san let you.”
Wynn raised just his upper body, and thought of Randell, Abel’s father, and the proprietor of the inn.
When he ran away from work, saying “I want to become an adventurer,” Randell’s fist fell onto his head.
Since the older brother Mark was a better successor to the inn, Randell was unable to hide his irritation at the younger brother Abel’s earnest aspiration, but he may have changed his mind.[9]
“The old man[10] has nothing to do with this! I will become an adventurer with my own power!”
“Eh? So Randell-san doesn’t know about it?”
Abel’s expression instantly hardened.
“I am joining the party and becoming an adventurer. I’m not following that old man’s orders anymore. Unlike a knight cadet like you, I am now an independent adult.”
To Abel, since Wynn was close in age to him, he was an existence that couldn’t be ignored.
While Abel played around his brother Mark, Wynn only mutely[11] worked as an employee of the inn.
Mark and Abel ordered Wynn, who lived in a small shed behind the inn, around for the smallest things, treating him like a servant.
That was until a single girl started following him around one day.
Abel was conscious of the girl named Leti, who was prettier than other girls, and his heart leapt at a glimpse of her.
It was love at first sight.
Though they played together, Leti never left Wynn’s side and stuck to him.
He got angry at Wynn, and pushed various ch.o.r.es onto him, but even then, Wynn wordlessly, without complaint, did the work.
Soon, Abel realized that Wynn had a different worldview than the others.
He wanted to become a knight.
That the dream that Wynn, who swung his wooden stick, had.
At first, Abel thought that he was foolish.
What was this servant-like commoner orphan saying?
His father Randell more or less understood Wynn’s dreams, but his mother Hannah thought that if he had the time and energy to swing a stick around, he should use it for work.
Even then, Wynn never gave up.
If there is no time for it during work, then he just had to wake up earlier.
He took his time when drawing water, holding buckets in both hands to decrease the number of round trips he had to make.
Abel woke up every morning to see Wynn, finished with drawing water and even peeling the vegetables, wholeheartedly swinging the stick.
Moreover, understanding that he didn’t have enough money to pay the enrollment fee for the knight school, and ended up going to the adventurer guild in his free time.
Since adventurers fulfilled requests day and night, the guild was also open all day.
That day, Abel heart that Wynn took a job from the adventurer guild, and secretly took a peek.
He saw a boy younger than him taking up a request with adult adventurers.
Unlike Abel, who was treated like a child, seeing Wynn be treated like a mature grown-up was dazzling.
Until then, Abel had not thought about his future.
His elder brother would succeed the inn.
He would work under a merchant house, and eventually marry and run an independent household.
That was what he thought he would do.
However, Abel admired Wynn, who worked with grown-up adventurers.
‘I will become an adventurer.’
He couldn’t accept that despite having the status of a servant, Wynn was treated as an equal by adventurers older than himself.
That was why he saw becoming an adventurer as a triumph.
“With the attempted coup, the empire’s knights have a bright future ahead of them, don’t they? Because of that, the knight school is temporarily closed isn’t it? When are you ever going to become a knight?”
“Hmm, when will I become a knight, huh?”
Wynn muttered with an unusually weak tone.
The knight school was closed while knights who sympathised with the princ.i.p.al, Zaunas, awaited punishment.
Many of the instructors were included.
On one side, some were suggesting increasing the limit on the number successful applicants since the number of knights had dropped, while others suggested that commoners should not be promoted as knights since most of the insurgents were commoners.
If they decided to prevent commoners from becoming knights, Wynn’s dream would end there.
Unlike Wynn, who was despondently thinking about how he may not achieve his dream, Abel happily drew his newly bought sword.
“How is it! See it? Behold this sword! Even though it looks like this, it can cut three demonic beasts you know?”
He wore a proud expression on his face.
Wynn was lost in thought, merely gazing at at Abel as he swung his sword around.
“That’s right! You have a practice sword right? Let’s have a match!”
Saying this, he suddenly pointed the sword at Wynn.
“Is it fine? What about injuries?”
“It is not a duel.[?4?] Do you not have practice opponents since the school closed down? I’ll practice with you. Let’s go.[?5?]”
“I’m not interested.”
“Wouldn’t it be bad for a grown-up adventurer to go all out and beat a knight cadet student? I’ll make the blows light.”
“If you’re going that far, then…”
Finally, Wynn slowly reached for his sword, and Abel chuckled.
He would beat Wynn with the swordplay of a full-fledged adventurer.
He had decided that he was superior to servants like Wynn.[12]
“Okay, let’s go!”
Though he said that it wasn’t a duel, he had swung the sword, intending to injure him.
However,
“Onii-chan?”
He suddenly heard a dearly missed voice.
It was Abel’s first love, now grown up, and sporting a smile.[13]
Translator notes
This is a more correct name for Wataridori Pavilion. I will try to go back and edit Wataridori out later. literally: Migratory Bird’s Mistletoe Pavilion–back
Radish-like. google it… A daikon literally means large root…–back
Some translators add images, but… here’s the raw: 丁寧にダシを取った白身魚の濃厚なスープ。–back
Translating during lunch avoids much envy…–back
Is it coincidence that this “kill” in j.a.panese is “Kiru”–back
Is this real? is this just fantasy?–back
Abel’s POV–back
I do believe this is a three stage laughter… See Tensei Slime (currently being translated by Guro)–back
kinda Wynn’s POV, this sentence–back
I think sometimes people call their fathers “old man”, maybe use “Pops”?–back
Seems to have connotations of silent in a dumb way…–back
…What?–back
Leti just saved Abel… from the frying pan, at least…–back
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