Chapter 1: A Cure for a Wounded Mind
After Subaru left his backpack in the guest room both he and Reinhard went to dinner.
While they were going towards the dining room Subaru noticed something that puzzled his mind.
[Subaru: Rein, why all of the mirrors are covered with sheets?]
[Reinhard: Because father told me to and I think it's better this way.]
Hearing the sad tone in Reinhard's words Subaru didn't question it further. While thinking ways to salvage the conversation before reaching he also noticed cool-looking swords.
[Subaru: Do you know how to use them]
[Reinhard: It's my duty to know how to use them as the Sword Saint. I like to think I'm good with them but I don't think I'm good enough to match the expectations of people around me.]
[Subaru: Sword Saint? … Are you some kind of special master. Like a hero who could do cool sword stuff like this ]
Reinhard turned back to look at Subaru who was mimicking a rather interesting way to hold a sword while making sounds with his mouth. Reinhard with an amused smile on his face answered Subaru's question
[Reinhard: I could show you what I can do tomorrow if you want to.]
Subaru hearing those words turned his eyes towards Reinhard and started to shake his head up and down.
[Reinhard: Subaru what are you doing?]
[Subaru: What do you mean what I do? I nodded my head to say yes.]
While Reinhard was trained at manners and figures of speech he had no idea how normal people communicated so he just assumed that while continuing his walk towards the dining room at a rather fast pace. He didn't want to talk around family portraits … especially around his grandma's portrait. The hero I killed … he simply continued his fast pace until they reached the dining room.
By the time Heinkel arrived in the city, the sun was already slowly disappearing over the horizon. Getting of the carriage he slowly walked towards the garrison's gate.
[Heinkel: Hey boy, open the goddamn door. Can't you see my rank]
Heinkel simply spread his arms so the soldier could get a better view of his uniform. The poor guard, who noticed the rank of the person in front of him, opened the door and invited the commander in, in order not to annoy the commander anymore. While going towards the officers' suite a messenger approached the Heinkel with an envelope in his hand.
[Messenger: For your eyes only, Sir Heinkel]
Without a word, Heinkel took the envelope to tear it apart, at least that was his plan until he saw the name on the envelope
Knight Commander, Sir Marcos Gildark
Heinkel could only sigh as he put the envelope in his pocket. Noticing that messenger was still waiting for his permission to leave Heinkel spoke;
[Heinkel: You are allowed to go]
[Messenger: Sir, Commander Marcos also asked me to convey something he said to you]
[Heinkel: I can't spend the whole night waiting for you, talk quickly boy]
[Messenger: Well .. uh … Sir Marcos said you should stay sober until your assignment is over.]
After finishing his words messenger immediately excused himself and left. Heinkel clenched his fist upon hearing the word "sober". Marcos be dammed. He muttered to himself. Tomorrow morning, the first thing he would do as soon as he got up would be to go to that damn merchant and get his fucking drink. After that, he might look at his task if he feels like it.
Subaru and Reinhard noticed their first common point after they finished their meal. Both of them had no idea how to spend time with a friend. That was to be expected since this was their first time spending time with a friendly person of their age. Wanting to take the initiative Subaru made his offer to Reinhard.
[Subaru: Wanna look at my veeery cool Star Book … I mean star atlas. But it soooo cool you should definitely see it for yourself. I mean not for me because it's my atlas but we could look at it together since we are friends.]
Reinhard, for the lack of a better word, was dumbfounded. What was that "atlas" thing Subaru said and why would anyone need one of those about stars of all things. Still, Reinhard wanted to spend as much as possible with his friend, at least before he realizes he was talking to a monster rather than a human.
[Reinhard: Of course, let's read it together]
Hearing this, Subaru turned around and started to cheerfully walk towards the guest room with Reinhard at his side. As soon as Subaru arrived in the room, he rushed towards his bag and threw some books out of it, taking out a much thicker book than others. Subaru then sat down on the bed with the book in his hand and gestured for Reinhard to sit beside him. Right after Subaru opened the book Reinhard noticed something rather troubling.
[Reinhard: Subaru, I can't read these glyphs. What are these?]
[Subaru: Don't you know how to read, I can read to you if you want to.]
[Reinhard: I know how to read all three of the glyphs. These are neither i-glyphs, ro-glyphs or ha-glyphs.]
Reinhard noticed that Subaru was staring at him like he suddenly grew a new head. While it was obvious to Reinhard that Subaru wasn't from here. He had no idea where his friend hailed from. Since he only had second-hand information about foreign kingdoms, he chose to ask Subaru where he hailed from.
[Reinhard: Subaru, where are you from?]
[Subaru: Japan … why did you even ask it. Can't you tell?]
[Reinhard: Subaru where is this kingdom called Japan as far as I know there are only four kingdoms on the continent.]
[Subaru: Four Kingdoms? Where japan is ?]
Subaru decided to answer the latter question first.
[Subaru: Japan is the easternmost country on the map]
[Reinhard: Subaru the most eastern nation is the Kingdom of Lugnica]
After his talk with Subaru, Reinhard's intuition started to go overdrive. Subaru was telling the truth, that was certain. Subaru also used a different alphabet than theirs. He also had no idea about nations or anything he said to him. While Reinhard's intelligence was average, his intuition was never wrong, and right now the same intuition was telling Reinhard that his friend was a foreigner. Not just a foreigner to Lugnica but the world itself.
[Subaru: What are you talking about Rein?]
Reinhard noticed the sad expression forming on Subaru's face. He decided to change the subject to make his friend happy. He pointed an extremely well-drawn picture of a star on Subaru's atlas and asked him;
[Reinhard: This one looks brighter than the others, what's the name of it?]
Getting excited by his friend's interest in stars. Subaru forgot about the previous conversation and started to talk about starts to Reinhard.
Heinkel could be called with many names; drunkard, deputy commander, father of the sword saint but he was definitely not a morning person. After breakfast, he decided to read Commander's letter.
To: Sir Heinkel Astrea; Deputy Commander of the Royal Guards
From: Sir Marcos Gildark Commander of the Royal Guards
According to the reports I received recently from six tongues, there is a large increase in illegal slave trafficking across the country. Especially in the city of Flanders. While the organization responsible for the increased traffic is known, we still have no clue on how they smuggle their abductees across the country without being noticed. The only clue we have is that all the abductees have something in common. All of them are young demi-humans between the ages of 9-21. Your current mission is to observe the criminal organization that goes by the name "Flower Prison Garden "and reports your findings directly to me. If you manage to locate one of their so-called "parterres" , you are allowed to deal with them as you see fit as long as prisoners are rescued. My personal suggestion would be to locate one of their smugglers first. Higher on the chain of command, the better.
I expect you to deal with this task with utmost caution deputy commander.
Heinkel's face was twisted with disgust after seeing the age range of the slaves. He knew what kind of business the flower prison garden specialized on. Which only manages to disgust him even further. While he couldn't care less about Marcos trying to order him around he decided to follow his task regardless of his previous thoughts. While he didn't care about being a knight apart from its prestige and some certain advantages he might need, he still had a semblance of fatherhood instinct within him. He also did not want Louanna to wake up to a city with forced child workers. He was going to do this for Louanna … his sleeping beauty. He murmured to himself ;
[Heinkel: After I find a way to wake you up … I will leave this goddamn job and never look back.]
These were the thoughts within Heinkel's mind while he was walking towards his booze merchant. His thoughts were getting too coherent to his liking. He needed his drink and he needed it now. After reaching the counter of the said merchant he quickly greeted the guy with a simple nod.
[Merchant: Sir Heinkel It's an honor to have you in my humble shop, how can I help you]
Heinkel tiredly put a pouch filled with gold saint coins on the counter and slid it towards the shopkeeper.
[Merchant: The usual amount?]
[Heinkel: Yes, hurry up, unlike you I have places to be.]
The merchant with a forced smile on his face quickly called one of his workers.
[Merchant: Bring the marked box … Hey! are you even listening to me?]
The old worker couldn't care less about his employer's words since he was looking at the last thing he wanted to see in his life. The knight from the day before were staring at him with a frown on his face. He immediately dashed towards the door to escape the shop.
Heinkel had seen this man before. He frowned while trying to remember where he last saw the old man. Before he could react the old man quickly dashed out of the shop giving the last needed clue for Heinkel to figure out the old man's identity. He dashed after the old man cursing his luck.
[Heinkel: You have got to be fucking kidding with me.]
After 3 hours of reading, Subaru got too tired to continue. He could hear Reinhard tidying the room while he was lying on the bed with a borrowed nightgown from Reinhard. His mind slowly starting to recover from today's shock and now it was trying to make sense of what happened today.
He somehow ended up in this weird place then got saved from bad guys by a jerk. He made his first real friend and he was slowly starting to realize he was far from home. He read manga's about people being summoned to other worlds or dying and reincarnating there but none of this happened to him.
He just closed his eyes then pufff he was at a weird street. Truth started to slowly dawn on Subaru. He was far from home. He might be even too far to go back. The idea of never seeing his family again was too much for young Subaru. He slowly started to cry while attempting to hide it by pushing his face towards the pillow. He suddenly felt someone else sitting on the bed right beside him. Said someone slowly ruffled his hair to calm him down.
[Reinhard: There, there … everything is going to be better … rest now so we can talk about it after you wake up.]
Hearing Reinhard's dull but effective reassuring words Subaru slowly let his mind rest.
After seeing Subaru fall asleep Reinhard got up from the bed to continue tidying up the room. While he was placing Subaru's book back to his weird but practical looking sack Reinhard noticed a storybook with the same language of the atlas. He was first a bit inclined to inspect to book but his desire to understand his friend won over. He slowly took the book and sat on the armchair in the corner of the room. After inspecting the book he noticed the strange book before him and desired to understand its contents.
[Hearing its champion's wish, Od Lagna gave its blessing towards him, for he was truly loved by the world]
While Reinhard couldn't control receiving blessings, he could still feel them entering his soul. While the feeling within him slowly dissipating, he focused the book before him. While he still could not read the language he could understand what it was written. Opening the book he slowly read the first page.
Contents:
1. The Tale of Momotaro
2. The Tale of Urashima Taro
3. The Tale of Tanabata
4. The Tale of Red Oni Who Cried
The 4th tale immediately captured Reinhard's attention. He knew oni's are a rare race, some people even said that after the destruction of the last oni village at the hands of the Witch's cult, they were extinct. Judging by the story's name there could be more of them where Subaru came from. Making up his mind Reinhard opened 4th story and started reading.
I'm updating my previous chapters to get rid of some grammatical mistakes.
I know it's still not up to the same standards as my current chapters
Because of that, I will re-write the first Arc after I get some free time
Chapters will still be published as usual so don't worry about that.
...
If you are a new reader reading this
The grammar and the storytelling improves in the next chapters
...
Anyway I hope everyone enjoys