Tsuyokute New Saga (LN) - Book 10: Chapter 8

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The following day, Kyle and the others were mostly free. Going with their experience and the trend so far, battles like yesterday rarely happened back to back, and they figured it’d be another ten days until the next one. Of course, they were still cautious of a possible attack, and they had surveillance squads gathering intel, but Rimarze as a whole seemed to be breathing a sigh of relief for today.

Lieze remained at home, helping Seraia with Alessa and doing chores. Urza instead went off to meet her father Rifuaro, albeit reluctantly. Seran and Minagi prepared to depart on their journey, and Shildonia just walked around aimlessly. Kyle decided to get a change of pace and walk around the town. He had been so busy with the fighting so far that he wanted to take it easy at least for today. All the buildings in town were freshly built, and so were the streets he walked on right now. And everything was clean too, even the stone on the road. It was so clean you wouldn’t expect this to be at the front lines.

Since it was still rather early, not many people were out and about, but you could see several drunkards who celebrated yesterday’s victory a bit too much. The guards on patrol would try to clean them up, which was a funny sight. Despite them being in the middle of a war, the people passing Kyle seemed genuinely happy, as the air felt cheerful. This must be a result of the consecutive victories.

Leaving aside the soldiers actually fighting on the battlefield, I feel like there’s a lack of a sense of danger around here. I guess it’s better than just depression, but I should let them know to keep the situation in mind.

Kyle thought to himself and headed to the residential district when he spotted something. There was a residential area for the dark elves. Although they rarely went outside, not conversing with the other races of humanfolk, they were at least assisting in the battles. Not only that, they were offering unicorn horns, acting as one of the greatest healing medicine ingredients, so they were assisting a lot during this war. Of course, they would be even better if they worked on their cooperation. As of right now, Ruktera was handling the dark elves, but there wasn’t much of a result to be speaking of. Kyle wondered what to do when a familiar voice called out to them.

“Kyle-san!”

The voice belonged to Ruktera’s daughter Elina, who approached Kyle with a beaming smile.

“It’s been a while…I’m glad we could meet again.”

Back in the country of Eddos, she was the one who led Kyle’s group to the World Tree where the dragons lived. Meeting her directly like this has last happened roughly two years ago, or maybe even more. Since she was half dark elf blood, she still looked relatively young and not much different from two years ago. At first, she seemed physically and mentally exhausted because of her mother’s sickness, but once that was recovered, she had changed greatly, and Kyle was happy to see that change in her, too.

“That it has. I’m surprised you could tell it was me,” said Kyle as he pulled off the hood from his head.

“You did so much for us, so how could I mistake your face?”

“I really didn’t do much…”

Met with Erina’s genuine gratitude, Kyle was forced to avert his gaze. The reason he looked after her was because he felt guilty that he had to abandon her mother in his previous life, so in the end, he just wanted to get rid of the guilt he felt. That said, since Erina didn’t know about this, she felt genuine gratitude for Kyle, always smiling when she saw him. It felt like Kyle had deceived her.

“And why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in Eddos?”

“Well…I wanted to help out a bit myself, so I’ve applied as a volunteer soldier!”

A lot of volunteers agreed to participate in this war, outside the regular armies set up by the countries.

“A volunteer soldier…”

Contrary to Erina’s gleeful attitude, Kyle was only more dejected.

“I told her to stop, yet she kept on pushing,” said Ruktera as she came closer, showing a troubled but also delighted expression at her daughter’s growth.

“That’s true…Although it pains me to admit it, this isn’t the place for you.”

Kyle knows just how talented Erina is as an adventurer. However, traveling through the forest is something different than traversing a battlefield at war.

“Yes, I’m aware. But I just wanted to help my mother…to bring the dark elves closer to humanfolk.”

“Well, we were talking via letters, and I might have complained here and there,” Ruktera sighed, admitting her defeat.

Kyle was a bit surprised. But in truth, since Erina inherited dark elf blood, she might be the connection needed to bring the races together. Up to this point, he had only asked Ruktera for help, but she really excels when it comes to fighting.

“That’d be a help, but…” Kyle tried to argue, only to change his mind.

Erina must be a lot more knowledgeable about the dark elves, so she could probably accomplish a whole lot more.

“And starting with Paserane-san, I’ve grown attached to a lot of people. I’ll help out a lot!” Erina seemed dead-set on repaying her debt.

“Right…Well, I’m counting on you then.”

“Of course!” Erina nodded confidently, so Kyle smiled gently at her.

“S-So, Kyle-san, do you have some time after this…”

“Sorry, but I’ve gotta be somewhere.”

Erina seemed like she wanted to talk some more, but Kyle wouldn’t let her finish her sentence.

“Ah…Okay, then another time.”

Erina seemed a bit saddened but quickly smiled again, waving her hand at Kyle.

“…You should stop by our place later. Lieze and the others would love to see you again, I bet,” said Kyle and turned his back to the two.

Having moved away from the two, Kyle was clearly in a bad mood. Naturally, this wasn’t because of Erina, and instead directed at himself. He did have something else to do, but that wasn’t in any rush by any means. He just wanted to get away from there. Kyle knows that Erina held a great appreciation for him, but that was all just because Kyle healed her mother’s sickness that he caused in the first place. And not to forget what happened in the previous world.

Be it with Zentos and Frederica, I keep being hung up on the past…

Zentos was Kyle’s close comrade-in-arms during the previous world, yet he was forced to kill him in this timeline because of an internal war. And because he couldn’t get rid of the guilt, he was unable to properly interact with Zentos’ younger sister Frederica. All of that just invited self-hatred by the numbers. All because he got emotional about things he had to do.

“When it comes to anybody else, I’ve got no problems using them as I please…If you’re going to rule over a group of people, you probably have to cut off this kind of emotion. Well, just shows I’m not made for it.”

Once this war was over, no matter the result it might bring, Kyle’s influence probably would never waver. In a way, even the king of a smaller country would wish for this position, but Kyle would rather end this quickly and return to a life of laziness.