The madness of the battlefield was vicious.
It was vicious enough to make one numb to facing the cold corpse of someone you'd shared a meal with face-to-face, to arrows and blades raining down from all sides, and to swinging your sword through sleepless nights for days on end.
The illusion that death enveloping the battlefield would spare you alone shatters in the first fight.
The anxiety of not knowing when death would come was a bad companion that never left the battlefield... no, it lingered even after leaving it behind.
Elric, who had roamed such places for ten years, couldn't possibly have a sound mind.
And since he swung his sword to die, it was only natural that he ended up twice as broken as those fighting to live.
Yet there was one reason Elric was still alive.
His body's robustness had overcome the wear on his spirit.
A beast charging into the enemy lines as if he would die that day, not stopping his slaughter until nothing living remained before his eyes.
Eyes bloodshot red, which one should never encounter on the battlefield.
The terms for Sword Ghost Kasha were that ferocious, and the soldiers' awe toward him bordered on faith.
But when you peeled back the legend, it stemmed from the brute strength and luck that backed his recklessness.
Everyone who had endured the western continent's hegemony war for over twenty years said Sword Ghost Kasha was a ghost who wouldn't vanish until the war ended, but to Elric, it was just ridiculous nonsense.
Crunch!
No matter how strong one was, as a living being, there came a time when bones would break.
Elric was no exception.
'A serious injury.'
It was in the middle of the border skirmish, a hellish situation where he had to hold off a thousand troops alone.
He won the battle as always, but in the process, his right knee joint had been shredded.
It wasn't irreparable, but it wasn't a light wound he could fight with right away either.
No, could he even manage daily life?
He'd be limping for a while.
The essence of a mercenary was replaceable manpower you could hire with money.
Of course, Elric's prowess was irreplaceable, but in this state where he couldn't use it properly, he was treated no different from any other sellsword.
How could he rampage on the battlefield without someone to hire him?
For that reason, Elric left the front lines for the first time in about four years.
It was still a war zone, but the rear was leisurely enough to sit at a bar and read the paper.
After four years of living solely for the blade, Elric encountered writing beyond operational codes.
"An eastern paper, eh? You from there?"
Elric ignored the bartender.
Not because it wasn't worth answering, but because he was that absorbed in the newspaper.
Why wouldn't he be? The continent's east was his hometown, where he'd been born and raised.
Even after so much time, the nostalgia hadn't faded. Even after such a bitter parting, the memories pursued him.
Weibin's golden wheat fields and the childhood days frolicking there.
Humans chew over memories as death nears, and Elric, always standing beside it, floundered in hallucinations of those days.
『Princess Eclesia's Tea Party.』
The paper featured a photo of the princess smiling brightly, surrounded by ladies gathered to complement her glow, with a brief introduction to the tea party and interviews below.
'No news on Weibin.'
Flipping through while thinking that, Elric let out a small hollow laugh.
As if there would be. Weibin was the most insignificant wheat-field backwater even in the eastern Ferdin Kingdom.
Wondering what he was thinking, Elric shook his head.
It was at that moment, turning the page.
『Hoben Portman's First Death Anniversary.』
Elric's body stiffened.
His eyes widened as if they might tear, his breath cut short as if someone had throttled him.
His thoughts froze for an instant, screaming to process the sudden information.
At the bottom of the page was a small black-and-white photo of a man's face he could never forget.
Wrinkled more than in his memory, but Elric recognized him instantly.
His father, so cold and hateful, was there.
In a form he never imagined.
*
Looking back was a stale resentment.
When he first ran away, Elric had held a sliver of hope, waiting for his father.
No matter that he'd changed his name and crossed borders, with his father's wealth, such troubles could be brushed aside.
He knew now it was childish, but he was too young then.
Swept up in the battlefield's atmosphere, his mind wasn't whole, so his emotions veering strangely was inevitable.
Anyway, fueled by that stubbornness or whatever it was, he endured until years passed, and by then, shame toward himself kept him from returning to Weibin.
Even after his feelings toward his father hardened, he kept putting off going home with "someday," and that's how it became this.
Regret and rage welled up, but soon cooled.
'Not even worthy of that.'
Self-mockery.
Oddly enough, amid it all, the man he'd once hated so much now stirred only faint pity at his death.
Sadness? Hard to say. But one thing was certain.
He had a reason to head to Weibin.
A year after his father's death, brazenly showing up now might look a certain way, but he couldn't not go.
Screeech!
Elric boarded the train.
A steam locomotive that would deliver him east in a week.
He hadn't spent much amid constant campaigning, so he had money for first class.
The pain in his right knee eased as he sat.
He exhaled long.
The scenery outside the window was vividly red.
Autumn.
Harvest season, when his hometown Weibin was most beautiful.
Nostalgia surged.
Whooo!
With a resounding noise, the train departed.
*
A week sitting, gazing at the passing scenery.
His body, which had rolled through battlefields without rest, screamed nonstop, unaccustomed to the peace.
No way to calm it, he twisted in discomfort, only for knee pain to remind him of his place.
The fortunate part was that time flowed only forward.
Enduring somehow, the end of the tracks arrived.
"Take care!"
The attendant who'd brought meals bowed deeply.
Elric waved vaguely and left the station.
'Weibin.'
Weibin's panorama spread before him.
Unchanged after ten years.
The streets dyed red with autumn leaves were serene, the people walking below wrapped in rural tranquility.
No trace of the battlefield's sharp tension.
Farther out, golden wheat fields everywhere.
Seeing the sights, smells, people, and atmosphere, Elric felt his nose sting.
Dragging his limping leg, leaning on his cane, Elric walked forward.
Despite the tearing pain, his pace didn't slow.
With each step, memories of living here in the past overlaid vividly on his retinas.
Walking on, the straight path to the mansion came into view.
The Portman estate was a bit outside the village, standing alone and quaint amid the wheat fields.
Thud.
The cane supported his weight in place of his aching leg.
Elric began walking slowly between the fields.
Hiding there to play with village kids.
Getting scolded by the maid for dirtying his clothes in the dirt.
The butler, standing in for his father at sunset, announcing dinner; hiding in the wheat, waiting for his father to search.
All so vivid, as if he could touch them.
Elric's thoughts soon passed those memories to sketch one girl's face.
'How's the Lady faring?'
On the western front, there was no way to know how Weibin's Lady lived, so he had no news of her.
She wouldn't be suffering.
A woman that beautiful must have been taken by someone.
Thinking such things, just as the mansion entered his sight—
Rustle!
A sound from the right wheat field.
Elric flinched, body trembling.
His head snapped toward the source.
Right then.
"...Ah."
A gasp escaped.
Not Elric's.
It was the voice of the woman emerging from the wheat.
A gentle cadence, clear and precise in ending.
The trait of the girl who'd shaken the heart of his impetuous boyhood.
Yes.
The girl had become a woman.
Her mystical, elegant aura remained, but the youthful innocence was gone; she no longer seemed fragile.
A breathtaking beauty, deeper than memory, quietly enveloped her.
Even wide open, her downturned eyes held the gaze captive.
Elric's lips moved blankly.
Without thought, he asked.
"Why..."
Are you still here?
The woman—Tiria Weibin—sealed her lips briefly, exhaled long, and composed her expression.
Her gaze lowered.
Then words came.
"Because I'm your wife. That's why I'm here."
She was still Elric's wife.
Contrary to his assumptions.