A New Job – Part 01
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Translator: Kell
Sensing something off, I woke up.
Zero was not in my arms. I bolted upright. My body felt heavy, like I had been tied up. Still I managed to look around the room, and the first thing I saw was Zero sitting deep in a chair, reading a book.
For a while, I just stared blankly at the familiar scene.
“You’re—”
“I see you are awake, Mercenary.”
That’s my line, I thought.
“Big brother!” Before I could voice my thoughts, a ball of white fur jumped onto my stomach.
I didn’t need to see to know who it was.
“Big brother! Big brother! Big brother!” Lily cried.
“C-Calm down.”
As I was struggling to respond, someone pulled her up.
“Lily, he’s injured. If you’re going to jump around, do it somewhere other than on his stomach.”
Lily let out a whimper. It was the priest.
He looked at me through his eye patch. “Monsters sure are tough,” he spat.
“What are you talking about?”
“You were out for ten days.”
“Ten days?!”
“By the way, I woke up in three days,” Zero chimed in, as if to say she was stronger than me.
No wonder my body felt so heavy. I was extremely hungry, and everything felt so empty.
“He’s awake!” yelled someone from outside the door. “Call the Captain!”
Barcel, I thought. I guess they’re not playing a joke on me.
Shaking my still hazy head, I looked around again and saw Gouda sleeping in the corner of the room with a blanket over him.
“Did you all sleep in this room?” I asked.
“Yes!” Lily exclaimed. “I was here the whole time! Big sister too! And the Dragon King, the Captain, and Father!”
“Only Zero remained here the whole time,” the priest said. “She hasn’t slept a wink in seven days. A fearsome witch, all right. Perfect for a monster like you.”
Zero approached the bed and tapped the priest’s shoulder. “Indeed. And because I was awake the whole time, watching Mercenary, I know that you came to check on Mercenary several times, and that you were worried about him not waking up.”
“It seems like you witches see things way differently than me.”
“Father was really worried!” Lily cut in.
“You keep quiet, Lily.” He hit her with the tip of his staff.
“Ouch!”
I burst into laughter. So lively right after I woke up. The priest frowned.
Gouda woke up with a start. “Wh-What’s going on? Is he up?! Why would you wake up when I’m asleep?!”
“Don’t look at me,” I said.
“Mercenary is awake?!” Gemma burst into the room with Barcel. As soon as she saw me on the bed, she covered her face and started crying. “Thank goodness. I thought you would never wake up!”
“C-Come on, now. It’s not worth crying over,” I said. “Why care if one mercenary dies?”
“You made a bet with me, and you won! I will have to buy you meals for the rest of your life. Not even getting a chance to hold up my end of the bargain is a disgrace for a knight.”
“I doubt that’s enough to disgrace a—”
“Shut up! I’m just saying!” Sniffing, Gemma delivered a powerful blow to Barcel. It seemed like they were comfortable with each other now.
“Hmm. I should have done that too,” Zero said, watching Gemma.
There she goes again. Learning something stupid.
“You don’t have to do anything,” I said.
Zero sat down on the bed. “Then I will do what I always do. Good morning, Mercenary. I am glad you are fine.”
Another familiar line.
“I received a message from the lass.”
Zero handed me the Witch Letter, a pair of letters linked to each other. Words you wrote on one would appear on the other. If Albus wrote a message on hers back in Wenias, the exact same message would appear on the one I was holding.
“Madia has informed her of your condition. I have just read the message that appeared. It seems she is watching you even now.”
“For real? That’s kinda creepy.”
I took the letter from Zero and found the same words written over and over.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Is the rest of the message the same?” I asked.
“Read to the end and you will see.”
I skipped the beginning and middle section and read the last part instead.
We have sent reinforcements from Wenias. You should meet up on the road.
Come back soon. We have so much to talk about.
“Could’ve just written that,” I mumbled.
The word “idiot” appeared in the last line. In extra large, thick letters.
“If I’m an idiot, then you’re a fucking brat. You can hear me, can’t you, you little shit?”
Not waiting for Albus’s reply, I rolled up the letter and returned it to Zero. Albus was probably stomping her feet in anger right about now.
“I’d love to be back in Wenias soon.”
Zero nodded. “Then let us go. The lass is eagerly looking forward to our return. If we make her wait too long, she might join the reinforcements.”
“Pooch is gonna make a scene again.” I chuckled as I imagined it.
“While you were asleep, many things were decided and many things changed. You are a hero who saved the world, and so am I. But it was also a witch who endangered the world, and for much of the populace beast warriors are demons.”
The priest heaved a sigh. “Hailing a witch and a Beastfallen as heroes when they’re also symbols of fear. We’re going to have a difficult time guiding the people from here onwards.”
“I agree,” Zero said. “We have a long and difficult road ahead of us, but it is a road we walk together. It will be a more pleasant journey than walking alone and hindering other paths, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know about that.”
Witches, Beastfallen, and the Church all walking the same path from now on, huh? Yeah. That’s gonna be tough, all right.
“Shouldn’t we go our separate ways?” I said.
“No!” Lily snapped.
Okay, so that’s a hard no. I guess there’s no other choice, then.
The world changed at a rapid pace.
After our safe journey to Wenias, Zero and I became known to the people as anonymous heroes. In other words, most people only knew that a certain witch and a Beastfallen saved the world.
After a lengthy discussion, we came to the conclusion that Zero and I should not identify ourselves as the heroes, or else those who couldn’t accept the change would direct their anger at us, and if they attacked us, we would have no choice but to fight back. It wouldn’t stop the cycle of killings.
“Someone saved the world, but no one knew exactly who.”
And that was enough.
“You’re like gods,” the priest remarked. We were in the royal castle of the kingdom of Wenias, in a makeshift room provided to us. “The idea of living according to the ideology of a person whom you have never met but has done great things. It’s very close to how a religion is founded.”
“You’ve been sounding a lot more indifferent lately,” I said. “About gods and religion.”
When I first met him, he was all “God’s will be done”, but now he seemed to think that even God was just some kind of thing that affects the human mind.
“Can you blame me? We’ll have to teach people about this new Church that doesn’t regard witches as evil. Do you think I have time to preach to others about my ideal God? If you want others to be open-minded, you have to be twice as open-minded yourself.” He sounded like he was an expert on the matter.
Zero laughed. “Simply think of it as having more gods to worship. Like I said before, the Church’s God is also a demon. Even the guardian deities were created as symbols of the demonic power associated with them. You do not have to change the Church’s creed. Instead, broaden your mind and make the other demons gods as well.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Albus chimed in. She lay on the bed, flailing her legs and fiddling with her slightly long, blonde hair. It was hard to believe that she was the Chief Mage of a kingdom. “Wenias is fine, but there are still a lot of witch-hunts down south. Since the kingdom is located in the middle of the continent, people from those countries come here.”
People up north, where casualties caused by demons were massive, needed protection from witches. The south, however, barely suffered at all. Most of the people there were villagers who planned to spend their entire lives without ever leaving their village. Telling them that something horrible happened in the north would not have any effect. Hearing a rumor that there was some kind of incident in a distant land they knew nothing about would not immediately make them pro-witches.
And, of course, the same was happening within the Church as well.
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