The Adventure of a Boy with the Mind of a Middle-Aged Man

Lyase and her brother, Roche, were working on those that didn\'t need emergency treatment such as the moderately wounded and the ill. Those that needed emergency treatment were treated by the adult veterans of the Sagami Co. Medical Treatment Team as well as Satella-chan and the Saintess[1], her Highness Lilinor.

Roche kept silent as he healed the wounded. His pale complexion indicated that he had reached his limit a long time ago, but the reason his hands kept on moving was probably because of Grey\'s words.

As Grey had stated, if Zem had lost his life because he had trusted Roche, then it was the duty of the survivors, Roche and Lyase, to live up to his expectations. It didn\'t matter if they had to become heroes, nor if the path was filled with thorns.

"We are nobles---we\'re the commanders!! Treat us before you treat those dirty common soldiers!!"

Lyase turned towards the nobles clad in luxurious armor who were pitifully wailing away.

Seriously. How many times had this happened? Lyase wished someone would do something about these people who kept stopping her treatment with the same verbal tug-of-war.

At first, employees of Sagami Co. tried persuading them politely, but now they just grimaced in displeasure and ignored the nobles. Well, no wonder. No matter how you looked at it, they hadn\'t sustained wounds that needed to be healed.

"Count Noval-dono, that brat is the scoundrel who raised his hand against the son of his Excellency, Duke Cyrus!" said a plump man with curly golden hair from behind.

He was Viscount Dolt Magotta. He was the man who branded us in the Scarlet Phoenix as cowards and the one who had pulled the trigger that led to Zem\'s death.

Roche should have hated him to death, but he didn\'t spare the viscount a second glance and continued to treat the ill soldiers.

"I see, then arrest him. We can gift him to Duke Cyrus when he triumphantly returns from fighting on the front lines."

Does he even understand what this situation is?

There were so many wounded in the infirmary, many of whom were gasping for breath. Since Lyase and the other healers reaching their limit in terms of magic, they had to be careful how they spent it. After all, their decisions affected whether someone lived or died.

Upon the orders of the tall noble, Count Noval, his brawny guards surrounded Roche.

"Hurry up and drag that filthy commoner outside. This shall be our infirmary!" he proudly announced.

The soldiers attending to the heavily wounded and the mercenaries who had volunteered themselves and gotten injured all began glaring in reproach, but the count didn\'t seem to notice.

"Enough already! Have a look around. Do you really think we have the time to go along with your selfishness!?" yelled Tana-san, a temporary helper from Tote who had been summoned by Carla-chan.

Count Noval merely folded his arms and repeatedly tapped his foot on the ground in supposed irritation.

"Do you even recognize who you\'re talking to!?"

"Yes. You\'re a cowardly noble who ran away from the battlefield after sustaining those wounds, right?"

Count Noval raised the hilt of his sword and struck Tana-san from the side.

However, not only did she not stagger, she didn\'t even budge an inch. If not for the slight amount of blood puddling out of her mouth, you couldn\'t even tell she had been struck.

"Whatever. These guys are stray dogs who have bitten Duke Cyrus. It\'s only a matter of time before they\'re put down. Take me out!"

His attending soldiers who had all unsheathed their swords pointed them towards Lyase and the others.

Roche, who normally would have immediately overreacted, didn\'t spare the soldiers even a second glance and continued with his recovery magic.

"Hmm. Tana, they\'re enemies, so I can eat them right?" asked Dora-chan[2], the young girl with black hair who had been sleeping in the corner up until now, as she slowly roused and wiped the drool off her face.

"No, you can\'t. You\'ll hurt your stomach if you keep eating strange things. And they\'re bound to taste bad, too." Tana-san put her hand over her face, fed up with the situation.

"Tch. I haven\'t eaten anything since this morning so I\'m hungry."

Her stomach adorably rumbled.

"Grey-sama is soon to return. Tonight we\'ll have a feast, so be patient until then. Okay?"

"Yes! I understand!"

"Feast~, feast~, a feast♩" she began strangely humming as she happily twirled around the room. The soldiers knit their brows and looked to each other in confusion.

Well, no wonder. Even during this brutally tense situation where swords had been drawn, Dora-chan didn\'t have a single trace of fear on her face.

"What mockery! Get them!" Count Noval yelled in hysterics.

In response, Tana-san narrowed her eyes, and the heavily wounded female mercenary, Fox, stood up while stagger and spit out, "Good grief. I finally understand how he feels, although it\'s too late now."

Fox was a former companion that knew Lyase and had, after that incident, parted ways with Leader Aquido, her former lover.

She had sustained heavy wounds and was on the verge of death, and had just been brought into the tent, but was currently resting in the corner after having been healed by Tana-san.

"Don\'t do anything rash. You shouldn\'t stand yet," Tana-san chided.

Like she had said, even though Fox\'s wounds were treated, the latter had been on the verge of death, if but for an instant. There\'s no way she could fully recover right after that. Her wounds would reopen if she so much as moved, and yet she had been wanting to return to the battlefield.

"What about you guys?" yelled Fox. The other mercenaries who had also been brought in stood up at once and unsheathed their swords.

"F-Fox, are you insane!? We\'re the ones employing you. This is clear treason! Don\'t think you\'ll be forgiven---" wailed Dolt Magotta pitifully, but Fox cut him off.

"Shut up! To hell with treason! We\'ve risked our lives on the battlefield! Many of our companions and subordinates have been wounded and killed. That\'s how fierce this battle is. And for you, who scurried away from that hell as quickly as you could to call this your infirmary!? Don\'t be ridiculous! Here, the healers calmly judge who to heal first based on how heavy the wounds are, regardless if they\'re a common soldier or a mercenary. This is a place of hope for us soldiers. So let me return your words and say, stop holding us back!!"

"A filthy mercenary, mocking us!"

The mercenaries faintly smiled in disdain towards Dolt and Count Noval, who were red with anger, and regripped their swords. It seems they\'re serious.

"Stop this instance!" Everyone turned towards the entrance of the tent where the voice had come from to see a silver-haired girl standing there with her hands at her hips.

"If it\'s not your Highness, the princess!"

Starting with Count Noval, the nobles all began to kneel down and then the mercenaries and soldiers. Tana-san and Lyase followed suit, kneeling down and bowing their heads.

Behind her were her Highness\'s personal guards who had been helping Lyase out. They had probably gone to her Highness to calm the situation down.

"Count Noval. I heard that you were trying to requisition this facility for yourself. Is this true?" she asked, her usual carefree tone gone. You could easily tell from her voice that she was quite angry.

"Of course, we are proud citizens of the empire. The esteemed Emperor Emeritus[3] had provided us this facility, and I had foolishly thought that it would be most appropriate for them to act under my orders.

Nobody said a word against this irrational argument that truly was a foolish thought. Naturally, it was because they were so flabbergasted. The Emperor Emeritus held more authority than the current in this empire, and if they, whose power came from the Emperor Emeritus, used his name, everything would go as they pleased. He had given that statement with that knowledge, however, that only held during political talks.

"This facility is operated under his Majesty\'s name. I find it difficult to understand why you\'re bringing my grandfather\'s name."

Lilinor\'s voice dropped an octave. She had heard of Zem\'s deaths and rumors about Grey, so her mood was at its worst. This facility, especially, had been directly assigned to her by his Majesty Georg. Requisitioning this facility meant picking a fight with both his Majesty Georg and her Highness Lilinor, so it was no wonder she was this worked up, and you could see the disgrace written over her personal knights.

"Your Highness, these is advanced political talk, so please understand."

"His Majesty has entrusted this entire facility to me. You have no right to interfere!"

"Your Highness, the Emperor Emeritus would be sad!"

"Really, why is this turning into a conversation about my grandfather!"

Lilinor seriously couldn\'t follow. How much longer would this nonsensical farce continue in this country.

"Shut up. If you\'ve time to talk then hurry up and recover. You\'re wounded too so get some rest. Outsiders are forbidden to enter; hurry up and leave," complained Roche.

Like an icicle had been held to their necks, a freezing chill ran down their spines.

His statement was truly egregious towards both a court noble and her Highness.

Count Noval blankly stared at Roche, but a fat vein soon popped on his forehead.

"A dirty commoner brat dares to think he\'s a saint just because he can use holy magic!"

"Your Highness, this brat raised violence against Duke Cyrus\'s son. You should hurry up and arrest him!"

How ridiculous. If he truly needed to be arrested, they would have arrested him alongside Grey. Even the rumors that had spread on the streets all stated that the one who had raised violence was Zem, and they didn\'t mention Roche\'s name at all. That was the truth that they themselves should have been screaming about. Although, for common sense that even a child could understand to not apply was truly representative of this empire.

"You\'re wrong! This child only tried to save the Radol! I was there at the time, so there\'s no way I could be wrong!!" yelled a wounded soldier as he got up to kneel.

"Your Highness, If I may, I have evidence as well. When that noble raised violence towards the Radols, Duke Cyrus\'s son killed one of the Radols and was about to kill the Radol\'s wife when that child stepped in to help. This is the truth!" said another soldier in agreement with the previous one. Chatter quickly spread throughout the tent.

"Wha!? S-such nonsense will get you---" Dolt Magotta began to object, but his sword was struck to the ground.

"It\'s not nonsense!!"

Dolt gaped at the person who struck his sword down and gasped in exasperation, "What are you doing!?"

And he should have. That person was the nobles\' personal knight and someone who had pointed his sword at Lyase.

"I\'m done with all this! Noble my ass! Emperor Emeritus my ass! People die because of those words. That Radol guy and that kid\'s companion were even killed for fun by nobles and the Hero. And yet, and yet. During this entire cowardly and worthless conversation, that kid hasn\'t rested for even a second and has continued to heal everyone. I just feel so deplorable. When did the adults of this country turn so rotten!?"

One person bit their lip in response, and another\'s grip trembled in affliction.

"......"

One by one, the soldiers threw their swords onto the ground and sat down.

"Do you think you\'ll get off scot-free after defying me!?" threatened Dolt with a face dyed in abhorrence. But nobody budged an inch.

"We do," said two males who had entered the tend amidst this chaos. One was a young man wearing gaudy clothes with thin eyes who had his long blonde hair tied up behind him, and the other was a middle-aged man with short black hair and a stubble.

"Who are you guys!" demanded Dolt.

Count Noval\'s eyes darted about as he struck Dolt in the chest.

"This is his Excellency, Marquis Rainer. Please forgive his insolence."

The moment he heard Rainer, Dolt\'s face paled.

"Sure. I\'ve already fulfilled my goal. I won\'t personally take action this time. But you know, you\'ve really scratched away at my plans, so I\'m thinking of letting you off with a death sentence. Do you understand?"

"A death sentence......you say?" Count Noval hesitantly asked.

Rainer\'s face warped into an evil smile and turned back to Dolt.

"We, the Commerce Guild, have just finalized the decision to permanently freeze all transactions with Duke Cyrus and the Magottas. And you, Dolt-kun. You have a huge loan. I request that you promptly return the money."

"W-wait a moment. That\'s preposterous!"

"Even if you say that, aren\'t you and Duke Cyrus the ones who openly picked a fight with the guild?"

"I-I\'ve done no such thing towards the guild!"

"No no no. The guild members from the empire have really had a hard time because of you. Truly, a single misstep might have sentenced our fatherland to death. It\'s a miracle that things have ended with just this. Seriously, I can\'t thank the local clans who cooperated with me enough."

"Well, I will take my leave now."

With the situation having clearly turned for the worse, Count Noval bowed once and fled the tent, leaving Dolt behind.

Even Lyase knew how fearful the Guild was, but she felt an intense discomfort at the fact the nobles who hadn\'t even faltered at her Highness were now unseemly and ridiculously shaking.

The silent short-haired man behind Rainer-san stepped forward and presented a piece of parchment from his pocket.

"Viscount Dolt Magotta. You are charged with being complicit in both the murder of a Radol as well as swindling the Commerce Guild. We ask you to show yourself at the Department of Justice. If you resist, we\'ll have to eliminate you ourselves."

The short-haired man snapped his fingers, upon which several armed soldiers surrounded Dolt.

"You have no evidence and yet such folly?!"

"Evidence? Explain that to the judge during your trial. I don\'t have the authority to decide your punishment."

The short-haired man signaled with his jaw, and the soldiers then bound Dolt by the hands.

"Please wait!"

The man began to walk Dolt, who was crying and pleading, away, and bowed once at her Highness and Rainer before exiting the tent.

"Uncle Rainer-sama. Thank you."

"No need to thank me. Grey-kun is our Guild\'s most valuable asset. I\'d be troubled if we tripped up at such a place."

At that time, a wave of cheers erupted from outside.

"C\'mon. It seems they\'re finishing up outside."

Her Highness placed her hands over her chest and closed her eyes in relief and said, "Now, everyone. Just a little bit longer."

At her urging, Lyase and the others resumed their healing.

[1] Don\'t remember if I\'ve already made this change so I might be repeating myself, but I changed the title, Holy Woman to Saintess thanks to a comment a while back.

[2] So this is the first time they\'ve actually used her name in this series. I had assumed it was a title before, and had translated Dorahachi to Eight-Headed Dragon, as it\'s clearly a fusion of dragon and eight in Japanese(hachi). I\'ll now refer to her full name as Drahachi, and her nickname as Dora. Sorry for the confusion guys.

[3] Changed previous emperor to Emperor Emeritus. His title wasn\'t brought up much before, but we\'ve now learned that he holds more power politically than the current emperor. I\'ve reflected this in the title, Emperor Emeritus, which basically refers to a retired emperor and is a term used for Japanese emperors.