"I don't know! I don't know anything! Grandma just told me to do this! If I ever met the person in the image, I had to greet him, and then…", Anderson gathered himself for a moment, then stared into his eyes and slowly said: "'We'll meet again. Even if it's not me, it doesn't matter. As long as my bloodline hasn't been cut off, as long as there are descendants, someone will definitely remember your existence.' It seems there were words like this that they wanted us to pass on to you?"
"Uh…. this is?"
"I don't really know either. It's just written like this underneath, and Grandma said the same thing?", Anderson lifted the red cloth beneath the magic device, and sure enough, that line of text was there.
For a moment, Ash didn't know what to say. Yet he couldn't help recalling how, when he became a general, his adjutant had stroked that wooden box and shaken his head unconsciously, saying:
"To actually do something like this. But what meaning does it have, really? By the way, you… what method did you use to make this box last until now?"
"Well, um…. Actually, both Father and Grandma said that if we ever ran into trouble we couldn't resolve, finding the person in the image would definitely get us help. They told me I had to preserve it properly too."
"So you people, are you passing me down like some kind of get-out-of-death-free token?"
The truth Anderson revealed so cautiously left Ash not knowing whether to be angry or to laugh.
Yet in his heart, there was an inexplicable sense of nostalgia, as if the final scene before parting back then was about to surface in his mind as well.
Though he should have left right away, that night he ended up staying in the boy's home and received the warm hospitality of the entire family.
And according to Anderson's father, Cassie had described him as having accidentally fallen under a sealing spell, so his descendants might one day encounter this powerful mage again. Her decision to settle here at the end seemed to be because she believed he might come someday.
It felt like he had been calculated against, which made Ash's mood a little complicated, but he didn't expose that lie.
After staying here for a while and leaving behind some money as care for the descendants of an old friend, he temporarily bid farewell to Cassie's family line.
Yet when he looked back, seeing those figures in the distance waving at him nonstop, he inexplicably felt as though there might still be a chance to meet again.
Even if the ones he met next time would be their descendants.
———
Frieren and the others' adventure continued, and when they saw Ash again, compared to his immersion in the deaths of friends and reflections on the descendants of old acquaintances, the expressions of the party members were one more solemn than the next.
"What's wrong?", Seeing that his mood was different from normal, Frieren couldn't help feeling worried, "You know already, don't you? The news of the Hero of the South's death?"
"Yes," He gazed into the distance and let out a sigh for no clear reason, "Life really is… unpredictable."
"It really is."
Frieren watched his slightly sorrowful back, and an inexplicable thought arose that perhaps she should talk to him a bit more, because she remembered their relationship seemed pretty good.
After hesitating with a look of wanting to speak but holding back, she gently patted his shoulder, "Um… my condolences?"
"Hearing that from you is honestly kind of surprising."
"What do you even take me for?", Frieren immediately became dissatisfied.
"Haha~ sorry, sorry~ just kidding," He chuckled, turning back and reaching out to pat Frieren's head.
Naturally, almost as a matter of course, his hand was swatted away. Frieren adjusted her hair and said unhappily, "How many times have I told you, don't touch my head."
"I'll be careful next time."
"Completely untrustworthy."
"Because I'll just be 'careful,' that's all."
"Hopeless. No wonder you're a wall-climbing hooligan."
"Don't casually give people nicknames, that's not nice, right? Besides, I never went around being a hooligan."
Without thinking, he chopped her on the head with the edge of his hand. Then, before Frieren could get angry, he quickly left and sat down by the group's campfire.
The dwarf warrior Eisen looked more serious than usual, "Ash, have you heard?"
"About the Hero of the South?"
"Tell me, if even the strongest, someone absurdly powerful, is already dead, do we really have any hope?"
"Don't say that, Eisen," As the wine-and-meat monk that Frieren had designated him as, Heiter's hand was trembling slightly as he poured himself a drink. But as the one who livened up the team atmosphere, he still forced a smile and raised his voice.
"Even though his sacrifice is regrettable, he also killed four great demons and left behind unimaginable achievements. He created the chance for people like us, who came after, to defeat the Demon King, didn't he?"
"Besides him, is there really anyone who can do that?"
The death of the Hero of the South was a tremendous shock to the entire human world. Even Eisen felt as if he'd lost his backbone, and the hand hidden under his cloak trembled slightly, just like Heiter's. He truly lacked confidence that they could defeat the enemy.
At that moment, Heiter's gaze shifted to Ash, and to dispel the gloomy atmosphere, he changed the subject.
"You should pretty much officially join us, shouldn't you? If you're around at critical moments, we'll feel much more at ease."
"Saving the world and all that, forget it. That's not for me," Ash smiled and waved his hand, while Eisen sighed as if unsurprised.
"Give it up, Heiter. If he were serious about saving the world, he wouldn't be hanging around here with us."
"Even if Eisen's a bit impatient, in the current situation, maybe speeding up a little is necessary?", Frieren normally didn't care about time at all, but the Hero of the South's death had made her slightly worried about their pace.
However, even though she thought that way, in the end nothing changed.
In the first year after setting out, despite the massive bad news, their pace didn't increase by much.
After all, it wasn't just Himmel who wanted to take things slowly. In truth, Frieren had set out on this journey because she thought she'd never see Ash again and wanted to try understanding humans.
But compared to their unreliability, Ash himself was even less qualified to criticize them. At critical moments, he would often disappear for months at a time.
———
In the blink of an eye, ten years passed, and the Demon King was unexpectedly defeated by this leisurely, wandering party.
But how exactly the Demon King was defeated, Ash had no idea.
Because about two months before that happened, he had been summoned away by an unnamed great demon, Solitar, arranged by Schlacht, and together with Aura, went to lift the seal on the Sage of Corruption Qual.
By the time he had Aura control Qual and tried to return, everything was already over, so…
In the capital city of the kingdom where they had originally set out, on the streets celebrating the hero party's triumph over the Demon King and their victory parade, as the citizens lined the streets, holding flowers and cheering endlessly, Ash, almost as if it were only natural, simply blended into the crowd and mooched off the free alcohol.
But…..
"Hey!", Before he even had a chance to congratulate them, the silver-haired elf who hadn't changed at all, Frieren, had already walked over and slammed both hands on the table, making his wine cup almost jump.
"W-what?", Startled, he looked up in surprise, "What's wrong? It's a rare celebration, and you're wearing such a gloomy face?"
"You ran off during the battle, and now you're actually here freeloading food and drink?"
"I'm old, you know. My body's not very convenient anymore. There was really nothing I could do," He casually made up an excuse, which immediately made Frieren's momentum falter, and her expression turned a bit awkward.
"Is… that so?"
"Huh? You're… never mind," Not wanting to touch on the sensitive topic of age, he simply changed the subject with a smile.
"Speaking of which, I should congratulate you all. You actually managed to defeat the Demon King and become heroes. Everyone's cheering for you. I heard they're even going to put up statues?"
"Humans are too snobbish. When we set out, they were reluctant to even give us ten copper coins. Now they're being generous."
"Well, well~ free drinks aren't bad either!", Heiter, clearly having drunk quite a bit, sat down across from Ash with a mug of beer, his face flushed.
"That's right! The result's good, so isn't that fine?", Himmel, also holding a beer, sat down beside them.
Ash, however, keenly noticed that Eisen, the dwarf, was breaking bread at the side and hadn't touched any alcohol. He couldn't help asking, "I've been wanting to say this for a while now. You're a dwarf, so why don't you drink?"
"Just how much prejudice do you have against dwarves?", Eisen, who hadn't spoken much, looked up while chewing his bread, then glanced at his companions who were on the verge of getting drunk.
"Heiter's a priest and loves drinking. That's the strangest thing, isn't it?"
"That's true too. Guess the longer you live, the more weird things you run into."
"That's an old man's sigh, isn't it?", Heiter laughed loudly and threw an arm around Ash's shoulder.
"Yeah. Let's think about something happy," Ash nodded indifferently, but at that moment Frieren poked the back of his head. When he looked over, she pointed up at the sky.
"Ash, look. There's a half-century meteor shower tonight."
"Huh?"
Following the elf girl's finger, in the boundless night sky, countless points of light shifted from deep blue to distant purple, cutting through the deep heavens that were gradually growing quiet as the celebration wound down.
"Oh wow~ so pretty! But this… I feel like I've seen it somewhere before?", He widened his eyes in surprise, then soon stroked his chin as he remembered something, a nostalgic smile appearing.
"Ahh! Right. I saw this when I was a kid."
Even now, he clearly remembered that night. He and Aura had sat close together at the mouth of a cave, admiring the breathtakingly beautiful meteor shower.
He even remembered making a wish back then, 'When I grow up, I absolutely don't want to watch shooting stars with Aura ever again.'
Now it had come true, and yet it hadn't? Because…
The people watching the meteors with him now were just too strange. The drunk priest uncle even had an arm draped over his shoulder. It was just like standing shoulder to shoulder with good buddies at a romantic fireworks festival. The night sky was beautiful, but his heart felt cold.
"I'm not hoping for beautiful girls anymore. Please, next time at least let me watch the meteors with a proper young girl." [T/N: Fern maybe.]
Gazing at the increasingly dense shooting stars, he brushed away Heiter's arm from his shoulder. Suddenly remembering the rumor that wishing on shooting stars was very effective, he couldn't help himself after five hundred years, and once again made a wish on the meteors.
The group quietly watched the sky full of shooting stars as the celebration neared its end.
In such a quiet setting, Ash's murmured wish was clearly heard by Frieren and Heiter beside him, and both of them couldn't help turning their heads to look at him.
For some reason, the two of them felt a warmth in their hearts and reached out to rest their hands on his shoulders.
"Putting that aside, let's just watch the meteors for now," Heiter reeked of alcohol.
Fieren's voice, however, was inexplicably gentle, "Yes. Don't always think about strange things. At least for now, you still have me, your big sister."
"You two weirdos... honestly, whatever. I can't be bothered arguing with you," Being pitied by these two made him feel awful all over. But precisely because both of them were exceptional oddballs, even arguing felt like a waste of time.
So he turned back, wanting to say something but stopping himself, and finally let out a big sigh as if giving up.
"What is it? If you have worries, you can talk to me. I am a priest, after all," As he spoke, Heiter took another sip of alcohol.
"Even if I were going to confess, I'd go to a proper priest. I'd never go to an uncle like you."
"That's pretty rude, isn't it?", Heiter's smile stiffened a little, but Frieren calmly followed up with another blow.
"But uncle is a fact."
"So you're both really rude, aren't you? Anyway… I actually envy Ash's magic quite a bit. Not changing at all after all this time, it's basically cheating."
By now, the hero party more or less understood why Ash didn't age, which made Heiter, while complaining about Frieren, also feel some envy toward Ash.
But Frieren reacted very calmly, "It's only been ten years. Humans just age too fast."
"Only ten years?", Himmel looked a bit downcast at that, but he quickly let it go, lifted his head to the sky, and smiled again.
"A meteor shower that comes once every fifty years, as the opening of an age of peace… it really is perfect."
"Honestly, you can't see very clearly in the city," Frieren ruthlessly shot that down, while Ash shook his head.
"Make do with it. Don't be too picky. Watching it with you guys, if it were too beautiful, it'd just make me feel even more depressed."
"You two really don't read the mood at all," Even Himmel was a bit speechless now, "What kind of chemistry is this, anyway?"
"I don't want it either. This just makes it look like I'm the weird one."
"I wanted to say this earlier. You're really not qualified to call us weird, you know?", His complaining tone made Frieren narrow her eyes in displeasure.
The others around them really wanted to complain, 'You're both pretty weird!'
But… this was already the end of the journey, and maybe it was better not to say anything too hurtful.
Ash also sensed the atmosphere and reached out to press a hand onto Frieren's head, forcibly pushing it down a bit.
"This is probably our last gathering. I'm just a passerby, so that's one thing, but you're an official member at least. Try to read the mood a little, even if this meteor shower as a farewell really isn't that great."
"Is it not that great?", Frieren paused slightly, then hesitantly said,
"I know a place where you can see a beautiful night sky. If… if there's still a chance, fifty years from now, I'll take you all there?"
"Fifty years from now."
"What is it?"
"If there's a chance," Ash swept his gaze over everyone, looking a little lonely.
Aside from the dwarf and the elf, he didn't know whether the other two would even be alive fifty years from now. No one could say.
But Frieren lowered her head gloomily, because her worry wasn't quite the same as Ash's. She honestly didn't think Ash would live until then.
And the atmosphere that followed, without anyone realizing it, gradually took on a tinge of sadness. Setting aside Frieren's overly long-term promise, they really were about to part ways.
The adventure was over. Everyone had to go their separate paths.
There was no helping it. This world was particularly stingy toward heroes. Even after saving the world, the nations wouldn't grant them noble titles. Massive rewards were out of the question. Erecting a statue was already a sign of respect. Marrying a princess was nothing but a fool's dream.
On the way back, Himmel had been worrying about what kind of job to find in the capital. Heiter's goal was very clear. To find a job where he could drink. Only Eisen said nothing at all.
And in this slightly sorrowful atmosphere of imminent separation, the celebratory banquet gradually came to an end.
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
[email protected]/AmbitiousTranslator
🥳Joining P@treon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰 You can access upto 20 advance chapter through P@treon.