Chapter 105: Touch Me
Sebas's impression of the young man's goodness went a degree deeper.
"Didn't you have money?" Sebas asked. "Lord Lucian distributed coins to every soldier before departure. If that was the issue, you could have used them to buy food from the residents."
Buying food rather than taking it would not violate any of the Aindra domain's military regulations.
The young man's head dropped lower.
"...Those went to them too." His voice had nearly disappeared into the dark.
He was quiet for a moment after that.
Then — as if needing to prove that what he had done was right — he raised his head suddenly, and his voice came back considerably louder.
"They've all lost their fathers."
The words rang in the tent, carrying the open conviction that belongs to youth. Those eyes were looking directly at Sebas, holding nothing but a stubbornness close to obstinacy.
Then he seemed to realize he had raised his voice, and brought his head back down. His voice quieted.
"I wanted to help in whatever small way I could."
Sebas looked at this young man.
Something else surfaced in his eyes.
A tall, imposing figure. Full silver-white armor glowing with a gentle radiance in the sunlight.
This was a light Sebas could never forget. A faith carved into his soul at the moment of his creation.
"Helping the weak needs no reason."
The voice came from a distant past, moving through all those accumulated years, and fell clearly into Sebas's ears again in this plain little tent.
Sebas's breath stopped, for just an instant. Two voices overlapped. That dazed quality washed over him.
He brought his gaze back to the present — and realized the one who had just spoken those words was the young man in front of him.
The young man noticed nothing of Sebas's reaction. Something seemed to occur to him.
His eyes brightened, filled with a fervent light.
"Sebas-sama." He took one step forward, his hands tightening slightly at his sides. "You're so strong. Could you teach me how to become stronger?"
Sebas did not answer immediately. Those pale grey eyes rested on the young man.
"What do you want to become stronger for?"
"For justice!"
Without the slightest hesitation. He hadn't needed to think about it — this question had been answered in his heart countless times; the answer had long since been carved into his bones.
His voice was steady. The flame of the oil lamp trembled very slightly at the sound.
"I want to get stronger, and then help more people. Protect the weak. Let justice prevail."
Those deep blue eyes burned in the lamp's amber light, holding nothing back — nothing in them but open, absolute sincerity.
Sebas looked into those eyes.
Not a trace of anything impure. Only conviction, unwavering and complete. Very similar to the light that lived in his memories, the light that had never once faded in all the years since.
Sebas was silent for a long time.
Then he reached for the bread on his tray and held it out toward the young man.
"No, no — I couldn't possibly." The young man startled and took half a step back, hands waving. "That's your dinner, Sebas-sama, I can't—"
"At your age," Sebas's voice was gentle, but it carried a weight the young man could not refuse, "if you don't eat properly, there's no way to get stronger."
The young man went still.
He looked at Sebas's lined, quietly warm face. Something seemed to lodge in his throat.
Sebas held the bread out a little further. "Eat this," he added calmly, "and then I'll tell you how."
The young man pressed his lips together. He took the bread and bit down, chewing quickly — trying to finish so he could hear the answer.
Sebas waited.
The young man swallowed the last bite and stood straight.
"What's your name?" Sebas asked.
The young man drew himself up.
"My name is Touch Me."
The world went quiet.
Night wind moved past outside, pressing against the canvas, raising a soft, continuous rustle. In the distance came the faint sound of the patrol horses and the occasional crack of a campfire. All of it there, and yet somehow filtered through a thin membrane — muffled, far away.
Sebas had gone still.
An unsteadiness appeared on that always-composed face — something extremely rare there. His lips parted slightly. No sound came out.
This name.
His throat moved.
Before the young man had answered, there had been something in Sebas's heart — a hope so absurd he would have dismissed it as foolish — that if the young man's answer happened to be that name, what a thing that would be.
But it had only been a passing thought. He had never genuinely expected it.
And then the young man said his name was Touch Me.
Just when Sebas had told himself this was simply another moment of grief that resembled something — the young man spoke that name himself.
Sebas looked at him.
The young man's posture was straight, his expression carrying the mild nervousness of being studied by someone older, working to appear calm.
He clearly had no idea what the name he had just spoken meant to Lord Lucian's guest.
Sebas's memories began to move on their own.
He recalled what he had heard after arriving in this world — those accounts of powerful souls carrying traces of themselves into new bodies at death.
He looked at the young man's unformed, youthful face.
The vessel a soul inhabits might change. Appearance, voice, the shape of a body — all of these outward things could be entirely different.
But if the soul itself existed. If the things that made a person who they fundamentally were could persist beyond the limits of flesh—
Then what would be the right way to recognize a soul?
Sebas's thoughts stopped at that question. He did not let himself continue. The greater the hope, the heavier the eventual weight of being wrong.
The silence had stretched long enough that the young man was beginning to grow uncertain.
"Sebas-sama?" Touch Me ventured, his expression shifting from certainty to confusion to a trace of anxiety. "Is there... something wrong with my name?"
Sebas spoke.
"It's a good name."
Touch Me's eyes lit up. Being praised by someone as powerful as Sebas-sama — for a young man who wanted to get stronger, this was no small thing.
"Then," Sebas's voice returned to its usual measured steadiness, though the slight roughness in it suggested he was not as composed as he appeared, "regarding how to get stronger—"
He paused.
"Before that, I need to understand your current level of ability. Tomorrow at sunrise, come to the open ground east of camp. Bring your sword."
Touch Me's eyes brightened in an instant.
"Yes, Sebas-sama!"
His voice couldn't quite contain the excitement. Even the bow he gave was more emphatic than usual.
"For now, go get proper rest. Training while exhausted produces nothing."
"Yes!" Touch Me gave a clean answer, turned, and walked out.
He lifted the tent flap with a crisp motion. Night air poured in, lifting his bright gold hair slightly.
He stepped through. His silhouette in the moonlight stood remarkably straight.
"Touch Me."
Sebas's voice reached him.
The young man stopped. He turned. Moonlight fell across his face, those deep blue eyes holding a bright question.
The oil lamp's amber glow came from behind Sebas, laying a soft haze around his salt-and-pepper hair, the lines on his face deepened by the interplay of light and shadow.
His voice was almost entirely flat.
"Clean the mud off your face before you sleep."
Touch Me blinked. He touched his cheek. The mud from the cart was still there, dried to pale brown patches.
His face went completely red.
"Yes — yes!" He answered quickly, turned, and ran.
His footsteps faded into the night and were swallowed by the wind and the insects.