The Bird That Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1)

The feint operation where two commanders jumped in ended in failure, and the Demon King’s army suffered a critical blow. Although we couldn’t push the front line further due to the Demon King’s army mobilizing all their forces, it seemed difficult for them to regain their former momentum unless something special happened.

The head of Commander Greta circulated around the battlefield, breaking the morale of the demons, and the other commander who attempted the feint operation was found as a miserable corpse pierced through tree branches in a valley. According to Kerberos, he was also called a genius of cavalry and a womanizer on par with Daemon, but it was fortunate that he died swept away by the river before he could show his talent.

After the second massive phase passed, what came down to us was an order to rest. Because both sides had suffered great losses, they were facing the front line in a form close to an implicit ceasefire agreement. We were to turn our steps back from the front lines to return to the capital, rest for a few days in the capital, and then move according to the higher-ups’ strategy.

“The fact that they told us to return to the capital means we should thoroughly resupply and rest. From now on, truly difficult operations will continue.”

The carriage heading to the capital was rattling.

The hero spoke to me without looking me in the eye.

I felt a bit hurt that the hero, who would normally have spoken with a smile, was suddenly being aloof. Looking at me and the hero, Lena said:

“Now we have to enter truly dangerous areas, right? I heard rumors from here and there that with Greta and another commander dead, the morale of the front-line troops has actually fallen. They say that demon stones have all turned into corpses, and everywhere you go, there are pale corpses of Empire citizens strewn about?”

Ashuria, watching my reaction, said:

“The demons won’t bury them, and our… army won’t bury them either, so it’s a complicated issue. The corpses… are at risk of decay.”

“It’s an understandable issue. From my position, it’s regrettable that I can’t bury my fellow countrymen, but realistically, we can’t do that now, can we?”

At times like this, I had to express my intentions clearly first. If I made an awkward expression or frowned every time I saw a corpse and ruined the party atmosphere, my mood might improve somewhat, but we couldn’t achieve our great cause.

Lena nodded at my words and added:

“That’s right. Well, there’s a limit to what we can do. Old man, then, instead, though it’s not quite the same, how about we take the lead in building a large tomb after the war ends? We could erect a really big monument too.”

“Like the war memorial in the capital?”

Lena nodded at Ashuria’s question.

“Right. That. Like that.”

At the mention of the war memorial, the hero made a strange expression and looked at me. Then, as I tried to meet his eyes, he quickly turned his head away, pretending nothing had happened. It was frustrating not knowing why the hero was acting like this today.

There’s no need for a man with all limbs intact to react like this just because he looks like a girl.

So I said to Lena:

“That sounds good too. Since we can’t bury them, we should at least honor their spirits.”

Ashuria nodded silently, then looked at me again. Her expression conveyed a sense of curiosity rather than any affection or special emotion.

“Is there something on my face, Lady Ashuria?”

With one side turning away every time they looked at me, and the other throwing subtle glances, I had no choice but to say something.

Ashuria blinked at my words, then turned her head. Mille, who was eating bread, carefully observed the situation and said:

“What? Did I do something wrong?”

Lena patted Mille’s head, and the hero said to Ashuria:

“What’s wrong, Ashuria?”

“Just, suddenly, I was reminded of my grandfather. During my grandfather’s time, the Empire and the Kingdom fought a fierce war. My grandfather, who went out as a conscript, passed away leaving my grandmother behind, and his name occupied a space on the memorial.”

I nodded. There actually had been a war between the Kingdom and the Empire. It seemed they had fought quite fiercely over territory, but all those records were buried in ruins and had become discolored beyond recovery.

“As someone from the Empire, I have nothing to say. We probably learned differently about the war.”

In the Empire, this war was recorded as a just war to reclaim territory. That perspective, which I had never doubted, threw questions at my heart every time I saw the Kingdom’s capital memorial. Ashuria nodded at my answer and continued:

“I didn’t bring this up to resent you. I’m not particularly curious about how the Empire taught about that war either. It’s just, I had this thought. That you, from the Empire, and I, from the Kingdom, are moving forward together, forgetting past history. It’s quite remarkable.”

“Isn’t that what history is? It’s truly a nasty thing, sometimes twisting the world at its whim and creating ironies.”

Who would have thought that a man who lived as a knight in the Empire would end up working as a porter in the hero’s party? Even if someone had told me in the past, I wouldn’t have believed it. Seeing my smile, Lena said:

“What are you going to do when we get to the capital, old man?”

“I plan to lay low in the capital because of the rumors. From what I’ve heard, it’s quite a mess. Looks like I might end up in handcuffs when we return to the capital.”

“Hm? What rumors?”

Mille tilted her head at my words. I said to Mille:

“You know, those rumors. That I seduce and pounce on widows recklessly, that I sweet-talk demons with my clever tongue to get them into bed.”

Since most of these were actually true events, I felt like I had earned a medal of sorts, but it was polite to pretend otherwise.

Mille blinked and then pointed at the hero, saying:

“Wasn’t all that spread about the hero?”

“Huh?”

The hero was so surprised that he couldn’t even ask back loudly. With an expression of not understanding what he had just heard, he pointed at himself once, then looked around at me and the others. Then, looking back at Mille, he said:

“M-me?”

Mille nodded and said:

“Yeah. They say the hero has a thing for women, that he seduced Kerberos and even slept with her, and that he played Daemon like a fiddle with just a few words.”

“Ahahahaha!”

Lena laughed loudly and refreshingly. The hero looked at Mille with an incredulous expression, then glared at me again. I didn’t know what expression to make, so I turned my head and avoided his gaze.

Ashuria said to Mille with a bewildered face:

“Wh-where did you hear such rumors?”

“Someone gave me the capital’s weekly earlier. Look.”

Mille held out a weekly magazine that was circulating in the capital. Looking at the title, it was a widely spread popular newspaper. It was a newspaper that collected gossip from all sorts of places, from border towns to coastal villages, and published weekly, but because we were at war, it seemed to be collecting gossip about the hero active on the front lines as well.

[The Hero’s Secret Hobbies?

Interesting rumors about the hero fighting on the frontlines of the war against demons are causing a stir.

According to news from border villages, every time the hero visits a village,

he seduces beautiful women with sweet words and sleeps with them.

There are even rumors that he seduced the recently defected demon general Kerberos

with these bedroom skills, amplifying the gossip about the hero.]

The hero’s hand holding the newspaper trembled as if attached to a motor. I didn’t know what to say to the hero, so I floundered and tried to soothe him.

“Ah, um… Hero…? I mean, I… This wasn’t what I intended…”

“N-no…! I, I…! I tried to live cleanly and hero-like…! That…! Ah…! Uh…!”

The hero, his face turning bright red as he tried to choose his words, couldn’t overcome his embarrassment and shame and hugged his knees again, burying himself in the corner. Meanwhile, Lena couldn’t stop laughing, even wiping away tears, and Mille, watching Lena laugh, started laughing along.

“Ah, so this is something to laugh at! Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha!”

“Ahahahahahaha!”

“I don’t know…”

The hero was holding his head and letting his body sway with the bumps on the road. As for me, I had to stay still in that place, receiving Ashuria’s pitiful glances and the resentful eyes peeking through the hero’s knees.

The road to the capital felt particularly long today.

---

In the Demon King’s army camp, a demon soldier came running breathlessly. The newly appointed demon commander flicked his curved mustache and said to the soldier:

“Why are you in such a hurry? I’m not running away.”

The demon soldier caught his breath and then handed a magazine to the commander. The commander scanned the cover of the magazine and said:

“What’s this?”

“According to information obtained by our spies, it turns out the hero is actually a guy who can’t resist women! His nighttime skills are so formidable that he even turned Kerberos with them!”

The commander listened to the soldier’s words and started reading the weekly magazine. Raising his eyebrows and making exclamations, he pointed at the hero’s portrait hanging on the camp’s blackboard and marveled:

“As expected.”

He flicked his mustache and added a comment:

“Didn’t I say? That face is definitely well-endowed.”