Episode 135 – The Peaceful Afternoon Sunlight

*

After Lara and I returned to the mansion together that day, the mansion was bustling with preparations for the banquet.

Everyone was moving busily, but Lara was the most enthusiastic of them all.

As if she thought she had committed a sin against me, she literally didn’t rest for a single moment and kept finding things to do.

This is a secret, but I felt a little intimidated by the sight of her lifting up the statues that I had struggled to move with all my might, without even breaking a sweat and with an indifferent expression.

Banata and Mena knew that Lara had done something unexpected the night before, but they didn’t know exactly what had happened.

However, the two of them didn’t bother to ask Lara or even Lily about it.

Perhaps Mena, who is accustomed to observing people around her thanks to her job as a maid who always has to be mindful of her employer, is used to such consideration, but even Banata, who is a little lacking in tact, didn’t bother to ask what had happened, so it seemed that Mena had warned Banata in advance.

Looking at her running around busily with the flood of work, perhaps it was simply because she was too busy to even catch her breath.

Mena was handling the work of several people all by herself.

Even in the underworld, which demands improvisation and thorough skill, even in the Knights Order, which constantly trains regular soldiers and knights through harsh training, and even including the journey to catch the Demon King, there was no one who deserved the expression “one-man army” as much as Mena does now.

I have no idea how I would have solved all of this without her.

However, Mena couldn’t seem to get used to giving instructions to Lara, who was once the person she served, and she looked uncomfortable whenever she saw Lara carrying luggage.

After all, Lara was the first master Mena served in the Boldias family.

But Lara didn’t seem to care much, and I, who could be said to be Mena’s current master, was also working under her instructions, so Mena took on the responsible position.

Looking at the preparations progressing smoothly, I was convinced that my decision to leave my fortune to her was the right one.

After a few days of everyone working busily without slacking off, one afternoon.

The banquet hall of my mansion was comparable to that of the Imperial Palace.

*

The beautiful sound of a music box echoed from the desk in front of the window in my bedroom.

It seemed that Ellie had contacted me.

Until recently, Ellie preferred to meet in person to talk rather than communicating through the music box, but for the past few days, she had been insisting on communicating only through the music box, to the point of being a little firm.

Of course, she might have been incredibly busy as a princess, or she might have been considerate of the fact that we were incredibly busy right now, but I thought it was probably because she was embarrassed by the passionate confession she had blurted out as if she was throwing everything away, which was unlike her.

When I sent a greeting to Ellie, she immediately sent a message containing the main point.

,Ed, I sent out all the invitations you asked for.

,Ah, thank you, Ellie. You saved me.

Since Baron Salvier had barely exchanged greetings with any nobles other than the Boldias family, I had asked her to create and distribute invitations to the banquet that day when I was talking to Ellie in the carriage.

It seemed that Ellie had created invitations to my banquet and sent them to various nobles by mail.

Since it was originally a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the victory that was planned to be held at Robin’s mansion, it wasn’t awkward to invite nobles who I didn’t really know.

Besides, Ed wanted as many guests as possible, whether they were nobles or commoners.

It was the day Robin’s downfall would begin, so of course, the more spectators, the better.

Of course, it would cost more, but Baron Salvier’s wealth was enough to pay for it.

In fact, it was true that preparing for the banquet cost more money than I had imagined.

Of course, I had never been a noble before, so it was only after reading the details of the expenses used for the banquet that I began to get a sense of how much I had spent.

I immediately understood why Robin and Jennifer were so obsessed with money and trembled.

,Are the banquet preparations going well?

,Yes, it’s almost done. All that’s left is to hire people to prepare the food and serve it.

,You haven’t hired them yet?

,Yeah,

,Then I’ll bring two people to serve.

,Oh, thank you, Ellie.

I nodded.

Be happy, Robin.

Because you’re the main character of the day.

Be sure to enjoy it, Robin.

Because that banquet decorated with gold coins will be your last banquet.

*

After finishing my chat with Ellie, I put down the music box.

Perhaps because I had been talking until just now, the room, no, the mansion felt very quiet.

It was probably because everyone was sleeping soundly.

The rest of the mansion’s family, except for Mena, were able to have a day off for the first time in a while.

You might wonder why Mena, who worked the hardest, couldn’t rest, but Mena was the only one who was knowledgeable about expensive dishes and various tableware and drinks that nobles would use, so there was no other choice.

Of course, Mena could have rested if she had just ordered those items and had nothing else to do.

Mena went out to shop, and Lily, Lara, and Banata went into their respective rooms and collapsed on their beds, falling asleep right away, so the mansion was very quiet and peaceful.

The strenuous physical labor that had continued for several days was naturally performed with the body of an undead, which doesn’t feel fatigue, but if I went back to my human body now, I would definitely collapse like the others.

I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to spend this afternoon, which felt peaceful for the first time in a while, just sleeping, so I sat at my desk in my room and basked in the sunlight pouring in through the wide-open window.

In any case, the sun would slowly start to set in an hour, and it would be dark in another two or three hours, so there wasn’t much time to enjoy this sunlight.

The sound of birds chirping and people going about their lives outside the wide-open window was just noisy enough to feel good.

Of course, the reason why I felt a peace that warmly embraced my heart even in this ordinary afternoon was not just because of the weather.

Mela and Lara,

Two women who were the most important people in my life.

But I was finally able to break free from those affectionate yet tiresome relationships that had been scarred and broken by harsh malice and miserable fate, and in the end, I could only exchange wounds with them.

No, saying that I broke free from the relationship might be a slightly wrong expression.

A more accurate expression would be that I finally let go of the lingering feelings and prejudices that had bound me to those two people.

I no longer had any reason to cling to Mela in a miserable state, or to reject Lara with a harsh attitude.

When I realized that, I felt a sense of liberation and freedom that was very difficult to explain in words filling me.

Ha, you son of a bitch.

Have I been treating the woman I loved and the woman who loved me as if they were burdens on my heart?

Even so, I, swept up in this exhilarating sense of liberation, wore a pleasant self-deprecating smile.

However, this freedom wasn’t all good either.

The emptiness that remained like an afterglow in the place where the sense of liberation and freedom had swept through my whole body.

This was also a sensation that was very difficult to explain in words.

What should I say?

The feeling that there was no reason left for me to remain in this world after this revenge was over.

It was as if instinct and the world were shouting at me in unison.

Now that I had shaken off all my lingering feelings, it was time to go back, that the place where I should be was in the dirt.

Originally, I had shown an attitude that I didn’t care if I died after taking revenge on Robin.

Until recently, I had even wished for death because this revenge was so painful.

In that sense, I was a little confused because it seemed like nothing had changed, but I could clearly feel a difference.

Until now, it was a feeling of desperately wanting the rest of death, and now it was closer to a feeling of having no reason to live.

Someday, when Ulgaros finds his body and leaves my head, and even the Saintess’s divine power is exhausted, what value will I have then, when I’m just a simple undead?

What will be left for me after everything is over?

Perhaps the only value that will remain for me until the end is that Holy Sword, so I turned my head and looked at the Holy Sword leaning against the desk next to me.

Perhaps because it had been taken out for several days, there was a little dust on the surface of the blade.

In the first place, I had stolen it from Robin’s warehouse, so it didn’t have a scabbard.

Ah, maybe I’m the scabbard.

Maybe that’s my value.

I let out a self-deprecating laugh and reached out to lift the Holy Sword.

At the same time as I grabbed it, the Holy Sword emitted a brilliant white light.

Ironically, the Holy Sword, which had lost its light after cutting me down that day, regained the light that protects humanity from monsters only after being held in my hand.

It was a terribly cruel joke.

I had been recognized as a hero by this sword, but I still didn’t feel like this damn piece of metal was mine.

That’s because, first of all, I am an undead, a monster that this Holy Sword must exterminate.

The Holy Sword in the hands of a monster, has there ever been such a thing in the history of the Empire, no, this continent?

Well, in the first place, seeing that it grants qualifications to a guy like Robin, the Holy Sword’s criteria for choosing its owner may be something special that cannot be measured by common sense.

Of course, I didn’t have any sense of what that might be at all.

In fact, even if it wasn’t for such a primal reason, there was another reason why I couldn’t get attached to this piece of metal.

First of all, I had never properly handled such a large sword in my life.

As expected, my movements when wielding the Holy Sword were very awkward and stiff.

In the first place, I didn’t have the strength to wield such a large two-handed sword satisfactorily.

To put it a little exaggeratedly, I think a wooden stick wielded by an 8-year-old boy playing hero on the street would be more threatening than me wielding this sword.

I felt anew how insane Robin’s strength was when he lightly wielded that Holy Sword with one hand.

I would have handled it skillfully if the Holy Sword had been a curved dagger.

I recalled the many crises I might have avoided if I had a great weapon, and the battle with Robin that might take place on the day of the banquet, and I let out a useless lament with regret.

Before I knew it, only a week was left until the banquet.

I closed my eyes.

After everything is over, will I be greeted by a peaceful time like now, or by years of suffering from unfulfilled emptiness?

I hadn’t found an answer even now, with the ending right in front of me, and before I knew it, the sun was setting.

.