Chapter 14 – First Contact #5

Lena fell into a deep sleep in the boy’s arms.

The tension from realizing it was all over, that she had survived, finally broke, and exhaustion washed over her all at once.

Lena dreamed.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t remember the details, but she was certain of one thing: it wasn’t a nightmare.

A pleasant dream. A happy dream, the likes of which she hadn’t had in a very long time.

So when Lena awoke, she wondered if the events of last night had also been a dream, but they weren’t.

The place where Lena opened her eyes was a neighboring village, half a day’s journey away, a place she had never visited before.

According to the kind-faced village chief’s wife, who gave her a bowl of oat porridge, Lena’s home village had been virtually annihilated.

The survivors had scattered to the surrounding villages, and their numbers were so few they could be counted on two hands.

She also heard the rather shocking news that the village chief who had raised her was dead, but Lena remained surprisingly composed.

Whether it was because of what she had endured in the goblin lair, her only thought was a detached, So that’s what happened.

Seeing Lena just listen blankly, the village chief’s wife—perhaps misunderstanding, or perhaps just pitying the circumstances that led to such a reaction—pulled Lena into a tight embrace and wept.

The wife’s embrace was incredibly warm and soft.

But Lena found herself thinking of the boy’s embrace, which had been hard and cold.

She suddenly longed to see the boy’s face, the one that resembled the morning sun.

“Landius has left to save another village, dear.”

Landius.

The moment she heard the boy’s name, Lena’s eyes widened.

Even as an orphan from a remote country village, she had heard the stories of ‘Landius, who caught a snake at two and a bear at ten.’

According to the village chief’s wife, the boy—Landius—had entrusted the soundly sleeping Lena to the village before immediately heading off to save the next one.

“Another village?”

“Yes, they say it wasn’t just one or two villages that were attacked.”

She would learn later that, just as the wife had said, the goblin attack had been truly massive.

Nearly half of the Paragon Kingdom’s border region had been assaulted, apparently the work of a Goblin King, the first to be born in centuries.

“Don’t you worry too much, child. The great Landius is an invincible hero. And Lord Lanford, the Knight Commander, is even stronger.”

Left alone, Lena lay on the straw bed, closed her eyes tightly, and tried to recall Landius’s face—his profile as he watched the sunrise.

*

“From that moment on, Landi was my hero.”

At Lena’s shy confession, Landius gave an awkward, slightly embarrassed smile, while Belkian and Fran smiled warmly.

“Mm, nice. That was a very strawberry-like story.”

Fran, nodding to himself, even started clapping before his expression turned mischievous.

“But Landius, after all that, you still didn’t remember Lena?”

An experience like that should have been truly memorable.

It wasn’t like with Kamael, where you mistook his gender.

At Fran’s jab, Lena looked up at Landius with an equally mischievous, amused expression. Landius, still looking awkward, scratched his cheek and said.

“No, well… I was so busy fighting goblins right after that… and she was so young… back then?”

He wasn’t talking about himself, but about Lena.

After all, Lena had only been six years old at the time.

“Come to think of it, that’s true. Isn’t there almost a ten-year age gap between you two?”

Indeed. When Lena was six, Landius was already fifteen.

“Looking at it now, Landius, you were quite the thief.”

A bride nine years his junior.

Under Fran’s assault, Landius coughed awkwardly again, and Lena giggled.

“But Lena.”

“Yes?”

“So why did you run away?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you said you ran away when you reunited with Landius.”

So frantically that you tripped and your skirt flew up.

Lena flinched at Fran’s unexpected attack and glanced at Landius, who was looking straight at her with a genuinely curious expression.

“W-Well.”

“Uh, well.”

“It was… just so sudden?”

Ever since that day in the goblin lair, Landius had always been like a prince from a fairy tale to her.

In fact, though she’d never told anyone, Lena had been such an avid Landius enthusiast that she had collected all of his merchandise.

Fran had teased them about the age gap, but from Lena’s perspective, it had been a grand journey of reverse cradle-robbing(?).

In any case, since she had adored Landius even before their reunion, she had indulged in quite a few fantasies.

Fantasies like a ‘reunion with her prince,’ a scene straight out of a love story.

“A-And I was just in my work clothes…”

A straw hat and dirty work clothes. Hands covered in dirt and a face slick with sweat.

She couldn’t let him see her like that.

The reunion with Landius she had imagined was nothing like this.

It was supposed to be much more dashing, more beautiful—just more magnificent in every way!

Lena mumbled on, her face red as she fidgeted with her fingers. Landius watched her with a fond smile, finding her utterly adorable.

Watching from the side, Fran kept muttering “Good grief,” his face like that of a tired old man.

“In any case, Landius ultimately failed to recognize Lena.”

At Kamael’s words, which were accompanied by a smirk, Lena’s cheeks puffed out for a moment before she shot Landius a look of renewed disappointment.

“I know it’s late to say this, but do you have any idea how disappointed I was?”

“Huh?”

Even if he didn’t think of her as much as she thought of him, she had at least expected him to remember her.

She had imagined countless times how Landius would be surprised, thinking, To think that little girl grew up to be such a beautiful young woman!

“And you only just now remembered that the girl who ran away was me… Well, I suppose I was also relieved you didn’t remember back then.”

Regardless, what was disappointing was disappointing.

As Lena grumbled with her cheeks puffed out, Landius was at a loss again, while Fran, looking increasingly fed up with the public display of affection, started looking for an opening to jump in.

But surprisingly, it was Belkian who spoke up.

“In any case—the important thing is that you are all together now.”

As Fran had emphasized several times, if you looked at them one by one, their first meetings were nothing special.

But that didn’t matter.

The fact that they had all met, that they were together, and that they were still together at this very moment—that was all that was important.

“I don’t know, I think everyone’s meeting was pretty special, except for yours, old man. Besides the one that went, ‘I’m Landius,’ ‘Oh, you’re Belkian,’ after going to meet a friend, everyone else seems to have a story.”

Fran quipped from the side as always, but it was a familiar occurrence, so Belkian remained unfazed. Because of that, Kamael and Lena also agreed with Belkian’s words, warm smiles on their faces.

Everyone had gathered, and everyone was together.

That fact itself was something to be deeply grateful for, something precious.

But still…

Landius was a little more special.

And Lena wasn’t the only one who thought so.

When they faced the Paragon Kingdom, which had become a den of demons.

When they had to confront Bardo, who had reappeared as a lich.

When even the incredibly tenacious Fran had given up on everything amidst endless despair.

The one who supported them all was Landius.

It was his unwavering back that gave them the strength to fight once more.

A single flash of light that shone brighter the deeper the darkness, the later the night.

The golden sun that finally rose to illuminate the world.

Landius.

Our sun.

Our hero.

Seeing Landius smiling good-naturedly, his face red with embarrassment, the heroes of Paragon each broke into a smile.

As if on cue, they raised their cups and toasted their hero.

*

“So, Landi, did you ever end up trying that ‘Beautiful Lady Series’?”

On the way back to the inn they had booked.

As Lena gazed up at the moonlit night sky, she asked the question casually, causing Landius to flinch and tense up.

It was, after all, the kind of question that felt like it required a very careful answer.

But in the end, Landius was Landius.

After hesitating for a long time, he got a shy look on his face that didn’t suit his large frame and stammered.

“Well… not all of them, but maybe… a couple?”

At his words, which he delivered with a shy, awkward laugh, Lena stopped walking.

Her face was smiling, but her eyes were not. With that expression, she asked again.

“With whom?”

No, with what bitch?

Lena was a Holy Angel and an Archmage, and naturally, the possessor of terrifying magical power.

A faint-hearted person would probably have wet themselves just from her gaze.

But Landius, the Hero of the Sun, was not such a person.

He seemed to squirm a little, again in a way that didn’t fit his build, and said in a voice still full of shyness.

“With… you.”

“Huh?”

“No, I mean… all of them, with you.”

Things like a kiss under the beautiful moonlight, and this and that under the moonlight.

To Landius’s confession-that-wasn’t-a-confession, Lena reacted in a very Lena-like way.

That is, her face turned beet red, and after a moment of flustered helplessness, she let out a silly giggle.

“Hey… can you show me the list, then?”

To see what’s left. To see what else you wanted to do but couldn’t.

“I’ll do them all for you. Okay? Me.”

At Lena’s proposal, Landius swallowed hard before pulling out a very old and worn-out notebook. Lena opened it, her face full of anticipation, only to glare at him.

“Landi, you pervert.”

“N-No. That… uh, that was from when I was young. When I was… full of youthful vigor?”

“Hmm, so you don’t like it now? You don’t want to do them?”

To Lena’s provocative question—one she asked while mustering all her courage, her face beet red—Landius cleared his throat for a long moment before whispering something softly in her ear. Lena let out a sly smile.

“My Landi, who else would have put up with you? You’re lucky you married me, right?”

It was a statement Fran would have claimed was gaslighting, but not Landius.

Just as he had in his youth, the Hero of the Sun swept Lena up into his arms and nodded. Lena burst into peals of laughter.

The reunion with her prince that she had dreamed of since she was a child.

Biting her lip gently, Lena kissed Landius.

Bathed in the beautiful moonlight, she smiled brightly.

*

At the same time, in another place.

On the same night the heroes of Paragon were lost in old memories, there were two people—no, two angels—also sharing stories of the past.

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Translated By: Meher (RaidenTL)

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