The Orphans And Edgar’s Wish

Liricia and I came out on the twenty-ninth floor of the dungeon via the passage Kou had made.

Our goal was to go down to the thirtieth floor, defeat the Mithril Golem there, and get our hands on some mithril.

That was when we ran right into a group of kids running toward us with tearful faces.

The swordsman in front, and the hunter and ranger in the middle ranks, stared at Liricia in surprise.

“Big sis!”

“Liricia-sis!”

“Miss Liricia!”

“Oh my, you children! What are you doing in a place like this!?”

“Hm? You know them?”

“These are the children who were at my orphanage! Mok, Yuma, what on earth—!?”

The youngest girl, who’d been hiding in the back, flung herself into Liricia’s chest and started crying.

She was wearing a robe that screamed “healer.”

“Big sis! Please, you have to save Captain Edgar!”

“What!? Chaana, what happened…? Mister Edgar?”

“Captain Edgar saved us.”

“When we were moved to another orphanage, they tried to sell us off.”

“He took all five of us in.”

“Oh, my… something like that… I’m so sorry. It’s because I wasn’t careful enough…”

Liricia gently stroked the head of the little healer girl, Chaana, as she clung to her chest, her own face clouded with grief.

I asked,

“But if you’re asking us to save him… does that mean Edgar’s in trouble?”

“Yes!”

“He told us to run!”

“He said a really strong enemy showed up!”

“On the thirtieth floor!”

Liricia looked at me, violet eyes shining with desperate earnestness.

“Please, Master. Won’t you save the man who saved these children’s lives?”

“Yeah, that’s no problem. Odds are he’s our target too, anyway.”

—If even A-rank Edgar couldn’t handle it, then it was probably a Mithril Golem.

On the contrary, if we didn’t hurry, we might miss our chance at that mithril.

That was the kind of calculating thought I was having, and yet Liricia’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude.

“Thank you so much, Master!”

“All right, kids. Take us to the stairs down to the thirtieth floor.”

“Yes!” “This way!”

The bespectacled boy with the bow and the tanned, short-haired girl at the middle ranks took the lead and dashed off.

Guided by the children, we reached the room that housed the staircase leading further underground.

Unlike the staircases so far, this one was a spiral.

“Okay, you kids wait here. We’ll go on ahead.”

“We’re counting on you!”

“Please save Captain…!”

“We’re begging you…!”

With the children’s tearful pleas at our backs, Liricia and I started down the spiral staircase, circling deeper and deeper.

Meanwhile.

Edgar was staggering away, one hand on the dungeon wall as he dragged his feet.

But the direction he was fleeing in was the opposite of the stairs.

As long as he was bleeding, his trail could be followed.

He fully intended to act as bait to make sure the children got away.

One hand was pressed to his side.

There were holes in his clothes and his skin, and blood was pouring out in streams.

He took a small pellet from his pocket and swallowed it.

A ration pill that rapidly restored wounds and stamina.

But even it couldn’t heal multiple ruptured internal organs.

He no longer had enough strength left to put up a real fight.

—Then.

The lizard lumbered into view up ahead, about thirty meters away.

At its speed, it could close that gap in an instant, and Edgar had already used up all his kunai and throwing stars for stalling.

He gave a wry smile and muttered,

“Looks like it’s finally time for me to pay the piper… Sorry, Princess…”

Leaning back against the wall, Edgar closed his eyes.

For some reason, old memories drifted up in his mind.

Edgar had had a purpose. A dream he wanted to make real.

To resurrect the dead.

In a distant foreign land, Edgar had once served on brutal, high-risk missions.

The pay was good, and it came with plenty of honor.

But with each mission he completed, his heart dried out more, like sand.

The only thing that mattered more than any reward was the time he got to spend at the manor after each mission—meeting with the princess.

One moonlit night.

Edgar stood stiffly at attention in a white-sand garden when a young princess in a kimono came out.

“So, thou hast survived again. As expected of thee. — I shall reward thee.”

Imitating her father, the lord of the manor, she spoke in an affected, lofty tone as she stepped down into the garden.

With her pure little hands, she plucked a single flower herself and held it out to him.

Her small, pale fingers were like white fish, her black hair beautiful.

Edgar bowed deeply as he received it.

“Thank you, Princess.”

“Mm. See that all goes well.”

Her lustrous black hair shimmered in the moonlight as she shook it and smiled.

The way she adopted such adult manners and speech, acting all high and mighty, made her seem all the more like a child trying to act grown-up—and it was endearing.

Edgar pressed his cheek against the petals and closed his eyes.

The soft touch of night dew.

To his war-weary heart, it wasn’t the heaps of money or the fame, but that single flower he received each time that brought him solace.

—But.

One day, when he completed another mission and returned… the princess was dead.

While he was away, their enemies had attacked.

In a quiet tatami room bathed in moonlight, she lay in her bedding as if sleeping.

On silent feet, he approached and whispered,

“Princess… I survived again…”

But she didn’t answer. No one did.

The empty room only grew heavier with silence.

Standing by the futon and looking down at her, Edgar neither cried nor shouted.

He was simply swallowed by a vast sense of loss and emptiness.

She had been one of many children of the manor lord.

Losing one princess—especially one with a low place in the line of succession—was not considered a great blow.

So her attendants and guards had been few.

But to Edgar, she was irreplaceable.

Before he even knew what he was doing, he had hoisted her body onto his back and fled the estate.

It was almost pure impulse.

Then he fled the country itself.

The ferocity of the pursuit that followed defied imagination.

Even so, Edgar managed to escape.

—All to cling to a rumor that in a far-off land, there was a witch who could bring the dead back to life.

But when he unexpectedly came across a group of children, as young as the princess had been… he hadn’t been able to abandon them either.

—Guess I’m way too soft-hearted.

Edgar gave a faint chuckle—probably the last smile of his life.

Then, fighting against the dull ache surging up from his belly, he waited for death…

He waited for death…

…He waited.

…Huh?

Edgar frowned inwardly.

By now, he should long since have been eaten.

—Then.

“Pigya.”

A strange cry reached his ears.

Mustering the last of his strength, he cracked his eyes open.

He saw the lizard crumbling away into powder.

A dazzling light caught his gaze.

He blinked, messy bangs swaying as he looked up.

An angel was descending, bathed in radiance.

A silver-haired angel in white clothing.

With white wings spread wide, feathers drifting all around.

“I’ve come to get you…”

As he gazed at that divinely beautiful smile, his whole field of vision was swallowed by white light.

—Ahh. So I was already dead, huh.

Come to think of it, the pain was gone too…

When you die in a foreign land, an angel from some foreign god comes to pick you up, huh… who knew…

With that pure white world as his last sight, Edgar’s consciousness slipped away.