The Former Child Prodigy Saves Someone And Is Thanked

When we arrived at the hospital room, a brown-haired girl—Mika—was sitting up in bed. Her parents were standing beside her.

I knew her.

She was Arisa’s childhood friend, a girl who used to come over to our house often.

It had been quite a long time, and her arms and legs had grown, but her face still retained traces of how she had looked as a child.

“Hey, hey, Arisa’s big brother! Come play with us!”

The image of the girl smiling brightly as she spoke to me resurfaced in my mind.

Compared to back then, she was thinner, and her expression was more fragile, but—

At the very least, her complexion was not that of someone close to death.

“You came, Arisa…”

“Yeah.”

Arisa sniffled a little and walked over to Mika.

“You look completely different. Your complexion really has gotten better. When I came before—”

“Did I look like I was about to die?”

Mika took over Arisa’s hesitant words with a soft giggle.

…It seemed she really had gotten better. Someone on the verge of death probably would not be making jokes like that on their own.

Mika looked at Arisa.

“Thank you, Arisa. For saving my life.”

“No, not me… The one who went to find the herb was my brother over there.”

Everyone’s gaze turned to me.

“It has been a long time, Ilvis-san.”

Mika narrowed her eyes as she said that, then bowed her head deeply to me.

Apparently, she remembered me.

“Thank you very much. I was saved thanks to you, Ilvis-san.”

“That’s good.”

When I answered that, Mika’s parents beside her spoke to me next.

“Thank you so much! For saving our daughter!”

“Thank you so much, for such expensive medicine… truly…!”

“Haha, I’m just glad she made it.”

It was genuinely embarrassing, enough to make me squirm. But it did not feel bad. These people were thanking me from the bottom of their hearts.

What I had done had definitely made someone happy.

Arisa opened her mouth.

“It’s fine, really, he’s always loafing around at home anyway! He ought to be useful once in a while!”

“Hey!? Arisa!?”

After talking a little longer, we left the hospital room.

As we walked briskly down the hallway—

“Big brother, I’m sorry!”

“Hm?”

“The truth is, a little while ago Mika’s parents said they would pay a reward, but…”

“Oh?”

“I tried to act cool and turned it down!”

“Oh?”

“I just blurted out something like, ‘When someone’s in trouble, we help each other out!’”

“…I see. Well, isn’t that fine?”

Well, they were acquaintances, and it was fine to show a little generosity now and then.

It was not like it was that expensive—

“Eh, is it really fine? One bundle of Granveil Grass costs about ten million gold.”

…………………….

Huh?

…T-ten million?

Huh!?

Huh!? Th-th-th-that much!?

“It costs that much!?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have any idea how long I could stay unemployed with that much!?”

“You should be thinking about working, big brother.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

I found myself glancing back at the hospital room we had just left. Maybe they could give me a million or so…

Arisa grabbed my left arm.

“Listen, if possible—I want you to help them. Mika’s family is not rich or anything—they saved up that money through a lot of hardship. And Mika still is not fully recovered, so I think they will still need a lot of money.”

They would still need a lot of money, huh…

They would still need it—that meant they had needed it up until now, too.

I thought about their lives.

Mika and her parents had suddenly been swallowed by misfortune and forced to walk through darkness.

You have fallen ill. You will die soon. There is no hope of being saved. Well, there is, but you need extremely, extremely expensive medicine.

—A sudden, enormous misfortune that had fallen into an ordinary life.

Even so, they did not give up.

If there was a way to save her, they decided to walk it. Believing only that, they kept saving money.

If you could buy only one thing in life, what would you wish for?

Those parents made their wish.

Please let us buy our daughter’s life.

That was why they gave up everything else. For their daughter’s sake, they desperately saved little by little, day after day. It must have been hard. Their daughter was hospitalized. While paying for that, they had also saved for the medicine.

Even so, they did not break.

Ah, just a little more.

Just a little more, and their hands would reach their daughter’s life.

But—fate was cruel.

Suddenly, the price of Granveil Grass soared, and the goal was pushed far away in an instant.

How much despair must they have felt?

How much sorrow must they have felt?

And yet, to them, who still had not given up—the goddess of fortune smiled. Their friend Arisa’s brother, me, had obtained Granveil Grass.

It was over.

It was over, but it was not over yet.

Because for people who were still alive, there was still a long road ahead.

Mika was not back to full health. They would also need to rebuild the life they had been forcing themselves through in so many ways. It was probably true that people who had walked a road harsher than most still did not have enough money.

Thinking of all that hardship—

“…Well, yeah. Fine, then. This time.”

“Big brother!? Really!?”

“It’s a request from my cute little sister. I’ll earn the money again.”

“Thank you! I’ll think of some kind of reward for you!”

“Really? Like what?”

“Fifty shoulder massage tickets, maybe?”

“Wow, your shoulder massages have gotten pretty premium.”

Saying that sort of thing, we left the healing institute building.

We walked side by side with Arisa along the path leading outside.

Arisa, who had been silent, suddenly murmured,

“Thank you so much, big brother.”

Her voice sounded different from usual, without the teasing tone she always used with me.

“…You’re being strangely solemn.”

“That’s because I’m thanking you from the bottom of my heart. I thought I would never get to see Mika healthy again, or see her smile again.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I will never forget the day you came back with Granveil Grass, big brother. I will never forget today. So do not forget today either, big brother. Your hard work saved us.”

After saying that, Arisa closed her mouth and sniffled noisily.

I also said nothing, just thought back on everything that had happened today.

But the one thing I felt was—

I was really glad.

Because what I had done had truly saved someone else.

Maybe I really was being useful to someone.

Working—and being a member of society—might not be such a bad thing after all.

A comfort like spring sunlight spread through my chest.