YnO37

GDoc Here. I don’t think I’m gonna aim for Friday anymore… I’ll aim to release things before the weekend ends.

First Day

The army of 500 knights began its orderly march towards the Imperial Capital’s arch.

The silvery armour gleamed as the morning sun rose above the silhouette of the mountains. At their waists hung the steel longswords, and on their backs were shields that were also made of steel.

The crest of the Imperial Knight Order, a double-headed lion, looked exactly as Wynn remembered seeing it in his childhood.

Even though Wynn wasn’t wearing the shining silver armour, he did have the same two-headed lion emblem etched into the chest part of his leather armour, and was riding a horse, wearing a majestic mantle, with the rest of the departing knights.

The residents of the capital, in order to catch a glimpse of their gallant figures, were crowding the roadside, creating a loud stir.

Wynn saw his younger self in the children, who were enthusiastically watching the knights with gaping mouths from the crowd, and couldn’t help smiling.

‘I guess that one day, those children will come knocking on the doors of the Knight School, just like I had.’

Wynn’s former self seemed to overlap with those of the children.^[1]

Since the day that becoming a knight became his dream, he made good use of the spare time in his work to watch the knights as they set off.

In the beginning, he watched them alone, but eventually , Leticia could be seen standing beside him.

The pair snuck out of work, for which Hanna scolded them thoroughly.

‘Will these kids become even a little closer to the knights they admire?’

Right now, though he could not call himself a knight, here he was.

Along the way, he could see the Wandering Bird’s Roost inn. There was a crowd in front of the inn was, just like everywhere else.

It was the place where Wynn had set his eyes on becoming a knight and taken his first steps towards that goal..

He could see Randell and Mark.

They were leaning out of the window of the second floor.

Wynn couldn’t see Hanna and Abel, but when he lightly raised his right hand, Randell and Mark gave him a big wave in return.

He was proud, but slightly embarrassed, at being seen by people he knew, but he straightened his back, puffed his chest out, and looked forward.

‘I also wanted Leti to see this…’

In the end, Leticia was nowhere to be seen, even up to the start of the march from the Knight Order headquarters.

He was disappointed that he couldn’t show Leticia this moment of triumph, but it was Leticia who believed more than anybody else that he could become a knight. She probably encountered some unavoidable situation.

She held the title of Brave, so by all rights, she should have a lot of work to do.

Anyways, Wynn wasn’t even setting off as a full-fledged knight.

In that case, it wouldn’t be too late to show his triumphant appearance by becoming a full-fledged knight by accomplishing meritorious deeds in this mission.

In order to do that, he had to come back alive.^[2]

He couldn’t rest on his laurels forever.

Wynn and the others, under Royce, would carry out reconnaissance.

They would scout out the enemy, one misstep could lead to the risk of being the first combatants. If he rested on his laurels, he would die before being able to do anything.

Wynn tightened his face, and sharpened his gaze.

---

“Congratulations, Onii-chan.”

There was, if one listened closely, an almost inaudible whisper.

Even Cornelia, who was standing beside her, almost couldn’t hear it.

When she heard this, Cornelia felt her chest tightened slightly.

There stood Leticia, wearing a captivating smile that fascinated even Cornelia, who was of the same gender.

The two women were watching the knights march on the main street from a window in one of the rooms of the palace.

From that far away, the knights appeared to be no more than a mass of shining silver. Of course, they wouldn’t normally be able to make out each individual person.

However, Wynn, the youth who had aspired to be one of those knights, was sure to be among them.

He still didn’t have the status of a full-fledged knight, but he was participating in the mission as part of the Knight Order.

Who knew how much blood and sweat he had shed up to this point.

Apart from the things she heard from Wynn, Leticia, and also Locke, the three friends she had made at Knight School, Cornelia couldn’t understand their circumstances.

Since, as a princess, her upbringing was without want, she it was hard for her to understand Wynn’s circumstances.

He lost his parents. He also didn’t have money.

He probably had to struggle with all his might in order to earn each day’s food.

It must have been an immense ordeal.

To achieve his dreams, he worked diligently every day, saving up small wages and tips, denying himself from his desires, becoming the embodiment of thriftiness in order to save every coin, and eventually, he overcame the obstacles and came knocking on the doors of the Knight School.

However, as a commoner born with only a little magic power, he must have been pushed to the bottom many times.

He had probably felt like giving up countless times. There were probably days where he was tempted to give up on his dreams and return to the simple life of a commoner.

However, every time that feeling appeared, his determination didn’t falter. He didn’t give up, he didn’t choose to turn back, he just earnestly kept moving forward, steadily moving forward without retreating, and now, knighthood was now within his reach.

A single tear dripped down the side of Leticia’s smiling face.

Leticia had undoubtedly waited anxiously for this day.

In their four years together, Leticia was the one who watched the closest as Wynn worked diligently.

Ordained as the Brave, Leticia was given the task of slaying the Demon Lord. Then, they were separated for four years, the same amount of time they had spent together.

During the time they were separated, they probably felt as if half of themselves had been torn off.

However, even after Leticia set off for a distant land, Wynn continued to persevere, believing that she wouldn’t give up.

Leticia even set off to defeat the Demon Lord, a feat that even humanity’s heroes attempted and failed many times, to humanity’s distress..

Leticia also believed that Wynn would always continue working hard to make his dream come true.

Wynn too, believed that Leticia was doing her best alone in a distant land..

It was the desire to live up to each other’s trust, that they continued walking, even in times of distress.

Put simply, it was due to their “hard work.”

However, the wall separating them wasn’t something that could be overcome with simply “hard work.”

Despite occasionally shedding tears, coughing up blood, gritting their teeth, the two of them surmounted these obstacles. All because each believed in the other.

It was an indescribable bond.

Still, it was a pure, amazing feeling.

First, Leticia defeated the Demon Lord, and now, Wynn worked to achieve his aspirations.

Cornelia was angry that Leticia couldn’t be there to witness Wynn at his moment of pride.

Leticia couldn’t be there to congratulate Wynn at his moment of triumph.

Yet Leticia smiled.

Cornelia looked at her smile, and realized that people could also smile like that for other people.

Leticia was unable to be by his side, but it was hard for her to just watch from afar.

That lone youth, Wynn, took a step forward alone.

Leticia was happy for him from the bottom of her heart, as if it were herself.

But they couldn’t stay like this forever. Leticia had come to that place, despite interrupting what was an important day for both of them.

“Leticia-san, it’s about time…”

Cornelia resolved herself, then called out to Leticia.

Leticia turned around.

She regretfully looked away from the Knight Order, which was receding in the distance.

Then, when she turned around to look at the other person in the room, the smile had already disappeared from her face.

There stood the frigid Leticia van Mavis, the Brave.

She let off an overpowering presence.

The other person in the room, a young man, began to speak.

“Brave Leticia-dono. We would like you to forgive the royalty’s fecklessness. We have had to make use of you, who will continue to do great things in the future.”

“No need, Your Highness. I was also helped by this matter. I am also using this marriage interview with Your Highness to my own benefit.”

“If you say so… Then let us enjoy ourselves a little bit. I have heard from my little sister that you have been sent many marriage proposals.”

“That is so. However, since I am using this talk with you majesty as a shield, it is rather vague.”

“Hahaha. You are using me as a shield, huh. The number of people in the Empire who could do something that outrageous can probably be counted on only one hand.”

The pleasant-sounding young man, who was the crown prince of the Remulshil Empire, Alfred Raul Lute Remulshil, smiled.

“Now then, Leticia-dono. I believe you have heard a little from Cornelia, but there are agitators in this country who are trying to stir up pointless fights. Will you lend us a hand, not as the Brave, but rather, as a noble of the Empire?”

---

In the ninth month of the imperial calendar 285, the Knight Order set off towards the Empire’s borderlands to subjugate the Petersian army disguised as bandits.

Among the five hundred knights under the command of General Feyl, the name Wynn Byrd would be recorded in history.

His life would be passed down for generations, together with the legend of Leticia the Brave, as the Master of the Brave. His legend would record this as the first campaign of the Hero Wynn.

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AN: It is planned that it will keep on being Wynn’s turn (but plans aren’t final)

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Translator Notes

1. He projected himself as one of those kids or something, I think —back
2. Because people die when they are killed. My passive aggression against aggregators is put into this footnote. I should come up with impromptu phrases like this in the footnotes… But the one aggregator I know of doesn’t include footnotes… so should I just make footnotes critical to reading?… OR just make them too funny to miss… Why is this so long? Will this even make it to the post? —back

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Previous Chapter||Next Chapter

And we’re back to what I like most about this series, this pure bond. I’ll try to churn out a KuroKishi(black knight) chapter within the next two days, to send to Xant, but it will meet the full fury of editing hell… But look forward to that!

Also, a random epiphany I had last night: Is this a coincidence?

• Win->Wynn
• Lock->Locke
• Wedge-> (anything better than Wedge?)
• Fail->Feyl
• Lettuce->Leticia
• Coronet?->Cornelia

The last two are a stretch, but…