Kenzo

After that day, Alice and I decided to officially adopt Roy, Emma, and Hana. We’d just been their caretakers up until this point, but we wanted to make them part of our family in every sense but blood. After we announced this to all of the children, a few of the others also wanted to be adopted. Mina was the first to ask. Ever since I’d gotten her to tell me her name, she’d opened up to me and Alice so much that we might as well have been her parents. There were even a few weeks when she’d stopped going to the Adventurer’s Guild. When I’d asked her about it, she said that she knew that the request was still up, so she didn’t need to check on it as often. Though she hadn’t said as much, I got the feeling that she was finally starting to accept her parents’ deaths.

Orion and Jun were the other ones to ask. It wasn’t that the rest of the children didn’t view Alice and I as parents, but that they didn’t feel as strong a connection to us as the ones we planned to adopt. Jun said that he didn’t want to be thrown out into the world before he was ready to go. Despite how mature he was, he was still one of the youngest for his race. Orion had a different reason. His parents were still alive. He and Leo had run away from home because Leo’s mother hated him, while Orion’s mother wasn’t allowed to be in the family, instead being stuck as just a maid. Their father, meanwhile, simply drank every day and night away. When he wasn’t drinking, he was violent to their mothers. When he was, he was violent to his sons. Leo had convinced Orion to run away, but now that Orion had a place where he had a stable family, he didn’t want to run anymore.

The same couldn’t be said about Leo. Leo was constantly making trouble. It was never enough to hurt anyone or break anything, but it was enough to deserve reprimanding. It always seemed like he was trying to get someone to be mad at him, but I never yelled, never hit him, and definitely never hurt him. In a certain way, it felt like he was trying to find an excuse for him to run away again. When Orion said he wanted to be adopted, Leo turned his back on his brother. I didn’t want to get between the two brothers, but I also knew that trying to get closer to Leo wouldn’t necessarily work. In the end, Alice suggested that we let him stay here until he felt like it was time for him to go. If Leo wanted to stay, he’d stay. If he wanted to leave, he’d leave. Nothing we could say would change his mind, so we just needed to provide a place he felt safe in.

After everyone’s minds were made, I went to the governor’s office to get the paperwork to adopt the children. This would mean that I wouldn’t be able to take care of as many orphans because more of the space would be taken up by my own children, but my mind was made up. I’d lose some of the funding, instead only getting 7 gold coins per month, but I was making about 2 gold coins per month from my inventions. Plus, once I got my newest invention finished, I’d be able to easily afford to take care of as many children as I wanted to. Once I turned 18, I’d be able to adopt all of these children.

Speaking of that invention, I’d finally gotten the transmitter and receiver to have as minimal of a delay as I could. Even from my house to the cathedral on the opposite side of town, there was less than a second of delay. The change simply required using more wind crystals and increasing the strength of the magic command. After that, I’d basically created a radio system. By adding a dial to change the frequency, I could create multiple radio stations by having each transmitter at different frequencies. With this, it was time to unveil my invention to the public.

I was in the center of town, currently attaching a receiver to the outside of the magic tower. As the tallest building in town, it would be able to serve as one of the best places for city-wide announcements. The transmitter would be placed in the governor’s office for anyone who needed to make one of these announcements, but would mostly be used by the governor. After finishing the first receiver, I headed north to the cathedral. The cathedral was the tallest building in the northern part of the city, so it would also have a receiver set up there. In the west, I set up a receiver on the lighthouse. The lake was connected to the Tarion River, which traveled all the way from the northern shores of Sakura to the southern shores of Arkana, so it was a major trade road and often had ships pass through it. In the south, there weren’t many tall buildings, so I set up that receiver on the southern gatehouse. This was also the main entry for anyone coming from a different city in Arkana, so it made sense. In the east, I set up the receiver on the eastern gatehouse. Like in the south, there weren’t many tall buildings, but in the east, there also wasn’t as much foot traffic. The only people who traveled east were typically adventurers trying to make their way to the Greengem Forest, so I didn’t necessarily need a receiver as much as the other areas of town, but it felt wrong to leave out one section of the city and the east was a highly residential district, so there were a large number of people who lived here. If an emergency happened, we couldn’t just ignore all of them.

After putting up all of the receivers, I came back to the governor’s office. The last thing left to do was test them. Guards in all five sections of the city would report back on any potential issues with the audio, reception, or volume.

“Well, Count Westwind, I believe you should be the one to test the Public Announcement system. After all, you are the Count.”

“No, Governor Crayford, you should test the PA system. I’m just a count, but you’re the governor, if anyone deserves to speak to the people of the city, it would be you, someone who works for them everyday.”

“Please, you should speak to them. You and your family are more beloved by the city than I am.”

This back-and-forth went on for a few minutes. Unbeknownst to the governor, I’d actually had the transmitter on the entire time. When a guard came in to report that the receivers were working perfectly, I turned off the transmitter and watched as the governor’s face went pale. He realized the prank I’d put him through and immediately thought about all of the people who heard that, throughout the city. I excused myself and began heading back to my house. It had been a long day of running across the city, carrying large receivers, so I was tired.

As I got back to the house, I could instinctively tell something was wrong. The front door was slightly open, there were signs of a scuffle in the front yard, and the house was silent. Even in the earliest hours of the morning and well into the night, the house was never silent. Between the sounds of children running and playing, the sounds of me, working on my inventions, and the sounds of Alec’s snores, the house was never fully silent.

I slowly opened the front door, expecting to see someone jump out, but I was instead greeted by the sight of an unconscious Sir Garret with his spear and shield on the floor beside him. As I went over to him, trying to wake him up, I was interrupted by the point of a sword being pressed into my neck. I slowly backed away, hands up, and saw an unfamiliar man holding Alice in a chokehold. Alice had a gash over one of her eyes which poured blood down her face. The man had short brown hair and pale skin, carried a curved sword which could only be described as a katana, and wore no armor, instead only wearing a long white robe decorated with cherry blossoms over his simple tunic and pants. As the man stepped toward me, still holding the blade to my neck, he spoke to me in Japanese.

“You must be the false hero that the Lady Saint spoke of. I will allow you to give me your name and the Holy Hero’s Sword before I kill you and my targets.”

I started to respond to him in Taric, the language of the empire, but he slashed my face, so I responded to him in Japanese. “My name is Simon Westwind. I don’t want you to hurt my family. I will give you the sword if you let my family go.”

“I didn’t want to know what other people think your name is. I wanted to know what your real name is. If you fail to comply with my demands, I will kill this woman.”

“I don’t remember what my name in my other life was. I’m just Simon Westwind, now.”

“Don’t give me that crap! We are both given gifts from the goddess. We are blessed with the knowledge of this other life. To deny the memories of Japan, of Earth, and of our lives there would be to deny the gifts of the goddess.”

“What about the gift of this life here? Do you deny that gift?”

I could see a vein pop out in his forehead as he slashed my face again. The cuts were both shallow, but they drew blood. “The sole thing that distinguishes us from the others in this world is our memory of Earth, of Japan. To deny my memories of Japan would be to dishonor the title of the ‘True Hero’.”

“I’m not the True Hero. I’m a false hero. I can’t dishonor a title I don’t have.”

“True. You are simply a false hero. It would be better for the world if you were to fade into obscurity. I shall allow you to do so. Bring me to the Holy Hero’s Sword and I will let go of this woman.”

“If you promise to let go of her, I’ll bring you there.”

The hero let go of Alice, causing her to fall to the ground, coughing and spluttering as she laid there, looking at me with a panicked look. In Arkanic, I whispered, “I’ll be fine. Trust me. I love you.”

We walked upstairs, his sword pointed at my back. I opened the door to my office where the sword was being kept. There was a tall shelf of books with a rolling ladder that held the sword, high out of the reach of children. I pulled the black cloth off of the sword. The Holy Hero’s Sword, Ataraxia, was just as impressive as ever, but the thing that caught my eye was the small crystal that sat beside it. I grabbed the sword and the crystal and climbed back down the ladder. I reached the floor and was about to hand over the sword when I felt panic rise in my throat. As I held this colorless crystal and stood in front of the window, I spoke a word, “Ventus!” A blast of wind was created between me and the hero, pushing him back toward the hall and me out the window. “Ventus!” I wanted to create another blast of wind to slow my fall from the second story, but I was a bit too slow and I landed hard on my ankle, where I could feel bones snap.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to worry about the burning pain in my lower leg. I knew what the hero would do. I ran as fast as I could with a broken ankle towards my front door. As I opened it, I expected to see the hero standing over Alice, plunging his sword into her like a certain one-winged angel, but was instead greeted by the hilt of a sword getting slammed into my face. I could feel my nose break and blood drip down my face. I was left wondering why he didn’t kill me, only to have that question answered.

“Take the sword. Fight me! I will show you what it means to be a True Hero!”

Ataraxia was a 2-meter-long sword. It was taller than me and wasn’t something I could wield easily. As I tried to lift it, I felt the pain in my ankle begin to surge. Slowly, the blade rose to match his stance. The way he stood, he looked like he was in a kendo match, but his blade would be the end of me if I was hit by it. Meanwhile, I could barely raise Ataraxia, much less swing it. If I let this match be controlled by his terms and his pace, I would lose.

I tossed away the Holy Hero’s Sword. It would be of no use to me in a fight. Instead, I held up a small, colorless crystal. This would be my weapon. I was no trained mage like Rosella or Matthew Flitter. I had no combat training like Garret or any of the adventurers in town. What I did have was knowledge. If the hero was trying to attack me like someone with any experience in kendo, he’d definitely raise his sword and try to bring it down on my head. My other piece of knowledge was in the many types of elemental crystals. There were water, wind, earth, plant, ice, fire, light, and dark crystals. However, those were just the ones that had been discovered. I would take a gamble on the possibility that there was a type of elemental crystal that no one had found.

As the hero stepped forward, time seemed to slow. “Fulminus!” Every elemental crystal was found at the core of a monster, but all of those monsters were a combination of an animal and an element. White Wolves dropped ice crystals, Sun Tigers dropped fire crystals, Raining Salmon dropped water crystals, etc. These monsters were also only found in places where that element was strong. This made me recall a story I’d heard from Alice. She’d told me that angels would often deal with a number of monsters whenever there was a storm. Cloud cities would deal with higher numbers of monsters that were created by the concentrated presence of water-elemental magic in rain clouds. These monsters were typically associated with the water element, but would sometimes transform into ice monsters if there was snow. However, the rumor stated that angels would occasionally see a strange blue creature whenever thunder rumbled in the distance. Some angels thought it was a dragon, while others thought it was just the lightning, but none had ever seen the creature up close and survived.

The command word for water was Aquus. The command word for wind was Ventus. The command word for fire was Ignus. Earth was Terrus, plant was Sylvus, ice was Arctus, light was Luxus, and dark was Umbrus. If my theory was correct and this other element existed, its command word should have followed the same pattern.

As I spoke the word Fulminus, dark clouds quickly gathered in the skies above us and a bolt of lightning struck the raised blade which acted like a lightning rod, leaving the hero convulsing on the ground in front of me. He wasn’t dead, but he’d be left with severe burns and wouldn’t be awake for a while.

I felt the colorless crystal dissolve into dust in my hand. I was well-accustomed to crystals dissolving on me, but I was more used to it happening as part of my inventions. As I stood there, the dark clouds began to pour rain onto us as I collapsed to the ground.

When I awoke, I was on a couch in the living room. Garret was laying on the opposite couch. Alice was sitting in a chair beside me, holding my hand when she saw me wake up. As she saw me begin to move, she quickly pulled me into a hug, wrapping me tightly in her arms.

“Oh, thank goodness! I was so worried when I saw you collapsed outside.”

“I’m sorry I worried you. I had to do something after I saw what the hero did to you.”

“I heard the glass shatter upstairs, then I saw the hero run downstairs, only to hit you in the doorway. Then, the next thing I heard was the sound of thunder. After that, I ran outside, only to see it raining and see the two of you, collapsed. I was so worried, so I brought you inside.”

“I beat the hero. He’s not dead. I’m sure that the prophecy about him won’t let him die that easily. I couldn’t let him threaten my family.” That made me remember something. “Where are the children?”

“Here they are.” The voice was in Japanese. I turned to see the hero, scars running down his arms, carrying Ataraxia, as he pointed it at Emma, who was holding Roy, who was hissing at the hero in his dragon form. The children were being walked in front of him as he dragged Rosella by her hair behind him. They walked through the front door as he stopped in front of me and Alice. “I found these scurrying rats hiding outside. Fools, indeed. If they had run to the city, I would not have found them so easily. However, the desire of the children to stay near their home led to their downfall. To be honest, I had no desire to comply with my command to kill the children. I came here to simply collect my Holy Hero’s Sword and leave. However, I now want to hurt you in any way I can.”

“Why?” I didn’t even care about speaking in Japanese to him anymore. “You have the sword, so just leave.”

For the first time, he spoke in Arkanic. “Why?! Because you made a fool out of me! I am a True HERO! I will be the one to defeat the Lich Queen’s armies in glorious battle. When the stories tell of a great hero, they won’t tell of Nobunaga or Tokugawa. They will tell of Yoshimura Kenzo! I will be the one who history remembers here! If history is written by the victors, then I cannot be allowed to lose to you.”

For a split second, I saw a familiar look in his eyes. The way he spoke and the way he looked at me reminded me of my middle school days. He was someone that never grew up. He was so deluded by his obsession with fame and glory that he never grew up. In a way, even Mina was more mature than him, given how she was growing out of that phase recently. I stifled a laugh, only to see that vein pop out on his forehead again. That made me lose my composure and fully burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry, but it's just a bit funny. You’re a chuunibyou. Even one of my daughters grew out of that phase, but how old are you? I mean, you look like you’re almost 30, but you never grew up from who you were in middle school? You want to be a hero and be remembered? That’s great. If you want to defeat the Lich Queen’s armies, just raise up that sword. That’s all you have to do. You’ll be remembered as the guy who raised a sword into the air. If you want to be a hero, that actually takes work, you know.”

His blood pressure was visibly rising the entire time I spoke to him. By the time I finished, he rushed at me with Ataraxia. As he was about to swing it down at me, I reached up to grab his arms. I didn’t intend to stop his swing, but instead I pushed his arms up to the sky. The sword rose high above his head and a bright white light nearly blinded all of us. Somehow, I knew that Ataraxia’s magic had worked and the Lich Queen’s armies would be put to rest. I could tell that Kenzo knew, as well.

“What did you do to me? Why can’t I feel my power?!” The sword became heavy in his hands as he tried to lift it against me, but it was too heavy for him to wield without the power of being a True Hero.

“‘When that burdened hero raises that sword in battle, the armies of death will be put to rest and the world will be saved once more. When the world is at peace again, the hero’s burden shall be removed.’ That was the last two lines of the Prophecy of the Hero. You saved the world by raising the sword. Now that the world is at peace, the Hero’s Burden has been removed.”

“What are you saying to me?! What language are you speaking?!”

“That language was Japanese. If you still had memories of your other life, you’d be able to understand it, Kenzo. Though, I guess you no longer have memories of being Kenzo anymore, now that the Hero’s Burden was removed. What’s your name, former hero?”

Unfortunately, we never learned his name in this world. He ran away, leaving behind Ataraxia, his katana, and his cherry blossom-patterned robe. Though we didn’t know this at the time, he ran and ran, through Katka, past the border with the empire, and all the way to the empire’s capital. He ran for days, only stopping to forage for food and sleep. When he arrived at the capital, he was in tattered and muddy clothes, with an unshaven face, a smelly body, and a wild look in his eyes like a rabid beast, rather than a triumphant hero. Though he looked nothing like a hero, he was welcomed to the capital as the returning hero who saved the day by repelling the Lich Queen’s forces. History books would remember him as Yoshimura Kenzo, the True Hero. I would remember him as a pitiful man who tried to hurt my family and ran away when I called him out for what he was.

When he returned to the empire’s capital, he was treated to a feast that was filled with dishes that he had no memories of. Miso soup, tonkatsu, okonomiyaki, sushi, and other various dishes that Yoshimura Kenzo loved from Japan. When he returned to the empire’s capital, my family was eating a feast that was filled with dishes that we all loved. I still had a broken ankle, so I couldn’t make food, so we had Clare come over to make us food. She had full permission to use as much of our food budget as she wanted to. Tonight, we’d dine like a True Hero.

There were eleven different dishes, each one a favorite of one of the members of my family. For me, I had curry, Alice had sandwiches, Jun had ramen, Mina had carrot cake, Leo had cheese pizza, Hana had tamagoyaki, Orion had beef stew, Alec had vegetable stir-fry, Jack had chicken noodle soup, Emma had spaghetti and meatballs, and Roy had a large roast beef. We all shared some of each and there was enough food for Clare, Garret, and Rosella to have some, as well. I also paid Clare for her services and gave her the recipes for every dish she made that night. The two that would become her most popular dishes were ramen and pizza. Eventually, she would do a menu overhaul and become purely a ramen shop, while her daughter and grandson would open a pizzeria nearby.

That night, after we finished eating and Alice helped me upstairs to our bedroom, I laid down on our bed. It had been quite a day, between setting up the PA system in the city and fighting Kenzo, I was exhausted.

“Simon, can I ask you a question? Do you really not remember your name in the other world?”

“No, I remember my name. That name isn’t important to me anymore, but I still remember it.”

“Could you tell me what your name was?”

I hesitated for a moment, thinking about whether or not to tell her. “My name was Yuuki Isamu. My given name meant brave, so it always felt like fate to be some kind of hero, but I don’t care about being brave or being a hero. I’m not Isamu anymore. I’m Simon Westwind.”

“Why was Kenzo so obsessed with his old world?”

“I wish I knew. The reason I felt like I could be happy in this world was because I found you right when I’d just lost everything. If I never met you, I probably would’ve turned out just like Kenzo. He was stuck in his past because he never had the reason to move on. As for me, I’m happy. I have this city, I have our friends, I have the children, and most of all, I have you. I have nothing else I could ask for.”