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–––Sorciere’s viewpoint

I was finally going to meet Brave again after three hundred years. Just the thought of it made my heart race in a way I didn’t quite understand myself. When the entire world turned against him and treated him as a nuisance, I was the only person who could change his life by giving him a new body. If his appearance changed entirely, then no one would be able to tell who he was. I was naive enough to think that if no one knew him, and he hid his powers, he would be able to reintegrate into society.

But his heart was more wounded than I had expected. Even after gaining a new body, he decided to never interact with people again. I couldn’t blame him, ever since he was a child he was raised in truly gruesome conditions, growing stronger at the cost of sweat and blood, fighting while shouldering the expectations from everyone around him. He faced death multiple times, watched how his friends and people he saved fell one after another, but he overcame it all and defeated the Demon King, only to be betrayed. Everyone he saved by sacrificing all that had meaning to him, found the fact he continued to live a nuisance, and treated him with contempt.

If he was going to be hurt so much, if others would hate him so much, he figured it was best if he just hid so that no one could find him again. When I realized what had happened, I quit working for a country that treated its savior like that and began working for myself. I spent ten years researching how to make an impenetrable barrier that hid things from others. After that I found a certain spot in the boundary between the countries of men and the Haunted Lands, clearing a large area before I wandered around the world finding workers willing to cooperate, spending another decade like that. As we built the mainframe of the city, ten years passed as well, so in total this entire plan took me thirty years to complete.

I thought I could finally welcome him there, so I went to the village he used to live in, but that place was already empty. I felt powerless, I had expected he would continue living near civilization, always watching over the people living nearby. I searched day and night everywhere I could, but he had left without a trace. It was almost like his whole existence had just been a figment of my imagination.

As desolate as I felt, I didn’t throw away hope. I knew he wasn’t a weak person who would resort to taking his own life. If I kept living as well, I was sure I would meet him again. A century passed, then a second one, I witnessed generations pass many times in the city I built, then at three hundred years I finally learned some information that could lead me to him.

There was this small city called Surfour, in the newly founded country of Bordaule not too far away from where I was living. I learned that a lich and its army attacked that city, but a lone girl fended it off on her own. When I was in a party with Brave, there were many others who could easily defeat a lich, but that was always one on one, it wasn’t often one could take out a lich and its entire army. For them to replicate something similar, they would need a couple of magicians to cast magic on a very large area together, but that girl had been able to do it alone. I was also able to do something like that, blowing an army of monsters together with their entire dungeon off the face of the earth. But in the present day, where the power of the average soldier is minuscule, I couldn’t imagine anyone being able to do that, except for him.

“I finally found you..! Brave!”

I wanted to rush to his side as soon as I could, but I wanted to figure out why he would show himself after hiding for so long. If it was just a whim, then he might hide again as soon as he saw me, and if something else had happened, then getting in contact with him could potentially ruin the regular life he had finally gained. In other words, I was scared. I knew that if I handled things poorly, he would vanish again.

So I started to carefully gain information, learning where he was living and what kind of job he had. Who he was friends with, who he didn’t get along with. Whether the country was giving him any rough assignments, or if he still hadn’t stood out enough to change his public standing. When I finally learned he was leading a laid-back life, even with the few bumps he encountered, I let out a sigh of relief.

If he had found a happy life for himself, then I would pull back from ever contacting him. Yet fate would have it another way, the Demon King’s resurrection, and the appearance of others. Knowing that much, I knew he would be unable to step back and watch things unfold.

That’s why I decided to call him. I pretended to barely know anything of his current life, acting like I had almost forgotten he existed. He was always an honest and gullible person, so he easily swallowed all my lies, but at least I was able to tell him what I had wanted to say all these centuries – that I made a place he could belong in.

“Brave…if you ever get treated like back then, then please come here. I’ll always have a spot for you here, and this time I’ll make sure you can live peacefully.”

I muttered in a low voice as I watched their figures vanish into the distance.