The Traveling Hero Won’t Let the Innkeeper’s Son Escape

The afternoon sun poured into Ruth’s room and pooled on top of his bed. Ruth, who was laying in bed, let out a deep sigh.

“Oh what, Alec already left the Royal Capital?”

After Ruth finished reading through the stockpile of letters he had, he inserted them back into their envelopes.

According to Alec’s letter, he left the Royal Capital immediately after the swordsmanship tournament and traveled to his first assigned village to do his hero duties. After that, he headed straight towards the next village and solved the problems there before making his way to a slightly bigger town right after. It looked like it was quite a speedy journey so far.

When Ruth looked at the name of the large town on the map in the inn, it was fairly far from Hashi Village. Before he knew it, Alec had already traveled to a much farther place.

“Though, what is the thing he’s talking about…?”

At the end of Alec’s last letter, he wrote about how he heard rumors of a renowned person in a certain village so he ignored the goddess’ words and headed there in search of them. Alec said it was something that could finally solve a constant trouble of his and also something that Ruth would definitely love. However, probably because he was in a rush while writing the letter, he didn’t go into detail and ended the letter with some closing words.

“Well, I won’t know even if I think it over…haah...in any case, I have too much free time. I wonder if I’m still not allowed out of the house yet~”

Ruth’s shoulders dropped as he looked at everyone earnestly rebuilding the village outside the window.

Maxim and his knights returned right after Ruth lost consciousness from the battle with the baal. Thanks to that, the remaining demons in the village were immediately defeated and there wasn’t any further damage. After confirming that the village was safe to some degree, they brought  back the villagers hiding in the shrine, along with the people collapsed outside, and everyone then rejoiced at each other’s safety. Jio kept his promise with Ruth and healed all of the injured villagers. Despite that degree of mass panic, there were no casualties and everyone was able to survive through it.

And so, a week has passed since the demon hunt. Because some of the remaining Royal Knights also helped out, the village’s reconstruction seemed to be about done.

(But I didn’t really help out with anything, so I don’t know much about it.)

Ruth was unconscious for a while afterward and by the time he woke up, the villagers were already three days into rebuilding everything. According to Jio, it was the exhaustion from pushing his body to its limits, but he knew he had truly done something reckless when he saw Celine and Rossa embrace him with tears in their eyes. And because of that, the worrywart Celine forbade him from going out. Ruth couldn’t help out around the inn either, so for the past three days, he did nothing but eat and sleep within the main building and his room.

“Though, my body is going to get rusty at this rate...Mom isn’t budging today either.”

While Ruth was in the middle of recovery, Maxim, Jio, Bard, and even Daniel came to visit but Celine refused to let them in. However, Ruth received all of the presents they individually brought, so he would have to give them his thanks once he’s able to go out again.

Ruth stretched his body and stood up to put away Alec’s letters in his chest. And right when he was thinking of heading to the main building to see if Celine returned, there was a knock on his door.

“It seems like Sir Jio is leaving. He said he wants to see you before he leaves.”

“Is that okay?”

“Of course it’s okay. It’s the hero’s request to meet you after all.”

After seeing Celine’s smile along with her approval, Ruth quickly made his way to the inn. Sitting there at the lobby sofa was no other than the old man whose eyes were always covered by his furrowing eyebrows.

“Jio!”

“Ooh, it’s been a while, Ruth.”

Perhaps worried about the recuperating Ruth, Jio patted the seat next to him and urged him to sit.

“How is your body? Are you in pain anywhere?”

“Thanks to your healing, I’m not feeling any after-effects or hurting anywhere. Thank you so much.”

“All is well, I’m also very indebted to this inn.”

“...By the way, are you really leaving?”

Ruth seemed slightly lonely when he asked that and Jio’s furrowed eyebrows relaxed.

“Sorry, but this body has long retired. I figured I should refrain from further involving myself in this mundane life .”

“But I heard everyone in the village welcomed you as their savior …”

“No amount of flattery will make me remain here. Moreover, aren’t you the true ‘Hero who defeated the baal’ in the first place? I simply just accepted that title out of consideration of your situation. We, so to speak, just switched positions.”

The one who defeated the invading baal was–the traveling magician, Jio. That was what the villagers were told.

The only people who knew that Ruth was the one who really defeated it was his dad, Rossa, Daniel, and the Father. And they had kept their mouths shut about what Ruth did.

The four of them didn’t tell the other villagers the truth was because Jio had told them that the power Ruth used to defeat the baal wasn’t his. And they had clearly seen it with their own eyes that because of that power, Ruth was on the brink of death.

If they had told the villagers the truth,  it would seem like he was purposefully hiding  a great power. Not just that but if they knew that, from that moment on if anything were to happen, the villagers might force Ruth to use that power again. From the fear of Ruth coming near to death again, at the spur of the moment, the four of them decided to give all credit to the traveling magician, Jio.

(I, for one, am glad they did so…)

Ruth would also feel troubled if he was treated as a hero by the village for something that wasn’t even his own. That’s why he was grateful for what the four of them did. It seems like Jio, who’s been regarded as a hero instead of Ruth for this past week, has found it to be quite bothersome. And in that sense, there are no words to express how indebted Ruth is to Jio for taking upon that role for him.

Beyond the four individuals, the final person who knew– the village chief– strangely didn’t speak too much of Ruth’s efforts to any of the other villagers either. And as for the people in the shrine, they saw Jio’s recognition of Ruth’s capabilities, but they didn’t see him fight with their own eyes.

As a result, Ruth was ultimately deemed as the young man who went to help Daniel with the demon hunt but had gotten seriously injured from the baal.

“But it still doesn’t change the fact that you saved everyone in the village. In that way, you are undoubtedly a ‘hero’.”

“I have no interest in being a hero and so forth. Such a title has no use in my retirement life. More importantly…did you hear about the issue with the bracelet from the priest?”

“Ah, yes. You sealed it for me, right?”

Ruth felt as if Jio was avoiding the topic, but he turned his thoughts onto the subject of the bracelet.

According to Jio’s findings, the silver bracelet that Alec had Ruth hold onto was something so outrageous that it would allow Ruth to use part of Alec’s power whenever he was in danger. Just as expected, it looks like the power he used to defeat the baal was Alec’s.

(Alec, you really did make something unbelievable…)

However, Alec’s powers were that of a hero. It was too overwhelming for an ordinary person to freely use it and one could end up on the verge of death like Ruth if it was poorly handled. And so, Jio sealed the bracelet for Ruth so that it wouldn’t activate anymore.

After Ruth heard what happened to him from Rossa, he decided that he’ll never use this power again. And so, he is truly thankful to Jio for doing all of this. It’s obvious that he hated having his arm torn off and the likes.

“I truly, truly, cannot thank you enough…”

“......Well, it is my duty as a teacher. Oh, I better get going soon.”

As he said that, Jio stood up with his cane and headed towards the inn’s doors.

Ruth spoke up and asked the question that’s been weighing on his mind.

“Jio, did you ever end up visiting your son’s grave?”

“...”

When Ruth said that, Jio stopped at his tracks and replied with “I'll be heading there on my way home” in the calmest way possible. Just as he thought, he shouldn't probe an elder with this sort of thing. And so  he decided to ask another question that’s also been on his mind.

“That’s fine, but…Jio, could the ‘disciple’ you’re referring to be Alec? And for whatever reason, you came here to your disciple’s hometown, Hashi Village. Isn’t that right?”

“...Hmm, who knows?”

Jio was playing dumb as usual. It didn’t feel like he was confirming or denying Ruth’s words.

(I don’t think Jio is any ordinary magician…)

Instances with the illuminating sand, strengthening magic, and the healing magic that not even Father could do popped into his mind. It must have also been Jio who calmed everyone down that time in the shrine when everyone was panicked with fear. It was extremely hard to believe that Jio was just a typical magician with all that magical power. It wasn’t like Ruth wanted to expose Jio’s true identity. It’s just–why would such a person come to this village? And he also wanted to know why he would do all of this for their sake.

(But, it’s no good huh…)

While Ruth felt disappointed from not really understanding anything about Jio, the old man looked back with a neutral expression as if he had no idea what was going through Ruth's mind.

“...Ruth. What do you wish for?”

“Huh?”

“As the person who’s waiting for the hailed hero, Alec, to return. What do you wish for?”

He didn’t quite understand what Jio was getting at. However, he answered after a bit of thinking.

“Uhm...for the village’s peace.”

Alec’s face popped up in Ruth’s mind for an instant, but he fully knew how hard Alec was working from his letters. He immediately thought to himself that he shouldn’t say such selfish things like wanting to see Alec.

However, as if Jio had anticipated that Ruth would think that way, his eyebrows moved in delight.

“Then let us leave it at that… farewell now.”

Jio opened the door and walked out. While the regretful thought of how they may never meet again panged at his heart, Ruth noticed there was a book on the sofa Jio was sitting at.

“He forgot something…! Jio...huh?”

But when he opened the door and looked around, Jio was nowhere to be seen despite the fact he just barely left a moment ago. Ruth then searched around the area and asked the villagers working nearby, but no one had seen Jio.

(Just who on earth is Jio?)

In the end, Ruth had no other choice but to take the book with him back to the inn.

MARY: Please support the author by buying the novels here and let me know if you see any mistakes! After this second arc I will be focusing on the extras and translating the character list! I want to make some changes to titles/how some characters are called, but I'll save revision and polishing once I finish tling this second arc OTL...