Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 11 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

Norn Greyrat 

I ’M NOT SURE when I started to be afraid of my brother. But it wasn’t that way from the start. 

The first time I met Rudeus was the day he punched my dad in the face. 

I loved my dad. He had some huge flaws, but I knew he cared about me very much, and he always put me first. More importantly, I was less than five years old at the time. Most kids love their parents unconditionally at that age. 

I adored my dad. And Rudeus showed up out of nowhere and started hitting him. 

I didn’t really understand the conversation that led up to it. At this point, years after the fact, I can recognize that my dad actually provoked the fight. Rudeus had just completed a long, difficult journey through dangerous country, and dad mocked him harshly. But at the time, all I saw was my brother sitting on top of my dad and punching him repeatedly. And all I could think was He’s going to kill him. It was the only thing that mattered to me in that moment. 

Naturally, I wasn’t about to accept that a monster like that was part of my family. 

I wasn’t scared of Rudeus back then. I just hated him. 

I kept hating him for a long time after that. It didn’t help that everyone felt the need to compliment him. It wasn’t just my father—when I met my sister and the family maid later, they also talked about him in glowing tones. But the more they praised him, the more stubbornly I despised him. 

I hated my sister almost as much as I hated Rudeus. At the school we went to together, Aisha insisted on constantly competing with me. She challenged me in the classroom and on the field we used to exercise, and she always beat me soundly. She rubbed my nose in my failures. 

With her around, I spend every single day feeling like a loser. I didn’t think I could ever be friends with her. 

My grandmother was aware of this state of affairs, and she didn’t like it one bit. She had nothing but contempt for Aisha, who she called “illegitimate.” But she also had high hopes of me…or at least high expectations. She said I was a “lady of the Latria family.” Apparently, that meant I needed to be “competent” at the very least. 

I was forced to attend etiquette classes and lessons to prepare for specific ceremonies. None of it came naturally to me; I messed up repeatedly and was scolded on a daily basis. Whenever I embarrassed myself, my grandmother would mutter, “I suppose that adventuring business must pollute the blood , as well as the spirit.” 

I knew she was insulting both my mom and my dad with those words. My dad worked hard for me, and that was all she had to say about him. It didn’t take long for me to start hating her as well. 

And so when my brother’s teacher showed up and told us where my mother was, I decided to follow my dad on his journey instead of staying with my grandmother. 

Dad was hesitant. He thought it would be safer for me to stay behind. My mother came from Millis aristocracy, and my father from an Asuran noble house. I had a good lineage, at least in those terms. Because of that, my grandfather was willing to take me into his household on a permanent basis. 

But I hated that idea, so I begged my dad to take me with him. I cried and pleaded. And eventually, I got to come along. 

And yet…in the end, my dad sent me off to live with Rudeus. 

He said things would be too dangerous from now on. He said Rudeus was living up north, so I should go stay there and wait for him. He said he’d follow me up there once he found my mom. 

I cried. I refused. I pleaded with him to take me along. The last thing I wanted was to be separated from him now, after we’d come so far together. If Ruijerd hadn’t shown up when he did, I might have worn my dad down eventually. And then I would probably have gotten sick or injured on that harsh journey across the Begaritt Continent. I would probably have caused him all sorts of trouble. 

Thanks to Ruijerd, it didn’t come to that. 

I remembered him so clearly. On the day I met my brother, Ruijerd had reached out and caught me when I tripped in the street. He’d patted my head and given me an apple. I didn’t know his name at the time. At some point, I’d learned he was my brother’s bodyguard, but I never got the chance to ask his name. 

He was just as kind the second time we met. He patted me on the head again and gently persuaded me to do the right thing. 

And so I ended up heading north toward my brother’s new home. 

Aisha was full of energy and enthusiasm from the moment we got on the road. She dropped the good girl act she put on around Dad and Lilia, started acting like the leader of our expedition, and came up with all sorts of crazy plans. 

I thought she was being stupid. It seemed ridiculous for her to try to take charge when we had two grown-ups traveling with us. But for some reason, Ruijerd and Ginger took her seriously and even agreed to most of her ideas. 

It didn’t seem fair at all. Her opinions always seemed to carry more weight. Anything I said basically got ignored. 

The main reason I could put up with it was Ruijerd. He was considerate of my feelings, at least. He always made the time to comfort me and listen to my complaints. 

But even he spent lots of time complimenting my brother. 

He called Rudeus a remarkable man. He told me how much he looked forward to seeing him. He even smiled slightly when he spoke about him, and he almost never smiled. The Rudeus I knew and the Rudeus he talked about seemed to be entirely different people. 

Maybe that was when I started to be afraid of my brother. 

Rudeus was a powerful magician. He was worthy of respect. Everyone said so. But the Rudeus I knew was the man who’d thrown my dad to the floor and beaten him. He was a violent person. If I upset him, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t hit me the way he hit my dad. 

I was scared to meet him, and the idea of living with him for months was terrifying. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night, trembling. Sometimes I couldn’t fall asleep at all. Ruijerd was always there to comfort me, at least. He’d put me on his lap, and we’d look up at the stars together as he told me stories of his past. Most of them were sad, but for some reason, they always helped me fall asleep. 

When I met Rudeus again for the first time in years, he was drunk and clinging to a woman. 

Apparently, she was some childhood friend of his from Buena Village, and they’d gotten married recently. I didn’t remember her at all. I had a vague memory of some older kid hanging around Aisha and Lilia, but I didn’t remember her being anything like this Sylphie person. She must have changed a lot over the years. 

Rudeus was clearly enjoying his life here to the fullest. 

It made me angry to see that. My dad hadn’t wasted any time playing around with women for years and years. He said he was putting that on hold until he found my mom. He hadn’t even touched Lilia, let alone any of the other women in his life. 

My brother’s first priority, on the other hand, was his own happiness. That made me mad. 

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, though. I was afraid of him. I was afraid he might start hitting me if I made him angry. 

Would Ruijerd step in to defend me if it came to that? It was hard to say. He seemed really happy to see Rudeus again. Maybe he wouldn’t take my side. Maybe he’d say I was being rude or selfish. 

I couldn’t say anything that first night. And then, the very next day, Ruijerd left for good. I’d assumed he would be staying with us for a while longer. I didn’t want him to go. But he left anyway. 

I was even more afraid than before. The only people left in the house were Rudeus, his wife, and Aisha. My little sister was overjoyed about being with Rudeus again. Sylphie seemed like a nice enough person, but she wasn’t on my side. I didn’t have anyone on my side. 

And I was stuck here until my dad got back. I’d have to live in fear for months and months. 

Rudeus would probably be nice to Aisha but strict with me. He’d praise my sister and tell me to try harder. 

Aisha always said it was my fault I couldn’t do anything right. She said I didn’t put in the effort. But there were things I just couldn’t do, no matter how hard I tried. Even when I wanted to improve, even when I put in lots of practice, I still couldn’t compare to her. So what was I supposed to do? 

For now, all I could do was stay out of the way. I hid myself away, hoping no one would get mad at me. Hoping no one would tell me how inferior I was. 

The city outside was covered in snow. I was afraid of getting tossed out into the cold on my own. 

Rudeus decided I had to start attending school. 

This “university” sounded pretty different from the school I’d attended back in Millishion. I could enroll as a first-year, but that didn’t mean all my classmates would be my age. There were all sorts of people studying there, and most of them were older than me. 

To be honest, I didn’t want to go. I knew I’d just end up being compared to Aisha again. As it turned out, though, my sister had no intention of going to school ever again. That was good news for me, at least. Without her around, maybe I could do a little better. 

My brother gave Aisha a condition, though. She had to take the University’s entrance exam. This was a test everyone had to take before they entered the school—which meant I’d be taking it too. 

That discouraged me deeply. There was no way I could pass a test without even studying for it. But when I told Rudeus that, he said he could just buy me a spot at the University. It was such a thoughtless, rude thing to say that I got angry, despite myself. Then Aisha got mad at me for being mad, and it turned into a fight. 

“Cut it out, you two.” 

My brother’s cold tone set off a twinge of fear inside me. 

I thought he was going to punch me for a second. I was so scared I cried a little. 

Was I going to have to keep living like this, constantly flinching in fear? 

On the day of the exam, Rudeus told me about the dorms. Apparently, the University of Magic let its students live in big buildings on the campus, to help them grow more independent. It sounded like the solution to all my problems. 

I had no doubt my sister would pass the exam, which meant she wouldn’t have to go to school. So if I moved into the dorms, I wouldn’t have to see her or Rudeus anymore. No one would compare me to anybody. I could just be myself and live my own life. 

The more I thought about, the more perfect it sounded. 

A few days later, we got the results from the test, and my brother asked me what I wanted to do now. Hesitantly, I admitted that I wanted to live in the dorms. 

I was afraid he might get angry. My dad had wanted me to stay with Rudeus, and he’d probably told Rudeus to keep an eye on me in his letter. I thought my brother might get mad at me. Maybe even hit me for being so selfish. 

But to my surprise, Rudeus agreed immediately. 

It was Aisha who got angry. She thought it was unfair that I was getting what I wanted. Up until now, she’d always gotten better treatment than me. I guess she didn’t like the fact that Rudeus had tested her but not me. 

Still, why had my brother agreed to my request? I didn’t know. I didn’t understand him at all. Looking back, I realized that he hadn’t gotten upset with me at all since I arrived here, except for that one time I fought with Aisha. 

…Maybe he just wasn’t interested in me at all. 

Maybe he thought taking care of me was nothing more than a nuisance, and he saw this as a golden opportunity to kick me out. For all I knew, he’d been planning to dump me in the dorms, regardless. 

That would be convenient, as far as I was concerned. But for some reason, the thought made me feel a little sad. 

Everything about living in the dorms was new to me. It was genuinely exciting. 

For the first time in my life, I had a roommate. I was going to be living with an older girl named Marissa. She was a demon. 

My grandmother always said demons were evil creatures—monsters to be driven away or destroyed. If I hadn’t met Ruijerd, I probably would have kept on believing that. But I had met Ruijerd, so I introduced myself politely to Marissa, and she welcomed me warmly in return. I needed a lot of help, since I was starting in the middle of the school term, and Marissa was really there for me. She taught me how the meals worked here, where the bathrooms were, and the rules of the dorm. 

As she was showing me around the place, a scary-looking demon girl from the “self-defense squad” spotted us and introduced herself to me. “We’re all one big family here,” she said, “so we’ve got to look out for each other.” 

I was a little intimidated by her, but Marissa told me she was a good-hearted person who took her responsibilities seriously. 

All in all, I was very much looking forward to my new life here. It was annoying that I had to go back to my brother’s house once every ten days, but he didn’t ask me too many specific questions, so it wasn’t that big a deal. 

And so I began my new life as a boarding school student. 

Immediately, I realized that the classes here are very difficult. I think it was partially because the teachers explained everything so differently, compared to the ones back in Millis. It might have been different if I’d been there for all the lessons from the beginning, but I was jumping in midway. There were lots of lectures I just couldn’t follow. 

Back in Millis, we’d had a lot of classes about religion, but that wasn’t even a subject here. Instead, we had practical lessons in magic. I wasn’t too good at those either. The professors didn’t bother explaining the basics. 

It was all a little discouraging. But if my grades were too terrible, I might end up getting dragged back to my brother’s house. I tried to study in my dorm room, but it wasn’t helping. And then, just as I was reaching the end of my rope, Marissa was nice enough to start tutoring me. With her patient help, I finally managed to get my head around some of the concepts I was supposed to be learning in class. 

Aisha would probably have understood all of this instantly. Sometimes I hated myself for being so stupid. 

The campus was very large, and I got lost on a regular basis. 

The practical lessons in magic and fitness were particularly bad. They held those in a bunch of different rooms that I could never remember how to find. Every time I got lost, I’d have to ask some older student for directions or wait until someone from my class came to find me. 

Once, I even ran into Rudeus while I was lost. For some reason, he was walking with the most important student in the entire school. It was incredibly embarrassing. 

Everyone in the University was afraid of my brother. 

From the sound of things, he was the boss of a small gang of six thugs that went around doing anything they wanted. Two of those people lived in my dorm. They were tall, scary-looking girls who strutted around like they owned the place. Marissa had warned me not to get in their way if I could help it. 

Rumor had it that Rudeus had ordered those two to collect a pair of panties from every cute girl in the school. 

Did my brother’s wife know about that? Probably not. I had no idea what he was planning to do with all that underwear in the first place, but it made me really mad. My dad was off risking his life to save my mom, and my brother was just playing around like an idiot. My opinion of him was sinking steadily lower. 

But despite his bizarre actions, my brother’s reputation was strangely positive. People said he never picked on ordinary students. Although he did as he pleased, he didn’t hurt anybody or harass them. In fact, he’d supposedly told all the tough kids to stop picking on anyone weaker than them. One of the scarier kids in my class even bragged about having spoken to Rudeus once. 

Rudeus was better at magic than anyone else in the University, and apparently, he was a good teacher too. People said he was tutoring a girl even younger than me. 

My classmates, my teachers, and even Marissa told me I should try to follow in his footsteps. They wanted me to be like him. To be like…the brother I feared, and hated, and didn’t understand at all. 

I didn’t want to be like him. 

But more than anything, it hurt to know that I couldn’t compare to him. He was better than me at everything, just like Aisha. 

No matter how hard I tried, I’d never be a match for him. 

I hated Rudeus. I thought he was a terrible person. 

But the fact was: I couldn’t even begin to compete with him. 

One day, I returned to my dorm room and flopped straight down on my bed. 

A great big jumble of emotions had been growing inside me for weeks now. Bitterness, sadness, self-pity, anger, and who knew what else. 

I couldn’t hold them back anymore. I couldn’t stop myself from breaking down. 

Marissa came back to the room a little later. She saw me crying into my pillow and gently asked me what was wrong, but I just said, “It’s nothing,” and pulled my blanket over my head. 

What was I supposed to do now? 

Was I wrong about Rudeus? Or was it everybody else? 

…It was probably me. He probably wasn’t as bad a person as I thought he was. 

I was very young on the day I saw Rudeus punch my dad. After it happened, my dad tried to explain that he’d been going through a lot, and I could never understand what that was supposed to mean. But now, after all this time, it finally made some sense to me. I was “going through a lot” myself at the moment, after all. 

If I worked hard, turned things around, and managed to cheer up, it would really suck to have someone say, “Wow, look at you. Must be nice to have such a carefree life.” I’d probably want to punch them, in fact. Even if it was my own dad. 

Deep down, Rudeus and I were probably similar people. He wasn’t some inhuman monster, after all. 

But that said…how was I supposed to go talk things through with him now? What would he even want from me? How had he managed to make up with Dad, anyway? 

I thought about it, and I thought some more. Nothing came to mind, but eventually my belly began to hurt. My stomach cramped up painfully, and I started to feel nauseated. So I burrowed deeper into my bed and did nothing. 

I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even bring myself to go face my brother. 

At times like these, Dad was always there for me. When something bad happened and I curled up in bed, he’d come in and gently rub my back for a while. And after we were separated, Ruijerd took his place. He’d put me on his lap and pat my head and tell me stories. 

I didn’t have anyone like that here. Marissa was nice to me, but she wasn’t on my side. All she could suggest was that I should talk to my brother, or try going back to class. 

I knew all that already. The problem was that my body didn’t want to move. 

*** 

How much time had passed since I curled up in my bed? 

I kept thinking in circles for what felt like many hours, then falling asleep out of exhaustion. I’d repeated that cycle a couple times, so it might have been a few days by now. 

I was sitting on the edge of my bed. And for some reason, Rudeus was right in front of me. He was sitting backward on a chair and staring at me. 

“Norn, I—” 

“Uhm, Rudeus—” 

It felt like the first time I’d spoken my brother’s name out loud. 

The two of us had broken the silence at the exact same time. Apparently, I wasn’t hallucinating, then. How had he gotten into the girls’ dorm? 

I was so confused I didn’t know what to say. My brother was quiet too. For a while, we just stared at each other. 

This had to be the first time I’d looked this closely at Rudeus’ face. He looked a little anxious. His features reminded me a little of my dad, which was kind of reassuring. But of course they’d look alike. 

“I’m sorry, Norn. It hasn’t been easy for you here, has it?” Rudeus said, his voice hesitant. “I guess I don’t really…even understand you that well… I know this must be hard for you, but I’m not sure what to do.” 

Was it just me, or was he really nervous? That reminded me of my dad too. 

“…” 

My brother fell silent again. He just sat there quietly, not moving an inch. 

He was watching me anxiously, but he didn’t budge from that chair. My dad probably would have wrapped his arms around me by now, and Ruijerd would have patted me on the head. But my brother didn’t even approach me. 

“Oh.” 

Suddenly, I understood why. 

He couldn’t approach me. He was too scared I might reject him. 

The instant that thought occurred to me, I felt all my negative emotions begin to melt away. I didn’t hate Rudeus anymore. I couldn’t find him scary either. He was too much like my dad. 

He was never going to hit me, no matter what. And he probably wasn’t ever going to hit my dad again either. 

“Sniff…” 

I needed to forgive him. 

“Hic!” 

There were tears rolling down my cheeks now. My throat was quivering. 

After a moment, I started to sob. 

“I’m sorry, Rudeus! I’m sorry…” 

Slowly, cautiously, my brother stood up and sat down next to me. He gently put his hand on my head, and then he hugged me to his chest. His hand was warm, and his chest was firm. 

He smelled a little bit like my dad too. 

I spent the rest of the night crying in his arms. 

Rudeus 

I N THE END, I didn’t do much of anything. 

Norn didn’t tell me what was going on. She never told me what she was upset about, or what she’d been feeling. She just cried for a long time. 

And then, when it was finally over, she looked up and mumbled, “I’ll be okay now.” 

That was it. 

But for some reason, she really did look okay for once. She even managed to look me right in the eye. 

I felt enormously relieved. Something told me she was going to be all right now. 

And so, I left the rest to Sylphie and slipped out of my sister’s room. 

Norn grew noticeably more cheerful after that incident. 

The changes weren’t exactly dramatic. She just started saying hello to me when we passed each other in the hall. We still didn’t talk that much, and she didn’t start hanging all over me like her sister. She was probably still getting compared to me in her classes, but I guess it didn’t bother her as much anymore. 

I still didn’t understand what she was feeling. I hadn’t done anything meaningful at all. It made me feel a little pathetic. I knew how it felt to be looked down on, and I knew how it felt to isolate yourself in your room. But I’d still failed to come up with anything useful to say. 

At the end of the day, I guess Norn had worked it out herself. She’d processed her feelings and pulled herself over the obstacle in her path. 

That was a seriously impressive accomplishment. 

Paul and Aisha seemed to think Norn was just a clumsy, timid kid without any special talents. But I had a very different opinion of her now. She’d managed to climb up out of a hole I’d spent an entire lifetime trapped in. 

If I’d been half as strong as her, maybe my first life wouldn’t have turned out so miserably. Maybe I wouldn’t have wound up getting punched in the face by my kind-hearted brother. 

It was impossible to know for sure, of course. My situation was different from Norn’s. Even if I’d worked out my feelings, I might never have left my room. Maybe I needed to be reborn and meet Roxy for that to be possible. 

Either way, I couldn’t change the past. The relationships I’d broken could never be repaired. And I’d never know for sure what was going through my brother’s head back then. 

Still, I kind of felt…like something that was stuck between my teeth for a very long time had just worked its way free. If Nanahoshi managed to return to our old world someday, I’d have to ask her to take a message to my brother. 

“Thanks for trying to get through to me back then. And I’m sorry.”