Boltz’s dream
Watching the red light of dusk wash over the city, Boltz lit the cigarette in his mouth. It was the highest quality available and cost one silver coin a piece. He unabashedly lit up a product that, for most people in this world, was worth several days’ food expenses and gave a satisfied nod.
It’s good.
After spending hours on paperwork—a taxing job even if he were familiar with it—a smoke like this was his sweetest reward. After all, the master of the Wortenia Peninsula was away. Boltz and Gennou were left in charge in his absence, and they’d hardly had any time to rest.
A man like me, tasked with building a city. What is it they say? “Fate really has a way of being fickle,” or something like that?
Boltz cracked a sardonic smile. Though the overall blueprints had already been decided, Boltz had a great deal of authority as the one effectively in charge of Sirius’s development. Normally, either the lord himself or a high-class public official would oversee work like this. If nothing else, one wouldn’t normally leave this job in the hands of an uneducated mercenary.
Boltz himself had never imagined a day would come when he would engage in this kind of work. This was the western continent; conflict and war were a constant reality. And Boltz was born in the south of it, an especially war-torn area where several dozen small kingdoms were constantly fighting for their survival.
He had no particular recollection of his parents. His earliest memories were of working as an errand boy for a certain mercenary group. They had picked him up after he lost his parents, likely to the fires of war. Of course, they didn’t do this out of good will. In this world, orphans were nothing more than cheap, expendable labor. There was plenty of work even a child, with their underdeveloped body, could handle.
Working for the mercenary group, Boltz spent his days drawing water from the well and tending to the horses. In between handling errands, he spent his free time practicing his swordsmanship. He wanted to grow stronger, and that desire alone had spurred him on. Fortunately enough, he had been blessed with the talents of a warrior.
Well, in the end, it was only a dream.
It was merely an aspiration from the days of his youth.
As he thought back on his younger self, who had innocently believed that so long as he was strong he could achieve anything, a sardonic smile played over his lips.
But I’m fortunate. I’m lucky I can help that lad make his ambitions a reality.
The paths Boltz had taken were full of twists, turns, and pitfalls. He’d lost far more than he’d gained. Still, he’d met Lione and found a family in the Crimson Lions. And now, he had a lord—a lord he’d lay down his life to protect—who was just as important to him as Lione.
“Now then, there’s still a bit of work to finish,” Bolz whispered to himself as he put out the cigarette. Stretching out his limbs, he sat down at his desk where a small mountain of paperwork awaited him.
Boltz returned to his taxing, unfamiliar duties. He’d likely be working on them, clumsily but earnestly, until the day his trusted lord returned.
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