Wortenia Senki (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter Ep

Epilogue 

As the evening sun began to sink into the western skies, one old man with his white hair tied behind his head stood in his residential lawn and continued his daily training, wooden sword in hand. 

But his swings were anything but ordinary. His sharp gaze perceived some invisible enemy, and each of his swings was charged with true murderous intent as they cut through the air. His stance was far beyond that of a man who had physically honed himself through martial arts as a hobby. And he wasn’t practicing this out of self-defense, either. 

This training was for the sole purpose of killing one’s enemy. 

“Grandpa...” 

Hearing that voice call for him from behind, Kouichiro Mikoshiba stopped his swinging. His upper arm was thicker than one would imagine such an old man’s arm could be, and while his height was ordinary enough at 175 centimeters, his shoulders were wide and his chest was thick; most likely the fruits of training every day with a wooden sword. 

“Asuka... So it’s that time already, is it?” Propping his wooden sword against the veranda, Kouichiro wiped the sweat off his face with a smile. 

His navy-blue kendo gi was moist and stained with large amounts of sweat, even turning white from concentrations of salt in some points. 

“Yeah, dinner’s almost ready...” 

“Right... Thanks again, as always. Give my regards to your mother for me.” 

Removing her favorite pink apron, which had a caricature of a cat printed at its end, Asuka nodded at Kouichiro’s words and then asked him a question hesitantly. 

“Say, Grandpa... Have you thought about what I asked the other day?” 

Kouichiro scratched his cheek awkwardly at her question. 

“About me moving in with you? I appreciate the offer, lass, but I’ll have to decline.” 

“But why?! Mom said you’re always welcome... And besides, even Grandma’s...” 

Kouichiro met Asuka’s exclamation with an inexplicably wry smile. He knew they didn’t make that offer out of desire for his fortune, which couldn’t be said for some of the other hyenas in the family. With his son and his wife gone, the only ones who truly supported him as he painstakingly raised his biological grandson, Ryoma, were his sister and her daughter’s family. 

But it was because he knew their offer was sincere that Kouichiro couldn’t agree to Asuka’s proposal. 

“I’m sorry...” 

He had one clear reason to not live with them, but it wasn’t one he could share with this kind girl. If he did, she and her family could very well end up being caught up in a whirlwind of catastrophe. Kouichiro had to reject her offer precisely because he held her so dear. 

“Grandpa, I’m... I’m scared.” Asuka whispered in fright, drooping her head with a shadow hanging over her normally unyielding expression. 

“Scared of what?” Kouichiro asked Asuka gently, though he had already partially known the answer to his own question. 

“That you might disappear all of a sudden, just like Ryoma did...” 

It had been nearly six months since Ryoma Mikoshiba vanished without a trace from his high school. A sudden disappearance in broad daylight, in a perfectly normal public school. But still, the police could do nothing, since no correlation to an incident of any kind could be found. 

There was little chance he could have been abducted by someone from outside the school in the middling timeframe of a lunch break within the closed premises of the school, especially considering he was a hulking young man standing over 190 centimeters tall and weighing over 100 kilograms. It was perhaps natural, then, that upon receiving news of his disappearance, the police concluded that even if there was a chance he might have perpetrated a crime, it was unlikely that he had been a victim of one. 

Every year, many people go missing for any number of reasons. The circumstances are many, ranging from stress over bullying and interpersonal relationships to financial problems, but 100,000 people every year are merely reported to the police as having “gone missing.” In the eyes of the police, so long as a case can’t be correlated to some kind of incident, they have to assume the missing person simply ran away, and would honestly prefer to wash their hands of the case. 

Of course, if this was about a young boy or girl, they’d have treated the situation differently, but since the missing person in question was a buff high-schooler, the possibility of abduction was remote; as such, the matter was given low priority. 

“I’m sorry...” Kouichiro repeated his reply once more. 

Seeing Asuka, a girl whom he saw as his own granddaughter, had reduced him to muttering nothing more than words of apology. 

And that was because Kouichiro knew where Ryoma Mikoshiba had disappeared to. 

But if he were to say so aloud, no one would believe him... Claiming he was summoned to another world would change nothing. After all, a method of crossing on one’s own from this world— that is, Rearth— to the other world— that is, Earth— was unknown. Claiming it was an alien abduction would sound more credible than that. 

A gentle smile surfaced on Kouichiro’s lips. The grandson he’d lovingly raised, trained in anachronistic techniques and fostered the heart of a warrior in... He’d always prayed the day he would need those skills to defend himself and survive would never come, but now, they would surely come to serve him. 

This is all my fault... Forgive me, Ryoma. Not just your mother and father, but even you, their child, must bear that price. 

Even while he understood that he was the source of this tragedy, Kouichiro had no choice but to hold his silence...