New Home

The morning sun squeezed through a gap in the curtains and shone on my face.

I opened my eyes. The ceiling was wooden, with a long crack running from the corner all the way to the middle of the room.

This wasn't an inn anymore. It was home. Everything that had happened over the past few days felt like one long dream. It was time to get up.

I sat up. My prosthetic hand gleamed grayish brown in the morning light, and my right hand was still a little numb. I clenched it, and my fingernails stung for two seconds before feeling returned.

From downstairs came the sound of a spatula striking the rim of a pot, Aisha talking to herself, and a dull thud. Paul was probably moving something heavy with one hand.

I got dressed and went downstairs.

In the living room, Paul stood beside the long table, gesturing with his right hand. Aisha stood across from him, her apron tied neatly and a rag clutched in her hand.

"Move the table a little farther south," Paul said. "Zenith's room gets good light, so move this small table in there too."

"Yes, Father!" Aisha answered, then turned and ran. Three steps later, she realized the table was too heavy for her to move alone. She doubled back and called, "Norn! Help me! I can't move it!"

Norn came down the stairs from the second floor. She rubbed her eyes, yawned, walked over to the table, and reached out to lift it.

"One, two, three!"

The table didn't budge.

Paul came over and placed his right hand on the corner of the table.

"Master Paul, your back!" Lilia called from the kitchen doorway. She was holding two plates, and her gaze behind her glasses was stern.

"I'm not so old I'll throw my back out moving a table," Paul muttered, but he withdrew his hand anyway.

"Master Paul, please let me." Lilia put the plates on the kitchen counter and came over to help.

Together, the three of them carried the small table into the room on the south side.

I followed them. The room on the south side got the most sunlight, and its window faced the yard.

Zenith sat in a chair by the window. She was looking outside, her gaze resting on the little tree in the yard that had yet to bud.

Paul went over to her. He stood there for a while, then found a comb among the clutter on the table and began brushing Zenith's hair with his right hand, stroke by stroke. He was gentle, combing from the top of her head to the ends.

Paul was brushing her hair. Back in Buena Village, Zenith used to wake us every morning. Paul never bothered with any of that; he just sat at the table and waited for breakfast. Now he was brushing Zenith's hair.

I walked away from the doorway.

Eris was standing in the entryway by the living room.

Her feet straddled the threshold, one inside and one outside. Her long hair gleamed dark red in the morning light, and the Nameless Sword stood in a corner of the wall.

She looked at the living room, at the long table, at the chairs, at the few dried flowers in the earthenware vase.

What was she doing standing in the doorway? Why wouldn't she come in?

"Eris."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Come in. What are you doing standing in the doorway?"

She glanced at me, an emotion I couldn't quite identify in her eyes.

"This is my home now too," she said. Her voice was soft, as if she were confirming something she hadn't fully accepted herself.

"Yeah." I walked over and took her hand. "This is your home now too."

She followed me into the living room, her steps a little stiff.

Three years on the Demon Continent, tents, caves, inns, refugee camps. She'd stayed in a lot of places, but none of them had been home. Now that she was finally standing at the door of a home of her own, she didn't know which foot to step in with.

"Rudeus."

"Yeah?"

"...Never mind."

She walked over and sat down beside the long table, running her fingers over its surface twice.

We assigned rooms that morning.

Paul stood in the middle of the living room, his right hand on his hip, like a one-armed commander.

"Zenith gets the south room on the first floor. Lilia, Norn, and Aisha will stay on the west side of the second floor. Roxy gets that little room on the east side of the second floor."

"What about big brother and sister-in-law?" Aisha poked her head out from behind the banister.

"The room at the very end of the second floor, the biggest one."

Eris stood beside me, looking down at her boots.

"Um..." she said quietly. "I can sleep on the floor."

I turned to look at her.

"...Aren't we engaged?"

Her ears turned red, all the way down to the base of her neck. She looked up and glared at me, but there was no force behind it.

"Who, who said I was going to sleep with you..."

"You just said, 'This is my home too.'"

"Th-that's..."

"Are you really going to share a room with big brother, sister-in-law?" Norn's voice came from beside us.

"...What's it to you?" Eris sounded a little fierce, but her eyes wandered, and she was clearly short on confidence.

Norn drew back, but I saw the corners of her mouth rise.

Aisha called from the kitchen, "Big brother! Sister-in-law! Lunch is almost ready!"

The sound of the spatula came from the kitchen, and the aroma of stew drifted out and filled the living room.

I went upstairs to take a look at the room.

The largest room really was big enough. It could fit two beds, a table, and a wardrobe. The window faced the street, and I could see the spire of Ranoa University of Magic in the distance. The pale blue light at the top was hard to see in the daytime, but I could still make out its outline.

I put my luggage on the bed and sat by the window, looking outside for a while.

The streets of Sharia were much cleaner than those in Rapan. The pedestrians wore neat clothes, and a few carried books, probably university students. There was a bakery across the street, and the smell of baking bread drifted across the road and through the window.

This was home. It wasn't big, a two-story stone house with a small yard, but there was enough room for us. Paul, Zenith, Lilia, Norn, Aisha, Master Roxy, Eris, and me. Eight people.

In my previous life, I'd reached thirty-four without ever imagining I'd have a home, a home in the true sense of the word. A father, a mother, a master, younger sisters, and a fiancée, all living on a quiet street, with a bakery and a university spire visible from the window.

In my last life, I probably didn't even have enough money to rent an apartment. In this life, I had a house at fourteen. Life was a strange thing.

Aisha made lunch. It was a simple stew with black bread, just like what she'd made at the inn in Rapan. But this time she'd added rosemary, giving the stew a richer flavor than before.

The whole family sat around the long table.

It was our first proper meal in the new house.

When Aisha passed by me carrying a bowl of stew, there was a little flour on her apron and a white streak on her cheek.

"Big brother, try it! I used local Sharia spices. They're much better than the ones in Rapan!"

I picked up a spoon, held the edge of the bowl with my prosthetic hand, and scooped up a mouthful with my right. The meat was stewed so tender it melted in my mouth, and the broth had a faint herbal fragrance.

"It's delicious."

Aisha's eyes lit up, and she almost tripped over the threshold as she turned and ran back to the kitchen.

"Aisha!" Lilia reached out from the kitchen doorway to steady her. "Be careful."

"I'm fine, I'm fine!"

Paul sat at one end of the table. He tore his bread with his right hand, scattering crumbs all over the table. Zenith sat beside him. She wasn't eating, but she didn't refuse the piece of bread Paul had placed by her hand.

Paul glanced at everyone at the table.

"Though we're missing a few things," he said, his voice quiet but audible to everyone at the table, "at least we're all here."

No one replied, but everyone understood.

Norn lowered her head and drank her soup. Aisha's shoulders trembled, though I couldn't tell whether she was laughing or crying. Eris sat beside me, pausing for a second as she tore her bread, then continuing.

A few things were missing: Paul's left arm, my left hand, Zenith's mind, and four years of time. But we were all here, and that was enough.

After dinner, Eris went out into the yard.

I watched her from a window in the second-floor hallway.

Moonlight shone over the yard. The crooked tree cast a long shadow that stretched all the way to the end of the gravel path. Eris stood beneath the tree, a longsword in her hand.

She was swinging her sword.

Her movements were slow, each swing tracing a complete arc, meticulous from the first motion to the finish. They were the basics, things Rujierd had taught her, and she still practiced them every day.

I leaned against the window frame and watched for a while.

I'd looked over the invitation from Ranoa University of Magic in my pocket so many times that its edges had begun to fray. Enrollment was in the spring of Armored Dragon Year 422, more than half a year away.

More than half a year. What would that be enough time to prepare? A magic demonstration? Or to become a university student? I hadn't even finished high school in my previous life, and now I was going to university.

Under the moonlight, Eris lowered her sword and stood still. She raised her head and glanced at the second-floor window. When she saw me watching her, the corners of her mouth curved upward, and then she turned away.

Outside the window, the pale blue light atop the university spire flickered against the night sky.

In the yard, Eris's shadow stretched long beneath the moonlight.