Abandoned by my Childhood Friend, I Became a War Hero

9 – If Forgotten Wounds Will Be Forgotten

After leaving Gwynn, I entered the Red Bear Inn.

I expected it to be locked or no one was there, but the door opened with the sound of an old hinge, just like the last time, and a blonde waitress was sitting alone at the counter seat in an empty inn.

As soon as she confirmed that I was coming in, she got up from the counter and smiled kindly.

“Have you been?”

I nodded silently and was about to head to the corner table where I had sat in the morning, but hesitated. It was only because the chair was empty.

The waiter tapped the counter seat in front of me with his hand.

“Somebody hit the chair in the morning and it broke. There are plenty of seats here.”

I shrugged lightly. The intention was clear, but there was no reason to refuse, so I sat down on the chair opposite the waiter. Then he looked around and said.

“The inn is empty.”

“Because that happened in the morning. Everyone is scared and deserves to run away.”

“I thought you would run away too. Or close the inn.”

“It’s Daisy.”

“… ?”

The blonde waiter looked at me with her head tilted at an angle, with her arms resting on her table, her palms resting on her chin.

“Daisy, not you. You haven’t forgotten my name in a while, have you? You told me yesterday.”

It was. Just looking at her back, she mistook her for Ella, so she asked for her name. I quickly realized that it was my mistake.

“… Yes. Daisy. I’m Ion Graham. So why didn’t you close the store?”

“I was hoping that the customer who saved me would come back and protect me. Well, it was a certain boy passing by who actually guarded the store.”

It seemed like he was talking about Gwynn. He thought he wouldn’t know because he was fighting in a back alley, but he seemed to be watching the fight in front of the inn.

I wonder if he didn’t contact the military police anyway. In fact, these areas have their own rules that are not regulated by law. Even if you contact the police, it is impossible to protect this place 24 hours a day, so I heard that sometimes local gangs deliberately avoid reporting them to avoid looking bad.

“The inn was almost attacked because of me, don’t you resent it?”

“Guests? No way If the guest hadn’t come forward at that time, he would have been touched here and there by the pig, or at worst, cursed on the spot. You stopped me before you got into trouble, so why would I?”

“If not, that’s fine.”

If the inn had been closed, I would have had to pack my things and look for a new inn for the night, but I was fortunate. In such a remote area, even though she is a substitute for her uncle, she is running an inn by herself, so there must be some trouble in her own way.

“Even if I wasn’t a guest, something would have happened. The atmosphere in District 21 is not good these days. Racists who have dubbed themselves ‘the future of the empire’ have been seen a lot around here lately. Since the Imperial Intelligence Department put up a lot of bounties, wouldn’t the thugs also be looking for members during the day?”

“Hmm.”

The word racist reminded me of what happened yesterday. The coachman of the wagon, who seemed to have quite a bad feeling towards the different races. Are you saying that this type of person is increasing numbers in the recent system? When the war was over, I thought that strange things were going on.

Daisy said with a big smile.

“I only said boring things. Are you going to eat? I will make something for you.”

With that said, she went into her kitchen without waiting for my answer. She broiled for a while and heard the simmering sound, and Daisy put so many plates on the table that she could call it a delicacy.

It was too much for one person to eat. When I looked at her with her gaze, asking, “What did you make so many of?”, She said with a rather bright smile.

“Do you want me to eat too?”

“… ….”

In that case, I have nothing to say. I wondered if it was okay as an inn for a guest and a waitress to eat on the same plate, but I didn’t feel like complaining because the food at an inn was appetizing, and the amount of effort went into it just by looking at the number of plates.

Daisy’s cooking was very exotic, unlike the traditional imperial cuisine using sausage, beer, and potatoes. The taste of grilled fish using only oil, salt, and herbs, and pasta with plenty of cheese, tasted quite delicious to my taste, even if I could pick up anything I could eat.

I briefly remembered where this recipe originated. It reminded me of how a soldier from the Ionian Kingdom usually cooked like this when he was a cook. Of course, the taste is much better now.

From noble mtl dot com

From that experience, I was able to roughly guess where Daisy came from. The Ionian Kingdom is a country where only the people of the kingdom, who have now turned into undead due to the last war, remain. I was a little concerned about how the people of the kingdom came to the empire, but it was definitely not a good past.

As I was silently emptying the plate, I felt a stare staring at me. Daisy was just staring at my face, barely touching her hands, eating her food.

I asked as I put the tableware down.

“… Why do you see it that way?”

“Because he is handsome.”

“… ….”

I felt complex and subtle emotions that are difficult to describe.

For the past 20 years, I’ve been lying around on a battlefield full of men, and I’ve never cared about my appearance. Even though I’ve heard many stories about being unlucky, looking like a parasitic brother, or wanting to skin your face, compliments about being purely handsome were very unfamiliar to me. To be honest, it wasn’t the first time I’d heard it in my life, but it was very difficult to accept it as a compliment every time.

I just thought, “If you’re really handsome, why did Ella and Charlotte leave me?” In the end, the idea that you can’t hold on to someone you like based on your appearance, rather became an opportunity to obsess over strength.

However, no matter how strong he became, nothing came back, and on the contrary, he only lost more.

Daisy, who was lost in her thoughts for a moment, jumped up from her seat.

“Wait a minute. I’ll get you something to drink.”

“No, it’s okay-“

“I’m making it right away, so please wait a bit.”

I thought it was going to be something to drink, so I thought maybe they would bring me a normal beer. Contrary to my expectations, she mixed distilled spirits and lime juice with orange liqueur and mixed it with ice. Her waist-length blonde hair rippled as she rocked the bottle, commonly referred to as a shaker, up and down.

After a while, she handed me a glass of clear, orange-colored liquor in a salted glass.

“I didn’t order alcohol.”

“It’s a service.”

He smiled lightly. It was because this conversation was somehow familiar.

“Is it a cocktail?”

“You know what? That’s interesting. It’s a drink only aristocrats drink… Are you perhaps a person much higher than I thought?”

I shook my head. I only heard about it at first glance. Fillion the Great, famous for liquor sugar, first came up with the idea, and it is difficult for commoners to drink because it is made by mixing expensive distilled spirits with other ingredients. I never expected to see something like that in a shabby inn like this.

I raised my glass and took a bite of the cocktail. There was no alcohol smell at all, and it had a sweet and sour taste. I thought he only brewed coffee well, but his skill at making alcohol was also excellent.

“How is it?”

“It’s delicious.”

“I’m glad. That drink has an interesting story, would you like to hear it?”

She was served a free drink, so she nodded her head willingly.

Daisy continued with a soft smile.

“There was a man. He had a lover who loved him. But one day, while out hunting together, the lover was hit by an arrow accidentally shot by someone and lost his life. The man who lost her lover in her accident made a lime-based cocktail with her liquor, which her lover loved during her lifetime, to remember her. And he borrowed the name of his beloved lover and named it ‘Margarita’.”

“… ….”

It was not difficult to guess that the drink I had just drunk was called Margarita. She was silent for a moment, then spoke up.

“Why did you give me this drink?”

“Because it is a drink that a man drank while missing his lover who left him.”

“What did I say?”

“I didn’t say anything, but I saw your eyes. Weren’t you thinking of someone else? I’ve been intrigued by it since we first met. It was like that a little while ago… I’m sorry if I’m mistaken.”

It is not an illusion. When I first saw Daisy, she obviously thought of Ella. I couldn’t deny that fact.

Daisy asked cautiously.

“Does she look a lot like that girl and I?”

I hesitated and said.

“Maybe.”

No maybe not quite. The eyes were different, but the hair and features were similar. The Ella I remembered was all about her childhood, so she might be different from the real Ella, but it was quite similar to the face she imagined she would look like if she grew up.

She thought maybe she was a daughter, but Daisy said she was a little younger than I was, and she was definitely not the age to be Ella’s daughter. Above all, she is Daisy, not Ella. It was a great disrespect to her to keep thinking of finding her Ella in her.

“Was the woman’s departure left a scar?”

“It has already been forgotten.”

“A wound that will be forgotten even if it is forgotten will not remain as a scar.”

Daisy put her hand on the back of mine.

“Can I heal Ion’s wounds?”

I shut her mouth shut without saying anything. Then, only silence remained in the place where the conversation had been soft. It was not difficult to read what she wanted from me in the tension that took her breath away and the gaze she met. Her upper body leaned towards me little by little.

I set the glass down on the table.

“Ah….”

Ignoring her blank stare at me, I stood up.

I could have kissed her and pretended not to know her. However, if I stayed by her side who resembled Ella, I would unknowingly recall her Ella in her mind.

Not only was that not a good thing for me, just now stepping out of Ella’s shadow, but it was clearly disrespectful to Daisy.

“I drank well.”

She gave her a brief greeting and left her on her first floor, leaving her alone.