I am the Monarch – Chapter 259: Hometown (2)

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“Hm hm. Hm. Hm.”

A humming naturally flowed out.
The sunlight was nice and the wind was sweet.

‘It really is a leisure after a long time……’

There was neither the helmet pressing down on his head, nor the armor that pressed in his entire body.

“Uah.”

The young man brightly smiling and stretching was none other than the very Roan Lancephil.
He, in place of his crimson armor, wore an old and humble but a clean travel clothes.
The Travias Spear was shrunk to about a fingernail-length size and placed in his pocket.
The look of slowly moving his steps along the narrow and bumpy road was relaxed almost like taking a hike.

‘Hometown……’

He couldn’t even guess just how long since the last hometown visit it was.
He raced out of his hometown Lare Village the moment he turned eighteen and, while roaming like a beggar, entered into the Peton Training Camp.
Afterwards, he had died while wandering the battlefield for twenty years as a rank-and-file spearman and then returned to the past.
After that, a number of years passed again.
Roan who was a rank-and-file spearman had now become the king of Amaranth Kingdom.

‘Everyone wished for me to return in a glorious manner, but……’

The opinion of many officials including Austin and Ian.
However, Roan didn’t particularly want to do so.

‘Since I won’t be able to share heartfelt stories with the village people if it was a king’s visit……’

Then the chance to share drinks and chat about how each other’s life had been would disappear.

‘Since they will naturally come to know that I’ve become a king as time passes either way.’

Until then, he wished to be just Roan from a mountain village.
Although it would be a return in merely few years from other people’s positions, it was a return in nearly thirty years in Roan’s position.
The feeling he felt at this moment wasn’t something so light.
In the end, even those officials couldn’t help but give in.
As a compromise, however, the Amaranth Troop, no, Roan’s personal troop newly reformed with the name Amaranth Taemusa Troop came to accompany his homecoming trip.
Roan and the Amaranth Taemusa Troop, right after arriving at the Aps Barony’s capital Brunner Castle, received Baron Chuck Aps’s guide and again headed towards the Westend Region’s Vally Castle.
Here, Roan quietly started towards the Western Grain Mountains while accompanying only the most skilled one hundred members from the Amaranth Taemusa Troop members.
To the nine hundred Taemusa Troop members and Baron Chuck Aps, he gave an order to wait at the Vally Castle.
Thanks to that, he was able to fully enjoy the leisurely journey like now.

‘Everyone’s all following along well.’

Roan heightened his senses and felt the nearby presences.
Although only the thick grass waving in the wind were seen, in actuality the one hundred taemusas were stealthily escorting and following behind Roan.
If possible, Roan wished to also leave them at the Vally Castle, but he now wasn’t a single general but a king of a kingdom.
It was a time for himself too to care for his health.

‘I’ll have to see just the hometown people for a moment, then hurry and return after staying for a night.’

He couldn’t enjoy such leisure for a long time.
There still were far too many works to be done.
Roan very slowly hurried his steps.
The narrow and bumpy road continued and continued on deep into the Grain Mountains.
The Lare Village was a backwood among backwoods.
It was located at a place where one would question if anyone would live in such a place.
Even so, it wasn’t a poor village.
Thanks to good quality mountain herbs, animal pelts traded at high prices, and fine timber, it was a village rather well-off economically.
Only.

‘It’s so much a backwood place and located deep within the Grain Mountains that it’s slow to the news outside, and……’

Most of all.

‘It is always exposed to the assault of monsters.’

Roan formed a bitter smile.
A past he didn’t wish to think of floated up.

‘My parents too passed away because of the monsters’ assault……’

It was a horrible event that unfolded when Roan was ten years old.
After that day, Roan stayed in the village head Bas’s house.
Bas and his wife Melly looked after Roan like their own son.
The two people as well had a sad memory of losing their child during a monsters’ attack.
They wished for Roan to become a herbalist like them.
However, Roan’s dream was chosen since the day his parents had died.

‘I wished to become a great general and subjugate the monsters.’

He wished to subjugate the monsters and protect his village and the village people.
However, becoming a great general wasn’t an easy feat.
In the end, Roan met his death without having fulfilled his dream.
That was the result of his first life.

‘But in this second life……’

The moment his thoughts reached about that point, Roan’s footsteps stopped.
His body frozen like a stone statue.
His eyes sharply shook.
A small brook flowing outside the thick forest was visible.
A nameless, small, and unnoteworthy brook.
But a place where all sorts of memories brimmed and flowed.
It was the brook flowing in front of the Lare Village.

‘I’ve finally arrived.’

His hometown was before his nose.
Roan collected his breath and then slowly moved his steps.
When he neared the small brook, women gathered at the brookside drawing water or washing clothes were seen.

“He drank to stone-dead again last night and……”
“But that place is……”
“Last night my mom……”

The women each raised their voices and chatted.
Roan vacantly stood down the small brook and quietly stared at that sight.
A scene that warmed his heart.
His eyes shook even sharper.
At that moment, the middle-aged woman whose voice was the loudest noticed Roan a moment behind.

“Hm? Who is that?”

A look of creasing her forehead and tilting her head.
Roan’s appearance, from the countless wars and battles and also the training of the Flamdor Mana Technique, had a very slight difference from that of his eighteen-years old days.
He had become more manly, one might say.
Of course, it wasn’t a level where one wouldn’t recognize him, but there was no one who possibly thought that Roan, who for years hadn’t made any contact, had abruptly returned.
Roan formed a bright smile towards the middle-aged woman who tilted her head as she stared at him.