Kays Translations

Chapter 81: After the War, the Scars of the War

It was lunchtime when the soft sunlight heralded the end of winter. There was a visitor at the Lutz workshop.

“Recently, when I’m in a bar, I often get spoken to. They ask me, “Is that a katana?”

He was the hero Ricardo, the adventurer in the service of Count Zander’s family.

He is in his early twenties and is of the same generation as Lutz and Claudia. After talking with him a few times, he got along well with him, and now and then he comes to ask for a free meal.

“And I said, if you pull it out, you’ll die a cruel death.”

A couple of friends start to belly laugh. Ouch, too painful a line. I wonder what Ricardo looked like when he said it.

“Well, Ricardo-san, cool, cool! Hahahaha!”

“What’s terrible is that there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Ricardo’s favorite sword, the Tsubaki, is a demon sword that drives those who look at it to suicide. If you pull it out at a bar, it will instantly turn into a hellscape.

Although it would have been better to quickly discard or destroy such a special class of spells, Ricardo had been saved by this power so many times that he could not let go of it.

After waiting for Lutz and the others to stop laughing, Ricardo shrugged his shoulders and said.

“Recently, the number of newcomer adventurers has been increasing, and every day there is trouble. Not only do they start fights, but they even get themselves in trouble. More people die in bars than in dungeons.”

Ricardo tilted his head wondering why, and Claudia started talking about something that came to mind.

“Maybe it’s because the war is over. Of the 5,000 people stationed at the border, only 1,000 were left and the rest were disbanded.”

“Four thousand people have lost their jobs. They can’t just go back to their hometowns and live in peace and be happy.”

Lutz groaned.

“It seems there’s quite a lot of trouble after you return home. When they return home for the first time in several years, they find that the family has separated, a stranger is living in the house, and a man they don’t know is plowing the fields with his wife. They have lost their place of residence, and other things.”

A few years was too long to wait for husbands and sons who had gone to war. Each of those left behind had to live.

Who could blame the wife for welcoming a new worker rather than continuing to wait for her husband, whom they were not even sure if he was alive or dead? There were a number of families where it would have been a nuisance to have their husbands return just as they were finally setting up a new foundation for their lives.

“It’s tough, like encountering a scene where your grown-up son calls a man he doesn’t know Papa.”

“Stop it Lutz, you’re making me sad as someone else. No, really, seriously, stop.”

I have never had such an experience, but it was a constant danger in a man’s life.

Claudia continued talking with a wry smile saying, “You’re such an idiot that you can’t help it.”

“Let’s assume that out of the 4,000, 1,000 were warmly welcomed back home. That’s 3,000 unemployed people with a history of murder unleashed all over the country. Yeah, this number doesn’t mean much. It is just a number I came up with at random.”

“Three thousand all over the country. I don’t know if that’s a lot or not.”

3,000 people is a considerable number, but Lutz vaguely thought that it might not be a big number if they were scattered over a large country.

Toward Lutz, Claudia shook her head and showed him.

“If you have five to ten armed men, you’ve got a gang of thieves.”

Before coming to live with Lutz, Claudia had traveled around the country as a peddler. She was well aware of the troublesome nature of wild thieves..

“It’s scary to think that 300 bandits have appeared all over the country.”

“Right?”

Claudia took a sip of the lukewarm beer and said with a slightly irritated look.

“From now on, there will be a lot of attacks on travelers and merchants on the highways. Naturally, logistics will be slowed down. Goods will not be able to be sold. Farmers, fishermen, and hunters will be in trouble. Even the lumberjacks, who are our customers.”

I wondered if I was allowed to say such a thing as a servant of the count’s family, but I felt that I had to vent it out here or I would never stop, so I continued. It would be better than slipping up in front of the count.

“We can’t just sit back and be happy that the Allies are in a shambles because of some internal strife. We need to look at our own feet first. It’s foolish to think that the supply line will be cut off by your own soldiers. Do you realize that if the banditry gets worse, all the talk about trading and making swords a specialty of the Count’s territory will all come to nothing!”

Ricardo asked the excited Claudia, still looking unconvinced.

“I don’t think you’re overthinking this. I haven’t heard anything about an increase in the number of bandits. Not all people are so extreme that they become bandits because they are hungry.”

“For now. This kind of thing will gradually increase over time. There are no jobs, everything has been tried, but nothing works, and people are starving. One day, I met a former comrade-in-arms in the city, and he said to me, “I have a good job for you.”

Claudia tells a story. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I couldn’t even say it wasn’t there.

“Yes, Ricardo-san, you’ve been dismissive of the idea that public safety is going to deteriorate.”

“I don’t really want to believe that I’m going to get a request to take them down. ……”

“Ah, yeah. Good work…”

Leaving the depressed Ricardo alone, this time Lutz asked.

“The conditions are the same for the Allied Powers, aren’t they? No. Are they worse off than we are because of the usurpation of the throne fiasco?”

“That’s the thing, though. ……”

Claudia refused to say that it was just a rumor with half credibility, and then opened her mouth.

“It seems that the returning soldiers were warmly welcomed over there. They gave them a lump sum, gave them a house, fields and food, and made them work on the restoration of the devastated land.”

“Huh, that’s humane.”

“The problem is where did that money come from? War-damaged reconstruction is fine, but I think the initial cost is also considerable…”

Claudia said that she was worried about that and her credibility was not good enough.

“If they are actually doing it, it’s a good thing. We should do it in our country, too.”

Ricardo wanted to avoid worsening public order at all costs, but Claudia answered with a sarcastic smile.

“We all know that we can’t go on like this. But we don’t have that kind of money, and we don’t want to give it out. That’s why everyone is screaming for justice. Someone other than themselves should do it.”

“… It’s a terrible story. The soldiers must have fought desperately to protect the country.”

Who would want to become a bandit? Ricardo felt gloomy, wondering if the day would come when he would have to hand them over.

A loud knock was heard from the first floor.

“Lutz, are you here? We’re here to pick you up!”

It was the voice of the high-ranking knight Jocel.

“Oh, it’s already that time. Ricardo, I’m sorry, but please go home today.”

“Why are you going to the castle now? Did something happen today?”

“Finally, all three craftsmen have come to see the Count.”

It’s a hassle, though, Lutz chuckled.mile.

The problem of returning soldiers is serious, but it is not something that concerns us directly. At this time, everyone still thought so.

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