[Please be sure to attend this time. I miss you, Ainz.]
After refolding the worn invitation and putting it in a drawer, Ainz Rainswain got up and walked over to the window. Sunlight shines through the thin curtain.
Karrr-
The sound of bright laughter was carried by the sunlight. Ainz slightly lifted the curtain and lowered his gaze to her. I seem to see friends writing folded letters hidden in drawers. Was it natural since they were their children?
Ainz smiled faintly and looked away from them. Suddenly, he wondered if he had ever laughed like that. He recalled the memories from his childhood.
* * *
Ainz Rainswain’s memories begin with hunger.
A room where no light enters. Hearing the rat’s cries, the boy buried his face in his bent knees. The reason he didn’t say the words out loud was because he knew that no one would save him.
“This is my son, Ainz Rainswain.”
The day such a boy came out with his scrawny body was on a day when a boy of his age came to the mansion with a middle-aged man he had never seen before. It took him a while to be amazed by the luxurious fabric that gently wrapped his skin. Ainz flinched at her touch wrapping around his shoulder. He didn’t know when her hand would push him into that dark room again.
Filled with such fear, Ainz looked at his mother’s eyes.
“Hi!”
Ainz’s eyes were filled with flawless blue eyes. Ainz tilted his head in confusion at the hand the boy held out. Then he held his breath as the force applied to his shoulder. Ainz rolled his eyes as she thought about what he had done wrong. But no matter how much she thought about it, Ainz decided to bow his head and pray to her. What stopped his mouth from speaking softly was the boy’s bright voice.
“I am John! John Hawes!”
The boy’s hand grabbed Ainz’s hand. Ainz was startled by the warmth he felt and looked at the boy.
“Let’s be friends, Ainz!”
The boy, John Hawes, bowed his blue eyes. That was the first meeting between Ainz Rainswain and John Hawes. From that day on, Ainz was no longer trapped in a dark room. Instead, he began being beaten so harshly that he thought it would be better to be locked up. If you got one wrong, you got ten points, and if you got two wrong, you got a harsh penalty. Ainz studied so as not to make mistakes and not be punished. It was a struggle to survive.
“I found it. Ainz!”
The day that blue-eyed John and his father visited the Rainswayne mansion was a day without beatings for Ainz. On those days, Ainz hid his body out of sight of his mother.
John always found those eyes. Then he laughed, shaking his brown hair out of the grass.
“Let’s go inside and play.”
John smiled as he helped Ainz up. Ainz simply walked as John led him by holding his hand. His heart pounded as she walked towards Rainswayne Manor, but he strangely did not feel afraid. Why? He asked a question, but his answer was not easy to come by.
“Ainz, I heard you’re good with a sword? Would you like to spar with us?”
Ainz nodded his head without realizing it as she asked with a clear smile. At Ainz’s nod, John smiled brightly, held the small hand he was holding tightly, and started running. Ainz felt the strong force pulling me and started running along with him. John Hawes burst into laughter. At the sound of his laughter, Ainz slowly moved her eyes and started laughing along with her. It was a laugh he made without realizing it. Later, he realized that the nameless emotion he felt at that time was ‘joy.’
Ainz found out later. It didn’t take long for the joy to become a small happiness. The day John Hawes visited the mansion with his father was a day of happiness for Ainz. But that happiness was shattered before long. From some point on, whenever John met Ainz, he asked him to spar. It was the same that day.
Ainz raised her old wooden sword towards John, who had been visiting for the first time in a long time. The old wooden sword she struck with once broke before she could do anything, leaving a scratch on John’s cheek.
“John!”
“It’s okay, father.”
The Marquis of Hawes rushed over after hearing the news and looked at his son. Fortunately, it was just a grazing, so the wound was shallow. John scratched his head due to the loud commotion. Ainz was probably more surprised than him. As expected, Ainz opened his eyes wide. He seemed very surprised. John smiled awkwardly and opened his mouth.
“Ainz, I’m fine…”
But John could not finish his sentence. There was a sharp sound as if something was being torn apart.
“Ainz!”
Ainz, whose delicate cheek was hit by the palm of Marquis Wayne’s hand, rolled on her floor. The Marquis of Hawes grabbed John by the shoulder as she tried to run to him.
“Father! This…!”
John struggled strongly. However, John’s struggles stopped when he heard a voice.
“I’m sorry, Marquis. And young master Hawes.”
The Marquis of Raineswayne exhaled dryly, wiping her hand that was resting on Ainz’s cheek with her handkerchief. At that toneless voice, John’s body trembled slightly and he looked up at Marquis Raines Wayne. The same red eyes as Ainz’s were pointed at me, but it seemed like they were looking beyond that.
“Can you please go back now?”
Without waiting for an answer, Marquis Rainswain turned away from them. John saw Ainz stand up from his seat, squeezing his swollen cheek.
“Ah… Ainz,”
“Let’s go back, John.”
“Wait a minute, father!”
It can’t go back like this. Feeling an overwhelming sense of anxiety, John hurriedly tried to turn his steps. But he couldn’t go. He couldn’t get his arm out from where his father was holding it. John, who saw Ainz’s shoulders shaking slightly as he followed Marquis Rainswain, opened her mouth wide.
“Ainz! Ainz!!”
Hearing his voice calling him, Ainz looked behind him and nodded his head towards John. It seemed like a greeting, as if it was okay or not to worry, but it wasn’t.
It was a silent goodbye.
In response to that greeting, John once again called Ainz Rainswain’s name out loud. However, Rainswain’s mansion was closed tightly and no sound was allowed in.
* * *
Ainz was trapped in a dark room where not a single ray of light entered, and he clenched his fingers with difficulty. Sigh, it feels like his throat was constricting with his exhaled breath. Ainz let out his breath briefly and moved his lips.
“John.”
No one answered the name called softly. Ainz closed his eyelids as tears streamed down his temples.
“Come on! Ainz!”
Then she heard her own name in the closed field of vision. Perhaps because of that, Ainz lifted his trembling eyelids as he lay in the extremely dark room. The tightly closed door was suddenly opened, allowing the light from outside to come in, albeit faintly. Ainz moved his eyes that were about to blur.
“Ainz!!”
More than anything else, his blue eyes were looking at him with a lot of water in them. Ainz blinked his eyes slowly, thinking it might be a dream. His vision became clearer, and he could see John Hawes’s distorted face.
“John…?”
Ainz’s voice that flowed from his dry lips seemed as if it would die out at any moment. At the sound of his voice calling him, John lifted his shoulders and raised his hand to wipe away the tears.
“Yes, I’m John. It’s okay, you’re okay now, Ainz.”
Ainz sweetened his lips at the watery voice.
‘How are you here?’
“Father! Ainz… Ainz is here!
“Father!!”
What was okay? Ainz ultimately lost his voice. Listening to his friend’s voice, Ainz slowly closed and lifted his eyelids.
“Ainz!!”
Once again, his closed eyelids could not be lifted, and Ainz Rainswain fell asleep.
* * *
When Ainz woke up, the ceiling he faced was light blue. It wasn’t a color he was familiar with.
The Marquis of Hawes spoke to Ainz, who woke up. He was told to stay at the Hawes Mansion for a while until he got his body back together. He didn’t tell Ainz anything about how he came to be here. Ainz didn’t ask either.
“Ainz! Let’s go have fun!!”
John was always the same. One thing if it were different.
“Hi.”
Syrena Liev, a girl with purple eyes, stepped between the two. Whenever a girl who resembled a violet came to Ainz, holding John’s hand, he put down the book he was reading and followed them. It was a long time for a while. It was a long time, long enough for Ainz and John’s young bodies to stand on their toes and see over the wall. However, at that time, ‘Syrena Liev’ no longer existed.
“No, father!! It’s a lie!!”
The young heir of the Marquis of Hawes cried out as he was grabbed by his employees. Lord Baek Liev was burned for the unforgivable sin of treason.
Ainz looked at the small smoke that could be seen even in her own room, without taking his eyes off her. Until the day dawns and the smoke fades away. He continued to stand there. And so he watched the name of ‘Liev’ disappear.
* * *
After Liev’s name disappeared, Ainz began taking care of the violets one by one. John silently looked at the violets that his friend was growing for a while. When the violets were in full bloom at the Marquis of Hawes, Ainz left the Marquis’s home. This was because the news he had forgotten about was delivered. During his childhood, his mother, who was the object of his fear, reportedly took her own life.
The ancient dragon, Eskaya’s treasure, stabbed the neck of ‘Syria’ Rose. She said she did so and she died. Ainz had only one word to say when he heard that news.
“Okay.”
Without much emotion, as if he had known that would happen, Ainz calmly accepted his mother’s death and took over as leader of Rainswain. The thing he cared most about was taking care of the violets he had planted around the mansion so they did not wither. Was it because of sincere care? Even in a land where winter never lasts, violets bloomed brightly and colored Rainswain’s mansion. One early morning in the blooming spring, a customer with eyes resembling violets came to visit.
“Hello, Ainz.”
Ainz’s eyes widened in surprise at the glimpse of her face, but then he smiled faintly.
〈One Greater Happiness〉, it was the appearance of ‘Ainz Rainswain’.
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Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. I hope you liked it <3
If you like my work please support me with Ko-fi or Patreon. Next post will be released on March, 9.
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