From the Great Sage’s Perspective

***

My name is Otfried.
Just a humble old man, that’s all.


People around me call me the Great Sage, though.

But you see, I’m just an old geezer.
Well, when it comes to magical prowess, I don’t intend to lose to anyone.


I’ve earned the respect of mages across the continent, even received official courtesies from the king. But lately, I’ve been troubled.

My grandson, Armin, has been acting strangely.


Armin, my grandson, is going to be ten this year. .

His parents, my daughter and her husband, were killed by the Demon King’s army.
Poor child. At eight years old, he had to be torn away from his parents. What a terrible fate.

So, I decided to take him with me on my travels.

Along the way, I could train him.

I must train him to become strong enough to survive even against the Demon King’s forces.
That’s why I subjected him to harsh and grueling training.


But Armin couldn’t endure it.

At this rate, he won’t grow strong.
If anything, he’s developing a habit of running away.

Far from becoming a capable man, he might grow to a coward.
Honestly, I didn’t know what more I could do.

I couldn’t even face my daughter in heaven.

I managed with her upbringing somehow, but with my grandson, it seems I’ve hit my limit.


What am I to do?
Grandmother, help me… I may be incapable of raising him.


But then, Armin suddenly changed.

It happened when I went to a certain border village.

A local couple had been killed by a monster, and the villagers asked us to eliminate the threat.

They had left a daughter behind.

Her hair was hidden, but it was pure white, like mine.
She gave off an unusual aura.

The girl was apparently about to turn ten.
Armin was also ten, and both had lost their parents. It was natural for me to feel a connection.

I accepted the request, thinking it was fate that I helped her.

While I went to defeat the Barbaffe, the one who killed her parents, an incident occurred.


Armin went missing in the forest.

Three days passed without a trace, yet he hadn’t returned. When I began using wind magic to search for him, he returned immediately for some reason. I was worried sick.


But then…

That was when my grandson changed.

First, his expression changed.
He now looked focused, almost inspired, with an aura of determination.

Then, he began to approach the training he had once hated with vigor.
His concentration and drive were remarkable.

He didn’t say what had happened in the forest, but something good must’ve happened to my grandson.

I could finally uphold my daughter’s honor.


But that wasn’t all.

His taste changed, too. He began craving sweets.

When we arrived in a new town, he’d go straight for the honey shop.
There, he’d try to buy all the honey he could.

I had to restrain my excited grandson, buying only as much as he could carry.
The moment we left the shop, he’d grab the honey and start licking it.

He had never been so fond of honey before.

Yet each time he licked it, he would mutter, “This isn’t good enough,” with a disappointed look.

Perhaps he hadn’t yet found honey to his liking.

I didn’t want my grandson, who had finally become hardworking, to be disheartened.

So, I decided to visit the king.

The king, being the most knowledgeable person in the country, surely knew where to find the highest-quality honey.

Coincidentally, I had been summoned to the capital, so it worked out.


Gardenia Kingdom’s capital.
It had been four years since my last visit.

At that time, the Hero’s party had just departed to defeat the Demon King.


The Hero, the prince; his fiancée, the greatest saint of the age; the kingdom’s knight captain’s son; a rising court mage; and a few others left the city together.

In the end, it seemed the Demon King was never defeated.


I hear several members of the Hero’s party never returned.
Even the saint, the fiancée of the Hero, was lost.

I hadn’t seen a girl wield such brilliant light magic in decades. What a tragic loss.

The surviving Hero had married the newly appointed saint.
They were apparently companions

That part doesn’t bother me, but what I can’t understand is why, even after their comrades were slain and the people of the kingdom are being threatened by the Demon King’s army, they make no move to go and defeat the Demon Lord again.

Even the king mentioned at a banquet how troubled he is by the fact that the Hero would not leave the capital, no matter how often he was urged.

It seems the Hero only listens to his wife now. Even for a henpecked husband, that’s taking it a bit far.

I couldn’t go against my old lady either, but she would have kicked me in the rear to get me to go and defeat the Demon King’s army.

Thanks to that, I became known as the Great Sage before I knew it.

Three years have passed since the saint’s death, yet the Hero’s wife still refuses to confront the Demon Lord.

The Hero really lacks awareness of what it means to bear the weight of a nation.
What in the world is he thinking?

There must be a reason. Otherwise, it’s absurd.
Makes me think something else is going on


Besides the king introducing me to the best honey in the land, there were other benefits.

Information flows better in the capital.


Celestial Year 1020.

It was a year full of events.

That winter, an extraordinary cold wave swept across the kingdom.

Snow piled up in record amounts, not seen in decades, but rather in a century.

Consequently, the kingdom’s operations grinded to a halt.

While plains fared better, the mountainous regions were buried in unimaginable snow.

As if that weren’t enough, a certain city was invaded by the Demon Lord’s army during the snowstorm.

The fallen city had been a fortress city, the Kingdom of Gardenia’s frontline defense against the Demon King.

It housed the greatest military strength of the kingdom as well.

Isolated by the snowstorm, the city was attacked by a swarm of dragons from the Demon King’s army.

I suspect they were the same dragons I went searching for in the mountains.

They were lying low back then, but perhaps they were moving about preparing for this.
Had I encountered them sooner, I could have sent those dragons to the mountain’s soil.

I’ve heard the current Demon King can even control the weather.

Perhaps this great cold wave was his doing.

If the Hero had set out to defeat the Demon King sooner, none of this would have happened.


But the news didn’t end there.


A witch, wanted by the Empire, fled to our kingdom and was spotted in the frontiers.

By national policy, the witch must be eliminated.

Immediately, a witch-hunting force was assembled from nearby towns and dispatched to slay her.

This witch was discovered around the same time the fortress city fell.
There might be some connection between the two events.


But that’s not all

Around the same time, monsters began disappearing from a certain forest.

A forest famed for its strong monsters.
That forest happens to be the one where Armin went missing.
I hope he’s had nothing to do with that.


Speaking of Armin, where could my grandson be?

he’s probably licking the honey from the royal purveyor right now.

I hope it satisfies him.



Now that the snow-blocked roads have reopened, I suppose it’s time I do a little work for the kingdom in Hero’s place.
Well in reality, I received a letter from my wife demanding I deal with the Demon King’s army quickly. So I’d better get moving before my rear gets sore.

***

Author’s Note:

This time, I answered a request and inserted a side story: the nectar-obsessed boy, from his grandfather’s perspective.
Writing in the grandfather’s first-person was difficult, I had never written or read it before, but it was refreshing.

Tomorrow, two updates are planned.

Next Time: Winter’s Arrival

TL’s Note:

To clarify, these author’s notes were written not by me but by the actual author of the story. We’re two different people.