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Autobiography: The Great Sage's Continental Memoirs
My name is Otfleet, an ordinary old man.
Well, the people around call me the great sage without permission, though.
I'm already old, but when it comes to magic, I’m not going to lose to anyone yet.
This old man, who is respected by wizards all over the continent, and even the king himself, is facing a serious problem now. My grandson, he has been acting strange lately.
My grandson's name is Armin. He will be 10 years old this year. His parents, in other words my daughter and my son-in-law, were killed by the demon king's army when he was eight years old. After that, I decided to take him on a journey to train him.
I want to raise Armin to be strong enough to survive even against the demon king's army in the future. For that reason, I continued to give him tough and severe training every day.
However, Armin could not endure the training. If this continues, he will never become stronger. On the contrary, he began to develop a habit of running away when things get tough.
I'm afraid he will grow up to be a cowardly adult instead of a full-fledged man. To be honest, I don’t know what to do any more. I couldn't face my daughter in the heaven at this rate.
Things worked out when I was raising my daughter this way, but it doesn't seem to be the case with my grandson.
What should I do, Granny? Please help me.
Maybe it’s impossible for me to raise our grandson alone, after all.
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However, Armin had suddenly changed. This happened when we stopped by a village near the border during our journey. I was asked to exterminate monsters after a certain husband and wife in the village were killed by them.
The couple left behind a daughter. The girl seemed to be hiding it, but she had pure white hair just like mine. There was also this mysterious aura around her.
Just like Armin, the girl's parents were killed by monsters and she would also turn 10 years old this year. You couldn't blame me for thinking that it was some kind of fate and I had to do something for her. Thus I decided to accept the request.
However, something happened when I went to exterminate the monkey monster --- Balbaa'affe, who killed the girl's parents. My grandson had gone missing in the forest.
Three days had passed since then and I still hadn't fond any clues about his whereabouts. But when I started doing a search operation using wind magic, he came back to the village on his own for some reason.
This is when I noticed that my grandson had changed. First of all, his expression had became full of ambition, as if he was infatuated with something. Then he also began to actively carry out the training he had always hated. I could even sense a tremendous concentration and a tremendous desire to improve from him.
He remained tight-lipped about what happened during the time he was missing, but something good must had happened to him. In any case, I'm glad that things had started to work out with my grandson.
However, that was not all. My grandson’s taste buds seemed to have changed as well. He began to crave sweets every day. Whenever we arrived in a new town, the first thing he would do was to go to the honey shop. There he would try to buy all the honey that was in the shop.
Each time, I held down my excited grandson and only bought him as much honey as he could carry around. Then as soon as we left the shop, he immediately scooped up the honey with his finger and started licking it without a care in his surroundings.
He shouldn't have been the kind of child who likes honey this much before....
Well, I have no problem as long as my grandson was happy, but after he licked the honey, he always muttered "This is no good." and made a depressed face. I wonder if the honey was not to his taste.
I don't want to see my grandson, who has worked so hard, feels sad, so I decided to go see the king. He is the most important person in this country. I'm sure he knows the best quality honey in this country. I just received a summon from him, so it's just right.
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It's been four years since I've been to the royal capital of the Kingdom of Gardenia. If I remember it correctly, the last time I was here is when there was a big parade to send off the hero party.
The hero --- who is this country's prince, his fiancée --- who is the greatest saint of the century, the son of the royal knight chief, the young star of the court magician, and several other people, went on their journey to subjugate the demon king.
However, I heard that they returned to the royal capital without facing the demon king even once in the end. Some of the members of the hero party seemed to have died. Even the hero's fiancée --- the saint, has also fallen in the battle.
I haven't seen other girl who could use light magic of her level in my decades of life. Losing her was such a big blow to the country.... no, to the humanity.
The surviving hero married the newly appointed saint after that. I heard that she was also a member of the hero party.
That is fine and dandy, but what's with his decision of not going on a journey to subjugate the demon king again? Even after his comrades sacrificed their lives and the people in his country are being threatened by the demon king's army.
His father --- the king, he even told me that he was troubled by the fact that his son wouldn't leave the royal capital no matter how many times he tried to persuade him. He apparently only listens to what his new wife says.
There's a limit of being an obedient husband. Well, I admit that I couldn't go against my wife either. But if it were my wife, she would kick me out of the house and tell me to hurry and defeat the demon king, instead. Thanks to her, I found myself being called the great sage by the people around me now.
It's already been three years since then, but he still refuses to continue the mission to subjugate the demon king. I wonder if there's a good reason for this. Otherwise, he just lacks of self-awareness as someone who carries the country on his back.
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In addition to being introduced to the finest honey shop in the country by the king, I also learned various of things. After all, information is gathered when you come to the center of the country.
Year 1020 of history. Many things have happened this year. In the winter, an unusually cold wave hit the kingdom. This caused not once-in-a-decade, but once-in-a-hundred-years heavy snowfall, and paralyzed the country's functions. The plains regions were still safe, but the mountainous regions were hit with unimaginable amounts of snow.
In the midst of this situation, a certain fortified city was invaded and fell into the demon king's army. For the Kingdom of Gardenia, this city was an important frontline against the demon king's army's advance, where the largest force of the kingdom’s army was stationed.
It's said that the demon king's army attacked the city from the sky using a flock of dragons. Maybe they were the dragons from the mountainous area I went before. I couldn't find them at that time, but it's possible that they were already left the area in preparation for this attack. If only I had gone there earlier, I could have returned those dragons to the mountain’s soil.
I've heard that the current demon king could control the weather. This cold wave could be his doing as well. None of this would happen if only the hero defeats him sooner.
The other big news was the witches who were wanted by the empire and had escaped to our country seemed to have been found on the frontier. By national policy, witches must be subjugated. So immediately, a witch-hunting squad was formed from a neighboring city and set out to subjugate the witches.
The whereabouts of the witches was found almost at the same time the fortified city was invaded. I couldn't help but thinking that it was not unrelated.
That's not all. In a certain forest at the border, monsters seemed to have disappeared mysteriously. The problem was that the forest was known to be inhabited by strong and ferocious monsters. In fact, that's the forest where my grandson Armin went missing before.
Come to think of it, where is he now? He's probably licking the honey from the royal purveyor somewhere. I hope he’s satisfied with it.
The highway that had been closed due to the thick snow has finally been restored. Instead of the hero who doesn't seem to be going to move his ass anytime soon, I will do a little work for the country.
Well, the actual reason is because I've received a received a letter from my wife telling me to do something about the demon king's army as soon as possible. I don't want her to kick my ass.