“Act the way you used to around us, and you’ll find yourself reported and charged for the mockery of a noble lady.”
Roberini, who stood beside Ashley, looked down at me with an arrogant expression.
So this is it. Now that we’re divorced, she wants to draw a sharp line in the sand over status.
They are nobles. I am not.
Just a commoner who happened to be good with a sword in the past.
A commoner who got lucky enough to marry a noble young lady, they say.
Damn it all.
It wasn’t luck.
My skill was undeniably national-treasure class.
That’s how I got famous.
Charmed by that very side of me, it was Ashley who proposed.
“One more thing. If you go around exposing what happened during our marriage to the world, I won’t let it slide. You’d better be prepared if you do. I’ll do anything for my sister.”
Serina glared at me with her arms crossed.
The look in her eyes was as though she were staring at some worthless insect.
“If you’re a man, act like one. Stop being so pathetic.”
Roberini. Serina.
If only these two women hadn’t been around—if that were the case—perhaps I wouldn’t be getting divorced today.
Even if I had ended up divorcing, it might have happened much later.
These two women accelerated the divorce.
They were always stuck to Ashley’s side, cutting me down viciously and constantly egging her on to divorce me.
They were like sworn enemies to me.
But I didn’t quite see them that way.
I merely clicked my tongue.
I turned my back.
It was time to leave.
“I’ll be going now.”
“Goodbye.”
Ashley, at least, still had some shred of decency; she replied curtly with an expressionless face.
By contrast, Roberini and Serina wore truly obnoxious expressions.
“Don’t ever show yourself again.”
“Disappear quickly. I don’t want to see you limping around.”
I had wanted to tell my wife to live happily, at least.
But I suppose I’m only human after all.
Because I’m human, having suffered so much at the hands of these three, and now being discarded on top of it… truthfully, I resented my wife, if only a little.
In the end, I couldn’t say it.
Since we’re broken up anyway, let me forget her completely.
Let me never think of Ashley again.
Three years of marriage.
It ended like this.
Miserably.
Though such a thing would never happen, I had been wounded so deeply that even if my wife, her younger sister, her friend, and my mother-in-law came crawling back to beg, I would swear there would be no reconciliation.
That was how exhausted I was.
I never wanted to go through a marriage like this again.
***
Late at night.
At a lakeside outside the capital.
A splendid carriage came to a halt.
“We have arrived, my lord.”
“You’ve worked hard.”
When the butler opened the door, Hairge descended.
He had both eyes closed.
“That fishy smell. So I was right about coming to the waterside.”
“Um… will you be alright?”
“Do not worry. I won’t die.”
Thud. Thud.
Hairge took one heavy step after another toward the lake, supported by the butler.
“We are here, my lord.”
“Yes. I’m trembling.”
Hairge took a deep breath, then slowly opened his eyes.
Moonlight upon the lake entered his sight.
A beautiful night scene.
“Urk!”
Soon his limbs began to tremble, and he collapsed to the ground.
“Uuaaaack!”
“My lord!”
Foam spilled from his mouth, and he soon lost consciousness.
Two hours later, he opened his eyes again at his estate.
Hairge sat up in bed and quietly gazed out the window.
“…Not yet, is it.”
***
After the divorce, I had nowhere to live.
I had money, but I felt no motivation whatsoever to do anything.
I appeared composed on the outside, but the shock of the divorce ran deep within, and I spaced out countless times a day.
Meeting people, signing contracts, going through the process of securing a new house—all of it felt unbearably tedious.
Just having a space to lay my body down was enough.
“…Thank you.”
I decided to stay at the guild house for the time being.
It was thanks to Guild Master Olivia’s consideration.
A communal residence where guild members without families lived, much like a dormitory.
But there were many familiar faces, so it was difficult to relax.
“Huh? Hyung, why are you here? Weren’t you living at the Lafonne household?”
“Did you have a fight with your wife?”
Every time I ran into people in the hallway, it was an endless barrage of these same questions.
If I explained the situation, another volley of questions followed.
“What was the reason for the divorce?”
“When did you get divorced?”
“Didn’t you divide the assets?”
I just wished they would leave me alone.
I had answered them in good faith at first, but at some point, I didn’t want to meet anyone or speak to anyone.
So I holed up in my room.
“Let me disappear for just a month.”
From the day after moving into the communal residence, I locked myself in my room and read nothing but books.
I didn’t even go out to buy food.
If I vanished for a while, word that the Lafonne daughter and son-in-law had divorced would spread throughout the capital, and by then all the guild members would know I was divorced anyway.
Knock, knock.
My appetite had dwindled, and I was losing weight. It had been two weeks since I had gone into hiding in my room.
The sound of knocking came.
Knock, knock, knock.
“I told the Guild Master I’d rest for a month… who is it…”
Scratching my disheveled hair, I opened the door.
A middle-aged gentleman with a short cape draped over his shoulders stood there.
He introduced himself as having been sent by the Queen and courteously bowed.
“Her Majesty is still waiting for you. Has your strength not yet returned?”
“I told you to find someone else. Have you been waiting all this time?”
“We did find others. Five of them, in fact. But they all failed. Therefore, Her Majesty said that Sir Naru is the only one who can resolve her long-cherished wish, and bade me inquire whether you are still unwell.”
“I wish I could help, but…”
Three years ago, even this kingdom’s Queen was a client of mine.
After resolving several requests for her, she took quite a liking to me and assigned me a rather difficult mission.
It was to retrieve her mother’s keepsake, which had fallen into the sea.
But after I lost my power and became crippled, I could no longer proceed with the work and gave up of my own accord.
I was grateful she had not forgotten me and sought me out again, but what I cannot do, I cannot do.
“I am no longer an adventurer. Having been divorced, I am living like a wreck. Please tell Her Majesty exactly what you witnessed here today.”
Don’t worry.
When my strength returns, I will resolve it first thing.
If I cannot finish a task I’ve taken on, I too will not be able to rest easy.
It wasn’t long after the middle-aged gentleman had left.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Someone suddenly hammered on the door.
Hard enough to make one’s face scrunch up.
When I opened the door, a woman with a robust physique stood there.
It was Melissa.
“Hey! I heard you got divorced! Congratulations!”
She was grinning so broadly she looked ecstatic.
“Congratulations, my foot.”
Melissa was a comrade with whom I’d adventured before my marriage.
A black bob cut that gave her the look of a sophisticated woman.
A warrior with a tall stature, a well-built figure, and appropriately pronounced muscles.
I’d heard that after retiring from the adventurer’s life, she was working as a professor at a place called Viusdra Academy.
“You haven’t changed a bit.”
“What do you mean, me? Cut your beard. Anyone would think you’re a sage.”
“I haven’t had any reason to go outside.”
“You idiot!”
Melissa smacked my back.
“What’s the big deal about a divorce! I got divorced too, you punk!”
“I know.”
“Huh? Look at how skinny you’ve gotten. You really don’t look human anymore.”
Not long after I married Ashley three years ago, Melissa had also retired from adventuring, snagged a wealthy man, and gotten married right away.
But perhaps because her married life hadn’t been smooth, she got divorced in less than a year.
There were no children.
“How did you know I was here?”
“The moment I heard the divorce news, I went straight to your Guild Master. She told me you were here. But you’ve lost so much weight. Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry. Anyway, you didn’t make any mistakes, right?”
“Who knows?”
“So you did.”
“I hate that woman. Putting on such airs like she’s some boss.”
“It’s because she has charisma.”
I gave her a light tap and headed toward the kitchen.
“Do I even have anything to offer… I think I’d need to go grocery shopping.”
“Who drinks at home? Let’s go out.”
“To drink?”
“On a day like this, you have to drink. Were you planning not to? Come out, I’m buying. Today I’m treating. I need to fatten you up—you look pathetic.”
Come to think of it, when was the last time I’d had a drink?
Even on the day of the divorce, I’d just spaced out and didn’t touch any alcohol.
With a good friend by my side, I suddenly felt like drinking.
Hmm, maybe I should go out for the first time in a while.
After cleanly shaving my overgrown beard, I went outside with Melissa.
The place we arrived at was a high-class inn located in the center of the city.
It was a cozy room on the inn’s top floor, offering a view of the surrounding scenery from the balcony.
“Nice room, right?”
“Are we drinking in a room because of me?”
“What do you mean, because of you? I wanted to drink quietly somewhere with atmosphere.”
Melissa answered nonchalantly, but no matter how I looked at it, it seemed she had chosen an inn room for my sake.
Likely because I might find people’s attention burdensome.
Melissa had always preferred noisy drinking gatherings with lots of people.
For someone like her to be drinking with just the two of us in a room.
Knowing her personality, she must be bored out of her mind.
Regardless, it was a considerate gesture I was grateful for.
As expected of a good friend.
“Please enjoy your time.”
The staff who brought the food left the room.
Various dishes were lavishly spread across the table.
“Let’s drink!”
“I’ll drink well! Thanks!”
“To Naru’s divorce!”
We clinked our glasses repeatedly, using our adventuring days as drinking snacks and chatting boisterously to our hearts’ content.
“Melissa. I thought I was going to die back then.”
“Agh, me too. If you hadn’t helped me, I probably wouldn’t be in this world.”
“You were the one who did everything.”
“You were the one who cut off all five of that bastard’s legs. You were really brave and fast. You were so gallant… I kind of fell for you back then.”
Melissa raised her glass to drink, but stopped and gazed distantly at nothing in particular.
Because she had been drinking continuously, her cheeks were dyed red.
Her eyes curved into crescents, and she looked to be in high spirits.
“If back then… I had confessed, would you have accepted me?”
“Me? Me?”
What was this girl talking about?
A laugh just spilled out of me.
“How could you and I become a couple? Rock and Ariana would laugh if they heard that.”
Rock and Ariana were comrades from our adventuring days.
After I got married, the party disbanded, and everyone went their separate ways.
“Haha, right? Everyone said you and I don’t suit each other.”
“We only ever played pranks on each other. How could feelings like that develop?”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. I just get mischievous when I see you, you divorced man.”
“You crazy divorcee, you want to die?”
“Hahaha. It’s hilarious that both of us went through it. In the end, we both failed at marriage.”
Both Melissa and I were well and truly drunk. Our words grew lighter, and our actions grew bolder.
We exchanged curses, jokes, and dirty talk, laughing foolishly.
“Let’s drink until we die!”
“Let’s die!”
Before long, twenty empty bottles were scattered across the floor.
We couldn’t even hold our upper bodies upright; we were far from sober.
Our eyes were half-glazed over, and we had lost our reason to the point of barely understanding what the other was saying.
“Drink, you crazy bitch. Hic!”
“You got divorced, you cripple. Guess you couldn’t satisfy her in bed, huh?”
“Keke, what about you?”
“I was like a succubus—I was amazing. He was the problem. Hic!”
“What succubus. It’s obviously your personality, your personality. Looking at the way you act, it’s because you’re a warrior through and through—you’re like a man. Did you get divorced for not being womanly enough?”
“Fuck.”
Melissa slammed down the glass she had been about to drink.
Then, suddenly, she flung off her top.
Her ample breasts spilled out.
“Hey. Do I still not look like a woman to you?”
She cupped the underside with both hands and slapped them.
Her bronze breasts swayed like waves.
“My ex-husband went crazy sucking on them.”
Two lightly colored nipples stood aggressively in my direction.
“Keke, you’re drunk. Really drunk.”
I merely laughed as though I felt nothing.
But without realizing it, I subtly licked my lips and downed my glass in one go.
‘What’s with her? My mind’s suddenly crystal clear.’
Honestly, I was a bit flustered, but I felt I had to pretend to be composed because of the atmosphere.
Since we were close friends, what was the big deal about breasts? I had to act nonchalant, as if it were nothing.