[Phiiil! I came to play!]
[What should we play today!? Should we go out to town again to look for people in trouble!?]
[Ah, that’s my bread! You have your own, Phil, why are you taking mine!?]
At the old scenes that surfaced in his mind, Phil’s lips curled slightly.
(Is it because I talked about Abi for the first time in a while thanks to Lily? I didn’t think I was the type to get sentimental like this.)
He opened the drawer and took out a photo sleeping in the back.
There, arms around each other’s shoulders with smiling faces, were a young Phil and… a boy with the same smile. Both looked so happy, their closeness evident at a glance.
“I never thought you’d become a puppet hero back then. Well, even if I’d known, you would’ve become a puppet hero anyway.”
Satisfied, Phil put the photo back in the drawer.
At that moment, without even hearing a knock, the door suddenly opened.
“Phil-oniichan, let’s play together!”
Lily appeared in her cute frilled loungewear and ran toward Phil sitting in his chair.
“What about Ilya? If you’re recruiting a playmate, that work-shirking advocate would raise their hand first, right?”
“Ilya-chan said she was sleepy and went to sleep…”
“So she hadn’t been sleeping.”
No wonder she was up early, Phil thought, remembering Ilya’s appearance in the room that morning.
Rather than being surprisingly early-rising, she was free-spirited about sleeping when she got sleepy—unexpectedly similar to Phil.
That said, it wasn’t hard to imagine that Kahlua would scold her if she found out.
“But, Phil-oniichan.”
“Mm?”
“Did something good happen? Your cheeks are all loose.”
Lily, who poked her face out beside him, tilted her head.
“A-ah… I just ended up remembering things about Abi too.”
Saying that, Phil took out the photo from the drawer once more.
Seeing it, Lily’s eyes sparkled.
“Waah! Phil-oniichan has a photo with Abi-oniichan too!”
“Well, we were childhood friends. If I didn’t have one, I’d get bashing from everywhere for being such a heartless man.”
“I see, Phil-oniichan and Abi-oniichan were childhood friends, right?”
Nostalgically, Phil narrowed his eyes.
Then, as if slowly digging up memories, he spoke in a small voice.
“Yeah, that’s right. We were friends who were always together since long ago—”
Flashback ~Childhood Friends~
Abi Biklan.
An ordinary commoner living in Salemabart territory.
Phil and Abi’s meeting was nothing special, just a simple bumping into each other.
Getting fed up with lessons and studies, Phil secretly flew out to town and met Abi. They simultaneously found a lost child, and it started from helping search for someone who knew that child together.
“You, what’s your name?”
“Abi Biklan! As for you… well, I don’t need to ask. If you’re a territory resident, you’d know you’re Phil-Salemabart-sama.”
“Cut that out, that kind of formal speech. I came all the way out of the mansion, it makes me feel stuffy.”
From that day on, the two quickly became close friends.
For Phil, who rarely had opportunities to talk with someone close in age, it was novel in itself, and it seemed inevitable that he’d find it fun.
On the other hand, Phil, who wasn’t very noble-like, was easy to get along with, and for the naturally sociable Abi, it was only a matter of time before they became friends.
And above all, the biggest factor in why the two became close was—
“Hey, Phil… that person…”
“A thug in my territory… don’t mess with me. Let’s go, Abi!”
“Yeah!”
The two were, for better or worse, people with a strong sense of justice.
If they saw someone in trouble, they’d rush to help regardless of who it was. Sometimes they’d face adults and get beaten in return.
Even so, the two innocent heroes continued helping people.
Therefore, their relationship grew deeper and deeper. They’d eat meals with Abi’s family, and when Abi came to play at Phil’s mansion, his parents would welcome him.
Phil’s mother, Maria, in particular, had taken quite a liking to Abi.
“Ahh, geez! Abi-kun is really so cute! I want him as a son!”
“W-wait a moment, Maria-sama!?”
“Hey, Mother… you really said that in front of your son. If I pack my bags and run away from home, don’t stop me, okay? Don’t stop me!?”
“Should I tell Abi-kun’s parents [my son will be in your care]?”
“Don’t decide where I’m running away to while ignoring me!? And if you’re a parent, stop me, don’t condone it! Learn from looking at Zan that such educational policies ruin sons!”
“Ahaha… but, you’d probably be welcomed, Phil.”
—This was a story from when Phil was still ten or eleven.
And this relationship with his childhood friend… lasted only two years.
By the time two years had passed, their relationship had ended.
“Phil… I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
Whether fortunate or unfortunate.
Abi pulled the trigger for the final act alone.
“I… became a mage.”
The birth of the youngest mage in the kingdom’s history.
There was no way they’d overlook it.
The kingdom… immediately took the mage named Abi into the royal family’s embrace.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT gadgetizedpanda.net
“—Come to think of it, how did you and Abi meet, Lily?”
Phil asked while patting Lily’s head.
“At the royal castle.”
Lily spoke while narrowing her eyes contentedly.
Nostalgically, Lily also opened the locket at her chest.
“…Everyone would, you know, lift me up. Saying they loved me, that they adored me. But, at times like that… only Abi-oniichan properly saw me as me. When I was crying, he stayed by my side the whole time.”
“A popular princess has endless sources of worry even from a young age. You probably wanted a different toy sometimes. And Abi being Abi is the epitome of being himself.”
“If you say that, Phil-oniichan is the same, you know? You properly see me as me too.”
No flattery. No reverence, no adoration, no worship.
You can tell by looking at his current behavior. He’s treating her casually as if she were a younger sister, as the one girl named Lily.
Needless to say, this attitude would be wrong for a noble.
However, ironically for Lily, this was painful… and the attitude that could even be taken as disrespectful was what made her happy.
“…But, Abi-oniichan died.”
As if remembering something unpleasant, Lily’s face changed to one about to cry.
“…Yeah, I was surprised too when I got the letter.”
“Weren’t you sad?”
“I was sad… in many ways.”
He rested his chin on his hand, showing an expression of helplessness.
“That’s all there is to the fate of a guy who couldn’t be free. Even if he became a hero among the masses, he’d just become a workhorse. If you keep picking up every voice asking for help, anyone can easily figure out that the vessel will break.”
“…………”
“But the people don’t stop. Of course, the hero is the same. In the end, the only freedom in that guy’s life was… before he became the hero he wanted to be.”
How ironic, Phil shrugged.
Lily’s expression didn’t change at all.
“Don’t be depressed, I don’t think the royal family that took him on was bad.”
“B-but…”
“Abi doesn’t think that either. Otherwise, the Abi in Lily’s memories wouldn’t be smiling.”
Phil grabbed Lily’s sides and placed her on his lap.
Surprised by the sudden action, Lily quickly narrowed her eyes at the warmth she felt on her head.
“That’s right… yeah, Abi-oniichan looked happy at the royal castle too.”
“Even if the ending was the worst, if he was satisfied with the process, it’s probably fine.”
“Yeah!”
Lily showed a beaming smile.
She probably felt better. It was only natural that she felt released from the guilt squirming inside her.
But Phil told one lie.
—Why did he come to pursue the ideal of [freedom]?
There lay the answer to that lie.
(…Well, I don’t need to say it. The clean memory is probably what he’d want too.)
He suddenly looked outside the window.
A clear, refreshing blue sky. There’s no point having such gloomy conversations on a day like this.
After all, it’s a finished story for them, a beautiful memory with a friend who’ll never return.
“Phil, I’m coming in.”
Click. The room’s door opened.
“I asked her to leave, but she was more persistent than I thought—”
And then Kahlua, who appeared, caught sight of Phil and the others in her vision.
Immediately, Kahlua’s cheeks puffed up cutely.
“…jealous.”
“I get it, I get it, I’ll do it for you later too, so don’t make such an obviously unpleasant face. It’s bad for children’s education—if Lily picks it up, the mansion’s people will collapse and put up a ‘closed for business’ sign.”
“I’m not a child!?”
At this comfortable scene from a day, Phil couldn’t help but smile.
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