A week had passed. It took three weeks to reach the royal capital from Lamoor. Tonight, as usual, we halted along the road to rest, and I was currently standing in line waiting to receive my dinner rations.
"Is this... all?"
Looking down at the single rock-hard lump of black bread handed to me by the middle-aged man serving as cook, the question slipped out before I could stop myself. It was true that I was sharing a carriage with Rosemary and the others, but my travel expenses had been paid to the merchant in advance. That was what Grandpa had told me. There was no reason for me to be treated this way in the first place.
"These are Lord Fracton's orders. Come on, you're holding up the line. Move along, move along!"
The middle-aged cook waved his right hand as if swatting away a fly.
Fracton was that pompous noble with the beard. He detested me to an absurd degree; every time we crossed paths, he cursed me as incompetent and subjected me to this sort of childish harassment.
Then again, the attitude of Rose's retainers toward me was hardly any different from Fracton's, save for a select few. Protesting would be utterly pointless.
Just as I turned to head back to my tent, a violent shove struck my back, sending me diving face-first into the dirt.
"Hey, worthless scum! What do you think you're doing bumping into me?!"
A stout, older swordsman with a beard—thick blue veins bulging against his forehead—drove a kick straight up into my stomach.
"Guh!"
The wind was knocked out of me in an instant, followed by a wave of dull, agonizing pain.
"What're you gonna do if you defile me, huh?!"
As he swung his boot again, I curled up like a turtle to ride out the blows.
If you're so terrified of being defiled, then just don't touch me. Apparently, even that shred of basic logic, which a toddler could grasp, was far beyond them.
Meanwhile, the surrounding retainers simply watched this flagrant cruelty unfold without making the slightest move to intervene. They're rotten to the core. The thought welled up from the absolute bottom of my heart.
After several kicks had landed—
"Stop it!"
A young woman's furious shout cut through the air, and the boots hammering into me abruptly halted.
Looking up, I saw a red-haired girl grabbing the stout older swordsman's shoulder, her face twisted in rage.
"Hey, Anna! Are you actually defending an apostate like him?!"
To the older swordsman screaming with veins standing out on his brow, she snapped back:
"I'm not defending him! It's just that Lady Rose directly commanded us to treat him as a guest!"
Anna, the red-haired retainer serving Rose, refused to yield an inch.
As the two stood locked in a glare, a new voice broke in.
"What is all this commotion?!"
Catching sight of a blue-haired man with heavy stubble striding toward us, the stout older swordsman clicked his tongue, spat on the ground, and slunk off toward the cook distributing the rations.
"Th-Thank you."
I bowed my head to Anna for stepping in, but—
"If it weren't for Lady Rose's orders, who in their right mind would ever lift a finger for the likes of you?! Get back to your tent at once!"
She spat the words out in a rapid-fire tirade before turning on her heel and marching away.
Passing Anna on the path, the blue-haired man with the greatsword slung across his back approached me. After staring down at me for a beat, he turned a sharp, hawk-like glare on the surrounding retainers.
"All of you will be giving me a thorough explanation for this later!"
He barked the words in a voice that was chillingly cold.
Their faces twitching violently, the white-armored retainers scattered in a panic, desperate to get away from the blue-haired swordsman.
This man was Al-san, the leader of all of Rose's retainers. He was one of the precious few who treated someone as incompetent as me like an actual human being.
"Kai-kun, it seems they've caused trouble for you again. I am truly sorry."
Al-san bowed deeply to me.
"N-No, please. I'm used to it."
It was the truth. A trash Gift holder like me was subjected to this kind of discrimination on a daily basis back in Lamoor.
The Holy Amelia Kingdom in particular held deep devotion to the Holy God of War—God Ares. While not quite as extreme as my hometown of Lamoor, people still measured a person's worth entirely by the value of the Gift bestowed upon them by God Ares. In other words, bearing the title of [The Absolute Most Incompetent Person in the World] meant I was the most worthless creature alive, as well as an apostate despised by God Himself.
The older swordsman claiming he would be defiled by touching me, Anna's frigid demeanor, and the contempt burning in the retainers' eyes all stemmed from the fact that I was an apostate hated by the divine.
Hearing my response, Al-san ground his teeth tightly together for a moment.
"From now on, I will bring your meals directly to your tent," he stated firmly.
"No, you really don't have to go that far—"
"Kai-kun, a child ought to be more honest about needing help."
Leaving behind those words, Al-san walked over to the middle-aged cook.
As Rose's retainers in line scrambled out of his way, he stepped directly in front of the man.
"Hand over his meal." Al-san issued the order in a quiet, low voice.
"B-But Lord Fracton said—"
"Did you not hear me?! I told you to hand over the food. That is an order!"
With dead, unwavering eyes, he seized the man by the collar and roared into his face.
"Y-Yes, sir! Right away!"
Letting out a pathetic shriek, the cook ladled the food into a bowl with trembling hands, set it onto a wooden tray, and held it out to me.
"I will properly discipline these shameless fools myself. Rest easy. I will never allow this to happen again for the rest of the journey."
With that, Al-san marched toward the tent belonging to that noble named Fracton, his face carved with the fury of a demon.
I picked up my tray and headed back to my own tent.
◇◆◇◆◇◆
—Mountain Path, the Great Silke Forest
A few days later, we entered the Great Silke Forest. Tonight, we were encamped in one of the open clearings set aside along the mountain path for resting travelers.
Ever since Al-san took to delivering my meals personally, the overt harassment from Rose's retainers had vanished entirely.
Granted, they still looked at me as if staring at raw sewage and avoided me like the plague. But simply being free from the active cruelty made my days considerably more bearable.
Honestly, it had been like this ever since that day. From the moment of that divine revelation, my life had turned upside down.
Naturally, those I had clashed with before were cruel, but even the people I had considered friends turned on me, hurling insults and branding me an incompetent apostate.
At first, the pain had been devastating, but I had three people by my side: Laila, Lena, and Keith. Only those three had continued to treat me the exact same way despite my incompetence.
"I wonder what Lena and Keith are doing right now..."
At that divine revelation, Lena and Keith had been confirmed to possess the Gifts of Sword Saint and Grand Mage, respectively, and were currently living in the royal capital to undergo training.
Both of them had fiercely rejected the idea of going to the capital at first, but unlike Roman, their objections had been flatly denied.
The reason came down to the exceptional nature of their Gifts.
Keith possessed the Gift of Grand Mage. A Gift inherently tied to magic. However, though Lamoor was a renowned martial fortress city, its grasp of magic was mediocre at best. One couldn't properly study the arcane arts in Lamoor. Because of that, the kingdom's government had ordered Keith to the capital to serve as an apprentice to the Court Head Mage.
As for Lena, she was a Gift holder who could serve as the ultimate rallying banner in the war against the demons as the Sword Saint. They likely felt the urgent need to make the existence of a young girl blessed with the Sword Saint Gift known to the public as quickly as possible. Thus, the Amelia Kingdom's government had strictly ordered her to join the Hero's party—the supreme elite unit dedicated to exterminating the Demon King's army—and train in the capital.
Unlike Laila and me, who had been subjected to grueling training since childhood, Lena was a girl who had never even gripped a wooden practice sword. Forcing a child like that into the Hero's party, the vanguard tasked with slaying the Demon King, was pure madness under normal circumstances.
Naturally, I had protested. But nobody would listen to a single word from a worthless failure like me. Instead, the people around me had mocked me mercilessly, writing it all off as petty jealousy.
"Kai, are you still awake?"
A clear, bell-like feminine voice chimed from outside the canvas, pulling me from my thoughts.
"Yeah. I'm awake."
Answering immediately, I sat up just as a beautiful girl draped in a pure white robe entered the tent, gently brushing back a stray lock of lustrous pink hair.
Rose was the master of all those retainers. To be completely honest with myself, I found her difficult to deal with. I wanted to avoid getting tangled up with her as much as possible.
"Did you need something?" I asked, unable to hide my tension.
"I am so very sorry!"
She bowed deeply to me, offering an earnest apology.
"Huh? Wait, what?"
As I blinked in utter bewilderment at the unprompted apology, she continued.
"I heard from... Al. About what the knights did to you the other day."
Her face was clouded with deep remorse, entirely unlike her usual bright self, and she nervously wrung her hands as she spoke in a faint voice.
"Oh... Well, it'd be a lie to say I didn't care at all, but it's already in the past."
Dwelling on it any further wouldn't do either of us any good. At the very least, I was currently being treated like an actual person. That was more than enough for me.
Besides, it was unlikely that I would ever cross paths with a high-ranking noble like Rose once we reached our destination, so there was no point in getting overly familiar.
"Still, it's because of my selfishness—demanding of the Sword Saint that I travel together with you to the capital, Kai..."
Wanted to travel with me, huh? Under normal circumstances, no one would even consider such a thing unless they already knew who I was. Of course, as the Sword Saint's sole disgrace, I suppose I was famous in a sense, but she didn't strike me as the kind of person who would pester Grandpa just to satisfy some shallow curiosity.
"Rose-san, why did you want me to come along on this journey in the first place?"
"Because you are Lena and Keith's childhood friend."
"You know them?!"
"Yes. The Court Head Mage is also my magic instructor, making Keith my junior fellow disciple. And Lena Grot is my dearest friend."
To be studying directly under the Court Head Mage... just who on earth was this girl? Could she really be the Saint? No, impossible. If she were, Lamoor would have been thrown into utter chaos over her arrival.
"So you heard about me from the two of them?"
"Yes. In particular, Lena talks about you constantly. Truth be told, I might know even more about you than Keith does."
She had probably spilled every single embarrassing memory from my past without holding back. Then again, Lena and I had been practically joined at the hip for as long as I could remember.
"I see. Is that why you had me join this retinue?"
"Yes. You are the person those two hold so dear, so I wanted to meet you at least once. That is why I imposed upon the Sword Saint and insisted that you accompany us."
"Is Lena... doing all right in the Hero's party?"
She was an airhead through and through, so truth be told, I had been worried sick that she might get badly hurt or picked on.
"I suspect it is thanks to that naturally bright, innocent nature of hers. She is quite beloved by the knights, not to mention the Hero and the rest of the party."
I see. Hearing that lifted a massive weight from my chest. That piece of news alone made joining this escort worth every second.
"Rose-san, thank you so much for telling me."
I bowed my head in heartfelt gratitude.
After that, Rose and I spent some time talking about our childhood and how we used to live, but when her red-haired retainer, Anna, stormed into the tent with the face of a demon, Rose quietly excused herself and returned to her own quarters.
A short while after she left, Al-san—the burly, blue-haired man with stubble—stepped inside my tent.
"Pardon the late intrusion."
"Not at all. Is something wrong?"
For him to visit at this hour meant he likely had a reason.
"Thank you for speaking with Lady Rose, especially after everything that happened. She was truly overjoyed to have an open, honest conversation with you."
Straightening his posture, Al-san bowed his head to me.
"N-No, please don't bow! If anything, I should be the one thanking her for even bothering to talk to someone as incompetent as me. I mean—"
"Though not quite as extreme as yours, I was granted a bottom-tier Gift myself. That is why I feel a kinship with you."
"A bottom-tier Gift..."
"Yeah. So this is the one thing I can tell you with certainty: Hang in there! If you put in the effort, it will surely pay off in the end!"
With a solemn, resolute expression, as if steeling himself against fate itself, Al-san tapped my chest lightly with his right fist and slipped back out of the tent.
Effort will pay off, huh? That was the first time in my life anyone had ever told me that. Putting together everything I knew, Rose had to be an exceptionally high-ranking noble lady in the kingdom. And Al-san had climbed all the way to become the head of her retainers through sheer, unyielding effort alone. It was genuinely incredible. I wondered if someday, I could become someone who was needed by others, just like Al-san.
The moment I lay down, exhaustion claimed me, and my consciousness faded away into sleep.