Roaring Heroes Battle the Overlord (Ainz) - Part 1 (Chapters 1 to 200)

Chapter 63: Farewell

There's an old saying that hits the nail on the head: the more you put in, the more you value it.

In Sean's hometown in Baharuth, there was a neighbor—a middle-aged man who'd fought on the battlefield for years before retiring to the countryside, with a weird and reclusive personality. When Sean was a kid, he was just as naughty as the other boys his age, so naturally, the neighbor couldn't stand him.

But one time, Sean's parents weren't home, and it just so happened that a gnoll tribe from the nearby forest raided the village. Sean didn't make it back to lock the door in time, so he got grabbed by gnolls right at his doorstep and dragged off into the woods.

In that desperate moment, the neighbor—who'd never once given Sean a kind look—grabbed the long sword that had been gathering dust in his wardrobe for ages, picked up a round table as a makeshift wooden shield, and charged solo into the gnolls' spear line to rescue Sean.

In the days that followed, the neighbor, who'd nearly given his life to save Sean, treated him like his own flesh and blood.

After Sean turned twenty, he decided to leave the longbow unit and become an adventurer, with no guarantees for his life or future. Sean's birth parents didn't say a word about it, but the neighbor blew his top. After all, he'd risked everything to save Sean, and seeing him slack off like this drove him up the wall.

Thinking back on that reclusive old man who could no longer heft a long sword or a round table, Sean still felt a warm glow in his heart. But he had no choice but to become an adventurer—his father had failed in business, and the family's farm and cows had all been mortgaged to the miller. Relying solely on the paltry salary from his knight order officer post, even the old family house would probably end up mortgaged too.

Luckily, he had a decent knack for archery; without grinding through practice day after day, he'd already reached the point where he never missed a shot.

His buddies all joked that he must have some elf blood in him, but he knew he was just the only son of a washed-up farmer. After earning his first bounty and barely managing to save the old house, he kept on with the adventurer's journey.

Thanks to his top-notch archery skills, he worked his way up to platinum-level adventurer, which put him squarely in the mid-ranks of the huge adventurer crowd. Years of roughing it as an adventurer—eating in the wind and sleeping under the stars—turned the boy into a young man, and his heart got forged tough in the fires of the real world.

Sean figured he'd keep drifting from place to place like this forever, just like his admired senior Barrett, becoming a steady and low-key high-tier veteran adventurer.

Then he met Stella, a gentle and kind-hearted silver-level teenage cleric. Sean couldn't quite put his finger on what drew him to Stella—whether it was the subtle hint of sorrow in her light brown eyes, or the focused look on her face when she strained to cast healing spells.

He didn't know; he just quietly tailed her, got close to her, and pulled out all the stops to join the adventurer team she was in.

The young archer didn't dare spill his feelings. He knew full well that Stella came from a fallen noble family, with a brother who gambled like his life depended on it, her frail frame carrying debts even heavier than his own.

Right now, he couldn't offer Stella any kind of future, so all he could do was desperately keep his hair and looks neat and tidy, kick his habit of smoking to stay sharp, and try his best to come off as an honest and dependable guy.

He saved up money on the sly, secretly mapping out a possible future for the two of them in his mind, while his heart raced with worry that Stella might say yes to someone else's confession before he got the chance.