Apprentice to the master of the hero


    Just like that, the 10-year-old me is setting out for a training trip


    In the previous life, it would be 『such an outrageous thing』, but it’s rather normal here


    Using the 『I will become a strong person for the empire』 reason, most people would approve


    The only person who has strong opposition is my sister Selen


    「Gyaa! Noo! Onii-cha don’t go!!」


    Screaming as if being on fire, she is clinging to me and doesn’t release, even when I’m about to leave


    I didn’t think my sister would oppose this much


    Thinking back, I acted like a weak boy in order not to catch the recruiting officer’s attention


    As I didn’t mingle with the other kids of the same age, I spent lots of time with my sister


    Therefore, my sister doesn’t want to be separated。


    Seeing Selen cry makes my chest hurts


    But, I must not give up


    「Selen……」


    Before leaving, I face my sister。


    「Onii-chan will surely return. At that time, let’s play with each other again」


    「That’s a promise, liar will have to eat hundred thousand needles」


    My sister’s retort is nasty


    In the end, Selen hugged me really strongly and reluctantly parted, and I finally left the imperial capital。


    I left the place I was born in for a short time


    The time I will return is 5 years later


    ◆


    ……Then


    I was on a journey on the pretext of training


    Within the time limit, I must become strong as much as possible


    Or, as I finally left the capital and gained freedom, if I just disappear to somewhere and become unrelated to the empire, maybe I can avoid the ruined future?


    ……I also have that choice


    It’s not like I didn’t think about that before, but I immediately rejected it


    If I did that, I would betray the expectation of mother and father, who trusted and allowed me to leave, and would break my promise of 『will surely return』 with Selen


    In the past, this world is just a game I enjoyed, but right now it’s the world I live in


    They are my family


    I cannot cast them away


    Therefore, to avoid the ruined future without abandoning them, I must become stronger


    I left for that reason


    Then, how can I become stronger?


    Just go randomly and suddenly become stronger is not possible


    But I’m not worry


    I have a plan


    I know everything about this world from the game play in previous life


    How to efficiently and surely become stronger, the answer was already settled


    I embarked on a journey to execute the most effective and efficient 『method to get stronger』


    I head to a certain place


    If I go there, at least I will be on the same level as the protagonist of 『Beast Fantasy 4』


    How can I be that confident, you ask?


    The place I head to is where the master of the protagonist of 『Beast Fantasy 4』 lives (master here = teacher)


    The protagonist of 『Beast Fantasy 4』, the hero of wisdom Sero (セロ) was training under that person every day for a while


    He was raising his power to oppose the empire there


    Then


    If I go to the same place and apprentice to the same person, I will gain the same power as the protagonist


    That’s the plan


    Like that, at least I will be as strong as the hero I have to fight in the future!


    I’m smart！


    The plan is only possible because I played the game and knew the exact story!


    ……Praising myself this much is enough


    In other words, I will visit the same place the hero trained and do the same training as the hero


    There’s nothing special about how to reach there so I will omit it……。


    ◆


    ……I have arrived。


    This is where the hero Sero trained


    Its name is “the sage’s hermitage”


    After leaving the highway, if you follow the animal trail to a path nobody go through,  push through the brushes, cut of the branches and follow a trackless road, you will arrive there


    It’s a secret area


    Within the mountains, there is a slightly open basin surrounded by mountains from 4 sides that even birds can’t go through. It looks like a secret hiding place god prepared


    Anyway。


    A streamlet flows beside a flat land that could be called a marvelous valley, increasing the tranquility of the place


    At the center of the area, a single hermitage is build. Although it’s small, the atmosphere is mysterious


    「This place has such an atmosphere, huh?」


    Although I have visited this place before in the game, but 『Beast Fantasy 4』is a 16-bit console game


    It’s hard to feel the mysterious atmosphere through the pixels


    Should I go?


    Anyway, I knock the sliding door while being overwhelmed


    「……I’m sorry, is there anyone here?」


    Suddenly saying『I want to be trained! Make me your apprentice!』 is impolite, so I use a simple greeting


    However, there is no returned word


    I tried opening the door, but it was opened easily


    It’s not locked as expected. In this secluded place, you don’t need to worry about thief entering the house


    「Sorry for intruding……」


    I tried looking around inside, but there’s no presence of human


    However, the feeling of life is overflowing, the floor was swept cleanly as there is not a single grain of dust remained


    The pillars had a black luster, perhaps from the sticking soot of firewood being burned in many years


    They were probably wiped frequently. Because the deep black color of soot looks glossy like lacquer


    This heritage is surely cleaned and organized by human’s hands every day


    「Someone is surely living here」


    To tell the truth, The protagonist of 『Beast Fantasy 4』, Sero shouldn’t have gone to this place yet


    Right now is year 92 of the empire


    He will come here eventually


    But calculating from the date and year, he should be having a happy childhood life with his parents in his birthplace.


    Therefore, the one living here is……。


    『Who are you-tanu？』


    Suddenly I was called out


    I thought I was the only one here, so there is only one person I can think of when I was called out, it was the owner of this hermitage


    When I turned back, there was a tanuki standing at the still-opened entrance of the hermitage


    Not a civet (ハクビシン)


    Not a raccoon　(アライグマ)


    Not a weasel　(イタチ)


    It’s a tanuki


    Among the animals in the countryside, even in such a secluded place, it’s not strange to see a tanuki


    But this tanuki……。


    『It’s praiseworthy for a thief to enter this area-tanu. You must have gone through many hardships but regretfully, there is nothing valuable here-tanu. Trick ya』 (やーいばーか)


    It talks


    The tanuki surely talked


    It’s not some cheap trick like ventriloquism or hypnotism


    I know


    Because I have met it before in the game


    This tanuki is an important character who take the protagonist of 『Beast Fantasy 4』 Sero as disciple and teach him Holy wisdom art (智聖術)


    The sage Ponpoko


    Being nick-named 『Tanu-sage』 by fan


    ——————–


    Author note: This is it for the first day. From now on I would like to update at the pace of one chapter per day for a while


    From here, to avoid the future of being killed by the hero, Jira will did his best using every means


    In the process, he will befriend with the enemy hero, become colleagues with the enemy boss to whom he should be nervous, and have to carry extra burdens thanks to that


    Please enjoy the story of Jira, who will eventually become the 12th rank Jirat


    Have a good year!


    TL note: not really sure what the tanuki’s “やーいばーか” means, but I would assume it’s like “yay, baka”. If you know what it is then please tell me