A Miserable Defeat (2)
Before the Hero Kyle was born, the continent had seen twenty-two wars in total.
Every one of them had been launched by humanity. The Heroes of each age had marched on the Demon King's forces at the head of tens of thousands of soldiers.
And every one of them had ended in catastrophe.
Most of those armies were annihilated before they ever reached the Demon King's Castle. Even the Heroes who managed to arrive never so much as crossed blades with the Demon King before they died.
They were such shameful defeats that calling them wars at all felt like a stretch of the record.
So when the Hero Kyle drew the Holy Sword, people thought the same thing they always had.
This time will be no different.
Everyone shook their heads, certain that this Hero, too, would die before he ever set foot past the threshold of the Demon King's Castle.
And Yuli had thought the same.
Heh. I'll just milk this for all it's worth and bail when the time comes.
He had never intended to defeat the Demon King. His plan was simple: suck every last drop of glory out of the campaign, then abandon his companions and run the moment things turned sour.
…Until he saw Kyle fight the Demon King.
The twenty-third war between humanity and the demonkin. The first time the Demon King's army had ever invaded the human lands first.
At the heart of it stood the Demon King Sharit and the Hero Kyle.
"I'm coming, Demon King."
"Very well. Let us put an end to this."
Kyle charged. The Demon King leapt down from the mountain ridge. The Holy Sword and the Demonic Sword crashed together in a furious collision.
Shreeeeeeeeeng!
The shockwave that followed the shriek of steel was strong enough to shove the soldiers behind them off their feet.
What would the bards sing of this battle? How would the court historians write it down?
No one could even begin to guess. It was a fight so far beyond reason that even watching it with their own eyes, they could scarcely believe it was real.
One would vanish, then the other — and then, with another thunderous crash, their blades would meet again.
No one dared so much as think of intervening.
The soldiers who witnessed that duel knew it in their bones: the outcome of the entire war rested on those two alone.
All they could do was make sure no one interfered. And so the Empire's soldiers and the Demon King's army both hurled themselves into the fray with everything they had.
Everyone — except for one man. Yuli.
The dagger he had drawn was stained with the blood of only one or two demonkin. By then he had already slipped free of the battlefield and was watching from a safe distance.
Lucky bastard, Kyle. All you ever did was get chosen by the Holy Sword.
They had both come from nothing. One a thief, the other a beggar from the slums.
And yet, for no reason other than the Holy Sword's favor, Kyle had claimed every scrap of honor and glory for himself.
When this war ended, the whole world would sing his praises. Even if he died, the history he carved would endure forever.
Yuli could not accept that. Not for a second.
Ha. Fuck. This world is so goddamn unfair.
But he did not know the truth.
In the original story, the Hero Kyle never even reached the Demon King before he died — and that Yuli and the rest of their companions were wiped out right there alongside him.
The only reason Kyle had made it that far was the relentless training he never stopped, and the countless times he had thrown himself across the line between life and death. That was a world apart from Yuli, who treated brothels and gambling dens like a second home — but none of that mattered to him.
He simply watched the duel between Kyle and the Demon King and wished, with everything he had, that the Demonic Sword would pierce straight through Kyle's heart.
And that, most likely, was the moment he decided to betray him.
"Well. I never thought things would fall into place this nicely. Heh."
Yuli, leader of the Demon King subjugation force, snickered as he looked up at the night sky.
It almost felt as though Kyle were watching from up there, and the thought put him in a fine mood. He must have been seething with resentment, desperate for revenge — and yet, stuck in that sky, there was nothing he could do. Imagining him like that was enough to make Yuli laugh out loud.
He tipped back his drink, using the cool night wind as a chaser.
"Pwah. These bastards sure are taking their sweet time, though."
Three days had already passed since they arrived at the village, and still the Demon King's forces had not shown themselves.
Yuli was currently watching the mountain beside the village — the place where the Demon King and the remnants of her army were hiding.
Not out of any sense of duty to kill her. He was waiting for her to come down and slaughter the villagers as quickly as possible.
"Hurry up and burn this place down already, you stupid bastards."
And while they were at it, if they could kill about half of his own soldiers, even better. The more casualties, the brighter the legend of the hero Yuli would shine.
He was nursing that pleasant fantasy with another long pull of liquor when a voice came from behind him.
"Aren't you drinking a bit too much, Master?"
Damian approached through the heavy haze of Yuli's drunkenness. He stood beside him with a wry smile.
"Overdrinking is never wise. What if the Demon King's army shows up while you're like this?"
"Heh. If they did, I'd be grateful."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. Forget it."
Yuli chuckled and drained the rest of his cup. Damian took it for a light joke and let it go.
"So what brings you out here at this hour? Looking for a drink yourself?"
"No, sir. There's something I wanted to ask you about."
"What is it?"
At Yuli's question, Damian hesitated and glanced back over his shoulder. Behind them, Jane and Emilia were still bickering because of him.
"It's about Lady Jane and Lady Emilia, actually. I wanted some advice."
"What, are they getting in your way?"
"N-no! Not in my way, exactly — it's just that they've been at my side the entire journey here, and I haven't had a single moment to train…"
So they are getting in your way.
Damian's expression was a mix of awkwardness and quiet exasperation.
In truth, seeking out Jane and Emilia had never been Damian's idea. It had all been Yuli's plan. Everything Damian had said and done around them had been a script of Yuli's design — a way to pull them into the subjugation force as insurance against any unforeseen variables when the time came to kill the Demon King.
And the plan had succeeded beyond even its architect's expectations. Even now, the two of them were still clawing at each other's hair over Damian.
"Hmm. How about you just tell them to get lost? Make it stick."
"What!? H-how could I possibly say that to either of them?"
"Or what — are you planning to marry one of them?"
The word marry put a troubled look on Damian's face.
"No, sir. I already have someone I care for."
"Ah, that childhood friend you mentioned last time?"
"Y-yes."
Damian answered, looking faintly embarrassed.
The Hero Damian's childhood friend. She was the true heroine of the original novel. There had never been room for another woman to wedge her way between them, and their pure, steadfast love was half the reason the story had been so popular.
Of course, Yuli had no way of knowing any of that, and answered with a shrug.
"Then put some distance between yourselves once this war is over. For now, we might still need them, so just put up with it."
"Haa… Yes, sir. Understood."
Even the way the usually bright-smiling boy let out a sigh was enough to show how thoroughly those two had been wearing him down.
Perhaps it was the experience of losing Kyle. The obsession Jane and Emilia now directed at Damian was, even to a third party, far from normal.
They don't want to lose someone a second time. Something like that, maybe.
Not that their feelings — or Damian's troubles — mattered to Yuli in the slightest.
What mattered was the Demon King.
Watching Yuli wait so patiently for her arrival, Damian spoke carefully.
"Master… there's one more thing I'd like to ask."
"What now."
"Do you really think we can defeat the Demon King? Just us?"
"Heh. What, you doubting your master's judgment?"
"N-no, sir! Of course not. I just… I can't help wondering."
There was real unease in Damian's eyes as he said it. And his worry was understandable enough. An army of tens of thousands had been no match for the Demon King's forces — the idea that two thousand soldiers could win was absurd on its face.
"Well. Under normal circumstances, it'd be impossible."
Yuli knew that as well as anyone. Under normal circumstances, he would not stand a chance against the Demon King. One swing of her Demonic Sword would have wiped them all out.
But that was only true if she were whole.
He had seen it with his own eyes — how deeply she had been wounded in her battle with Kyle two months ago. How many of her demonkin had died or been crippled just getting her out of there.
Honestly, the Demon King who fled that day had looked more like a corpse than a living being. Those were not wounds that a few months could heal.
So the remnants of her army up on that mountain barely even deserved to be called survivors. Patients. They no longer had a single soldier left who could truly fight.
Was there any way to lose here?
Not a chance.
All that waited in this place was an opportunity for glory. Beheading a Demon King already stabbed half to death and hovering on the edge of the grave was a job even a common soldier could handle.
"Damian. Just trust me. I've got it all planned out."
"R-really?"
"So stop fretting. That Demon King bitch can't do a damn thing anymore."
"Is that so? How very interesting."
A woman's unfamiliar voice cut through the night.
It had not been particularly loud — and yet every soul in the camp heard it with perfect clarity.
The voice of the Demon King, perched on a boulder with her chin in her hand.
"We should very much like to hear this plan of yours ourselves."
And with those words, hundreds of red eyes opened in the darkness.