A Mother's Heart
"Did you hear? That Hero's finally thinking about taking down the Demon King."
"That piece-of-trash Hero? What got into him all of a sudden?"
"Even a piece of trash is still a Hero, I guess."
"Haa. If we were going to get one anyway, I wish he'd been a little cooler. A little more righteous."
A new rumor about the Hero had been circulating through Pipnel, the royal capital of the kingdom. The story went that the Hero — who until now had holed himself up in the room prepared for him at the Central Church, doing nothing but every kind of garbage imaginable — had suddenly thrown himself into serious work toward defeating the Demon King.
That rumor was half true, and half not.
Hero Cain had, in fact, ordered people to gather the strongest individuals on the continent. Saintess Selena and the bishops had recommended that the Hero travel as an adventurer and recruit companions himself, but Cain wouldn't hear of it. He didn't want companions who would grow slowly alongside him. He wanted the strongest fighters who could take on the Demon King as immediate combat power.
And so three of the continent's strongest adventurers — handpicked from every guild — were summoned to the Central Church. Three names whose reputations and skill stood out even among Gold-rank adventurers.
Mireia was among them.
"Hey, you lot. Come kill the Demon King with me. Find me the Holy Sword while you're at it."
Cain said it with brazen arrogance, standing before the three who were considered the strongest. No matter how quickly Hero Cain grew with the Hero's power, there was no way a man who had relied on talent alone and never put in a shred of effort could match these three in skill. Mireia, in particular, was unmistakably stronger than Cain.
But Cain's attitude was thoroughly rotten. He knew that even if they were stronger than him, they couldn't lay a hand on him — because he was the Hero.
"...This is what a Hero looks like? Pathetic. I'm leaving."
One of the adventurers scowled at Cain, turned on his heel, and walked out. He had answered the summons, but seeing the Hero's trash attitude firsthand — just as the rumors said — killed any desire to help.
"If gathering strong adventurers were enough to slay the Demon King, we wouldn't have needed a Hero in the first place. I'll be taking my leave as well."
Another adventurer refused Cain's demand in succession and left. Now only Mireia remained.
"Tch. Didn't need those half-assed nobodies anyway. But you, Mireia — I hear you're different."
Cain looked at the last remaining woman as he spoke. The idea of gathering the strong to slay the Demon King was, in truth, a pathetic notion with no chance of working. To slay the Demon King, the Hero himself had to become strong. And the fastest way for a Hero to grow stronger was to walk the path of a Hero. But Cain kept digging in his heels.
Mireia could have simply refused and walked out, just like the other two. She had come here at the kingdom's summons, but helping the Hero was not compulsory.
"......"
But Mireia did not leave. It wasn't because she wanted to help Hero Cain, or because she liked him. She was thinking something entirely different.
Yunoa...
Mireia was thinking of Yunoa. And of Bloodstain, the enemy of her lost hometown. The reason she had pursued strength all this time was to take revenge on the demons and monsters who had burned her home to the ground. And now that she had lost Yunoa, her thirst for vengeance had only grown stronger.
"Hey. Be this Hero's underling and help me take down the Demon King."
Cain, utterly tone-deaf and with no sense of his place, ordered her around. To Mireia, this half-formed excuse for a Hero looked like a powerful tool that could draw out the Demon King and his demons. After all, hadn't he nearly been assassinated by a demon even here, in the safety of the Central Church in the capital?
What kind of person Cain was didn't particularly matter. If he was the Hero, it was only natural that demons would come after his life. For Mireia, who wanted to cut down the Demon King, demons, and monsters indiscriminately, the fact that they would come to her of their own accord felt like a rather attractive arrangement.
Like burying a chicken bone in the ground to lure centipedes — she would put the Hero forward as bait to draw the demons in.
"...Understood."
Mireia answered Cain with a blank expression. His face lit up with triumph, and he immediately stepped closer, reaching to put a hand on her shoulder. But in that instant, he felt the air around them freeze solid, and his hand stopped.
"Wh-what? Why are you looking at me like that? I'm the Hero."
"...I know."
"Tch."
Cain felt an inexplicable unease and stepped back from Mireia. He thought she was a strange woman. This was Cain — a man who had spat in the Knight Commander's face and hurled a flower vase that cracked a bishop's skull — and yet, somehow, he couldn't bring himself to lay a hand on her. It felt as though he were reaching out to touch a blade so sharp it would cut him at the slightest contact.
"Whatever. Anyway, from now on, you help me. First, let's go find that damn Holy Sword."
Cain said it to Mireia, his attitude slightly softened. She gave no answer, quietly watching him with cold eyes.
Several days had passed since I entered the Passage of the Abyss. I was starting to wear down, wondering when the surface would ever appear.
"Hah... hahh... hah..."
I'd encountered dozens of monsters in the passage along the way. The Worm Dragon I'd met while searching for Kiki was, in the Passage of the Abyss, actually on the weaker side. I kept running into all kinds of bizarre monsters I'd never seen before, and I couldn't let my guard down for a single moment.
Just now I'd run into a giant lizard-like thing that spat poison from its mouth, and the entire left side of the shirt I was wearing had been eaten away. The breeze on the left side of my torso felt cool — it reminded me of the rags I'd worn when I first arrived in this world.
The mushrooms that glowed with a red light, the ones Eldeborn had told me about, were still guiding me. But I never expected I wouldn't be able to get out of this passage for this long. Was it actually showing me the right way? At this point, I was starting to have my doubts.
Yunoa was under the mistaken impression that as long as he knew the path, he would easily reach the surface somehow — without considering how far he had fallen from above. Eldeborn was, in fact, properly guiding Yunoa toward the surface, but the exhausted Yunoa had begun to doubt that accurate guidance.
So we are on the right path, then.
That, at least, was a relief. If I lost my way here, I honestly had no confidence I'd ever find my way out, even if I wandered until I died.
"Hm?"
That was when I felt it. A faint breath of wind brushed my cheek as I walked the passage — a warm wind, blowing with a certainty I hadn't felt once until now. Could it be coming from an exit to the surface?
My steps picked up speed. I followed the mushrooms' red glow around a corner.
"An exit!"
And there it really was — a way out. At the end of the passage, an exit shone so white and blinding it nearly brought tears to my eyes. I scrambled forward and ran for it.
"Ugh... so bright..."
I'd been underground for so long that the moment I stepped out, the light stabbed at my eyes. After a while, they gradually adjusted, and the world came back into focus.
"Whoa..."
And I took in the landscape of the surface Demon Realm spread out before me. Pale violet grass and flowers of a kind I'd never seen in my life stretched away in every direction. Strange clumps of mana that looked like will-o'-the-wisps drifted through the air now and then. It was an alien landscape that more than lived up to the name Demon Realm — and yet, rather than repulsive or frightening, it was beautiful.
"Is that the Demon King Castle?"
A massive castle stood not too far away. It was a rather distinctive structure, with several tall, pointed spires attached in an asymmetrical arrangement. I was standing there, overwhelmed by my first sight of the Demon Realm, staring without thinking — when Shari drifted into the air in front of me.
Something about her was a little off. Unlike usual, she seemed hesitant, glancing at my face as if gauging my reaction.
"Shari?"
And then, all at once, the scenes she sent began flickering through my mind.
A female demon with a gentle presence.
A path leading past the Demon King Castle, toward a village.
The same woman, standing in that village. She looked strangely like Shari — it was Shari's mother.
"You..."
Shari kept sending me scene after scene. It seemed that on the way back, there was a demon village where she had once lived.
"You want to see your mom?"
She looked at me and nodded, slowly. But right after, she fidgeted, her expression lost and uncertain.
"You want to see your mom on the way back to Kubel, but you're worried it'll be dangerous, so you feel bad asking?"
Apparently, Shari felt guilty about asking me for the favor.
"Hmm..."
I'd received a great deal of help from Shari up to this point. More help, I thought, than what I'd done for her at the Belle Epoque Mansion. If it was just a brief stop on the way back to Kubel, that should be fine, shouldn't it? A human wandering a demon village was, of course, a risk — but if Shari showed herself, at least we wouldn't be attacked without a word.
I quietly reached out and stroked the head of Shari, who was still watching my face. Being dead and a ghost was already pitiful enough. If she couldn't even see her mother, that would be too sad. I didn't know if ghosts aged, but a child wanting to see her mom was the most natural wish in the world.
"Let's stop by. I've gotten curious what kind of person your mother is, too."
The moment I finished speaking, a smile bloomed across Shari's face. Still, this was the Demon Realm — I'd better be careful not to run into a belligerent demon like Bloodstain.
Shari flew ahead with a delighted expression, starting to guide me along the path. I looked around as I walked, slowly following behind her.