Hero Diana (2)
Hero Diana. She was the hero created through my delusions.
I had once wondered what it would feel like if my daughter became a hero. Why doesn't everyone fantasize about something like that? Raising a daughter, all those little moments. Daughter-raising games were hugely popular, after all.
The life I crafted for her was extraordinarily complex. I mixed in every trope I could think of: hero, regression, reincarnation. The whole package.
At first she was born as the daughter of a mercenary named Paul. That was the starting point, anyway.
But she had no mother from a very young age. And for some reason her father—me—never once told her the truth about her mother. It was a setting born from the bizarre conviction that revealing the secret of her birth too early would ruin the fun. The Diana of that time probably wouldn't have understood it properly even if she had been told.
Because of that, Diana began to suspect that Paul might not be her real father. She ran away from home and never returned.
She wandered the world as a small child with nothing to her name. In reality, a young girl drifting through the streets would have been snatched up by adults with twisted intentions and suffered terribly. But Diana was designed by me to be breathtakingly beautiful—the most beautiful woman in the world. I couldn't allow my daughter to meet such a cruel fate.
While lost in the forest, she encountered the members of the Blossom Mercenary Group.
Diana introduced herself as an orphan who had lost her parents. They took her in, treated her like their youngest member, and let her work alongside them. Diana believed they were genuinely good people and spent a full year following them, learning the mercenary trade.
In truth, the hearts of the Blossom Mercenary Group were far from clean. A few days before meeting Diana, they had accepted a request from a noble with a filthy reputation. The job was to procure a pretty, strong female mercenary to serve as a sex slave. The noble had helped them many times before, and the reward was astronomical, so they accepted without any real plan.
While searching for a naïve, pretty young girl they could trick into fulfilling the request, they found Diana.
The Blossom Mercenary Group successfully deceived her. Diana never suspected their true intentions. In fact, because the noble specifically wanted a virgin, her overwhelming beauty actually kept her safe amid the brutal mercenary lifestyle.
After a year of traveling together and preparing to sell her off, they heard the news: the Holy Sword had descended in the imperial capital.
Let's just take her to see the Holy Sword before handing her over. She'll feel less wronged if she gets to witness something like that before being sold, right?
They decided to let her see the Holy Sword and then deliver her to the noble.
When they arrived, they learned that none of the nobles had been chosen by the Holy Sword, so even commoners were permitted to try pulling it.
Every member of the group attempted it. Even mere mercenaries would become exalted heroes if chosen by the Holy Sword, so their eyes burned with greed as they each took their turn.
After they all failed, they told the youngest—Diana—to try as well. They still needed to maintain the appearance of kind, caring mercenaries. They would regret that decision for the rest of their lives.
Shling.
Diana, who had believed there was no chance of success, drew the Holy Sword and became the hero chosen by the gods.
The newly chosen hero was immediately whisked away by the authorities and incorporated into the official hero party.
The mercenaries, who had been dreaming of selling Diana as a sex slave and living like kings on the reward money, suddenly found themselves empty-handed. They had been so close!
How the hell did I hold back for an entire year without touching that gorgeous bitch?
Diana, completely unaware of how narrowly she had escaped their clutches, met the greatest companions imaginable.
She joined the grand alliance formed by the empire, the Holy Kingdom, and numerous other nations—the true hero party assembled to face the Demon King.
The Saint of the Holy Kingdom. An 8th-circle Archmage. The Mercenary King, strongest among all who had ever held the title. The Sword Saint, unmatched with the blade. The empire's mightiest knight.
It was a dream team that gathered every powerhouse the continent had to offer.
Though Diana had learned a few things during her year with the third-rate Blossom Mercenaries, she was still rough around the edges. Under the guidance of the continent's strongest, she gradually grew into the hero who would save humanity.
After another year, she fully unlocked the power of the Holy Sword and became the undisputed strongest being alive.
It was at that moment that I—Diana's father—finally appeared before her.
The setting was that I had searched the entire continent for her, ending up in a wretched, beggar-like state.
Even so, I was a father who thought only of his daughter. I wanted to look like a cool dad.
Yet even as she said those words, Diana was unconsciously pushing her father away. In truth, she had a very gentle nature and had regretted the harsh words she spoke when she left home. Originally, this should have been the moment she apologized, sought forgiveness, and reached a happy ending with her father.
But that would have made the story far too boring.
So Diana, suddenly overcome by adolescent rebellion, shoved away the father who had barely managed to find her. She was a teenager, after all.
Even I have to admit the setting was too cruel. I didn't think it would actually become reality, you know?
And so the father, whose entire reason for living had been denied, left without strength.
Soon afterward Diana realized her mistake and rushed to find him, but he was already gone.
Just as she prepared to search for him in earnest, the Demon King's army began to move.
Finding her father here and reaching a happy ending would have been too predictable.
At her companions' urging, Diana resolved to defeat the Demon King first, then return and apologize to her father so they could restore their old relationship.
With the continent's strongest warrior now driven by powerful motivation, and her companions fighting alongside her out of sympathy, they tore through the Demon King's forces. Legion commanders and the Four Heavenly Kings fell one after another as they stormed straight to the Demon King's castle.
After the final battle, they succeeded in defeating the Demon King.
The hero who had slain the Demon King hurried back to the imperial capital with her party.
She wanted to find her father and apologize as quickly as possible.
But the high officials insisted on first announcing the Demon King's death and holding a grand festival.
While everyone celebrated, her companions all drank themselves unconscious and were carried back to their quarters. Only Diana remained in the banquet hall.
She told herself she would sober up a little and then go find her father.
That was when the Blossom Mercenary Group appeared.
Because of the kindness they had shown her as a child, Diana still thought of them as family. She welcomed them in and ate the snacks they offered as gifts without the slightest suspicion.
Those snacks contained an extreme poison capable of restricting even a hero's magical power and physical abilities.
The leaders of the continent, fearing the hero had grown too powerful after defeating the Demon King, had used the Blossom Mercenary Group to eliminate her.
The plan worked perfectly. Diana was on the verge of being murdered by the mercenaries when I burst onto the scene.
The problem was that I—Paul—had grown far too old and frail. Even a third-rate mercenary group was difficult for me to handle.
Still, I squeezed out every last ounce of strength and managed to incapacitate all of them. I did so while sustaining fatal wounds.
I barely succeeded in receiving my daughter's apology before dying.
Enraged, Diana slaughtered every member of the Blossom Mercenary Group. Then she hunted down those who had given the order and exacted her revenge.
Her party members, who knew her story, felt guilty and cooperated with her. Every leader on the continent involved in the plot was wiped out.
Though she succeeded in her complete revenge, she could not bring her father back.
She became a broken shell of a person, searching only for her father. When she finally came to her senses, she found him.
A younger version of her father.
Interesting, isn't it? It was only a delusion, after all.