The Moment of Becoming a Hero
The Moment of Becoming a Hero
Clang!
Alex drew the sword from the scabbard at his waist, swung it, and rolled to the side.
"Urgh!"
Another tunnel snake had suddenly appeared.
Fortunately, thanks to the earlier appearance, he had been able to sense the signs and stay on edge, which allowed him to evade the ambush.
He lacked the natural talent for swordsmanship that the Third Imperial Prince possessed, but as a member of the imperial family, he had trained in the sword as a basic discipline, so he was at least on par with an average knight.
"Your Highness!!! I will go."
Cross, the captain of the escort knights, had gained the upper hand against the first tunnel snake.
The moment he saw another tunnel snake attacking the Crown Prince, he hurled himself forward like lightning.
His speed was so astonishing that even a four-legged beast could not have matched it.
Cross planted himself in front of the Crown Prince, who had been barely dodging the tunnel snake's attacks by rolling across the ground.
"Thank you. Dodging was starting to wear me out."
"I will handle it. Please fall back!"
An ordinary knight could not have declared that he would face a tunnel snake alone. But Cross was different.
He truly began to fight the tunnel snake by himself.
'I can win. It will just take time.'
Cross swung his sword at the tunnel snake and sized up the situation.
His subordinates were currently finishing off the other tunnel snake and were in no position to help.
The regular soldiers would only get in the way rather than be of any use.
He had to face it alone. He was confident he could win, but finishing it quickly seemed difficult.
In truth, a superhuman capable of taking down a tunnel snake alone was rare in the Empire, so that alone was remarkable.
But Cross was worried about the Crown Prince's now-empty escort.
Two tunnel snakes had already appeared, so it would not be strange if another one emerged, and if other creatures attacked, that would be a disaster.
'Was splitting our forces a mistake?'
He regretted assigning half of the knight order to Yustaf, who was investigating the enemy stronghold.
If only they had been here, there would have been no problem.
But this was no time for regret. The tunnel snake before him was not a monster he could afford to face casually.
And watching all of this from hiding in the underbrush was Venom.
Venom could not contain his shock.
'Your Highness? Then that bastard really is a member of the imperial family!'
Even though the underbrush where he was hiding was quite far away, that knight's thunderous voice carried clearly to him.
"Your Highness!!! I will go."
Now he understood.
Where these insanely skilled people who could handle tunnel snakes with ease had come from.
If they were the escort knights who protected the imperial family, they were certainly skilled enough for it.
Especially that monstrous middle-aged knight who was hunting a tunnel snake all by himself.
That man was someone even the cult leader could not guarantee subduing easily.
'Damn! Of all the people to touch, it had to be a member of the imperial family....'
Venom's vision went dark.
Why had a member of the imperial family appeared here in person instead of at the imperial palace in the capital?
Anyone who harmed a member of the imperial family could have at least three generations of their family exterminated, so he was as good as finished.
'No, wait. I never had a family to begin with, and a dark wizard is executed the moment they're discovered, so nothing changes!'
Indeed. One of the few advantages of being a dark wizard was being demonstrated here.
Most of them had no family, and even if they did, those family members were usually their enemies.
Furthermore, no matter how vile the deeds they committed, since they were dark wizards to begin with, their punishment was already fixed as execution.
Thinking it over, Venom realized his life was already forfeit, and courage surged within him.
'It's a waste, but I'll destroy the Chaos Crystal and send the tunnel snakes into a rampage.'
Then he would never be able to control the tunnel snakes again, but temporarily they would fall into confusion and rampage.
In that moment, he would risk his life and escape from this place.
Venom immediately gripped the Chaos Crystal in both hands and poured mana into it with all his might.
Crack!
The crystal began to vibrate violently, and soon cracks formed. Before long, it crumbled into powder.
"Shrieeeek!!!"
And the effect was immediate.
The two tunnel snakes that had been on the verge of death suddenly began thrashing about, twisting their bodies with all their strength.
"What the—! Why all of a sudden...."
The escort knights fighting the tunnel snakes were momentarily thrown into confusion.
Making a final desperate struggle with wounds like that would only cost them their lives sooner.
"Everyone, fall back for a moment!"
The knights judged that there was no need to face a deathbed struggle head-on and stepped back slightly.
But the tunnel snakes had no intention of letting them.
It was strange to speak of reason when it came to monsters, but like beasts that had lost their minds, they began charging not at the knights but at the surrounding soldiers.
"Aaaah!!!"
Only the escort knights could handle monsters like these. To ordinary soldiers, they were no different from demons of hell or dragons from legend as they approached.
In an instant, the formation collapsed and the soldiers fled.
But not everyone could do so.
"M...Mom...."
Had he just barely reached adulthood?
One soldier among the ranks, who still had not shed his boyish look, had collapsed on the spot, his legs giving out.
Before he knew it, the tunnel snake was right in front of the soldier, thrusting its huge, hideous maw at him.
"Krom!!!"
The pitiful cries of the other soldiers conscripted from the same region as the young soldier echoed like a refrain.
The knights who had witnessed the scene and briefly stepped back instantly leaped in front of the soldiers and blocked the rampaging tunnel snake.
But Cross, the captain of the escort knights who had been fighting a tunnel snake alone, could not do so.
The tunnel snake that had been locked in a desperate struggle with Cross also suddenly began to rampage, then abruptly charged toward the Crown Prince, who had been standing apart. Cross alone was powerless to block that sudden turn of events.
"Your Highness!!!"
The Crown Prince rolled across the ground once more as he saw the tunnel snake attacking him.
But perhaps his reaction was a little slow against the unexpected assault.
His right upper body had been torn clean away, blood streaming down.
"That insane tunnel snake!!! How dare it lay a fang on His Highness!!!"
At the sight of the Crown Prince's missing right arm, not only Cross but the other escort knights blocking the other tunnel snake could not contain their shock and fury.
They were ready to rush over and kill the creature threatening the Crown Prince.
"Stop! No one leave your post—hold your positions!"
At the Crown Prince's order, they all had to hold their positions.
"If you move recklessly, who will protect the soldiers behind you! Sir Cross, you can block it alone, can't you?"
"Yes, Your Highness!"
Cross belatedly swung his sword of fury at the tunnel snake that was making its final desperate struggle.
"A potion!! Anyone with a potion, come here now!"
One of the soldiers who had fallen back frantically tore strips from his clothes and tied them around the wound as bandages while desperately calling for a potion.
"Everything is fine now. Do not worry."
In contrast, Crown Prince Alex's expression looked utterly unburdened.
Even though the pain of losing an arm must have been immense, he was smiling at the soldiers who were looking at him.
***
"How in the world did you bastards find out about this place...."
Bialom, leader of the Abyss Cult—the continent's last remaining dark-wizard organization—was so dumbfounded that his fury was boiling over.
"In this world, there are people who risk their own lives to reveal the truth, and people who believe them."
The old man with a long beard standing before the dying Bialom.
Yustaf, the Empire's Archwizard, was sincerely grateful that thanks to them, catastrophe had been averted.
Rupert, who had published a book to reveal the truth even while he and his family were under threat.
And Crown Prince Alex, who had believed their opinions despite the flimsy evidence.
Without them, countless people in the Empire would have been sacrificed.
"Nonsense! Humans are all creatures who value their own gain above all else!!!"
"That is exactly why your plan failed! You did not understand that people can be endlessly cowardly, but they can also summon endless courage!"
Bialom could only let out a groan at Yustaf's answer, with no strength left to resist.
It was so bitterly unfair.
The day of the great plan's fulfillment had been right before his eyes.
With just one step left, everything had come to nothing.
Of all the opponents to run into, it had to be the worst possible one. How could the Archwizard—the man people said might actually be a dragon in human form—have come to stop him?
This was not an excuse. Truly, if it had not been Yustaf, Bialom was confident he could have defeated anyone who came to interfere.
He could snap the neck of an ordinary knight in an instant, and any wizard below the level of a Magic Tower elder was little more than a good sacrifice.
But even Bialom's terrifying black magic was nothing more than a child's antics before Yustaf.
The magical power that had overturned the very space around them—so immense that he truly seemed to be a dragon—made it difficult even to cast lower-tier magic properly, and his opponent had unleashed spell after spell without so much as an incantation.
Bialom was still alive only because he was Bialom. The Abyss Cult's underlings had already all fallen as cold corpses.
"Before I kill you, I must ask. What exactly were you trying to transmute through this atrocious act?"
"Transmute? Heh... What a joke. This is not a Transmutation Circle—it is a black magic circle! The great gate and doorway through which our master, the Demon God, shall descend!!!"
Bialom's voice rang out like a scream.
And the party could not contain their shock at a single word.
'Demon God'
On the Silvania Continent, there existed not only the Goddess, deity of creation, but also the Demon God, deity of destruction.
After the continent was created, the Goddess and the Demon God fought a fierce battle, and the defeated Demon God was driven into the demon realm, the world behind the surface.
According to myth, the blood the Goddess shed during that battle became humans, elves, dwarves, and beastfolk, while the blood the Demon God shed became all manner of monsters.
Perhaps because of that, the races who believed in the Goddess had an instinctual imprint that made them innately loathe and fear monsters.
And now this horrifying story—that they had tried to summon not a monster, but the Demon God himself, to the continent.
"Dark wizards truly are not the same as other humans."
When one of the party spoke as if sickened, everyone nodded in agreement.
How could humans born from the Goddess's blood follow the Demon God and try to plunge the world into danger?
An utterly unforgivable act. That was why dark wizards had always been treated as public enemies not only by humans but by all the races of the continent.
"The same as humans? Don't make me laugh... Since when were humans such a beautiful race?"
But Bialom merely sneered at the party's reaction.
"No race in the world has killed more of its own kind than humans!!! Nobles always treat commoners...."
"You talk too much. Hey, so were the people you lot caught and killed nobles?"
"Th...That was an unavoidable sacrifice for the greater cause!!!"
Thunk!
Bialom could not finish his sentence.
A blade had been driven into Bialom's forehead like lightning.
It was the work of Rina, one of the Crown Prince's escort knights in the party that had accompanied Yustaf.
Despite being a woman, she was a talent who had graduated at the top of the military studies department at the Imperial Academy.
A swordsmanship genius who was all but certain to become the next legion commander.
"We need to wrap things up here as quickly as possible, gather evidence, and return to His Highness the Crown Prince's side."
As she pulled out her sword and wiped the blood on her collar as if nothing had happened, everyone simply nodded.