White Dwarf (2)
I never thought it would be easy. My opponent was the strongest instructor among those called the professors of ruin. Once, he had even served as the raid leader of the Karlangk Knight Order.
“Huff… huff… I told you, I have no intention of becoming a Hero…!”
But I also never imagined it would be this difficult. He was just an old man, after all. While others might fear him, I had assumed that was nothing more than fools cowering before his past glory… or so I had thought to myself.
Having beaten each other senseless, we both sat on the floor, gasping for breath and struggling to stay conscious.
“Huff… huff… Kid. You’ve got quite the punch for someone so young…”
“What kind of rude remark is that, saying my fists are strong? Professor, just the other day I met someone who was truly spicy, you know?”
I spat out a clot of blood that had pooled in my mouth.
“Compared to that person, you’re not even close. Even the great Babalk has grown weak with age, hasn’t he? In that case, let’s settle this properly. Let’s keep going until one of us drops dead.”
“Damn it, even I know I’m finished. Is the position of Hero really worth taking a punch from the head professor?”
Yet it seemed his competitive spirit had been ignited. Veins bulged across his rugged, dark muscles as he prepared to charge at me again.
But that was nonsense.
“What are you talking about? This all started because you threatened me and spouted ridiculous nonsense. If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here turning red in the face while beating up an old man…!”
“Shut up. Once I’ve spoken, you have no choice. If you refuse to give up, this head professor Babalk will make sure you do. You little shit-wiper…”
Anyway, my stamina, my pride, and my Survival Instinct all screamed at me not to back down here. So I raised my fists toward him once more, ready for the next round.
Crack—
But at that moment, an ominous sound came from Babalk’s waist. I smiled inwardly, sensing victory.
“W-wait! Truce…!”
Perfect. I won. How does it taste, you damn old bastard? This is youth. What you once possessed.
“Truce? Don’t talk nonsense.”
“…Fine. I’m sorry! You win, you son of a bitch. I lost. I’ll back off for now. Just… just give me a moment. Sit down!”
“And if I refuse?”
“I-I’ll blow up the entire dormitory— with magic cannons—!”
However, it seemed he had no intention of negotiating. Having come this far, I was trapped. It looked like I had no choice but to comply with his will here.
“…Sigh. Fine. I’ll sit.”
I clutched my throbbing head and waited for Babalk to recover.
The Goddess of Evil—no, the Goddess of the Sun—was betrayed and killed by her own creation, the Sun Humans. In other words, by the first Hero, Solart. It was something even she had never anticipated.
After all, hadn’t she created Solart to serve as her prophet? She knew all too well that the forced slaughter required to maintain the sun would provoke fierce resentment in beings with free will. That was why she had fashioned a being similar to them, hoping he would preach the noble purpose of sustaining the sun from a human perspective.
But what she had overlooked was that Solart valued saving his suffering kin far more than the mission bestowed upon him by the Sun God. And so, Solart slew his own creator, the Sun God. He did it using the Sun-Obscuring Swordplay.
This was all made possible during a solar eclipse, when the moon covered the sun. It was a loophole that exploited the fact that the Sun God could not wield any power at that time. The Sun-Obscuring Swordplay, which Eclipse still used without understanding its true nature, operated on exactly that mechanism.
However, as everyone knows, the Sun God’s soul transferred to Solart, while her body fused with his six party members—the great heroes. They became the Demon King and the Six Swords. In the end, an even more vicious, unbreakable structure had been created.
Then, after all of this had happened, how would the sole surviving Moon God respond? Would she simply sit back and suck her thumb? Of course not.
That was why she created the Hero System.
“You already know the situation, but the last Hero who set out to subjugate the Demon King failed. As a result, the Moon God’s temple in the Karlangk Grand Temple received the Mark of the Moon.”
“……….”
“Selecting a Hero is normally a complicated process. But all the priests in the Grand Temple are my juniors. If I speak on your behalf, things will proceed without a hitch…”
“Ah, yes.”
“I don’t know why I’m even bothering with this.”
The method to become a Hero was simpler than anything else. All one had to do was enter the Moon God’s temple and receive the Mark of the Moon upon their body. Once that was done, a person would become a Hero and gain the power to purify the souls of the Demon King and the Six Swords.
The Sun God’s soul attached to the Demon King’s body, and the Sun God’s flesh fused with the Six Swords—both could be bleached clean as if put through an intense laundry cycle with spin-dry, causing them to vanish completely.
But if anyone could do that… the Demon King would have died long ago, and the sun would have been extinguished. So much time had passed since the Hero System was created. Why, then, had no one managed to destroy even a single member of the Six Swords besides Gorgo?
“…This is a classic contract scam. Why won’t you explain the path of suffering that a chosen Hero must walk?”
“Ah, you mean the conditions required to use the power of Purification.”
“Do you really think I wouldn’t know?”
Babalk spoke in a dry, emotionless tone.
“Obviously. You can’t know it before receiving the oracle, can you? The condition is a secret: Witness the deaths of one million humans consumed as fuel for the sun, and remember all their names and stories.”
“Does that even make sense? If I had known nothing, I would have had no choice but to accept those terms.”
“That’s what a contract is, rookie.”
This inhuman, twisted, insane old man. He was openly talking about pulling the wool over someone’s eyes as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Yet Babalk didn’t seem particularly flustered by how meticulously I was dissecting the contract conditions. Was he truly without any guilt for peddling such poison? Or did he have something else in mind?
In any case, the Hero System that anyone could inherit was a power with an extremely demanding activation condition. It could only be used after personally remembering and engraving the names and stories of one million humans into one’s heart.
Any sane person would be incapable of enduring such a thing. The issue wasn’t whether they could memorize it. The real problem was having to empathize with and grieve for so many deaths. It was a warm form of suffering that perfectly suited the warm power of Purification. But it was absolutely not something a human should have to do.
“However, Yohan. This is unconditionally beneficial for you. Since you already possess a method to kill the Six Swords, you have no need to undertake such an absurd task to obtain that power.”
With that, Babalk tapped the thesis he was reading.
It was a research paper he himself had written on the Hero System.
“You don’t need to awaken the power of Purification. Simply inheriting the Hero System grants complete immunity to any form of mental corruption. This has been proven through countless cases.”
“…Damn it.”
“If you become a Hero, you won’t have to go through the hell of fighting mental corruption after absorbing the Six Swords just to prevent yourself from becoming their new host.”
Well. He wasn’t wrong. Even I could see how perfectly the effects would synergize. There seemed to be no reason not to accept it.
But there was a separate reason why I absolutely refused to accept it.
“Yes, if everything goes favorably, that would be true. But what if I displease the Moon God even slightly…? How do you explain the fact that my will would be sealed and manipulated by her?”
My hands trembled with rage.
“How is that any different from having my mind stolen by the Six Swords! Even if that happens, no one would know. In the end, only ruin would remain, and I would never be able to achieve my own will.”
“Well. That’s an entirely different story. If the Six Swords take your body, you become a bastard. If the Goddess takes your body, you become a hero.”
Squeeze—
I grabbed Babalk by the collar again. If that happened, there would be no future where I could live happily with the young lady. I would have to remain the Moon God’s puppet until the day I died.
“You have no common sense.”
“Does grabbing my collar change anything? It seems I was right to identify your weakness. Even though you know so much about the poisoned chalice called the Hero, you’ve erased the option of refusal.”
“……….”
But why couldn’t I bring myself to say the perfectly reasonable negotiation offer—that there were other good people besides me, and that it would be fine to pass it on to them?
The candidate was none other than Eclipse. The hero of the original history. The girl who would have received the exact same proposal from Babalk here if I had not existed.
To be honest… I had been thinking that I could just pass this blasphemous suggestion—which was nothing more than a poisoned chalice—onto Eclipse.
After all, the kind-hearted Eclipse would likely be able to remember the names of a million people without suffering any significant mental strain. She would be able to be reborn as a hero.
But… that didn’t mean she wouldn’t suffer in the process.
She was the only person in this area, filled with noisy incidents, who still held onto hope. Even while we were plotting a coup and acting all serious, she was a girl living her daily life with the adorable desire to share even a single piece of bread with everyone.
Knowing all that, how could I possibly pass such an extraordinary burden onto her…?
I hated myself for even considering it. This was exactly why I had tried not to get attached. If I did something like this now, the desperate measure I had taken—beating her up during the entrance ceremony just to get her into this school—would lose all meaning.
It seemed I had lived too long in this world. It would be so much easier to just pass it on. Yet for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Really, living comfortably wasn’t easy at all.
“Well, it’s not urgent, so take your time thinking about it. I only called you here today to show you that such a path exists.”
It seemed he had read my expression. Although he had lost the fistfight, Babalk exuded a strange aura, as if he believed he had ultimately won.
I didn’t like it. I wanted to make that snake-tongued old man kneel somehow.
And I was the one who could make that possible.
I spoke the one method that could completely reverse this situation.
“Frau.”
“………How do you—?!”
Babalk, who had maintained his composure the entire time, jolted violently in his chair. I smiled at him and said,
“Did you think you were the only one who investigated me? If you stare into the abyss, you should know that the abyss stares back at you as well.”
Frau. Babalk’s only daughter. The girl who had been dragged off to the human farms and had been missing ever since.
“It seems Frau is still alive.”
“…?! Even I didn’t know that! How—?!”
“Are you curious?”
Babalk said nothing. Uncharacteristically, his mouth opened and closed wordlessly.
Bang—!
I slammed my hand on the desk and pressed him.
“Very well. If you’re that curious, then acknowledge just one thing.”
“…Frau, Frau—.”
“The positions have been reversed.”
If you want to know her location, I’ll tell you. But in return, you will have to give me everything I want from you right now.