101. Mass-Produced Hero
101. Mass-Produced Hero
The Hero Yi Ga-ram.
When she first entered this world, she suffered humiliation during the traditional initiation ceremony the Heroes held, and because of that, she was branded with the stigma of Failed Hero.
Even now, that stigma still lingered among the Heroes as she went around hunting Fallen Heroes.
To Heroes who were always on the lookout for flaws and itching to pick fights, a prior record tagged with the Failed Hero label was all the reason they needed to treat her with contempt.
'So that same Failed Hero is now, unlike them, volunteering to help the workers... is that it?'
Precisely because she never embraced the Heroes' culture, she became a girl who walked a different path from the rest.
And that irregular's help was proving to be a tremendous asset in reinforcing the garrison at this moment.
"Thanks to you, the work finished faster than expected. How about we leave the finishing touches to the laborers and go grab a meal first?"
"Mm, sounds good. What's for lunch today?"
"I happen to have some leftover seasoning at the barracks. Wanna do some stir-fried pork?"
"...Somehow whenever I eat with you, mister, it's always either stir-fried pork or pork cutlet."
"That's because after a solid day of work, you need something hearty and bold to get your strength back. Speaking of which, you little brat—you call that punk Hyosung 'oppa' without fail, so why am I 'mister'?"
"If you're calling me a brat, that means the age gap is pretty big, doesn't it? Nyah~"
The two Heroes bickered back and forth as they left the worksite.
The laborers watching them mostly showed positive reactions—but when it came to the existence known as Heroes, there were bound to be some who couldn't see it in a purely good light.
Heroes were supposed to be beings admired by all, idols and champions meant to serve as the people's spiritual pillars.
If such beings stood on the same level as ordinary commoners, they might be seen as losing their symbolic value as idols.
'But as far as I'm concerned, that kind of perception suits me just fine.'
Marcus Cradle.
To him as Legion Commander, everyone under his command was merely part of the collective—attachments to be coaxed into cooperating toward achieving a goal.
The same applied to Heroes.
Even if there was a role suited to them, those who refused to perform even that role and sought only profit could only be regarded as nuisances.
"Adjutant. How many Heroes do we currently have available for deployment?"
"Excluding Yi Ga-ram and Nam Ja-seong, the two Heroes who assisted the laborers, most of them have no particular assignment... but I'm uncertain whether they'll cooperate."
"If they prove uncooperative, then we'll just have to take a hard line."
If you had power, you were meant to use it.
And if they still refused to listen, then all that remained was to issue a warning.
As the man responsible for this land, Marcus possessed that authority.
***
"Oh my, Hero~ you mustn't touch places like that~"
"What's the big deal~ we went wild just last night~"
The place he arrived at after making that decision was a certain Hero's quarters.
Ignoring the coy voice from inside, he stepped through the door—and a man and woman rolling around on the bed voiced their displeasure at him.
"The hell is this, dude? All of a sudden. Do you even know where you are, barging in without knocking...."
"Hero Sin Jiho."
Marcus answered only with a cold voice.
After all, what mattered to him wasn't who the other party was or how they felt—it was protecting the safety of this garrison.
"You think I'm in a position to back off just because you tell me to?"
"...Hic. Ah, what—oh. It's you."
Only then did the Hero Sin Jiho toss aside the adventurer woman he'd been clutching like a courtesan.
His mind still hadn't shaken off the alcohol from the night before; even after recognizing who it was, his swaggering face remained flushed red.
"Ahaha~! Right! If it isn't our esteemed Legion Commander!? Sorry about that, I've had a bit too much to drink and was slow to recognize you~!"
Frivolous, unseemly speech and conduct.
Without so much as a shred of the bare minimum respect for a superior, Sin Jiho heaved himself upright from the bed and started grabbing at the liquor set out on the table.
"What brings you here? Why not join the fun? Perfect timing, actually—the merchants brought some good stuff this time, so let's drink together...."
-Crash!
The bottle shattered as it was struck from his hand.
Sin Jiho's face, glaring down at him, gradually colored with irritation.
"...Ah, damn. And I only had one bottle of that."
"So, are you going to lunge at me, then?"
For an ordinary person, crossing a Hero's mood at this point would have been a situation where death itself had to be expected.
But Marcus, undaunted, simply shot back at Sin Jiho as if to overwhelm him.
Treating him as an enemy was tantamount to defying the Imperial House—and that meant becoming a wanted fugitive and being reduced to the status of a Fallen Hero.
"Pffft, as if I would~ I'm on the Empire's payroll too, so how could I pick a fight with the commander?"
Fortunately, drunk as he was, the other man still had enough of a working brain.
The notion was far removed from genuine loyalty or a sense of greater cause, but if something could be accomplished through even that pretense, it was best to make use of it.
"...Follow me. I'll introduce you to a place where you can show your stuff."
"Yessir, if I'm told to do it, I gotta do it~ But in exchange, once the job's done, you lay off me for a while, yeah? Do you know how draining it is getting interrupted when things are about to get good~?"
Sin Jiho dragged his drunken body along and threw on some clothes haphazardly.
Then, as Sin Jiho followed behind him, Marcus glanced back and answered with a quiet turn of his head.
"...As long as you get the job done properly, do whatever you want."
His steps staggered from intoxication, but not a trace of worry could be found on his face.
As if he held absolute certainty that, no matter what happened next, he could handle it.
****
Yes, he would surely manage to pull it off, no matter what.
The title of Hero was, after all, granted to those born with such ability.
The real variable wasn't ability—it was motivation.
Despite his rank as Legion Commander, the reason he had deliberately left the main base and headed to the theater of operations was so that, in an emergency, he alone could control any problems Sin Jiho might cause.
"Those bastards down there?"
"Yes. An undead army placed under the Corpse Lord's sphere of influence."
A hill they reached after crossing a ridgeline thick with mist.
Below the slope, the undead legion that the recon unit attached to them was keeping under watch could be seen standing there, motionless.
The equipment they wore was old and rusted, but they were armed nonetheless.
The sight of hundreds of troops standing in orderly ranks was something you would never see among undead that spawned naturally in the wild.
"Whoa, look at 'em, swarming like bugs. Did those guys from the rumors—the Four Horsemen—actually show up?"
"No. It's a unit led by a lich under their command."
"So not a Legion Commander, more like a battalion leader? Heh, honestly. Here I thought they called me out for something really impressive, and you dragged me all the way out here because you couldn't even clean up a bunch of trash mobs like these."
A force of that size was something they could deal with on their end.
But doing so would require dispatching hundreds of their own men—and if they fought a full-scale battle against those things, they would risk taking casualties.
Moreover, with the enemy's strategy not yet properly confirmed, leading troops into direct combat meant there was also the danger of being toyed with by enemy schemes.
To preempt the enemy's intentions, the best option was a covert strike by a small elite force, wiping them out in one sweep.
"So, you saying you can't do it?"
But given the nature of Heroes, spelling out that reasoning in detail would be nothing but a hassle.
When Marcus spoke as if to provoke him, Sin Jiho burst into laughter and quietly rose to his feet.
"Just sit back and enjoy the show. I'll zip over, clean them up, and be right back."
Sin Jiho straightened the collar of his haphazardly thrown-on clothes and moved his staggering feet.
Watching him descend the hill, the members of the recon unit voiced their worries to Marcus, who had come here together with Sin Jiho.
"Legion Commander, will this be all right? No matter what, handling that many by himself is...."
"You. Do you not know why a Hero is called a Hero?"
Hundreds of troops against a single man.
If you had never witnessed a Hero's majesty firsthand, feeling uneasy was only natural—but Marcus, as Legion Commander, had seen numerous Heroes in action.
He had felt firsthand why Heroes were called Heroes, and why they were revered as saviors regardless of their character or purpose.
'Yes. Whatever their values or conduct, their power is the real deal.'
-BZZZZT!!
The moment the electric current arcing from that body was seared into his eyes,
Marcus found himself comparing him to a Hero he had once admired in the past.
The details might differ, but at the very least, the power he held—and that potential alone—might be on par with the Hero he had witnessed back then.
"...Hu, man."
But was it because its head had rotted away that it failed to recognize that power?
Soon, the black-hooded corpse leading the undead horde—a high-ranking undead called a lich—began to display hostility as it looked at the approaching Sin Jiho.
"Human, h-here, has come. Everyone, for the Queen, prepare for battle...."
-BOOOOM!!!!
A fierce bolt of lightning shot from his hand as he swung it.
As the lich's skull was incinerated on the spot by that attack, the bodies of the undead waiting before it all convulsed at once.
It wasn't that they were thrown into chaos by the surprise attack on their leader.
The actions of undead—beings without anything resembling consciousness—were governed first and foremost by the commands of a higher entity.
Once that higher entity was no longer capable of issuing commands, they naturally lost their controlling force and had no choice but to obey their most primal instincts.
"Groooh, ooooohhh!"
"Kyaaaaaaaah!"
The undead rampaged, shrieking, drunk on madness and hunger.
Their target was, of course, the human standing closest to them—but Sin Jiho merely stood in place and channeled power into his body.
Bzzzt. Bzzzzt. The electric current spreading across his skin and into the surroundings was the work of his ability, 'Electric Current Skin.'
By channeling his mana through his skin, he could generate electricity—and its potency had been explosively enhanced through all manner of Artifacts and Elixirs extracted from his patrons.
-KWA-GA-GANG!! KWA-GA-GA-GANG!!
What resulted was the massacre unfolding at this very moment.
The undead, charging solely at a single human, were burned to the bone by the electric current before they could even reach him, crumbling into ashes one after another.
There was no need to even aim while spreading the electricity.
The overwhelming power that radiated simply from standing there burned through decayed, crumbling human bodies far too easily.
"Pffft, hahahahahahaha!!"
Sin Jiho burst into laughter, flaunting that power.
His drink-addled mind, watching the trash being overwhelmed before him, began to flush with a growing sense of exhilaration.
"What are you doing! You damn corpses! Come at me harder! This is so boring it doesn't even count as a fight! Hahahahahahaha!!"
The number of undead who collapsed to the ground and ceased moving rose from dozens to hundreds—and in less than a minute, the entire force had gone still.
The recon unit soldiers who witnessed a single individual slaughter a battalion-sized force voiced their shock—but even that, Marcus merely looked down upon with impassive eyes.
'Yes. It's because his potential alone rivals hers that he's called a Hero.'
He wasn't yet at the level of opposing a dragon.
Not yet....
But even that was a feat achieved a mere one or two years after arriving in this world.
If he continued to survive and grow his power from here on, he might grow into an overwhelming champion who surpassed even her—a being capable of driving out calamities like dragons.
'And there are more than ten such Heroes stationed at this garrison alone.'
That was the reason the Empire obsessed over Hero Summoning.
It was possible to 'mass-produce' beings on par with the Hero who once stood against the dragons—and so all of humanity called them hope.
Even in a world so harsh a single Hero couldn't withstand it, if such individuals numbered in the tens or hundreds, it would be possible to fully safeguard the safety of humanity.
"...Boring. Was it really worth dragging me all the way out here for something this trivial?"
But those drunk on such power sometimes forgot one fact.
That the composure born of overwhelming strength breeds arrogance—and that arrogance creates a weakness called 'carelessness,' a blind spot that has nothing to do with underlying ability.
"Well, whatever. Annoying job's done, time to head back and rest."
Yes, at this moment, Sin Jiho had failed to notice the anomaly unfolding on the field he'd just devastated and was simply trying to leave.
Amid the site where electrified ashes swirled through the air, he failed to notice that, starting from the lich, the scattered corpses were twining together and building themselves into a massive form.
"Sin Jiho!!! Look behind you!!"
From atop the hill, Marcus spotted it and shouted.
Sin Jiho, whose guard had lapsed, furrowed his brow and spat back with irritation.
"Ah, seriously. Now what's this geezer on about."
His own power was, for all intents and purposes, invincible.
There was no way any of the undead he'd incinerated could still be alive—and more than anything, the fact that this superior was trying to push him around simply because of rank rubbed him the wrong way.
One free pass was enough. Piling on more work ran counter to his plans of enjoying a day of drinking and women.
"Hey, you old fossil. Just because I quietly followed you out here, do I look like a pushover to you!? What are you gonna make me do this ti—"
-CRUNCH!
The moment after, Sin Jiho was seized from behind by something that struck him.
The pressure shattered every bone in his body—but it happened so instantaneously that Sin Jiho couldn't even properly grasp the situation.
-Creaaak. Crrrrack.
But even if he had caught on, it was already far too late.
The corpses he'd assumed had been burned away by his ability had, outside his line of sight, secretly clumped together and were solidifying into a gargantuan form.
Drawn together by the lingering mana of the lich that had led them, they coalesced—into the shape of a colossal 'Corpse Golem.'
"Uh, ah, w-wait...."
-SQUELCH!
No sooner had he sensed the danger than his body was crushed—and the moment the blood squeezed from him began to foul the ground,
the faces of the recon soldiers watching the scene from the hill turned deathly pale.
"Th-the Hero got taken out...!?"
"This is insane..."
"What are you all dawdling for! The enemy's already spotted us! Prepare to retreat immediately!"
Grasping the situation took only an instant.
Marcus barked at his subordinates, urging them to run for the horses as he pushed them forward.
Indeed, just as he said, the Corpse Golem had already noticed them and was preparing to hurl the lump of meat clutched in its hand.
A being once called a Hero, now reduced to a worthless piece of flesh fit only for throwing.
-KWA-GA-GANG!
Everything at the point of impact was pulverized, shattered, and blasted into fragments in all directions.
Fortunately, there were no casualties yet—but simply restoring order from the chaos was certain to cost precious time.
-THOOOM!
Seizing that moment of confusion, the golem launched itself high into the air and then readied its fist to smash down on where Marcus and the recon unit stood.
'I have to block it.'
Reflexively, he drew the sword at his hip.
But for a fleeting instant—when the fist hurtling toward him was about to meet his blade—Marcus couldn't help but feel hesitation.
Carelessness or not, that monster, forged from hundreds of corpses, had slain even a Hero in a single moment. Could someone like him—an 'ordinary human'—truly stop it?
'If I don't block it, we all die...!'
His sword, wreathed in Aura that he himself had pushed down with sheer stubborn will, was about to be swung toward the golem hurtling at him—
-SHWAAACK!! BOOOM!!!
A flash erupted from the opposite side of where he stood, slamming into the golem's body.
And in the next instant, it transformed into the shape of a spear, shoving that massive body backward.
-Grooooh... oooh...!!
The gigantic frame reeled violently from the magical explosion.
His safety secured by it, Marcus hastily tore his gaze from the Corpse Golem and turned toward the one approaching.
A black-armored otherworlder who had arrived before he knew it, retrieving his fallen spear from the ground and taking his stance.