Or Maybe Not
"Hehehe… It's so nice seeing you again after so long, Miss Lea."
"It hasn't been that long."
"Two weeks is a long time! I missed you so much~"
"True, true."
I let out a small sigh as the heroes clung to me from every side.
Just two weeks. Two weeks.
I'd closed my eyes thinking I'd catch a quick nap… and by the time I opened them, the heroes were already back.
She said it would be incredibly difficult.
Had Adela been exaggerating?
Sure, an ogre chieftain was something any proper hero ought to handle without much trouble — but these ones weren't exactly high-level. Even by the standards of the past, a year would have been the absolute fastest anyone could manage it. Half a year, if they were truly exceptional.
I swatted away Haring and Nya-nya as they clung to me, then sighed even harder at the ogre head sitting in front of me.
"Dumb ogre."
Couldn't even hold out long enough to keep the heroes away for more than two weeks. With subordinates like that, no wonder the Demon King got beaten like a dog and stuffed into a coffin.
"Cheer up. We worked really hard."
"Yeah! And we brought snacks!"
"…What is it?"
"Cotton candy from the royal capital. We went through so much trouble keeping it from melting on the way here."
"That's right. Miss Nya-nya barely managed to bring it while maintaining her staff."
Yong-ba, who had been standing off to the side, came forward with a box. Inside, nestled alongside the Frost's End staff, were five beautifully packaged cotton candies. Haring picked out the prettiest one and held it out to me.
Not that I'd given them the staff for this purpose, but…
Nom.
"Mmm…"
"It's good, right?"
"It's good."
It was more like ice cream than cotton candy. I'd never seen food like this before — was it something new? The flavors were varied, too. Strawberry, chocolate, banana — they'd bought a whole assortment.
Munching away on the frozen cotton candy, I found my mood improving a little.
"Any more?"
"We bought three extra boxes just in case."
"Good job."
Pat, pat.
I gave each of the heroes a head pat. Bringing the thing back in two weeks was a bit of a hassle for me, but they'd completed the mission I'd given them all the same.
Their growth rate isn't bad.
At this pace, even that gacha-addict Goddess old hag ought to be reasonably satisfied.
Somewhere in the middle, Yugi started spouting nonsense about wanting another head pat, so I settled that with a knuckle to the skull instead.
"This isn't so ba—"
"Just die."
"Gack."
"More importantly, Miss Lea. After we took it down, some weird guy jumped us at the end…"
"Hm?"
I listened as Haring plopped down beside me again and launched into her story, looking thoroughly aggrieved. After they'd finally managed to kill the ogre, a black-skulled demonkin had appeared out of nowhere and wiped the entire party in a single blow. He'd called himself the Fifth Legion Commander — Cadaver of Ministry.
"I mean, come on. Beating the ogre was hard enough, and then a Legion Commander just shows up? That's way too much."
"True, true."
"And the guy kept grilling me about what kind of relationship I had with you, Miss Lea. Ugh, I seriously thought I was gonna die."
"You die and then you revive."
"Ehh. Still feels bad when you die, though."
"Hmm…"
Treating death as nothing more than "feels bad, so I don't like it." No matter how I looked at it, this generation of heroes had a way of thinking I simply could not understand.
It's not like this is some kind of game.
I chewed on the cotton candy stick and cast my mind back.
Let's see…
"Cadaver… Cadaver… Ah. I remember now."
"What kind of guy is he? He seemed to hate you a whole lot, Miss Lea."
"I told him I wasn't fighting, and he fought me anyway."
I wasn't a hero, and I wasn't some devout follower of the Goddess, so I'd had no particular interest in picking fights. In the early days after reincarnating as Lea, maybe — but by the time I hit around two hundred years old, I was more or less semi-retired.
Fighting? Whatever. I'd rather sleep, or occasionally wake up and wander around sampling good restaurants. If the heroes hadn't shown up, I'd been planning to sleep for about five years and then go eat strawberry cream bread in the Fairy Kingdom.
"But some demonkin under Cadaver burned down my favorite restaurant. So I went and found him and set his entire legion — and him — on fire."
"With a breath attack?"
"Yeah."
Watching him stare blankly at his burning legion had been pretty funny. The way he thrashed around on the ground from the heat was entertaining, too.
"Even the skull burned. That was interesting."
"Could you show us a breath attack just once?"
"No."
"Why not? Come to think of it, I've never actually seen you use a breath attack, Miss Lea."
"Wouldn't a breath attack make catching thieves easier?"
"It'd set the mountain on fire."
I shook my head at Yong-ba and the others. Sure, sitting still and opening my mouth to blast a breath was easier than moving around. But this was my home — one stray spark and the whole mountain goes up. I could put it out with magic easily enough, but having to clean up twice was an absolute pain.
"Then what about when you burned the Legion Commander?"
"That wasn't my house."
"Ah."
Nya-nya, who had been polishing the Frost's End staff with careful little scrapes, nodded in understanding. Meanwhile, Yong-ba's request to fire a breath into empty air went in one ear and out the other.
"Huum…"
"I don't even need the treasure vault pass — if I could just see a breath attack once, I'd have no regrets for the rest of my li—"
"Nope."
I left the dejected Yong-ba behind and thought things over. More than anything, the fact that a Legion Commander had shown up again was bothering me. The demonkin and monsters that had been lying low in the north ever since the Demon King's death were stirring again — and now they'd gone so far as to trot out a Legion Commander?
Granted, it was only a lingering will rather than the real body, but this was the first time any Legion Commander had appeared since the Demon King's fall.
Is it because Bahamart is getting old and frail?
Bahamart's fighting days were long behind him, that much was certain. He'd laid down every title and every scrap of power and was spending his twilight years in the royal castle. Even if he could still fight, he would never match his former self.
"Guess they're free to run wild, huh."
Maybe that was why the old hag had summoned so many heroes at this particular time — to fill the void Bahamart left behind.
"Hehe… Anyway, we worked really hard catching it, so when do we get the pa—"
"Cotton candy first."
"Here you go!"
Nom.
"Thank you so much!"
"Yeah. Don't use that until you've made four stars. Use it early and you're screwed."
"Of course! I'll devote my lifelong loyalty to you!"
I looked at Hidene, who was bowing over and over in front of the treasure vault. Waking me from a good nap was extremely annoying, but a promise was a promise — I intended to give what I'd said I would.
What Hidene had chosen was a pure-white spear that could freely change its form, capable of becoming armor or a barrier depending on how it was used. The vault held so many treasures and weapons that I didn't know the specs of every single one. Some of them had existed long before I was even born.
"Fifth one. That makes six next."
Haring was last in line. Something I'd noticed while handing out weapons so far: the heroes could read a weapon's specs. What performance it had, what abilities it carried, what restrictions applied. Before I could even explain anything, they'd examine the treasures one by one and zero in on the weapon that suited them perfectly.
"How convenient."
Watching this, I couldn't help thinking the old hag was showing this generation of heroes a kind of favoritism. Heroes of the past had higher ceilings and greater raw strength, but they needed a long time to grow. This generation got stronger just by running "errands," and they were immortals who didn't even stay dead. They barely felt pain, either.
I'd turned over the question of why she was going this far, but no easy answer came to mind.
Does she want a hero as strong as Bahamart? Or did she see some kind of potential in them?
"Uuuhm…"
No idea. All I had to do was raise the heroes to a reasonable level and send them on their way. I'd been generous with the weapons, so once I sent them out on more quests, I could finally get a good long sleep.
"You're last."
"Hehehe… The protagonist always makes her entrance at the end."
"You gonna pick those practice weapons again?"
"Absolutely not."
Haring, last in line, sidled up to me as if she'd been waiting for this. Looking back on it now, maybe she'd had her reasons for choosing the practice weapons last time. The training weapons Mother left behind were all forged from a fire dragon's scales. There might be something in them even I didn't know about.
"Want the practice weapons?"
"No no! Please don't consign me to any more regret and suffering!"
Clink. Clink.
On the way to the second treasure vault, where the weapons were kept, Haring shook her head firmly and spoke in a voice more serious than I'd ever heard from her.
"This time I'm picking something good for sure. You could beat me to death and I'd still pick the expensive one, so don't try to tempt me."
"Why? Like you said, those might actually be the good ones."
"That was back when I didn't know any better…"
"What if they have a hidden ability?"
Tap.
Haring and I arrived at the weapon vault. A mountain of treasure — weapons, equipment, and accessories piled high like a hill. I brought over a crate stuffed with training swords and set it down in front of her.
"I call them practice swords, but they're not just ordinary blades. They're made from Mother's scales."
"…But the specs are terrible."
"Are you insulting my mother right now?"
"Ah — no! That's not what I meant!"
Haring shook her hands and head frantically. I chuckled at the sight, then picked up two of the swords. Haring looked at me with a puzzled expression. I brought the two blades together as if clapping my hands, and—
Click.
"!"
"Neat, right?"
They stuck together. The two swords fused with such precision that they became one, and Haring's eyes went wide.
"What… is that?"
"It's always been like this. The weird part is, even after joining two swords, the size is about the same as holding just one."
"Wh-why?"
"I don't know either."
I linked a few more swords together and handed the result to Haring. She gripped the red blade, which seemed just a shade more vivid than before. Her eyes darted between the sword, the empty air, and me.
"It got stronger… Wait. If you gather them all, do they awaken…?"
"If you pick these, hmm… I could give you about thirty."
"…What about all of them?"
"No. Thirty is already a lot. If you do well later, I might give you more."
"Uuuummm…"
After an hour of pacing the treasure vault in agonized deliberation, Haring finally walked out with thirty training swords. Regret seemed to be creeping in already — but you never know. If some truly remarkable ability was sleeping inside them, they might outperform every weapon the other heroes had chosen. An ability even I didn't know about? It certainly wouldn't be ordinary.
Or maybe not.