A New Hero (1)

Ruby's words had been the truth.

"Black Wolf without its leader?! Do you have any idea how dangerous those mad dogs are once the leash comes off?!"

He had not been gone a day. Left to its own devices, Black Wolf was already carrying out a massacre in the central square of the imperial capital. What in the world went wrong? He had even ordered them to clean and repair the hideout, precisely so they would not make trouble.

"Please!! Please, spare me, goddamn it!!"

"Sorry. You stink too."

Why were they cleaning people, and not the hideout?

...What am I supposed to do about that?

Should he slip back into Black Wolf's form, even for a moment, and order them to withdraw? No. Too many eyes on me right now. If it ever came out that Yellow Dragon and Black Wolf were the same person, the trouble would be far worse. And yet if he left them as they were, the ten or so hostages still left would die as well.

He was staring blankly, without the faintest idea how to fix any of it, when Dalan—still smiling, standing at his side—asked.

"What happened?"

Right. I'm honestly about to lose my mind. He crushed the complaint and the sigh that wanted out, barely, and answered evenly.

"I don't know anything about this."

"Come now. Since when has there been a Black Wolf matter our leader doesn't know?"

"This one."

"Pfft—! My, but you've grown amusing while I wasn't looking!"

What is he even saying.

"Enough of the jokes. Won't you share the plan with me as well, Leader?"

Dalan's maddening, oily ease finally hardened his voice, just a little.

"Dalan. I'll say it once more. I told you plainly. I don't know."

"......!"

Only then, as if he had grasped that it was the truth, did Dalan's face set. He bowed his head.

"Forgive me. I understand now."

"Enough."

I nearly died of frustration.

Something seemed to turn over behind that firm tone. Dalan lifted his head again.

"Shall I subdue them?"

"Can you?"

"If the two of us go together, certainly. Though in truth, would you not be more than enough on your own, Leader?"

I would not.

As everyone knew, the members of Black Wolf all sat somewhere around S-rank. Approach them like this and he would die with his throat cut, still wearing Yellow Dragon's face. That much was certain. But he could not run, either. He at least knew they were Black Wolf; to everyone else, this was nothing but a mass slaughter by unknown killers. Frightened people were already craning their necks for someone who could put the situation right, and Yellow Dragon matched the person they sought exactly.

"I-It's Lord Yellow Dragon!!"

"Look beside him! Lord Monster Dragon is with him!!"

"If it's Lord Yellow Dragon, he'll help us for sure!!"

The stares only multiplied.

...I'm seriously going to lose it. A situation in which he could neither step forward nor step back. What exactly do you want me to do?

He was ignoring the headache crowding in, watching Black Wolf in silence, when—

A chime.

A clear tone that had no business in a scene like this, and a blue system window rose before his eyes.

He had taken it for a rope thrown to pull him out. It was a faithless minister, giving him a firm shove into certain death.

But what else was there? If he did not want to die—if he wanted to go back—then he had to do it.

...Still, if all I have to do is drive them off.

With his artifacts and his skills, and with Monster Dragon—Dalan's strength—borrowed on top of that, might it not be possible? It felt as though a faint light had kindled along a road that until then had been nothing but dark.

"Remember, Dalan. Yellow Dragon."

"...I know."

He impressed it upon them both that he was Yellow Dragon now, and not Black Wolf, and had just gripped his greatsword to draw it—

"Everyone. Be still."

The assailant who had stood motionless all this while, a dark-crimson longsword at the hip, stepped forward.

A soft, sliding chill. Nothing more than a look from behind the mask, and yet a thick killing intent lifted gooseflesh over the whole body.

The moment the words ended—

Thud. Thud-thud-thud. Thud. Thud.

The fifteen or so hostages held nearby had their throats opened all at once, and rolled across the ground. Before that overwhelming violence the crowd could not even scream; they froze. And in the cruel scene of severed heads falling like rain, only the assailant—who seemed to be a woman—added one more line, her voice a little bright with excitement.

"All of it, according to the will of Black Wolf, our leader!"

When did I ever say that. Seriously.

The central square. A horrific massacre, carried out in broad daylight at the very heart of the Babylonia Empire's capital.

"All of it, according to the will of Black Wolf, our leader!"

The assailant's voice, brimming with rapture, bore down hard upon the crowd once more.

Mud, the E-rank mercenary who had been first to witness it, was no less afraid.

So it wasn't a child.

The one he had taken for a child had only looked especially small, standing between a hulking assailant and a lanky one. That one, too, was nothing but a monster like the other two, rejoicing at the sight of blood.

"...Good thing I guessed wrong."

Muttering that, Mud eased backward little by little, ready to run.

Mud. An E-rank mercenary, and leader of the F-rank Mud Mercenary Company—a righteous man who, three years into the work, still kept an upright heart. In a world where men like that rarely lasted a year before ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dying young, there was only one reason Mud had survived this long.

The knights will be here any moment to clean this up. The hostages have all been saved, and there's no one here worth dying for. If I bolt now, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠live.

A superb sense for danger.

"Everyone. We run."

The three remaining members, upright in his own image, broke into a cold sweat and whispered back.

"R-Right now...?!"

"Yeah. Those ones look far too dangerous."

"But we ought to stay and help people...!"

"Help them how? The knights will be here any minute. We pull out while we still can."

The knights. Monsters whose rank began, at the very least, at B+—nothing like the F- and E-ranks they themselves were. The assailants looked high-ranked as well, but in quality and in numbers the knights would surely be superior.

"Let's get back and finish that herb-gathering job. Otherwise we starve again today."

He said it half as a joke, and Loren—the F-rank mage who had joined not long ago for a commission—whispered back with a serious face.

"But, Captain...! While I was treating one of the guards earlier, I heard him say it—the news that the knights are coming, it's a lie...!"

"What...?!"

Loren leaned in closer.

"Everyone's hushing it up, but you know...! At dawn today, Black Wolf tried to kill the Emperor too...! They're so frightened they're holding the knights back and telling them to protect only themselves...!"

"...Damn it."

No sooner had Loren finished than every face in the Mud Mercenary Company went stiff.

The coward Emperor. Reyna Babylonia.

Ten years ago the previous emperor had died and she had taken the throne, and from within, the Babylonia Empire had been rotting to the core. They had not risen against her. They had believed that the safety of her subjects, at least, she would protect.

"So she won't even give us that anymore..."

He murmured it carefully, his heart sinking, and Loren spoke again.

"I heard it somewhere too. Seems that once the Hero left, there was no one left she had to watch herself around."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"You know how it is...! It's been a year since the Hero left, and look what we've come to...! Honestly, if the Hero were still here, do you think any of this would even be happening...?!"

At Loren's words, they all nodded. While the Hero had remained in the Empire, life had been far more livable than this. The corrupt nobles, busy with nothing but filling their own guts. The coward Emperor, curled up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠somewhere safe and devoted only to tyranny. Even the assailants before their eyes.

"True enough. If you picture the Hero still in the capital, none of this would ever have happened."

Everyone had sunk into gloom.

"Right? Now that the Hero's gone, I'm telling you—what we need is a new hero."

A soft, humorless breath. Mud alone caught the corner of Loren's mouth lifting in a cold, unpleasant curve, but he decided he must have seen it wrong and raised his head.

"Enough of that. On your feet. Whatever else is going on, our job hasn't changed. We keep even one more person alive against those killers."

Protecting people. It was the last lingering attachment of a man who had dreamed, for a very long time, of being a hero—and who, lacking the talent, had accepted reality. All they could really do was haul the frightened and the fallen back to their feet and lead them out of the square. Even so—

"Let's go."

Mud moved.

No.

He had been about to.

"Oh! You smell nice. Something fresh, like mud."

Behind the sound of something viscous dripping came the raw reek of blood.

"Damn it—Loren, a haste spell—!!"

Sensing that something had closed in, Mud spun, drew his longsword, and shouted. But all he met were the eyes of Loren's head, dangling from the assailant's hand, mouth still working.

"Oh, sorry. You should have said so a little sooner. I would have waited."

"Wh... ah...?"

"I found this woman's face in the memories of the last one I killed. Whew. I thought it was strange she was the only one here giving off that stench."

"...? Why would you...?"

"Because we're cleaning?"

Frozen by terror, Mud could do nothing but stare. And yet—perhaps because death stood right in front of him—his thoughts had never moved faster.

Those bastards put a robe and a mask on a kid and are making the kid do the killing!!

By the time he realized that the assailant before him was the very one he had mistaken—

"Hold on a moment. I'll check, and if I'm wrong I'll let you live. You smell nice, so I don't think you are. But I really can't afford a mistake this time."

She set a hand on Loren's severed head, and an emerald light flared in her eyes.

Mud understood. The assailant was reading memory through that severed head, and if whatever she was looking for lay anywhere among them—

I die.

For certain. Not the fear of death. A death already walking toward him, clear and sure. In the moment when any ordinary person would have run, or begged for their life—

"I told you we should run."

A copper-colored aura poured from Mud's body and wrapped the two members who remained.

Shrrk!

As if they had sunk into a soft bog, the two members of the Mud Mercenary Company vanished in an instant and burst back up fifteen feet away. And so the assailant's eyes, still sunk in the reading, turned to Mud once more.

"...What? Why did you make them run all of a sudden? Something eating at you?"

"Are you Solar Eclipse too? Tied to them anywhere at all?"

"...What?"

"Right. That's why it stung, and you got them clear."

A grinding creak.

The black mask she wore changed its shape, and became a white clown's mask.

"You were with this woman anyway, weren't you? A group that dared try to kill our leader. Sheltering them without knowing is still a crime."

Dead. I'm certainly dead. A scrap of an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠E-rank mercenary like him would die without room to trade even a single blow.

What we need is a new hero, you know?

The last whisper Loren had spoken, turned without warning into a last will.

A hero. A dream abandoned long ago; he could not imagine achieving it himself, not even in his sleep. But in this final moment he wished it, desperately.

...I hope someone—anyone—shows up.

In place of him, about to die like this—

Someday I'll become a hero and protect everyone!

—that someone would appear, and finish the dream he had never been able to finish.

"Goodbye, nice-smelling mister."

And in the moment the man who had once dreamed of being a hero accepted death, and moved to close his eyes—

A single streak of light came flying in.