The Hero Arrives
The greatest broken cheat blessing in all of Crack Kingdom—the S-rank Blessing of Restoration, capable of returning anything it touched to its original state.
Even if you handed it to a complete newbie on their very first day, they could still suck every last drop of honey from it. Easy to use, absurdly powerful… and right now, that blessing was being put to work like this:
“Return to how you once were!”
A low hum. A brilliant flash.
“Wow! Young Master, the door doesn’t creak anymore! The hinges look brand new!”
“That’s my Rina! Well done!”
It was being used to repair the Termin mansion.
Some might scold that wasting such a magnificent blessing on trivial chores was the height of extravagance. Those people simply didn’t know what they were talking about.
When the Blessing of Restoration targeted an inanimate object, so long as the necessary materials were nearby, it could be used infinitely—without consuming stamina or mana.
That was precisely why it was such a broken cheat: you could pour it into the smallest, most mundane tasks without any restriction.
Hoarding a good ability and using it sparingly was the kind of thing only clueless amateurs did.
I was a veteran. I intended to wring every last drop of sweetness from this blessing.
If I had my way, I’d restore the entire dilapidated mansion until it looked brand-new. Unfortunately we didn’t have the materials for that yet, so for now I limited myself to the little things that had been annoying me in daily life.
Once the territory developed and we could buy materials by the cartload, I would turn this place into something completely new.
A newly built mansion… what a beautiful ring those words had.
“Kehehehe…”
“Young Master.”
I had been chuckling to myself, lost in the fantasy of living in a gleaming new mansion, when Rina called out to me.
“Hm? Yeah? What is it, Rina?”
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you laugh like that. Are you truly that happy I awakened this blessing?”
She asked the question with an expression that clearly expected a particular answer.
In the old days I would have just blurted out whatever floated into my head—wrong answer or not, who cared? But I couldn’t do that anymore. I shouldn’t.
Our relationship was no longer the simple master-and-servant dynamic of the past. We were equals now.
Actually… Rina might even be standing a little higher. She was the owner of the Blessing of Restoration, after all.
I possessed a button that launched missiles with a single click, but even that couldn’t hold a candle to her blessing.
If the community ever held a versus debate between “missiles” and “miracle hands that can restore anything,” the votes would pile up on the latter without question.
So, just as I had done with Rien, I coated my tongue thickly with honey before I spoke.
“Of course I’m happy. How could I not be? A power that can fix anything just by touching it—and it appeared in my own family. Who wouldn’t be overjoyed?”
“H-hm. Is that so?”
“It is. And the user isn’t just anyone—it’s you, Rina. The finest maid in the entire world, someone no one else could ever compare to no matter how hard they searched. That impossible blessing settled into your hands. The Hero has the Holy Sword, the Mercenary King has his beloved blade… and our head maid has the Blessing of Restoration. Do you understand what that means? It’s like giving wings to a dragon. Having the greatest head maid in the world on my side—as my family—feels like I own the entire world.”
“……”
Under the barrage of praise, Rina pressed her lips tightly shut and gave no reaction at all.
The corners of her mouth were twitching, so it seemed the compliments were landing… but with her mouth closed I couldn’t be sure.
Damn it. Of course it was Rina. She had weathered every storm as the head maid of this impoverished house; she wouldn’t be as easy as Rien.
I found myself regretting the dragon-wings line. Dragons already had wings, so maybe the metaphor had broken the immersion of the praise.
Words once spoken couldn’t be taken back. I was still fretting over how to salvage the slip when Rina’s closed lips finally parted.
“…Pfft.”
“?”
“Ehehehe.”
She laughed with the same pure, radiant joy she had shown as a child when I once handed her a piece of candy my mother had given me.
Seeing that bright, unguarded smile after so long made the tension melt right out of me.
Looks like my praise had hit the mark after all.
“Is that sooo? Young Master is that happy just because I’m here? Ehehe.”
“Of course! Obviously! There isn’t a single noble in the whole world luckier than me!”
“Eheheh. Oh, Young Master. If you keep flattering me like that I’ll get a big head, you know.”
“Get as big a head as you want! You’re the greatest head maid alive—you’ve earned every bit of it!”
“Ehehehehe.”
I kept pouring praise on her without giving her a chance to recover.
Every word I spoke was completely sincere, and those heartfelt compliments made Rina laugh harder and harder.
“Rina, because you awakened the Blessing of Restoration, the list of things we need for the territory’s revival has gotten a lot shorter. As the head of the house, I formally thank you.”
While she was still floating on cloud nine, I lightly took her fingertips and expressed my gratitude.
If I pushed a lifelong contract on her right now—asking her to stay by my side forever—I was pretty sure she would accept it.
Of course Rina was family, and I never believed she would leave me… but the closer the relationship, the more important it was to make these things official.
“So, Rina, about that…”
“Things needed for the territory’s revival? What do you mean? Could you tell me what else you require, Young Master?”
But the moment she heard the words “territory’s revival,” Rina snapped straight back into head-maid mode, and my sneaky lifelong-contract scheme went up in smoke.
…Yeah. Trying to cheap-shot such an important contract was my own fault.
“First of all we need labor more than anything. And since we need labor, we also need military strength to protect the territory.”
I answered her question honestly, still berating myself a little.
Only a few hours earlier I had declared I would never shut her out again.
“Labor and military strength… so people, in the end. Still, General Rien has gone to the capital to announce the Termin family’s great achievement. Once word spreads, people should start coming, don’t you think? The entire continent is in chaos because of the Great Rifts, so refugees will gather as well. We can accept them into the territory and put them to work as labor.”
Rina thought hard and offered her own solution.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Her idea for obtaining labor was exactly the same as the one I had already been considering, so I simply nodded in agreement.
“Then the real problem is military strength… But Young Master, you have that Manifestation of Destruction ability. Isn’t the military situation not that urgent?”
“No, it is urgent. Because the user of that ability is me.”
“…Pardon?”
Rina tilted her head, clearly struggling to understand.
Fair enough—put that way, it was hard to grasp.
I gave a small nod and began explaining so she could follow.
“My Manifestation of Destruction is definitely an incredibly powerful ability. As long as I pay the proper price, I can wipe out an entire army that comes to swallow our territory in a single strike.”
“Th-that’s true. But then why…?”
“But the user is me. I’m the guy who sits at a desk all day and has worse stamina than an ordinary person. If someone sneaks over the walls while I’m asleep, slips into the mansion, and slits my throat, the Manifestation of Destruction and everything else becomes useless—I’ll just die.”
“Ah.”
This world’s setting was dark fantasy.
Superhumans who wielded mana existed, and far stronger calamities moved with pure malice to crush humanity.
In front of those monsters, an ordinary person like me was nothing more than a dandelion seed that would scatter with a single puff of breath.
“That’s why I need military strength that can protect this territory so my throat doesn’t get cut while I’m sleeping.”
And not just any military strength—strength so overwhelming that no one would even dare set their sights on Termin Territory.
“…Mmm. You’re right. There isn’t a single soldier in Termin Territory right now. Even a mere junior knight could take your life without any trouble.”
“Rina, why would you say something so terrifying?”
“It’s all right, Young Master. If your life is truly in danger, I’ll throw myself in front of you and die first. You needn’t worry about going alone.”
“That isn’t comforting at all.”
“Anyway, even if we can fill the labor shortage with refugees, I have no idea how to fill the military one. Hmm… should we hire a mercenary company? But the territory doesn’t have the money to hire one worth using. Should I take the monster parts General Rien carved up and sell them in the capital? But we don’t know when the refugees will arrive, and leaving the territory empty in this situation…”
Rina began fretting in earnest.
With the safety of the entire territory on the line, of course she would take it seriously.
But unlike labor, which was relatively easy to obtain, the military problem wasn’t something that could be solved just by thinking hard.
So I lightly rested a hand on her shoulder, smiled, and said,
“Rina, you don’t have to rack your brains like that. I’ve already got a plan.”
“A plan…? What is it?”
“Well, before I tell you… let’s finish what we were doing first. We’ll make the reception room completely brand-new.”
“S-suddenly? Why the reception room all of a sudden…?”
“Because a guest will be using it soon.”
“A guest? What kind of guest?”
“If I tell you now you’ll be so tense you won’t sleep until they arrive. So just wait and see for yourself later.”
“Ugh, why are your answers always like this?! Nothing is clear! You’re so frustrating!”
No matter how many questions she asked, all she got were vague replies. In the end Rina raised her voice and snapped at me.
“Okay, okay. Then I’ll tell you just one thing about the guest.”
“Haaah… Fine. What is that one thing?”
I soothed her as I spoke.
“The guest who’s coming soon… is an extremely strong person.”
“A strong person…?”
Yeah. Someone ridiculously, absurdly strong was about to arrive in Termin Territory.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!!! Creeeeak!!!
“Ahahaha! Sis! We’re here!”
“Y-yeah. G-good work, G-Gid.”
At the words of the warrior of the Hero’s party, Gid, the Hero Eve climbed down from the carriage on trembling legs.
At the front of the carriage, where horses should have been, sat Gid in a wheelchair instead.
Gid had pulled the carriage all the way to their destination in place of horses.
Using a man who had lost his legs as a horse substitute was a sight that would make any onlooker cry out, “A demon…!” in horror.
But this was what Gid himself had wanted. And frankly, a wheelchair pulled by Gid was stronger and faster than any horse, so it was far more efficient.
In any case, the place Eve had reached after riding that carriage—no, that Gid-mobile—was Termin Territory.
“H-he’s here, right…? The one who destroyed the Great Rift…”
It was the home of Offen Termin, the man who had destroyed the Abyss of the Army.