Roll, Hero Party
The hero party was walking the path of ruin after Noah's declaration of expulsion. It wasn't just that they had barely survived a near-total wipeout against Pector of Despair—they couldn't even track him properly. When they tried to hunt a dragon, half the village ended up destroyed. They couldn't even respond effectively to the remnants of the Demon King's army invading.
The hero party, riding a carriage toward the orc settlement east of the Great Forest, no longer echoed with the laughter they once shared.
“Where the hell did Noah go? Did he die together with the Demon King or something?”
No, that couldn't be it. No matter how many times they thought it over or chewed on the idea, there was no way they had died together.
“There was no corpse in the Demon King's castle. He couldn't have died.”
If there was no body, it was hard to believe. Moreover, Pector himself had said there was no corpse. Not long ago, when Eugene met Pector again, he had asked about Noah's whereabouts. That was when the hero party heard the story from Pector.
“Hmph. Do you really think a coward with no will to fight can change anything by chasing me?”
“Where is Noah?”
“Now that I think about it, that man always came out alone to fight me. I can see how strong your bonds are.”
“What did you say?”
“You call him a comrade, yet you come to me looking for him. There was no corpse of the one who killed the Demon King in his castle. So I went to Berta Fortress where you were, but it was a waste of effort.”
That meant they still couldn't conclude that Noah was dead.
“Damn it. At this rate the party's going to fall apart. Everything else is fine, but it feels like we're about to vomit up everything we've eaten until now.”
Eugene frowned as he looked at the newspaper featuring the knight from the hero party. The front page carried the headline that the hero party was suffering defeat after defeat.
“What should we do now?”
At Cyria's question, Eugene let out a deep sigh.
“Haa… Of all things, they had to order us to subjugate the Four Heavenly Kings.”
After Pector of Despair had destroyed Berta Fortress to the point where restoration was nearly impossible, the kingdom decided to retaliate against the Four Heavenly Kings. At the same time, doubts had arisen about the hero's achievements, so they immediately ordered the subjugation. Naturally, word had reached the Great Forest and the Holy Kingdom as well. Ella, the noble elf of the Great Forest, and Cyria, who had been personally appointed as the kingdom's saintess by the Holy Kingdom, had no choice but to participate.
Ella, who had quietly concluded that there was truly no solution, let out a hollow laugh.
“In the end, it's all our own doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“We've been rolling that guy around all this time. He got stronger while we just stagnated in place.”
If they had known Noah would hit them in the back of the head like this, they would have prepared countermeasures long ago.
“So you're saying we haven't grown at all.”
“Logically, we defeated the Demon King. There's no reason for Noah to stay with us anymore. After all, we only gathered as a party to defeat the Demon King in the first place.”
The hero party existed solely to defeat the Demon King. In other words, now that the Demon King had been defeated, everything was over.
“Ah.”
“Ella and I each hold important positions in the elf race and the church. If we don't at least take down the Four Heavenly Kings, we're in danger.”
It was like being bound in shackles. So if they couldn't find Noah now, the future looked pitch black.
“Then Noah even more—!”
“Noah? Someone from the Land of Destruction doesn't have any particular honor they need to uphold, do they?”
The Land of Destruction—the place on the continent where it was hardest for humans to survive. Long ago, after the god slayers killed the gods there, a divine curse had settled over the land. Not a single blade of grass grew, it was dry all year round, and not even wild animals existed. It was a land of nothing but gray ash, as if the end of the world had come. Once the center of the world in ancient times, it was now a place everyone avoided. Yet rumors said that even there, a minority clan lived.
The people who survived in that cursed land were exceptionally talented in magic and could wield ancient spells. Some scholars had even published speculative papers suggesting they might be a clan chosen by the gods. Noah was living proof of that. At first glance, it seemed like a suitable background to uphold honor, but Noah had wanted to make a name for himself as Noah. Besides, it was unknown whether any of his clan besides him were still alive. In other words, unlike Cyria and Ella, whose reputations were tied to the church and the elves, he was free.
“That's true.”
“From the beginning, he always complained at kingdom banquets that once the Demon King was defeated, he'd leave us. The kingdom already knows all about our relationship.”
That was right. Noah had always said such things when drinking. The humorous and witty Noah had been popular even among the kingdom's nobles. It must have been properly imprinted in their minds.
“That's why this problem happened.”
“More importantly, Ella. You're speaking casually to me now.”
Casual speech. They had already been disappointed to the limit—what did casual speech matter anymore?
“Anyway, you're younger than me. Until now I went along with everything, flattering you with my body and heart, but now that I've faced reality, I think this is wrong. Why?”
Now it was do or die. Whose fault was all this? It was the incompetent hero's fault.
“After moaning beneath me like that!”
“You have no talents of your own, yet you acted all high and mighty in the Great Forest, treated like the perfect husband material, and now you act like you're so great!!”
Ella sobbed, deeply regretting that she had ever given her body to such a man. Come to think of it, that was when it had started. When he was showing off in the Great Forest. Noah had looked at him like he was pathetic. She should have suspected something back then. The so-called hero was actually worse than the party's mage—what kind of nonsense was that?
“This isn't the time to fight. The future is the problem. While we were playing around, that gloomy mage kept getting stronger.”
“That's right.”
While he had just been fooling around with Ella and Cyria, it would have been strange if Noah hadn't gotten stronger.
“Right now we can barely handle even one of the Four Heavenly Kings. First of all, didn't that gloomy mage voluntarily leave the party himself? So I don't think we need to keep clinging to some sense of duty.”
“Then?”
“It would be better to recruit new members while we have the chance.”
Recruit new members. That was easier said than done. They hadn't been looking for Noah all this time out of a sense of duty.
“Will we be able to find someone as talented as Noah?”
“Honestly, it'll be difficult.”
Where could they possibly find a mage capable of defeating the Demon King? Even if they lowered their standards, they needed someone strong enough to fight the Four Heavenly Kings. The problem was that, surprisingly, there weren't many people with suitable skills right now. Even most of the current hero party members were weaker than Eugene, the hero who had been defeated by one of the Four Heavenly Kings.
‘Of course, we've set the bar quite high.’
If it was just about ‘strength,’ there might be room for compromise, but the mage the hero party wanted now had far too many conditions.
This was the best option for now. No matter how much they tried to fix things, this was the current reality. With the Four Heavenly Kings' invasions continuing, the kingdom's orders were pouring in like rain. There was no time to build up strength or reform the party as a whole.
“Haa. It really makes me just sigh.”
“We're in a situation where nothing works. Even if we meet Noah, there's no guarantee he'll rejoin us.”
That was true.
“What about the empire?”
“The empire?”
“The kingdom is where the war actually happened, so there aren't many skilled adventurers. What about the empire then?”
“Oh, that doesn't sound bad.”
They hadn't been able to recruit openly because of Noah, but they had looked into it separately.
“The problem is how to get out of this Four Heavenly Kings situation. Of course, as the hero party we can't just leave them alone. We need to gather comrades. We should tell the palace about the hero party's current situation and recruit new members.”
“Is that the only way?”
“Either we keep suffering defeat after defeat until our lives are over, or we recruit new comrades even if it means getting cursed out. We have to choose one.”
The difference with the Four Heavenly Kings was clear. Eventually they would have to subjugate them. In their current weak state, they could never defeat them.
“You're right.”
“Ella. How can you say that so casually—”
While Eugene was thinking seriously, Ella answered as if it were someone else's problem. When he got angry, Ella responded with an incredulous expression.
“You think I'm being casual? There's no other way, is there? You saw Pector last time, didn't you? He ignored us. He acted like we weren't even worth dealing with!”
After his disappointment, Pector had left the hero party alone. No, the all-out attacks on the kingdom had stopped. Instead, only the hero party pathetically clung to Pector. Of course, only Pector's attacks had disappeared. The uncontrolled Demon King's army continued to cross into the kingdom.
BOOM!
“What was that sound?”
“It seems something happened to the carriage.”
The carriage suddenly tilted. Wondering if it was an ambush, Eugene stuck his head out of the carriage and shouted at the driver.
“Hey, what's going on?”
“Aigo, hero sirs. The carriage wheel got stuck in a swamp.”
The driver answered Eugene's question far too casually. It was truly displeasing. How could he say something like that in this situation? They weren't far from the orc settlement—something like this was troublesome.
“Why the hell did you come through the swamp area?”
There must have been a flat road. They had taken this path several times before, so they knew. Yet why had this driver deliberately taken the difficult swamp route?
‘And of course we couldn't buy teleport scrolls because of the budget shortage. Tsk.’
There really was no answer. When Noah was with them, he had made teleport scrolls. Later on, though, even Noah had said that handmade ones were wasted on bastards like them and that they should just buy them with money. Maybe he had already given up on the party back then.
“How was I supposed to know there was a swamp here?”
“You call that an excuse right now?”
They were right next to the orc settlement. If they got ambushed like this, what were they supposed to do?
“Hero. Stop it.”
“Ella. Are you ordering me around?”
Ella made an incredulous face. To think he took that as an order. How had she ever followed a man like this? If she had known, she should have left the hero as a scarecrow and stuck with Noah.
“Right now public sentiment toward us isn't good. Even a lowly coachman needs to be handled carefully at a time like this.”
“Damn it!”
There was nothing he could do but glare. Still, he couldn't ignore Ella's words. Noah's popularity in the kingdom had pierced the heavens. Rumors were already circulating that the hero had sent Noah to the Demon King's castle to kill him. That must be why even the coachman was acting so insolently.
“Would the mighty hero please pull out that wheel for us?”
He was clearly testing them on purpose.
“You dare say that now!”
“Aigo. If it were Sir Noah, he would have cut the swamp with his sword and pulled it out in one go.”
The coachman wailed dramatically at the hero's threat. No matter how much weaker the hero was than before, this was too much. Just how had Noah manipulated people all this time that even now so many missed Noah and hated the hero party?
“Let's just pull it out.”
“Yes. This is our situation now.”
Eugene's face flushed red, but with Ella and Cyria persuading him, he had no choice but to help.
‘To think that I, who possess the Holy Sword, would end up like this.’
It was truly ridiculous.
“Wait, something's strange here.”
As one of the forest folk, Ella could hear any sound in a forest area. Right now, she could sense the presence of hundreds near the swamp.
“What's wrong?”
“It's an ambush! Prepare for battle!”
“Kikikik. Kuhahaha! Only realizing it now—you really are stupid bastards.”
The coachman's laughter echoed through the forest. A sinister aura flowed from his body. Eugene pointed his sword at the coachman.
“Who the hell are you?”
“If I kill you all here, Lord Jerato will promote me to an executive!”
The coachman's appearance had already changed into a black mage's robe. Executive? Jerato? Who was Jerato? From the sound of it, he was probably someone under one of the Four Heavenly Kings.
“A black mage who fell in with the Demon King's army. Everyone, prepare for battle!”
The battle between the hero party and the orcs swarming from all directions began.
At first, they fought relatively well. No matter how much the hero party had played around, they still had basic skills. Ella was famous as the most outstanding archer in her tribe, Cyria had been appointed saintess directly by the pope who had come to the kingdom, and hero Eugene possessed the Holy Sword. They cut down the orcs charging from all sides with spirit-infused arrows, holy power, and the Holy Sword.
“Graaaaaaaaagh!”
“There are too many. How are we supposed to hold out?”
“It's a encirclement too. And if that black mage is controlling them—!”
Monsters controlled by a black mage didn't die easily. They rose again like zombies. That was the problem. If they were normal orcs, the current hero party could handle them, but these were prepared forces in a swamp area of all places. Could they win without taking damage? It would be better to run. But that damn black mage had even set up a barrier to prevent escape. And it wasn't even a real swamp. Dark chains—a black magic spell—had been cast on the swamp area. It was like a trap; the moment you stepped on it, chains bound your feet and reduced mobility.
“Our feet are completely tied.”
“We just have to fight. We only need to hold out until the black mage runs out of mana.”
He was just a black mage. Not even an executive rank—did he really think he could withstand the hero party's mana consumption?
“Look at that. Can we really hold out?”
“?”
The black mage flicked his finger, then poured out mana stones that could restore mana as if mocking the hero party.
“That… that crazy bastard.”
It seemed this battle was going to be quite difficult. The hero party desperately missed Noah.