The Horse Struggles to Escape the Chessboard (1)
Demian was stronger than an ordinary player. Normally, when you create a character, they start out barely able to kill a single goblin. But he had been chosen as the Hero. …In the original story, Demian was the type to act with his body before his head. He would never propose a deal like this to me.
I stared at Demian, who was behaving differently from the original, wondering if he had some hidden motive. In the original, if the player refused to recruit him, he would immediately appear with a string of female characters and offer to join as a companion. But for him to wager the Holy Sword that marked him as the Hero? That was completely out of character. It was character collapse, plain and simple.
No matter how strong Demian was as the chosen Hero compared to the player, in the early parts of the original story he believed himself to be the Hero without a shred of doubt. He would charge recklessly into battle and fail to save people who could have been saved, resulting in their deaths. He was like a child with immense power. Combined with the goodwill of his female companions, who lacked real combat experience, the early story always spiraled into disaster. An immature yet brave Hero—that was the Demian I knew.
“Is there something on my face?”
Yet the Demian before me had seen through both my abilities and my identity, and was now proposing a wager where he would join me as a companion if he lost the Holy Sword. Fine, I could accept that he needed to recruit the player as a companion, just like in the original. But this…
“It’s the first time I’ve heard of a Hero giving up his Holy Sword. I’m just checking if there’s any trick involved. You don’t mind?”
“Do as you please. If I cannot recruit Shade-nim as a companion, then this Holy Sword is worth less than a rusty blade with all its teeth missing.”
“……”
Even so, treating the Holy Sword with such contempt made no sense. In the original, Demian valued the fact that he was the Hero more than his own life and took immense pride in it.
“For the record, it is not a fake. I have not placed any magic on it to make it return to me later, either.”
“…So it seems.”
The Holy Sword Einherjar. I examined the blade Demian had been holding moments ago, checking whether it was genuine.
“Will you believe me now, Shade-nim?”
Demian spoke with a gentle smile, as if he could see straight through my thoughts.
“When and where?”
“The sooner the better for me. We could fight right now if you like. Ah, but if you have a preferred location, I’ll follow your wishes.”
“This feels like I’ve been completely played… If I refuse, will you just leave?”
“No. I will visit your guild every day. If you will not become my companion, I may even chase you to the ends of the world.”
A chill ran down my spine. I could instinctively tell that Demian’s words were not lies. I needed to get rid of this ominous feeling quickly. No matter how I looked at it, getting involved with him would mean the heroines’ routes were doomed from the start.
“…There’s a clearing in the forest just outside, not far from here. We’ll fight there. Is that acceptable?”
“As you wish, Shade-nim. I will follow your lead.”
Demian’s expression carried a sincerity that reminded me of a saint serving a god, and everyone present fell silent, sensing something unusual about him.
“I hope you won’t disappoint me.”
“Of course not.”
I gathered my usual steel wire, gunpowder, and spare daggers, pulled my black hood over my head, and stepped outside.
The empty clearing was devoid of anything noteworthy. Gathered there were myself, Demian, and the female characters.
“Demian-nim, you are truly reckless. No matter how capable that man may be, to accept such an absurd condition…”
“What does it matter! Demian’s going to win anyway! Everyone thinks so, right? He’s the Hero!”
“Something feels off. There’s no way the leader of a thieves’ guild would add a clause like that if he thought he might lose.”
“C-can’t we fight together too? We’re supposed to be in the same Hero party…”
Like flies drawn to sweet fruit, the women clustered around Demian, voicing their concerns. What a bunch of posers. Words of comfort like that meant nothing on a battlefield where people died. I had no desire to join in their childish games—they were just kids who had never properly killed anyone.
“No. This is a burden I must bear alone. You agree, don’t you, Shade-nim?”
Demian brushed off the women’s hands and stood before me with a solemn expression. Fighting spirit. Nobility. Something like a sparkling diamond shone in his golden eyes.
“Slaying the Demon King isn’t child’s play. As the Hero, I too will one day have to stain my hands with blood.”
“……!”
“I need you, Shade-nim. Without you, the key to saving the world will never be complete.”
Demian had just voiced something very close to the thought that had crossed my mind moments earlier. He read my mind? How?
I was slightly flustered, but I tried to analyze Demian’s ability while remaining as calm as possible. It wasn’t through reading my expression, voice, gestures, or tremors. I had only been fiddling with the hilt of the dagger hidden in my robes. There was no way he could read the micro-expressions beneath my mask, and I hadn’t given him any other hints.
I’m certain. He used some ability to speak thoughts similar to mine. He’s trying to make me flustered and suspicious.
That was the conclusion I reached. Otherwise, there would be no reason for him to reveal that he could read my thoughts.
“…Have you developed delusions of grandeur?”
“Haha. Well, perhaps I have.”
A slightly chilling laugh. Like a broken human being, the Hero Demian approached me and spoke.
I tried to copy his ability to approach his truth—
In accordance with the promise of ■□■□, the ability copy of the Hero ‘Demian’ is currently prohibited.
—and a translucent status window appeared between us, canceling the ability activation.
Please keep the promise. □■□.
I had never made any such promise. The status window filtered out the unknown words and continued to block my attempts to copy.
“……”
So this was how it was going to be? This world wasn’t the I Want to Become a Hero Like You! I knew if it lacked even this level of unfairness. The player was forced into the role of cameraman while the game flaunted its couplings and NTR. Maybe that was why Demian had so readily accepted my proposal. He possessed some kind of ability and knew I couldn’t copy it.
“Are you going to keep your ability a secret?”
“Well, I still think it’s too immature and lacking to save someone the way you do, Shade-nim.”
“What a magnificent Hero we have here. Maybe you’ll even resolve things peacefully with the Demon King through conversation later.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
I tried to provoke him to draw out information about his ability, but he maintained his composure and even smiled. The growing sense of disconnect from the original Demian made me certain I needed to learn something from this fight.
“Hey, Saintess over there. Count down. When it’s over, we start.”
“…Understood.”
I deliberately asked Saintess Lavey to signal the start of the fight and took a few steps away from Demian.
“Then I will count five seconds. Five, four, three…”
Without closing the distance, I raised both arms as if inviting the first attack. Right now—around the two-second mark, when Demian and his companions were off guard and not expecting an attack—I quickly threw the hidden dagger.
“Wait, what are you—”
The Crow Saintess Lavey and all the women around Demian cried out in shock as they noticed the dagger flying toward him, but it was already too late. Battle was real combat. There was no reason to stand around waiting for an attack from the Demon King or his minions, and if they couldn’t even block a simple surprise attack like this, then Demian was no different from the one in the original story.
This should give me a clue about his ability. I threw it with zero preparation time, aiming for the moment he blinked.
If—if there was even the slightest chance—that the Demian standing before me was not the “original” one I knew, then this was the judgment I had made. Even if his eye was injured, the Crow Saintess Lavey could heal it. And then—
—Clang!
As if it had been predetermined, the spare dagger I threw at Demian struck metal and fell to the ground.
“Whew, you startled me, Shade-nim. It’s not fair to attack before the countdown even finishes.”
Demian had deflected my surprise attack with the Holy Sword and was now smiling nonchalantly, as if it were nothing.
“Is that so? My apologies. I’m terrible at arithmetic. I got impatient and attacked first.”
That was not the Demian from the original story. He was either a monster wearing Demian’s skin… or his personality had changed for some unknown reason. The truth about Demian—the Hero who had been treated as the most important piece on the chessboard, like a king—had yet to be revealed.
“You certainly have a sense of humor. You aimed for my right eye on purpose, but I’ll let it slide this once. Please don’t do that again.”
“Again? You think you’ll get another chance…”
I drew a deep breath and charged at Demian, copying the swordsmanship of Calliope, the daughter of the Mercenary King. It was one of the extremely barbaric sword styles used by the northern barbarians—a distilled essence forged purely from survival instinct. Northern Barbarian Swordsmanship: Devouring. My movement, kicking off the ground, created the image of a wild beast lunging with a fierce gust of wind.
“…The moment you challenged me to a fight, your defeat was already decided.”
And those fangs aimed precisely for the gaps in Demian’s armor, trying to sever muscle—
“But I must fight. That’s what it means to be the Hero, after all.”
Clang, clang—!
With sharp metallic sounds and sparks flying, Demian blocked every one of my attacks with the Holy Sword.
“That’s definitely the unrefined swordsmanship used in the north… How could an outsider—? So that’s what ‘copy’ means?!”
“As expected, you’re amazing. To copy Calliope’s technique so perfectly.”
Demian and Calliope voiced their impressions as they watched my swordplay. I used the recoil to create distance from Demian once more. If I kept using abilities recklessly and turned this into a battle of attrition, I would lose. It felt like the opponent could see through all my moves. Still, a few things had become clear.
“…Have we met somewhere before? This doesn’t feel like our first meeting.”
“Who knows? Would you like to guess? No, that would ruin the fun, so I’ll keep it a secret.”
Demian was not seeing me for the first time, or he possessed an ability to read minds or intentions. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to read all my attacks and thoughts and respond accordingly.