Who Saves the Hero?

Incompetence.

Powerlessness.

Those had always been words that lived a world away from me.

Whatever I set out to do, I could do it. And whatever I couldn't, someone at my side would take care of it as if that were simply the way of things. I never had the eyes to tell whether they did it to win my favor or out of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠genuine kindness—but it was always there, prepared, as if it were only natural.

As a Hero I saved countless people and slew the Demon King, and still no one could kill me. Nothing in this world could crush me underfoot.

Deep down, perhaps I had even hoped to die at the same moment as the Demon King. I had thought that, once. Living on as the perfect Hero, endlessly saving people, seemed far too hard. Better, I told myself, to die then and there, and close the book on my life as the Hero who fell alongside the Demon King.

And yet.

When my comrades—Alex among them—put me on the brink of death, I thrashed. The very first thought that rose in me was that I did not want to die.

I had believed I was ready to die at any moment. Had I been wrong?

I no longer understood the person called Olivia Reinhardt. I couldn't understand the woman I was. I didn't even know what I had wanted, training the way I had. All that frenzied training, all that fighting, all that blood spilled—and this was what it had come to.

"Hah... hah... nngh!"

"Please stay calm. Breathe slowly. Take this medicine—it will ease the pain. Try not to use mana if you can help it. If your Mana Nerves are stimulated, the God of Death Poison will devour Miss Livia's body even faster."

"Hahk...!"

Even so, using mana was no different from breathing to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Olivia. How had she learned it, anyway? She had watched someone else do it and more or less imitated them, as far as she could remember. Only later had she heard that other people spent years being taught. From the moment she became able to use it, she had circulated mana even in her sleep. It was as natural as drawing breath, which meant fully deactivating her Mana Nerves was harder for her than leaving them running.

"Hey, Lois."

"Yes."

"What exactly is the God of Death Poison?"

"...I only know what's written in the books, I'm afraid. It's an extraordinarily powerful poison, but it has no effect unless ingested directly, and it only affects the living."

"..."

"Though we call it a poison, 'curse' would be more accurate. Once you're afflicted, it's fatal. Starting with the Mana Nerves, every physical faculty is paralyzed and lost, and you die in agonizing pain."

"..."

I listened in silence, taking in every word.

"And the time until death is roughly one minute. Everything ends within that. It even collapses the body itself—they say those who die from the God of Death Poison leave no corpse behind."

"I see."

"What concerns me more is how Alex got his hands on it. This isn't something human craft can produce. The technique itself should have vanished long ago."

"I..."

I stared blankly up at the sky.

"Was cursed by my own comrades."

"..."

This time it was Lois who fell silent.

I don't think we ever had a particularly close bond of trust. I knew that Alex and the others found me a little uncomfortable, and because of that I had tried, as much as I could, to treat them well. We were going to go forward together as comrades, at least. They had never been lacking in skill, and I had never once felt I didn't need their support.

So what had gone wrong? Why had they betrayed me? Why had they tried to kill me? Had Olivia Reinhardt the Hero been that unworthy of their faith? Had the thought come first—that if this woman ever went off the rails, there would be no means of stopping her—before the number of people she had saved?

I had believed that something like closeness had grown between us, after sharing so many moments when life and death hung in the balance. I had believed I could trust them more than anyone else. To them, I had been nothing more than a monster that would be impossible to handle if she ever slipped beyond control.

"Lois, I'm not stupid. ...Well. Saying I'm not stupid after getting hit like this is a little awkward."

"I know."

"I... can I make it to Elvenheim?"

"..."

Silence. Lois seemed to be choosing his words, turning them over before he spoke. That was goodness. Something close to consideration—a face that was trying to find the way to say it that would hurt me least. That goodness was no different from before, and it was also the reason I hadn't wanted him at my side. Because of that goodness he acted of his own accord, and even tried to save me, the Hero. I had thought I must not keep someone like that close.

"How is it that your instincts are so sharp about things like that?"

"...Right. I should have been better at reading people."

"I'll be honest with you. Even if we rush, reaching Elvenheim will take more than a month. And I judged that Miss Livia, at best, has a month."

"I see."

I wasn't surprised. I wasn't so much of a fool that I didn't know the state of my own body. However devotedly Lois treated me, the wounds were severe, and the poison was spreading further through me by the hour. Setting the other injuries aside, I could feel the God of Death Poison eating away at my life, and Lois had put that remaining time at one month. A journey of more than a month, even at top speed. The odds that I would die before we arrived were higher.

"Are you afraid?"

"I don't know. It still doesn't feel very real."

"...Why did you save people, Miss Livia?"

"That's sudden. ...Because I'm the Hero."

"And that's why you saved them?"

"Yeah. I have to save people. ...I have to save even one more."

Someone whispered against my ear.

No one was striking me anymore, and still it seemed to throb. Until the moment he died, my father had told me I must become the Hero.

"I have to be the Hero. I have to live as a Hero and die as a Hero. But I can't. I can't. I can't...! I can't die like this. I have to die as a Hero."

"What does it mean, to die as a Hero?"

"What? Well... dying together with the Demon King, or dying while saving people. Something like that, right?"

"All of that sounds rather sad."

"Sad?"

I tilted my head. If you could die as a Hero, wasn't that an honorable, a good thing? Death itself might naturally frighten a person, but it wasn't something to be sad about. It was a Hero's death, after all.

"Hmm."

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Let me say this first: that isn't your fault. It's the fault of whoever placed that curse upon you. ...I sensed it even when we traveled together, but seeing it like this, it's quite severe."

"So, what is?"

A curse. He didn't seem to mean the God of Death Poison. No—I wasn't stupid, so I wasn't entirely clueless about what he meant.

"I'm talking about whether even a Hero might be allowed a happy ending."

How did that conversation become that? But a happy ending for a Hero. What was she supposed to do with that? If she was to live as a Hero and die as a Hero, nothing came to mind except dying. Besides falling gloriously in battle against some threat to humanity, what death was even fit for a Hero? How were you supposed to know you had died well, as a Hero?

"You've already done more than enough good. You may have chosen some rather extreme, pigheaded, arrogant options along the way, but those choices cannot stain the good you've done."

"..."

"Just as a single good deed cannot wash away a lifetime of evil, a single misdeed cannot stain a lifetime of good."

"Can you say that in a way I can actually understand?"

"You defeat the Demon King in the ordinary way. You retire in the ordinary way. You have a family, or whatever you like, in the ordinary way. You enjoy your hobbies in the ordinary way. You live surrounded by people in the ordinary way, and when your natural life runs out, you die in the ordinary way. They hold a funeral where people actually cry, and you go into the ground. Wouldn't that be a happy ending?"

"Or...dinarily."

"I believe you've already finished what a Hero is meant to do. That doesn't mean I'm forbidding you from saving people. Only that perhaps you might look after yourself a little. In all the time you've lived as a Hero, have you ever once been kind to Olivia Reinhardt?"

"..."

Never. Not even once. The people around me, and I myself, had never once been kind to me. I had always taken the whip to myself, clenched my teeth, and somehow tried to live and die as a Hero. The people around me had praised that and worshipped it, but worried...

Ah.

"Before."

"Yes?"

"You used to tell me not to push myself. Even when everyone else was saying 'hang in there.'"

"Hm? ...Ah. Yes, I did."

"Why?"

"Why, you ask? You're a person too, you know. Those dark circles, that perpetual scowl—you always looked so high-strung. Am I not allowed to say something? Has no one ever told you?"

"No."

"Hah."

Lois let out a somewhat incredulous sigh. He didn't seem angry with me, but the emotion was somehow unfamiliar, and I trembled slightly without meaning to. After I had trembled, I was startled by the fact that I had trembled at all.

"I was born a Hero, raised a Hero, lived as a Hero. ...And it's work that saves people. Who would stop me? No—why should they? The more I move, the more people I can save."

"...That's true. People are still suffering, and in that suffering and despair, your existence became hope and saved a great many. Not only their lives, but their hearts as well."

The hope that things would be all right if the Hero was there had taken real root among people, and I had accomplished that much. In a short span of time, too. It felt a little strange, as if I were patting myself on the back, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but they said that among Heroes in history, no one had ever handled things this quickly. So I had done well. I could say I had performed the Hero's work more properly than anyone.

And yet the look on Lois's face as he watched me now did not seem to want to offer anything positive. It wasn't a face that condemned me as wrong, but it wasn't a face that would praise me or worship me for having done well, either.

It had been like that before, too. When I had gone into the hydra's mouth myself to kill it, everyone else had said, "As expected of the Hero," and sung my name. Only he had looked at me with that dissatisfied expression.

"You still don't seem to understand the difference between risking your life and throwing it away."

"Do I?"

"If a Hero's role is to save countless people and give hope to those in despair—"

Lois fed another log into the campfire.

"..."

"Let's get some sleep. We'll be traveling by carriage all day tomorrow."

"Yeah."

Why you? Why are you helping me? Why do you reach out to the Hero? Why? Why are you trying to save someone whose role is to save?

I don't know.

I closed my eyes, slowly.