Just a Coward With Power
Lois.
He was a commoner, so he had no surname. Just Lois.
The first time I laid eyes on him, he struck me as rather frail. It didn't look as though he'd never trained a day in his life, but he didn't look strong, either. In truth, his combat ability wasn't anything to write home about. Lois's gift lay not in fighting, but in convenience and adaptability.
Able to borrow the power of nature itself, he could last far longer than anyone else. Even when the others were gasping, unable to keep pace with me, Lois would follow along in silence.
Sweating, he would glance back at whoever was trailing us. He knew I'd give him an earful for it, and still he'd say it anyway.
"This is exhausting. Could we rest for a moment?"
I knew it wasn't Lois who was tired. He only said it because the others behind us were struggling.
I thought of him as someone who always took the short end of the stick.
But I never imagined he would save me like this—that he would set out for Elvenheim just to keep me alive.
Did he even realize that this wasn't something that would put a single coin in his pocket? That if things went wrong, he could make an enemy of the entire kingdom?
"Your spirits' power is as convenient as ever."
"Is that so?"
"I've mastered swordsmanship, magic, every technique there is. But I never could learn spirit arts."
"You need an innate affinity for that, I'm afraid. Without it, it's simply impossible."
There's a saying in this world: effort can take you as far as second-rate.
Depending on how you looked at it, it sounded like you could never become first-rate no matter how hard you tried. But some people used it more kindly—that if you put in the work, you could at least become skilled enough to make a living at it.
The truth was, becoming first-rate was an unfair realm that only those chosen by talent could reach, and even then only if they also put in the effort.
And yet there were things where, without talent, you couldn't even become third-rate.
One of those was being a Spiritist.
Just as Lois had said, without that innate affinity, you couldn't use spirit arts at all. It was a truly rare vocation.
"The books say spirits have elements. Yours is fire, right? You use it even when you're lighting a campfire."
Spirits come in five elements—fire, water, wind, lightning, and earth—and a Spiritist contracts with a spirit of one of those elements to wield its power. They say a first-rate Spiritist can command spirits of two elements, but even if you searched through all of human history, you'd barely need two hands to count them.
"Yes, that's right. I command fire spirits."
"……Hmm."
I looked at Lois for a moment, then said,
"Could I learn it too?"
"Pardon? ……Well. It would be difficult. ……Can you see it?"
"……See what?"
"Is there something on my finger? Can you see it?"
I stared hard at Lois's finger, but there was nothing there. And it had nothing to do with me only having one eye left. It simply wasn't visible.
"There's a spirit there."
"I can't see it. Doesn't that make Spiritists invincible? Invisible spirits—that'd be incredibly useful in a fight."
"Your mind goes straight there, doesn't it."
"Ugh."
I couldn't help it. My entire life, from start to finish, had been about killing monsters, slaying the Demon King, vanquishing evil. So I fell easily into the habit of asking, of anything at all, whether it would help in a fight. That was how I'd always judged the value of things.
"Spirits are invisible to humans by nature. There are simply a few people who can see them, that's all."
"A Spiritist without a spirit is useless. But a spirit without a Spiritist isn't all that different."
"I don't follow."
"You can think of spirits as nature itself. The rain and snow that fall from the sky, the lightning that strikes, the fire that sparks into being…… Spirits are born from those natural phenomena, and they die with them. A spirit is the intermediary that lets you borrow that power of nature."
"I'm even more lost."
"To put it more simply, think of it as you and the Holy Sword, Livia. The Holy Sword itself is remarkable, of course, but without someone to wield it, it's nothing more than a sharp lump of metal."
"Hmm."
This time, I thought I understood.
"The spirit is the Holy Sword, and I am you, Livia. A mere lump of metal becomes the Holy Sword the moment it's placed in your hand. ……Like this."
A flame bloomed from the tip of Lois's finger, a soft whoosh of light and heat.
"So in the end, it's impossible, then?"
"If you can't see them, then yes, it's impossible."
"You sure took the long way around to say that."
"You're clever, Livia, but it's a shame how short your thoughts run."
"You— cough! Cough!"
"Please don't get so worked up."
And who's the one working me up?
If Lois hadn't always been like this, I might have thought he was taking advantage of me being weak to tease me. But he'd been mouthing off even back when I was at my strongest. His face and his manner of speaking were perfectly polite. What actually came out of his mouth was anything but.
That in itself wasn't a problem for me. If I had to name one, it was that Alex used to glare at Lois every time he did it.
Come to think of it, they were already engaged back then. Maybe it made him uncomfortable?
No, well…… whether the man who wrecked his fiancée's body like this was uncomfortable or not isn't something I need to care about.
"Hm? We're out of water…… Livia, I'll go fetch some from the river. Would you like to come along, if you're frightened?"
"I don't want to waste the stamina. When you get back, we leave immediately. East Port's close."
"Yes. If we're quick, we should arrive by this evening."
"At least we can skip camping tonight."
Lois smiled as he spoke.
"Planning to stay at an inn on my coin, naturally?"
"……I'll—I'll pay you back."
"I'm joking. Wait here just a moment, then."
Lois walked toward the river with a smile, and I watched him go.
I couldn't understand why he was so polite to everyone else and only like that with me. Looking back on it now, it was almost suspicious how often his tone with me had carried a sarcastic edge. From complete strangers to Alex, Velita, and Rayna—he'd treated all of them with the courtesy and distance a commoner was supposed to show a noble.
Why only me?
Come to think of it, I'm hardly in a position to complain.
I think I hurled more abuse at Lois back then than he ever sniped at me. Before we took down the Demon King, I had no room to breathe. And back then I hadn't gotten strong yet, so I was even more impatient. The point when I grew rapidly stronger was after I defeated the sea dragon Leviathan. Until then, I'd just been an ordinarily strong person, and that was why I'd run as if something were chasing me from behind.
Now what?
Even if we keep heading for Elvenheim, I'll die before we arrive. The world will announce that I died after slaying the Demon King, and Lois is a decent enough person that he'll at least make me a grave.
If I think of it that way, it isn't such a bad death. You could even call it a death befitting a Hero. Whatever the truth of it, people will praise the name of Olivia Reinhardt as the bravest Hero in the world.
So why am I struggling so hard to live?
If I die, then I die. If that's a death worthy of a Hero, I ought to accept it. So why am I following Lois, fighting so hard to stay alive?
I remembered what Lois had said—that it was all right for a Hero to have a happy ending.
A happy ending.
I'd never thought about it. I'd only ever thought about how I should live and how I should die. Not once had I thought about how I might be happy.
Even after slaying the Demon King, I would still be the Hero. Even if I died of old age, I had believed I would die as the Hero. But I had never once thought about living as Olivia Reinhardt.
Because I was the Hero. Before I was Olivia Reinhardt, I was the Hero.
"Hm?"
The undergrowth rustled. I felt a presence.
Lois?
The moment I thought it, a low growl reached me, and I shoved myself to my feet.
"Ugh— cough!"
My reactions were as fast as ever, but my body couldn't keep up. Moving so quickly sent a klaxon of agony through every inch of me, a pain that reached all the way to my brain and seemed to blur my thoughts.
"Grrrr……!"
"A Black Bear……!"
Not that powerful. But for its massive body, it moved fast, and it hit hard. That was how it earned its nickname: Rookie Hunter.
Ignorant beginners would see the bulk, assume it was slow, charge in, and die. It wasn't even a particularly rare monster, which only meant more beginners died to it. There was a saying that if you fought a Black Bear once and lived, you'd never die to one again. It was a monster that was only a threat to rookies.
The Holy Sword……! Ah. I don't have it……!
My hand went to my shoulder by instinct, reaching for the Holy Sword I'd always carried on my back. But the Goddess's Orb had stripped me of the Hero's Stigma and severed the contract with the Holy Sword. I didn't have it now.
It's fine. I can still fight.
I'd faced countless enemies. There were monsters I'd beaten without any mana at all. I wasn't so weak that I'd lose to a third-rate monster nicknamed Rookie Hunter.
"Grraah!"
"Ugh!"
Too slow. I dodged to the side, and killing intent spread through the air so thickly my legs went heavy.
This feeling.
My arms and legs were shaking. If I hadn't dodged just now, the Black Bear would have torn my body apart. Unable to reinforce myself with mana, my body wrecked by the God of Death Poison, I was nothing more than a soft lump of meat to a Black Bear.
This feeling. I'd felt it when Alex cut off my arm. I'd felt it when I was on the verge of death at all of their hands.
My limbs trembled, independent of the poison, and my mind went white. It was a sensation I'd never had before, and I found myself going blank.
That feeling.
Ah.
Am I…… afraid right now?
I had power. I had something to fight back with. Even in the days when I was weak, that had been true. But now, unable to produce mana, barely able to move properly, I had for the first time taken powerlessness into my own hands. And it led straight to the terror of death.
That fact struck me harder than anything else. I stood there dazed, and the Black Bear lunged.
I only reacted when it was right in front of me, trying to move—but before I could, flames erupted and incinerated the Black Bear.
The fire was warm, almost pleasant, and then it vanished as quickly as it had come. I looked in the direction it had flown from, and there was Lois, a faintly startled look on his face.
"Are you unharmed? ……Whew. I'm sorry. I never imagined a monster would appear in the short time I was gone…… This was my carelessness. Are you injured anywhere?"
"Lois."
"Yes."
"I was scared."
"Pardon?"
"I was so scared I couldn't move properly."
"I see……"
From Lois's perspective, he might simply think that of course I'd be scared. But for me, the genuine fear that had found me in this moment meant something else entirely.
"I always thought I was brave."
"No matter what enemy I fought, I was tense. I knew I might die, and I charged in anyway. It's funny to say it myself, but I thought of myself as a brave person."
I'd thrown myself at any monster. I'd stood against any villain. When someone said it was impossible, I charged in and won, and as a result I'd even been able to slay the Demon King. I believed that was my courage. I held myself up as a brave Hero.
"But I was wrong."
"Livia."
My head ached. It felt ready to split. Something inside me was crumbling, and I could hear the sound of it cracking, distinct in my ears.
"I was only fine because I had power."
"What does it even mean to die as a Hero? Without my power, I'm this weak."
Lois said nothing. He simply looked at me.
Tears fell.
I had dedicated my entire life to living as a Hero and dying as a Hero. I had given everything. Truly, in the most literal sense, everything.
And yet I was not someone worthy of being a Hero.
That fact shattered my heart. I could feel a heart that even the God of Death Poison had failed to kill beginning to die.