The Scent of the Strong
Alex Reynolds let out a long, weary sigh.
He had slain the Demon King, and with that, Alex had become a hero in every sense of the word. People everywhere would look upon him and praise him as such. The name Sage Alex Reynolds would become so famous that no matter where he traveled in this world, someone would know it.
He had obtained everything this world had to offer — wealth, honor, all of it. And still, he could not stop the sigh from leaving his lips.
Those stupid bitches.
The words he could never dare speak aloud, he muttered inwardly, washing down his irritation with a gulp of cool water.
The Saintess, Belita Bright, and the Elven princess, Rayna Forest, were even more fragile and dim-witted than he had expected. But their positions and bloodlines were no lie, and so whether he liked it or not, he needed to maintain amicable relations with them.
The Kingdom needs the power of the Saintess and the Elven princess.
Belita aside, Rayna, as an Elven princess, was living proof of the friendship between Elvenheim — the nation of the Elves — and the Kingdom. Marrying Belita would have made the prettiest picture, but for the sake of the Kingdom's well-being, it might be better to marry Rayna and keep the Elves as allies.
If they became friendly with the Elves, they could keep the Empire in check whether the Empire liked it or not, and they might even be able to borrow the Elves' mysterious artifacts. Even if Elven treasures themselves were out of reach, they might still extract something of comparable value.
The Kingdom will grow stronger from this point on. Now, with all the glory concentrated upon the Kingdom, is the chance to make it the most powerful nation in the world.
The best plan of all had been to use the Hero, Olivia Reinhardt, as the Kingdom's sword.
It was no exaggeration to say he had witnessed her power more closely than anyone else, and he knew that if that power stood on their side, nothing could be better. But conversely, he also understood how foolish it would be to stand against her as an enemy.
So he killed her.
An enemy of the Kingdom must never be left alive. The fear of her becoming an enemy had outweighed the reassurance of her becoming an ally. So he killed her.
"Alex."
"Hm? ...Princess Lilith. Forgive my discourtesy. I never imagined you would be outside."
Lilith Cliphort. The eldest daughter of the current king, Cromwell Clifort.
Her intuition was exceptional, but she had been frail since birth and had never been able to participate properly in social functions. Even people who had spent a considerable amount of time in aristocratic society found it difficult to so much as catch a glimpse of her face.
He could tell from her deathly pale complexion what she had come to ask, but Alex pretended not to know.
"Olivia is dead?"
Alex put on a look of regret — the face of a man who had lost a comrade, so heartbroken he could barely hold back his tears.
"She fought valiantly. Even against the Demon King, she never gave up, and she protected even us — who were little more than dead weight. ...Perhaps if we hadn't been there, she wouldn't have died."
"..."
"The glory I receive now originally belonged to the Hero, Lady Olivia Reinhardt. ...I can only resent my own inadequacy."
Lilith was slightly out of breath. It seemed she had come running, as unsuited as she was to such exertion — and her stamina was poor to begin with.
She was a woman whose only worth was in preserving the Cliphort bloodline, but there was nothing to be gained by making a bad impression on others. If you weren't going to kill someone, then spending your whole life wearing a mask and maintaining good relations — that was what it meant to live in society.
"Olivia couldn't have died."
"Princess Lilith."
To any passerby who didn't know better, it would have looked as though Alex were gazing with pity upon a girl in despair over losing a friend.
"The body?"
"We recovered only an arm. The rest vanished along with the Demon King."
"That girl wouldn't die to something as paltry as the Demon King. Something's wrong... Alex. Look at me and say it again. Is she really dead?"
"..."
He hated people with sharp intuition. They discarded logic entirely, seized upon conclusions that could well be called stubbornness — and more often than not, those conclusions turned out to be the right answer.
Olivia and Lilith had been close, and he thought he understood why. Both of them were people who lived on nothing but instinct, with no logic to speak of.
Alex hated that so much. But he didn't let a hint of it show on his face, and spoke with the expression of a man mourning the death of his former comrade, Olivia Reinhardt.
"Yes. Unfortunately."
"..."
Her already pale face turned even whiter, to a degree that was genuinely hard to look at.
"Ah, Lord Alex! So this is where you were!"
"What is it?"
"A messenger from East Port has been confirmed! Demons are attacking East Port!"
"...!"
"...!"
Alex and Lilith, who shared not a single resemblance, looked at the reporting soldier with the exact same expression in that moment.
"Demons?"
Demons. A type of monster characterized by horns and wings, with a cruel appetite for devouring humans alive — their threat rank was considerably high. And above all, the more dangerous among them possessed intelligence and were said to be capable of speech.
That wasn't a trait exclusive to demons, but that wasn't the important part. The important part was why demons had suddenly attacked East Port.
The Demon King has been slain, so the monsters' power should have weakened.
The Demon King wasn't merely the strongest monster — his very existence served to strengthen all other monsters. That was why they inevitably weakened when he died, and for at least several years after his defeat, they would typically stay quiet and not cause any major incidents.
And yet, so soon after the Demon King's fall, for demons to suddenly attack a town in such numbers was strange no matter how I looked at it. Moreover, they were moving in a coordinated fashion, which meant this wasn't just Lower Demons acting of their own accord. There was a high probability that someone above them had given the order.
"Aaaaaah!"
"Oh no! ...Cough! Ugh!"
When a townsperson was about to be attacked, the Hero instinctively reached for the side where she had always carried the Holy Sword, then tried to rush out — only to double over in a violent coughing fit, staggering. Asking her to fight when she could barely even stand was a tall order.
I took a moment to survey the surroundings. The demons' positions. The civilians' positions. My own position.
It had been a long time since I'd last fought in earnest, so I was somewhat tense, and my fingertips seemed to be trembling. No matter how I thought about it, I just wasn't built for combat.
"Get down!"
Fwoooosh!!
The moment I moved my hand, spirit flames bloomed, and every demon in sight caught fire and began to burn. The ones that had been about to attack the civilians all went up in flames — but I had only incinerated what I could see. In the sky, demons were still moving. Smoke was rising not only from the clock tower but from all over the town.
"Livia, are you all right? Can you move?"
"I-I'm fine... Look after the civilians first, not me! You idiot!"
"..."
When I made a slightly dazed expression, the Hero seemed to realize what she'd just said, and fidgeted with her mask as she spoke.
"No, I... Sorry. It just came out."
"Wow. It's nice seeing a bit of your old personality."
"You like getting chewed out?"
"No. It's your confidence I like."
"..."
I didn't dislike it, because even as she snapped at me, what she was saying was that she should be protecting other innocent civilians, not me. And she was saying it while suffering through a brief flare of pain from the poison.
"Anyway, right now you're just a civilian too. First, we need to evacuate—"
THOOM!!
A tremendous sound rang out, and a shadow suddenly fell over us. The enormous silhouette was large enough to cover both me and the Hero, and the mana I could feel without even turning around told me this was no ordinary Lower Demon.
I turned around with a tense face, and there it was: massive black wings and a giant frame. Add to that the horns, which seemed to concentrate the mana pouring off it, and the pressure was no joke.
"You."
It spoke! That's a High Demon...!
Had it come to kill the Hero? That was what I thought — but the finger the demon pointed was not at her. It was at me.
"..."
Monsters operated on the law of the jungle, and so their hunger for the strong was equally fierce. There was a reason the Demon King's throne was inherited neither by vote nor by bloodline, but solely by the strongest.
This demon had caught the scent of my mana, judged me worth fighting, and come straight here. It was probably the strongest among the demons currently attacking. If I could somehow deal with this one, the Lower Demons would lose their head and fall into a disorganized rabble. If I could manage that, the soldiers in East Port might be able to handle the rest.
"Fight me!"
I grabbed the Hero and leaped backward.
KA-BOOM!! A tremendous crash rang out as the ground where I'd been standing shattered, sending an unpleasantly dense spray of fragments flying.
"Ah— kuh!"
"Livia, listen to what I'm about to say."
Whoom, whoom. A sound resonated, and the Hero's body lit up. I cast every buff I could and bestowed the spirits' blessing upon her.
"If you keep running in that direction from here, you'll come to a tavern called the White Angel."
"Uh, what?"
"That's where you're going. Madame Florence is someone with a fair amount of influence in this East Port. If you give them my name, everyone there will know it, so ask them for help. I'm truly sorry I can't escort you there myself."
"What are you talking about? You need to run too! That's a High Demon no matter how you look at it! That's not someone you can beat!"
"I know."
"..."
Just the presence of it was terrifying enough that it felt like it could turn me into a lump of meat in a single blow.
"But if I don't do this, other people will die. Innocent people who don't even know how to fight."
"..."
"It's all right. I'll fight just enough and then run. My own life is precious to me too. And if we're lucky, there's a chance reinforcements might arrive."
"Lois."
I took hold of the Hero's shoulders and spoke.
"Just as the civilians who entrusted everything to you and fled were not in the wrong, you are not in the wrong for entrusting this to me and running."
"No. That's different!"
"It's not different. I'm the same kind of person you are. ...Run. Or would you rather watch me fight while trying to protect you?"
"..."
The Hero wasn't stupid. She seemed to have realized that her very presence here was an obstruction and a burden to me.
She glanced toward the demon for a moment, then her body began to tremble. The fear that had once taken root in her heart would not easily let go, and it was shaking her very being.
"D-don't you dare die. ...You have to run. You understand?"
"You be careful too, Livia. Even Lower Demons are dangerous for you right now."
The Hero nodded at those words and ran off in an ungainly posture. At that speed, it would take her quite a while to arrive. Even if she couldn't make it to the White Angel, it would be best if she could at least get under the soldiers' protection.
Judging by the mana I could sense, there were no demons as strong as this one, and most of them were Lower Demons. A handful of Mid-tier Demons mixed in was a bit of a sore point, but right now there was nothing I could do except cheer the soldiers on in my heart.
"Are we done now?"
"I didn't think you'd actually wait. I assumed you'd ambush me, as a demon would."
"I desire a fight with the strong. ...It wouldn't be any fun if I couldn't fight you properly because you were busy protecting that woman."
"The law of the jungle, is it?"
"That is the very instinct of us monsters. Don't you think it's actually easier to live that way — simpler than humans?"
"I don't like it. It's barbaric. Same goes for your obsession with eating humans you don't even need to eat."
"A shame."
Fwoosh — flames flickered at my fingertips.
"I will eat you, and I will grow stronger."
It's been a really long time since I last fought... This is insane. Seriously.
This...
No matter how I looked at it, this was a situation where I had no choice but to kill it, wasn't it?
I'm actually going insane.