The Boss Let the Hero Live
Get up. You have to get up. You won't survive if you go down again.
Using her sword as a crutch, Enril forced herself upright. One of her legs was already broken; she could no longer even walk. The bleeding was so severe that the world kept swimming out of focus. Even so, she lifted her head and looked ahead.
"…"
A man sat upon the Black Throne, watching her. No — calling him a man might have been a stretch. The being seated there was not a human like herself.
"You lost again."
"Shut up."
"That makes eight, doesn't it?"
"Shut your mouth."
She gripped her sword once more, determined to fulfill her duty as a Hero. She wanted to bring this accursed Tower crashing down and put an end to the age of chaos. But Enril's body would not obey her. Unable to stop herself from pitching forward, she bit down on her lip. Losing again was humiliation enough — now she was about to sprawl face-first onto the floor like a fool. It was infuriating. So infuriating. She wanted so badly to win, and he was strong beyond anything she could do about it.
A soft catch — and her body never hit the floor.
"Wh-what are you doing?"
The man who had been sitting on the throne appeared right in front of her. He had caught her in his arms and was looking down at her.
"You're far too precious a person to go rolling across the floor."
He wasn't trying to mock her. He wasn't trying to provoke her. He was genuinely sorry for her. He simply did not want to watch her collapse onto the ground. A man who never even left his throne in the middle of a fight had moved of his own accord. But to Enril, it was more humiliating than anything else in the world.
"Are you — are you pitying me right now?"
"…"
"Just kill me. Kill me! I said kill me!"
Enril's fists hammered into the man's body, here and there. The force behind them would have blown an ordinary Demonic Beast away in a single blow. But the man receiving those fists looked utterly unperturbed.
"Enril."
"Kill me. I said kill me!"
"Eleonore Celestine."
"Don't put my name in that disgusting mouth of yours!"
A blow packed with light struck the man squarely in the face. With a sickening crack, his head snapped to the side. The Tower Master, who had never once allowed a clean hit — that being had just taken a blow. And it was Enril who was startled by it.
At once, grotesque, unearthly howls erupted from every direction. They screamed as if they wanted to tear Enril apart that very instant, as if to demand how she dared lay those filthy hands upon His sacred flesh.
"Hh—…"
Enril flinched at those terrible, bone-chilling sounds. She had already accepted death, but primal fear was another matter entirely. Just as she shut her eyes and tried to force the feeling away, the world fell silent once more.
His footsteps echoed, slow and even. And the man showed no intention of harming Enril at all. Instead, when he reached the door, he simply set her down with care.
"Get treatment first once you're down."
"…"
"I'll see you again at the next Full Moon. I hope you'll be a little stronger by then."
"I'm going to kill you. I will. I swear I will… kill you."
"I'll be looking forward to it. You're more radiant than anyone — I'm sure you'll manage."
Hair soaked in blood. Eyes burning with a venomous light. The Hero who had failed once more to bring down the Tower Master returned to her own world.
…She's gone? Yeah. She's gone. Ugh, fuck. That hurt. Thought my face was getting ripped off.
Dantallion prodded at his face, then turned and slumped back onto the Black Throne. Another failure. He still could not return to his original world. Just how long was he going to be stuck in this hell?
Ah. Not "like" hell. This is hell.
Dantallion let out a sigh and reached for a past that had already grown faint.
O great Dantallion. You are the one and only Master of this Tower.
Hero Tales. A mobile RPG about raising Heroes. A PC version had dropped after a year, so he installed it, hit play — and immediately got blasted with a transmigration beam. Messages surfaced in his mind. He listened quietly. Mess around at a time like this and you walk straight into the cliché of missing the important information.
…And only when you meet death in battle at the hands of a Hero who has climbed the Tower — here, in the Throne Hall — will you at last be able to return to the place from which you came.
The Tower Master. In other words, the final boss of the main story: the Demon. And it was the Heroes' destiny to put that Demon down. In the game, you raised them at the Hero Academy and sent them off to slay him.
Should the Hero fail to fulfill their mission within the allotted time, you will be granted the opportunity to conquer the world!
Conquer the world, whatever. He hadn't been counting on that part in the slightest. The main story? The Tower Master? The Demon? The player base had already smashed that content to pieces ages ago. Knowing that, he figured he'd be home in no time.
Ta-da. And then a hundred years went by. For fuck's sake.
If things had gone the way he expected, Heroes should have come pouring in long ago. Fail to kill the Demon within the allotted time and the Tower's monsters would be unleashed — the people of this world were living under a genuinely terrifying time limit. And yet, for some reason, not a Hero appeared. Not even the shadow of one. As the years dragged on, he started losing track of whether he was still human or already a demon. Hovering on that knife-edge was not a good sign. A Hero needed to show up and finish this already. It would have been a win for both of them. He had even reached the point where the thought of going home itself was starting to blur. All that was left now was a raw, simple want: he wanted to meet a Hero. He wanted it to end. Return tickets, original worlds — he didn't care anymore. He just wanted out of this wait with no end in sight.
And so the hundredth year began. And then, one day—
"Tower Master!! Face my blade!"
Light found him at last, after years that had been sanding him down to nothing. For the first time, a Hero had broken through every trial and stood before him. Her name was Eleonore Celestine. Enril, for short. He remembered seeing her on the hero roster. The best of the Tier 0 damage dealers, if he recalled right. Every player had wanted her, so his expectations had been high. Finally. I can get out of this dark, miserable place.
"Hh—!"
The result was pathetic. She didn't last three minutes. Enril. Ranked among the very best even of Tier 0.
"K-kill me. I have no regrets! Even if you kill me, another Hero will come!"
Yeah, sorry, but you're the first Hero I've ever seen. Nobody's made it here. They all died before they even reached the last floor. You don't know that, do you.
Still seated on the throne, Dantallion pressed a hand to his forehead.
What do I do with her. What the hell do I… wait. What am I saying. I have to send her down alive. No question.
The first Hero he had met in a hundred years. A precious, irreplaceable ticket out of here. What kind of lunatic tore up his own ticket with his own two hands? He needed to take good care of her and hope that next time, instead of a blank, he drew the winning number.
"Why — why are you letting me live?! I don't beg for my life! I…"
Yeah. Got it. Come back stronger. Please come back. Please.
A demon praying to a god. An utterly ridiculous sight. But what else was he supposed to do? Dantallion was that desperate.
And after that, she was still the only Hero who ever made it to the Throne Hall.
Enril kept challenging him. And she lost, and lost again. Every time, she screamed for death. She screamed that she had no attachments left. Dantallion, for his part, had no such intention whatsoever. Other Heroes couldn't even get this far, and she alone kept coming back. He could not kill her. If anyone was going to die, it had to be him. Not Enril.
And so, every time she fell, Dantallion sent her home.
"See you next time, Enril."
He sent her back. He sent her down. He sent her, and sent her again.
"Why do you keep letting me live?! Kill me. Kill me!!"
Yeah. Like I've told you how many times now — I'm not going to.
"I will repay this humiliation. I swear I will!"
Please do. Let me get a taste of this "liberation" thing too.
Around the time he let Enril go for the seventh time or so, a question took root. What the hell were these hu— these humans even doing, that not even the shadow of another Hero had shown up? They had to know the world would end if they didn't kill him in time.
I can't take this anymore.
He needed to find out what was going on. He couldn't sit here sucking his thumb forever. After he had sent Enril home for the eighth time, as they approached a ninth — when he had already given up on escaping this world and was looking instead for a way to simply get outside the Tower — a restriction lifted. The countdown to ruin was drawing close, they said, and so the Tower Master, who had been bound to the Throne Hall, was now free to come and go. There was a catch: the farther he traveled from the Tower, the more severely his power would be constrained. Still. Until now, even a day trip or an overnight stay had been off-limits. The leash had finally come off.
Let's see what the hell kind of mess the Hero Academy has gotten itself into. Fuck.
The Tower Master. The one who sat upon the Black Throne. The Demon, Dantallion. No. A suspiciously powerful traveler who had drifted in from very far away.
Rion's trip to the Hero Academy was decided.
Returning home, dying at a Hero's hands — none of that mattered anymore. He just wanted to see what the hell these people were doing. As for the job of being the Tower's boss monster — he was quitting that for a while.
