The Fake Hero
The command tent shook violently.
“Hahaha! Yujin!”
“Y-yes, sir!”
“The sword! Hurry!”
BOOM!
Dain’s monstrous strike shattered the command room floor with a sickening crunch. The Hero, who had nimbly dodged the blow, looked at Dain with clear interest.
How did this happen?
Things had gone far off script. Perhaps it was still too early. Instead of a demon, the Hero now faced a Dain consumed by rage. A shame, but I suppose I’ll just have to kill him like this. He had thought it might be amusing to dominate Ceres while she still carried Dain in her heart.
“H-Hero!”
The Hero caught the sword Yujin tossed him and raised it, pointing the blade straight at Dain.
“Let’s finish this quickly, before anyone else arrives. I’m still naked, after all.”
“UAAAAAH!”
The physical power granted by Reinforcement had already surpassed Dain’s. The trajectory of Dain’s swinging sword looked painfully slow to him.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
The Hero dodged Dain’s swift slashes, then gripped the Hero’s Sword tightly. A brilliant light began to gather along its edge. Sword qi didn’t work on anything but demons, but he needed to confirm exactly what state Dain was in right now.
“Dain!”
Gerta burst into the command room, breathing hard.
“This can’t be… no…!”
She had been watching from a short distance away and must have come running at the sound of the commotion. Unable to step between the two monsters clashing in the center of the room, she simply pulled off her robe and draped it over the naked Saintess.
“We promised… I never thought it would turn out like this…”
“…Dain…?”
Ceres’s eyes regained their clarity. After seeing Gerta holding her and the two men fighting, she finally understood the situation.
“Dain…”
“Saintess! Are you all right?”
“Dain… you can’t…”
Had he seen her accepting other men? Was that why he was so furious? After the initial wave of shame and humiliation, worry for Dain—now facing the Hero—flooded her mind.
Clang!
Zarco’s blade easily blocked Dain’s sword. Although sword qi had no effect, once Zarco confirmed that his power completely overwhelmed Dain, he began his assault.
He didn’t become a demon, but he still needs to die here.
Under Zarco’s relentless attacks, Dain was instantly pushed back. Both strength and speed were superior. Yet there was one thing Zarco had overlooked.
Though Dain appeared to have lost his reason, his combat instincts had seeped all the way into his very bones.
Dain’s sword slipped past Zarco’s power-and-speed-focused strikes and reached the Hero’s neck before he could even pull his blade back.
Shrrk—
A sickening sound of flesh being sliced rang out as bright red blood erupted from the Hero’s neck and chest.
“No!” Gerta screamed.
She wasn’t used to combat, but even at a glance she could tell it was a crippling wound—at minimum, possibly fatal.
“The Hero… the Hero…!”
It had all been for Ceres and Dain. The Hero’s death was never part of the picture she wanted.
“Ugh… urk…”
With a strange groan, the Hero collapsed backward. Everyone inside the command room held their breath.
“…Haa… haa…”
Only Dain’s ragged breathing filled the silence.
The Hero was dead.
Everyone present could feel on their skin just how catastrophic this was.
“Huh…?”
Gerta had been on the verge of tears from despair, but her gaze was involuntarily drawn to the faint light shimmering before her.
A small glow leaking from the fallen Zarco flowed into Dain’s body.
“Wait, just a moment…”
“So it’s come to this after all.”
Click. Click.
The seductive voice of a woman who had entered the command room echoed softly.
“Lady Lilias…”
“What a pity. Hehe.”
As Lilias shrugged off her robe, horns rose from her head and her skin turned a vivid violet.
“Eh?”
When Lilias extended her hand toward Zarco, his body floated into the air. Black mist seeped from his wounds, stopping the bleeding.
“The best outcome would have been the real Hero becoming a demon.”
“What… Lady Lilias…?”
Lilias ignored Gerta’s question and clenched her outstretched hand.
Zarco’s pale eyes snapped open.
“…Ugh…”
Zarco was a sharp man. The sight of Lilias transformed into a demon, the wounds sealed by black mist, and the itching sensation on his forehead told him everything he needed to know.
“Ah, I see.”
His voice carried both resignation and a sigh.
“Of course. There was no way someone like me could ever be the real Hero.”
The black mist gradually dissipated. The wounds on Zarco’s now-exposed skin had closed, and the faint light that had been leaking out faded away.
“So I was just a toy for you.”
Zarco glared at Lilias, but she only smiled sweetly in return.
“The real Hero was you all along… Dain.”
At the former Hero’s calm words, tears rolled down Ceres’s cheeks.
Zarco wasn’t the Hero? The Lilias who had given them instructions was a demon?
“Then… then what about me…”
It didn’t take long for that single fallen tear to become a flood of sobs filled with regret for countless past choices.
What was it all for? I lost everything…
Every memory she had tried to bury now stabbed into Ceres’s body with cruel precision.
“UAAAAH! Haaaaaaa…”
The soldiers and Rillen still couldn’t fully grasp the situation, but Gerta understood it immediately.
“Dain… was the real Hero…”
At her involuntary murmur, the soldiers, Rillen, and even Dain snapped back to their senses.
“Huh…?”
“It really is such a shame. He should have become a demon.”
“Lilias…”
“For now, I suppose I’ll be satisfied with absorbing most of the Hero’s power.”
When the demon—Lilias—opened her hand, black mist burst out from behind Zarco like smoke and enveloped him. Slowly, within the mist, horns sprouted from his forehead and his skin turned pitch black. The man who had once been human was now a demon.
“Haha… so this is what despair feels like?”
It was a hollow laugh.
The hand he stretched out, as if pointing to the cause of his despair, was aimed not at Dain—but at Ceres.
“Let’s go. You must be tired too.”
Lilias instantly appeared beside Zarco and grabbed him. The black mist spun rapidly, whipping up a fierce wind.
“Spatial teleportation!” Gerta shouted.
She knew more about demons than anyone else here. A rare demon capable of crossing space through mist had appeared, and even the newly developed Teleportation Magic Circle Gerta had created was influenced by it.
“Right. I guess I’m a demon now.”
“You knew it couldn’t be helped, didn’t you?”
“I’m not complaining. It’s just…”
When Zarco’s gaze turned toward her, Ceres’s breath caught in her throat.
“I can’t just hand her over to that bastard.”
A violet light bloomed from Zarco’s grasp and engulfed Ceres in an instant. The Saintess staggered, her eyes fluttering shut as she collapsed.
“Ceres!”
“Haha, take good care of Ceres for me, Dain.”
“You son of a bitch!”
Dain let out a roar and charged at Zarco, but the black mist that wrapped around the demons was far faster.
“I’ll definitely come back for her.”
“Zarco!”
Dain’s sword sliced through the mist, but only the fading afterimage of black fog remained. The two demons had already vanished.
“Ceres! Ceres!”
Dain grabbed the Saintess’s shoulders—she was only breathing faintly—but Gerta stopped him, and he slowly withdrew his hands.
“This… this is…”
“Is she all right?”
“It’s not magic… it’s a curse.”
“A curse?”
Gerta checked Ceres’s face and breathing before continuing.
“If it were magic, I would have noticed. This must be a curse created from the lingering grudge of the Hero—no, the fake Hero. Probably…”
“Then…?”
“Judging by its form, it looks like the type that puts the victim into eternal sleep.”
“No… this can’t be.”
Dain let out a shaky breath and collapsed to the floor as if his legs had given out.
Gerta looked at him with pity, but there was nothing she could do right now either.
Lilias had been a demon all along, and the fake Hero Zarco—created as part of her plan—had absorbed a significant amount of the Hero’s power before turning into a demon himself.
It would take quite a long time to clean up this mess.
“What happened here?!”
Gardan and Dolan rushed in with the guards. Their faces showed they had no idea what was going on despite seeing the state of the room.
“What in the world…? Dain? Gerta?”
“…”
“What happened to the Saintess? Can someone explain?”
Gerta was just as confused as everyone else, but instead of Dain—who looked like he might break down sobbing while clutching Ceres—she began explaining what she knew.
“He was a fake Hero…”
“Yes.”
“And now he’s become a demon… haa…”
Gardan buried his face in his hands on the desk.
“So it was Lilias’s scheme from the very beginning.”
“It seems so…”
“What about the Prophet?”
“She must have done something to him too.”
Inside the tent, the only sound that followed was a deep, heavy sigh instead of words.
“What are we supposed to do about this…?”
“Commander Gardan, this is exactly when you need to pull yourself together,” Gerta said, deliberately putting strength into her voice. “What we must do is not give up, but clean up this mess as much as we possibly can.”
“…You’re right.”
“It’s not a completely hopeless situation. Because…”
“…The real Hero, Dain, is still here.”
Step. Step.
When Dain entered the tent, his eyes were red and swollen.
“Commander.”
“Dain… I’m sorry. We should have verified everything with the kingdom.”
“What should we do about Ceres?”
“…If it really is a curse, we’ll have to move her to the rear for now.”
“Gerta, is there a way to break the curse?”
“Yes. But as far as I know, there are no curse specialists affiliated with the kingdom.”
“Then…?”
“We’ll have to start by locating them.”
“Haa…”
Dain covered his face with both hands. The fact that he had become the long-awaited true Hero felt distant. The only thing filling his mind was the image of Ceres, cursed and fallen into an endless sleep.
“…Gerta.”
“Yes.”
The one who broke the silence was Gardan.
“What happened to their Authority? Both of them.”
“I haven’t completely deciphered the structure yet, but…”
Gerta glanced nervously at Dain.
“The Saintess’s Authority has been fully restored. Healing through contact now works on people other than the Hero as well. The fundamental power of her Authority has grown stronger too.”
“That’s good news. And the Hero?”
“The Hero… Zarco took most of the power, so… he probably doesn’t have enough left to generate sword qi.”
“…Haa. Is there a way to get it back?”
“If we kill Zarco, the Authority should return.”
“A silver lining, then. Dain already has the skill to defeat a reinforced Zarco.”
“However…”
“Hm?”
Gerta couldn’t bring herself to look at the Hero.
“Right now, Dain—the Hero—is in an in-between state. Neither an ordinary person nor a true Hero.”
“Because he lacks the Authority?”
“Yes. Which means…”
Though her expression was troubled, the mage continued.
“Everyone else can receive the Saintess’s healing, purification, and mild reinforcement effects, but…”
“…Don’t tell me…”
“The Hero… is not included. Not right now.”
Dain almost let out a bitter laugh.
“We’re screwed.”
“…Y-yeah, I guess so.”
Yujin and Rillen were hiding behind a tree near the tent.
“So Zarco was the fake Hero, and Dain was the real one.”
“Do you think they’ll believe us if we say we were just following the fake Hero’s orders?”
“They might spare me, but you… honestly, they’ll probably kill you.”
“R-really…?”
Yujin’s face turned deathly pale.
“Yujin.”
“Y-yes?”
“Want to run away?”
“…Where to?”
“My hometown. That’s where I was headed anyway.”
“…Should we?”
By the time morning came, the female adventurer who had temporarily joined them and three soldiers had vanished from the outpost.