If You Wish to Save Them (2)

Fighting alongside the Hero.

It was a feat so demanding I could barely keep pace — one that split me open at the seams. Before the regression, I had done it more times than I could count. Against the Demon King who had sought to unmake the world. Against the officers of the Demon King's army who still stood at her side.

And so, despite the vast gulf in power between us, I had eventually learned to match her rhythm. It was a truly astonishing thing.

Back then, the Hero had led our combined assault. She attacked, and I supported. It was the same now. The Hero struck, and I fell in beside her, providing cover. The difference was that I was the one directing the combination this time. I used magic ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to assist her — to give her cleaner angles, to let her land a heavier blow.

Wounds began to carve themselves, one after another, across the body of a mid-rank demon that had looked unbeatable. Neither of us had unleashed any overwhelming power. We hadn't drawn on any special techniques. As if our hearts were joined, every attack flowed into the next like water, carving the mid-rank demon to ribbons. It couldn't even resist. With every passing instant, it drew closer to death.

Without a miracle like this, the Demon King could never be defeated. The only one who could keep pace with the Hero's extreme battles — battles even her companions couldn't endure — was an Immortal. I wanted vengeance against the Demon King. She wanted, with all her heart, to save humanity. And so she and I had fought together.

Even after regressing. Even after every result we had achieved was erased. This connection could never disappear.

"This is the finish."

A wet, clean thrust.

The instant the words left my mouth, the Hero's blade punched through the demon's heart. The timing of the order had been exact, and the kill was clean. She no longer carried that absolute, crushing presence she had possessed before the regression — but she was still tremendously strong. With my support added in, she had to be at least three times as powerful. The force of our combination had exceeded even my expectations.

After she took the mid-rank demon's head, a brief lull settled over the field. The Hero looked at me with startled eyes. The fortunate part, if there was one, was that more than half the hostility she'd been carrying toward me had drained away. I still had no idea why she'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠held that hostility in the first place, but at least it hadn't been severe.

She worked her lips a few times, then managed a thank-you.

"Th-thank you."

"It was only natural."

Of course I help you. You're the one who has to kill the Demon King. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠There was no reason to be stingy with my cooperation along the way.

Once the mid-rank demon was down, the rest of them fell quickly. Franc swept a wave of them aside with a single barrage of magic, and Changseong held the line among the demons exactly as I'd told him to, buying time until the front could be restored. The Sword Saint, for his part, seemed to have already cleaned out the entire left flank. The Hero butchered demons as if she were working off a grudge, and I cut them down one by one with magic or a blade, until nothing that still moved was a demon. Judging by the positions I could still sense around us, the raid was finished.

The Sword Saint swept a look across the field, then closed out his command.

"You can stand down now."

"Hahh—!"

"We're alive!"

"Ahh..."

Even while the Hero and I had been locked in our combination, the Sword Saint had been dressing the lines in every spare moment, doing everything he could to keep the casualties down. He had put even the examinees below A-rank — people who couldn't face a demon — to meaningful use. In that sense, his influence on the battle may have been greater than the Hero's.

"You have my gratitude. All of you."

The Hero thanked the five of us. She was attentive enough not to leave Laeli out, even though Laeli had seen the least action of anyone.

And it wasn't only the Hero offering thanks. The other examinees came as well — even the ones who had been talking behind my back — shuffling over, awkward and stiff, to say they were grateful.

"Thanks."

"Thank you for saving us."

"I thought you were a joke. Turns out I was completely wrong. Taking down a mid-rank demon with the Hero..."

Most of them got a nod or a word of thanks in return. Only Changseong stood there looking sour.

And what's your problem? Was he sulking because I'd dumped him in the middle of five demons?

"Yaaawn... I'm so sleepy."

Franc had burned through so many calculation accelerations that exhaustion was written all over her face. Then an important fact surfaced.

"We should start preparing camp soon."

The sky was going dark. The first night in a forest crawling with monsters and demons. Just hearing it was enough to make your skin crawl. Camping. Here.

I had slept on bare ground often enough before the regression that I was reasonably used to it. But the nobles — and even most of the commoners — had barely any experience with this. They didn't have the resolve to sleep in a dangerous place. Most of them didn't even know how to set up camp.

"Hahh... I'll start by assigning the night watch."

That, too, fell to the Sword Saint. After the competence he had already shown, there was no stepping back from it now. He looked as though the entire business bored him to tears. But if he didn't do it, nobody else knew how. He moved among the examinees himself and began issuing orders — pitching tents, preparing the evening meal, separating out the wounded for treatment. He even saw to memorials and recovery for the examinees who had already died.

The Hero couldn't simply stand by either. She joined the Sword Saint in taking charge and helping out.

"Let's just set up our tent."

"Alright."

I reached into my pack for the long poles we needed to pitch it. That was when Laeli suddenly asked,

"Argal, can you even put up a tent?"

"There's no way I can't handle something this simple..."

I staggered.

The moment I tried to lift the canvas and the poles that would hold it, my body lurched sideways.

...You've got to be kidding.

Isn't there a strength potion somewhere? Before the regression I had always kept Magi packed into my body and moved on its power. That wasn't an option now. I could reinforce myself with mana, but the power that trickled naturally from the Origin of the Star wasn't nearly enough. Amplifying it would work — except leaning on amplification every time I ran into this chronic lack of strength was no way to live.

Laeli had understood about the pack. This, apparently, was a level of athletic failure she could not accept. She looked at me with eyes gone thoroughly cold.

"You need to work out, Argal."

"...Fine."

Franc seemed so stunned she couldn't help laughing.

"Pfft. Want to arm-wrestle me?"

"I'll pass."

It wasn't wounded pride. I was going to lose, and I knew it. What kind of humiliation would it be, losing an arm-wrestling match to Franc? Quietly. Let's just go to sleep. Quietly.

Laeli pitched the tent with immaculate precision — the practiced ease of someone who had done this more than once. She did a better job than the Sword Saint, who was sighing himself hoarse giving demonstrations to the other examinees.

"You're good at this. Did someone teach you?"

"When Father went on campaign, it wasn't just once or twice that I camped with him."

What kind of young lady goes on campaign with her father? And pitches the tents, no less? I had thought it before, and I thought it again: Viscount Caris was raising his daughter as a knight, not a nobleman's daughter.

By the time the other examinees had finished putting up their own tents, the Sword Saint explained the night watch.

"Watch will be two to a team, covering all four directions — north, south, east, and west. Examinees who received an S-rank are exempt. Any objections?"

From the sound of it, he was pulling the S-ranks off watch duty. If you were strong enough to kill a demon, it made more sense to hold you in reserve for a real emergency than to burn you on a sentry rotation. The examinees who understood that didn't push back.

I wasn't about to complain. The last thing I wanted was to be shaken awake in the middle of the night.

The one who looked miserable was Laeli.

"Is a B-rank even allowed to live with this kind of injustice...?"

"Do your best, Laeli. Of course, I'm S-rank, so I'll be sleeping very well tonight."

"Ghhhhh..."

Franc's face said, clear as day, Should've gotten an S-rank then, heh. Laeli stood up at once, wearing the grim resolve of someone who fully intended to get even.

"Where are you going?"

"To get the first watch slot from Reinhardt."

So she was going to squeeze some honey out of this anyway. She and the Sword Saint knew each other by face; she meant to trade on that and claim a comfortable shift. That was her business.

Once Laeli left, the air went still. The two girls had been bickering all day, and the moment they were apart, silence settled in. Franc seemed used to the quiet. She gazed up at the night sky without a word.

She must have reached some conclusion. After a long stretch of thought, she said what she had been holding back.

"I'm from the Magic Tower."

"Is that so?"

Her skill had already reached the level of a proper mage. The number of people who could put out meaningful magical bombardment in a real fight — even compared to students already enrolled at the Academy — was vanishingly small.

"In just a few years, I could become an Elder. And if you become an Elder of the Magic Tower, you hold enormous power and wealth. An Elder doesn't envy most nobles."

"...And yet?"

"I gave that seat up to come here. A mage who becomes a companion of the Hero can glimpse the pinnacle through the gods, and become an Archmage."

Listening to her, a thought surfaced unbidden. If she hadn't died... wouldn't Franc have gone on to become ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Archmage of the Hero's party?

"But I don't need to cling to that anymore."

Franc gave a short, dry laugh. She had met someone who already knew the pinnacle. There was no longer any reason to grind her way down that hard, miserable road just to join the Hero's party.

"So you have no intention of becoming the Archmage of the Hero's party?"

"I don't have the conviction to suffer that much just to kill the Demon King. I'll help where I can, of course."

I smiled at that. Franc was operating under a misconception. I had never said I would teach her everything about the pinnacle.

"Who said I was going to teach you all of it?"

"What? But you said you would! And I already joined the party."

"That's hardly a sufficient price."

"Nnngh. Fine. Then what do you want, Argal?"

I looked up at the night sky. The stars scattered across it seemed to illuminate Franc's fate. How ironic. A mage who had died and never joined the Hero's party... and even if she survived here, the result would be the same: she still wouldn't join.

That was fine. Whether she became the Hero's companion or not, she would still be useful against the Demon King. The thing that mattered most was—

"Don't die."

"...What?"

I had spoken so quietly that Franc hadn't caught it. She leaned in, tipping an ear toward me, and asked again.

"Don't do what?"

"Don't get cocky. Did someone promise you a seat in the Hero's party? Who said the choice was even yours?"

"Hey! I have that much confidence, you know. Besides, there's no examinee who uses magic better than I—"

Franc's eyes wavered.

Someone who uses magic better than you. He's sitting right in front of you.

"You understand now? That's why I told you not to get cocky."

"Yeees..."

Franc folded immediately. I reached out and stroked the hair of the girl who had hung her head in a show of dejection. It was remarkably soft.

She complained.

"Who said you could touch my hair... I'm not a child who needs to be petted, you know."

"That's for me to decide."

To hear her talk, she was exactly a child pretending otherwise.

The night was quiet. A brief peace, settled in just before a far greater storm. For a little while, I took my rest in that stillness.

A demon with one broken horn flew through the sky.

A High Demon. A core pillar of the Demon King's army, a power second only to the executives themselves. Such a being was on its way back, the negotiations with the Crown Prince concluded.

The place it had to return to was not the Demon King's Castle. It still carried the mission of killing half the Academy's number.

It rose into the high air and looked down upon the vast barrier woven of black magic. It had not even fully arrived, and yet the thing was so enormous it was visible from a great distance. That was the work of Saryeong-wang, an executive of the Demon King's army. As expected of a black mage who had reached transcendence — the barrier permitted not even the smallest hole. A construct so brutishly absolute that even a High Demon could not pass through it.

And so every task within had been left to the upper-rank and mid-rank demons inside.

A stage assembled with meticulous care. A trial that could be broken only by awakening. And an environment in which awakening was the only choice.

Then the Demon King's Scales would move as well, to restore the balance. The stronger the Hero became, the stronger the Demon King became.

That was why they would not kill the Hero. Only when the strongest Hero was born would the most terrible Demon King descend upon this world.