If You Wish to Save Them (3)
The demons attacked on a fixed cycle, as if they had made a pact. As though they wanted to put us through trials in stages, the mid-rank demons coming after us grew from one to two, then from two to three.
It was an extraordinary ordeal. Every day we had to push through the forest under the crushing pressure that we might die at any moment, hauling our heavy burdens with us. And every so often another raid would hit, leaving more casualties in its wake.
I was used to it — I couldn't die, and I had done forced marches worse than this more than once, so I just took it in stride. The other examinees couldn't hold out. Even the key figures who were supposed to hold everyone together.
The Sword Saint said to the Hero,
"We have to abandon the wounded."
They could no longer keep dragging the injured along. His argument was that if they kept this up, everyone would die. The Sword Saint, who would cut away whatever needed cutting without a shred of mercy, was no different now than he had been before the regression.
I had fought with the Hero a lot over things like this. Abandoning refugees to achieve a more important goal. Sacrificing hostages the Demon King's army had taken. Not that I couldn't understand it. Back then the Demon King's army had killed so many people that the handful dying near the Hero's party barely registered. The Sword Saint's argument had been that rather than fussing over hostages and refugees, killing the Demon King as fast as possible to save humanity was the way the fewest people would die.
And it was the same now.
"I cannot do that."
"Get a hold of yourself, Hero. If we keep taking the wounded with us, we're all going to die. It would be better to break through the forest with a small elite force—"
"I said I cannot."
The Sword Saint from before the regression would have pushed harder here. When the Hero hesitated over hostages, he had even gone so far as to kill the hostages himself. But he wasn't going that far now. He respected the Hero's position, yet it was clear he stood ready to abandon the wounded the moment things went wrong.
I approached that Sword Saint and spoke. If I left it alone, he would keep clashing with the Hero until they had an all-out brawl. Better to change his mind now.
"That argument isn't right, Reinhardt."
"...What's your reason?"
Reinhardt looked surprised. His face said it plainly — surely you'd think the same as me?
...This is why I hate the sharp ones.
Left to myself, I would have dumped the lot of them without a second thought. If there had been no reason I had to save them, I would have gone off alone to punch through the black magic barrier. So why was I helping them?
Because it was profitable.
I whispered so that only the Sword Saint could hear. It was not the kind of thing the Hero should overhear.
"Think it through, Reinhardt. Every one of them is a promising talent. Some of them are nobles. Even if they don't all feel grateful to you, if even half of them do, they'll be a huge asset later."
"...I am Reinhardt of Russelmani. I have no need to play the savior for them."
"Just because you have a lot doesn't mean you'll keep it forever. And you're the young master of Russelmani, not its lord, aren't you? To become the lord, you need to gather support. How much would it help if word spread that you were the savior of this enormous disaster?"
The Sword Saint looked genuinely tempted. Of course, later he would join the Hero's party and the whole matter of the Russelmani family headship would fall through — but right now, the Sword Saint still cared about becoming the family head.
There were many reasons the Hero's party had fallen apart, but the Hero was not entirely without blame. The Hero's logic was built entirely on justice and righteousness.
Why save people? Because it is the right thing to do. Most people would agree with that. But the Sword Saint could not accept it. He was a thoroughly calculating man. You could not appeal to justice with him — you had to argue with reason and rationality.
And the Sword Saint... saving people turns out to be surprisingly profitable. I know. I have done it.
In the end, the Sword Saint conceded.
"...We'll proceed with a plan that saves as many of the wounded as possible."
"Good thinking."
Having successfully persuaded the Sword Saint, I looked at the Hero with confidence. How about that, Hero? Doesn't that earn me a bit more of your trust?
When I looked at her, her eyes were trembling violently.
...A more dramatic reaction than I had expected. I nodded, satisfied. The favorability grind seemed to be going better than I had thought.
The mid-rank demons never attacked in groups of four or more, but they were still a handful. As the raids continued and the days wore on, people were driven to the breaking point. They started fighting among themselves, and it got bad enough that blades nearly came out.
The Sword Saint, exhausted himself, lost his grip on the examinees. Fran's face looked like her soul had half left her body from the excessive acceleration calculations. Even Raeli, who was always so lively, just trudged along in silence. The Spear Saint... I wasn't sure. He had always been that gloomy.
We had hoarded our medical supplies as carefully as we could, but they ran out in the end, and examinees whose wounds had begun to fester started appearing. Worst piled on worst. In a hell where even breathing was hard, we kept moving, trying to get out however we could. Quietly, heavily, we put one foot in front of the other.
And yet, at the end of the ordeal, hope would come.
The practical exam had already been over for a long time. There was no reason to punch through the forest in a straight line. The goal was to get out of the forest and reach the barrier, by any means. That said, going back the way we had come — the fastest route — was out of the question. Dozens of mid-rank demons had it surrounded. If we went that way, a lot of examinees would die for certain.
So we had to detour. And I was the one who knew that detour exactly, and safely.
In just three days, I locked onto a direction that would get us completely out of the forest. Even with the mid-rank demons surrounding us, there were gaps. That was what made it possible. It was only a two-day difference, but those two days meant everything.
The dense forest that had been agony with every single step gave way to ground increasingly carpeted in thick grass. They could feel we were leaving the forest. They knew the end was approaching. Strength began to return to their steps.
"We're almost there, right?"
"Yeah?"
"W-we're alive!"
"We did it!"
At a certain point, some of them were even feeling joy at having survived. But I knew this was not the end. Demons were watching us nearby.
...Three upper-rank demons. One of them had such a faint aura of magi that I figured it was an assassin type. It registered on my senses a few times, then I couldn't feel it at all.
The Hero seemed to have a vague sense of it too. Even as we left the forest, her face was pale. She knew. An enemy even she could not beat was coming.
The Hero hurried toward the barrier, wanting to smash through it quickly and get out of this hell. And in that moment, a black speck appeared in the sky.
It had arrived. An upper-rank demon.
KRAAAAAANG—!
The ground nearly caved in. Behind the wave of dirt and dust, a monster dyed in black came into view. A blade in one hand, black armor covering its entire body. The creature itself was an utterly ordinary upper-rank demon. But I knew what that armor was.
No ordinary cold weapon — sword, bow, or spear — could pierce it, and it held a powerful immunity to most magic. And I knew who had made it. Cyclops, an officer of the Demon King's army. The blacksmith who worked magi. ...And the one who had forged Kerseia's Altar Dagger.
I had thought the black armor was something that appeared during the Great War, but they had already finished producing it, and upper-rank demons were wearing it.
"Hoh."
A suffocating pressure crushed down on the examinees. Every time the upper-rank demon opened its mouth, some of them couldn't even breathe. That was how vast the gap still was between promising talents and an upper-rank demon.
"Only about thirty dead?"
Even with raids coming every day, not that many had died. Thirty dying in a practical exam was a catastrophe in its own right, but before the regression more than half had died, so this was a good result.
"I expected more than half to die."
"You villain."
The Hero burned with hatred. It had plunged every examinee into suffering. It had trampled thirty lives. They had shivered through the cold every night. They had cowered in terror of death. The wounded would fester and soon rot. It had been a horrific environment. It had been hell. They had been relieved that no more were dying, and terrified that more still could.
The Hero poured that feeling into her sword. Watching from the side, I could tell she had taken half a step further.
"...You've grown a little stronger, it seems, but you still have a long way to go."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean you're weak, Hero."
The demon raised its sword high. It just swept it down. The Hero blocked it, but she was driven back, leaving a massive gouge in the ground.
KUUUUNG—!
"I simply cannot understand it. Not even half of you are dead, and you evaded the demons surrounding you to make it this far. Are you lucky, or do you actually have that much skill?"
"Ghhk!"
"How many need to die? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? Or all of them? Only then will you be my equal?"
PAAANG!
Thud!
"Kyaaaaah!"
"H-he's dead!"
With a single gesture from the demon, one examinee's head flew clean off. Screams erupted. Despair crushed down on this place. They had made it this far. They had thought they would survive. But a greater malice was looking down on them.
The Hero clenched her teeth.
"What... what are you even—!"
"Face me, Hero. Rise above your hardship, Hero. Only then will even a few of them have a chance to live, no?"
Listening to the demon, I gradually felt something was off, and muttered.
"...What is this?"
The more I listened, the stranger it got. It sounded like it was mocking the Hero, but to me — who had fought the Demon King to the very end — something snagged. That demon wanted the Hero to get stronger.
Why? Shouldn't they be trying to kill the Hero who would one day stand against the Demon King? Far from trying to kill her, it was killing other examinees to goad her into growing stronger.
I felt that the premise I had been working from was wrong. It was definitely strange. If they had wanted to kill the Hero from the start, throwing those three upper-rank demons and dozens of mid-rank ones at her would have done the job. Instead, they had imposed staged trials so the Hero could grow.
One thing came to mind: the power of the Scales.
The Scales were not merely a power for putting things on a balance and making trades. The Demon King possessed an authority that dealt in concepts, and she could place anything on the Scales. So what if the Demon King placed the Hero's power on the other side of the Scales?
"Ha."
It was absurd. An extremely simple and seemingly powerful method. Why had I only realized this now?
First, they hadn't told me. I was nominally an officer of the Demon King's army, but in reality I was nothing more than an outsider. They hadn't shared important secrets with someone like me.
And there was a reason I hadn't even noticed. Against the Hero who had reached Transcendence before the regression, there had been no need to use such an unnatural method. She had been a hero in the truest sense — even if every officer and the entire Demon King's army threw everything they had at her, she would not die. The Demon King's army had always gone all-out trying to kill the Hero, and they had always seemed to fail. It was hard to connect that to the idea that they were raising her.
But what about now? Monsters first, then lower-rank demons, then mid-rank demons. And finally, upper-rank demons. The upper-rank demon was openly telling her to get stronger. There was no way I could miss it.
My mind turned slowly. Now that I understood the principle behind the Demon King's strength, I could think of a way to use it. Where there is an advantage, there is a disadvantage. The Demon King was weak right now. That was only natural, given that the Hero was too frail to even beat an upper-rank demon.
I considered charging the Demon King's Castle right now, then shook my head. The officers who had already reached Transcendence would be guarding her. The Demon King was more cunning than any devil. She had no reason to leave a weakness like this unattended. Even if I raided the Demon King's Castle, every officer would be stationed there. Considering their numbers, at least three at the Transcendent level. Even for an Immortal, that would be insane.
If you thought about how the officers almost never appeared until right before the Great War, there was a reason for that. Even knowing the Demon King was weak, I had to endure.
"Come to think of it..."
There was a fact that sent a chill down my spine. What if it hadn't been me who regressed, but the Hero? If the Hero who had reached the pinnacle of strength had returned to the past, the Demon King would have become the most terrible monster in kind, and descended upon the continent without needing to wait.
What if the Hero had noticed this, and used the strange excuse that she could 'only send someone else back' to make me the one who regressed? It really might have been that.
"Then why."
Why on earth had the Hero chosen me. Because I couldn't die? Because she was certain I would help her? I couldn't ask. I couldn't go back to the past.
But the Hero of the present existed. I felt her gaze. Those desperately pleading eyes were turned toward me. She had hit her limit, and to break through it she either had to become stronger herself, or find a way to fight a stronger enemy.
That way was me. She had judged that only by fighting together with me could she take down an upper-rank demon.
"....Of course."
I had to help the Hero. If I stopped her awakening, the Demon King wouldn't grow any stronger. I had to pour everything into this.
I overlaid the mana I had already been amplifying onto my body. Physical enhancement pushed to the brink of death, with no regard for the side effects.
Fran, seeing that, panicked.
"Wait. Argal!"
Before she could grab me, my body moved at a speed the eye couldn't follow.