Chapter 8
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 8
Chapter Title: Traveling Companion
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"......Ah..."
Isabella's lips parted and closed repeatedly.
She had to say something.
She couldn't let him leave like this again.
But upon seeing his soulless expression...
The last shred of courage she had left withered away completely.
"I'm no longer the Hero, Isabella."
"......"
"......Can't you just let me live like this?"
Adel slowly staggered to his feet.
She tried to grab him as he passed by her side, but in the end, she could do nothing.
"......Pl, please......"
"........"
Adel slowly made his way over to the fallen Elysia.
".....Ed.... bro....ther."
"......"
".....Sor....ry...."
Her pale complexion was something he'd seen far too often, something all too familiar.
....Eternal rest.
Adel slowly nodded at Elysia's words.
To shield her from the cold blizzard, he gently pulled her into his arms and offered her a final farewell.
"......May Gaia's blessing be with you, Elysia."
As if she'd heard the prayer, Elysia slowly smiled.
And with that smiling expression... she closed her eyes.
Likewise, I recited a prayer slowly before Karin's body.
And for the others who had died innocently in this senseless adventurer hunt.
Whenever such tragedies occurred, it was Lena from the Hero's party who would recite these prayers.
I performed funerals for the adventurers who had met such unfortunate ends as the snow piled up in three layers.
Burial.
When an adventurer dies, the funeral follows the local customs, and the northern method was simple.
Bury them in the blizzard and recite the prayer.
Once the prayer ended, Adel looked at Isabella and finally responded to the words she hadn't been able to finish.
"......This line of work isn't exactly noble either."
Kwak-
As he wrapped a bandage around his wound, Adel's parting words...
Made her hand, which had reached out once more to stop him from leaving, drop limply.
"But it feels a lot better than my old life."
What is a Hero?
I can answer that perfectly.
The world's biggest sucker of a job.
A volunteer worker, a fool flailing endlessly for some vague, uncertain happy ending.
So what is a happy ending?
Married XX and lived happily ever after...
Returned to Earth and did this and that...
......Sorry, but happy endings stopped being an option for me a long time ago.
Maybe around the third month of torture. My mind was so twisted back then that I vowed revenge on everyone.
I thought I'd make each one pay for their crimes, force apologies out of them somehow.
Every day, rage boiled inside me at the injustice I had to endure, and there were times I imagined becoming a vengeful ghost living only for payback.
But when Isabella and Lena came to see me...
That's when I finally faced the harsh truth.
[Cursed by the Demon King, they harbor hatred toward me.]
This proposition was a cruel, complicated truth.
Yeah, suppose the curse is lifted—would throwing stones back at those who stoned me, or spitting Lena's words back at her, really bring relief?
....Would it?
They'd accept it as fitting punishment for self-satisfaction, and I'd just end up gnawing at myself even more.
So on the day of my release...
I decided to let it all go.
Instead, I'd go somewhere no one knew me.
A place where no one recognized me, where I didn't have to forgive anyone. Just live peacefully.
Earn enough money to never work again.
Like Seria's cabin—I'd spend my remaining days in some empty forest.
That was the final choice of a man who had let everything go.
"......This is truly regrettable. To think adventurer hunting would happen during a raid..."
Duke Hyde arrived at the scene on horseback with his private soldiers and sneered bitterly at the corpses scattered around.
After dismounting, he approached me and Isabella with heavy steps and handed me a document infused with faint mana.
Raid clearance certificate.
In other words, he was passing the certificate to me in place of the deceased raid leader.
He bowed his head once more, offered a handshake, and said,
"On behalf of Lepanto's citizens, I offer my thanks. If you ever need help, come to me."
"I'd like to disband the party."
"......Ah, yes...."
Aris, who had been verifying the certificate and calculating rewards, gave me a slightly awkward look as she slowly repeated my request.
"......Um, well. Given the circumstances... I suppose so...? The knight lady agrees too, right?"
"......"
With a barely perceptible nod, she slowly agreed.
Sensing the odd atmosphere, Aris quietly placed five 100-gold checks on the counter and slipped away.
I picked them up and handed three checks to Isabella.
".....N, no.... I'm fine-"
"......"
I gave her the checks and quietly exited the Adventurer's Guild building.
"......What a youth."
"Did she get dumped?"
"......Shh, too loud."
Amid the snickering male adventurers' mocking whispers, Isabella hurriedly flung open the door and ran after me.
"......W, wait....."
"......."
With a cracked voice, she slowly asked me,
".....Wh, where are you going."
I said nothing, just kept walking with my small bag slung over my shoulder.
Matching my pace, Isabella began to follow slowly.
When I glanced back, she flinched and stopped.
"......"
"......."
I kept walking without a care, but the sound of footsteps trailed behind.
Finally, I let out a slow sigh and continued ahead without turning.
How long had we walked?
When a carriage passed in the distance, I quietly raised my hand to hail it.
Hiihing-!!
The coachman pulled the reins to stop for a passenger.
"To the southern border of the Demon Realm."
"....B, border? What business do you-"
When I silently handed over three gold coins, the coachman shut his mouth and opened the carriage door.
"Yes. That lady's with you, right?"
"......Ah, I, I'm.... no, I'm...."
"......"
To think she'd followed this far.
I pondered my destination briefly, doing some mental calculations.
Like a form of insurance... that should be fine.
".......Get in."
Isabella kept stealing glances at Adel's face, her head bowed.
Watching him gaze out the window, she questioned why she was stubbornly following him like this.
He had clearly told her not to follow, to go back.
Wasn't insisting on tagging along a kind of coercion?
Forcing her actions on someone who no longer had the strength or will to refuse—wasn't that just another form of violence?
Kuuk....
She gripped her collar tightly, trying to force positive thoughts.
"Do as you please" might mean she still had a chance.
A chance to return to him, to be forgiven... to be saved...
[We've arrived-!!]
Adel stepped down from the carriage and slowly headed toward the towering walls.
The Demon Realm.
Demon Realm sounded grand, but it was just the continent attached to the Empire's south. Dense demonic energy concentrations made it impossible for normal creatures to survive, forming ecosystems of demonic beasts and demons adapted to it.
This origin of all demons was thoroughly isolated by the Empire's walls—a dangerous zone.
All S-rank gates were within the Demon Realm, and after the Demon King's subjugation, only B-rank adventurers and above were allowed limited entry.
In fact, he'd cleared the A-rank raid partly to qualify for B-rank.
I slowly showed my adventurer ID to the guard, Hans. He scrutinized it against me for a long while.
"......Hmm.... This furry guy is you? No mix-up?"
"....Ho, cool scar."
After thoroughly checking the ID, Hans issued the pass.
I took it and headed out the gate into the continent.
"Next... Oh, whew-."
Hans whistled at the next in line, examined her ID, then stared blankly, alternating between it and her.
"......I, I greet the Empire's Knight Commander!!"
He dropped to his knees instantly, performing perfect military protocol.
Hans's vision went dark.
Would darkness mean the end of military life?
No.
The hellish military journey ahead made him swallow tears, head bowed low.
".....H, hurry."
"....Pardon?"
"......"
Kiiik-!!
The Empire's 3rd Knight Commander vanished from the checkpoint in an instant.
Where on earth was Adel headed?
The Demon Realm was dangerous.
Though the Demon King was gone, and the 'real' threats were only in the inner realms... the demonic beasts here were threat enough for Adel now.
He surely knew that... so why?
At the path to the inner realms, Adel suddenly veered toward a small mountain.
Less a mountain than a tree-covered hill.
She kept following, and soon he stopped at a pile of rocks, removing them one by one.
"......?"
After shifting four large boulders, a narrow entrance for two or three people appeared.
One thing was clear: it was man-made cave.
Adel entered without hesitation, and as she followed suit—
[......]
"......!!"
The moment her foot crossed the threshold, a chill-inducing dense demonic aura prickled her spine.
'.....Demon King...?'
This purity of dark mana wasn't mere high demon level.
The Demon King. Was he still alive?
Isabella swallowed hard, gripping her sword tightly without realizing.
That was when.
Adel bowed his head slowly and addressed the presence inside.
"......I pay respects to the great ancient being. May I enter your lair?"