What It Takes to Break a Hero
The world seemed to darken for a moment—then, all at once, a featureless white expanse flooded his vision without warning or end.
At length, the Demon King cleared her throat.
"First, let's consider what it is you hope for."
"My... hopes?"
"Your ultimate goal is the same either way—defeating your father. What I mean is the means and the process by which you reach it."
"……?"
What was she talking about?
"In other words, this is a question of *how* you want to win."
"Doesn't it not matter, as long as I win?"
"Your thinking remains as impoverished as ever."
The Demon King clicked her tongue.
"'As a knight, as a mage, or in some form that is neither—victory is all that counts.' Is that what you were about to say?"
"Well... yes."
Isn't that enough?
Besides, it was an impossible premise to begin with.
A realm beyond even imagination.
It wasn't simply that the man was his father—objectively speaking, Rueld stood among the very apex of the continent. When debates arose over the strongest on the continent, the Nine Heroes were always treated as exceptions.
And the greatest reason they were carved out into a category of their own was his own father, Rueld.
For the other Nine Heroes, it was true they ranked among the continental pinnacle, but one couldn't say they were without formidable rivals.
His father, however, was the exception.
Roughly speaking, he possessed the full fighting strength to stand against an entire nation single-handedly.
...No, even that was an understatement.
Furthermore, due to various circumstances, he had returned the Sacred Relics—yet still held the Holy Sword.
The bond between the Berg Empire and the Church went without saying.
And the fact that his mother had been the Saintess was a factor that could hardly be ignored.
True, there were several saintesses who had since succeeded her.
But of the legends who survived the Demon King's invasion, the only one who had steadfastly held her place as Saintess was his mother, Ermina, and her alone.
The reason she was hailed as the Holy Mother of her era was plainly evident.
"……."
Yet for Cariel, who had that very Holy Mother for a mother, the thought inspired not merely frustration but a creeping dread.
If even a fraction of the compassion and goodwill she lavished on others had been spared for him.
...He wouldn't feel so utterly wretched at every turn.
And so, naturally enough, the Church had gladly sanctioned Rueld as the master of the Holy Sword.
But even that authority had been fading somewhat as the years wore on.
The Hero—the head of the Nine—was his father. The Saintess. And the Empire.
Cariel's engagement to Elhermina this time carried, in effect, the symbolic weight of the Empire, the Church, and the Hero's line binding together in perfect union.
If Cariel himself had been a little more shameless, a little more thoughtless in how he lived.
If he had been dazzled by Elhermina's status and beauty.
If he had been the sort who could be led around by the nose without much complaint.
Then this, in its own way, might have been a contribution to the Empire's peace simply by complying with it.
"The weight of time and effort—their depth—changes depending on the direction you hope for."
"I understand what you mean."
Still.
For her to suddenly demand he think—honestly, where would he even begin?
He had held a sword his whole life, and poured time into every field imaginable trying to discover some other aptitude.
All of it had been wasted effort.
Nothing remained.
He had been born lacking mana, deficient in both the aptitude to wield it and the talent for it.
Swordsmanship, magic.
Nothing else either.
"Ah..."
"There is one thing that comes to mind, though."
"Even so... that would be meaningless."
Besides, it wasn't even something he could command by his own will.
Here it was again.
His inability to handle mana reared its head as an obstacle once more.
"I can *see* spirits... but that's all it is."
Even that much was possible only in places rich with the energy of nature.
In a city like the Imperial Capital, where he lived now, thick with turbid, murky energies, even that meant little.
"That's only because you have no methodology for it."
"A methodology?"
"Elves are born able to ride spirits like wild beasts, but unless someone of your kind has exceptional aptitude or talent, you wouldn't even dream of attempting it, would you?"
"Well... no, I suppose not."
"No methodology. And when you don't know, you flounder. Perfectly sound common sense."
Even so.
"Keep in mind that this doesn't align with your aptitude either—treat it as, at most, a supplementary means."
At the end of the day, that too was a matter of borrowing another's power.
"You could command spirits for a hundred days and still never beat your father. And your talent for it isn't particularly good to begin with."
"Is that... so?"
"I was born a spirit myself, so you can take it as certain. I won't entertain objections. If you doubt me, summon the Spirit King and ask."
"……Born a spirit, you say?"
"When I say 'gold,' what comes to mind?"
"Gold?"
Cariel blinked, then pondered before answering.
"Light. Brightness. Splendor... ah, if we're speaking of elements... earth, perhaps?"
"Correct. But that was merely my *first* element."
If you classified her as a spirit, she was one of *all* elements.
"……?"
Was that even possible?
"Fools who fail to discover something dismiss it as impossible—but this is plain reality. If you're curious, summon the Spirit King and ask."
"That..."
The deeper he dug, the more wondrous a being she revealed herself to be.
And yet.
A being who had once been a spirit had become not merely a demon, but the Demon King itself?
What in the world was he to make of that?
"Then the fact that I can... perceive you now—is that connected as well?"
"Half and half?"
The Demon King did not bother to explain further.
That thing he could sense was hardly some mere aptitude for perceiving spirits.
...No need to tell him now, anyway.
"Regardless—that's why, when it comes to magic and everything built upon mana, you are hopeless. If you wish to resolve that, you'll need external assistance."
"External... you mean I need a tool? As a supplementary means?"
"Yes. That was already in your thoughts, wasn't it?"
The Demon King snapped her fingers, and figures and writing took shape in the empty air.
The form of a human body.
A sword.
And a book.
Beneath each, small letters read: Flesh, Tool, Means.
"Everything is decided by the harmony of these three. Take your father as an example."
In the Tool column, the word sword appeared, and beneath it, as his primary armaments, the words Holy Sword and Sacred Relics were newly inscribed.
In the Means column, his foundational art: Imperial Swordsmanship.
As auxiliary: the unorthodox combat techniques Rueld had forged through live battle—techniques unique to him alone.
And as his secret art, newly inscribed: the Six Great Radiances.
The five Archangels, and the being who had become the progenitor and symbol of the Golden Dragon Knights.
It was Rueld's exclusive secret art, said to embody—through his own insights—the miracles once displayed by the Gold Dragon that had saved the world.
Someday.
...Cariel had once believed that, in time, he too would come to learn it.
And now, instead, he had fallen so low that he would have to unravel that very art and shatter it.
"And the foundation upon which those two pillars rest is, in the end, Rueld's own formidable body."
Even gripping the Holy Sword is meaningless if the body swinging it is a wreck.
However firm his spirit might stand, if his flesh could not follow, it was all half a measure.
In truth, Rueld had obtained the qualities of a Hero because his fundamental conditions were perfect.
His body and his heart, nothing less.
Even before he gained the Holy Sword—even in the days when he was still fumbling through Imperial Swordsmanship—he had already been a formidable combatant.
But.
Considering the starting points of the other Nine Heroes, Rueld had, at that stage, been the weakest of them all.
"Even immediately after he gained the Holy Sword, the boy was still the weakest."
"Was he?"
"It was only around the time he could fully command the Holy Sword that he finally stood on equal footing with the others."
Put another way, everyone except Rueld had been, quite literally, beyond the standard.
Without them, even having grasped the Holy Sword, Rueld would have died or broken long ago.
"It was once he donned the Sacred Relics that everything reversed."
That was where he was reborn as a being without precedent or equal.
Most struggle enough with a Holy Sword alone—and he had been acknowledged by the Relics as well, granted the comprehensive power of both?
"Even I thought, *ah, this is trouble* around then. It fell within the range of my expectations, but still—this was going too far, wasn't it?"
The thought that God was cheating like this because the Middle Realm seemed destined to fall gave me quite the headache.
"Having heard all this—what do you think you need?"
"...Isn't it all of it?"
"That much is obvious. But doesn't something irreplaceable leap out at you?"
"The Holy Sword?"
"Yes. That."
Even if he built his strength, even if he tempered his body however he could.
Without the Holy Sword, without the Sacred Relics—how could he possibly defeat Rueld?
Or should he appeal to sentiment and ask him to duel without the Holy Sword?
It would be possible, but...
"You wouldn't like that much, would you?"
"Not particularly."
Even if he won that way.
He would never be able to dispel the impression that Rueld had lost on purpose.
Whether Rueld acknowledged him in earnest or not—such things were utterly worthless.
The only thing that mattered was how Cariel himself felt, how he received it.
That was all.
"I want him at full strength—Holy Sword drawn, Sacred Relics equipped."
"Then you'll need to find something of equal standing for yourself."
"...Is that even possible?"
Only a skeptical conclusion came to mind.
"Here, you classify them as Holy Sword, Holy Spear, Sacred Relics, and so on. The Demon Realm has similar things."
"...Don't tell me."
"Demonic Armaments. Your history books should record something roughly along those lines?"
"No. Precisely speaking, we call them the Devil's Legacies—the Demonic Relics."
The Demon King furrowed her brow.
"Demonic Relics? Why do they classify them as *that*? Each and every one of those is a divine armament wielded by the sovereign of its own domain in the Demon Realm."
"They were classified as spoils of war during the great invasion of the past."
"You couldn't even make use of them?"
"There are rare cases, I'm told."
The time the two realms had nearly gone to war had been half because of that, too.
There were those intoxicated by the power of the Demonic Relics, who believed they had ample odds against Rueld and the Empire.
They had even formed a unified alliance, intending to press in simultaneously on all fronts.
Of course.
...Even in that era, his father had reportedly held two entire fronts alone and crushed them all.
And that was despite wielding force—allegedly without a single casualty on his side.
Meanwhile, on the remaining three fronts, the other five Heroes belonging to the Empire had mobilized in full, and the situation was defused through a standoff.
Even then, the damage had been slight.
Even the greatest battle of the campaign had been fought as a small-scale local engagement, or so the stories went.
...What the truth of it was, he couldn't say.
Back then, all sorts of proposals had been thrown back and forth.
In the end, matters had been settled by Cariel going as hostage in the Princess's stead—three years traveling across the entire continent, everywhere but the Empire.
"……."
He couldn't even remember it, but whatever he had been thinking at the time, it was remarkable, in its way.
"……."
"In your case, if you mishandle a Demonic Armament within the Middle Realm, you'd be hunted as a heretic—if not something worse. How does that sit with you?"
"...The Church of Irenis doesn't govern the entire continent. So long as I don't become entangled with them, it should be fine."
The Church had been wary of such things from the very beginning.
They had gathered every one of them together and publicly proclaimed that they had constructed a separate vault—the Demonic Relic Repository—and sealed them deep within the Holy See.
Yet those who refused to return their Demonic Relics had continued to treat them as legitimate spoils of war and rightful possessions.
"Among them, some mastered the methods of wielding their Relics in that era and publicly declared they would pass them down through their bloodlines as family treasures. Certain great noble houses of other nations did the same—and even royalty was no exception."
"The Church must have been sorely displeased."
"They don't believe in the Church of Irenis, so there was little the Church could hold over them."
And then—
"I do not believe the Church simply leaves them sealed away."
"Why is that?"
My, my. What a dangerous creature this one was.
The Demon King barely suppressed a hum of amusement.
"Whether it's a nation or a religious organization, in the end, it's a structure that can only function through power, isn't it? By keeping those things in their keeping, they preserve their authority and legitimacy—and should a great crisis arrive, they would turn around and wield them, presenting them as another source of the Church's strength and justification. They might even use them to overcome the crisis and leverage the result to expand their own influence. That is what I suspect."
She had struck near the heart of it, though numerous errors surfaced in the finer details.
But then—where else could one voice one's convictions like this?
...Well.
If he only piled such thoughts up inside himself, it would remain nothing more than worthless delusion.
Still, at the very least, the boy grasped something essential about the nature of power.
"If you'd rather not be branded a heretic, bury such notions quietly in your chest."
"There's no one who'd listen even if I spoke, you know. Faith least of all."
More importantly—how could he entertain such thoughts and accept them as though they were obvious?
'A strange creature, this one.'
Was that why he had been able to propose a perilous bargain like this—even with the Demon King, who stood beyond mere fear, a walking embodiment of taboo itself?
He was a contradiction in more ways than one.
"In any case, considering that you'll be operating within the Empire's domain, wielding a Demonic Armament would pose something of a problem."
"...So you're saying I should leave the Empire?"
"That is one option among many. Depending on which path you choose, the domain in which you may act will be decided accordingly."
With that in mind, she posed the question once more, for confirmation.
"What you desire is to break a Rueld at the height of his power, face to face. On this point, nothing has changed—has it?"