The Hero-Slaying Witch
There was a man.
A man who had lived as an ordinary village youth in a small town.
One day, without warning, he fell into a world teeming with creatures he had never seen before.
Dropped into another world where he knew not a single soul, he spent more years there than he had ever lived in his original home—all for the sake of returning to the family waiting for him.
Yet the man’s purpose never wavered from the very beginning.
Even if his family had forgotten him.
Even if, by some chance, they had already left this world.
To bow his head before them and declare that he had returned—
That alone was the reason the man had run so hard, and his life came to an end in the worst possible form at the hands of a certain witch.
Ahahahaha—!!
He lost both eyes along with the spirits he had contracted.
The comrades with whom he had spent so many years were annihilated.
And so.
Seven years ago, Osmon Lloyd lost everything.
“To someone like me, new eyes with which to see again, along with new power, were given.”
Osmon, who the instant our eyes met had raised waves to threaten us and dragged us right before him, rattled off his past without preamble and then declared,
“So I am merely carrying out a rightful revenge.”
He spoke with eyes that were clearly anything but normal.
“I’ve got plenty to say, but let’s start with this.”
“Yes. Please speak, Miss Ren.”
“Can you actually see with those peepers?”
“…Ren. Please.”
“Ren… is that really what you’re curious about right now…?”
Well, of course he could see—he’d moved the moment he spotted us. But when creepy black energy was swirling inside those empty sockets, honestly, who wouldn’t wonder?
“Is that more important to you than a comrade on the brink of death?”
“Haha. Just kidding. If I could kill that thing, I’d have done it already. And besides—”
The fact that he already knew I was Frederica’s companion told me everything.
“Did you ever plan on letting us live in the first place?”
I’d seen plenty of guys like him. They always came up with excuses—my comrades were done for so I’ll do the same to you—and then tried to kill you.
“……”
Sure enough, Osmon fell silent.
Watching him, Huey—who still seemed not to grasp the situation—opened his mouth.
“Mr. Osmon. Please calm down first and let’s talk—”
Whoosh!
“Shhh.”
“Master!”
The instant Huey spoke, a water arrow grazed past his cheek.
“I am clearer-headed now than at any other time.”
Crazy people always loved claiming their heads were clear.
Anyway, that aside.
“Your comrades’ names were Kevin?”
“…Yes. Kevin, Melissa, Maduk. They were precious comrades.”
A man who had known Frederica seven years ago. Now it clicked—I’d thought the name sounded familiar.
“You were a member of the previous Hero’s party.”
I looked at Frederica, who no longer seemed to have the strength to move, gurgling and drowning over and over inside the water sphere, and muttered with a bitter feeling.
“So you wrecked the city like this just to kill Frederica?”
“An unavoidable sacrifice. To kill the witch who slew the Hero.”
“…Slew the Hero?”
“That… Frederica, you mean…?”
At Osmon’s words, spat out as if he were chewing and swallowing them with pure killing intent, Huey and Lucy turned toward Frederica with eyes wide in shock.
“I’ll explain later.”
Of course it wasn’t as if Frederica had done nothing wrong. But this was hardly the time for explanations.
“Later? Unfortunately, there will be no such thing for any of you.”
“Then why drag us all the way here instead of killing us on sight?”
“Even if you die, you ought to know the reason you’re dying.”
As if we were ants on the roadside he could crush whenever he pleased, Osmon aimed a dense array of razor-honed water arrows all around us and smiled with a gentle face.
That utterly arrogant attitude made me let out a hollow laugh.
“Ha.”
“…Ren?”
“You’re laughing in this situation…?”
Ignoring the two panicking beside me, I quietly kindled flames along my wings.
“Hey. I’ll tell you something good.”
The purifying flames I had been gathering inside my body so they wouldn’t show until now.
“Not killing me when you had the chance is going to be the last thing you regret, you bastard.”
“…What?”
Kwaaaaaah—!
Osmon flinched at the sudden bloom of fire. The other two, having seen it a few times already, moved without panicking.
And then—
“Puhah! Seriously! Would it kill you to free me a little faster!?”
I shouted at Frederica, who smashed through the water sphere that had been shaking from the spreading flames and came out complaining.
“Shut up! You should’ve just not lost in the first place!”
“Ugh, I couldn’t help it!”
Out of the sphere, Frederica stood beside me and quickly clasped her hands to form a barrier.
“Hoo. This should hold for a bit.”
“Are you all right?”
Huey asked while deliberately averting his gaze from Frederica’s heaving chest.
Lucy clicked her tongue with an expression that clearly wished the woman had just died.
“…More importantly, what are you that you’re still alive?”
“Explain already.”
“Three days ago I was suddenly attacked, fought, and lost. I didn’t have the leeway to worry about the surroundings, so the city ended up like this.”
Looking at the attacks outside the barrier—on a completely different scale from what had been threatening us moments earlier—Frederica began a brief explanation with a heavy sigh.
“It must have started right after Ren left.”
From the moment we left Swinford until now, the fierce rain had never stopped.
“It looked so strange no matter how I looked at it that while I was investigating the cause, the water started overflowing.”
Realizing everything would be submerged if it continued, she prepared emergency evacuation.
“Still, as a lord in name at least, my client took the lead in guiding the city’s people to safety.”
Around the time the evacuation was nearly finished, Osmon appeared and attacked.
“I’ve lived quite a long time myself, but it was my first time seeing a water spirit user.”
Apparently the rain itself had been preparation for fighting Frederica.
Crack. Craaack.
After roughly grasping the situation, I watched the barrier begin to fracture.
“Moreover, I don’t know which god, but… he’s clad in divine radiance. That man.”
If not for that, she wouldn’t have lost so miserably.
“Divine radiance?”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll explain. First, let’s move.”
Staying here would only get in the way. The moment Frederica’s barrier shattered, I started moving with Huey and Lucy toward somewhere safer.
“Being clad in divine radiance means being protected by the power of a god.”
The degree varies depending on how much divine power one has received, but basically most attacks don’t even leave a scratch.
“There are two ways to hurt guys like that.”
Whether you receive a blessing from a priest or use holy power yourself—one method is to offset the radiance by borrowing a god’s power in turn.
“Well, the result will differ depending on how much divine power each side draws.”
And the other method. Personally I preferred this one for its simplicity.
“The other is crushing them with overwhelming force.”
The latter was a bit of a stretch to call a method, but it worked if you could pull it off.
Kwaaaaaang—!
Perfect timing for an example. I pointed with a wing at the crimson flash that had just blown even the clouds from the sky with a roar.
“Roughly like that?”
When I said that level of power could punch through ordinary divine radiance, the two of them accepted it on their own with blank faces.
“…So basically there’s only one method.”
“Seems so.”
“That aside…”
That attack just now should have been the strongest magic Frederica could use, as far as I knew.
“Why is she losing again after I went through the trouble of freeing her…”
Even though the magic must have hit dead-on, Osmon stood completely unscathed and once more sealed Frederica inside a water sphere. I muttered under my breath.
More than that—why wasn’t she using her trump card?
“Tsk.”
“…What do we do?”
“What do you mean what? We struggle.”
Looking up at the sky that Frederica’s earlier magic had cleared to a pure blue, I said,
“I’ll buy as much time as I can. Do something.”
“…Will you be okay?”
“Gotta try.”
I sent Huey far away.
“If it’s buying time, I can also—!”
“You know the terrain makes it impossible for you.”
“Kgh.”
After shoving even Lucy—who wore a frustrated look at being unable to send me alone—over to Huey’s side, I felt the spirit energy blanketing the area suddenly drop downward.
“Ha, you’re impatient!”
I spread my wings and kicked hard off the ground, shooting upward.
Chaaaaak!
Sure enough, dozens of water streams surged up from below.
Pusuk!
They reduced the building I’d been standing on to powder as they chased me.
Hwareuk!
I flapped urgently and fired purifying flames, but the water streams punched straight through them and rushed at me.
And so, while flapping my wings and trying somehow to free Frederica again while dodging the relentless streams—
Are you really okay?
A voice suddenly spoke inside my head.
It’ll be difficult in that state, won’t it?
As if saying that if I accepted it a little more, I could win.
You’re starting to feel it too, aren’t you? Just how incredible an Apostle of God truly is.
The voice continued.
Accept it. After all, that’s the only choice left for you.
At those words I flew high into the sky and quietly looked down.
“…I told you not to rely on that kind of power.”
Hidden somewhere Osmon’s eyes couldn’t reach, Huey raised an arm already sprouting black scales, eyes closed as if chanting. Lucy stood guard around him.
And then—
Goooooo…
With a sound like the atmosphere itself trembling, the water surface covering all of Swinford undulated.
Kwaaaaa!
Eight fiercely rotating whirlpools formed as if to surround me and began sucking in every nearby water stream.
“Kgh!”
Unable to control the wind because of the whirlpools, I fell for a moment. Just before plunging into the water I managed to raise a gust and land on the debris of a nearby building.
“Now, what will you do?”
Osmon’s mocking voice looked down at me where I had fallen.
I guarantee it. With my power and my father’s, a mere lackey of a demon god like that is no match.
Hearing the voice whisper temptingly inside my head, I steeled my resolve.
I…