102. Heroes (4)
102. Heroes (4)
"Yes, Master."
When Evangeline, stained by darkness, revealed herself once more with a lively voice, she had taken on the appearance of a Black Knight wearing a deep hood.
To put it simply, the form of a Death Knight clad entirely in black armor.
I noticed one anomaly in her appearance.
'Her eyes...'
The gleam of light shining from within the hood was red, not blue.
Within those crimson eyes, white pupils flickered ominously like flames.
'No way.'
A flood of emotions rushed through me in an instant.
'Could something have gone wrong?'
After all, corruption was a common trope across all kinds of media.
Wasn't the reversal of eye color its very symbol?
I worried that Evangeline, too, had become that way while establishing her individuality as a Death Knight.
And I feared that my relationship with her might change because of it.
"I shall gladly do so."
However, such worries proved unfounded.
As Evangeline removed her hood and drew a smile upon her lips, her figure gradually became suffused with light.
The black armor turned to silver and blue.
The ink-dark and crimson cape that had flowed down her back became white and water-hued.
The murky platinum hair that had spilled from beneath the hood turned golden.
And finally, that red glare which had seemed to radiate resentment from within the hood became clear, refreshing blue eyes.
"My liege. My master. My one and only sovereign."
The one prostrating herself on that spot was, before I knew it, no longer a Death Knight but a female knight who looked as though she had leaped straight out of a fairy tale or a game.
In the form of a hero of breathtaking beauty.
"Eve..."
'She is truly beautiful.'
At that overwhelming moment, I naturally extended my hand toward her and opened my mouth to speak.
『Congratulations on achieving a Great Feat! Demon Lord Candidate 'Libertas'! You are the first to successfully have a Hero...』
I confirmed that the window had appeared at my fingertips.
It had been a long time since I encountered one of these, and I was not at all pleased to see it.
"So tactless."
"Master?"
As I irritably swiped away the message that had appeared before my eyes, Evangeline, who had been reaching for the hand that had approached right before her face only to miss it, looked up at me with a flustered expression.
I extended my hand to her once more and received a kiss on the back of it, but the things I had intended to say earlier had already completely fled my mind.
"It is nothing. I was merely taken aback because your appearance had transformed so beautifully."
...The mood was completely ruined.
I already knew without being told that Evangeline was no ordinary being.
"I thought you might react that way, but I believed you would be pleased. I had trusted it would be a splendid presentation."
"So it was all to tease me."
"Ah, it was not solely for teasing. It was entirely out of a sincere desire to capture even one more glimpse of your beautiful countenance, Master."
"Is that not the same thing."
"Is it?"
Evangeline's smile had shifted at some point from the refreshing one of a moment ago to one that was rather sly.
It resembled the one Elias had worn in the days when he was still male, but it was far more refreshing, self-assured, and bold.
That did not mean the courteous and earnest image she had previously shown had vanished, however.
Even as her words seemed to tease me, she remained perfectly still in that spot, still holding my hand. As though she would endure like that for ten million years if my command did not fall.
"Rise. I wish to see all of you."
"Gladly, my Master."
Leaving her standing after she had risen, I slowly circled around her, examining the newly revealed form.
Her hair was a brilliant gold, as though spun and woven from threads of sunlight.
If Serica's hair held the hues of the first sunset glow, then hers held the light of high noon.
The armor was a clean silver, yet it was covered everywhere with traces impossible to conceal.
As though bearing witness to a life that had endured every hardship.
The cape and skirt were blue. They held a refreshing light imbued with her mana.
And her two eyes, which did not turn to follow my body yet continued to pursue me as though unwilling to let me slip away, were also tinged with a watery blue glow.
Whenever her eyes moved, the gleam of mana lingered briefly in their trajectory before scattering.
"I wish to see your other form again."
"As you desire."
Evangeline pulled up the hood attached to her cape.
No magic was cast upon it; it merely seemed to serve as a ritual trigger for the use of her ability.
Her appearance was instantly stained with darkness, as though her earlier refreshing form had been a lie.
The blue light that had radiated refreshment turned to a red light wreathed in resentment and curses.
The armor all became black, and the inner lining of the cape took on the same crimson shade as her gleaming eyes.
Her hair, which had resembled high noon, was bleached once more into a murky, mist-like, ominously ashen platinum.
Even knowing her true appearance, the change was so drastic that my heart sank for a moment.
"Return."
The Black Knight, who had worn even that refreshing smile ominously beneath the black hood, transformed back into the golden-haired noble knight.
This was truly...
'A Death Knight and a princess knight.'
Was this not a form that encompassed both romantic ideals one could hold for a knight?
"Does it please you?"
When I had circled her twice and returned to my original position, she asked the question with a smile.
It was still the same refreshing smile, and moreover...
'So she was someone capable of those eyes.'
Reverence, adoration, respect, devotion, loyalty, fealty, worship, veneration, admiration, single-heartedness—
All of those expressions, as though containing every form of love directed toward a superior, were held within those pupils.
And she was still emitting those emotions far more intensely through the fate-bound path.
It was a wave of emotion that seemed to swallow up my fear that she might grow distant from me.
There was only one thing I could say.
"I am exceedingly pleased. More than I had expected."
"If you say so, then I am pleased as well. My Master."
I extended my hand to her once more, and she took my hand and guided me down from the altar.
After she led me to a chair, I sat and watched Evangeline converse with the others for a moment.
"You've pulled ahead... Evangeline."
"Shue. As I said earlier, it was an entertaining contest."
"I gave it everything. You damned bastard..."
"Who said I didn't give it everything? I said it was fun."
The way she interacted with Shue was exactly the image of an old friend that I had received before.
The feeling of a bad friend or rival with a slight hint of ill will mixed in.
One could say it was a sight that hinted at the years they had accumulated between them.
"It has been a long time since I saw you in that... form. Evangeline."
"I feel like I've woken from a long sleep as well. Ran."
"...Don't get complacent just because you're at the front."
"Try catching up, if you can."
Her relationship with Ran had a somewhat more malicious feel to it, yet it had a solid sense that it would never cross a certain line.
Another thing I could tell was that the two were not yet friends.
Was Ran a more solitary type than I had thought, or was their relationship simply distant?
"Lady Evangeline... is that correct? Is this your true form?"
"Rather than my true form, it is the form that Master has given me. Lady Sonia. As Ran has said, if you are Master's disciple, then you are someone I must serve, so please speak comfortably."
"I-I shall grow accustomed to it, little by little..."
"Please do."
Unlike with the other two, she adopted a thoroughly reverent attitude toward Sonia.
She did not request a kiss on the back of the hand as she habitually did with me, and kept her distance without initiating physical contact, yet a sense of proper respect was present.
Nevertheless, I did not feel any sense that she wished to grow distant.
『Congratulations on achieving a Great Feat! Demon Lord Candidate 'Libertas'! You have succeeded in placing a Hero under your command for the first time!!』
『Congratulations on achieving a Great Feat! Demon Lord Candidate 'Libertas'! You have evolved a Summoned Creature into a Hero!!』
Listening to their conversation, I took my tea in hand and called up the message window I had pushed aside earlier.
Somehow, the message window, which felt more haphazard and crooked than before, nonetheless did not forget its duty and conveyed its words to me.
『As a reward for the Great Feat, a modest amount of Attributes are granted to the Dungeon Lord, and a certain quantity of materials is granted to the Dungeon!』
『Attributes - Stamina 43 Technique 54(◀ 52) Endurance 46 Magic Power 63(◀ 61) Resistance 55(◀ 53)』
'A Great Feat, huh. One in each Attribute per feat.'
The Attributes gained this time appeared only to raise the Dungeon Lord's own specifications, with no influence on the Dungeon itself.
Though the Dungeon Lord becoming stronger in and of itself was a good enough reward.
This was a concept that had not existed when it was a game.
In Milden 1, what was simply lumped together as achievements had apparently been subdivided here.
Earning achievements was a natural thing, so I had just been ignoring the message windows whenever they appeared.
This one, however, did not seem like it could be ignored.
『They who are fallen heroes of humanity, and who shall become heroes of the Demon Realm, are those who will serve as the stairway to ascend to the Demon King's throne.
Please continue to gather them and keep them at your side! The more of them there are, the deeper your darkness shall grow, and the higher that throne shall rise!』
Fallen heroes, corrupted heroes, heroes who chose evil, and so on.
The System called them by various names, but the users of Milden 1 simply referred to them as 'Heroes' or 'Champions.'
Calling them by all those titles was far too long, and the human side's heroes or champions were sufficiently described by just 'Boss Mob' anyway.
'Subjectively, I do think it's silly to debate good and evil when it comes to heroes.'
In the game, they could be secured through two routes.
One was, of course, 'Hero Summoning,' which used a hero, a champion, or a promising talent who could walk such a path as a sacrifice. Either corrupting them directly, or summoning a hero who had been corrupted by another demon in the past.
'Just thinking about those times gives me a headache.'
As one could tell just by hearing it, it was a gacha with that kind of setup.
The kind where you could just ignore the absurdity of using an archer as a sacrifice and having a wizard pop out.
And my gacha luck was not very good.
'Because I was the only one who couldn't pull the fully-formed 5-star that everyone else managed to get. In the gacha.'
A 'fully-formed 5-star' referred to a 5-star hero that could be deployed into a dungeon immediately upon being pulled, without any need for additional materials or growth.
To put it bluntly, it was buying time with money.
It wasn't that I hadn't spent as much as others.
My pull luck was simply terribly bad.
...Pessimistically speaking, if I considered family as a single-pull gacha as well, perhaps that luck had been bad my entire life.
This was also one of the reasons I had become obsessed with the growth and evolution of my first summoned creatures.
I had thought that if gacha was not going to work out, I might as well bet on the path with higher potential.
'Somehow I also never felt attached to summoned creatures or mercenaries that came from pulls.'
That was another reason.
Perhaps because their very settings painted them as 'those touched by another's hands,' I never grew attached to the other champions or heroes that came from gacha.
Even when a 5-star appeared and I was happy, it was only for that moment, and for some reason I would end up using the units I already had again.
So I devoted my efforts to the evolution of my first summons.
'And that was the right answer.'
The heroes I personally raised and created had better performance and higher growth limits than those produced through pulls.
Heroes raised by other users were also superior compared to gacha-pulled heroes, but two of the top five heroes in the world rankings had always been children I had raised myself.
It was as if I had received a feeling that said, 'Your path lies here.'
Though it was not a game with a wide variety of prepared appearances or settings for its heroes, I thought that sense of superiority had been one of the driving forces that kept me holding onto that game.
Of course it would be better if the children I raised myself were stronger.
『Name - Evangeline』
『Entity Name - Weapon Professor』
『Alias, Title - Hero, 'The One Who Tilts the Scale'』
And before my eyes, the first hero of this world had finally appeared.
One that I had created by raising my very first summon.
『The One Who Tilts the Scale - The Hero 'Judge of Absolute Good' has willfully cast aside the absoluteness of her scales. Now, all she desires is a scale that tilts of its own accord in the direction she wishes.』
Her title was different from those of the heroes I had seen in Milden 1.
Which was only natural.
If the era changed, heroes should change accordingly, and if the creators had any sense, they would prepare a greater variety of heroes for a new game.
And this place was reality.
The heroes I had seen before might be... dead, but if they existed, they would be in an old kingdom or at the center of the Demon Realm.
They would also be over 200 years old by now.
'Anyway. 'The Scale,' huh.'
I had seen heroes who used epithets like judgment or verdict a few times.
Most were titles received by clerics, but while Evangeline's appearance was brilliant, no matter how I looked at her, she did not resemble a holy knight, which left me puzzled.
However, that question was washed away as I looked at her Traits.
『Traits - Golden Rule's Scale, Heroic Commander, Overlapping Strong Strike, Hero's Mask(Half), Member of Necropolis』
『Golden Rule's Scale - Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.
■ Champion's Martial Art(Sword)
■ Heaven-sent Martial Talent
■ Tilt the Scale
■ Place a Weight
A composite Trait combining the above four Traits.』
The 「Golden Rule's Scale」 that served as her main Trait was one that combined 「Specialization: Swordsmanship」 and 「Specialization: Weapon Technique」 with 「Martial Talent,」 the superior version of 「Precision,」 and then mixed in two additional Traits.
'Good heavens.'
Now that she had reached the Elite Grade, it was a fully activated, divine-grade Trait.
"Sonia."
"Yes, Master."
As I looked at it, I found it even harder to contain myself.
It felt as though all the questions I had forced myself to set aside in order to focus on the immediate matter were now swirling wildly inside my head.
"You should rest for today. The lesson is tomorrow, is it not?"
"Ah... yes. That is correct. I understand."
After widening her eyes for a moment as though briefly flustered, she soon nodded as if she had realized something and slowly withdrew.
She glanced back once at the door, but when our eyes met, Sonia bowed politely once more before disappearing.
"My husband. You were in a hurry."
"You could see it too."
"All of us could see it."
Had my dismissal been too brusque after all.
Thinking it would be good to mention it separately to Sonia later, either to apologize or to spend some time with her, I raised my gaze to look at Serica.
"Let us go to the private room."
Yuran, who was dark inside yet carried herself like a virtuous wife.
Lin Xue, expressionless and quiet, yet never hiding her wild nature.
Evangeline, who wore a refreshing smile upon her lips, yet still had many things left unsaid.
The time had come to ask them the truth.