Chapter 618
Chapter Title: A Knight's Resolve
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618.
Reina opened her eyes.
She quickly scanned her surroundings.
Recognizing the familiar building, Reina swiftly assessed the situation.
‘My room in the Flove estate.’
Lying down, she checked the clock and realized it was morning.
Her entire body ached.
During the attack.
It was the backlash from pushing her body too hard.
‘Seeing as my body hasn't recovered yet… a day hasn't passed.’
After checking her condition, Reina realized no one else was in the room and sat up.
Just then.
*Knock, knock—*
The door opened cautiously with a knock.
“M-Madam.”
The person who entered was Anna, the head maid of the Flove family's main house.
Seeing Anna’s terrified expression, as if she were about to burst into tears upon seeing her awake, Reina spoke.
“Anna. Where is the uninvited guest?”
“In the… Young Master’s room…”
At those words, Reina rose and headed for Leo’s room.
When she arrived, she saw the Hero Slayer leisurely reading a book in the room.
“So you’re here? Reina Jerdinger. Or should I call you Reina Flove now?”
Watching the Hero Slayer, who spoke with a relaxed expression without taking his eyes off the book, Reina said.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding out. Just what kind of person Leo Flove is.”
The Hero Slayer looked up at Reina and smiled faintly.
“Before that, shall we introduce ourselves? My name is Jorua Iner. The one you call the Hero Slayer.”
“Iner?”
Reina’s eyes twitched.
It was a powerful, renowned hero family that had once established itself in the center of the continent.
Countless heroes had gathered under the Iner name.
They were, quite literally, the greatest of the hero families.
But at some point, the family had vanished without a trace.
“Yes. The master of a family that vanished at the hands of the shadows.”
Jorua, his hood pulled up, spoke in a nostalgic tone.
“I was a humble hero who also bore the title of All Master. Of course, that’s just a glory of the past.”
“All Master?”
It was a title she had never heard of.
If he had left his name in history, it would be impossible not to know it.
Reina, looking perplexed, soon thought of certain individuals.
“The Shadow Lords.”
“How clever. Spoken like a once-promising hero candidate.”
Jorua whistled.
“Those detestable Shadow Lords thoroughly concealed my existence on the other side of history. If I had known my name wouldn't even be left behind, I would have rampaged a bit more violently.”
In his life.
Jorua had only achieved enough feats to become a hero.
And he had acted more heroically than anyone else.
All to evade pursuit as much as possible.
No one would have thought that a noble hero would slaughter other heroes in the dark, simply because he coveted power.
After he was caught and subjugated by the shadows, his very records were expunged.
Thus, his concealment within history was instantaneous.
“If you regret it so much, you should have lived properly.”
“It’s fine. The world won’t forget my name again.”
“Your name? It will be remembered for nothing but infamy.”
“Hahaha. You seem to be mistaken. I wasn’t interested in the achievements of a hero.”
Jorua burst out laughing.
“It’s enough to let the world know that I existed. Whether through infamy or fame. The form doesn't matter. I just need the world to know that the Hero Slayer was none other than me.”
“For someone who says that, you seem to have lived like a rat in hiding even after getting a new life.”
“Of course. I want to leave my name in history in my perfect form. It was great to get a new chance, but…”
Jorua let out a hearty laugh and threw back his hood.
“I ended up in this hideous state.”
*Clack— clack— clack—*
The white skeleton clacked its teeth together.
Despite the comical sight, Reina’s expression remained cold.
***
Looking at Reina, Jorua spoke.
“A pity. Such a pity. If you had grown up to become a hero, you would have obtained incredible power. Even more so than the current head of the Jerdinger family, Seld Jerdinger.”
“You’re the one who made me this way, aren’t you? Why the sudden regret?”
“I can’t help but regret it.”
*Fwoosh—*
Jorua’s body was engulfed in flames.
Reina realized they were her own flames and gritted her teeth.
After the flames subsided, the sight of a young woman who had just shed her girlishness made Reina’s face harden.
“This is the best part about losing my physical body. It allows me to become anyone I desire.”
Jorua did a light turn on the spot.
Watching him, the veins on Reina’s hands bulged.
It was her own lost form.
Jorua stopped and said.
“You see, I hunt my prey at their most brilliant moment. It's because I wish to preserve that time forever.”
Jorua’s gaze turned to Reina.
“You were truly radiant back then. More than any hero I had ever seen. Even though you sacrificed yourself, even when you were about to die, you burned yourself without hesitation. It seemed you didn’t have a single regret about risking your life for others. You were truly dazzling. That’s why I harvested you but didn’t bother to finish you off. I thought you would die anyway, but I also thought that if you survived, you could become a truly noble human being.”
Jorua, in Reina’s past form, narrowed his eyes.
“But I was wrong. You regret it. You regret sacrificing yourself back then.”
Jorua clicked his tongue.
“If I had known, I would have left you alone instead of hunting you so early. I would have let you grow into a more noble being.”
“Then why not kill me now?”
“Are you even worth it?”
Jorua burst into laughter.
“You’re sufficient as bait to lure Leo Flove.”
Reina’s clenched fists trembled.
“So. What exactly is Leo Flove?”
Jorua looked around the room.
“It’s rare to see such a bland person.”
People inevitably leave traces of themselves where they stay.
Their personality, what they like, what they dislike.
They leave behind more than one might think in the places they inhabit.
At a glance, it might seem trivial.
But those trivial things gather to become the prey’s weakness.
That was why Jorua had come to the room—to learn about the person named Leo.
But Leo’s room felt empty of everything.
Jorua glanced at Reina, who stood with her head bowed in silence, and said indifferently.
“Truly useless for anything other than bait.”
With those parting words, Jorua went outside.
“Well then, shall I go greet our guest?”
Reina, left alone in Leo’s room, looked down at her hands.
Gritting her teeth, Reina recalled the past.
A distant past.
Before she had lost her flames.
She had heard that Ellen Lundua, a top student from Seirun Academy in her year with whom she had competed since their first year, was in danger.
She felt a kinship with him, as he also wielded the flames of the Phoenix.
Though they were from different schools, he had become a friend for whom she would not hesitate to lay down her life.
When she heard that Ellen Lundua’s party had failed while attempting to clear a Hero Dungeon.
Reina didn’t hesitate and dove into the Hero Dungeon to find him.
Normally, additional entry into a World of Heroes was impossible.
But when a Hero Dungeon went berserk, one could get swept up in the chaos.
That was how she knew Ellen’s party had failed.
If they had succeeded, the rampage would have stopped.
But it hadn't, and the dungeon's scale had only grown larger.
A sign of failure.
Even with his fate uncertain, Reina entered the Hero Dungeon without hesitation for her dear friend.
And she saw it.
‘A gray sky.’
Seeing it, she knew.
She knew that this nameless World of Heroes belonged to a hero who lived during the Age of Calamity.
In her search for Ellen, Reina scoured the area and eventually found him, the sole survivor.
With Ellen in tow, Reina desperately poured all her strength into finding the conditions to clear the dungeon.
She fought endlessly against monstrous creatures.
Before long, she reached her limit and sensed her own death.
And…
‘When I came to my senses… the world had already been cleared, and I had lost my flames.’
Surviving itself was, quite literally, a miracle.
Her wounds had been that severe.
She had thought she lost her flames from overusing them back then.
‘That’s what I thought… but to think they were stolen by the Hero Slayer.’
Reina gritted her teeth.
The Hero Slayer was right.
She regretted what she did back then.
She regretted throwing away her own future and sacrificing herself for someone else.
Even now, she regretted that choice.
Jorua was right.
She was not a noble human being.
As she clenched her jaw, a look of puzzlement crossed Reina’s face.
The gray sky came to mind.
‘…Come to think of it, back then. Why didn’t I give up?’
Her final memories of the World of Heroes were hazy.
She recalled the memories she had deliberately ignored until now.
The memory of when she had given up on everything, only to steel her heart once more.
‘Right… I think the dawn was breaking then.’
In her faint memory, she recalled the dawn breaking in the Age of Calamity.
And one more thing surfaced in that memory, something she had dismissed as a hallucination.
‘A person.’
A person, silhouetted against the sun, falling toward her from the sky.
The thought that this person would save her had strengthened her will.
At the time, she had dismissed it as a hallucination.
But…
‘Could that have been… the scene of the Age of Calamity ending?’
As her thoughts reached that point, Reina looked around the room.
It was the room of her son, the successor to the Hero of the Beginning, Kyle.
Reina took a deep breath.
‘Right. Because I didn’t give up then, I have this now.’
Reina left the room.
‘Leo will win.’
But she couldn’t leave everything to Leo.
Returning to her own room, Reina gazed at the sword hanging on the wall.
She might not be of any help.
She was no longer a knight of Jerdinger, after all.
‘But that doesn’t mean I’m not a knight.’
Not a knight of Jerdinger.
Reina had never once thought of herself as anything but a knight.
‘A knight is someone who protects others.’
And this was the land of the Flove family, and she was its mistress.
‘I still have things to protect.’
When she first held a sword.
Reina had admired the knights from fairy tales.
She had dreamed of becoming like them.
It might have been a foolish dream.
Chasing that dream had turned everything she had to ash.
She certainly regretted that moment when she saved her friend and sacrificed her all.
But…
If she were to face that moment again.
Even if she were to live in regret once more.
Reina would make the same choice again.
‘Because that’s who I am.’
And so, Reina took up her sword.
‘So that no harm comes to the people who live on this land. I must protect them.’
