11. Alevian
Ludwig, truthfully, had never understood why he had been chosen as the Hero.
He was born in Marlene, raised in Marlene, and had quite naturally become an adventurer — that was Ludwig.
He had an excellent physique and outstanding stamina. His dynamic vision and raw strength were both exceptional; around the age of ten, while playing near the city gates, he had once run into a goblin — and beaten three of them to death with nothing but a wooden stick lying around nearby. That moment was what led him to choose the spear as his primary weapon.
Spears were wildly popular in Marlene. It was the land where the legend of the God-Spear Ricardo was passed down, and besides — weren't spears just cool?
So he learned the spear and honed it, and in the year he turned thirteen, he formally registered as an adventurer.
Ten years had passed since then.
Ten years later, Ludwig had become a Gold Rank adventurer. There was nowhere in the Four Cardinal Ruins that frightened him, and nothing that could emerge from the dark that made him flinch. His spear was faster than a Saber Tiger, struck from farther away than a poison frog, hit with the weight of a golem, and blurred like a phantom to bewuddle his enemies.
And then came that fateful day.
The Heavenly God descended before Ludwig and declared that an unprecedented calamity was approaching, and that he would be appointed as the Hero. As proof, he received the Light Spear, a weapon bestowed by the god himself — a sacred divine armament that remained hidden until it answered his call.
And when the Heavenly God's revelation commanded him to go to Evian to meet the Saint who would accompany him, Ludwig set out on his journey without a moment's hesitation — toward Evian, a place at the very far edge of the continent, at one end of a land stretching from end to end.
"But no matter how I look at her, calling her a Saint is a bit…"
Lodged in the guest room of the Viscount's mansion, Ludwig sat in the bathtub, sunk deep in thought.
Where there is a Hero, there is a Saint. Ludwig had simply assumed it would be so.
The Hero's Pilgrimage — the journey to slay the Demon King. For such a journey, a Saint and the rest of the party were essential, and surely a Saint, at the very least, ought to be…
"The most stunning beauty in the world. Isn't that just obvious?"
In that sense, he had naturally assumed that healer — that Yona — would be the Saint.
He knew perfectly well the difference between a healer and a priestess. But for an adventurer of Ludwig's caliber, whether someone was a healer or a priest hardly mattered. Either way, they'd do their job. What mattered, then, was beauty.
A Saint should be a breathtaking beauty, shouldn't she?
When he had opened his eyes in that forest, Ludwig had to fight with everything he had to calm his pounding heart. Long hair white as fresh milk, and brilliantly gleaming golden eyes. Two cheeks flushed a healthy pink. And skin pure white. Over that skin, a black nun's habit, and wrapped around her right arm, the white Holy Shroud. To top it all off, a feminine fullness that announced its presence so boldly even through the habit.
Wasn't she practically the textbook image of a Saint?
"And yet that undergrown girl is supposedly the Saint."
Vigrind, was it…? That red-haired Saintess. However carefully he examined her, however he looked at her, she seemed sorely lacking compared to that girl Yona.
"…Maybe she's impressive once you get her clothes off?"
Somehow he doubted it.
Anyway, for those reasons, the Hero decided to fold Yona into the Hero's party he would lead. Viscount Cartein objected, Bishop Pobi objected, even Saintess Vigrind objected — but so what? When he said a thing should be so, it became so.
Besides, Ludwig had felt something the moment he laid eyes on Yona. He couldn't quite put it into words, but there was something about this woman. The way she insisted she used to be a man. The way she insisted she came from another world.
Wasn't there a legend passed down even in his hometown of Marlene? Evian had no such legend, so they didn't seem to know — but in Marlene, there was once someone who made strikingly similar claims.
The descendant of the Heavenly God.
"They might be similar. Or perhaps they're one and the same person entirely."
Ludwig stepped out of the bathtub and dried himself with a towel. It was, after all, a towel from the estate of a viscount-class noble — it wicked the water away beautifully.
"What do you make of him?"
Viscount Cartein tapped the ash of his cigar into the tray as he asked Bishop Pobi.
Pobi held his mouth firmly shut for a moment at the question, then likewise tapped the ash from his own cigar.
"…A thoroughly frivolous man, it seems."
"I felt the same. But is he truly the Hero?"
In Cartein's eyes, Ludwig was closer to a common thug — almost embarrassing to call a Hero.
The healer called Yona was a name Cartein had heard of as well. Not her reputation as a healer, of course — she wasn't even a registered adventurer, so he had no idea how skilled she actually was. It was her extraordinary beauty that had made her name reach his ears.
"He is the Hero, no doubt. Every account agrees that he wields a sacred armament, so it must be so. Though even if he weren't — well, a trip to the Infula would settle whether it's lie or truth."
"Then, are we simply to wait and watch?"
Pobi ground his cigar out into the ashtray. The acrid smoke seemed to testify eloquently to the cigar's cheapness — a man of his standing really ought to be more particular about his cigars.
"There is no other option. What does it matter if they throw that woman Yona into the party? If anything, we should count ourselves fortunate if her presence keeps him from laying hands on our Saintess."
"Well, that much is true, but… Bishop."
"Yes, speak, Viscount."
Having finished his cigar by then, Cartein drew a fresh one from his case, tipped the candlestick standing on the table to light it, and exhaled a long plume of smoke.
"They say a demon has appeared. Is it truly… is the Demon King truly going to appear?"
"A demon, you say…"
Pobi rumbled low in thought. Listening carefully to the accounts of those returned from the subjugation force, that demon was clearly no true incarnation. If a demon had truly descended in its full divinity, it defies reason that it would fall to a subjugation force of that size. However much of a Hero there was, driving off a demon with so little damage — that too made no sense. But explaining all this to a viscount who was no scholar of the divine would accomplish nothing, so Pobi slowly nodded.
"It is not impossible, I suppose. The appearance of a demon is, in effect, the trumpeter of the Demon King's coming. The Demon King will descend."
"I see…"
The Viscount let out a long sigh.
The Demon King. Even rolling the word around in his mouth, it refused to feel real. Why, of all generations, would the Demon King — the one who swept a wind of blood across this continent with every appearance — choose to emerge now? And with war clouds thickening by the day between the Capathia Empire and the Catus Empire, no less.
Of course, if the Demon King appeared, Capathia and Catus alike would be thrown into chaos, and the whole continent would need to unite against him. But human affairs never turned so easily. To the south lay the Catus Empire, to the west the Naiaso High Priest Union, to the north the Ezero Grand Archpriest State, and to the east even the kingdoms of orcs and dwarves.
For the Capathia Empire, ringed on every side by enemies, the present moment was nothing short of a candle flickering in the wind.
"Worrying between the two of us will yield no answer. So whether he is the Hero or not, let us simply let him do as he pleases for now. What matters is that Vigrind has become the Saint — and that will work in our favor with the other priest states as well. So let it be."
At Pobi's words, the Viscount exhaled another long plume of smoke.
"If only our empire — besieged on all sides — could see the divine light spread far and wide through Saintess Vigrind. An empire built over centuries must not be allowed to collapse in our generation…"
"It will be so. Do not worry yourself overmuch."
The Viscount nodded silently.
"Seriously, why is this happening to me?"
Even after Alec had left, Yona's head was spinning. Below her wrist had been perfectly fine — so why, why, had it spread all the way down to her hand? She couldn't understand it at all.
And the bigger problem was that she had no idea when it had spread. Think about it: she'd wrapped her arm in the Holy Shroud, gone out with Carlson's party, and joined the subjugation force the moment she got back. She hadn't unwrapped the shroud at any point in between. So when on earth had this thing crept down her arm? She couldn't fathom it.
Holding up both arms made it even more of a spectacle. The left arm was pure, milk-white skin; the right was black as pitch, covered in script. If it were just solid black — unreadable, indecipherable — it might not look so strange, might pass for a shadow or a stain. But because the letters were etched into it, glimpses of bare skin showed through, and the moment you looked, it screamed tattoo.
"Ugh, I'm losing my mind. Did I catch some kind of terminal disease or what?"
Yona was on the verge of tears. It wasn't magic, they'd said. It wasn't taint from miasma either. They said it was just… letters. Letters that multiplied. How did that make any sense? And if this was some manner of curse, there'd be no way she could have been wrapping it in the Holy Shroud all this time.
"…All right. Enough."
She couldn't just sit around waiting.
Yona sprang up from the bed she'd been rolling around on and wound the Holy Shroud around her right arm again, layer by layer.
"Nothing for it, then. I hate it, but…"
She would have to go see Alevian. Sister Aize had said she knew nothing more — but maybe, just maybe, Alevian had dug something up in the past few days. And even if he hadn't come to her, she decided she would go to him and ask directly.
"Please, please let him have found something…"
Yona murmured to herself and opened the door.
"Helllooo there, my love."
Standing right in front of the door was a fairy. A sharp-angled, square-glasses-wearing fairy with eyes that had gone thoroughly, completely off the rails.