311. The Existence of a Hero
311. The Existence of a Hero
***
—True Moon Princess.
Golden-thread patterns embroidered themselves across the white light armor, and the pure-white Crescent-Moon Weight in her hand was likewise sheathed in golden-thread patterns, its very appearance beginning to shift into something extraordinary.
Her blue eyes slowly dyed red until they took on a complete crimson hue, and she stared directly at the countless ice shards surging toward her.
Swish.
With the sound of fabric brushing, her hand swept once in a straight line.
Fwoosh!
A massive surge of moonlight burst forward as if detonating.
Crash-crack-crack-crack!
The countless chunks of ice that had been bearing down on her all burst apart in an instant, scattering like fragments of light to adorn the empty air beautifully.
Immediately after, as Aizen's blue gaze turned toward her, Serin stomped her foot once in place.
Step.
The effect of that utterly simple act of lightly pressing the ground was immense.
Whooosh!
An explosive light erupted from her as the center and began coiling around her entire body.
As the soft yet elegant moonlight wrapped her warmly, the fierce snowstorm could no longer affect her body.
'Even the way she uses that power brings that person to mind.'
Aizen, who had been watching Serin with admiring eyes, slowly raised his sword straight ahead.
With white light shining over his blue eyes, he was in an awakened state, and so he felt more keenly than anyone that Serin had awakened her power as well.
Whoooosh!
The raging snowstorm began to shift direction as if by magic, following the direction his sword pointed.
And now, the tip of the blue jeweled sword was aimed at where a woman stood.
Whoooosh!
The snowstorm sweeping across the snowfield surged even more fiercely according to Aizen's will, trying to engulf her.
But each time, the pure-white moonlight burst forth in brilliant radiance, wrapping her ever more warmly and reducing it all to nothing.
"How about we stop with the little tricks?"
As Serin's cold voice rang out strongly through the snowstorm, Aizen let out a short laugh, nodded, and slowly withdrew his sword.
With that, the snowstorm began sweeping over the snowfield normally once more.
Serin, enveloped in almost dazzling moonlight, spoke calmly.
"Do you have any intention of telling me about the rumor first?"
At her calm voice, the white-haired old knight smiled leisurely and shook his head.
"Did I not already say? I will tell you if you defeat me."
At the old knight's voice asking why she would make him repeat himself, Serin wore a peculiar expression as she raised her hand.
Softly.
The moonlight enveloping her followed her hand, shining brightly and illuminating her. She could feel the power welling up to fullness.
But even so, she could not be certain that this was enough power to overwhelm the old knight standing before her.
That meant she would have to clash with him at full strength.
She instinctively felt that winning while keeping him alive was nearly impossible.
'...I have to hear it.'
Serin let out a small sigh and spoke again.
"As I am now, I don't have the luxury of leaving you alive."
She muttered flatly with a peculiar expression, flicking her hand.
Following her hand, the Crescent-Moon Weight, brimming with radiance, scattered moonlight faintly.
At that, Aizen burst into loud laughter as if he had never expected such words, and nodded in agreement.
"Is that so? From your position, I suppose that is true."
In truth, Serin's words were exceedingly arrogant.
They sounded as if she was already predicting her own victory. Yet the old knight felt no particular anger rise.
Because his opponent was a strong enough person to say such things.
From merely exchanging a single instant of blows, he could not help but know that her individual skill was by no means below his own.
No, below his own?
'I was the one thinking something ridiculous.'
As that thought crossed his mind unbidden, Aizen's smile only deepened.
Before him stood an opponent who manifested that person's power like that.
How could he possibly regard her as beneath himself?
Rather, it was he who should be seen as full of arrogance.
"...Yes, I suppose so."
When Aizen, having reconsidered, looked at Serin with a gentle expression, Serin spoke with a hint of anticipation.
"Are you willing to tell me about the rumor?"
At her words, which seemed to hope for an answer first, Aizen pondered for a moment, then clenched his hand in the air once, hard.
Crackle-crackle-crack!
For a moment, a strange cluster of light burst forth as if the space itself was warping greatly around where he clenched.
Aizen, having interfered with the system settings, poured his will directly into it.
It was none other than additional interference with the duel reward caused by the hero's individuality.
When the work was done, Aizen smiled benevolently and continued.
"Worry no more about that. Even if I should die during the duel, I have taken measures so that you may learn of the rumor you desire."
The moment Aizen finished speaking, a hologram appeared at the edge of Serin's vision.
Ding!
[An 'Additional Information' entry has been added to the duel reward with Hero Aizen.]
"...Thank you."
Seeing that she could obtain the information, Serin softened her expression and offered a small thanks.
Aizen, whose gaze had unconsciously drifted to her, showed a flicker of interest.
'So she is this different.'
Even though she had inherited that person's power, the personality she displayed now seemed a little—no, quite a lot different.
That person's image, haughty and beautiful with a nobility as if she alone existed beneath the heavens, still rose vividly in his mind.
But the woman now entering his sight possessed a kind of gentleness as well, and in that itself seemed to hold another kind of beauty.
'But... even so, it means she was to that person's liking.'
Shaking off his rising thoughts, Aizen slowly raised his jeweled sword and hardened his eyes coldly.
"You speak of the obvious as if it were something remarkable."
As if to remind her that they were still in the middle of a duel.
At the sight of him raising his sword, Serin likewise smiled leisurely and composed herself.
***
In an unexpected turn of events, while Serin's stream of facing Hero Aizen was underway, the conversation with Aizen was being watched in real time by viewers numbering forty thousand.
[Wow... what is this?]
[I felt it with Daji too, but doesn't Rin really have something going on?]
[What's the rumor about Rin???]
[Is the hero really not a user? No, how is he an NPC when he talks and acts like that?]
[For real, I'm watching this like what even is this;]
[Does Rin have some separate condition or something? How does she run into two heroes in less than a month?]
The content of the conversation between Aizen and Serin was unusual even at a glance, so the viewers watching the stream were unusually focused, and as word spread that a hero had appeared, the viewer count was rapidly increasing over time.
And among those countless viewers were all sorts of rankers, as well as many people who had known her from early on.
—You speak of the obvious as if it were something remarkable.
When Hero Aizen spoke in a calm voice on screen, the sight of Serin smiling was so beautiful it looked like a painting, and it caught her eye.
After staring as if entranced for a moment, Sua murmured dazedly.
"Do heroes normally treat someone as an equal like that?"
The hero's attitude of having sought Serin out after learning about her was surprising enough, but what could the hero's words about a rumor circulating about Serin mean?
Moreover, the sight of them conversing as equals now was truly astonishing.
Heroes, by their very nature, did not view users as being on their level.
Most of them looked down on users as beneath them, on average.
Heroes appeared anytime, anywhere, suddenly and without any warning.
They were known to usually appear before someone with a class similar to their own, grant a small trial to test the user's strength, and if the user passed that trial, bestow enormous rewards.
Those rewards were all things every user desired: special hero-exclusive equipment items, elixirs that increased stats that were normally hard to obtain, or the passing down of new techniques.
Sua fell into thought again.
'Come to think of it, Daji was strange too.'
Thinking about it now, in three years only three Great Heroes had been revealed.
Johann, Messenger of Heaven.
Ardelia, Guardian of the World Tree.
Daji, the Great Hero of the Chaldea Empire and Moon Dancer.
Among them, Daji's behavior was even more mysterious.
Not long after, she spoke as if acknowledging Serin, and she repeatedly did things that completely defied the system.
Despite the nature of the Cave of Trials, she directly destroyed the advantages given to herself and instead handed all sorts of benefits to Serin.
There were surely many people with objectively better stats or equipment than Serin. Yet Daji had never shown herself until now, and had first revealed her existence through Serin.
And now they were giving Serin special treatment, as if to prove it.
Boom! Boom! Crash!
Soon after, their powers clashed violently on screen with a tremendous sound that drew her gaze.
But Sua's curiosity only continued to grow.
Beyond the visible equipment and traits, there was something that heroes valued.
The more she watched Serin, the more that felt like the truth.
In the first place, she now wondered what heroes even existed for in Another World.
To regard them simply as system-designed NPCs was hard, because the trait called individuality that each possessed gave them a realism like talking to actual people, and with power beyond the norm, their very existence was special.
"Ah, I don't know..."
Sua muttered blankly, feeling her head grow more and more tangled.
The fact that Serin had encountered heroes twice in the past few days, when she herself had wanted to meet one but never could, kept lingering in her mind.
And the exchange of blows on the screen before her eyes was more than enough to steal her gaze, so her thoughts could not continue properly.
The enormous moonlight trailing from Serin's form and the techniques that Hero Aizen deployed as if interfering with space itself were all transcendent.
The sight of their duel was so spectacular that the snowfield dungeon serving as the backdrop was being devastated in real time, with massive destruction visible.
Whoosh! Boom-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack!
Wherever Aizen's sword, rippling with blue energy, extended, Serin's Crescent-Moon Weight, brimming with pure-white light, followed almost without fail, and the two ceaselessly pressed their attacks against each other.
The hero's figure, reacting to every movement of Serin's form as she moved like a single point of light within the great radiance of moonlight, truly seemed worthy of the title of hero.
And conversely, Serin's composure in dealing with countless ice shards surging at her along the trajectory of the blue jeweled sword, or with the deployment of massive techniques that seemed to cut through space itself, drew nothing but admiration.
Within that spectacular exchange of blows, which could without awkwardness be called an even match.
The outcome of the contest was gradually becoming predictable.
"Seriously, what was with Serin? She seemed even more ridiculous fighting this than when she fought people."
Her divine prowess against people in the Arena was already astonishing, but she faced Aizen like a superhuman who had transcended humanity, without the slightest awkwardness.
It was baffling to watch her look so completely adapted despite not having awakened to a hidden class all that long ago.
"What kind of reward... what kind of information is really going to come out?"
Her curiosity only swelled over what rumor about Serin the hero had heard.
And so Sua declared another streaming hiatus today.