The Hero and the King
The war was over.
A Demon King who had launched his invasion without warning, and the many heroes who had risen just as suddenly to oppose him — their endless, grinding battle had finally come to an end.
And the one who brought that long war to its close was a small girl known as the Hero Beneath the Moon.
"Welcome, Hero Beneath the Moon."
"..."
Her snow-white hair seemed to drink in the moonlight itself.
Beneath the light of a full moon pouring down from above, her beauty was of a kind no legendary beauty in all the world could hope to rival — a beauty so otherworldly that she had earned the epithet Moonlight Beauty.
Of course, any knight who had crossed swords with her even once never for a moment believed she'd earned the "moonlight" part of her title for her looks alone.
"Haha, Your Majesty. What absurd flattery will you be spouting this time?"
"Still can't get used to that mouth of yours, can I, Hero."
"Haha."
"Hehe."
With an expression as cold as the moon, she hurled her insults as if they were nothing.
And her sword was every bit as sharp and lethal as that tongue of hers — so even though she spoke in perfect politeness, every man who had ever held a conversation with her walked away carrying wounds that never quite healed.
That was why she was the Moonlight Beauty.
Beneath the moonlight, she was achingly beautiful; within, she was a beauty colder than moonlight could ever hope to conceal.
It really does suit her, that moonlight, the King thought, nodding to himself yet again.
"...Setting that aside. You have slain the Demon King."
"I have. An honor far beyond what I deserve."
The King raised the matter as casually as remarking on the weather, and the Hero answered in exactly the same tone.
Watching her brush aside the most unprecedented feat in the kingdom's history — the slaying of the Demon King — as if it were a trifle, the King felt a familiar mix of fondness and exasperation.
"You've always been far too good at empty words. Let me see... our Hero is twenty years old already, is she not?"
"Yes."
"Hm... how the years fly. It feels like only yesterday that a girl not even ten years old came pounding on the palace gates, insisting she would become a Hero..."
Anyone could become a Hero.
But keeping the title of Hero was a feat granted to no ordinary soul.
A Hero was bound by duty — every single month, without fail, they were required to slay a high-ranking demon or complete a quest issued by the King himself or his proxy.
A high-ranking demon was a being that even a Swordmaster had to stake their very life on in order to bring down, and the King's quests were of a difficulty to match. As a result, no claimant to the title of Hero had ever lasted more than three months.
And so the many who failed took to calling themselves Apprentice Heroes, daring all the same to style themselves as heroes.
With the exception of exactly three.
"...To think you've grown so much."
In the King's eyes, there reflected the memory of a girl in shabby clothes, her deep blue eyes unreadable and her intentions impossible to fathom.
What had been going through her mind back then?
With what heart had she pounded on the palace gates?
What was the one flicker of genuine feeling he had glimpsed in her that day — the one true thing that had made her keep that mask on, never once taking it off, even to this day?
"Your Majesty."
"Mm."
"Your focus is already slipping. Perhaps it's time you handed the throne over to one of your sons?"
"Spare me the useless chatter. You know how it is with sons, Hero. They're all..."
"Then what about the Princess?"
"Do NOT speak to me of that child!!!"
As the King erupted in rage, the Hero — ever the same — stuffed her ears with both hands, half listening and half not.
A Hero's ears were precious, after all.
"If you hadn't gone filling her head with ideas in the first place, that child would never have become a Hero in the first place!!!"
"Ehh. I didn't fill her head with anything, actually."
"Heroooo...!!!"
"Haah... it's regrettable, what happened with the Princess, but what can you do? She declared she was going to do what she wanted — would some mere Hero really have been able to stop her?"
"You're the HERO BENEATH THE MOON!!! The one who cut down two of the Four Heavenly Kings and two Ancient Demonic Beasts, and went so far as to slay the Demon King himself!!!!!"
"I only just killed the Demon King, though? Doesn't count."
"AAAAARGH!!!!!!!"
Ah, he's mad now, the Hero thought, and threw up a barrier around herself.
For all that, the King was a 7th-Class mage.
He could make the mages of ordinary Apprentice Hero parties look like amateurs, and even the elders of the Magic Tower had to bow their heads before him with a deferential "after you, senior."
Besides, he was one of the very mages who had taught the girl who slew the Demon King — she knew better than anyone just how strong he was.
"Haah... haah..."
"...Have you calmed down now?"
"Whew... yes. Now, where were we?"
"We were discussing succession."
"Not that. The other thing."
"Haha, Your Majesty. What absurd flattery will you be spouting this time?"
"You went way too far that time, Hero."
"My apologies. I forgot."
"...Truly?"
"As if."
Once the master and disciple's banter had finally run its course, the Hero's expression settled into something far more grave as she spoke again.
"I have come to claim the reward that was promised to me."
"Oh? And what reward was promised?"
"You declared it yourself, Your Majesty. Whoever slew the Demon King — regardless of allegiance or race — would be granted a single wish."
The King stroked his beard, gone gray with age, and spoke.
"A wish... so I did. And what wish could this old man possibly grant a Hero?"
"Oh, there's one, all right. A thing only you can do — 7th-Class mage and King of this kingdom."
"True. A promise is a promise. And you are more than the Demon King's slayer — you are the hero of this age. Surely I can grant one wish to such a hero."
The King chuckled and asked the Hero what her wish was.
"So, what is this wish of yours, Hero?"
The Hero fell silent for a moment.
And the King did not let that moment of silence escape him.
The Hero and the King. The day the two of them had first met.
The one expression of pure, unguarded sincerity the King had glimpsed on the girl's face, just that once.
A look of venomous, obsessive resolve that no child could ever have faked.
For an instant, it seemed that expression had flashed across her face once more.
The Hero Beneath the Moon — the Moonlight Beauty who was always brusque yet unfailingly polite to everyone, kind to anyone who was not her enemy.
Just for an instant, wearing the face of someone who did not belong to this world.
"I want to return to the world I came from."
And then she smiled again.
Once more, she forced the mask back into place.
"..."
The King had more or less figured it out already.
The moment he learned that she flinched away from the title "Moonlight Beauty" because her identity was that of a man, what he had felt was nothing short of awe.
Frankly speaking, if the only obstacle had been her body, the King had been prepared to take the Hero in as his adopted son and name her his heir.
Unfortunately, her body really was a woman's. That had been the problem.
But regardless.
"Your original world. You mean that other world, of course."
Over their long years together, the Hero and the King had become the kind of people who could each lay bare a measure of their true hearts to the other.
As master and disciple, she shared her troubles, and he shared his — she spoke of the strange position she found herself in, and he of his succession woes.
"Well, a wish is a wish. I am bound by my duty to grant it — whatever your reasons for wanting to go back may be."
"Yes. Of course."
"And yet I cannot help my curiosity. Why do you wish to return? Here, you are a Hero, and if you so desire, this place could be your home."
"..."
The Hero remained as brusque as ever.
But somehow, her eyes looked terribly, unbearably sad.
"For that, I am truly grateful. Thanks to Your Majesty's kindness, I really do think of this place as my home."
"It gladdens me to hear you say so."
"...But there is a reason I must go back that outweighs even that."
She had the will to stay.
But the will to return was something stronger still.
"Thank you for everything, Your Majesty."
"..."
"If it's possible, I will come back. But I can't promise it."
"I see... you did say the world you came from was one without magic..."
The King did not try to stop her any further.
It was not that he had no regrets. A child like a son to him was leaving — who in the world could have none?
But the Hero had said it, had she not?
"You said you'd return. Then I shall simply have to wait here."
"..."
"This is Jim's kingdom. Unlike what you may worry, Jim's achievements will only shine brighter with each passing day — a thousand-year kingdom of dreams will be no idle fantasy."
"Haha. You're laying the bluster on a bit thick, Your Majesty."
"Bluster, is it? Give me ten years. As King, I command you: find your way back, no matter what it takes."
"..."
The Hero's chest tightened.
The mask threatened to slip. She fought to hold it in place.
Because there was still somewhere she had to return to.
Because she still needed this mask.
Because she wasn't ready yet.
"Yes. I will come back."
For now, a promise would have to be enough.
"Well, that said, even the preparations will take quite some time."
"Oh, come on. Way to kill the mood."
"Then whose precious pet do you think dimensional travel is, hm? If you don't like it, do it yourself, Hero."
And just like that, the touching atmosphere of moments ago evaporated, and the two of them were back to their old rhythm.
"You'll be needing quite a few things. Well, for starters, you'll need a Dragon Heart."
"An 8th-Class material, then."
"...A Dragon Heart."
"An 8th-Class material, yes."
"A Dragon. Heart."
"Haah... yes, yes. I'll find one."
"There's plenty more besides that, so wait a little while until I've drawn up the list. Ten days, give or take?"
"..."
Dimensional travel. Preparing for it was going to be a more grueling ordeal than slaying the Demon King had ever been.
Still, one mercy remained: with the Demon King dead, the Demonic Energy Fog that had spread across the world like a barrier had lifted, making dimensional travel possible in the first place.
Then again, that was only natural — she had killed the Demon King knowing full well what it would mean.
"You had best steel yourself, Hero. This may well be a journey even more taxing than the Demon King's slaying."
"Don't worry. I've yet to see anything in this world stronger than the Demon King."
"Bold as ever, I see. Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Your party members are hardly ordinary, after all."
"...? What do my party members have to do with anything?"
"Hm?"
The Hero had brought up her party members out of nowhere.
"Aren't you planning to travel with your, ah... with your party members?"
"Why would I? I killed the Demon King, so they'll all be freed from servitude — there's no reason left for them to stay in my party, is there?"
"Well, that's true, but... still, if you asked them, surely they would come with you?"
"I wasn't planning on bringing anyone in the first place."
"...What did you say...?"
The Hero Beneath the Moon said it with an expression every bit as cold as her moonlight.
"Why would I bring other people along on a journey I'm perfectly capable of handling alone?"
"..."
The King opened his mouth to argue — and found he had no answer.
The Hero Beneath the Moon. Who was she, after all?
She had turned down every proper Hero party that came calling, then marched into a slave market, bought up any slaves she pleased, and raised them from scratch into a Hero party of her own — a freak among freaks.
And yet she'd had a genius for raising them too, because every last one of those slaves had risen to a level that could be called the very pinnacle of their respective fields.
Each and every one of her party members was a monster who could stand toe to toe with the three Heroes — the strongest forces in the kingdom.
They do share one thing in common, though...
Not that the Hero Beneath the Moon had ever noticed.
...They're all in love with that blockheaded Hero of theirs.
Not that the King knew for certain either.
"Haah... what a headache this is turning out to be..."
"...?"
Three people had each been eavesdropping on this conversation in their own way.