The Dawning Light
"Wh-What was that for?!" Einzel sputtered, tumbling flat onto his back.
Lena casually dusted off her hands, unbothered. "Focus training."
"...What?"
"Even if a fist comes barreling straight at your face, you keep your eyes locked on it until the very end."
"Come on, that makes zero sense—"
Lena's eyes narrowed, a flash of irritation surfacing. "Hey, that's how I trained!"
Einzel stared back at her, his expression dripping with sheer skepticism. That did it; Lena snapped.
"Look, it actually works, alright?! God, this little shit doubts everything."
"Excuse me?"
"Huh?" Lena froze, the realization of what had just slipped past her lips hitting her a beat too late. "Ah, uh, well... my bad."
Einzel was struck completely dumb.
A fairy... swearing?
It was on par with the profound disillusionment he had felt as a boy upon discovering that Saint Besselos—the kindly figure who supposedly handed out presents to well-behaved children—was a total fabrication. Einzel could only babble in stunned bewilderment.
"Ahem. Anyway, keeping your eyes trained on an incoming punch really does sharpen your concentration. It does."
"...Ah, right..."
Neither said another word, drowning in awkward, prickly silence.
Lena crossed her legs as she watched the projected recording play out.
...Right. That's how it used to be.
Back then, they would bicker over the pettiest things, gradually growing close until teasing one another became second nature. Side by side, they had fought their way through hell and struck down the Demon King. And yet...
During the confrontation with Grandis, the fairy royal guard had been wiped out to the last soldier. All because of his hesitation.
Einzel had claimed he was taking a calculated gamble, yet he faltered when the moment came to bring down his blade. In that fatal lapse, Malekidus slaughtered the royal guard—among them people Lena had known for decades.
What had passed through his mind as the screams of dying fairies echoed behind him?
She would never know.
Lena reached down and picked up a scattered sheaf of papers lying nearby. Neatly printed across the top was the title: Report on the Hero's Conduct.
Rape, armed robbery, embezzlement... All manner of heinous crimes were recorded across its pages. The most appalling among them was the butchery of an entire family.
"Covertly shadowed the target family to their residence and knocked on the door. The moment the occupants answered, stabbed them through with a sword, proceeding to butcher the entire household into pieces. A child was included among the victims."
She could not even fathom how she was supposed to process it. For the sworn Hero of mankind to hack innocent civilians to pieces and exterminate an entire household was horrifying beyond words.
Worse still, it wasn't an isolated incident. Unlike the other alleged offenses, the murders were documented in staggering volume and sickening detail. Written as though dripping with congealed blood, the records sent a visceral chill through whoever laid eyes upon them.
The unbearable contrast with the young man she once knew left a suffocating, bitter ache in her chest.
"What the fuck is this?" Einzel muttered, thoroughly dumbfounded.
"You dragged out every occult ritual tool known to man, and... what the fuck is this even supposed to be? A summoning circle?"
The dark mage trembled violently from head to toe. They had plotted to capture the Hero and harvest him as experimental fodder, only to have their sanctuary breached and their comrades butchered wholesale. Naturally, unadulterated fury and humiliation boiled inside him.
"What were you trying to summon anyway? A spirit? You're a dark mage, for crying out loud."
When met with sullen silence, Einzel figured it wasn't anything important. His face contorted into an ugly scowl. "Whatever. Just drop dead, you bastards."
The cabal leader snarled through gritted teeth, "Grrrgh... I'll drag you down to hell with me!"
A massive magic circle blazed to life across the stone floor.
Grimacing, the leader surveyed his surroundings. His subordinates lay in heaps across the chamber, their bellies sliced open and disgorging pools of blood. When they first learned that the Hero had been banished from the Empire and was lingering nearby, they assumed it was their golden ticket.
Conventional wisdom held that once stripped of the Holy Sword, the Hero lost his divine authorities and grew frail. They believed they could easily subdue him and carve him up for raw research material.
It had been a catastrophic delusion.
They had scoffed at the old legends claiming the Hero was universally proficient in swordsmanship, magic, and miracles alike. Yet the Hero's might was terrifyingly real. He manifested an Aura Blade with effortless grace, unleashed spells that reduced the compound to cinders, and even conjured a colossal mace of radiant holy power to cave in the dark mages' skulls.
And worse... what on earth was that dark magic he wielded? Slain cultists had risen as zombies, rabidly tearing into the flesh of their former allies. It was unfathomable that the Hero concealed such sinister power.
Still... he refused to sit back and die like a dog. Bafrom Dezik, leader of the rogue dark mages, unleashed his crowning masterpiece: the Theater of the Dead.
⟨ Theater of the Dead ⟩
It was a sinister necromantic curse that summoned grey apparitions of every single human being the target had ever killed.
Fallen or not, a Hero was still a Hero. The number of victims couldn't possibly be high, but it would surely strike a crippling psychological blow. Furthermore, Theater of the Dead ate away at the victim's sanity. If he hesitated for even a fraction of a second, the vengeful specters would drag him straight into death's maw.
Cloaked in a hooded black robe that completely masked his eyes and hair, clad in dark armor, and gripping a pitch-black blade, the Hero stared down at him. Bafrom burned with indignation.
How many of his loyal followers had bled beneath that foul edge? Blood that was meant to serve his grand designs!
"Hahaha! Just imagining your face twisting in torment as you're smothered by your own sins makes me laugh! Let us see your crimes!"
And so, cast against the Hero, the Theater of the Dead erupted—and spewed forth an endless, unfathomable sea of human souls.
From young children to grown men, they poured out in numbers beyond counting.
"Wh-What...?! H-How...?" Bafrom Dezik stood petrified, his face draining of color before the nightmare he had conjured. There's... far too many.
Dragging cold, ashen bodies, the multitude surged toward the Hero.
And Bafrom Dezik saw them clearly.
The Imperial Sword, Sein Luderan.
The Supreme Archmage, Peria.
The Saintess, Beatrice.
Their faces were unmistakably among the tide.
And then, every single one of them was unceremoniously swept away and obliterated by the Hero's ruthless, unhesitating blade.
"Hey."
Before Bafrom could even register the movement, the Hero's face was right in front of his, lips curled into a terrifying, split-face grin.
Paralyzed with dread, Bafrom looked up at him.
"You saw, didn't you?"
The Hero's eyes flashed with a wild, frenzied glint.
Count Serindel scowled as his voice carried through the link. "Scour the surrounding cities and territories first! We must capture the Hero... no, the criminal Einzel at all costs!"
Hearing that pompous voice, a chuckle slipped out of me unbidden. "Pfft."
The face projected in the scrying orb was one I knew all too well. "Looks like that old bastard of an Emperor is finally getting antsy, huh?"
Just in case someone came sniffing around on my trail, I had set up scrying orbs along key choke points, and this was the clown they caught.
Seeing Count Serindel taking point meant Sein was about to have a royal headache. The way he was already posturing to check House Luderan's influence was quite a sight—especially when Grandis was still alive and breathing out there.
Count Serindel was the head of the Serindel family, a clan that historically produced the Empire's second-in-command. Always playing second fiddle to House Luderan and failing to claim the top spot, he was notorious for burning with a petty, bitter rivalry against them.
Well, not my problem. The count was an ambitious ladder-climber, but frankly, he was the kind of man who could never see beyond his own little world. His thought process was so thoroughly self-absorbed that he probably assumed I was hiding beyond the Empire's reach to amass a private army.
The reality that I just wanted to go back to my countryside hometown and quietly farm was something completely incomprehensible to a mind like his.
"Einzel... there is no telling when that villain will muster private troops to launch a pincer attack alongside Grandis!"
Oh, please. Predictable as clockwork.
I let out a dry snort at the voice echoing from the crystal ball. Straightening up, I cast my eyes over the fallen dark mages scattered across the stone floor. Their bodies had been hacked into gory ribbons, bleeding out profusely.
I dragged them into a heap and set the pile ablaze. Ignition magic really was the most convenient tool in the box.
After spacing out for a few moments watching the pyre crackle, I got my head together and began combing through the mages' workshop.
Oh, what's this?
I picked up an amethyst that contained a dense reservoir of dormant dark mana. This was top-tier quality... Those idiots probably stumbled into this gem by pure luck, got drunk on power, and foolishly decided to pick a fight with me.
Then again, put to proper use, this was a massive haul. With a gem of this purity and receptivity to dark mana, I might even be able to craft a Death Knight.
Strictly speaking, a Death Knight's pure swordsmanship would be on par with or just slightly beneath mine, so having one at my disposal could be handy. Or I could pile up corpses to create a grotesque mountain of flesh. But honestly, those abominations were too bulky and hideous to be worth the trouble compared to a sleek Death Knight...
Well, that was all assuming I could even utilize this stone properly right now. Besides, raising a Death Knight would only invite unnecessary suspicion.
While I was indulging in these idle musings, my face caught the polished reflection of the amethyst.
Wait... what's this?
Feeling an odd prickle of unease, I glanced at a mirror hanging on the wall. There was a reddish tinge in my eyes. More specifically, a faint crimson haze was bleeding into my pupils.
My face went rigid. The erosion was progressing much faster than I thought.
With the Demon King dead, the odds of a mental breakdown were slim, but there was no telling what horrific mutations might afflict my physical body. It seemed the Demon King's dark mana was thrashing out of control within me.
Dammit. I'd been tossing dark magic around without a care lately since I didn't need to hide it anymore, and that must have aggravated the taint.
I'm fucked. I clicked my tongue softly.