The Second Hero (10)
"You're heading to the Artes Kingdom?"
"Yes, that's right. Something came up. And I'll be helping Ria look for her relatives while I'm at it."
"Hmm. I see. Take care of yourself out there."
A week later, I told the village chief I'd be leaving the village for a while.
He looked a little hurt by the news — he'd only just started getting attached, and now I was saying I was leaving. But I wasn't abandoning the place for good. I explained that I had some business to take care of and that I'd be coming back, and he understood.
"Hehe... Chief. Thank you for everything."
"Of course, Ria. I hope you find who you're looking for in the Artes Kingdom."
"Yes. If I get the chance, I'll come visit again."
Ria made her rounds saying goodbye to the villagers as well. Unlike me, she was leaving the village for good this time, and the people came out to see her off. She'd arrived as an orphan, but it seemed she'd been rather well-liked. Now that she was going off to find newly discovered relatives, the villagers offered their congratulations — though a touch of wistfulness showed through too. They pressed gifts into her hands and wished her well. Well, we'd probably cross paths again someday. Ria told them it wasn't forever, and with that, she parted ways with the village.
"Well then, we're off."
"Take care, Chief. Mister. Ma'am."
With a throng of villagers waving them off, the carriage rolled out.
The Artes Kingdom... almost a year since I was last there, isn't it? Come to think of it, that's where I met Ayla.
As the road to the Artes Kingdom stretched out ahead in earnest, I couldn't help but turn the place over in my mind. The Artes Kingdom... it really had been a long time. We were going because Ria's relatives were supposedly there, but it wasn't as though the place had nothing to do with me either. It was one of the many kingdoms I'd passed through during my days as a Hero — nothing particularly special about it, honestly. And yet the reason I remembered it so clearly was simple: it was where I'd met one of my Hero party members.
The apprentice nun, Ayla. These days she was a full-fledged Saintess, but a year ago she'd been nothing more than a novice. The moment she found out I was the Hero, she'd begged me to take her along. She wanted to become a Saintess no matter what. She wanted a chance to help defeat the Demon King. I hadn't particularly needed her — but then, I hadn't had any real reason to refuse, either. I didn't need her myself, sure, but when it came to healing other people, maybe she'd come in handy? I hadn't been looking to recruit some legendary healer anyway, so I figured it worked out fine and brought her into the Hero's party.
Hah... I'm getting pissed just thinking about it.
Why the hell did I ever recruit her? People say the past gets a nostalgia filter and turns into something beautiful — but not in my case. From the moment Ayla joined, she and I clashed over every little thing. Just because I didn't believe in the Goddess Church, she started treating me like some kind of heretic devil-worshipper. Look, whether I follow a religion or not is my business. Who was she to lecture me about it? It grated on me badly enough that I seriously considered kicking her out more than once. But I told myself even a grudging bond was still a bond, and I never did. Looking back at what Ayla pulled when I got banished from the Hero's seat, though — I really should have thrown her out. Ungrateful little—
"Hero Oppa. What are you thinking about?"
"Dirty thoughts."
"Huh?"
"Nothing. So why'd you call me?"
I'd been right in the middle of mentally roasting my old party member when Ria suddenly stuck her face in close. I must have been wearing a pretty foul expression while nursing those foul thoughts, and she'd gotten worried. I told her it was nothing and not to worry about it. It was all water under the bridge. I'd just gotten angry for a second, remembering.
"Hmm... is that so?"
Ria didn't press me on what I'd been thinking. She knew well enough that prying would be rude.
"Hero Oppa. I'm bored. Can't you tell me a fun story?"
"I don't have any fun stories."
Instead, she just kept talking at me. Why was she so desperate for a story? I treated her with mild annoyance, but Ria kept pestering me to tell her something.
"Come on, you've got plenty. Just hearing about your days as a Hero would be super interesting. I'm so bored right now — can't you tell me anything at all?"
"Hmm..."
Stories about the Hero's party, huh? She had a point — the road ahead was going to be a long, dull stretch. Getting to the Artes Kingdom meant a solid week of nonstop carriage travel, no breaks. Sitting in silence the whole way would be its own kind of torture. Telling her about the Hero's party wouldn't be so bad.
"Alright. What kind of story do you want?"
"Wow, you'll really tell me? There's so much I want to know!"
I didn't usually talk about this kind of thing, but I was feeling generous. I asked Ria what she wanted to hear, and she lit up. Opportunities to hear about the Hero's party straight from the Hero himself didn't come around often — of course she was thrilled. At my invitation to ask whatever she liked, she fell into deep thought, face scrunched up as she turned it over for a long while, unsure where to even start.
"This is definitely what I'm most curious about."
After all that deliberation, she finally asked the thing she wanted to know most.
"Hero Oppa. What kind of being was the Demon King?"
She wanted me to tell her about the Demon King.
"So this is the Demon King's Castle."
Not long after defeating Nephenthus, the Hero's party found the Demon King's Castle. A black fortress standing alone in the heart of the empty Demon Realm, the source of a bone-chilling miasma — one look was all Herald needed to be certain. The Demon King had to be here. At last, the time had come to face her. Herald adjusted his grip on his sword. He steadied his heart and steeled himself for the fight ahead.
"From here on, I go alone. The rest of you should turn back."
But before that, Herald addressed his party members. It was time for them to leave. He had thought long and hard on the road to the Demon King's Castle, and this was the decision that had come of it. No matter how he looked at it, the members of the Hero's party would be of no real use in a fight. Party members who couldn't even hold their own against Nephenthus had no chance of performing well against the Demon King. They'd only get in the way — a hindrance and nothing more. When you considered that the most terrifying thing on a battlefield wasn't a competent enemy but an incompetent ally, his judgment was perfectly sound. From this point forward, Herald intended to bring down the Demon King alone.
"Sir Herald... you don't mean you're abandoning us, do you?"
At his words, the party members began to stir uneasily. One by one, they looked at him with faces full of anxiety.
"I have to defeat the Demon King as part of the Hero's party. I must."
"So do I."
"..."
They insisted they wanted to go with him. Was he casting them out of the party right now? Please don't, they begged.
Well... they all joined for their own reasons, after all.
Herald wasn't blind to why they wore such desperate expressions. Every member of the Hero's party had joined because they wanted something. Having spent long years in the Empire's service, Herald knew their circumstances reasonably well.
The beastman Nafira had joined the Hero's party for her tribe's independence. The beastman people were currently oppressed under the Empire; for them to gain autonomy, Nafira absolutely had to join the Hero's party and earn merit by defeating the Demon King. That was the condition under which the Empire had promised her tribe self-governance.
The elf Kirne had to defeat the Demon King to protect the World Tree. The elves' forest was gradually being destroyed, and the spirits were losing their power. The only ones who could restore it were the mages of the Magic Tower in the Empire. To secure the Tower's aid, the elves had struck a bargain with the Empire: join the Hero's party and see the Demon King defeated.
The Saintess Ayla had to defeat the Demon King to keep her position. How else had a mere apprentice nun climbed all the way to Saintess? She'd earned the seat through her diligent work in the Hero's party. If she were cast out, she could no longer remain Saintess. She might even face excommunication.
The mage Luna had joined the Hero's party to earn recognition from the Magic Tower. To become Tower Master, she needed to defeat the Demon King as a member of the Hero's party.
Every one of them had a reason they absolutely could not back down. So of course Herald's announcement that he was going alone threw them into a panic. That was why their eyes were so pleading now.
"Please don't worry yourselves. I have no intention of removing any of you from the Hero's party."
Of course Herald knew all of this, and he had no desire to stand in the way of what they wanted.
"I simply mean that I will go alone. I am more than capable of defeating the Demon King by myself, after all."
He was willing to show them a measure of consideration. Herald was no villain who took pleasure in others' suffering. For all that his time as Hero had been short, he was a man who believed a Hero ought to do good. He wasn't trying to expel the party members. They simply weren't any help, so he was sending them back. That was all there was to it.
"I... I see."
"Thank goodness..."
Color returned to the party members' faces. The fear they'd dared not name had proven unfounded, and they relaxed.
"In any case, I will enter the Demon King's Castle alone. The rest of you, return."
"Understood. Please defeat the Demon King, Sir Herald."
Leaving the party members behind, Herald set off toward the Demon King's Castle. They watched him go, each offering their own words of encouragement.
Hah... at last, I meet the Demon King.
The time had finally come. Face tight with tension, he threw open the gates of the Demon King's Castle.