The Second Hero (13)
Nothing particularly special written here.
From the bandit-looking bunch, I found a document stamped with the official seal of the Artes Kingdom.
What's this? I read through it, but there wasn't anything of real substance on the page.
Subject and object both omitted — nothing but a single line:
Eliminate those who obstruct the kingdom's survival.
That was all, which left me a little stumped.
How exactly were they supposed to safeguard the kingdom's survival by doing this? No matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn't figure out the reasoning.
But as for who this document meant by "those who obstruct" — I had a pretty good idea.
In other words, I roughly knew who they were being told to kill.
"Ria. Why are these guys after you?"
"Huh? What do you mean by that?"
The target was definitely Ria.
I looked at her and asked what was going on with this whole situation. At my words, Ria mumbled something about not knowing — but her body language told a different story. The moment I fixed my eyes on her, she wore a startled, caught-out expression.
So there was a connection after all.
"Ria. I get that you have your privacy, and I wasn't going to press you about it — but now that we've been attacked, don't you think I deserve to know? Can you explain what your connection is to this?"
I roughly knew Ria had circumstances she couldn't talk about. It had been obvious from the start that she was hiding something from me. But I hadn't bothered trying to dig it up. There was no need to stick my nose into problems that had nothing to do with me. And if she didn't want to tell me, I had no intention of forcing it out of her.
But this was different.
I had clearly been attacked. Of course, if you asked whether those attacks had been any real threat to me, I could say they hadn't been threats at all — but still, once I'd been hit like this, I couldn't claim it had nothing to do with me.
I looked at Ria and spoke. I demanded she tell me who these people were, and why they'd targeted her.
"Um... I don't really... Maybe they were after you, Hero?"
Even after I tried to reason with her, Ria kept hedging. As if she truly didn't want to talk about it, she floated the speculation that maybe they'd been after me rather than her.
"No chance. Zero. Even you know that's not it if you think about it for half a second."
Yeah, that definitely wasn't it.
These guys recognized me and attacked? That was way too absurd. I couldn't claim I'd lived a perfectly virtuous life without making any enemies anywhere, but I at least hadn't made enemies of the kind of scum who'd send guys like these after me. Besides, how would these guys even know I was the Hero? I hadn't gone around advertising it, and not that many people knew who I was — certainly not enough for these types to pick me out of a crowd.
If they'd known I was the Hero in the first place, they wouldn't have sent such pathetic nobodies. Even with the title stripped from me, nobody would think the former Hero would lose to a handful of guys like these. There were plenty of other reasons these guys wouldn't have been after me. I didn't even need to spell them out for Ria.
"Ugh..."
Ria didn't seem to have any real rebuttal. She was young, but she was a pretty sharp kid. She knew better than anyone that she was just stalling with whatever came to mind.
"Spit it out. What's the situation?"
I asked her one more time. Unlike before, I pressed her a bit more forcefully.
"Um... it's really nothing special."
Eventually, under that pressure, Ria started talking with a look of resignation, twisting her fingers together. She must have decided she couldn't hide it any longer.
So what exactly had she been hiding?
I listened carefully to what Ria had to say — and learned a shocking truth.
"I'm the third... no, currently the first in the line of succession to the Artes Kingdom throne...? Haha..."
First in the line of succession?
Nothing special, my ass.
That was extremely special.
So this... is what a Demon King is?
The Demon King who had sincerely declared she would go all out — those words had been no bluff. In an instant, she began to overwhelm everything. Strength, speed, magic power — she showed a clear, crushing difference from Herald. As if to prove she'd merely been toying with him until now, she drove him back without mercy.
"Urgh..."
Herald was fundamentally a strong swordsman, and a seasoned one. He was a veteran who'd been through countless battles — an old warrior who'd clawed his way through innumerable hard fights and come out on top. Among those battles, he'd often used his wits to defeat opponents stronger than himself. No matter who you faced, there had to be a way to win. That wisdom was the greatest weapon and strength of the knight called Herald.
But even he, right now, could find no way to win.
How were you supposed to beat a monster like this? No matter how hard he thought, just as an ant could never defeat a human, the gap between the Demon King and himself was absolute.
"Aaagh...!"
The outcome of the battle was decided remarkably quickly. In the end, faced with the Demon King's power before his eyes, Herald could hold on no longer. He couldn't even last three exchanges before his sword shattered.
And it wasn't just his sword that broke. Herald's strength had also reached its limit. Simply blocking the Demon King's attacks left his whole body trembling, his mind going blank. Her strikes were on an entirely different level — he had to pour every ounce of his power just to stop them.
He wouldn't be able to block her attacks any longer.
Herald confirmed his own defeat.
He could not defeat the Demon King.
"We have no hobby of tormenting the weak."
Looking down at Herald, the Demon King simply and silently raised her hand.
"We shall end this quickly."
To finish this tedious battle, she would kill him now. That was the greatest consideration one could show a defeated foe.
"One question, Demon King."
Was this the end? Herald accepted his death. But before that, there was something he wanted to ask.
"The Hero who came looking for you before — was he truly strong?"
Herald was curious about Lee Hansu. From his own experience, the Demon King was absurdly strong. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call her the pinnacle of living beings. Even if every knight in the Empire were mobilized to fight her, they might not even manage to leave a single scratch. She was a being for whom the word "monster" was no exaggeration.
And so he couldn't help but wonder — about Lee Hansu, who had met the Demon King and returned alive.
"I am far too curious. I wish to hear your answer."
This question wasn't Herald stalling for time, or grasping at anything he could think of just to survive. The Demon King would kill him anyway. Killing Heroes was the natural duty of a Demon King, and Herald had no intention of begging for his life. Besides, he didn't have that long left to live. Even if he somehow survived, with his aged body drained of considerable strength from this battle, he clearly wouldn't last long even if he clung to life. In that case, dying here with honor was better.
So his question now was purely out of curiosity.
"Hrm... You ask whether the Hero who came to Us then was strong..."
At Herald's question, the Demon King thought for a moment. Honestly, she had no obligation to answer him. But she decided to answer anyway. Even if he wasn't to her liking, Herald was a Hero. There was a certain courtesy to be observed between Demon King and Hero. She was willing to grant a dying Hero's question.
"He was not weak. Enough that the match between Us went undecided..."
To Herald's question of whether the previous Hero had been strong, the Demon King's answer was not long. It was the kind of answer that said, well, of course — as if stating the obvious.
"Was that the answer you desired?"
"It was."
Having heard the Demon King's answer, Herald said nothing more. With that exchange, the conversation between the Demon King and Herald could go no further.
"Far too dull."
The battle between Hero and Demon King came to an end. It had taken quite some time, but the result was all too simple. The Demon King's one-sided victory — a victory beyond question.
But even after such a triumph, she felt no particular joy. Rather, the emotion she felt now was emptiness.
"As expected, the only one who can stand against Us is you."
The reason, of course, was that the Hero she had wanted had not come. For the Demon King who had waited for Lee Hansu — not some other Hero — Herald was unwelcome. The battle with him hadn't been particularly enjoyable either. It had been far too boring. She'd tried her best to enjoy it somehow, but she simply couldn't. When a battle itself couldn't even be established, how was one supposed to take pleasure in it?
So in the end, she had no choice but to wait. For the one being with whom a fight was possible.
Because they had made a promise. The Hero who had come to her in the past had promised he would come. He had said he would settle the match they hadn't finished. Of course, there was also the matter of him no longer being a Hero now — but in the end, he would have no choice but to come. If he wanted to stop her, that is.
Until then, she could wait with a somewhat leisurely heart.
Looking forward to the day she would meet the Hero again, the Demon King once more began preparing the banquet she would serve him when he eventually arrived.
Meanwhile, the Hero's party members who had parted ways with Herald—
"What...? What do you mean?"
"Herald the Hero is dead?"
"Yes. It seems that way."
"Good heavens..."
The Hero's party members realized that Herald was dead.