The Second Hero (14)
What Ria told me was genuinely shocking.
"So you're saying you're the First Princess of the Artes Kingdom?"
"No. I'm the Third Princess, but right now I'm first in the line of succession."
The Artes Kingdom was currently torn apart by civil war, and the person set to inherit that kingdom was none other than Ria. Hearing that, I couldn't help but be stunned. I'd figured she had some kind of circumstances, sure—but the heir to the throne? That was something I'd never imagined.
"Huh."
For a moment I wondered if she was spinning me some fabricated story, but that didn't seem to be the case. It wasn't an impossible tale. She'd somehow managed to escape a kingdom in the middle of a civil war, ended up living at a church as an orphan, drifted into the village, and been living an ordinary life. Then, purely by chance, she'd run into me—the Hero. And now she'd brought me all the way to the Artes Kingdom.
"So that's why you dragged me into this? You want me to end the civil war?"
Her plan had probably been to make use of a Hero, hadn't it? I let out a sigh and asked her.
"Mmm... not quite that far."
Ria looked a little deflated at my words. She must have felt a twinge of guilt about trying to use me. But it seemed she hadn't intended to exploit me completely.
"I just thought that if I entered the country alongside the Hero, it might make me look more impressive."
She hadn't planned on asking me for direct help at all. She simply wanted to borrow my prestige.
"Once I legitimately receive the right of succession, I was going to figure things out from there somehow..."
Even if I'd quit being a Hero, the authority that came with the title was nothing to sneeze at. She'd meant to leverage the fact that she'd entered the country with the Hero. That was the extent of the favor she'd intended to ask of me. After that, she figured she'd manage somehow.
Honestly... hearing it again, it was still an absurd plan.
"Haa... you're going to be the death of me."
Was I supposed to call that cunning, or just adorable? Either way—what was I going to do about this?
At least I more or less understood Ria's situation now. She wanted to end the civil war in her kingdom and take the throne legitimately. The question was what I should do in this situation. Help her, or leave her to it.
I couldn't help but think it over for a moment.
Yeah... let's try helping her out.
And when I finished deliberating, I decided to go with helping her. Whether that was the right call, I honestly wasn't sure. It might have looked like a simple decision, but I'd actually put a fair amount of thought into it.
I don't look at rebellions as purely bad things. A nation only has a rebellion because something is wrong with it—because people have grievances. I figure the ruler running that country bears at least some of the responsibility. Of course, there are cases where a government is run perfectly well and a rebellion still breaks out unfairly, so at minimum you have to hear both sides. And even if one side is clearly in the wrong, I don't think that's a problem an outsider like me should stick his nose into. People should judge and decide their own futures. Nobody else should decide it for them. Not even a Hero.
That's why, back when I was still the Hero, I tried not to get involved in conflicts between people whenever I could help it. Killing demons was one thing. The old me—the Hero I used to be—definitely wouldn't have gotten involved.
Trusting her once shouldn't hurt.
And yet the reason I'd decided to help Ria was simple. Gut feeling told me she wouldn't make that bad a queen. She was smart and capable by nature, and even though she'd tried to use me, she'd kept it to a minimum and basically intended to handle things herself. At the very least, she wouldn't drive her people into crisis or starve them to death. That was what I valued enough to decide to help her. Looking at how she operated, she wouldn't turn into a tyrant or a disastrous ruler...
Besides, I wasn't a Hero anymore, was I? If I'd still been the Hero, I wouldn't have helped—but right now I was just an ordinary farmer who happened to be pretty strong. Compared to the past, I was freer when it came to responsibility. As a private individual, acting on my own convictions and interests to help Ria out a little shouldn't be a problem.
"Ria. You're going to pay me back properly later."
"Huh?"
"Come with me."
I gave her head a light pat as I spoke. I was going to help her. But she shouldn't get the wrong idea. I was absolutely not doing this for free. I fully intended to collect later—with interest.
After parting ways with Herald, the members of the Hero's party waited for him at their leisure in a city near the Demon Realm. It was a newly established city. There had been plenty of attempts to build one here before, drawn by the various minerals found near the Demon Realm, but only recently had it actually thrived. Once Lee Hansu, the Hero, had gradually cleaned up the Demon Realm, a city could finally take root.
And in that city, the members of the Hero's party were waiting for Herald—so they could return to the Empire together once he came back from slaying the Demon King. They had agreed to meet here again.
"Is that... really true?"
"Yes. It seems fairly certain."
But then a bolt from the blue struck them. The news that Herald was dead.
Luna, the party's mage, felt her staff begin to tremble violently. The various buffs she had cast on Herald before they parted ways—those buffs had ended. There should still have been time remaining, and yet the duration had run out. It was an unmistakably ominous sign. A very ominous sign that Herald had died at the Demon King's hands.
Of course, it was possible Herald himself had dismissed Luna's buffs. Buffs could be cut off at will if you wanted—just block the mana flow and they broke immediately. But that couldn't be it. Why would he deliberately cut his own buffs? In the middle of a battle with none other than the Demon King? Absolutely not. No matter how she thought about it, there was no reason he would dismiss them himself.
"Herald..."
"Ugh..."
So the situation was simple enough to grasp. Herald had clearly been killed by the Demon King. That was why the buffs had broken. The party members confirmed his death among themselves. Once the fact settled in, they took a brief moment to mourn him. It was a short time, but they had been his party members, after all.
"What do we... do now?"
"..."
But the mourning didn't last long. They couldn't help but worry deeply about how to handle this crisis going forward. The situation boiled down to something simple. Herald was dead at the Demon King's hands, and the Hero's party had failed to subjugate the Demon King.
Each of them had joined the Hero's party for their own reasons. Nafira the beastman, for her tribe's independence. Karne the elf, for trade with the Empire. Ayla the Saintess, to maintain her position as Saintess. Luna the mage, to succeed at the Magic Tower. Every one of them had entered the party because of circumstances they absolutely could not ignore. So they had to defeat the Demon King, no matter what.
And what was the result now? The party members had believed Herald would bring the Demon King down. Instead, the result was Herald's death. They had failed their mission to slay the Demon King.
"I don't know. What are we actually supposed to do?"
What were they supposed to do from here? No matter how hard they thought, no decent answer came to mind.
"...We can't exactly... go back, either."
Common sense said returning to the Empire was the correct move. The most important thing right now was to go back and report that Herald was dead. That would be the proper judgment. But they didn't have the courage. What were they supposed to say once they got to the Empire? Herald alone had died, and they had survived. How were they supposed to answer the question of why they were still alive? There was no good answer for that. And even if they'd at least succeeded in subjugating the Demon King it might have been different—but they'd failed at that too. If the Empire used this as a pretext, the party members might never receive the things they had been counting on. Knowing that, they could only watch each other carefully. No one dared to be the first to suggest returning to the Empire.
"Oh? A message just came through."
But in the end, fate dictated that the party members would have to return to the Empire anyway. Mage Luna's staff flashed. The court mage must have sent a message through it. Luna and the others fixed their attention on the staff, ready to read the Empire's dispatch.
The Hero's party is to return to the Empire at once and report on the current situation.
And the message they read was the very last thing any of them wanted to see.