The Third Hero (1)
Herald, of all people...
The Chancellor of the Empire found himself confronted with a truth he simply could not accept.
The knight newly appointed as Hero — Herald. Even now, the news of his death refused to settle as real.
Herald had long served the Empire as a knight and as a Knight Commander. Age had caught up with him, true enough, but his martial prowess had never been anything to dismiss. That a man like that had fallen to the Demon King — the thought alone invited no end of grim reflection.
And yet, quite apart from the death itself, something about the present situation struck the Chancellor as deeply wrong.
"What were the Hero's party members doing? What were they doing while Herald died?"
Did a Hero ever die alone?
By any reasonable measure, the Hero and his party would have gone to face the Demon King together. They were a party, after all — there was no cause for the Hero to confront such an enemy alone. So if the Hero's party had been defeated by the Demon King, the Hero could not have been the only one to die. The Demon King had no reason to kill the Hero and spare the rest. If they had lost, and the Hero was dead, the party members should have died right alongside him.
Of course, the Chancellor harbored no wish for the party members' deaths. The situation was simply, unmistakably, strange. And so he had no choice but to ask.
"..."
At the question, the party members fell silent for a moment. They glanced at one another, uncertain what to say.
The first to step forward was the Saintess of the Hero's party — Ayla.
"There was nothing we could do. Sir Herald insisted on going alone..."
She reported what had happened: that Herald had declared he would face the Demon King by himself, and that the party members had simply respected his wishes.
Then why?
"And the reason for that?"
"W-we don't know either."
She could not explain the reason. Ayla seemed almost to be hedging her answer.
"Do you swear before the Goddess that this is no lie?"
Was it truly the truth? No matter how he turned it over, the story made no sense. A Hero deliberately going alone against the Demon King... the Chancellor could not bring himself to believe it.
"I swear before the Goddess that it is no lie."
But Ayla swore. For a cleric, swearing upon the name of the divine was no small matter. To swear before the Goddess was to stake everything one was. If she was willing to go that far to prove her word, then her statement could not be false.
"Then... what on earth..."
So Herald had chosen, of his own will, to face the Demon King alone. But why? The Chancellor could not begin to guess. There had to have been some reason that left him no other choice...
Had senility taken him? Given Herald's age, it was not impossible — but there was no proof. Or were the Hero's party members hiding something?
With the dead Herald beyond any summoning, the Chancellor was left grinding his teeth in frustration.
"Haa... To whom am I supposed to entrust the Empire's fate now?"
In the end, the Hero was dead and the Demon King still lived. Whatever the reasons, the present crisis was what mattered most. The man they had trusted was gone, and the seat of Hero stood empty once more.
Did anyone even exist who could replace Herald? With Herald dead, to whom could they possibly entrust the Demon King's subjugation?
The Chancellor could do nothing but sigh — until a voice cut through.
"I will do it."
As if on cue, someone stepped forward to claim the role of Hero.
"Knight Commander Alex?"
The Chancellor turned. Standing there was a young Knight Commander, nothing like Herald — Alex.
The Chancellor was mildly surprised.
"You wish to become the Hero?"
"Yes. I will subjugate the Demon King."
Alex had always been a man who coveted the Hero's seat. Of course he would take an interest now that it stood vacant.
"But... something even Herald could not accomplish... how do you propose to manage it?"
Still, the Chancellor's faith was thin. Herald may have grown old, but his skill was rated the finest in the Empire. Could Alex — widely judged the weaker of the two — truly defeat the Demon King? There was no certainty in it. And so the Chancellor hesitated. The seat of Hero was far too grave a post to hand over on the mere bravado of a young man.
"It is precisely because Herald could not do it that I will be able to."
Alex spoke as though the Chancellor had nothing at all to worry about.
"Knight Commander Herald is strong — no question. I've lost to him more times than I care to count. But he is old. However formidable his technique, he is still just an old man."
Alex and Herald had never been on particularly good terms, and Alex made no effort to speak kindly of him.
"Right now, I am the stronger one."
And he was certain he would not fall short. Confidence filled Alex's face.
"..."
Looking at him, the Chancellor was forced to think. Herald was by no means weak — he had not been called the Empire's greatest knight for nothing. But Alex was right that he was an aging knight. He was past the proper age for a Hero. Alex's age, by contrast, was entirely suitable. Heroes throughout history had been active at roughly Alex's years.
And yet... the worry remained.
Was he truly stronger than Herald? Alex?
In the Chancellor's own estimation, Alex was young and little else; he could not honestly say the man surpassed Herald. For all his talk of being the stronger, Alex was the one who had always lost to Herald.
Under ordinary circumstances, the Chancellor would never have made Alex the Hero.
"Very well. We shall hold the inauguration shortly."
But these were not ordinary circumstances. A new Hero was needed. The Chancellor would try Alex in the role. For all he knew, Alex might truly prove stronger than Herald.
Maybe I should have at least shared a meal with her before we parted.
After leaving Ria, I stepped into a nearby restaurant. I hadn't exactly gone hungry on the long road, but I hadn't eaten a proper meal either. My stomach wasn't empty, but my spirit was. I ordered something that actually resembled civilized food and waited.
And as I waited, my thoughts drifted naturally back to Ria, whom I'd just left behind.
Should I have stayed a little longer before saying goodbye? It wasn't regret, exactly — more a faint lingering. Because this might well have been the last time I ever saw her.
Would Ria manage all right?
She'll be fine. Probably.
I had plenty of worries, and the situation was hardly ideal, but I still believed she'd pull through. Not that I had any real basis for thinking so. Just a feeling, maybe. Give it a year or two, and when I came looking for her again, she'd greet me as a magnificent queen. She'd be unrecognizable by then, wouldn't she?
Ah, come on. A kid like that?
Hm...? A newspaper?
While I was killing time with idle thoughts, waiting for my food, a newspaper caught my eye. Someone must have left it behind after reading. I picked it up without thinking.
Today's edition. Might as well give it a look.
I hadn't read a paper in days. There'd been no chance on the road to the Artes Kingdom. Having one right here, I might as well. Most of it would be Empire news, of course... not that I was reading out of any particular interest in the Empire.
"Herald's dead?"
The first thing that leapt off the page was the news of Herald's death. The paper reported that Herald, newly appointed as Hero, had fallen in battle against the Demon King.
A fairly shocking piece of news. Was it really all right to announce a Hero's death this casually...? The thought crossed my mind, but on reflection, it made a certain sense. Ordinarily the Empire clamped down hard on news like this — nothing good came of letting it spread. That they hadn't managed to this time meant the Empire was in complete disarray. Fair enough. With a Hero dead, they hardly had the bandwidth for anything else.
"I expected it, but still..."
Hearing of Herald's death left a faintly bitter taste. Not that I'd ever expected him to survive. Facing the Demon King I knew, with Herald's level of skill, death had been a certainty. But still. I hadn't thought poorly of the man. The end of a knight who'd simply chosen the wrong country to serve, I supposed...
"So, next item..."
I decided to leave the unpleasant news behind and moved on to the next article.
"What? They already picked a new Hero?"
And there it was — another shock. Barely any time had passed since Herald's death, and they'd already appointed a successor.
A new Hero already? When a Hero dies, you appoint a new one — nothing strange about that on the surface. But think about it carefully, and it was deeply strange.
Strange...? There shouldn't be a single knight stronger than Herald.
Because there simply hadn't been any talent left fit to be named Hero. I knew the Empire's knights more or less inside and out. As far as I was aware, no one outranked Herald. So who on earth had they chosen?
Curiosity pulled me further down the page.
"What? Alex?"
And so I learned the identity of the new Hero.
"You've got to be kidding me. Why the hell would they make that bastard the Hero?"
I was impressed. Sarcastically, of course.
At this point, I was starting to think the Empire had decided to go ahead and collapse on purpose.