The Empire Appoints Another Fool
News of the third Hero Alex's death spread through the Empire with startling speed.
By the time it reached every person of consequence, the Empire itself could no longer look away from the truth.
Alex was dead. There was no question about it.
"Haa... Just what are we supposed to do about this?"
The Empire's Chancellor let out a long, heavy sigh at the report. His expression could not have been worse. First the second Hero, Herald—and now the third Hero, Alex, dead as well. This was a catastrophe he had never once anticipated.
Alex even had the Holy Sword...
It had been kept quiet, but Alex had possessed the Holy Sword. The long-vanished blade had somehow ended up in his hands, and the Chancellor had known it. That was precisely why he had appointed Alex as Hero—convinced that anyone who wielded the Holy Sword would surely be able to bring down the Demon King.
And the rebellion... well, I was going to stop that too.
He had also known that Alex was plotting a coup. Naturally, he had prepared for it—fully intending to lure the would-be usurper into a trap. Let Alex kill the Demon King, then discard him like a spent tool.
And he couldn't even kill the Demon King...
But everything had twisted sideways. Alex had failed to slay the Demon King. He had died without so much as finishing the job. The Chancellor had never imagined this outcome, and now he was thoroughly cornered. Every plan he had laid was in ruins.
Why couldn't the Demon King be defeated?
So why had Alex failed? Something about it felt wrong. Even granting that Herald had been too old to finish the job—how could Alex, armed with the Holy Sword, have failed as well?
The thought flickered through his mind unbidden. In the Chancellor's estimation, the Demon King was not that formidable a being. Among the Heroes of ages past, some had slain the Demon King in a single day. With the Holy Sword in hand, Alex should have managed it easily. So why hadn't he?
Don't tell me... the Demon King is actually strong?
An uneasy possibility brushed past him. After Herald and then Alex with the Holy Sword had both failed, a creeping dread was hard to shake. What if the Demon King was far beyond anything they had assumed?
He was still turning the problem over when a voice cut in.
"Chancellor... are you well?"
"Ah. The members of the Hero's party."
The party members had chosen that moment to visit. They entered as if it were the most natural thing in the world, yet something in their manner suggested they were watching for his reaction. The Chancellor was not so dense as to miss why.
They were expelled from the Hero's party, weren't they?
He had heard the story—that Alex had cast them out. Strictly speaking, they were no longer members of the Hero's party, and wandering freely into the imperial palace should not have been permitted.
Well, with the Hero already dead, there's no real point in throwing them out.
He chose not to make an issue of it. Driving them away when the Hero who had banished them was already a corpse felt petty. Personnel decisions for the Hero's party rested entirely with the Hero; the next one could decide what to do with them.
Whether they're competent or not, the next Hero can judge for himself.
Herald had refused to take them along. Alex had expelled them outright. Their abilities were more than a little suspect—but the Chancellor decided not to involve himself.
The next Hero, though...
What mattered most right now was finding a successor. With both Herald and Alex dead, he needed someone who could stand beside them—or above them.
"Haa... Who on earth am I supposed to make the next Hero..."
Of course, if such a person had been readily available, he would not have been wearing this look of pure distress. The Empire's finest knight had failed. A knight bearing the Holy Sword had failed. There was no one left he could trust.
If there was anyone at all worth believing in... it would be the first Hero, Lee Hansu—the one the Empire had banished. Should they bring him back? At the very least, he had not died to the Demon King. Perhaps there was still a sliver of hope.
The Chancellor was seriously weighing the question of the next Hero when a young man spoke up.
"Leave it to me, Chancellor."
The speaker was a young noble dressed in conspicuously lavish clothes—Jacks Eners, scion of the Eners family. He had only recently secured a bureaucratic post, and now he stood before the Chancellor and confidently demanded the title of Hero for himself.
"Sir Jacks. I believe I already told you no."
For all the young man's bravado, the Chancellor's answer was a refusal.
"As I understand it, Sir Jacks, you have never so much as held a sword."
The man was neither a knight nor anything resembling one. Jacks Eners was simply a young master who had barely come of age—full of youthful swagger and nothing else, a man who had never once gripped a blade. The Chancellor knew that perfectly well. He might have considered some other knight for the role, but he could not possibly seat this man as Hero. So he refused.
"I've never held a sword, true—but I have talent."
Jacks did not back down. He pressed his case with aggressive insistence.
"You know who my ancestor was, Chancellor."
He invoked the founder of the Eners line and begged the Chancellor to place his faith in him just once.
"The Sword Saint..."
The progenitor of House Eners had been the Sword Saint—a man who, in his day, had possessed power equal to any Hero. And Jacks was that man's descendant.
"Huu..."
But did a glorious ancestor guarantee a glorious heir? It was the most ordinary question in the world. Fine bloodlines raised the odds, certainly—but did Jacks truly carry talent on the level of the Sword Saint? Doubt was inevitable. And even if the talent were there, was it wise to entrust the title of Hero to a man who had never once touched a sword?
I've heard he's quite the wastrel, too...
Worse still, Jacks's character was widely regarded as abysmal. He had parachuted into a key palace post on the strength of his family's name, then spent his days idling instead of working. As the son of a powerful house, the Chancellor had never said so aloud—but he knew perfectly well the young man was worthless. For any number of reasons, making Jacks the Hero seemed like a terrible idea. He would almost certainly fail at the job itself...
"Very well. I will place my trust in you, Sir Jacks."
But there was no other option. Trying him once would not hurt. Like scratching a lottery ticket...
And so the Chancellor appointed Jacks as Hero.
"Hmm. So Alex is dead..."
I unfolded the newspaper. Last time I had checked, some bastard named Alex had just been named Hero. I had been curious how that had turned out—so I opened it up.
And sure enough, there it was: Alex was dead. The news did not surprise me in the slightest. It felt less like a shock and more like the inevitable finally arriving. That he would die had been painfully obvious from the start.
"This is what happens when you play knight for the Empire."
Him, and the Empire that had appointed a man like him as Hero—both of them were pathetic. I would never understand why they insisted on manufacturing pointless sacrifices. The higher you climb, the more critical it becomes to read people correctly. Without that eye, the ones who end up paying the price are always the loyal fools who actually try to protect the country.
Then again, if they had possessed any judgment at all, they never would have banished me in the first place. Maybe an inability to recognize a real Hero was simply in their nature.
"Hmm... So who's the next Hero, then?"
Alex's death was not particularly important to me. What I actually wanted to know was who they had appointed next. I flipped quickly to the following page.
Who would it be? As far as I knew, once you set Herald and Alex aside, the Empire had no other famous candidates left. What kind of decision had they made in a situation like that? I could not help being a little curious.
Surely they had not gone and appointed me again.
I read on—and promptly ran face-first into a fact so absurd it stopped me cold.
"Aigoo. Tsk tsk. That's the Empire for you. Just go ahead and collapse already."
The man named as Hero was someone called Jacks Eners. The moment I saw it, a sigh tore out of me. I had not expected much—but still. The Empire was beyond saving. I could practically feel how little time it had left before it fell.