The Last Hero (4)
"So. Feeling better now?"
Morning had come.
I stretched, worked the stiffness out of my limbs, and went straight to check on Aji.
I'd tied her up yesterday when she went into heat. Hopefully she'd calmed down by now. The last thing I needed was for her to still be suffering through it—that would get extremely annoying, extremely fast.
"..."
Whew. Thank god.
When I looked her over, she seemed to have settled. Eyes closed, breathing soft and even. The heat cycle had to be completely over by now.
"Alright. I'll untie you."
I started loosening the cloths one by one. At the same time, Aji stirred and woke.
"Uugh..."
She looked exhausted, like she hadn't slept well at all.
"Sleep okay? Get ready to head out in a bit."
I tossed her a quick greeting and started packing up. The sun was up. Time to finish the training we'd skipped yesterday. I told Aji to hurry and get ready too.
"Hey. Do you hate me?"
Where did that come from?
Instead of preparing, Aji just stared straight through me. Then, still locked on my face, she asked the question with a faintly angry look.
Did I hate her? What was that even supposed to mean?
I thought it over for a second and figured it out soon enough.
Ah. She thinks I rejected her.
Yesterday, during her heat, I hadn't played along. I'd tied her up instead. Of course she was sulking. From her side of things, she'd come to my room intending to do... that, and I'd shut her down and restrained her. For a beastman, that was plenty of reason to be furious.
Hell, a human woman would have every right to be furious after treatment like that.
"Yeah. I kind of do."
I had preferences, okay?
But there was nothing I could do about it. Whether I had a libido or not was beside the point. No matter how deep in heat she got when she came at me, a kid like Aji was never going to register as a woman by my standards. And it wasn't like I had any romantic feelings for her to begin with. I'd taken her along because I felt sorry for her, and sure, I'd gotten a little attached after traveling together—but that didn't mean I wanted her as a permanent companion, or that I'd be crushed if we parted ways.
If I was being honest, she leaned slightly toward the "dislike" side of the scale.
I told her all of that straight. Maybe a little too bluntly, but I was planning to train her and then go our separate ways. Better not to plant any unnecessary feelings.
"Uugh..."
The words hit her hard. Being told she was disliked—maybe because she'd trusted me and followed me this far. For all I knew, she thought of me as her master. The look on her face said she'd just lost the entire world.
"Then what kind of girl... do you like? What kind of female is your type?"
But Aji bounced back almost immediately. Something like purpose lit up behind her eyes as she asked about my ideal woman.
"Hmm..."
What kind of woman did I like, anyway?
I thought about it for a moment before answering.
"First off, she has to be an adult. Looks don't matter that much. Someone who can take care of herself—and who won't betray me."
Thinking about it, my type had changed a lot, hadn't it?
Answering Aji made me realize how much I'd shifted without noticing. Back in the day, looks had mattered a great deal. How was a man supposed to not feel attracted to a pretty face? That was just basic male psychology. But getting older had taught me that appearance wasn't everything.
Those dogshit hero party members...
And the reason I'd changed had everything to do with the party I'd traveled with as a hero. Every last one of them had been beautiful—no exaggeration, they were some of the most stunning women on the continent. I was a man; of course I'd noticed. Talent had played a role too, which was part of why I'd let them into the party in the first place.
But once they were actually in? Looks were the only useful thing about them. They had talent, sure, but they couldn't do a damn thing with it. They contributed nothing. If anything, they just got irritated, demanded things from me, and made my life harder. I'd seriously considered kicking them out more than once. Keeping them around was pure stress.
I hadn't done it. Even if they were useless, we'd shared some history.
I should have just thrown them out.
What good did treating them well do? They'd betrayed me without batting an eye.
The thought still got my blood up.
"I see... So that's the kind of woman you like."
Aji had been listening with her ears pricked the whole time.
"I'll become that kind of female."
She nodded, like she was making a vow.
"Yeah, yeah. Great. Now let's go train."
Why was I even explaining my type to a kid like this...
I brushed her words aside. Train her fast, then leave. That was the plan.
This has to be fake, right?
The hero's party members weren't so stupid that they couldn't see through the situation. What kind of illness got cured by a lap pillow? Common sense said this was a transparent act.
And the reason for the act was just as obvious. He clearly wanted physical contact with his party members. Jacks had been ogling them with open ulterior motives from the very beginning.
"Please... Saintess. Could you give me a lap pillow? Ugh..."
"..."
His intentions were so blatant that no one even had words. Watching Jacks try every angle to indulge his greasy little fantasies, the party members recoiled in open disgust. And Ayla—the one he'd specifically named for the lap pillow—was recoiling hardest of all.
How dare he look at me, a Saintess, with those kinds of designs...
A Saintess was the highest representative of the Goddess Church, the Goddess's proxy on earth. She was supposed to be an object of reverence and devotion. And this man was asking her for a lap pillow? The sheer audacity left her speechless. She wanted nothing more than to haul him before a religious tribunal for blasphemy on the spot.
"...Fine. I'll do it. If that's what it takes for the Hero to recover... You can just get in the carriage and I'll handle it there."
But of course she couldn't refuse.
Ayla bit back tears and offered up her lap. Endure it. Just endure it. There was no time to pick petty fights with the Hero. And she wasn't so foolish that she couldn't grit her teeth through a mere month. Besides—wasn't this still a hundred times better than Alex demanding a baptism? Compared to that humiliation, this one was almost tolerable.
"Saintess, your thighs are so soft. Ah... this is nice."
Once they were in the carriage, Jacks planted his head on Ayla's thighs. He kneaded them as he delivered his little review, and pure revulsion crawled up Ayla's spine. She forced it down.
As long as she endured, it would be fine.
Back when she'd refused to baptize Hero Alex, Ayla had carried a lingering guilt toward the rest of the party. Whether it was fortunate or not, once Alex was dead, no one had actually blamed her—but she'd still wondered if it had somehow been her fault. She couldn't afford to cause them any more trouble.
So Ayla endured. Telling herself that if she alone held out, everything would be okay.
But she wasn't the only one who had to endure.
"Mage. I think I'm running a bit of a fever. Could you cool me down with a breeze?"
"Excuse me?"
"A breeze. You can do that with magic, right?"
"Ugh... Fine."
He was ordering Luna, the party's mage, to wait on him. Use magic for that? Luna found the request absurd, but she had no choice. She raised her staff, cast the spell, and stood beside Jacks blowing a cool stream of air over him.
"Um, Lady Karne. Lady Nafira. My legs feel weak—could you massage them for me?"
And he wasn't done. He turned on the remaining two party members and demanded they wait on him too.
"Ah... Alright."
What did this man think a hero's party even was?
They were past the point of reacting to every individual indignity. Karne and Nafira said nothing and simply started massaging Jacks's legs. And so the entire hero's party diligently waited on him hand and foot while Jacks soaked it all in with pure enjoyment.
"I feel so much better thanks to all of you. I'm truly fortunate to have such beautiful, kind party members."
Thirty minutes later, Jacks finally sat up with a refreshed look on his face—as if the illness had at last run its course. Of course, he'd never been sick in the first place.
It was finally over...
"Shall we go defeat the Demon King now?"
The party members exhaled in collective relief. They'd done more than enough. All they wanted was to reach the Demon Realm and finish the job.
"We should."
Jacks agreed—for about half a second.
"But... honestly, I feel like our bond is still far too weak."
"What do you mean by—"
Oh, what now...
Jacks spoke as if something were still missing. What was he going to demand this time? The party members' heads were already starting to ache.
"Just hear me out. Traditionally, a hero and his party build their bond through all kinds of adventures together, right?"
Jacks gestured at the state of their current relationship.
"But we've never had that chance. That could become a serious weakness for a hero's party."
In other words, they had no real foundation of mutual trust.
Huh...? That... actually sounded reasonable?
The party members were briefly surprised. They'd fully expected more nonsense, but this point actually mattered. Maybe there was a real hero buried under all that slime after all. They looked at Jacks with something approaching newfound respect.
It didn't last.
"So before we head to the Demon King's Castle, let's make one stop."
What he proposed next for "strengthening party bonds" made them doubt their own ears.
"There's a hot spring village on the way to the Demon King's Castle. Let's do a mixed bath there. Just once."
"Ha...?"