The Second Hero (7)
So she wants to hire me, huh...
Objectively speaking, I ranked pretty high on the value scale in this world. Sure, the Empire had banished me, but I was still a former Hero. And a former Hero was bound to be far more capable than any S-Rank adventurer, right?
Looked at that way, I could understand why this girl was trying to commission me. Someone like me wasn't exactly easy to find. If she had a problem that needed solving, I was the single best tool available for the job.
"Well, if you want to hire me, I can take the job."
But being that capable also meant hiring me didn't come cheap. I cut straight to the point with Ria.
She already knew I was the previous Hero, so she had to have some idea what I was worth. I was willing to take the commission—I didn't have any particular reason to refuse. I just wanted compensation that matched my value.
"But do you have money? I'll say this up front: I'm not taking any job for pocket change."
There's no way a kid like her has any money...
And that was the real problem. No matter how I looked at her, the girl standing in front of me did not look like she could afford to hire me. I couldn't speak to her looks, but the clothes she was wearing were clearly some shabby hand-me-downs borrowed from the convent. On top of that, hadn't she said she was an orphan? There was simply no universe in which an orphan living off a convent's charity in a village like this had the kind of money it would take to employ me.
If Ria and I had been close—friends, even—I might have taken the job for a token fee. But we weren't. At best, we'd met yesterday and traded a few words. In a relationship like that, the only thing that mattered was cold, hard cash. So as far as I was concerned, I was effectively about to turn her down.
"Of course I do. The payment to hire a Hero is already prepared."
But Ria answered with a completely unbothered, confident look that did not match my expectations at all.
Wait... the payment is already prepared? How?
I honestly couldn't make sense of what she was saying, but she didn't look like she was lying.
"What is it, then?"
Does she actually have something impressive stashed away?
I found myself a little curious about whatever compensation she was talking about.
"You may do whatever you like with my body."
And then I heard something utterly ridiculous. Placing a hand over her chest, Ria declared it with absolute confidence—as if the very thing I was looking at was the payment.
"...?"
I just stood there, completely blank.
Your body is the payment...?
"What do you mean, your body is the payment? Even if I accepted that, there's nothing I'd want to do with it."
The idea that the compensation she was offering was her own body was so absurd I almost couldn't process it a second time. What was this kid even saying? The blood hadn't even dried on her scalp yet.
And it wasn't as if that body was particularly appealing, either. Objectively, Ria had a pretty cute face—but that was as far as it went. She was fourteen, maybe fifteen at most, with a figure to match, and that figure was absolutely not the kind most men went for.
Of course, there were probably a few degenerates out there who would lose their minds over a body like Ria's right now. They'd snicker heh heh heh and take her up on it like pigs in heat. Earth had plenty of those types. But that was not my taste. So my reaction to Ria came out considerably colder than she might have hoped.
"Heh heh. You simply don't understand."
But Ria treated my reaction as if I only knew half the story.
"It's true I'm still young, so my figure is rather underwhelming for now. But later on, it's going to be absolutely incredible. When that time comes, you can devour me or boil me alive—whatever you please."
"And what exactly is that claim based on?"
"My mother had an absolutely enormous chest."
She was telling me her future self would be spectacular and that I should just wait until then.
What on earth is this kid talking about...
Thwack.
"Ah—!"
In the end, I had no choice but to flick her hard on the forehead. She hadn't called me over just to mess with me. I was the idiot for taking a little kid's nonsense seriously.
Caught off guard by the sudden flick, Ria stared up at me with tears welling in her eyes, looking thoroughly wronged. I let out a sigh.
"Stop talking garbage and go study."
"All right. Let's move out again."
The Hero's party had rested well enough through the night's camp. Bodies and minds both recovered, it was time to get moving again in search of the Demon King's Castle. Under Herald's lead, the Hero's party began preparing to depart once more.
Haaah...
But not everyone had recovered. The one already sighing as if exhausted before they'd even started was none other than the Hero himself—Herald.
Yesterday, Herald had been forced to handle every single camp chore alone. From cooking the meals to pitching the tents, he had done it all by himself—because none of his party members knew how to do any of it. And today was no different. From cooking breakfast the moment he woke up to packing the tents back up, Herald did everything alone.
Naturally, after shouldering every task yesterday and today, he was already worn out before the journey even resumed. Hero or not, he was also a man past sixty. This kind of grunt work was pushing his stamina to the brink.
Why in the world did Hero Lee Hansu drag these people around with him?
Why did he, the Hero, already have to burn his strength on chores like this? Honestly, Herald's frustration had hit its peak. He wasn't saying it out loud, but deep down he was thinking, What kind of party members are these?
They couldn't do the basics. Worse, they had zero intention of even trying. Herald could work himself into the ground alone and not a single one of them would lift a finger to help. Their attitude said it was only natural that the Hero handle everything. Of course he was angry. He had joined this party as the Hero—not as a porter or a housemaid. Watching party members who refused to treat a Hero like a Hero, he was dying to give them a piece of his mind.
All right... don't get emotional. They must be incredible in a fight, at least.
Even so, Herald held his tongue, and the reason was simple. In the end, these were the same party members the previous Hero, Lee Hansu, had traveled with for an entire year. They might be useless at the basics, but when it came to what mattered most—combat—they were bound to be a real asset. That was something the previous Hero himself had effectively vouched for. Common sense said there had to be a reason he'd kept party members who couldn't cook and couldn't pitch a tent. They clearly had to possess tremendous power.
Clinging to that thought, Herald swallowed his anger and pressed on through the Demon Realm.
And so, still bottling up his irritation as he searched, Herald eventually found something blocking the Hero party's path.
"Whoa... that's a really big plant."
"It's a plant-type monster called a Nepenthes."
A carnivorous monster of enormous size. One look was enough to tell it was dangerous.
"It does look pretty scary."
"Still, no need to worry. Apparently it won't attack unless you mess with it first."
Being a plant-type monster, it wasn't especially threatening. As the party members had said, plant-type monsters—with only a few rare exceptions—didn't strike first. In a situation like this, the sensible move was simply to ignore it and take another path. Monster or not, there was zero reason to pick a fight. That was probably why the previous Hero, Lee Hansu, had never bothered clearing out the Nepenthes here either.
Perfect timing.
But Herald's thinking was a little different. He fully intended to fight this thing.
"Everyone, let's loosen up a bit and take on that monster."
"Huh? That monster? Do we really need to fight it?"
Herald drew his sword and prepared to face the creature. His party members looked a little flustered watching him. Why deliberately provoke a monster that was just sitting there minding its own business? They questioned him as if they genuinely couldn't understand.
"It wouldn't hurt to get our coordination in sync once before we face the Demon King."
I need to see what these party members can actually do, don't I?
The real reason Herald wanted the fight was to gauge their strength. Ever since before he'd even become the Hero, he had wanted to see what his party members were capable of. He'd simply never had the chance. Now that the opportunity had presented itself, taking a look at their skills wasn't a bad idea. A plant-type monster like a Nepenthes made the perfect sparring partner.
"I see. Understood."
At Herald's insistence, the party members nodded and raised their weapons.
All right. Let's see just how strong they really are.
The battle was about to begin. Herald was finally going to confirm for himself just how formidable these people had to be for Lee Hansu to have kept them at his side.