The Hero's Tears
Like a sugar cube tossed into bitter coffee, dissolving powerlessly and fading into nothing. In the pale consciousness sinking layer by layer into darkness, faint bubbles rose, coaxing forth memories of a time I had long forgotten. It was not a dreary, ash-gray recollection, but one bathed in bright, sunlit warmth. “Hero Punch!”
By now I had simply learned to accept it. But back when the party was first formed, our leader would forcibly tack the word “Hero” onto everything she did and bellow it at the top of her lungs. It gave me one hell of a headache.
“Impossible! To think you dodged my surprise attack! Be careful, Priest! This monster is no ordinary foe!”
“Sister. An attack delivered with a roar like that should be called premeditated murder, not a surprise attack, don’t you think?”
The word “stealth” did not exist in our party’s vocabulary. The book whose cover proudly declared Justice in massive letters was instead crammed with the phrase “full frontal assault.” In fact, it was questionable whether the very concept of a dictionary even existed for us.
Our leader was upright to a fault, and every single move she made—even those completely unrelated to combat—was outrageously flashy. Requests that demanded secrecy, such as ambushes or diversions—in other words, anything that reeked of cowardice—were, no matter how generous the reward, nothing more than pie in the sky to our party.
That was why, one day, curiosity got the better of me and I asked her.
Hero. That faded old title. That stale, dusty sense of righteousness. Why did she cling to it so desperately?
She answered in a voice far quieter than usual.
That distant, faraway look in her eyes. Why had I forgotten them until this very moment?
Embracing an earnest wish close to my heart. Pouring a desperate prayer into this fist. I shout with everything I have, as if to reach beyond the sky itself. I am the Hero.
“What do you think! If the Priest feels like it, why not give it a try? Just for you, I’ll specially teach you everything about my Hero Punch!”
I believe I answered, I’ll pass.
At the time I had dismissed it as nothing more than a sentimental remark from a girl who had only just entered puberty. But if I had known things would turn out like this, I should have at least learned how to throw a proper punch back then.
Such a belated, hazy regret flickered through my mind.
“A mere creation dares—!”
My fist throbbed. From the pain alone, I suspected at least a hairline fracture. The back of my hand registered no sensation of having touched living flesh. Only a heavy, dull ache remained, as if I had shattered a thin mirror.
I deliberately avoided looking at my knuckles, where unknown shards were embedded and blood dripped steadily. Everyone knows a wound hurts worse once you stare at it.
“How could a lower-realm insect like you possibly touch my true form!? More importantly, how are you still sane!? Receiving that much grace should have turned you into a vegetable instantly!”
Whatever I had sent flying with my pathetic punch suddenly screamed from afar.
At first I had assumed it was nothing more than an illusion born of my own feeble mind. That was why I had been able to throw my full strength into the blow. But apparently I was wrong.
It was too late to pretend I didn’t know what was happening, so I decided to brazen it out.
“Who the hell are you, and why are you speaking as if you’re me?”
I had once been an adventurer. I knew the basic rule: never show weakness when facing something suspicious. Besides, this was a dungeon—a hellish place where letting your guard down for even a second could cost you an arm or a leg. Revealing an opening here would be beyond stupid.
Or so I thought.
“Hic… hic! P-Priest… I-I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
The shocking sight before me was enough to bleach every thought from my head.
It was no hazy dream or blurry memory.
She—the Hero—was crying.
Even as she desperately called my name, her vacant eyes chased nothing but empty air. It wasn’t hard to tell her mind was broken.
The usual dignified bearing was gone without a trace. She looked utterly wretched. Who could possibly see the pitiful girl collapsed there, unable to find anything to lean on, and recognize her as the Hero?
By the time that thought crossed my mind, my exhausted legs were already carrying me slowly toward her.
“Hero…”
Just as my blood-stained hand, lifted without thinking, began to reach for her—
“Don’t you dare touch my vessel—!!!”
A furious voice suddenly tore through my consciousness. The owner of that ugly snarl was the unidentified thing I had punched away.
Grab.
A hand brimming with savage strength seized my arm. Hadn’t I just reminded myself not to lower my guard in a dungeon? There was no time for self-reproach.
Like a syringe jammed straight into a vein, an overwhelming white presence surged from its arm into my body.
“This ■■■ has personally come to deliver divine punishment!”
A noise like someone shoving a cotton swab into my ear scraped past, followed by a crushing pressure as if a transcendent being were pressing down on my soul from above, sealing my throat. An invisible hand seemed to have gripped my heart and was forcibly accelerating my blood flow. A painful, all-too-familiar sensation.
So familiar, in fact, that I had grown utterly sick of it.
“Even if this is only a makeshift body formed by scattering a few physical fragments, to swing that filthy fist before my sacred presence! To dare defile the vessel I worked so hard to obtain! For such blasphemy, consider it an honor to perish by my noble hand, you mere creation! Hahaha! Ha… Huh…? What…?”
Any adventurer worth his salt knows never to show weakness before something suspicious. That was what the older adventurers had hammered into me when I was still a fledgling.
Unfortunately, I had always been weak by nature, and my talent for intimidation was practically nonexistent. No matter how fiercely I glared, how rough I made my voice, or how much I tried to show off, it all came off as awkward and clumsy. The threatening face I had practiced for hours would regularly make my comrades burst into laughter when I was tired.
After the day Apis delivered her scathing remark—that I looked like a toy dog yapping at a full-grown mastiff—I gave up on it entirely.
Even now, I had no idea what expression I was supposed to be wearing.
“W-why…! Why isn’t it working!? This is impossible! I poured in enough holy power to bleach an ordinary human’s soul white! Why… isn’t it…?”
Just as I slowly turned my gaze toward the face of the creature gripping my arm, it suddenly fell silent. Immediately after, I felt the strength draining from the hand clamped around my wrist.
“W-what is this!? What are those eyes!? I am a great being on an entirely different level from lowly creatures like you! Even if only a fragment of my power is manifested, something like you should be—! Just one f-finger! One finger is enough to—!”
The frantic way it spat out whatever came to mind was the very picture of a terrified human. Its appearance, as if someone had sloppily pasted a rigid mask over a soft face, looked like a cracked facial pack. I nearly laughed despite myself.
A smirk. The right corner of my mouth curved into an unnatural arc.
Right after that, as if it had seen something it shouldn’t, it began stumbling backward.
“H-hii!”
But the pathetic escape attempt ended in failure. The moment it released my arm, I seized its in return.
“I-if you lay even one filthy finger on this body, I will imprison your sinful soul in an abyss where no light has ever reached, for all eternity! It’s not too late! If you release that unclean hand right now, I’ll generously deduct only ten years from your remaining lifespan—”
“Was it you?”
“H-huh? W-what?”
“Did you make her cry?”
Crack.
A menacing sound leaked unintentionally from my tensed knuckles. Soon after, the mask-like fragments covering its face crumbled like dry sand and scattered across the floor.
Beyond the broken mask was the figure of a woman who, by any objective measure, could be called quite beautiful. And it was painfully obvious that her face was drenched in raw, overwhelming terror.