Prologue
Reclaim the world.
That was the fate laid upon me. But I was tired now.
"I can't keep doing this."
I am the Hero. Chosen by the Holy Sword, I was told to vanquish the Demon King. And so I became the Hero. I had lived with my eyes on nothing but that single goal—kill the Demon King.
Then companions found their way to me.
Carn, second prince of the kingdom, known as the Sword Demon for wielding a blade like something not human. Angelica, whom the Church acclaimed as the finest master of divine power among every Saintess in its history. Lea, named by the Mage Tower as candidate for the next Tower Master, wielder of every variety of high magic. Lucia, the elf who bore the World Tree's aura and boasted archery without peer. And me. Tati, Hero of the Holy Sword.
At first, we managed well enough. We took commissions from the Adventurers' Guild, and when foreign nations called, we met the Demon King's army in the field ourselves. We even fought the ones known as the Four Heavenly Kings.
They were far too strong, and I faced them with my companions' strength joined to mine. Sometimes retreat was the only choice, and we ran for it—pathetic as that looked.
It happened on a certain day, around the time I had begun to feel myself drifting alone at the edge of the party. I overheard the others talking. Everyone but me.
"Don't you think the Hero is being far too much? Couldn't he loosen up a little and actually enjoy life, the way a Hero should?"
"What can you do? He's a perfect specimen of the rigid human. I liked him once, but at this point it would've been better if Carn had simply become the Hero."
"That's true. The Hero is strong as he stands now, but he hasn't anything you could call teamwork. And His Highness had the makings of a Hero from the very start."
"Enough of that. Unlike the rest of you—or myself—he lived his life in the gutter. If a man like that was permitted to become the Hero, he must want to serve humanity more than any of us."
"Well, yes. Thanks to him, the rest of us get to rest in the back."
An easy life, if ever there was one. The Demon King's army stood right in front of us, and Prince Carn had the women of the party gathered in his arms, with nothing better to do than speak ill of me.
Ah. Right.
The Hero was me. It was never any of you.
The Hero's duty had rested on me alone. The party members were nothing but extras.
Little by little, I wore down. I was someone who had lived in solitude since childhood. No—in truth, it didn't matter. So long as they didn't get in my way, the party was good enough.
Even so, where had it gone wrong? Had I chosen the wrong companions from the very beginning? The farther we went, the more sick to death I grew of people.
To my face, Carn always smiled and swore he felt not so much as a handful of regret at having yielded the Hero's seat to me. Behind my back, he spoke of me with pity, and laughed.
Lea always brought her strategies to me when we stood face to face. Turn around, and she was clinging to Carn, flattering him without a shred of shame.
Angelica insisted the Saintess and the Hero could never be parted, that the bond between them mattered above all else—then leaned in to whisper sweetly to Carn, urging him to become the Hero himself.
Lucia, who had set out beside a human Hero's party as one of the noble people of the World Tree, was haughty in the extreme whether she stood before me or behind my back.
Fine. Endure it, somehow. Catch the Demon King, and it would be over. That was what I told myself. Humanity's fate rested on my shoulders regardless. When everything was finished, rewards and all the rest be damned—I would go quietly down to the countryside and live. So I had thought.
I believed I could hold on a little longer. I should have been able to.
Days of running with no feeling at all, eyes fixed on nothing but the road ahead.
"Ah, fuck."
Even patience had a limit. I had a Demon King to kill, and it was not the monsters standing in the way. The Hero's own companions were the greater hindrance. Simply being there was a hindrance. Had they only fooled around in the rear, I would not have said a word.
Fucking morons, gulping down every last coin of the party stipend the kingdom provided. Trash more vicious than the Demon King—weren't they?
I would kill the Demon King. I had lived on that single conviction alone. Then what was I supposed to do with this trash?
Kill them?
Yes. That, in fact, was the problem. Those bastards were mere extras, padding to fill the headcount. I could accept that much. I had already thrown away any expectation of them; force them to act and they would only get in the way, and the gulf between our strengths was, in truth, enormous.
And yet I could not kill them. That was what it meant to hold this Holy Sword.
No. From the very start, I was angrier at this Holy Sword than at the party. I was not free to take life as I pleased—not when the other side was human. That was why the anger burned. The useless party was not even worth killing. It was the Holy Sword. This Holy Sword was the problem.
Because that is what a Hero is. Even a villain must be reformed, and even if some human proved to be a bastard no better than a demon, the sort who deserved to be beaten to death, you were still required to hand him over to the state.
That was when the question struck me.
Did I even need to be the Hero? If this was how it was going to be, couldn't I quit and go kill the Demon King on my own? Wouldn't it be better to drive the whole lot of them out?
No. The Holy Sword was in my hand regardless.
Then—should I simply hand the Holy Sword over to Carn?
This goddamn Holy Sword was what blocked the road ahead. Any road would do, so long as it reached the destination. Even without the Holy Sword, if I could only kill the Demon King, wasn't that enough?
So there was only one thing I could do.
"What? Why'd you call us?"
Sword Demon Carn. Archmage Lea. Saintess Angelica. Divine Archer Lucia.
All of them had gathered. Give them this much—they were remarkably good at showing up when I called them in a serious voice, if only out of curiosity over what might fall into their laps.
And yet they asked why I had summoned them, inconvenience written plain across their faces. Wasn't it obvious? This was something I should perhaps have done long ago. I might be far too late.