#007 Teacher
#007 Teacher
While eating alone with Lucius, I asked him about the village chief.
"So the grandfather who took you in was on terrible terms with the village chief?"
"Yes. They say the two of them were on quite bad terms over the chief's wife. Though in the end, she did become the chief's wife."
"Hm."
I scanned Lucius's house.
Traces of another man, someone different from Lucius, remained all over the place.
His touch was domestic and warm, filled with every consideration so that Lucius could quietly keep living even after being left alone.
'He must have been a good person.'
People inevitably leave traces of themselves in the places where they live.
The guardian who raised Lucius must have had an enormous influence on how he grew up.
'Which is why it gets stolen away by a man like the village chief.'
Compared to him, the village chief was truly revolting.
With the eyes of a man who had fooled around with plenty of women in his youth, he was entertaining strange delusions about me.
'I can picture it.'
Had the woman who became the chief's wife actually chosen the chief, or had she been chosen?
If Lucius were ever put in that kind of situation, someone might have done something awful to his lover behind his back.
She might have tearfully given up on him, saying she was no longer someone who could stay by his side.
As a rule, the world works in a way where good people get the short end of the stick.
'But that's none of my business.'
The chief's romantic mess wasn't what mattered to me.
What really mattered was the Holy Sword.
"About the Holy Sword. It was pretty impressive."
"Now that you've seen it, what do you think? Is it a Holy Sword?"
"...It's still too early to make a judgment. I think I'll need to stay a few more days and confirm."
Actually, I already know.
It was a Holy Sword.
Its distinctive shape matched my memory too exactly for it to be a fake.
If it had been a fake or just an ordinary Holy Sword in the first place, my heart wouldn't have suddenly felt phantom pain.
'It's definitely not a fake. I know.'
The Holy Sword here was real.
Everyone called it fake only because the Holy Sword's true form had never been revealed.
Because it's stuck in the ground in a sealed state.
'I had to do something.'
Either destroy the Holy Sword.
Or make the person who uses the Holy Sword my ally.
Unfortunately, I was undead, so I couldn't wield a Holy Sword.
Even if its influence didn't purify me, a Holy Sword ultimately needed a living master, so its wielder had to be someone who wasn't undead.
"Lucius, have you ever tried lifting the Holy Sword?"
"Huh? Ah, no. The young men of the village all try lifting it once on the day of their coming-of-age ceremony."
"You haven't tried it yet?"
That was unexpected.
"Aren't you an adult? You still haven't tried the Holy Sword?"
"No. I'll be given a chance to try it once tomorrow, on the day of the coming-of-age ceremony, but...."
Lucius smiled bitterly and sipped his tea.
"But what difference would it make? Haha, as if someone like me could be a Hero."
"You told me you could do anything for me, but lifting the Holy Sword is where you draw the line?"
"...That's not something I can do just because I want to."
Lucius shook his head self-deprecatingly.
"Hey, Lucius."
I thumped my chest.
"If you want to become a Hero, want me to make it happen?"
"Is that possible?"
"If you truly wish for it."
I lowered my voice and reached out to him.
"Do you know what qualities a Hero needs? Overwhelming swordsmanship? I can teach you that. Powerful strength? The Holy Sword will support your power, so that's fine, and you can develop it going forward. Being a Hero is—"
Thump.
I lightly pressed my fist against Lucius's solar plexus.
"This is it. Right here."
"......."
"So? Do you want to do it?"
"May I really receive such an honor?"
"Of course."
If not a top-tier pushover like you, who else would lift the Holy Sword in my place and become a Hero?
I swallowed the rest of my words and patted Lucius's shoulder.
"You can do it. Maybe this is fate. As a witch who has awakened once more to seal the Demon King, the first person I met in the Holy Sword Village—you—is the Hero."
"If someone else had met you first...."
"I still would have chosen you."
Because you're a pushover.
"I've lived for a long time. I can say with certainty that I have a good eye for people. How many Heroes do you think I've met over the years?"
The Heroes I've personally buried could circle the training grounds three times.
"But you should know this. A Hero isn't decided by someone else. I'm someone who provides an opportunity among the many who have the qualities of a Hero, and the one who makes the choice is you."
You are the Hero you choose to be.
Endure with grit and sheer stubbornness and become my slave.
"Do you want to become a Hero?"
"......I still don't know anything."
Lucius knelt before me on one knee, like a knight.
"Then would you teach me how?"
"The way?"
"How to grow stronger, how to wield the Holy Sword, and... what I should do as a Hero. Please show me the way."
"If that's what you want, gladly. But first, we have to do this."
I rose from my seat, picked up a wooden stick that was in the house, and placed it on top of Lucius's head.
"Will you become my disciple?"
"...Yes!"
"Will you receive my teachings, follow my orders, and stake your life for me?"
"......Yes!"
As expected, a pushover.
To go along with such a one-sided slave contract.
'I don't even need a Geas.'
For a guy like this, his conscience was the Geas.
There's no need to cast a compulsion spell, and I shouldn't.
Because....
This guy was easily one of the top three pushovers I’d ever seen!
"Good. Then from now on, you are my disciple."
"Then should I keep calling you ‘Witch’?"
"Hm...."
Witch.
It sounded a little odd, but it wasn't bad.
"Call me that only when it's just the two of us. If my identity is exposed, others might interrogate you about me."
"Ah!"
"Don't ‘ah’ me."
"Then...."
Lucius shyly and carefully opened his mouth.
"Would it be all right if I called you Master?"
"Master? That works."
"Ah.... Hahah...."
Apparently, Lucius had never followed anyone as a master before.
Well, if there were even a church in a backwater village like this, the church priest might teach letters as a form of volunteer work, but this place didn't seem to be like that either.
That made things even more convenient.
I could control Lucius however I pleased.
"B-but, Witch... what if I can't lift the Holy Sword...?"
"What?"
"Then wouldn't I be unable to become a Hero?"
"Puhaha!!"
I burst out laughing.
I absolutely couldn't hold back the laughter, and I lightly tapped Lucius's head with the stick.
"What are you worried about? It's true that those who wield a Holy Sword are Heroes, but not every Hero has wielded a Holy Sword."
"Huh?"
"I told you. The quality of a Hero is this."
I lightly placed my hand on Lucius's chest.
"From this very moment that you've resolved to become a Hero, you are a Hero. Don't worry. I have all the methods to cultivate whatever strength you lack."
"Ah...."
"All you have to do is follow me. Understood?"
"...Yes!!"
Lucius beamed like a gentle lamb.
* * *
"The red-haired witch's blood!!!"
"Haah, this is insane."
The chief's wife had completely lost her mind.
The chief couldn't tell whether it was jealousy triggered by a young woman entering the village, whether she had gone mad comparing her beautiful younger self to her miserable present, or whether she had received some kind of revelation sincerely commanding her to offer the red-haired witch as a sacrifice.
"Father, what should we do?"
"For now, we'll keep her tied up and wait."
The chief and the chief's son tied up the chief's wife and began an emergency meeting.
With the coming-of-age ceremony the next day and the chief's wife acting like this, the two of them might have to handle the entire ceremony themselves.
The ceremony could proceed.
The only worry was whether she would keep raving like this even after the ceremony was over.
"What about trying it once, as Mother says?"
"What? Offer up the red-haired witch? That young girl?"
"We don't know yet whether she's young or not, do we? Whether she's a suitable sacrifice...."
Heh.
The chief's son rubbed his fingertips together with a sinister smile.
"We'll have to see with our own eyes to know."
"......Haah, you."
"Father, don't worry. I'll mobilize my younger brothers and check."
"You're not going to stop at just checking."
"At the exact moment of midnight, we'll hold the real coming-of-age ceremony. Hehe...."
The chief covered his face with his hand.
His son had a thoroughly sinister gleam in his eyes, but the chief couldn't exactly stop him. In a village this small, there were almost no secrets the chief could keep.
Not even from his own son.
"She'll be at Lucius's house. She'll be asleep, so will it be all right?"
"Of course. What's Lucius, anyway? He's just a guy who's decent at hunting and shooting a bow. Me and three of the boys will rush him first, then tie him up or knock him out."
It was criminal conduct, but the chief's son spoke of it boldly, without a shred of hesitation.
"Father, I'll check first. Who knows? If we really offer her as a sacrifice, maybe Mother will come back to her senses."
"...Ugh."
"What's the matter? It's not like this is the first time."
"......Haah."
The chief carefully rose from his seat.
"Do it, and call me too."
* * *
Night fell.
While I was sleeping in Lucius's bed.
Rustle.
Near the house, the sound of footsteps could be heard.
Several sets of footsteps.