Prologue: No Place for You
“From the next expedition on, there’s no place for you. Leon.”
For a moment, I couldn’t even understand what I’d just heard.
Kael’s face was completely unbothered.
Sitting across the table with his hands folded, he looked at me without a trace of hesitation or apology. Beneath neatly cut navy hair, his features were sharp and clean; his shoulders sat straight, and even out of armor, the solid build of him was impossible to hide.
Anyone could see he was a Hero.
He’d been that way from the first day he showed his face at the guild.
People turned to watch when he walked past. When he drew his sword, every mouth went quiet. The first true Hero the Empire had seen in decades—chosen by the Holy Sword, the man who, in three months, had broken through territory we hadn’t managed to cross in four years.
And now he was the leader of the party that used to be mine.
“……What?”
When I finally managed to speak, Kael opened his mouth again as if he’d expected exactly that reaction.
“I’d like you to leave the party, effective today.”
Silence.
Outside the window, a carriage rolled past.
The sound of hooves on stone faded into the distance, and from the floor below came the laughter of drunk adventurers.
It was an ordinary evening. Too ordinary.
That was what made it feel so strange.
Four years of my life had just been cut away, and the world, knowing nothing of it, kept moving on as if nothing had happened.
I looked slowly around the table.
Estelle.
Irene.
Sila.
Not one of the three looked surprised.
Only then did my throat close up.
“……You all knew?”
No one answered right away.
In that silence, a small movement caught my eye.
Estelle’s hands.
Folded neatly on her knees, they fretted against each other—her right thumb rubbing the knuckle of her left index finger.
The tiny tell she always showed when she was nervous.
I knew that habit.
Of course I did.
The dazzling blonde hair, the large blue eyes, the slender frame that somehow still looked too young for the heavy saint’s robes—I’d seen all of it until I was sick of it.
They called her the Saint, but she was a strangely mismatched woman for the title. She always pushed herself to the front of everything.
She couldn’t walk past a crying child on the road. If she saw an injured animal, she had to treat it first no matter how tight the schedule. When people started fighting, she stepped between them and tried somehow to make peace, and she genuinely believed that if everyone just gave a little, they could all be happy in the end.
Kind to the point of foolishness.
And because of that, sometimes cruel.
But back then, I still couldn’t see that far.
Only one thing was clear.
Estelle knew about my expulsion.
And she’d known long before today.
“Estelle.”
Her thin shoulders flinched.
“You too?”
Those blue eyes flicked toward me for a second, then dropped.
I waited.
For her to say no.
That she’d been against it.
That this was Kael’s decision alone.
Or, if not that—then just to stand up and come to my side.
Because it was Estelle. No one else.
The night I killed a person for the first time and threw up until dawn, I’d been the one beside her.
The night she cried like a child that she was a Saint who was supposed to save people and had killed one instead—I’d listened until morning to her rambling that even if the whole world was wrong, she at least had to save everyone.
Even when the villagers threw stones at her for trying to save plague patients.
I had always been on Estelle’s side.
Always saying roughly the same things.
It’s okay.
You’re not wrong.
So just once.
Really, just once.
You could do the same for me, couldn’t you?
Estelle finally lifted her head.
The rims of her eyes were already red.
Looking like she might cry at any second, she said,
“……I’m sorry.”
Something in the center of my chest went cold.
“Leon, you’re strong, so……”
Her voice wavered at the end.
“You’ll be fine on your own. I’m sure of it.”
I didn’t answer.
As if my silence frightened her, Estelle rushed to add more.
“And it’s not like this is forever. We’ve known each other so long…… Just because the party changes doesn’t mean we stop being friends.”
The corners of her mouth kept trembling as she tried to force a smile.
“So let’s…… end this on good terms.”
Good terms.
The words stuck strangely in my ear.
Sorry didn’t mean she was against it.
You’ll be fine didn’t mean she would hold on to me.
And staying friends—
in the end, that just meant get out of the party.
Only then did I understand.
Estelle didn’t want me unhurt.
In a situation where someone already had to be hurt, she wanted no one to become the villain.
If even I could smile and understand, then today’s events would simply become a beautiful parting for everyone’s sake.
“What are you staring at?”
A sharp voice cut through the space between us.
Irene.
Through black hair that fell to her waist, red eyes looked straight at me.
Irene had a pretty face, but when she wasn’t smiling she always looked like she was picking a fight. The slightly upturned corners of her eyes and those red irises especially, and she had no intention of softening that impression.
Her pride was stronger than anyone’s.
When she lost, she shot targets all night. When she met an archer better than herself, she memorized their name first.
She could forget a failed commission, but she never forgot the face of anyone who had laughed at her.
That Irene looked at me with her arms crossed.
“I voted for it too.”
She didn’t hide it.
“……Why.”
“Because I want to win.”
An instant answer.
So simple it left me speechless.
Irene leaned forward, lifting her back from the chair.
“Leon. Do you remember what we said when we first made this party?”
I remembered.
As if I could forget.
“We said we’d kill the Demon King.”
She answered for me.
“So how far did we get in four years?”
“……”
“We couldn’t even cross the Northern Border.”
Irene’s gaze shifted toward Kael.
Those red eyes held a trust that couldn’t be denied.
“Three months after Kael joined, we took down two high-ranking demonkin, and this time we even got the northern passage permit. From the next expedition, we can actually enter the Demon Realm.”
She looked at me again.
“I’m choosing that side.”
Her voice was cold, but there was no mockery in it.
That only made it hurt more.
“Places we couldn’t reach with you in four years—we can go there now.”
After a brief silence, Irene added,
“I don’t have a reason to throw that away.”
An old scene flickered through my mind.
The day we first left the Capital.
We were so broke we split one rock-hard loaf of bread four ways.
Irene had bragged that she’d be the first to put an arrow through the Demon King’s eye.
Sila got motion sickness ten minutes after the carriage started and threw up by the roadside.
Estelle went after her to rub her back and ended up throwing up too, and I laughed for a long time.
Back then, we didn’t have a real Hero.
Estelle’s holy power was still too raw to call her a Saint. Irene claimed she could hit a rabbit at a hundred meters with her eyes closed, then sent three arrows straight into empty air.
Sila got so excited about her first successful fire spell that she burned off her own bangs.
And somehow, it was still fun.
We thought we could make it.
The four of us.
A little slow, maybe—but someday.
Then a real Hero appeared.
And the possibility we’d believed in for four years, he turned into reality in just three months.
“I’ve already reviewed the combat composition.”
Kael spoke.
Unlike Irene, he didn’t put emotion into his words.
From the beginning until now, even the pitch of his voice had barely changed.
“From the next expedition, we enter the Demon Realm. The demons there will be on a different level from anything we’ve faced so far.”
“So I’m dead weight.”
“I won’t use that phrasing.”
Kael’s eyes turned to me.
“But if we’re moving with a limited roster, we have to choose the more efficient composition.”
I wanted to argue.
But no voice came out.
Kael was the real thing.
He fought with his life on the line, and in the most dangerous moments he always raised his sword first.
He’d even taken down demonkin alone that the rest of us had struggled against.
If he’d been a cowardly fraud, it would have been easier.
If he’d lied to steal my place, I could at least have been furious without holding back.
But the man in front of me believed he was right.
The Demon King had to die.
For that, he needed the strongest party possible.
And in that choice, I simply hadn’t made the cut.
“And.”
Kael paused briefly.
“This wasn’t my decision alone.”
That cut away the last excuse I still had left.
I looked at Sila.
White hair.
Pale skin.
And pure white eyes, as if the color had been drained out of them.
Even sitting under the lamplight, she looked like someone who’d put on a blindfold alone.
Those white eyes were simply looking out the window. Chin propped on her hand.
More precisely, she seemed to be watching a small moth stuck to the glass.
In the middle of all this.
A moth.
A moment later the moth flew off, and Sila’s gaze followed it.
“Sila.”
Kael called her name.
“Mm.”
Only then did Sila look at us.
“State your opinion again.”
“Hmm……”
Sila tilted her head slightly.
It was the exact same face she made when deciding what to order.
“Kael said this was better, Irene said it was fine, and Estelle didn’t oppose it, so.”
“That’s your opinion?”
When I asked, Sila thought for a second.
“Yeah.”
Then, out of nowhere, she pointed a finger at the window.
“And they say there’s an aurora up north.”
“……”
“I want to see it once.”
For a moment I almost laughed out loud.
She wasn’t mocking me.
Sila really was like that.
She’d save a whole village and still not understand why people were grateful. She’d take an expensive medal and use it as a pot rest.
If someone called her a genius, she yawned. Start talking about magic and she could go three days without food and not notice.
She had no interest in most of the world.
Including the lines people drew between each other.
And that made her crueler still.
Sila looked at me for a moment, then waved her hand lightly with her usual blank expression.
“It was fun while it lasted.”
She thought a second longer, then added one more line.
“Next time we meet, let’s get tea.”
It was so casual.
And only then did everything become painfully clear.
Kael had decided.
Estelle wanted a parting where no one became the villain.
Irene had chosen the stronger path.
Sila barely even cared that this was the end.
And I—
had known nothing.
While everyone else was already imagining a tomorrow without me,
I alone had believed we would keep going together.
My lips trembled.
If I stayed sitting any longer, they’d notice, so I stood.
The chair legs scraped roughly across the floor.
“Fine.”
My voice came out better than I expected.
“I’ll get out of your way.”
“Leon……”
Estelle shot to her feet.
Half a step.
Really, just half a step.
Whether she’d meant to follow me or had simply stood out of habit, I couldn’t tell.
Her blue eyes wavered.
“I didn’t want you to leave like this…… smiling..!”
“Smiling?”
The word left my mouth before I could stop it.
Estelle’s face went stiff.
I waited.
Her lips moved soundlessly.
“I just……”
In the end, that was all that came out.
“I don’t want us to end hating each other.”
For a while I couldn’t say anything.
Then a laugh rose up.
No sound came with it.
It was such an Estelle answer.
Even in the moment she was sending me away,
what she feared most was that I would come to hate her.
No—that she would stop being a good person.
“Yeah.”
I nodded.
“I figured you’d say that.”
Estelle’s face went pale.
“Leon, that’s not—”
“Enough.”
If I listened any more, I was going to get truly ugly.
Why didn’t you choose me.
Is four years all this was worth.
Come with me.
Especially to Estelle—
I wanted to beg her for just one word.
Don’t go.
I need you.
It’s okay.
But the second I let that out of my mouth, it felt like everything really would be over.
“Leon.”
This time it was Kael.
Clink.
A heavy leather pouch landed on the table.
Gold coins glinted through the opening.
“Take it.”
I looked down at it.
“What is this.”
“Your share. Settled from the party funds.”
Kael was matter-of-fact.
“It should be enough for you to get by alone for a while.”
Gold.
Not a small amount.
Probably more than we’d earned in the entire first half-year after forming the party.
Back then we’d slept in stables to save a few copper coins.
When Estelle’s shoe soles wore through, I bought her a new pair and went three days without dinner. When Irene wanted a new bow, we all took two commissions a day.
Once Sila had her face pressed to a glass window staring at some old grimoire, and in the end we scraped together every last coin we had to buy it for her.
That was how we lived.
Because we had no money.
No.
Because we were together.
Those four years
now sat in front of me as a single leather pouch.
“I don’t need it.”
“Take it.”
“I said no.”
“It’s the portion you contributed.”
There was neither pity nor insult in Kael’s voice.
Just the attitude of settling what needed to be settled.
That made it even harder to bear.
My hand moved first.
Thud.
The leather pouch hit the floor.
The knot came loose and a few gold coins spilled out, rolling across the wooden boards.
Clink.
Clink.
No one moved.
One coin bumped against Estelle’s toe and stopped.
I looked at it, then turned my eyes to Kael.
“You take it.”
“Leon.”
“I wasn’t needed after you showed up, right?”
For the first time, Kael’s brow shifted—just a fraction.
But I didn’t look any longer.
I headed for the door.
“Leon…”
Estelle called from behind me.
I didn’t stop.
“Wait……!”
Footsteps.
One step.
Without meaning to, my hand froze on the doorknob.
And then—
Silence.
That was all.
Whether someone had held Estelle back,
or she’d stopped herself,
I didn’t turn around, so I couldn’t know.
Still, I waited.
Without even knowing why I was waiting.
Just one more step.
One more step would have been enough.
I didn’t even know what that could have changed.
But still—
I hoped she would come.
No one did.
I opened the door.
The cold air of the corridor brushed my face.
Click.
The door shut.
And just like that, four years were over.
With nothing more than the sound of a single door closing.
Even as I walked to the end of the hall, my ears stayed turned behind me.
Once as I went down the stairs.
Again as I stepped out of the inn.
Wondering if I might hear the door open.
If someone might call my name.
Leon.
Wait.
I hadn’t even decided what I’d do if I heard that one line.
I stood in front of the inn for a long time.
Until the cold wind chilled my body and my fingertips went numb.
In the end, no one came out.
That was how I was abandoned.
Replaced by Kael.
Not chosen by Estelle.
Judged worthless by Irene.
And to Sila, someone who could leave and it wouldn’t matter.
So I thought I would probably hate them for a long time.
Maybe for the rest of my life.
I didn’t know then.
That a person’s heart is more vicious than you’d think—
and more fickle than you’d think.
Wounds heal.
Even waiting comes to an end.
And even rage, if you hold it long enough, eventually wears itself out.
And words that once felt as desperate as life itself
can arrive too late and no longer be needed.
The words I so desperately wanted to hear that day.
Don’t go.
I need you.
Come back.
Someday, a day will come when I hear all of them.
Only by then,
I’ll probably answer like this.
Thank you.
I’m really glad.
But.
I think
I’ll be okay now.