A Belated Realization
Where on earth did everything go wrong?
Creak, creak, creak—!
The bed rocked violently from side to side, filling the room with a racket that grated on the ears.
On top of it, a man sweated buckets as his flesh slammed against that of one woman after another.
"Grip me harder, damn it! Like a beast in heat—hungry for it!"
"Ahn! I-I'm sorry, sir!"
Smacking the bare buttocks of a woman wearing not so much as a thread, the man pawed greedily at her body. He rolled across the bed with the women draped all over him, spewing the most debauched words imaginable.
And beside that bed, laid aside and forced to watch the whole spectacle, was another presence entirely — the sacred Holy Sword, Aleyna.
There aren't enough hours in the day for training, and yet the Hero is spending his time swinging his hips on a bed? Is he out of his mind?
Aleyna groaned and lamented, her core wracked with agony. She had cried out her grievances thousands of times by now, screaming at the Hero to wake up and come to his senses — and it had all been meaningless. The Hero simply couldn't hear her voice.
He had only just barely scraped his way into the ranks of Sword Master, and reaching the realm where one could hear a sword's voice was a distant, distant matter for the future. Whether he would ever reach that realm at all was anyone's guess. He was weak enough that a high-ranked demon could assassinate him at any moment and no one would find it strange.
He needed to train harder than ever — and yet the Hero was drowning in women, neglecting his discipline.
Rian did it... no, if he had done even half of what Rian did, that would have been enough. Why won't he do it!
Aleyna's teeth ground together in fury. She ached to slap the Hero across the face, but she was merely a sword — there was nothing she could do. All she was permitted was to watch, her mind wearing itself down under the relentless stress of it.
"Whew! That was fun, everyone!"
"Hah...! Hah...! My Hero, could you hold me just one more time?"
"Hmm? It's about time we head for the next village."
"If there's anything you want, my Hero, I'll do anything at all! So... yes?"
"Haha! Well, then, I suppose I have no choice!"
Just when she thought it was finally over, the Hero, seduced by the women, would shake his hips yet again instead of his sword. From Aleyna's perspective, it was enough to turn her stomach.
Even now, countless people were dying in pain and suffering — and the Hero was in the middle of a vigorous breeding session. The act of creating new life was not inherently wrong, but it was not something that should take precedence over a Hero's duty.
And what of the money and food distributed to the Hero every month, wasted like this? Supplies meant for the salvation of suffering people were not granted for him to spend on debauchery. Yet the Hero squandered his provisions for private pleasure without a shred of guilt.
...Yes. I see it now. Rian was the one who was special.
Rian had been a healthy man just like the Hero, so it wasn't as though he had no interest in women. He was simply the kind of person who, when there was a goal to be achieved, restrained his own desires with iron discipline. His will was so unshakable that he even refused the seduction of a peerless beauty who had approached him hoping to leverage the Sword God's fame.
Back then, Aleyna had considered that much simply natural, nothing worth noting. But now, after taking on a new Hero and watching his every move, she had come to realize how wrong she had been. Human beings were simple creatures who could, surprisingly, fall easily to their desires — and those who endured them were the truly remarkable ones.
Rian was a man without a single flaw... and I didn't even recognize his efforts. I slandered him.
Aside from his self-control, Rian surpassed the Hero in every possible respect. He poured sweat into his training without missing a single day, never setting his sword down even as the blisters on his palms burst open. He kept his sleeping hours with clockwork precision and insisted on balanced meals for the sake of his health.
The current Hero, by contrast, sweated only on the bed, and the soles of his calluses barely reached his palms. His life was so dissolute that his sleep schedule swung wildly from day to day, and his meals consisted almost entirely of meat. Lately, if you pinched his lower belly between thumb and forefinger, the flesh actually gave.
That was how stark the difference between Rian and the Hero was, down to the smallest habits of daily life.
Yet toward a man she could hardly help but respect, she had hurled verbal abuse, berated him, and made his life miserable. Dragging up that past, Aleyna began to laugh hollowly at herself.
Rian was right. My judgment was worthless.
After being sold at the auction house, once she had returned to the Holy Kingdom, Aleyna had been firmly resolved. The previous Hero had been defeated by Rian, stripped of his qualification, and a new Hero had to be chosen.
Provoked as she had been by Rian, Aleyna had burned with determination to find a Hero who would surpass him. But there were fewer candidates for Hero than she had expected, and their caliber fell short of her hopes. Left with no alternative, she had chosen as her Hero a promising talent who might be weaker than Rian for the moment but showed exceptional gifts.
She had chosen hastily, without ever checking whether the roots of that promising sapling were rotten.
"Haha! We went at it so hard the sun's already setting. A shame, but we'll have to postpone departure until tomorrow."
"It can't be helped!"
"Well, it's not like the world will end because we're a day late."
"Early or late, you'll save the world someday, my Hero!"
"Hwahaha! See? You're the only ones who truly understand me!"
Wrapping his arms around the women he'd bedded, the Hero plunged into sleep. Aleyna, for her part, was left untouched by a human hand — not once that entire day.
The problem was that this situation was far from a one-time occurrence; it had already repeated dozens of times over. With no fury left to vent, Aleyna had at last attained a kind of enlightenment.
In the darkened room, she quietly, desperately called out one person's name.
Rian... Rian...
Aleyna cursed her past self. Without truly understanding anything, she had dismissed Rian's efforts and looked down on him. She had recoiled from him and hated him because he never lent an ear to a word she said. She had nagged him endlessly for being stubborn and obstinate — when the arrogant, insolent one had been her all along.
Having realized this far too late, she was now rotting away as the sword of a Hero she never wanted.
"Ugh...!"
What if she had been a little kinder to Rian? What if she had cheered him on earnestly as he worked, celebrated and rejoiced with him when he achieved his goals? What if, at the very least, she had comforted him when he suffered and soothed even a fraction of the wounds on his heart?
At the very least, this future would never have existed.
But Aleyna had not done any of those things — and that was why she was gnawing at herself now, just like this.
"Why did I do that to Rian...!"
Sniffling, the rims of her eyes going red, Aleyna ached with longing for the days she had spent at Rian's side. Her heightened perception, her aloof voice, the unfamiliar sensations — all of it.
Strange things were happening to Aleyna's body, and yet she herself had failed to notice the change.
"There's no going back to those days, is there."
All she could do was hug her knees and sink into the swamp of regret, drowning in pain. She believed she would never escape it.
But even the hours she spent blaming herself were destined to come to an end.
"Agh?!"
Her emotions surging, she had clenched her hand without thinking — and it was the pain that shot through her arm that finally brought her back to her senses. The sensation was impossibly soft flesh, something no sword could ever possess.
Her gaze, trailing slowly down from her head, landed on the body of a woman. Snow-white skin, swelling breasts, and slender legs met her eyes. Hair brushed against the small of her back, and only belatedly did she register the tickling sensation.
"This is... a human body?"
Running her hands over herself, Aleyna shot upright from where she lay. She turned to the mirror that stood in the room and peered into it.
The figure reflected there was not a sword, but a beautiful woman with flowing platinum hair. A slender face, a high-bridged nose, and within sharp, elegant eyes, amethyst-violet irises shimmered.
"Is... is this really me?"
Aleyna stumbled backward a few steps. The mirror, which had shown only her face, now revealed her entire form. A full, generous bust, a slim waist, hips flaring with seductive grace — and not an ounce of excess flesh to be found anywhere.
Not one of the women who had shared the Hero's bed came even close to Aleyna's figure and beauty.
"With this body... with this body alone...!"
"Aaargh! What's all the racket?!"
The Hero stirred awake at Aleyna's resolute voice, scratching his head groggily as he propped himself up. The eyes that had been growing moist with sentiment hardened to ice in an instant. They were the eyes of someone looking at filth.
...Now that I think of it, I wasn't alone in this room, was I.
"Huh? What are you talking about? More importantly, who are—hohk!"
The Hero, looking at Aleyna through half-lidded eyes, swallowed his breath without meaning to. Of all the women he had seen in his life, she was, by an overwhelming margin, the most beautiful. A woman who brought the word stunning unbidden to the lips had appeared out of nowhere in his very bedchamber. No man alive could fail to be startled by such a situation.
Of course, he ought to have considered the possibility of an assassin and stayed on guard. But the Hero, drunk on lust, was so captivated by Aleyna's beauty that even that basic common sense fled his mind. Instead, judging this a rare opportunity, he cleared his throat and addressed her.
"Haha! My, my, sneaking into another man's chamber without permission — you're a dangerous one, aren't you? Normally I'd have the guards on you at once, but if you'd care to share a cup of tea and give me a plausible explanation, I'll be magnanimous and let this little incident go unmentioned."
"My, how generous of you. As it happens, I've been wanting a word with you for some time now, o great Hero."
"Ohh? So you came seeking me, knowing I'm the Hero? Yes, indeed! I am the Hero, hailed as the hope of all humanity!"
"Lovely introduction. But from this moment on, you will never call yourself a Hero again."
"Pardon? What on earth do you mean?"
"Allow me to explain plainly. I, the Holy Sword Aleyna, hereby revoke your Hero qualification, effective immediately. And for embezzlement of relief supplies and dereliction of duty, you will spend the rest of your days rotting in the dungeon below!"
The Holy Sword had abandoned her Hero.
The Holy Sword had captured and imprisoned her own Hero — an unprecedented emergency without parallel in history. And she did not stop there. Walking back to the Kinel Holy Kingdom on her own two feet, the Holy Sword began by purging the corrupt priests.
All this time, Aleyna had known of the countless conspiracies swirling around the Holy Kingdom, yet she had possessed no means to resolve them. But now she had the Polymorph ability — and with it, she hunted down the guilty one by one.
Many were thrown into confusion by an execution spree led by the Holy Sword itself, yet not a single soul moved to stop her. The violet holy stone embedded above Aleyna's cleavage was the relic that proved she was indeed the Holy Sword. When the Holy Sword said to be forged by the Goddess declared she would mete out punishment herself, raising an objection was blasphemy.
Even the Pope, the highest authority in the Holy Kingdom, tacitly permitted Aleyna's every move — and so she made it known to everyone in Kinel that she was now the true power in the land.
Having finished the purge, Aleyna ascended the dais prepared in the Pope's palace and began to address the people of the Holy Kingdom.
"Thank you all for gathering, even amid your busy days."
"Lady Aleyna, what business brings you to summon us?"
"D-don't tell me you mean to kill us all as well...?"
"You fool! Why would she ever do that?!"
"Hohoho! Rest assured. The reason I've called you here is none other than this: to reveal who is the true Hero, chosen by the Goddess of Light, Lady Fraana herself."
The people of Kinel widened their eyes at the words true Hero and listened with rapt attention. Words spoken by the Holy Sword said to be forged by Goddess Fraana were, to them, the Goddess's own will and revelation.
"Who is the true Hero? I'm sure you're all dying to know. But before that, I intend to tell you why I stirred up such a storm of blood."
Not one among them had openly objected to the purge, but in their hearts, the people of Kinel had been anxious. A suspicion had even surfaced — what if the Holy Sword had fallen to corruption and was slaughtering the innocent?
Aleyna caught wind of those doubts and turned them to her own advantage.
"They cast out the Hero as a traitor to the Holy Kingdom, and for a very long time."
"What? The Hero — a traitor?"
"I-impossible! Something like that, within our own Holy Kingdom...!"
Aleyna's shocking declaration set the crowd murmuring. Some grew enraged and began cursing the purged men as lapdogs of the demons. Sensing the tide slowly turning her way, Aleyna put on a sorrowful expression.
"It was truly a deplorable affair. But while I worked to win your understanding, I could not know what schemes those villains might set in motion — so I had no choice but to stain my own hands."
"Ohhh! How could the world hold such noble convictions!"
"Lady Fraana! Punish me severely for ever having doubted Lady Aleyna!"
"Everyone — we have driven out those who slandered the Hero, but our own sin of doubting and rejecting him does not simply vanish. And so we must bring the Hero back to this sacred land, and beg his forgiveness!"
"She's right!"
"If we can only obtain the Hero's forgiveness, we'll do anything at all!"
"I shall go bring him here at once! Only tell us — who is the Hero?"
"The Hero's name is Rian. The man called the Sword God — he alone is the true Hero of this age!"
Proclaiming Rian the Hero before the entire nation, Aleyna stirred the crowds of Kinel into a frenzy to go and retrieve him.
Needless to say, there were lies woven into her tale. Goddess Fraana had never chosen Rian as a Hero, and Rian had become a wanted man for the perfectly legitimate crime of stealing the Holy Sword.
But Aleyna remade Rian into a tragic Hero and spread the tale far and wide. The people of the Kinel Holy Kingdom, convinced the Holy Sword could never tell a lie, worshipped Aleyna blindly and praised Rian to the skies.
Thus, in the span of a single day, the Holy Kingdom of Kinel — guardian of an ancient and venerable tradition — passed into the hands of one woman.
Rian, I was a foolish sword. To realize only now that you were the one and only person fit to wield me — how utterly dense I've been. It's terribly late, but I want to apologize with all my heart. If only you would forgive me, I would offer you even this entire country. So please, I beg you—
Aleyna bit down hard on her lip.
She was disgusted with herself for demanding something from Rian all over again, even now. Inflicting pain on herself until fresh blood burst from her lip, she afterward lifted her gaze faintly toward the sky.
In Aleyna's eyes, Rian's face was painted against the endless blue.
Ironically, the Holy Sword could not forget the Sword God who had sold her away.