The Demon Castle Has Fallen. Today. Definitely Today.
A few days earlier — the Demon Castle.
“That's it. It's over. Took long enough. Anything left to say, Demon King?”
Deep in the darkest reaches of the Demon Realm, where only shadow and death existed, the colossal Demon Castle stood in all its terrible majesty.
On its highest floor stood four figures.
Anything left to say…
His body mostly destroyed, dissolving into the darkness, the Demon King murmured his final words.
Come at me one at a time, you cowardly bastards…
Thus the strongest of all demonkind — the one who had once ruled over every evil in existence and dreamed of dominating the entire continent — crumbled into dust.
“It's… over?”
“We won.”
“Yeah. Clean sweep.”
The three heroes lowered their weapons.
They turned to look at one another, smiles breaking across their faces, then rushed together into a single embrace.
“Luca, Yuri! You both worked so hard!”
“You too, Tia! That finish was absolutely amazing!”
“Fufu. He was weaker than I expected, that Demon King.”
Two years of constant campaigning had worn the three of them down, but none of them carried any serious wounds.
It hadn't been the Goddess's blessing, nor any miracle. They had reached this place on nothing but their own pure ability, and they had felled the Demon King without ever facing true peril.
“Long, if you want to call it that. I never thought it'd take two whole years.”
Yellow — Luca — flicked the Holy Sword in a flashy flourish before sheathing it.
Her voice, if you closed your eyes, still belonged to a handsome, androgynous youth — but her appearance had transformed into that of a strikingly feminine beauty.
The golden hair that had once blazed like the sun now lingered only as a faint trace, replaced by a lustrous, shimmering blue.
“Still, I'm so glad the three of us were together. I mean, look at how much everyone's changed! If we'd passed each other on the street two years ago, none of us would've recognized the others. Even I was shocked!”
Black — Tia — linked arms with the other two, a refreshing smile on her face as her flowing golden hair swayed.
The skin and hair that had once been dyed pitch-black by dark mana poisoning showed no trace of it now.
If anything, years of circulating pure, healthy mana through her body had made her the most vibrant, radiant elf either of them had ever seen.
“Right? Right! Hngg… it was hard, but I loved every bit of it. I was so surprised at first, you know. For me and Tia it was just a natural thing, but Luca's hair is still fascinating to me even now.”
White — Yuri — perked her large ears straight up. Fully grown now, they had taken on a shape unmistakably a wolf's rather than a dog's.
Her once snow-white hair had deepened naturally toward a soft pink as she matured, tinted by the hormones her growth had released.
“The Sword Saint's body takes on the properties of whatever aura she wields. And you use ice-attribute aura, Luca.”
“Keeps me cool in summer. It's nice.”
“I've heard it so many times, but it's still too difficult for me to really understand… Still, the Sword Saint! Luca, you're amazing!”
“You're one to talk. You're a Saintess, and Tia's the Sage.”
“Ehehe, well… the Goddess does scold me every time I pray.”
Yuri scratched her head. Mounted on her hand was a gauntlet of vicious, brutal design.
To anyone with eyes, it was clearly meant for pummeling things, not for praying.
“'True healing means removing the source of the wound'… I wonder what the Eastern lands are really like.”
“I want to go there someday, if the chance comes!”
“We've slain the Demon King. We can travel anywhere now.”
“True. Oh — but if we do travel, I want to start with the countries where you two grew up! I've always wanted to see the Magic Tower where Tia lived, too.”
“Boring place, for all its reputation. And they'd pester me endlessly, so I'm not planning on going back for a while.”
Tia straightened her spellbook and staff as she pulled off her oversized, floppy wizard's hat.
“You're not going back? Then…?”
“I told you, remember? Once my duty as a hero was done, there's something I've always wanted to do.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Luca felt the same as Tia. And Yuri understood the feeling instantly.
The day the three of them had been chosen as heroes in that dungeon — the day they parted from Wicker.
The knight commander, determined to force the termination of their contracts, had moved to kill Wicker the moment he laid eyes on him.
Killing the owner didn't immediately erase a slave's status, but it was a necessary precondition.
And the moment Wicker fell, the three of them lost their minds.
Yuri clung to Wicker's fallen body and wrung out mana that wasn't there, casting healing spell after healing spell until she was on the verge of collapse. Luca's eyes lit with fire and she hurled herself at the knights on the spot.
Tia wracked her brain for any way to turn the situation around.
One thing was certain: to those knights, the three of them mattered enormously.
If they could be leveraged as bargaining chips, then this was the only way.
Tia pressed a blade to her own throat, cut the artery halfway open, and threatened them.
Save him right now — or the heroes, the whole lot of us, die here and now!
Only then did the knight commander realize they were bound by something far deeper than master and servant.
But he was no pushover either. Exploiting the fact that they were only children, he made a condition: he would spare Wicker's life, and in exchange they would come with him.
Their hearts pounding, the three obeyed — and left Wicker behind.
Only later did they learn they'd been deceived, dragged away under unfair terms — but by then the hero's duty had already been imposed upon them.
Heroes bore the fate of the entire human world, of every nation upon it.
Without them, when the Demon King arose, an unimaginable number of people would have died.
The three listened to long lectures on their duty, and reached a conclusion.
They could not run away.
They accepted the path of the hero, and to prepare for the coming war with the Demon Realm, they scattered to the nations best suited to their talents.
Luca trained under the Empire's Sword Saint. Tia went to the Magic Tower of the Magic State. Yuri was sent to a monastery in the Holy State.
But there was one thing none of the three would ever bend on.
Even now, having been chosen as heroes, the world saw them only through the lens of that title.
The only person who had ever seen them as people — who had treated them with kindness — was Wicker.
The time they'd spent with him had been a single year. But to the three of them, it remained the happiest experience of their lives, one they would never forget as long as they lived.
The proof was written plainly above their heads, even now.
⚔ Slave Lucas ⚔
⚔ Slave Testia ⚔
⚔ Slave Yuri ⚔
Slave — the lowest of the low, a five-skull profession.
Any of the three could have forcibly dissolved their slave contract at any moment, could have swapped their nametag for Hero, Sword Saint, or Sage. Yet they kept it exactly as it was.
Because it was proof that their bond with Wicker still endured.
It was also the reason the world kept the heroes' identities secret. What nation on earth could proudly introduce three people whose nametags read not Hero but Slave?
The three had begged, when they accepted the hero's mantle, that they be allowed to see their master again — but it was denied on grounds of secrecy.
In the end, they decided that if the nations ever moved against Wicker because of them, they would keep his existence hidden from every state, entrusting his protection only to those they could truly trust.
Wicker's safety was never guaranteed — but more than once, that arrangement saved his life.
Thirteen years. Training without rest, studying, mastering magic, praying — and at last, slaying the Demon King.
Their duty as heroes was done. Moments ago, they had been freed from that long obligation.
From now on, they could do whatever they wished.
Every one of them had waited for this moment, and so the three shared the exact same emotion.
“Ehehe, now I'm curious. Tia, what do you want to do from here?”
“Me? Hmm… that's still a secret. I was cooped up in that tower so long I thought I'd suffocate. And with the Tower Master being my grandfather, everyone else kept me at arm's length — secrecy, this and that — so I never even got to meet anyone.”
Tia twirled her thick, gathered golden hair as she answered, a touch bashfully.
“What about you, Luca? You're the hero who saved the world — isn't the Empire supposed to offer you a position? I heard you even know the Emperor.”
“Met him once as a kid. That's it. Until I met you two, all I ever did was train in the mountains. But what I want to do is crystal clear.”
Luca's golden eyes did not waver.
“Yes, yes! We can achieve anything now. Peace has come to the world, after all. And the Goddess said she'd grant us a wish as a reward for protecting the human realm!”
“Really? She'll even grant miracles?”
“Ah — hold on a moment.”
Yuri clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and offered a brief prayer.
“She says we just mustn't cross the line. Shall we think about what we'd like to wish for?”
“Whoa, the Goddess is more generous than I expected. I hadn't even thought about getting a gift like this — put me in a good mood.”
“Hmm. I'd been wondering what to do from here on out… but if the Goddess grants a wish, things might resolve more easily than I thought.”
“Waaah, you've all already decided?! Ehehe… truthfully, I have a wish in mind too…. Then shall we pray together, right now?”
“What do I do? Clasp my hands like you and just think it, Yuri?”
“Yes! The Goddess is very wise — even if you say it vaguely, she'll understand everything.”
“Yeah. Let's do it.”
The three drew close, shoulders touching. Each clasped their own hands, closed their eyes with reverence.
Tock — their foreheads met in a gentle touch, and a warm current passed between them.
Three heroes, offering up the precious wishes they had each carried in their hearts.
The prayer was brief, but brimming with sincerity — and soon it was done.
And then.
“…Hm? What did you say?”
Yuri was the first to frown and open her eyes.
“Yuri? What's wrong?”
“She said she cannot grant it. Not for any of the three of us.”
“All three? Why not?”
“What's the reason, Goddess?”
After a moment, Yuri drew in a deep, shuddering breath and opened her eyes wide.
Tia sensed something deeply wrong in the glare Yuri fixed on her.
Etched into the face that had smiled warmly through every crisis of the two-year campaign was the raw instinct of a beast.
“What's she saying? Says she can't because we're hungry?”
Luca asked, completely misreading the mood. Yuri answered the two of them with a trembling voice.
“Um — Luca, Tia. What exactly did you wish for?”
“Uh, hm? Nothing special. Just that now that my duty's done, I wanted the things I've been longing for to go smoothly, hopefully.”
“Same here.”
Yuri listened to their answers, then spoke slowly.
“She says it's because they're the same. That's why she can't grant them.”
“The same what?”
“She says the three of us wished for the same thing, so she cannot fulfill it.”
“…What?”
“Aha.”
Tia went pale, her mind blank with shock. Luca, by contrast, understood perfectly — and summed it up in a single sentence.
“So we all fell for Master.”
A frozen silence fell over them.
“What are you saying?! I never wished for anything like that!”
“Are you calling the Goddess a liar?”
Yuri's voice was ice. Tia, realizing her protests were getting nowhere, changed tactics instantly.
“You kept your nametags as slaves all this time because you were thinking of Master, weren't you? I did it to reminisce about our childhood!”
“Th-that was part of it! But what meaning is there in a life lived without even being a slave anymore? You know that better than anyone, Tia!”
“Agreed.”
“Then what — after all this, when we finally toppled the Demon King, the thing we were all going to go do was…”
“Confess to Master. And marry him.”
Luca was the first to say it, without a shred of hesitation.
“No.”
“Why?”
At Luca's declaration, Tia's bright expression vanished, shadow falling across her face.
“Because that was my plan.”
“It was, wasn't it.”
Tia felt hot breath on the back of her neck. Without her noticing, Yuri had come around behind her and was whispering into her ear.
“Tia, Luca. You two are more like sisters to me than blood ever was.”
“…Same. I was so happy when we met again.”
“Fufu, I feel exactly the same.”
The three confirmed their love for one another.
From their days as child slaves, through life and death together, and through all the years since their reunion as a hero party, their bond had never once wavered.
“Which is why.”
Sparks flew from Yuri's red eyes.
“I will not give up Master.”
Luca took a step forward as well.
“Glad we're on the same page.”
And last, Tia smiled.
“Then I suppose there's only one way to settle it.”
KWAAAAAANG—!!
With an earth-shaking roar, the battle began.
That day, the Demon Castle — built entirely of adamantine, renowned as the mightiest fortress on the continent — collapsed into powder and dust.