Those Kids Seem Like Heroes
“Killing a 2nd-Rank demon—what a mess to come back to.”
The Principal flopped into a chair in the conference room and slapped his forehead.
He had already issued his orders to the security force and the clergy, and now he had summoned us, the Chair Professors.
The summoning of Astaroth had momentarily ripped the souls out of over fifteen hundred people.
Victims ranged from ordinary spectators lodging in the Academy Territory to the security force and the faculty alike, and the clergy had been rushed in to treat and heal them.
It was an incident of staggering scale, so the Silver-Blue Festival was halted on the spot.
“Sneaking a spell into their bodies through the local food to evade detection. I never would have imagined such a trick.”
“It was undeniably cunning.”
“Still, we were fortunate the casualties were light! And we owe that entirely to Professor Phedia, do we not?”
Vande boomed in his thunderous voice.
“Given the circumstances, I must ask you professors to remain on standby as well. Professor Vande, please coordinate the staff. Professor Setanta, could you assist with the purification work?”
“Of course. Why else would I carry this holy staff around?”
“Professor Alencia is unwell, so I can hardly order her here. Whew—I'll need to prepare an official statement for the various nations. Professor Phedia, thanks to you we can finally breathe. If you hadn't struck him down on the spot... I shudder just imagining what would have happened.”
“I'd like to discuss that matter in detail. Could you prepare a secure room for us?”
“Just what I was hoping for.”
The Principal and I moved elsewhere—down into the basement of the tower, to a security chamber warded by dozens of overlapping barriers, sealed off completely from the outside world. It was the same room where the council with the Emperor himself had been held during the entrance ceremony.
Thud. He shut the heavy iron door, and we faced each other.
“That settles it, then. The Academy is under attack by demons.”
“I agree. And not just one demon—it will be a legion.”
“A legion?”
“The demon I faced was Grand Duke Astaroth, a lackey of the demon queen known as the Succubus Queen. I saw no personal goal or will of his own, which suggests he was acting on orders.”
“The demon queen... you mean a 1st-Rank. If a queen is our enemy, that amounts to an entire demon legion being our enemy. Isn't that a catastrophic situation! Aren't these beings terribly dangerous?”
“Comparing individual to individual, the queen is more dangerous than the Demon King himself. We were lucky that today's 2nd-Rank demon was an incomplete summoning—he couldn't even draw on twenty percent of his power.”
“Why would they target the Academy?”
“That, I'm afraid, is the realm of speculation.”
Even I didn't have precise knowledge of the DLC's contents.
It hadn't been long since its official release, and I'd been transmigrated before the wiki articles were fully fleshed out.
Wikis were always littered with abandoned stubs, most of their proper nouns still grayed-out links.
The real reason I'd brought the Principal down to the security chamber was to dig out a certain piece of information.
I decided to toss out the bait.
“You say the heroes were the objective.”
“Heroes. A plausible motive, I grant you. Hmm... but the timing doesn't fit. I could believe it for this raid, but at the entrance ceremony there was no reason to attack yet, wouldn't you say?”
The clue I'd been hoping to hear from him had just surfaced.
When I'd spoken the word 'heroes,' the Principal had talked as though he were thinking of someone other than .
“That sounds remarkably like you're saying the Academy has heroes in it.”
“Ah, no need to worry. Anything spoken in this security chamber never leaves it.”
“There's something I've wanted to ask for a while now.”
“What is it?”
“What made you place such trust in my claim that I was the teacher of the heroes?”
“There was an oracle from the Goddess. She said that among the rumors in the Empire's southeast, some would prove true.”
“Is the oracle delivered by a priest?”
“That is so.”
“A priest belonging to the Academy's church?”
“A high priest. We keep five of them, and an oracle is only considered valid—and acted upon—when three or more receive the same one.”
“That's useful to know.”
“Setting aside the demon queen's motives as guesswork for now—how ought we to respond?”
“The security force should expand its ranks with demon hunters and clergy. Capable ones, at that.”
“I imagine public recruitment would draw plenty of demon hunters. But the priests, now that the Holy Kingdom is gone, we'd have no choice but to procure them from the Holy State. They must be church-affiliated, after all.”
“If you push it through politics, you'll end up entangled with the Empire too—a headache, wouldn't you say? Try looking among the adventurers instead.”
“Don't most adventurers choose the healer path rather than the priest?”
Healer and priest are professions with similar skills and mechanics. The difference boils down to church affiliation, little else.
Since adventurers rarely settle in one place, they seldom join a church, and most take the healer route.
But when the enemy is demons, the calculus shifts slightly. A priest bound to an organized religion holds a natural advantage over a healer.
“I have a place in mind. Leave it to me.”
“As reassuring as ever! I'm in your debt.”
Leaving the security chamber, I stepped out of the faculty tower.
Next, I went looking for the three girls. Tia and Yuri were easy enough to find—they were using magic and healing arts to help the security force sort out the aftermath.
“Tia, have you seen Luca?”
“Oh—she was nearby just a moment ago. Shall we look together?”
“No need. Go inside and rest.”
“Hmph, resting is boring anyway. Don't worry about us—go take care of Luca.”
“Alright, then.”
After that I wandered a fair while searching for Luca, until I finally reached the Academy's main gate.
The Silver-Blue Festival had been cancelled, and the crowd of spectators was dispersing in a scatterbrained shuffle.
Weaving through such a mass of people grew a bit tiresome.
“Professor! They say you slew a 2nd-Rank demon!”
“Professor Phedia, could it be—you're the Sword Saint?!”
“Professor, please, just a word—!”
A handful of students came rushing over, grabbing at my arms this way and that, making a nuisance of themselves.
“Has anyone seen a student called Lucas?”
“Lucas? He was over that way.”
“I think he was directing traffic.”
“More importantly, how did you cut down a 2nd-Rank?!”
“If you're that curious, take my Dungeon Studies course.”
Having shaken off the students and started walking, this time a pack of mages came chasing after me.
“Isn't that him? The Chair Professor who lectured on Mana Lending Theory!”
“An autograph! I need his signature on my thesis!”
“Professor Phedia! A brief word of counsel, if you would—!”
“Won't you take a personal disciple?!”
This was going to kill me.
Mages are slow runners, so shaking them off wasn't hard. I sprinted off in the direction the students had pointed.
And at the end of it, I spotted a head of eye-catching blue hair.
“Luca.”
Luca turned to look at me with her usual expression.
She had been in the middle of waving hello to a small child who appeared to be a spectator.
“Who's that?”
“She was lost, so I helped her find her way.”
“Good work.”
“Anyone could have done it.”
“But you did it.”
“Still... Tia and Yuri are so much help.”
“The dark magic spells—you're the one who's been blocking them, aren't you?”
“I didn't even know they were dark magic.”
“Good work.”
“They said I ruined Tia's presentation.”
“If that presentation had gone ahead with those ingredients, it would've been a disaster. Noticing it first and acting on it—that was excellent.”
“Hmm....”
Luca's voice had no strength in it.
“But from now on, talk to me first, alright?”
“...Um, mister.”
Luca looked up at me with unsteady eyes.
“Did I... do well?”
It was the first time I could remember seeing Luca anxious, and it sat strangely with me.
If I'd known this would happen, I should have looked after her more. It was true that the Silver-Blue Festival presentations had kept me from giving her much attention.
“Luca.”
“Yes.”
“There are things Tia and Yuri do well, and things you do well.”
“That's true.”
“I'm proud of you. Don't be impatient.”
“But... I was jealous of Yuri. Even now she can purify dark magic, and I can only do things like this.”
“Look. That child, see how happy she is?”
The child Luca had guided back was walking off hand in hand with her parents on either side, her face brimming with smiles.
“...So she found them.”
“You were the very first to notice something was wrong this time, too. You have good instincts, Luca.”
“I do?”
Luca seemed willing to accept my words, at least to a degree. As if anyone in the world had better instincts than she did.
Luca watched the child's back until she disappeared from view, then asked me:
“Mister, what were your mom and dad like?”
“Barely remember them. I was orphaned very young.”
“Same as me.”
“Before you became a slave, you mean?”
“Yes. Long before I was kidnapped.”
That was news to me. Naturally, it would never have been written in the wiki, either.
“What were they like?”
“I don't really remember either. It's fine. I had you, mister.”
“Then I should thank you.”
Luca pressed her lips together as though she'd misspoken.
“No—forget I said that. You're not my parents, mister.”
“I suppose not. Your new family must have come from wherever you were adopted.”
“That unnie... matters to me too. Yes.”
Something in Luca's words struck a faint wrong note.
“Luca, let me check—right now, on the family register, is that unnie your only family?”
“Yes.”
“Is that unnie the Sword Saint, Aisha?”
Luca stared at me and blinked. She furrowed her brow for a moment, then seemed to think hard through this and that.
“No.”
That was the answer Luca gave in the end.
I understood well enough what it meant, so I decided not to press her further.
Thanks to Luca chasing down the dark mage on her own initiative this time, the number of people affected by the demon summoning ritual had dropped dramatically.
The reason Astaroth had been weaker than his true self was Luca's strike.
I'd gone on a date with Tia and Yuri at the festival, so if I left Luca out entirely, she'd sulk—no question about it.
I suspected a mere outing was a paltry reward for what she'd done, but I brought it up anyway.
“Luca, let's go have some fun this weekend.”
“Fun?”
“Yeah. Can't go far—probably just Katetown.”
“...Okay.”
“It's a promise. Just the two of us, having a good time.”
“Yes.”
Luca's expression brightened. And then she wrapped both arms around my waist and hugged me tight.
It was a habit from when she was small—only back then she'd been hugging my thighs. She'd certainly grown.
I lightly stroked Luca's hair. She'd always liked the touch of my hand. If you listened closely, she was purring through her nose, which was a little funny.
In her faintly fluttering hair, I felt as though I could still see traces of that old gold.
***
The next day, I summoned the Sword Saint Aisha and seated her in my office.
“Thank you for responding to the sudden summons. I intend to appoint you as supervisor for the Dungeon Studies lectures going forward, so I'd like to walk you through how the course runs.”
“...Yes.”
Aisha looked somehow gaunt compared to yesterday. Perhaps she'd caught an eye infection—her eyelids were swollen red.
“Are you well? It seems you're suffering some aftereffect from the battle with the demon. Shall I send word to the clergy?”
“...I'm healthy. I've never once been sickly in my life.”
“Then I'm glad, but—”
“...My child never catches small illnesses, either.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Then let me begin with the curriculum.”
I showed Aisha the materials I'd prepared. True to her sense of responsibility, she grasped the lecture content at once.
“So you intend to take the students into other nations' dungeons as well.”
“The Academy's students are excellent. A fair number are already capable of challenging a mid-tier dungeon ten floors deep. The problem is safety.”
“You are rather overprotective, Professor.”
“I really am overprotective of exactly three of them: Lucas, Testia, and Yuri.”
“Er... pardon?”
I rested both hands on the desk and leaned my face in close to Aisha. I could see her swallow nervously.
“This is Caesus Academy. You are not an imperial general here, Sword Saint—you are an instructor. And I am a Chair Professor.”
“Th... that is so.”
“On that premise, may I ask you a single question?”
“Depending on the question...”
The real reason I had called Aisha here was to ask this one thing.
I asked her.
“When did the three of them become heroes?”