The Hero (3)
"Who even are you?"
Now that I thought about it, I hadn't even gotten his name yet.
The moment the door thudded shut, I sharpened my voice into a blade and demanded an answer.
"What's this? Hospitality mode over already?"
"Answer me. Who the hell are you?"
"The fact that you still don't recognize me... Amnesia, perhaps?"
"..."
My mouth clamped shut.
Fair enough — anyone who actually knew Yulia would have noticed something was off about my condition within seconds.
Because I was an entirely different person inside, that's why.
"Or maybe something like possession, then."
"..."
"Either way, I'd say the Saintess I knew is already dead and gone."
The man gently took a handful of my hair, lifted it to his face, and sniffed it.
The strange smile that crept across his lips in that instant was utterly repulsive.
I knew nothing about this man, yet he knew everything about me, down to the last detail.
It was the worst possible situation.
"Take your hands off my head."
"You've gotten even cuter than before."
"What are you even saying..."
Cute, my ass.
There was a man under all this.
And then, a stray thought: would he still treat me the same if he knew that?
"Hmm. The soundproofing in this room is pretty terrible, isn't it?"
"Whisper all you like — nothing carries to the next room over."
"I wasn't planning on whispering."
The man flicked his fingers with a snap.
And sure enough, the sounds that had been drifting in from the rooms on either side simply... stopped. As though time itself had frozen, the surroundings fell silent in an instant.
"Why so surprised? It's just a basic barrier."
"Huh? I wasn't surprised, though?"
"You have absolutely no knowledge of magic, do you."
"I do, actually? I know plenty about magic?"
"Sure, sure. Of course you do."
"..."
This was bad.
I'd shown my whole hand.
I might as well have been standing on a street corner advertising, Hi, I know absolutely nothing — feel free to exploit me, I'm a complete idiot.
The man brushed past me, still trembling, dropped himself onto the bed with a thump, and began taking off his shoes.
"Aaanyway. I believe you asked who I was?"
"..."
"My name is Leopard. Feel free to shorten it to Leo."
"I won't be calling you anything."
"So cold. But wait — does that name ring any bells?"
"What?"
He grinned broadly, staring straight at my face.
Apparently, the name Leopard was rather famous.
But with the cat already out of the bag about me being a clueless idiot, I had nothing left to lose by admitting it.
"You really don't know? Ah. Wow, your memory's been wiped all the way back to newborn-baby levels, huh. Leopard is the name of the Hero."
"Ohh. Right. The Hero's name..."
So that's what it was.
The one who slew the Demon King long ago and brought peace to the world...
But Leopard studied my reaction, then apparently couldn't hold back his laughter any longer and started snickering.
Now what?
He had a real talent for making people uneasy, this bastard.
"Real classy, pulling that stunt. Waving the Hero's name around while trashing a tavern."
"No, seriously, you still don't get it, Yulia?"
"Now what?"
"It's me. It's me — Leo the Hero."
"Uh...?"
"Ahahaha! Whew, holding that laugh in nearly killed me! Figured it out now, have you?"
The man suddenly rolled across the bed, cackling wildly.
And through all of it, I just stood there dumbfounded, unable to fully process what was happening.
Leo the Hero.
No — Leopard the Hero.
That bastard was the Hero himself?
"Th-that's impossible. The Hero clearly, fifty years ago..."
"It's me, I'm telling you. My age... I'd be about sixty-eight now? Or no, sixty-nine? Well, seeing as my old-age pension hasn't kicked in, I must not be seventy yet."
"..."
Sixty-something, with that face.
I knew long-lived races like elves existed in this world, but I'd never once imagined that someone wearing the perfect form of a human could be that old.
Was the so-called Hero's Blessing holding back his aging, or something?
But then again — what kind of Hero barges into a tavern to spout pickup lines? What was this nonsense?
I genuinely started to wonder if his Hero title shouldn't be revoked.
"A useless sword still drawing breath in an age of peace."
The irritation surged up before I could stop it, and the words just tumbled out of my mouth.
Even as I said them, I startled myself.
Poking that man's nerves could do me no good whatsoever.
But the words were already out, and holding back now would only leave me choking on them.
"Everyone smiles and grovels to your face, but behind your back, every single one of them is thinking exactly what I just said. It's grating, you know? How admirable and heroic it would've been if you'd died a glorious death slaying the Demon King in the Human-Demon War. Instead, you survived — shamefully, with your absurdly long lifespan — and now you spend your days pulling degenerate stunts and being a public nuisance. What is this, huh? What was it — House Dragonia sponsors you? I bet they see you as nothing more than a hired thug with some muscle. Or no. A time bomb that could go off at any moment. Yeah. That's what they're thinking."
"..."
At some point, the sly, crooked grin had vanished from Leopard's face, replaced by a frigid blankness.
By the time regret set in, it was already far too late.
In one breath, I had spat out everything festering inside me — so completely that it actually felt cleansing.
What would the readers of this novel think, seeing the Hero after the ending?
If this story had come out as a side story, someone would absolutely have commented: Ugh, if he was going to turn out like this, why didn't the author just kill off the protagonist at the ending?
"You've definitely gotten cuter, but now you've grown spikes? That one stung a little."
"Good, if it stung."
"And that's exactly why I like it. I thought I'd already won you over once — and then you came back to me all on your own, sharper than before."
A vicious grin spread across the man's lips.
Not the sly, over-familiar smile of a gigolo charming a woman from before — this one was something far more sinister, hiding nothing of his desire at all.
A lunatic.
The type of pervert who beats a game, whines that it's boring, cranks the difficulty up by himself, and plays through it again.
'Wait. "I'd already won you over once"?'
What had I just heard?
Now there was something I needed to confirm.
"You. What were you to me?"
"You want to know?"
"No. Not really."
"You do want to know. Be honest, and I'll tell you."
"...I want to know."
I bent my pride a little.
It wasn't like he was asking me to crawl between his legs or anything...
"Hmm. Was that too easy? If you crawl between my legs, then I'll tell y—"
"You motherf—!"
"Sorry, sorry. My bad. I'll tell you."
The man smiled a smile so revolting it made my stomach turn just to look at.
Apparently, he'd recovered his composure.
"You were my woman once, Yulia."
"Your woman?"
"Don't play dumb. You were my lover."
"Blegh. I dated a grandfather like you? No way."
The bile rose in my throat.
By Korean standards, that was like dating a sixty-eight-year-old geezer.
What on earth could the Saintess possibly have been missing that she'd date a fossil like him?
It was absurd. It had to be absurd.
"You still don't believe me, do you? Then shall I tell you? About how you used to whisper your love to me every single night..."
"Shut up. I don't want to hear an old fossil's made-up erotica."
"A fossil? That hurts my feelings a little?"
"Like you even have feelings to h—huk?!"
Leopard's hand slid around behind my waist, and with that iron grip, he yanked me toward him.
The sudden pull sent me pitching forward, and I collapsed straight down — landing in a position where I'd shoved this detestable man onto the bed and climbed on top of him.
I scrambled to push myself back up in shock, but the hand locked around my waist held me utterly immobile.
"I mean it. It breaks my heart, seeing how devoted you used to be, changed into this. So I've been thinking — I'd like to give you your memories back. What do you say?"
Breaks your heart?
What a load of crap.
Flushing red and panting like a dog in heat, not even trying to hide that face of his.
"I don't need memories or any of it. The last thing I want is to remember someone like you."
"Your opinion doesn't matter."
"...?!"
The world spun.
In a heartbeat, the positions flipped — I was pinned underneath him now, being descended upon.
Both my wrists were caught in his grip, his knee forcing its way between my legs. There was nowhere to run.
Wiggling my fingers at him and glaring was the absolute limit of my resistance.
"Who knows? Maybe making love will bring the memories back?"
"Like hell it would!"
"Well, we won't know until we try, will we? Shall we do it exactly like we used to? Let's find out whether you still moan the same way you did back then."
"..."
Hot breath washed against the nape of my neck.
If this went on, I'd be violated.
Reduced to a machine that could do nothing but moan helplessly, unable to resist.
The memory of myself sprawled on the floor, gasping and panting, flashed through my mind — the fear came flooding back, and with it, a thick, creeping revulsion toward my own body.
If I didn't want to be violated again, I had to think. Fast.
Think. Stay calm.
No — think faster than calm.
What was his weakness?
My jab about him being nothing more than a mercenary thug who should have died at the ending had made him flinch, ever so slightly — but that was all. If I brought it up again, the only thing that would change was my violation going from a gentle one to a merciless, brutal one.
So were there no other weaknesses?
'None. I'm going out of my mind.'
At some point, the man was licking at my collarbone while his hand started hiking up my skirt.
Nothing.
I had a thousand weaknesses he could exploit; he had none that I could.
And yet — there was exactly one gamble that came to mind.
I wasn't sure it would work.
But at this point, it was the only card I had left.
"Tia will be coming up soon, you know..."
"..."
The moment I murmured it, choking up on cue, the man's movements froze.
He had been strangely silent about Tia this whole time.
If an old lover had a daughter in tow, curiosity would have been the natural response. And yet he had meticulously, almost obsessively, steered clear of every topic that could lead to Tia.
"Damn it all."
"..."
The gamble had landed.
His face was contorted, as though he'd just heard something utterly repulsive.
Then he pulled himself up and turned his back on me.
If my real worry were Tia interrupting, all he'd have to do is lock the door and put up that sound barrier — problem solved. No, the truth was that merely the sound of Tia made disgust surge up in him. I didn't know why, but of that much, at least, I was certain.
"I'll come back later. Stay healthy."
"..."
Without so much as a glance back at me, he calmly began putting on his shoes.
It was such a small, hunched back — like that of someone grumbling quietly to himself.
After fussing with his laces for a long moment, he stood, gave a flick of his hand —
— and the noise and voices beyond the walls, forgotten until now, came flooding back.
"Oh, and don't even think about running. I have ways of finding you."
"..."
The door thudded shut, and his footsteps faded into the distance.
For a long while, relief left me unable to breathe properly.
Thank God... I hadn't been violated again...