Prologue
In the shabby dining room of a cheap inn, a deep sigh settled over the creaking table.
"Haaah... This is just plain absurd."
The party members watching him shook their heads as if they had seen it all before.
"Here we go again."
Beside him, the knight polishing his sword—Gerard—clicked his tongue.
"Don't tell me it's that same worthless complaint again about there being no women in the party?"
"That's the default option! This time I've got a far more serious reason!"
The man called Zick shot to his feet in protest, spreading both hands as if deeply wronged.
"Hey, we're supposed to be a Hero Party saving the world, right?"
"That's right."
"So why the hell are we stuck in the corner of this rundown restaurant instead of the luxurious imperial capital?!"
At Zick's cry, the porter who managed the party's finances, Reno, pushed up his glasses and calmly delivered the hard truth.
"Well, Sir Zick. Our party's achievements are pathetic compared to every other hero party on the continent. No achievements means little support funding, so of course we stay in places like this to cut costs."
"No—why are there even other heroes scattered all over the place besides me in the first place?! Not one or two of them—why hundreds?!"
As Zick clutched at his hair, the party's eldest member, the elderly mage Ainz, softly closed the grimoire he had been studying.
"Haven't I already answered that question several times, young Zick?"
"...Here we go again."
Zick made a thoroughly fed-up face, but Ainz paid him no mind and lightly tapped his staff.
"To summarize, it is quite simple. First: the Demon King has grown far too strong."
"That's true."
Reno nodded.
"Second: accordingly, the Demon King's armies have swelled beyond control."
"Right."
This time Gerard agreed.
"Third: the gods, in a panic, began mass-producing heroes left and right."
"......"
"And you, too, are one of those 'mass-produced heroes.'"
Under Ainz's merciless confirmation kill, Zick muttered emptily.
"Do the gods of this world not understand the concept of wasting talent?"
At that moment, Reno pointed a finger at one section of the map spread across the table.
"In reality, the Demon King's forces dwarf humanity's territory. The gods must have fire under their feet."
"Even so, for someone called a hero, the treatment is way too stingy!"
Watching the grumbling Zick, Gerard added dryly,
"The initial support funds came out pretty generously, though."
"Huh?"
"Who was the idiot hero who poured every last coin into refugee relief?"
Zick's expression stiffened. Seeing the clearly guilty look on his face, the priest Noah—who had been praying quietly—interjected in a gentle voice.
"Sir Gerard, please do not scold the Hero too harshly. He was only granting my earnest request."
"Who said I was scolding Zick?"
Gerard furrowed his brow.
"I'm saying that because of that guy's moral vanity, our party is this poor wreck of a mess. That is simply stating facts."
"Vanity is way too harsh!"
Zick yelled.
"But thanks to sitting on a mountain of debt, we got a priest joining the party! Without Noah's heals, we'd have been wiped out several times already!"
"Hmph."
Gerard whipped his head away and roughly shoved his polished sword into its sheath.
Right then—
Creeeak—
With an unpleasant scraping sound, the dining room door swung open. A small-statured goblin walked in, green skin thickly coated in dirt and dust. Several daggers hanging at his waist clinked softly with each step.
"Hero sir."
Drake, the party's scout and thief, approached with a smirk.
"I finally caught the scent. Found traces of the Demon King's army nearby."
"Really?!"
Zick sprang up like a coiled spring.
"Where? How big?"
"Half a day's journey northeast of here."
Drake roughly tapped the old map.
"Confirmed their march route and campsite. For now it's only a small force at scout level."
He bared his teeth and twisted his lips into a bizarre grin.
"But if luck's with us, this time we might finally rack up some proper 'hero-like achievements.'"
At those words, a faint smile spread across Zick's lips. Even though he was a dime-a-dozen hero with a dirt-poor party, a warmth bloomed in a corner of his chest. He looked around at his companions with high spirits and asked,
"Alright. So—anyone here with complaints about this party?"
Ainz answered first as he packed away his grimoire.
"None."
Reno pushed up his glasses and closed the ledger.
"I am quite satisfied."
Noah hugged the scripture to his chest and smiled like an angel.
"I believe our party is the greatest bond the gods themselves have forged."
Gerard crossed his arms and spat out bluntly,
"None."
Finally Drake dragged over an empty chair, sat, and tapped his dagger.
"Complaints, huh."
He chuckled.
"They feed me on time, let me sleep under a roof, and most of all I'm still alive and not dead yet? From a thief's perspective, it's a pretty decent job. Hero sir."
Zick grinned widely. Strangely enough, that was true. Poor, obscure, with none of the glamorous halo surrounding other lavish heroes—yet with these bizarre, incomplete guys, he felt as if he could overcome any hardship.
"Then let's go!"
Zick finally raised his sword and shouted boldly.
"To catch the Demon King!"
As if I had become a true hero destined to save the world, I shouted with full confidence.
At the time, I had no idea.
I—who every night lamented why there wasn't a single woman in our party, why I always had to be stuck among these stinking men and monster guys—was in fact surrounded layer upon layer by the continent's greatest beauties.
And that the complete idiot who never noticed their true identities until the very last moment... was none other than me.