Betrayed by My Subordinates, I Thought It Was All Over—Now Laughing with the Imperial Princess. What a Strange World.
Even when I learned I'd been betrayed by my subordinates, I thought everything was finished. But now here I am, laughing and chatting with the imperial princess. What a wondrous world.
I think I get why mystery seekers devote their lives to uncovering the world's secrets. The world is overflowing with the unknown.
Oh no.
Strekl slowed his pace. He was matching his physical abilities to Bayola's as closely as possible. The princess had probably never tested the limits of her own body. At most, maybe some basic archery? Given the Muet Empire's tendencies, any physical labor would involve blood—and the princess absolutely couldn't afford to see blood—so she'd likely avoided anything strenuous altogether.
Bayola already possessed every qualification to be a knight. What she needed was to overcome her hemophobia and learn how to wield her own body. Remarkably, both were things Strekl could provide.
The flag owner's fight against the hyenas had begun. Strekl considered picking up speed, but soon realized he didn't need to. The flag owner was holding her own better than expected.
"A woman?"
The hood covering her head slipped off, revealing long hair. Gender didn't matter. In battle, Strekl treated men, women, young, and old equally—he killed them all the same. What stood out more was the woman's skill. She darted nimbly through the crowd, slashing flesh with her dagger in impressive fashion.
Lacks decisiveness.
She'd had several chances to strike vital points but hadn't. It was the telltale sign of someone who hadn't killed before—or wasn't used to it. An inefficient way to fight, one that could turn even a non-lethal battle deadly. If one of his knights fought like that, he'd break their arm to correct the habit. But this was a stranger. All he asked was that she hold out until he arrived.
Rebella narrowed her eyes, watching Strekl run, and spoke up.
"He's restricting his physical abilities. Precisely to the princess's level."
Up close, he looked incredibly fast, but his actual speed wasn't that high. Fast compared to an ordinary person, sure—but considering Strekl's capabilities, he could run much faster. Right now, he was even slower than Revela.
Rebella's guess solidified when Strekl joined the fray. In his full plate armor, he only needed to block attacks aimed at his neck and face. With his helmet on, he'd be a monster charging through even knight-level strikes. But Strekl deliberately blocked, dodged, and parried weapons coming his way. Each time he deflected one, its owner lost their grip—and followed up with a slash that spilled blood and dropped them.
A knight versus mere bandits. A superhuman versus humans. The fight wasn't even fair from the start.
The key was Bayola. What she saw in Strekl's movements and what she learned from them.
Bayola's face had gone pale at the sight of blood, but she didn't faint. From this distance, it didn't even register as real blood. Even Bayola, who'd tried every trick to conquer her phobia, hadn't realized it weakened with distance.
My hemophobia started right after seeing that up close.
Her older brothers—well into adulthood—had played "pranks" that crossed every line. One morning, Bayola woke to see her pet cat hanging from a tree branch outside her window: limbs severed, entrails looped around its neck like a noose. They'd hung the gruesome corpse right there for her to find. That was the birth of her phobia. She never kept another pet after that.
So she focused on Strekl's movements instead of the spurting blood. They were impossibly graceful for such a burly man's frame. Bayola realized he wasn't just mimicking her physical limits.
That's the ideal me.
There was no other way to put it. Strekl flowed like a dancer, seamless motions felling the bandits. The "dance" ended before the first verse. They were too pathetic to withstand a superhuman's blade.
But the fight wasn't over.
"Kyaa!"
Bayola cried out. The flag owner woman targeted Strekl's back as he turned to look their way. To ambush a knight like him required wearing him down first, distracting him from behind, then striking from the side with a trusted subordinate's blade. He wouldn't let an attack from some un-knighted fool land.
Clang!
The metallic clash echoed—maybe real, maybe imagined. The woman bounced back like a cat, spun in midair, landed, and charged Strekl again. This time, he didn't overpower her—instead, he entangled weapons in a flurry of attack and defense. No need to ask who it was for.
"This just got interesting. Let's hurry."
Marhal broke into a sprint, with Revela and Bayola following.
"...?"
Bayola and Revela exchanged glances mid-run.
"Rebella, are we going too slow?"
"No. We're moving at a good clip. An ordinary person couldn't keep up."
"Then what's that?"
Marhal was pulling ahead of them. He didn't even look winded. His limbs moved lightly, yet his body shot forward effortlessly.
"I've given up trying to understand him. If he's truly friends with the Hero and learned techniques from the Hero Party, their depth and history are beyond us."
"True... They erased half the world, after all."
The Hero, the mage, the saint, the thief. Even before slaying the Demon King, the four were called inhuman, refusing to stand alongside mere humans. The Hero killed the Demon King, and the demons who claimed half the world vanished. People see only as much as they know. The ignorant see only that the Hero saved the world. Those who know accumulated history grants power read between the lines: the demons' disappearance.
"Ascetic orders say every human action and outcome carries karma, which accumulates. If slaying the Demon King caused half the world's beings to vanish, and that karma piled onto them, then four people alone erased half the world. Honestly... I understand why His Majesty issued a warrant for the Hero."
What would someone who erased half the world even look like? No image came to mind, no matter how she tried. The Hero was humanity's unparalleled "accumulator" of history. Load that monster with the history of massacring half the world, and how far would he climb? If the Hero ascended to godhood, Revela would believe it.
Strekl swung, sending the woman tumbling across the ground. Undeterred, she fixed him with a fierce glare.
"Your type, huh? Perverted bastard."
"That accent... You're from the West."
Strekl knew only the duchy tongue and imperial. But he recognized how foreigners pronounced the duchy language. Land race participants weren't all after land. Some needed the participation itself; others were hired for special purposes. But a Western woman bold enough to enter alone? Only one goal fit.
"After the land, then."
"Duchy knight... You think that land has no owner."
"It doesn't. Is there anything left to claim ownership?"
"A ruined city. Homes where everyone lived. Villages. All the traces."
"Ruins abandoned by their owners. Anyone with a rightful claim is dead. Even survivors of the demon invasion and mercenary sweeps for leftover treasure—I'd acknowledge them. But that's not you."
"...I'll kill you!"
She charged. True killing intent—absent against the bandits—thrust at Strekl's throat. Enough to sting the skin... decent spirit. But to a high knight, wild killing intent was easier to block than a drunk's flailing punch.
"Too honest."
Strekl's sword struck the dagger's flat. He hadn't reached iron-cutting yet, but a crude dagger would shatter. It did, shards flying everywhere. The woman staggered back and collapsed, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Wait. Someone you can talk to is coming."
Marhal was almost there.
The Hero Party had a thief. Not just any thief—a vicious criminal who'd done every crime from pickpocketing to assassination. He never pretended to be good. Marhal, who'd traveled with him for years, couldn't even defend his past. The thief was that wicked—and skilled enough to survive it all unscathed.
Marhal saw the thief in the woman's movements. The stealth surpassing even the Hero, the world's fastest man.
"Westerner. You'll speak her language, right?"
"Fellow native would be best."
As Marhal approached, the woman scrambled up, drawing a new pair of daggers from her waist. Different sheen from ordinary blades. And the faint crest on the hilt—scratched at with sandpaper, but unmistakable to Marhal. The Bachea imperial crest. A true relic, not some fake—the kind Bayola sought desperately.
"No more mercy."
A faint red aura rose from her body. Strekl crouched at the magic-like phenomenon; Bayola and Revela widened their eyes. Marhal just smiled and stepped forward.
"Vestarolla?"
"Wh... how?"
Her heart thumped at the unexpected hometown tongue from this stranger. Then his next words dropped it like a stone.
"Spot on. Vestarolla Kingdom, Mapal region. Still carrying those three days of lessons?"
"N-no way."
The woman stood frozen, daggers slipping from her grasp—knives she treasured like life itself. Time rewound for her. Over a decade ago, she was one of countless refugees fleeing demons, abandoning home. Endless columns like hers snaked along. Few reached the East alive. Demons swallowed half the continent in under a year—faster than people could flee on foot. Most columns became demon fodder. Hers—including Marin, as she was then—was next.
Her parents lured a demon pack to buy her escape time, never returning. She waited with her grandmother amid a column of children and elders. Death loomed. The black mist trailing them faster than their pace—that was the demons' herald, come for her and her grandmother.
Death approached. She accepted it calmly. Brutal reality, but she faced it coldly. When reality demands an adult, she became one. Adults accepted it. Death seemed inevitable.
At death's door, the Hero appeared. A miracle. Fate fled her. One slash split the mist. Split the demons within. One man shattered the doom that devoured armies.
The Hero Party stayed days with the refugees. The saint healed the sick and wounded elders. The mage crafted demon-repelling items for safe passage East. The thief taught survival to mobile children.
Young Marin later realized: that was history in motion. A miracle, legend, myth she'd witnessed.
But history omits parts. It says the Hero slew the Demon King with mage, saint, and thief. Wrong. Marin knew—she saw with her own eyes. Amid those inhuman figures, a boy just a few years older than her. He called himself their guide. Traveled with them, yet unrecorded anywhere.
Unlike helpless her, she remembered the boy among them. Yelling at the Hero, protesting the mage, scolding the thief. Standing equal to the four inhuman ones.
"Oh, you remember. So... Marin, right?"
The Hero Party's guide. Her mind reeled. She'd witnessed legend—and fainted dead away.