Episode 039.
Paaaaaah—!
In the middle of the royal capital’s grand plaza,
where countless people had gathered, a pure-white flash suddenly burst forth from nowhere.
And what dropped from within that cluster of light, like sacks of luggage, was the hero party Ersha Kingdom had been so proud of…!
“Th-this is….”
[Escape Rune]
One of Tanas’s magic items that Lurein had been keeping.
In a moment of crisis,
a highest-grade artifact that could return them to the royal capital.
—Tanas is always spending money on useless things, isn’t he?
—Exactly. What danger would we ever be in? Buying trash with that much money?
—Are you saying we might lose? Seriously, that’s offensive. Tch!
—You don’t even do anything, but all you think about is spending money… sigh.
As they stared at the rune crumbling into dust and vanishing,
“…….”
“…….”
All four of them recalled the things they had said to Tanas.
“Cough…! Cough! Uweeeek!”
Arshe was the first to plant her hands on the ground and writhe. Dark-red blood trickled from between her lips.
The breastplate that had once gleamed with a silvery shine was half-crushed, no longer retaining the shape of armor.
“S-Seria-nim! Arshe-nim? What on earth…!”
The paladins and priests on standby rushed over in shock.
It had not even been a full day, yet the kingdom’s heroes had returned battered from head to toe.
“Th-this can’t be… Lurein-nim’s hands!!”
Lurein, praised as the essence of magic, the reincarnation of a great mage returned after a thousand years, and the Magic Tower’s supernova, trembled as tears welled in her eyes.
The girl’s hands were horribly scorched; her staff had exploded, and the backlash of mana had doubled the damage.
She stared blankly into empty air, shaking without even letting out a common groan.
“What are you doing? Heal them already!”
“B-but with Seria-nim here, we never thought they would be injured this badly….”
The priests hurried over and released waves of healing.
“Make way! The High Priest is coming!”
Parting the crowd, the High Priest in splendid vestments entered, along with Hero Dmitri and Hero Dario.
At a gesture from the High Priest, the paladins pushed the people back.
Dmitri pushed up his glasses and let out a cold sneer, while the High Priest, nearly dropping his staff at the gruesome sight, grabbed Seria by the shoulder.
“Lady Seria! Come to your senses! What, what on earth happened? Could it be that Invium’s Evil Maw has appeared again? Or has the calamity in the east, of which the Goddess warned us, already reached its claws near the royal capital?”
“…….”
With trembling hands, Seria clutched the dirt on the ground.
Her heart pounded as if it would burst.
‘I can never say it!’
The scene from moments ago flashed through her mind in an instant.
B-rank monsters—nothing less than a calamity to ordinary adventurers.
But they were members of the hero party destined to save the world from the Demon King.
They were mongrels she would not even have spared a glance at when Tanas had been there.
She could not possibly confess that she had almost died to them.
If not for the Escape Rune, she would have become an ogre’s meal by now.
“Lady Seria?”
“…….”
“…….”
The moment she let that pass her lips, everything they had would disappear.
Her status as a leading candidate for sainthood, her position as an agent of the Church of Tyr, her family’s honor….
Every achievement they had built up until now would vanish like bubbles, turning in an instant into mockery—“ogre food,” “settled at ogre level.”
“…Lady Seria? Are you conscious? What are the priests doing! Keep healing them!”
“…….”
“Who on earth did this….”
“This is unbelievable.”
“Lady Seria! Answer me! Depending on what happened, we may have to revise the royal capital’s defensive line!”
At the High Priest’s urging, Seria’s eyes met Arshe’s, who lay collapsed beside her.
In Arshe’s eyes, alongside terror, there blazed a desperate cry: Don’t tell them the truth.
“…….”
Seria swallowed dryly.
‘What do I do?’
Her mind began spinning rapidly once more.
It was time to change masks—from a miserable loser to an ill-fated saintess who had fought against a massive calamity.
“…It was the Demon King’s Army.”
Seria whispered softly in a trembling voice.
“What? The Demon King’s Army?”
“Y-yes…. A corps commander-level officer of the Demon King’s Army… no, one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Demon King’s Army attacked us!”
“……!!”
A silence as if cold water had been poured over them. The plaza froze for an instant.
Then a storm of murmuring erupted.
“O-one of the Four Heavenly Kings?! One of the Demon King’s Four Heavenly Kings infiltrated this close to the royal capital!!”
“That’s impossible! How could one of the Four Heavenly Kings break through the barrier!!”
“This cannot be! The eastern front… no, what is the Empire doing!”
The color drained from people’s faces in an instant. Fear spread like a plague.
“How could one of the Four Heavenly Kings….”
The High Priest, his face pale, staggered for a moment.
“One of the Four Heavenly Kings… how intriguing.”
“I am curious as well.”
Swordmaster Helena and Dmitri cut in with cool voices. The Hero adjusted his glasses and fixed Seria with a piercing stare.
“If it was one of the Four Heavenly Kings, are they not the Demon King’s greatest forces?”
“Y-yes. That is why we had no choice….”
“So, who was it? Who reduced your so-called hero party to this state? [Deathbringer]? Or [Blood Princess]?”
“…….”
Cold sweat poured down Seria’s back like a waterfall. If she faltered here, it was over.
She searched her memory and pulled out the most plausible story she could.
“Th-that is… The thing is, there was no presence at all! A very dense and ominous… I mean….”
When Seria looked to Arshe as if seeking help,
“It was an extremely ominous aura of darkness. The trees around us withered and died in an instant, and a terrifying power cold enough to freeze the air… Ugh… my head…!”
“That’s right! We were ambushed, so I didn’t even have time to deploy my holy barrier!”
“An aura of darkness? Trees withering and dying?”
“Hmm… Your barrier should have taken only three seconds to deploy… Was it truly that fast?”
Dmitri frowned and muttered as if something seemed strange.
“In that case, it must indeed have been [Deathbringer], said to be the cruelest and fastest among the Four Heavenly Kings.”
“He excels at ambushes and possesses an authority that gnaws away at life force.”
Helena added to the speculation.
“Th-that’s right! Deathbringer! It was definitely him! He took advantage of the moment we were focused on subjugating monsters and attacked us from behind in such a vile manner…! Under normal circumstances, we would have blocked him easily, but our luck just happened to be bad….”
At Seria’s cry, Arshe also nodded desperately.
“That’s right! Cough… ngh! His attack surpassed imagination. Enough to crack my shield in one blow…. If only I hadn’t let my guard down!”
“Next time will be different!”
“Hmm….”
“If anything, it ended at this level because we were there! If we hadn’t stopped one of the Four Heavenly Kings, the royal capital would already have become a sea of blood!”
Lurein, who had recovered from her injuries to some extent, cut in.
“Ohhh! So that was what happened!”
“As expected of Ersha Kingdom’s hero party! They protected the royal capital from beneath [Deathbringer]’s blade!”
The people’s fear had, before long, transformed into a strange sense of awe.
They had buried the truth—“a bunch of dregs beaten down by Blood Ogres”—and placed over their heads the false title of “the hero party who returned alive without yielding even to an ambush by one of the Four Heavenly Kings.”
However, Dmitri and the High Priest still looked at them with cold gazes.
“Ha… Even if it was an ambush by one of the Four Heavenly Kings, this is disgraceful. To receive the gods’ blessing and yet fail to sense even a single enemy presence, then return in that state… The kingdom’s honor has been tarnished.”
“Tch. Pathetic.”
The heroes clicked their tongues one by one and turned away.
The High Priest, too, let out a sigh with a complicated expression.
Not a single person gathered there doubted Seria’s words. Because that was common sense.
The hero party that had to defeat the Demon King being wiped out by two B-rank monsters?
Even if they saw it with their own eyes, they would not believe it.
“For now, treatment is urgent. Lady Seria. As soon as your recovery is complete, you must report the details to His Majesty the King. The appearance of one of the Four Heavenly Kings is an emergency for the entire kingdom.”
“…Of course.”
Thud—!
The heavy door of the private treatment room closed, and the footsteps of the High Priest and the paladins grew distant.
Seria, who had been staring only at the white ceiling, exhaled the breath she had been holding and shifted her body.
Her entire body hurt as if she had been beaten all over, but what irritated her even more than that was the sense of loss pressing down on one corner of her heart.
“…It’s unfair.”
Seria pouted her lips and muttered softly.
“It’s really unfair… How can they give us Tanas and then take him away!”
She protested quietly, as if she was truly wronged.
Because the thought had occurred to her that the reason her mana had scattered and her holy power was no longer what it used to be
was entirely because Tanas had left the party on his own and stolen away power that had not even belonged to him.
“That’s right!”
“This is far too much!”
Their opinions were clearly different from just a few days ago.
In truth, they had inwardly looked down on the gods’ blessings, thinking, Just how much could they really amount to? On top of that, the Hero’s authority as well.
But only now did they finally understand why the Empire and the Church had treated heroes with such preference.
Because it was a miracle itself, one that current magic could not even reproduce.
After Tanas disappeared,
they had vaguely assumed until now that they must have weakened somewhat, but after fighting monsters directly, they felt the severity of the situation in their bones.
In one corner of their hearts, there was also the thought, We weren’t fighting seriously, were we? We weren’t prepared, we let our guard down, and our condition was a little… But, well….
“Yes, that’s right…. This is truly too much. I wonder if Tanas knows that we were injured this badly.”
Arshe, lying on the bed beside her, groaned and turned her head.
Until recently, she had dismissed Tanas as nothing more than a lucky totem, but after taking a few hits from an ogre, it seemed she had come to her senses, for she poured out all sorts of regrets.
“Don’t even get me started… Honestly, did we do that for our own benefit? It was something we did all together for the greater cause, for the future of the kingdom, for the peace of the continent. Someone had to take on the villain’s role, and we merely carried out that role with tears in our eyes….”
“Right.”
Lurein waved her bandaged hand through the air.
“How great an opportunity did we give Tanas? If one is a hero, one naturally grows stronger after undergoing great trials. Do you know how hard I tried…”
“…….”
Rain simply kept her mouth shut in silence.
Those wishes would never be fulfilled.
Most importantly, they still did not know where he—where Tanas—was.
It was then.
Along with a loud bang, bang on the door, someone slipped inside.
“Seria-nim.”
“What is it?”
It was her, Seria’s personal attendant.
“Um… well, that is.”
The attendant glanced once at the others, then whispered something softly into Seria’s ear.
“Is that true?”
“It is confirmed information.”
At Seria’s face, now brightly lit, Rain, Arshe, and Lurein all rushed to ask.
“What is it?”
“What is it?”
“Could it be?”
Seria rose from her seat and spoke with a triumphant expression.
“We have to go east.”
*************
“…….”
“Master, is something the matter?”
“Is something the matter?!”
When Prisia pushed her face right up to mine and asked, Ellen, who had been playing beside her, imitated Prisia and pushed her face up to mine in exactly the same way.
Don’t teach her things like this.
“I just feel a bit unpleasant.”
“Yes?”
“No need to worry about it.”
That was what I said, but a martial artist’s seventh sense tended to be rather accurate.
Prisia tilted her head once as if she found it strange, then went back to polishing Barsha’s sword.
‘I need to move quickly.’
I looked down at the adventurers, paladins, and others gathered below the building and shouted.
“We’re departing.”
“Waaaaaaaaaaah—!!”
The shouts of the adventurers and mercenaries
announced the beginning of the hidden scenario.
##