Chapter 4: Unprepared

Chapter 4:
Unprepared

 

POV: MARIA ROSE RETICE

 

I COULDN’T RECALL when exactly the air inside the castle had started to feel this way.

“Lady Maria? Breakfast is served.”

I nodded at my handmaid’s words and then followed her toward the dining room. Along the way, I passed by many of the people who lived and worked in the castle, and a young girl around my age who had been brought here via the hero summoning ritual bowed her head to me. I glanced at her briefly before passing by.

The king—my father—had successfully expunged the troublesome hero and that assassin boy from the castle as planned, yet he seemed to be utterly disinterested in any of the other summoned heroes. To him, the only real threats were Saran Mithray, the hero, and the assassin who’d stayed off our radar for nearly a month. We originally hoped we could brainwash the hero and turn him into our puppet, and maybe even use him to kill Saran Mithray, but once he broke the curse, we had no choice but to run him out of the castle. We’d framed the assassin for Saran Mithray’s murder so he wouldn’t dare come back here ever again.

It was perhaps an oversight on our part that the hero managed to escape with six of his companions, but the fact that he took the only disenchanter in their group was a boon to us. Once we learned her class, we explicitly neglected to give her any specialized instruction and instead strung her along so she wouldn’t learn any curse-breaking abilities. And yet, she’d somehow managed to break the hero’s curse temporarily anyway.

It seemed the humans from the other world truly were different from us on a fundamental level. Thankfully, she was gone now, so there was no risk of anyone breaking any curses around here anymore. I had been concerned when Saran Mithray had taken a special interest in her, but I assumed she would remember none of his teachings. Nor would she recall her own terrible crime.

I’d brainwashed the summoned heroes still at the castle into thinking they’d been born and raised here and that they were living as simple workers. My handmaids obviously knew the truth, but they would never talk, lest they incur my wrath. Still, I knew they were probably all thinking that this state of affairs could not continue indefinitely. I knew better than to think they were all simply okay with my and my father’s deeds, and we had far less in the way of protection than we used to.

After dissolving the knights’ regiment, the vice commander, Gilles Asti, left the castle, along with all of the other able-bodied men (or those with half a spine, at least) and we were receiving intel suggesting a portion of the aristocracy was working toward taking matters into their own hands. I really did have to wonder just how long I could keep up this charade.

“What’s the matter, Sofia? Do you not like the food?”

“…No, of course I do. It’s delicious as always.”

As I forced down the flavorless slop, I curled my lips into a smile, and my father smiled back at me with affection he had never shown the real me. I couldn’t help but take pity on him though, as he tried so dearly to cling to the traces of my mother that he saw in my face.

My poor, poor old father. After losing my mother, he began to lose touch with the real world, and as I grew older and started looking more and more like my mother, he began calling me by her name and treating me as though I truly was her. He still accomplished his duties as king without issue, and in an official capacity he still recognized me as his daughter as well as a pawn, but when we sat down for meals in private like this, I began to crack.

At first, I simply corrected him each time he mistook me for her, but eventually I realized that thinking I was my mother did an awful lot to stabilize my father’s mental state, and so I stopped. In the end, she was the only one he had ever truly loved, and he never spared a stray thought for me, his only daughter. I assumed the only reason he still allowed me in his presence at all was because of my strong resemblance to her—but there was no doubt in my mind that he did not see me as a person.

My father had been in a fairly dire mental state even before we lost my mother. He’d lost his own father and older brothers who were next in line for the throne to an epidemic and had to give up his dream of becoming a painter in order to keep our nation together. It was my mother who supported and rescued his soul during that time. Without her, my father no longer had any reason to cherish or feel affection toward this country and had begun dipping his toe into the dark arts.

“Well, I suppose I’d best get to work,” my father said. “Don’t worry, my darling. I’ll bring you back to life, just you wait. We’ll be happy together again soon enough.”

“Of course, my king,” I said, averting my eyes to avoid the twisted love and desperation oozing from his gaze. “I believe in you.”

I felt terrible for my father.

I felt terrible for myself.

To bring my mother back to life was to break the basic tenets of life that Eiter the Creator had laid out for us—an unspeakable taboo. If I was being completely honest and truly wished the best for my father, then perhaps I would have killed him the moment he made a deal with the demons. But, in spite of everything, I knew my father was still in there, somewhere deep down, and it was my duty to help him find his peace, no matter the cost.

“I’d follow you all the way to the depths of Hell, Father.”

Abnormal though it was, this was the only way I knew to keep us a family.

 

POV: ???

 

“I’D FOLLOW YOU all the way to the depths of Hell, Father.”

I couldn’t help but crack a wicked smile as I listened to the conversation taking place on the other side of the door—it was certainly not your average father-daughter heart-to-heart, that was for sure. And yet, it seemed the princess truly believed her family arrangement was perfectly normal and sustainable; it was like she’d been indoctrinated into a cult. The thought gave me goosebumps, and I walked away rubbing my arms as if I were cold.

Ever since the hero summoning ritual, any hint of joviality had been drained from the castle, and an eerie stillness had befallen its halls. This was largely due to the fact that many of the people who once called it home, in addition to the knights, had left in secret, without even letting their families know. How horrible! Yet the king and princess seemed utterly oblivious to the eerie ghost town their castle was becoming—or perhaps they simply felt powerless to stop it. Obviously, the fact that the castle wasn’t functioning as normal had had an effect on the common citizenry as well, so it was likely only a matter of time before the nation in its current form collapsed into ruin.

“But I guess that’s the whole reason I’m here, now, isn’t it?”

My duty was to ensure this country held out until the time was right. No matter how many people left, an entire country would still be fine recompense for our efforts. It fell to me to ensure we could effectively make use of said prize in order to fulfill His Majesty’s wishes.

“U-um, excuse me…?”

Just as I was letting myself get lost in thought and considering my next move, someone snuck up and called out to me from behind. I whirled around defensively, only to see a frightened girl staring back at me. One of the princess’s handmaids, presumably.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

The castle staff should have been informed that I was staying at the castle as an honored guest, and most of them treated me as such as evidenced by the lack of suspicion with which I was viewed. However, this girl looked upon me with a mixture of fear and suspicion, and I could think of any number of reasons for that. Yes, it was truly annoying having all these humans scurrying around like insects. I couldn’t know what this girl had seen, of course, but she had certainly caught me doing something. I clicked my tongue in frustration at my own negligence.

“What did you do to her… Where’s Ange?! I saw you with her yesterday, but the moment you touched her, she disappeared! I searched the entire castle and couldn’t find her. Where did you take her? Where…?” the girl asked me, her tone tentative at first, but then reassured.

I blinked a few times in disbelief, but then burst out in laughter. “Pfft… Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!”

The girl grimaced in discomfort as I doubled over laughing, and she took a step back. I moved forward, close enough to reach out and touch the girl. The girl, having no fighting experience, was helpless to do anything as I grabbed her.

“My, you humans truly are a delight. Such foolish, simpleminded creatures—you really are beyond saving,” I said, my voice ringing throughout the empty corridor. If this had been only a few days earlier, there would have been all sorts of onlookers to see this, but now there were none. But of course, there were none—they’d all “gone away,” after all.

“But,” I continued, “you saw me yesterday, did you? That was a blunder on my part. I know! As a reward for your observation, why don’t I let you go see your friend again? What did you say her name was? Ange?” I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out a tiny stone.

“W-wait, so you do know where she is?! Then tell me! Where’s Ange?!”

The girl was screaming hysterically now, twisting her body back and forth in an attempt to wrest her arm free from my grasp, but I held on tight. I tilted my head curiously and held the small stone up in front of her eyes so that she could take a long, hard look at it.

“Take a good look, my dear. This is the girl you’ve been searching for,” I said, and the girl immediately seized up, her lips trembling. “You humans hold surprisingly little value in the grand scheme of things, you know. Your entire lives only hold about as much value as a pebble by the side of the road. Though I guess you can’t help it, since none of you have even a tiny fraction of the mana we do.”

“W-wait, you’re…you’re a demon?! How did a demon get into the castle?! Someone, he—!!!”

The girl, having finally realized my true identity, tried to cry out for help but disappeared in the next instant. I opened the hand with which I’d been grasping her arm to find a tiny stone resting in my palm, which hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“So…all your life amounted to was a tiny pebble as well, eh? How utterly dull.”

I took both it and the other stone in one hand and tossed them across the hall. There was no value in holding on to such worthless things. The human race was far more pitiful than I ever could have thought.

With my Equivalent Exchange skill, I had the ability to convert things into other things which held the same predetermined value: I didn’t pick the value. I knew this because I once tried converting someone I cared for quite deeply and ended up with only a small jewel in exchange, whereas another time I converted someone who I was not the least bit interested in and got back a lovely tiara encrusted with giant gemstones. So regrettably, my personal opinion didn’t factor into the equation.

As His Majesty told it, the one who determined these things was the god of this world—Eiter. I didn’t believe in any god, but I did acknowledge that whoever was deciding the values of things couldn’t be a mere mortal. There was no way any mortal would have decided that individuals of their race were worth nothing more than mere gemstones.

I couldn’t help but pity the humans, in a way. I wondered what it felt like to have your life amount to nothing more than a pebble. And yet, they lived with such fierce passion for life and all

its wonders—the poor things. It was almost cute how hard they tried despite the futility of it all. Yes, how very entertaining.

“I’ve grown quite tired of these tiny rocks. Hopefully I can at least find something around here that I can exchange for, I don’t know…a flower, maybe?”

The only sound that remained in the now-empty hallway was my own footsteps. I wondered how much value this entire country held in total. I know! Since I still need to kill time until His Majesty gives the signal, why don’t I go see how much value those summoned heroes have? That ought to make the time go by faster, at least.

 

POV: SATOU TSUKASA

 

“THERE’S SOMETHING I need to tell you.”

Akira’s arrival marked the end of Noa using us as punching bags. I wasn’t sure if that was because his words of protest had resonated with her or if she’d just been toying with the rest of us from the outset. I had never been any good at telling how people truly felt. The world would be a much simpler place if everyone’s minds worked via the same simple thought processes.

The day after Akira arrived was a warm and sunny, and I was struggling to keep myself from dozing off as I cleaned the windows. Suddenly, Noa appeared in front of me and, with a straight face (and after ensuring no one else was around) told me she had something she needed to tell me. After yesterday, this

immediately put me on guard, but then I remembered that she’d

never attacked any of us except when we were braced and ready. Perhaps that was her way of being considerate as she pounded us into shape, brutal though it was.

“…And what might that be?” I replied, wringing out my cloth before throwing it into the water bucket. I stood up and looked down on the pint-sized pulverizer, whose eyes were fixed on my sword as she shoved me into a dark corner where no one else could see us. “Got something to say about my sword?”

It was the sturdy blade I’d received at the castle, where I was told it was a holy sword. It had saved my bacon countless times along our journey, and I was so used to it by now that I almost considered it a fifth limb. Which made it all the more frustrating that I was beginning to doubt its “holy” powers. No matter how much I practiced, I couldn’t seem to use any holy sword techniques on command. But imagine if I could use those skill all the time, and how much easier this all would be—the thought kept me up at night.

“I see your blade has not become the holy sword as of yet,” she said.

The word “yet” stuck out like a sore thumb, and I put my hand on the blade’s hilt instinctively. But the girl simply traced her lips with her fingers, not bothered by me standing ready to draw my blade.

“The holy sword does not simply get passed down from generation to generation of heroes, you see—that would be much too simple. Some say ‘the holy sword’ refers to one specific blade meant for the hero’s use, but that’s a common misconception. One does not simply inherit the holy sword. When one with the class of hero picks up a weapon—any weapon—and forms a strong enough bond with it…only then does it grant the hero the power of the holy sword. It’s a good thing it’s not always a sword too; otherwise, it would be quite awkward for those with especially massive or puny builds to wield, no?”

My eyes widened as she explained all of this. I suppose I had fallen into the trap of assuming the holy sword was something of this world’s Excalibur, which only the chosen hero could wield. But now that I thought about it more, I realized that after my first sword broke down in the labyrinth and they gave me my current one, it hadn’t felt awkward at all, not until I’d started questioning whether or not it was actually the holy sword. I ran my hand along its all-too-familiar hilt as I looked down at Noa.

“…And you’re sure that’s how it works?” I asked.

Even if what she was saying was true, I found it hard to believe, coming from someone so antagonistic. Sure, she seemed like she was being genuine, but it was impossible to know where her true motivations lay. I also couldn’t help thinking about when we’d been deceived by people pretending to be timid back in Mali.

“…Well, obviously I can’t say so with one hundred percent certainty. Most people are lucky to meet even a single hero in their lifetimes, after all. Even I, as long as I’ve lived, have only laid eyes upon two,” she said, smiling as she slowly stepped back toward the building. “Let me just give you one piece of wisdom passed down from your predecessor: ‘A hero’s ability to awaken the holy sword depends entirely on the hero’s own experience, and the strength of his heart.’ You’re free to believe them or not, but do try to keep them in mind.”

With that, Noa disappeared into the shadow of the building. I’d been trying very hard to figure out how to use the holy sword technique again over the past few days but had given up, assuming I had the wrong sword—not the wrong state of mind. My sword was fine as any, and it had weathered our long and arduous journey without even a crack.

“…Could it be that you’ve already accepted me as your wielder, old pal?”

I pulled the sword from its sheath a bit, and the sun reflected brilliantly off the blade. For just a split second, the blade shimmered brightly, almost as if it were answering my question.

 

POV: ODA AKIRA

 

HAVING FINALLY ARRIVED at our destination, I needed three whole days to heal the wounds from our journey and fully recover my strength. The forest had been about as dangerous as the lowest levels of any labyrinth, and the monsters really did seem to get stronger the closer we got to demon country.

The six of us now sat where Crow and his companions had, back when he’d lived here. Noa, who I assumed owned the house, stood directly behind Crow; Amaryllis and Lia, who hadn’t met the other heroes, introduced themselves before standing behind us (though Amaryllis was half-hiding behind Lia). I could tell that Noa, despite often referring to Crow as her “worthless son,” watched him with motherly concern. She was an enigma I couldn’t quite nail down.

“So, is there an easy way into the demon continent?” I asked Crow and Noa, resting an elbow on the table. There must have been some route nearby as the previous hero generation had used this place as its forward base of operations, but many decades had passed since then and things could have changed. Crow and Noa had left two days ago to scout the area, but judging from the looks on their faces, things weren’t looking good.

“From what we could tell, the secret undersea tunnels we used all those years ago have been rendered impassable due to cave-ins and flooding and whatnot,” Crow declared, and despair fell over the heroes’ faces. But that wasn’t even the end of the bad news Crow had to share. “We can’t go by boat either, because the monsters living in that part of the ocean are far too dangerous. We also were able to learn our secret tunnel didn’t collapse due to natural causes. Though faint, we did find traces of mana having been used in the vicinity a while ago.”

“…So what does that mean?” inquired Waki, ignoring the little cat and monkey pulling at his hair.

“It means the demons did it intentionally, and they probably sent one of their strongest guys to do the job—someone with enough power to cause an artificial cave-in that looked indistinguishable from a natural disaster.”

The demons were expecting us then. Crow used a map to show us the destroyed pathways. As he spoke, I zoned out, and the faces of demons, like Mahiro and Aurum, we’d encountered in the Great Labyrinth of Brute popped into my mind. I had no doubt either of them could have caused the same level of destruction as a natural disaster, no problem.

“The routes from here to the elven domain and human continent are still open. It’s only the paths directly into demon territory that have conveniently caved in, eh?”

Surprisingly, the previous generation of heroes had constructed underground tunnels not only into the demons’ territory but also to each of the other continents as well. Making a secret passageway into enemy territory made sense to me, especially since it wasn’t that far from here geographically, but digging out tunnels to every corner of the world seemed overly cautious and like a lot of extra work. Obviously, Crow had traveled with the heroes at the time and would know more about their motives, but it seemed like he’d deferred to their judgment most of the time. It was hard to say for sure though.

“How hard would it be to make those tunnels passable again?” asked the hero, raising his hand.

Both Crow and his mother shook their heads. “Not happening. They’re in an extremely poor state. Moving even a single piece of rubble could cause further collapse,” said Noa, nipping that idea right in the bud. A heavy silence fell over the room.

“So…we can’t go by sea and we can’t go underground, either,” muttered the hero, clearly disheartened by these revelations. I felt the same way, but I said nothing and kept staring at Noa. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Amelia doing the same.

“…If you’ve got any better ideas, I’m all ears,” said Noa with a sigh, caving to the pressure of our combined gazes.

Amelia and I glanced at one another, and then I voiced the first idea that had come to my mind: “…W-why don’t we go by air?”

“That’s it!” said the hero, clapping his hands. “If we can’t walk, we can just fly there!”

All of us summoned heroes who were used to the idea of airplanes immediately brightened up at this idea, whereas the trueborn Morriganites were clearly a bit lost. The hero proceeded to explain airplanes and how they worked in simple terms. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to follow any of it, which made me feel a little pathetic. All the stuff he was saying about “airspeed velocity” and “aerodynamic lift” and how they related to “runway length” and “takeoff velocity” was complete gibberish to me. Maybe I was destined to be a liberal arts major.

Crow seemed equally confused as he began to zone out, but Noa was downright captivated and started throwing all manner of questions the hero’s way. They were mother and child, and yet they couldn’t be more different.

“I see. Yes…flight through the air does seem theoretically possible,” she finally declared with a nod, having probed the full extent of the hero’s knowledge on the subject. Meanwhile, the rest of us who weren’t able to follow their conversation were looking off in different directions. Kyousuke seemed to be completely dissociating, standing there with his eyes closed.

“But just to clarify, I’m not an expert on the subject! I couldn’t tell you any of the mathematics behind it!” the hero said, waving his hands back and forth as if to say it wasn’t his fault if this got us all killed.

“Well, I suspect their reason for suggesting going by air lies with me,” said Noa. “Isn’t that right, Amelia Rosequartz and Akira Oda?”

Amelia and I both sat up straight as if we’d just been cracked by a whip. We both nodded, each of us having gotten the idea from a certain part of Noa’s stat page. If we could borrow her abilities, I had a feeling flying was a viable option. Having come to an agreement, we quickly began discussing what she would need to make it happen.

 

“Okay, I think we should start by splitting into teams.”

According to Noa, we’d need to gather a fair number of raw materials in order to make our plan work, so obtaining those was our first priority. We’d need to head back into the forest to get them, but it didn’t make sense to move as one big group, so I suggested we split up to make things easier, and everyone else agreed. Including myself, there were now thirteen of us—fourteen if you included Night, who wasn’t here currently—so we could split into three solid teams fairly easily.

“Well, first off, I think Amelia, Amaryllis, and the noncombatants should stay here and hold down the fort. And you too, of course,” I said to Noa, to which she huffed as if to say she didn’t need me to tell her that.

“Wait, you want me to stay behind?” asked Amelia, crestfallen.

She could tell I was trying to keep her out of the fighting as much as possible, but I’d had a feeling she’d react like this, and I gave her the answer I’d prepared in advance: “I need you and Noa to stay here to defend the others and the house. We’d be in deep trouble if we lost our home base,” I said, plopping my hand atop her head reassuringly. She smiled shyly, then nodded. I had a feeling that Noa could defend the house all by herself.

“The others and I are going to work together to gather all of the resources Noa laid out for us—or at least the closest things we can find,” I went on. “Let’s have one team serve as the battle unit that’ll go out and fight monsters to collect materials, and the other team go scout the tunnel the previous hero generation used to see if there’s anything there we can salvage.”

At the very least, I knew that the hero, Kyousuke, Gilles, and I needed to be in the battle unit. Tsuda and Lia, with their shield and barriers, should probably go along with Crow and the others to protect them while they gathered and appraised materials from the underground passage—and they should also take Night in case they had to make a quick getaway. The battle unit would have fewer people than the other team, but none of us had been in combat together before, so fewer people would be safer. Worst-case scenario, I could fend for myself and the other three, who had traveled together through the forest, would be fine.

“Okay. Battle unit, we’ll be heading out as soon as we’re done doing maintenance on our equipment. It’d be great if the rest of you could wait here until Night arrives,” I said.

“Yeah, what about that furball? Haven’t seen him once since we entered the forest,” Crow grumbled. Judging from all the nodding, Amaryllis was the only one who hadn’t noticed Night’s absence. She was, for better or worse, an ordinary girl who happened to know a lot about medicine and was just along for the ride.

“Yeah, so…Night’s coming via a different route. He’s fulfilling a request from Amaryllis.”

I looked over at her, only to find that she’d hidden herself behind Lia to escape the curious glances. Having no other choice, I told everyone the story of how she’d won the beauty pageant years ago and then was kidnapped and forced to make drugs for a beastfolk man named Gram. Gram fed the drugs to his personal retinue of mercenaries and exported them with some of them making it to the human continent to be taken by the assassins that killed Commander Saran. As soon as I finished explaining, Ueno’s face went deathly pale, and I wondered why she reacted so strongly.

I decided to keep that question to myself for the time being.

“I brought Amaryllis along with us so she could develop an antidote to the effects of that drug, which is still out there in pretty large quantities. In order to do that, she needs some herbs that grow a fair bit west of here, so I sent Night to collect some. It might take a while, though, so hopefully Hosoyama and the others can teach Amaryllis a few things while you guys are posted here.”

I cast a quick glance over at Amaryllis, who was still trembling behind Lia, then looked over at the members of my team, who were checking their equipment. “You gonna be ready to head out soon?”

“Natch. How ’bout yourself?”

I couldn’t help but snort at the hero trying to be smart with me but drew my dual daggers—each a half of the blade that had once been the Yato-no-Kami. “I don’t have to ‘get’ ready. I’m always ready.”

Always ready because, as I learned early on down in the labyrinth, monsters weren’t gonna wait for you to be prepared to fight back.

 

POV: TSUDA TOMOYA

 

“GOD, THIS PLACE IS A MESS…” Crow muttered as he looked at the collapsed tunnel which had once connected the beastfolk continent to the demon continent.

I couldn’t imagine how many hours of grueling work it must have taken to dig it out, and how it must feel for him to see all that work crumbled to dust. There were pungent traces of mana in the air, telling even an amateur like me that there had, indeed, been demons at work here.

“There’s no time to be sad about it. Is there anything here we can use?” asked Night, looking around at the mana stones lighting the tunnel and the strangely colored ores lining the cave walls.

Night had arrived in house-cat form shortly after the battle unit had departed. When Amaryllis saw the medicinal herbs he’d brought with him, she made a face I’d rather not recall. It was hard to believe someone with looks like hers was capable of drooling over a pile of plants. Even Night seemed taken aback, and honestly, I found it hard to watch.

“…Looks like we can still use the mana stones and ores. I can sense a little bit of mana in them. Everything over here’s no good, though…” said Crow despondently, as though he were truly heartbroken. I could only imagine how much he respected the previous generation of heroes; he probably felt a lot more connected to them than he did us, despite being heroes ourselves. “Aoi…Luke…Ritter…” he muttered repeatedly to himself as he went through the wreckage. At first, I thought it was some sort of chant, but then I realized they were names.

“So, these and those, eh? Great. Now let’s get out of here before this place collapses further. Come on, Crow. Let’s move on to the next area,” said Night.

I could almost hear the sound of the tension snapping in my brain. How can one cat be so bad at reading the room? Clearly Oda’s rubbing off on him, and in a seriously bad way. I walked up behind the black cat and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, holding him in front of my face. Despite being a monster, he was still a cat, and like with any feline, this rendered him completely motionless.

“Hey, what’s this all about?! Let me go!”

I gave Lia a signal with my eyes, then left the two of them behind as I carried Night back above ground with me. With Lia’s barriers, she could probably protect the others without my help.

“Hey! I told you to let me go!!!” Night enlarged himself briefly to escape my grasp and then shrank back down before landing on the ground and glaring up at me intimidatingly, just like the cat at my grandma’s house back home. “What is the meaning of this?!” he hissed.

I towered over him imposingly. “Are you completely emotionless, or what?! Did you seriously not feel a thing seeing Crow all broken up like that?”

“Of course I’m sympathetic to him, but if we keep dragging our feet like this, it’ll take days to get through all of these spots! You know I’m right, don’t you?”

He did have a point—if Crow was going to have an emotional breakdown at each and every place we stopped at, there was no way we’d be back before sundown. There were just too many tunnels to check, and all of them were dangerous. If we wasted too much time, it was very likely more routes would collapse and become impassable to us. But I didn’t want to admit that, so I shook my head like a child having a temper tantrum.

“No, you don’t get it! You…just don’t get it. Maybe a monster like you wouldn’t understand what it’s like to lose a friend or loved one, but not everyone can just man up and be unaffected by the thought of having lost someone forever! And Crow’s lost way more people who were important to him than any of us, and many of us would be an absolute mess after losing just one!” I knew it wasn’t my place to speak on his behalf, especially since I’d never lost anyone truly close to me, but I couldn’t just stand by, so I was screaming at Night with more passion than I had screamed at anyone in my life.

“…I have no right to act considerately toward him,” said Night, as I panted for breath and glared down at him. He responded to me plainly, without averting his eyes. “Did I ever tell you that it was the Demon Lord himself who breathed life into me? That for years, I worked as his most faithful servant?”

I had heard an awful lot about Night during our discussions with himself, Crow, and Amelia as we’d waited for Oda to regain consciousness back at Crow’s house in Ur. At the time, I was just amused to see that there were talking cats amongst the monsters of this world, so most of his words had gone in one ear and out the other.

“When Crow and the previous hero arrived at His Majesty’s castle, fully prepared to die, I stood at His Majesty’s side, both in order to protect him and to help him escape if worst came to worst. In the end, the heroes were bested by his second-in-command right outside the throne room, and then escaped while I and the other demons laughed and ridiculed them.”

I held my breath as Night quietly told his story. It was hard to believe the tiny cat who spent most of his time on Oda’s shoulders had once done such a thing. I didn’t know what went down before he met Oda, or how he’d joined Oda, but I’d assumed he was an underling, not the Demon Lord’s right-hand monster.

“And then there was the whole ‘Nightmare of Adorea’ debacle. That was when Gram forced Crow’s sister off of an escape boat, and she was subsequently crushed beneath a falling building. The ‘nightmare’ that led to the collapse was a rampage conducted by me on His Majesty’s orders. Something which I did happily in the hopes of earning His favor.”

I hadn’t seen Night fight before, though I remembered Amelia boasting about how he transformed himself into a giant dragon when they first fought him. I could only imagine what that must have looked like, since I hadn’t been there. Night carried on explaining his laundry list of evil deeds, regardless of my reaction.

“I did regret that later, after seeing the stone monument they erected for the victims, but until that point, I genuinely did not believe I’d done anything wrong, nor did I care how much damage I’d done or how many lives I’d extinguished.”

Suddenly, his golden eyes were staring right through me, and my body stiffened up. I felt no malice, nor was I under the effects of any spell, and yet I was completely unable to move from beneath that gaze.

“Do you get it now? I’m both directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of virtually everyone who was ever important to him. Do you really think he’d appreciate their murderer trying to offer his condolences? I let Master and Lady Lia take care of that,” he muttered, then headed back underground with his tail hung low.

I stood there unable to move for a good while after he left. It was the first time I’d ever managed to really give someone a piece of my mind, and yet I didn’t feel satisfied at all.

“…Man, why’s this stuff gotta be so hard?”

I never had so much trouble finding the right words back in my world. The blue sky above was warm and clear, in direct contrast to what I now felt in my heart.

 

We checked five more caved-in tunnels, one of which was fully collapsed, so we needed Night to shrink down and check it out for us, though all he managed to bring back was a single, worn-out notebook. Its pages were yellowed and brittle. The cover might have once been red, but it was honestly hard to tell. Crow cocked his head at the sight of it, apparently having no memory of the notebook, but we didn’t have time to stand around reading through it, so I simply tossed it in my bag with the few mana stones I was carrying.

“Okay, how many more spots do we have to check?”

Night looked up at Crow as he walked down the corridor, allowing him to answer. He looked down at Night with listless, sunken eyes. “All that’s left now is the base camp we made for ourselves while we were working on the tunnels. That’s where we made the mana stone devices we used in all of the tunnels. There should definitely be something usable there.”

Crow started walking outside at a brisk pace, and we all hurried to keep up. Seeing the tunnels and the work that had gone into them made it plainly evident just how incredible the previous generation of heroes had been. I couldn’t imagine how many hours of work had gone into making the tunnels, even just the one to the demon continent: especially when they’d had families and places they belonged, unlike us, who were all just focused on taking down the Demon Lord.

 

I had to wonder how we would have managed in a scenario like theirs. After all, it’s not as though they had Noa or any previous heroes around to point them in the right direction. I wondered if we could have done what they did in a situation like that. Yeah, no way in hell, I thought, scoffing sarcastically to myself as I followed after Night and Crow. We arrived at the camp Crow described before too long which made sense, given that it was right where they started the first tunnel.

“Here we are,” he said.

 

It was a small building, perfectly hidden behind some trees, though it was worn enough to look a bit like ruins. It was the sort of place a group of kids would be thrilled to find and make into their secret hideout.

“Wow, I’m surprised you were able to still find this old place,” Night snorted upon first sight of it.

“Yeah, well. Lotta good memories here,” Crow muttered under his breath.

I could sense the place was drawing up a lot of feelings for the old man, and I didn’t really know whether or not me saying anything would be appropriate.

 

“Whoa!”

As soon as we entered the hidden doorway to the building, Lia cried out in amazement. The walls were all done up in bright colors, and the interior was far neater and tidier than one ever would have expected from the outside.

“My, would you look at that…” marveled Night, looking at a strange device covered in dust and illuminated by the light seeping in.

“Wouldn’t touch that if I were you. You might just lose a limb,” warned Crow in a threatening manner, and Night quickly drew back his outstretched paw.

I had no idea what the dust-covered appliance might be, but that only made me more curious about what it did.

“We didn’t leave many dangerous things laying around, but some stuff could be more dangerous now. Be careful,” he said with narrowed eyes, a hint of longing in his voice.

The previous hero’s party had consisted of four people, one from each of the world’s continents (aside from Volcano). The only two who survived their quest were the hero and Crow, though the hero was long dead by now, so only Crow remained. Having a far longer life span than anyone else he knew, Crow surely had to stand by and watch as the majority of his friends died off and left him behind. I couldn’t even imagine what that must feel like.

As I was lost in thought, I didn’t notice Crow walk right up to me. Panicked, I quickly moved out of the way, but my leg caught on something, and I tripped. I reached out to grab something and catch myself, and my hands landed on something dusty.

“Uh-oh.”

It was the thing Crow had warned us not to touch. I’d been standing next to it in the hopes I’d have a chance to satisfy my curiosity about it, but it seemed that plan had backfired. I froze, and Crow’s gaze shot over to the device, which was now rattling with some sort of mana.

“Hey! Let go of that, you idiot!” he barked, ripping my hands away in a hurry. A moment later, the device gave off a

bright light, filling the room. Crow and I, being right next to it, had to shield our eyes from the brightness.

“…What was that?” Crow whispered as the light finally abated. Apparently, he didn’t know exactly what the thing did either.

“Hey! Who goes there?!” Night growled, peering through the cloud of dusty smoke that filled the room.

“What the…”

 

Standing in the middle of the room was a man and a woman who had not been there when we entered. And though I used the word “standing,” their bodies were decidedly transparent. The word “ghosts” came to mind. Crow was still holding my arm, and I could feel his hands begin to tremble.

“You seem well, Crow.”

 

“Long time no see, big brother!”

 

POV: CROW

 

“…WHA…”

The sound leaked out from between my lips like a measured breath.

“What’s the matter, man? Ain’t never seen you make a face like that before.”

He smiled at me with the same smile I remembered—yet one that should no longer exist in this world. The black panther beastfolk who’d been heralded as the hero, and who had been my best friend from childhood, who meant more to me than anyone except for my little sister.

“Ritter…? Is that you?” I asked, gazing upon him in disbelief. I quickly shook my head, sure I was seeing things. “No, that can’t be. You died a long time ago, and I didn’t even get to be by your deathbed. If only I could have been there…”

I remembered it well. I’d been experiencing an influx of orders at the time and life had gotten in the way, so I hadn’t even found out that my best friend had died until two weeks after he was already gone. I really was an asshole—only ever thinking about myself, never checking in with anyone else. I was always too late when it mattered most: I couldn’t get there in time when my sister died, and I didn’t get to say goodbye to my best friend. There was always something getting in the way, preventing me from moving forward.

“Wow, big brother! Sounds like you’ve turned into a real softie,” giggled the girl, her hand over her mouth. This was the “polite” way to laugh that my mother had drilled into her.

“…Alia.”

The girl bore the same face, the same expression, and even had the same way of laughing as the little sister of my memories. My chest tightened looking at that face—one I hadn’t seen in so very, very long.

Not long after she died, a baby was born in a small village I just happened to be passing through. Having lost both my best friend and my little sister, I was wandering around looking for a place to die, when I encountered a baby girl who gave me a reason to live again. Her mother’s name was Lilia. She was a beautiful woman, but tragically lost her life in a monster attack just after her daughter was born.

Once again, I was too late to help, for I was out picking medicinal herbs at the time. And so it was then that I gave the girl the name Lia, after all of the women I most respected—Alia, Lilia, Amelia. In all honesty, I had been hoping to raise her as a replacement for my deceased sister, which was the main reason for the name. Of course, that stubborn tomboy Lia could never truly replace my dear sister.

“I…I…I don’t deserve to see either of you again…” I stuttered. I still didn’t understand how they could be here, but I would never mistake my own sister. She was the real deal, and I fell straight back into my old speaking patterns.

Amused, Alia simply giggled again.

“Nah, c’mon! He’s always been a big softie at heart, you know that?” teased Ritter, placing his transparent hand on Alia’s transparent shoulder.

Behind me, I could hear Tsuda gasping “They’re ghosts?!” He was probably not too far off, to be fair.

“I see… This device must use some sort of necromancy to call back the souls of lost loved ones for whoever charges it with mana,” I posited. It must have been an extremely complicated magical device, one I could neither make nor repair at my current age. I wiped the dust off the device and sighed. It seemed my old friend’s inventing capabilities had surpassed mine, even back when he was still alive. And they still worked better than anything I had ever made. No wonder he was chosen to be the hero.

“That’s correct. I’m guessing that boy there who touched it hasn’t lost any loved ones since coming of age, so the device simply used him as a conduit and channeled the mana of the next closest person, and now, here we are.”

I looked at Ritter, smiling smugly. Just looking at his soft, friendly expression was enough to get me all choked up.

“Yeah, right. Don’t pretend like you didn’t design that thing with me in mind,” I said. It had been many years since I last set foot in this room, so my memory was a little fuzzy, but I knew there had been no device here when I left. “I left all sorts of stuff here, so you knew I’d be back eventually. I bet you just wanted to mess with me when I came back, didn’t you? You probably put it here after we came back from the Demon Lord’s castle.”

He was always very meticulous and crafty like that. Yet as I let out a heavy sigh, Ritter’s gaze wandered to the other members of my party before ultimately settling on one in particular. “By the way…is that the infamous Black Cat you’re walking around with?” Ritter asked, looking down at Night with a twinkle in his eye.

Come to think of it, we had been about to make our way to the Demon Lord’s castle when we first heard the rumors about his right-hand monster.

“That’s right. Though right now he’s an ally of the current generation of heroes,” I replied, and Ritter immediately burst out laughing. I’d forgotten just how little it took to crack him up.

“You gotta be kidding me! The Demon Lord’s most loyal servant, now a turncoat?!” he howled, clutching his belly with both hands, and Alia couldn’t help but join in too.

I sighed and shook my head. I could barely get a word in edgewise with this guy—he simply steered the conversation

however he saw fit. “Enough about that. Why did you leave this magic device behind for me in the first place?” I asked. Surely if he’d gone out of his way to construct something and leave it here, he must have had something he needed to tell me.

 

POV: LIA LAGOON

 

“WHY DID YOU LEAVE this magic device behind for me in the first place?” asked Crow, and even I could feel the sudden tension.

It was foreboding enough that I actually started lifting my staff to cast a barrier purely by reflex. Tsuda, too, raised his shield a little bit from behind Lord Crow. Night didn’t seem particularly on guard, but judging from his stance, he did seem a little tense, consciously or otherwise.

“Aw, c’mon. Can’t we at least enjoy our long-awaited reunion a little more before we get into that?” said the previous hero, smiling broadly as though he didn’t notice the tension in the air.

I honestly wasn’t sure whether to judge him for being unable to read the room, or if it was just the dauntlessness of a true hero shining through.

Lady Alia, at least, seemed to see how uncomfortable we all were, and let out a sigh. “Jeez, Ritter. You really haven’t changed, even in death… You’ve really gotta learn how to read the room…” she said, looking first at Ritter, then at me, then Night, then Tsuda.

“I apologize, you guys, but could we give my brother and Ritter some privacy, please? Besides, there’s something unrelated I’d like to ask you. I hope you’ll hear me out.”

We all looked at each other, then nodded. To be honest, I didn’t want to stay in the middle of the awkward situation even a second longer. Lady Alia smiled, relieved that we were agreeable to her suggestion. Weirdly enough, her warm smile reminded me a little bit of the peaceful look on Lord Crow’s face whenever he was fast asleep.

“Thank you, I appreciate that… We’ve been watching you all for quite some time, though mostly just my brother. I believe we have a rough idea of your current circumstances. Also, Night, if you could call the current hero, and Tsuda, if you could call our mother, Noa, here, that would be much appreciated. We should be able to stay manifested in this world for about a day, but I can’t promise any longer than that. Please, do hurry if you can.”

After hearing Lady Alia’s request, Night and Tsuda immediately nodded and headed for the door. She then turned to me and smiled playfully. “In the meantime, why don’t you and I have a little chat, Lia? I only ever had my brother, obviously, but I always wanted a sister.”

With her voice clear as crystal as she smiled from ear to ear, I could hardly say no. If she had truly been watching over us for so long, then surely she knew about the feelings I harbored for Lord Crow. I nodded, resigned to my fate, and her smile grew even wider.

As sparks seemed to be flying between the previous hero and Lord Crow, the two of us decided to move into the lounge next door in order to escape the uncomfortable atmosphere. The room itself was quite dusty, but the seats we sat on were much less so, even if they weren’t perfectly clean. It was, perhaps, the ideal environment to have a discussion with the dead.

“Tee hee… You don’t have to be so on edge, you know. Even if I did want to hurt you, we have no power to intervene in the world of the living. Let’s just have a casual chat until my mother arrives, shall we?”

The way she covered her mouth with her hand when she laughed was more elegant and refined than half of the royals back in the palace. I couldn’t imagine Lord Crow would have insisted on teaching her such a thing, so it must have been Lady Noa’s doing. Her facial structure itself was every bit as perfect as Lord Crow’s, and it even made me start to wonder if she was secretly of royal blood herself.

“…What would you like to talk about?” I asked. We had no tea or cakes to dine on, as the only thing on the coffee table between us was a thick layer of dust. Not that this felt like much of a tea party anyway.

“Oh, come now, there’s no need to be so guarded. I really just want to talk to you…as my future sister-in-law, of course.”

My heart skipped a couple beats, and then my mouth hung wide open. I was so baffled by the words that I didn’t even care that I probably looked like a slack-jawed idiot.

“Y-your…sister-in-law?” I replied, struggling to even get the words out.

“I mean, you’re going to marry my brother, aren’t you?”

“BWHAAA?!”

 

POV: ODA AKIRA

 

“HEY, HERO! It’s headed your way! Look alive!!!” I yelled at the hero, who was gasping for breath on his knees.

“Don’t…b-boss me around!” he cried out in irritation as he picked himself up.

I didn’t remember him being so useless. I couldn’t help but shake my head. This was our first time fighting side by side. Down in the Great Labyrinth of Kantinen, he had been on the front lines while I brought up the rear, until that minotaur showed up and our positions flipped after he broke both his arms.

“Kyousuke! Be careful not to damage its tusks! They’re the materials we need!”

“Yes, I’m…well aware!!!”

The hero, Kyousuke, Gilles, and I were currently gathering the necessary resources Noa requested so that we could cross to the other continent. Anything close to the safe house that wasn’t monster-related would be gathered by Amaryllis and Amelia while we were gone, whereas those of us in the battle unit were specifically looking for monster materials. But it wasn’t proving to be all that easy.

This forest was as close to demon territory as it got, which meant the monsters here were stronger than even those on the lowest levels of any labyrinth. And a group of large boar-headed monsters were swarming us right now. In true boar fashion, they’d charged at us the moment we set foot on their territory, making a reckless beeline right for us. If we were skewered by their tusks, we’d be done for.

I dodged one, and it charged straight into a giant tree behind me, getting its tusks stuck. The tree was ripped out of the ground by its roots due to the impact, but it remained attached to the beast’s tusks. The beast shook its head back and forth to get free, then turned to look at me again. I had to admire its neck strength, necessary for it to skewer its prey. Thankfully, I was quick enough to dodge its charges, but I was worried whether my other party members could do the same.

“Akira! We’ll draw its attention and create an opportunity for you, so you just focus on chopping its head off!” yelled Gilles.

As a former vice knight commander, he was far better at doling out orders than I was. Night and Amelia usually did exactly as I wanted them to without me having to ask, so I hadn’t had to really work to operate as part of a team since leaving the castle. That was probably why Gilles had asked me to be the one to deal the finishing blow—because he knew I was a lone wolf.

“You got it!” I replied, then used Conceal Presence. Now that I didn’t have to worry about working with anyone, there was no need for me to remain visible. Quickly, the hero, Kyousuke, and Gilles drove the monster into a more densely wooded area where trees would obstruct its path. Now it was my turn. “Shadow Magic, activate… Shadow Lattice!”

Our shadows, and the shadows of the trees around us, all congregated to draw a lattice pattern beneath the monster’s feet. A monster of its size would normally be enough to feed all of us for several days, but we had no need of its meat now that we had a base camp to go back to, so I had no qualms about dicing the monster up into tiny pieces. When the shadows were done, all that remained was a fleshy lump.

“Hey! What about the tusks…?!” the hero cried out in a fluster, but he quickly shut up the moment I reappeared, tusks in hand.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to forget about our main objective. I’d ripped them off before I even used my Shadow Magic. As soon as the battle was over and I verified there were no other monsters nearby, we took a break. The pungent scent of blood and death permeated the air, probably made worse by the fact that I’d diced the monster into pieces. It would be best to get out of here ASAP.

I broke off some bark from a nearby tree and used it to scrape the blood off my daggers. I would have preferred to simply wipe it off with a soft cloth, but we’d brought no such dead weight item along with us, and I wouldn’t want to have to walk around with a blood-soaked cloth afterward anyway. This meant my only real options were to use tree bark, or wait until a humanoid enemy appeared and then wipe my blades off on their clothing.

“Well, I expect you know this by now, Akira, but it seems you are critically, lethally unprepared to work with others as a team,” said Gilles after catching his breath.

I nodded as I pulled out a fairly large mana stone from within the pile of meat. Even if I had the highest class level of anyone here, that didn’t change the fact that I had extremely little teamwork experience.

“Something tells me a half-baked level of teamwork won’t cut it against the demons either,” Kyousuke added in a measured voice.

He was probably right. I certainly couldn’t beat Mahiro on my own, and I might not have even been able to beat Aurum. And trying to work as a team in ways you hadn’t practiced in advance, against enemies that were too strong for me to take on myself, was a recipe for disaster.

I needed to remember we were very close to demon territory and that there was at least one demon with magic that would allow them to fly right over here and challenge us. Hell, Latticenail had done it, albeit with the help of a magic flying device. Not that I would say no to the opportunity to reduce their numbers a bit, but that was assuming they wouldn’t come in droves. I pondered this for a bit, which I think Gilles interpreted as me feeling miffed as he tried to step in and clear the air.

“I only say that because I know from what you’ve told us about your previous combat experience that teamwork might be a little…tough for you. But teamwork isn’t always strictly advantageous, either. Having more hands on deck to help out is great and everything, but if one person falls out of rhythm, it can mean curtains for the entire party. If there’s at least one person who can fend for themselves solo, then hey, at least not everyone will get wiped out, right?”

 

Gilles smiled, and I felt a chill run down my spine. There was a distinct difference between the core values of someone born in this world and someone born in ours. Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t want to die, but the thought of going into a battle thinking the other heroes might be expendable sacrifices so long as I alone could survive didn’t sit right with me at all.

“Ideally, we’d want everyone to make it out of there alive, obviously,” the hero interjected in his usual obnoxious tone. “We can’t just let you be totally incapable of cooperating with the rest of us.”

I grimaced. Yes, I knew that I needed to get better at teamwork, but I found it extremely hard to tell, for example, what Kyousuke was thinking when he took up a given combat position, or why Gilles chose to time his attacks for one opening as opposed to another. “Well, for now, let’s just keep doing things the way we have been,” I said, shrugging him off. “I still need to get used to how you guys operate, or else I’ll never be able to improve.”

I turned my back to the three of them. I wondered, had I stayed back at the castle and pled my innocence, if I would have learned to fight as part of a team like them. Not that I thought I made the wrong decision, of course, but I did feel something akin to envy toward them, now that I was being confronted with my own inadequacies.