Hero

“A better prey. I wonder if it’s what I’m thinking of?”

“The hero’s party.”

“Not just anyone, but you – a former heir of the Andrei family – would betray your companions? Honestly, it’s hard to believe. It seems more plausible that you’re lying to save yourself.”

“Then kill me if that’s what you think.”

Ignoring Abel’s voice in his head, Yuseong deliberately exposed his neck.

Fighting would only buy a little more time before death; the end result wouldn’t change.

After quietly observing this, Serena pulled out a small hand mirror from thin air and tossed it.

“I’ll believe you this once, even if I might get fooled. If you’re lying, you’d better be prepared.”

With those words, Serena flapped her wings and soared into the sky.

Watching Serena shrink to a dot and vanish, Yuseong collapsed to the ground.

His body felt weak, perhaps from the sudden release of tension.

-What have you done! Betraying your companions!

“I haven’t decided to betray them yet. Let’s calm down and talk first – I’ll decide what to do based on how things develop.”

-Ha! I have nothing to discuss with a demon!

“You seem to be misunderstanding something. Why do you think I’m a demon?”

-What else could a being that forcibly takes over others’ bodies be besides a demon?

Yuseong opened his mouth to speak but fell into thought instead.

A being that suddenly appears to help in desperate situations.

A being that comes from another world, not this one.

A being that solves problems and takes valuable things as payment.

No matter how he explained it, there were overflowing reasons to think he was a demon.

“…Fine. I am a demon. So what? You’re the one who called me, aren’t you?”

-What nonsense!

“Deny it all you want, but the fact that you asked me for help won’t change.”

Quests aren’t generated just because someone is in a dangerous situation – they only appear when a client desperately wishes for help.

Though Abel probably hadn’t intended to summon a demon, the fact that he had called Yuseong was undeniable.

Having committed to pretending to be a demon, Yuseong decided to fully play the part.

“And you don’t need to put on an act in front of me. I know what kind of person you are.”

-I’ve never once acted…

“You want to bring down the current hero and become the hero yourself, right?”

Abel, who had been refuting everything without concession, fell silent like a lie when Yuseong spoke the contents written in the quest window.

“I can make that wish come true.”

-I’m the heir of the Andrei family that has produced heroes for generations. Do you think someone like me would make deals with demons?

“Oh? Weren’t you expelled from your family and stripped of your name?”

-…

“If you’re unsure about making a deal, why not at least have a conversation first?”

-…

‘Did I push too hard?’

As Yuseong was pondering how to get Abel to speak again, he heard boisterous sounds.

Not the clash of weapons, but celebratory cheers and trumpet sounds seeming to announce victory.

After passing through several alleys, Yuseong soon arrived at the source of the sound.

“Waaahh!”

“Hero! Hurrah!”

“Kyaaah! I love you, Hero!”

Four people – to be precise, one man and three women – walking down the center of the main road with bright smiles and chests held high, while crowds packed both sides of the road and building tops, cheering wildly.

Yuseong’s expression turned strange as he carefully observed the party.

‘That’s…’

At that moment, Abel who had been silent spoke up.

-…Can you really grant my wish?

“Probably? I’ll try my best at least.”

Yuseong was certain that Abel wore a deeply twisted expression at this moment.

* * *

Hero.

A being who protects the world from the Demon King’s threat.

Basically anyone could become a hero when chosen by the goddess, regardless of gender, nobility or commoner status, human or other race, but one day heroes began being selected from only a single family.

That family became the continent’s undisputed greatest house, and after enough time passed that people took it for granted that heroes would come from that one family, something unexpected that no one had imagined occurred.

The goddess chose someone other than from the hero’s family as hero – moreover, someone brought from another world.

Logically thinking, it wasn’t strange.

Originally anyone could become a hero, and there were not a few past cases of heroes being brought from other worlds.

If anything, it was stranger that heroes had continued coming from just one family.

However, people didn’t think that way.

People believed that family must have committed some great mistake and incurred the goddess’s wrath, causing them to no longer produce heroes.

“Abel Andrei, I strip you of the Andrei name. From this moment forth, you are no longer a member of the Andrei family.”

Sensing the dangerous public mood, the Andrei family chose to make their heir who was supposed to become the hero into a scapegoat.

The Andrei family spread rumors that this generation failing to produce a hero was entirely because Abel had neglected his training while relying on bloodline, or because he lacked the character befitting a hero.

Thus Abel fell overnight from next hero to a sinner who had incurred the goddess’s wrath.

-I believed my father’s words. I thought failing to become hero was entirely due to my inadequacy, and after much consideration, decided to join the hero’s party.

He planned to confirm with his own eyes what differences existed between himself and the hero, exactly what he lacked that made him the unchosen, by staying at the hero’s side.

And the result was…

“Ah! If we’d just had a few more troops, we definitely could have caught them!”

“What’s done is done, right? Just forget about it.”

“There will be another chance next time. You worked hard today, so get some good rest.”

“Hmm hmm, shall I teach you the elven way of walking? Though I shouldn’t teach outsiders, I could make a special exception for you.”

A beast-warrior woman with tiger-striped hair.

A priestess wearing pure white clerical robes without a single blemish.

A female mage wearing a form-fitting robe that revealed her curves.

And a black-haired young man wearing a silly grin while surrounded by the three women.

Yuseong wore an indescribably complex expression as he observed this scene.

“Oh right, Abel. The lord was complaining about heavy damage to the city – what happened? It’s troubling when I trusted you with this.”

At the young man’s sudden reproach, Yuseong belatedly managed his expression and opened his mouth.

“It couldn’t be helped. The city was too large to defend with so few troops.”

“Wait. That sounds like you’re saying the damage increased because I took too many troops with me.”

Indeed it was so.

According to Abel’s explanation, the young man had taken excessive troops under the pretext of intercepting the Demon King’s army, leaving insufficient forces to defend the city.

However, instead of saying such things, Yuseong slightly bowed his head.

“I apologize. I didn’t mean it that way. It was just my lack of ability.”

“Haah.”

At the young man’s blatant sigh, Yuseong bowed his head deeper.

“…Fine, you can go.”

Yuseong left the room and went straight back to his own quarters, leaving behind the young man who gestured dismissively like to a subordinate and the women who watched with mocking eyes.

After locking the door and confirming nothing was inside, Yuseong collapsed onto the bed and muttered in a small voice.

“So that’s what they call a hero.”

Ridiculously enough, the hero that the goddess had supposedly brought from another world was Korean.

Whether he came from the Earth that Yuseong had lived on, or from another Earth like the people he’d seen in quests so far was unknown, but the three characters of the name Han Jae-kyung and his appearance clearly proved he was Korean.

-That bastard is no hero. How can someone who can’t even recite prayers, has no sense of duty, and is ruled by desires be a hero?

The words “Isn’t being chosen by the goddess enough?” rose to his throat, but he swallowed them back with superhuman patience.

One wrong word could re-agitate the client he had barely managed to calm.

Yuseong stared at the ceiling while reviewing his conversation with Abel.

Han Jae-kyung.

A hero brought from another world by the goddess one year ago.

A young man who, despite never having held a sword in his life, gained enough skill in less than a year to create the Aura Blade and began his journey to defeat the Demon King.

“Hero, Demon King, companions, Four Heavenly Kings, a battle for the world’s fate. Traditional fantasy after so long. It’s almost disconcerting how ordinary it is.”

Strictly speaking it would be more accurate to classify it as fusion fantasy, but to Yuseong who had experienced all sorts of strange worlds like Cthulhu, radioactive apocalypse, swordsmanship, survival games, and zombie apocalypse, this was more than enough to classify as traditional fantasy.

-Traditional fantasy? What’s that?

“It’s demon terminology. You don’t need to know.”

-I don’t want to know either. So can you really make me hero instead of that bastard?

“That’s what we need to find out from now on.”

Yuseong forced his closing eyes open and rubbed his face with both hands to gather his thoughts.

Though his head was complicated with various thoughts – facts learned from the conversation with Harnak, effects of the meteor impact, Dragonia’s situation, the time ratio between this world and Earth – he intended to focus entirely on the quest for now, having started it.

“Does becoming hero absolutely require being chosen by the goddess? Are there no cases of someone stronger than the hero becoming hero or anything like that?”

-There are those stronger than the hero, but only one chosen and blessed by the goddess can defeat the Demon King. A hero not chosen by the goddess does not exist and cannot exist.

“What happens if a hero becomes unable to fulfill their role as hero?”

-What do you mean by that?

“Like if they lose several limbs or suffer injuries so severe they can barely move, or…”

Swoosh.

Yuseong brought his hand to his neck and drew it across.

-If such things happen, the goddess selects a new hero. But such cases are extremely rare. Even looking at all past hero cases, you could count them on your fingers. If you’re planning to directly attack the hero, I wouldn’t really recommend it.

“Why?”

-Simple. Because the hero is strong. A hero blessed by the goddess gains power rivaling decent-sized nations. Literally without mobilizing national-level forces, the hero cannot be caught.

Yuseong had been considering mobilizing the Demon King’s army through Serena but shook his head.

Not only was there no certainty of catching the hero, but even if he somehow caught him, he couldn’t satisfy the additional clear condition of needing to be chosen as the new hero.

“Are there no other ways to make someone lose hero qualification?”

-…Come to think of it, there is one.

“There is?”

An unexpected answer came to his casual question.

-When the goddess herself revokes hero qualification.