The Hero Who Returned From Death Quits - Chapter 186



EP9. ■■

After the connection with the Holy Sword was cut off, I kept my mouth shut and thought for a moment. The voice that rang in my head was clearly the Holy Sword’s.

And, the content that the Holy Sword conveyed was quite shocking. No, it was ambiguous to even say it was shocking. In fact, I knew it from the beginning.

I was tired of fighting, tired of hatred, tired of my mission. Now, if you were to ask me to become a warrior again, I would never do so.

I can’t be a warrior. I refuse to be one myself, so how can I possibly be something like a warrior?

But perhaps a warrior will be needed. If those who abandoned me are defeated, if the Archangel cannot defeat the Demon King, a warrior may be needed.

If that situation comes up, what would I choose? I don’t know.

… No, there is no point in thinking about it. Of course, if you win, that will be enough. If you think about those who are on the battlefield losing, if they lose, it is virtually no different from destruction. Re-creating a warrior is a gamble with too little chance.

As I was thinking that, news arrived.

News came that the defeated soldiers had arrived in the empire.

When I went to meet them after they had been defeated, the situation was much worse than I had expected.

Many were injured, and their numbers were much smaller than before the expedition.

From noble mtl dot com

“…This is.”

When I brought it up, Feria took a deep breath and said.

“…Unfortunately, we didn’t win, but the Archangel injured the Demon King to the point where he couldn’t move for several months. So, we have to find a way to win in the meantime.”

It was straight to the point. I frowned.

In the end, the worst happened.

“…okay.”

I could tell how urgent the situation was by the way he got straight to the point without saying anything else. I felt like my head was going blank.

In the end, even summoning the Archangel ended in failure with the Archangel being defeated, so the only method left is…

I tried to swallow, but no saliva came out. My lips felt parched. Even the Archangel had been defeated. But was there a way? I wasn’t even sure if the Holy Sword could be repaired or not, and without the Holy Sword, I didn’t know if there was a way to stop it.

Beatrice came to me and said.

“…First of all, calm down. Even though we lost, there are still a lot of important things I need to say.”

I decided to follow her for now.

My colleagues, Grandis, and I were sitting at a round table in a small room where no one was allowed to enter unless they were invited.

Grandis narrowed her brows, closed her eyes, then opened them and spoke.

“Are you kidding me?”

“what?”

Lena’s face hardened at Grandis’ words and she questioned him. Grandis gritted her teeth and said.

“You went out to fight, using up all your strength. And then you lost? Do you think I’ll praise you by saying, “Well done!”? No matter how much I think about it, I can’t understand it. Even if you lose, you were confident that you could preserve some of your strength, so you didn’t take us as a countermeasure. But if your soldiers are destroyed like this, what on earth do you want?”

Lena scrunched her face, then sat up abruptly and said.

“Are you kidding me? What do you think you’ll get out of cursing like that, a girl who doesn’t even know what happened on the battlefield?”

Feria held her forehead and said.

“Stop, there are more important things. We don’t have time to waste arguing.”

“…Hey, I guess you think this is your bedroom because you’re not saying anything about being here right now. It’s not like you like it when we’re face to face and hug each other. Everyone just puts up with it.”

Lena said one last word to Grandis and then sat down. It was obvious that Lena was glaring at Grandis.

“Hmm… I don’t think you guys are the type of people who would endure the discomfort of having to face someone… How shameless.”

Grandis glanced at me and said with a faint smile. Then, Lena crumpled her face, glared at Grandis with a sinister look, and growled in a low voice.

“…you.”

Grandis snickered, then looked at Peria. Peria’s face was also wrinkled. No, not just Peria, but all of her colleagues’ faces were stiff.

In the midst of this brief silence, Beatrice spoke.

“…Let’s discuss the important things first. The Archangel told me something before he died.”

I narrowed my eyes, raised my hand, and asked.

“Well… if the Archangel is dead and the Demon King is unable to do anything for several months, wouldn’t it be okay to just summon the Archangel again?”

“That is impossible. The very process of summoning Archangel Idrisiel was an absurd expedient. I lacked the ability as a summoner to summon Idrisiel, and the Goddess compensated for that. However, for some reason, the power that the Goddess can use seems to be limited, and in such a situation, I cannot summon an additional Archangel.”

“…Okay. So then, what did the archangel say?”

“They say the Demon King’s power is to foresee the future.”

The moment I heard that, the atmosphere became tense.

“what?”

“It’s probably impossible to foresee all futures. It seems that by paying a certain price, you can see certain futures. But… that doesn’t mean it becomes easy.”

To be frank, it was difficult to say that the power of the Demon King I had met and fought was helpful in battle. It was just that the power felt several times more difficult because I fought in the Demon King’s stronghold, and I had never heard of the Demon King using that power when fighting in other places.

However, the situation was different for the future.

To begin with, the Demon King was a being that was so strong that it was incomparable to others in every way. However, if such a being had the power of foresight, I had no idea how to defeat him.

“Then, then, what else?”

“There is nothing about the Demon King… Instead, there is one thing. If you infuse the Holy Sword with divine power, magical power, and black magic, you can learn about the hidden things in the Holy Sword. I don’t know exactly what that information is, but I think it is similar to how Periana… Grandis (she clicked her tongue at this point) accessed the records of past events. The most crucial information probably requires more stringent conditions.”

“…I already know that. Because I breathed life into this piece.”

“Is that so? If so, can you tell me what happened…?”

“The will within the Holy Sword itself spoke to me. And it said. I can no longer be a warrior. Then the connection was cut off, so I could not speak to it again…”

Then, Se-in looked at me with a determined expression and said.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make it so you don’t have to be a warrior.”

“…Then, what are you going to do?”

“huh?”

“In a situation where we don’t even know if the Holy Sword can be repaired, even if we assume that it can be repaired, if I can’t become a warrior… should I pass that burden on to someone else? Me, who knows that pain better than anyone else?”

“…That doesn’t mean you have to bear all that pain.”

“No one needs to bear it. Right now, even I don’t feel like holding the Holy Sword again. My subconscious is rejecting the position of a warrior. But… what should I do then?”

“…that.”

There was silence for a moment. In that atmosphere, I felt unbearably uncomfortable.

“…Sorry. I said something unnecessary. Saying this won’t help anything. Wait, I’ll go get some fresh air.”

After saying that, I jumped up and ran away.

I looked up at the sky. The sky, which had already become night, was covered in a black veil of stars.

And then, I felt someone approaching me.

It was Grandis. She came up to me, put her arm around my shoulder, and said,

“What are you thinking about?”

How long has it been since we last met that you’re approaching me so without any sense of distance? I answered with that thought in my mind.

“…Well, because things have turned out this way, I think it’s really hard…”

Let’s say that, Grandis looked at me and said.

“Do you want to kiss?”

“uh?”

“Why are you so surprised? When my head was complicated, I kissed you and I felt a little better. So, I’ll repay you.”

Before I could answer, my tongue got tangled.