The Hero Who Returned From Death Quits - Chapter 209



EP10. The Falling Twilight

“…There was no attack?”

As I climbed up the wall surrounding the capital, I muttered to myself. The enemy should have attacked at this point. That was why I had concentrated all my strength and prepared a defensive posture. However, even now, when the enemy should have invaded and completely destroyed the capital, the enemy had not even made a move, let alone attacked.

I furrowed my brows. I thought I knew what was going on. Perhaps the Demon King was using his power of foresight to know that I would block his attacks, and that was why he was doing this.

I didn’t know much about the power of foresight, but when I came face to face with it like this, I felt frustrated. I had no idea how to stop it.

“…They say that they still haven’t seen any movement from the demons.”

As I was blankly gazing at the scenery from the top of the castle wall, Se-in came up next to me and spoke. I glanced at her.

“…Is it different from the future you saw?”

She asked so. Grandis had informed not only Peria but everyone else that I had died and returned, and perhaps because she knew that, Sein was speaking cautiously.

I looked at her and nodded.

“Perhaps the Demon King saw the future I changed and gave up on attacking. The Demon King I saw attacked when he was at his most vulnerable and had not fully recovered. He must have taken such a risk because he thought he would definitely win, but now he can’t be sure he can win, so he doesn’t necessarily gamble. Perhaps he just gave up on gambling and waited for his full recovery.”

That was the same as saying that if things got worse, they would get worse, and they would never get better. That was only natural. Right now, in order to defend against the Demon King, not only the Paladins and Crusaders, but also the Fairy Army had been gathered. In other words, they were in a state of overpower. It was unclear how long this state could be maintained.

It was hard to imagine that such an amount of excess power could be supplied now that the scars from the war with the Demon King of Wrath had not yet healed. Furthermore, there were more than a few problems with tying everything up in the capital. Therefore, it was impossible to say that the situation was anything but extremely unstable when the enemy did not attack.

From the beginning, we created this situation based on the basic premise that the enemy would attack unconditionally. In such a situation, how many people would be able to say, “Oh, the enemy should have attacked, but they didn’t. Now, go.” The burden was enormous because we had to reduce the excessive force in a reasonable way.

Moreover, the moment that excessive power was dismantled, it was impossible to rule out the possibility that the enemy would attack using that gap. If that happened, no matter how I thought about it, the only future that would come was defeat.

I gulped, swallowed, and gently stroked my own neck. The burden was too much, so the scenes of my neck being blown off suddenly started playing in my head. It felt like my neck would separate from my body at any moment and fall off.

“ah….”

I swayed. I suddenly felt dizzy. I tried to hold onto the wall to keep my balance, but before I could, Sein caught me and supported me.

“Are you okay? What happened all of a sudden?”

After taking a deep breath, I answered her question.

“I just suddenly felt dizzy for a moment.”

Se-in heard that and spoke with a worried expression.

“Dizziness? Are there any other symptoms? Should I bring a priest? Oh, no. Unless you’re bringing Beatrice anyway, it’s probably better for you to just heal yourself. Do you want to go to the bedroom? If you lie down and rest, you might feel a little better.”

Se-in blurted out those words. I waved my hand at her and said.

“No. It was just… a brief mental problem. I’m fine now. There’s nothing physically wrong with me.”

Se-in’s face darkened even more when he heard that. I realized my slip of the tongue when I saw his reaction. Is there such a idiot? Where in the world is there such a idiot who, even if you look closely, can’t show his strength to someone who cares about him, but instead makes them feel even more uncomfortable?

“Uh, so that’s… um, I think I misspoke.”

“No. You don’t have to say anything else.”

Se-in hugged me tightly. I felt uncomfortable with Se-in’s appearance. However, Se-in hugged me a little tighter as if my feelings were not his business.

… Since she was a prosecutor of a higher level than me, her hug was a little painful.

She continued to speak, hugging me so tightly.

“I don’t know exactly what mental problems are.”

I listened to her in silence, still holding her in my arms.

“It’s my fault that I didn’t notice that you were so uncomfortable. Yes. You died and returned to your original state, so it must have been uncomfortable… Since you never showed it in the past, I thought it was normal. Not knowing how painful it is to die… I’m sorry.”

I stared at her blankly. Sein released the arms that were tightly holding me and looked at me with worried eyes.

… It was a bit of a strange feeling. Death was a natural thing to me, and the pain and mental problems that came with such death were also only mine. But it felt strange that such natural things were coming back to me as pain, and that the people around me knew about it and were worried about me.

“…Then can you just take me to the bedroom?”

The look in Se-in’s eyes, worried about me, was so intense that I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I didn’t need anything, so she nodded, wrapped her arms around my waist, and headed to my bedroom.

“…This is how we met.”

I looked at the old man in front of me. An old man with wrinkles and a white robe. It was the Pope.

“I don’t feel so good, you know.”

The old man gave a hollow laugh.

Perhaps now you are thinking to yourself that you have thrown away even the pretense. However, I did not bother to correct my posture. In the first place, he was the one who colluded with the previous emperor and framed me. Even if I had no feelings left, there was no reason to be polite. That is why I did not bother to talk to him when we met last time and he tried to summon the archangel.

The Pope smiled faintly for a moment, then looked at me and said:

“…What’s going on?”

It was a little funny that he still kept his honorific title, but anyway, the Pope kept his honorific title to me. Although I found that a little odd, I said to him:

“To put it bluntly, I think we need to move the Crusader a bit.”

“…The Crusaders? Why?”

“Well, things got a little messed up.”

“A plan? What plan? I don’t remember anything like that. Besides, wasn’t it you who called the Crusaders?”

“That’s why the plan was messed up. I thought wrong. It was arrogant to think that simply increasing the number of troops would be okay against an enemy who could see the future.”

“So what have you been saying since a while ago? I have now been pushed out by the saintess and have lost all my power, but I at least agree that the Demon King must be defeated. In order to defeat the Demon King, please speak clearly.”

“If you could know what would happen in the future, would you believe it?”

“Future… things? Doesn’t that mean the power that the Demon King possesses?”

Without further ado, I summoned the Holy Sword and showed it to him. As soon as he saw it, the Pope looked extremely embarrassed.

“You may not know this, but I can… see the future. It was like that in the past. And the future I saw changed. It was because my power and the Demon King’s power clashed.”

When he heard that, the Pope opened his eyes wide and looked at me. I looked at the Pope and continued to open my mouth.

“Even if things remain like this, the Demon King will not attack since he thinks that his chances of winning are low. So, what we actively need is fishing.”

“fishhook…?”

“Yeah. Fishing. Fishing to lure out the fish called the Demon King.”

“…What is the bait? You’re not saying that you’re going to use the Crusaders as bait….”

“No, even if they are crusaders, they are nothing to the Demon King. Even if you put them out as bait, the Demon King won’t care what value the crusaders have. What value is there in an army that he can wipe out by himself?”

“That means?”

“Get out of the capital. And hide yourself nearby. Tell the Crusaders that. The bait is… the capital.”