Chapter 1 (1/2)
Chapter 1: Maou and Hero, at first it’s by mouth ◆
With the outside appearance of summoning the Hero to defeat the Maou, Yomawari Meguru was summoned in order to deal with other countries. However, that plan has been rolled back to square one. Because Yomawari Meguru is just too strong.
That’s the only reason.
Although Yomawari Meguru was not someone endowed with high apt.i.tude for magic, his skills and physical capabilities surpa.s.sed the limits. Moreover, with the kind of magic he possesses, which allows him to manipulate s.p.a.ce and time, his capabilities for combat is overwhelmingly superior──but nevertheless, it’s not that he doesn’t know fear. No, rather than that, it can be said that his soul and body movements have full knowledge of what fear is.
When Meguru recalled the time he was summoned to this world and tasted the thing called fear for the first time──he first thought about the former Maou who’s running right in front of him right now, Pearlnight “Resurrection” Halwehi.
Former Maou, no, even right now she’s probably still a Maou.
A girl who’s called the strongest Demon.
The fact that Meguru met Pearlnight should not have been possible under normal circ.u.mstances, it was an exception among exceptions.
He sent a fleeting glance at her.
While looking at the girl running before him, Meguru heaved a sigh. It has been 3 days since they met again. In order to thoroughly mow down their enemies, the two haven’t taken any decent rest.
Still looking at her, Meguru reminisced.
It’s about the time back when only one week had pa.s.sed since Meguru was summoned.
It was the first time Meguru had practice training.
The meaning of that training was truly significant.
If a goblin village was formed near the Kingdom by whom Meguru was summoned──it means that’s also their destruction. Goblin extermination was Meguru’s first subjugation act, no, more like his first time training under a schedule.
And though he also performed mock-battles with the Kingdom’s Knights, those were not to the point of a life-and-death battle.
For that reason, he was not fully entrusted with the extermination of goblins. In case of an emergency situation, 10 people, including the Kingdom’s Knight Leader and the Knight Order Vice Leader, were by his side, all ready to jump into the fray if he ever needed help. As this mission is his first step towards becoming a hero, he didn’t want to spoil it. Of course, he did have the confidence to devote himself to the training──however, even with that mentality, his first mission was a touch out-of-reach for Meguru.
「Compared to practicing 100 times, you’ll gain more experience from actual combat. It’ll be good if you can act without thinking too deeply about it」
With only that being said by the King, Grimmoire Kanaberal, Meguru didn’t really think much about it.
He only thought of it simply as his first step to become a Hero.
Even the country itself didn’t really put too much hope into Meguru, they thought that if anything happens the Knights can just step in and rescue him. If he could gain some experience and from there, nourish his level then it was going to be all good.
And then, it was the day appointed for the extermination of goblins. Together with the Knights, he located the goblin’s village. But when they broke into the place──Yomawari Meguru felt fear.
It was Fear.
First time seeing this scene of taking lives and ready to be taken his own life, fear piled up inside him.
It was certain that he feared.
The reason is, it was a straight-forward outbreak of war with the goblins.
The goblin village he broke into──────had already been annihilated.
It was a cruel scene of easily surpa.s.sing the number of 40 or 50 dead bodies of ugly midgets. But dead bodies weren’t really dead bodies either, as they were all scattered into pieces.
The sudden situation made him unable to comprehend the things that happened, he had doubts that they killed each other. It was not impossible for this to happen to low-grade monsters. Next on the list should be an attack from a foreign tribe.
However, the result was skies different than what he was thinking of.
In the middle of the sea of goblin dead bodies, a single figure of a girl bathed in blood standing stock still gave him the answer.
Even though the girl wasn’t injured, from her mini-skirt that had been dyed red by fresh blood, drops of red-color dripped down to the ground.
「What’s this？ You people are…」
Saying so, the girl turned towards his way.
This girl exterminated the whole goblin village.
The situation was unthinkable no matter how much one racks his brain, Meguru needed a few more seconds before he could comprehend all this. Even if he knew the answer he got was correct, there was no way he could just comprehend it instantly.
And fear, was the thing that rose up inside of him.
It took him several seconds to liberate his body from that fear.
A few seconds.
Only a few seconds.
The few seconds he used to blink his eyes to sort out the information inside his head, those were the fatal few seconds that Meguru could never take back.
「What a bother」
Just before he closed his eyes, the voice of the girl could be heard.
The second his eyes were closed, the girl standing in the sea of dead bodies vanished from his field of vision.
In the end, she vanished only from Meguru’s sight. When he turned back and looked at the people that should’ve been whom he would seek help from, all the standby Kingdom Knights were scattered into pieces.
Scat-ter-ed.
In. To. Pieces.
They all turned into dead corpses.
No difference from the goblins, all the Kingdom Knights who followed him also got annihilated.
However, Meguru alone remained.
Under normal circ.u.mstances, Meguru should’ve turned into pieces too, but it was not the case.
Towards Meguru, the girl only projected out her blood-thirst.
And she approached him.
「What are you. An irregular?」
So she said. Then agreeing to herself, the girl nodded “un un” and disappeared to somewhere.
It wasn’t really luck in the middle of misfortune, though.
In any case, while being called a Hero, Meguru ended his first practice training with a bitter result of not even getting into any training at all.
A few years after that.
Right now he’s acting together with the girl he met that time, the one that should’ve been killed by him.
Is this fate?
「Geez、I can’t even laugh at this joke」
Meguru murmured in a troubled manner.
「Hn？ Did you say something？」
Pearlnight turned around towards Meguru, saying so.
「Nope. It’s nothing」
「Hm, that so. We should see my castle anytime now. There shouldn’t be any more pursuers since we came all the way here」
After 3 days and 3 nights of running non-stop, the castle walls filled with blooming star-like Linalia flowers finally became visible.
It is the castle that Meguru and his hero party marched in in order to defeat the Maou. The state of the castle hasn’t really changed compared to several months ago.
「This way」
Saying so, Pearlnight dashed off, following suit is Meguru. Having the tightly shut doors smashed, Pearlnight kicked the door that should’ve been opened with a key and kept walking upstairs.
After all, it’s still her own house, what are we gonna do about cleaning up after this?, he thought while the sounds of around 6 more doors being smashed reverberated the empty castle.
「O-Oi. Pearlnight, aren’t you breaking too many already?」
「No, we can’t open them if I don’t do this. Right now, Prism is extending a defensive barrier extending over this castle. The doors won’t even move a tiny bit if you try to open it normally. That’s why I’m smas.h.i.+ng all the doors together with the barrier’s ceremony. Still, even if it’s Prism it would require some time to reconstruct the barrier. See? If we hurry up we can secure this area」
Pearlnight said so while laughing.
This chick is something, thought Meguru.
Breaking defensive barriers into pieces with just going around kicking things, even the Imperial Court Magicians would faint with foams bubbling from their mouth if they heard about this.
「Now then, we’re here」