Chapter 22 - Volume 1 (2/2)
「Oh, I didn’t mean to do that.」
‘I beg your pardon,’ smiled Clementine, shutting her mouth just like that. After that, the only sound heard was the clattering of the carriage as it shook.
For better or for worse, the passengers on the horse-drawn carriage that left the capital were no more than just Yulifalet and the others. Yulifalet, the princess, the leader of the chivalric order, and then the royal palace’s head wizard who hadn’t exchanged a single word with him since being introduced. The atmosphere between the party, organized of just four people to defeat the demon king, couldn’t possibly be called harmonious.
It made sense for them to be silent, considering the fact that they were burdened with this mission. But Yulifalet couldn’t bear the excessive silence, and decided to talk to Alhelm, who was the easiest one to talk to out of all his companions.
「Um, Mr. Alhelm…」
「Ah, just call me Al. Since I’m calling you Yuuli too. Besides, we don’t need to be polite.」
Yulifalet breathed a sigh of relief at how carefree Alhelm was, waving his hand about as he said that. He finally opened his mouth to ask what had been bothering him this entire time.
It might be something he perhaps shouldn’t ask about. But it was something he wanted to know no matter what, as a companion on this trip heading towards the demon city.
「……Well, Al. Why did you decide to head out again to defeat the demon king?」
「Hm? What do you mean by that?」
「Um, you……」
He hesitated to continue further. The leader of the chivalric order spoke without hesitation, smoothly saying what Yulifalet hesitated to say.
「You mean, why am I here even though I fled back, barely alive the last time?」
「—I didn’t mean to be rude……!」
「Ah, my bad. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. My apologies for making it sound like that.」
Alhelm raised his hand in an apologizing gesture, and Yulifalet frantically shook his head. He was the one that should’ve apologized. Ignoring Yulifalet’s regrets that it really wasn’t something he should’ve asked, Alhelm continued the story as he pleased.
「That’s right, if I had to say it, it’s 『because』.」
「——『Because』?」
When he gazed at Alhelm, wondering what it meant, he narrowed his reddish brown eyes and smiled. His eyes seemed as if they were looking someplace far away, unknown to Yulifalet.
「Yeah. I survived, thinking about my soldiers’ lives. Their souls are definitely still wandering the demon city even now. It’s the duty of the ones they kept alive to set their souls free, it’s my atonement. Though I was told by my assisting officer in the capital, 『Are you an idiot?』 so there’s that!」
Alhelm loudly laughed. As if it was only natural. His way of speaking was light, but there was a firm light of determination in his eyes, as if he didn’t hate even death.
Yulifalet gulped, overawed by that light. Both Clementine and Alhelm each held their own determination as they looked at this journey. Then, was the last person also like that, the wizard? As he thought that, his gaze faced the wizard wearing a black robe, his hood covering more than Clementine’s, up to his eyelids——Agedilus Von Lancent.
「……Um, well then, Mr. Agedilus……」
‘Why did you take part on this journey?’ He was about to ask that to the wizard who hadn’t made the slightest movement until then to the point you couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep. But he moved then. His white hand reached out mid-air, his wand in his hand as if it was piercing through the air. Not understanding the meaning of that action, Yulifalet’s eyes darted here and there. The sword hanging by his waist trembled.
「——They’re coming.」
「Huh?」
Agedilus muttered that briefly. At the same time, Clementine flung off her coat. Then, Alhelm took out the sword by his waist, kicking open the door of the still-moving carriage.
「Really, that man is a hard worker!」
The horses’ neighs and the driver’s scream reached his ears. The carriage came to a sudden stop; Yulifalet was thrown out of the wide open door from the force, narrowly managing to land safely.
Yulifalet let out a sigh of relief. Suddenly, a shadow fell over him from high in the sky. Lured by that, he looked towards the sky, widening his green eyes.
「That’s…」
「It’s a wyvern.」
「A wyvern?! That?!」
At Agedilus’s short reply, Yulifalet ended up raising his voice without realizing. Wyverns were a small, low-grade kind of dragon out of the dragons that fell to the evil side. But they could breathe fire, which made them a troublesome monster.
In spite of the countless large monsters flying overhead, with power that crossed human knowledge, Agedilus unconcernedly chanted ancient words that appealed to the spirits in his beautiful, calm voice that had not a single bit of hurry in it. He prepared to use the wand in his hand.
Yulifalet trembled involuntarily at the monsters he was seeing for the first time. Not minding him, Agedilus used his wand to manipulate the wind, knocking the wyverns to the ground one by one. As if waiting for that, Clementine used the gods’ power to cast light magic, purifying the wyverns and extinguishing them, and Alhelm used his sword to cut the wyverns’ heads off.
By the time he realized it, the number of wyverns decreased to less than the fingers on a hand, without Yulifalet doing anything. Was this the power of the elite of the elite in this country? As Yulifalet watched in shock as the wyverns were slaughtered, a scream reached his ears. He looked to it only to see the driver of the carriage was still about to get attacked by a wyvern.
「Watch out!」
His body started moving by itself. Taking out and grasping the holy sword, he cut off its head with one stroke. The holy sword cut through the wyvern’s flesh astonishingly easily. A sensation traveled from the sword’s handle to his hand, completely different from the one he got when he ploughed the earth with his hoe.
Shaking off the uneasy, restless feeling, he looked around his surroundings. In the time it’d taken for him to settle off one wyvern, his companions had defeated all the other wyverns. Countless wyvern corpses were scattered across the earth. Including the ones that the princess had extinguished with her light magic, plenty more wyverns had attacked them. But in spite of that, they had defeated them and come out almost unscathed.
So, was he definitely necessary or just a burden? That feeling crossed Yulifalet’s chest. He left the capital with no resolve or determination, only chosen by the holy sword and kicked up to the position of hero because of that. Even comparing him to them was ridiculous.
Averting his eyes since he felt down, he wiped the blood off of his face and turned to the sitting driver, who couldn’t stand out of fear.
「Um, are you alright?」
He didn’t seem to have any wounds at a glance, but he must’ve had a bigger mental blow. He reached out his hand to the driver, trying to get him to stand first of all, when he suddenly stared at his own hand. His hand, that was covered in wyvern blood. Thinking ‘he probably doesn’t want to touch a hand like that,’ he tried to pull back his hand but the driver suddenly grabbed onto it with both hands. As Yulifalet was startled and surprised, the middle-aged driver in front of him covered Yulifalet’s hand with both his hands, big tears falling down his face.
「T-thank you, so much……!」
「……!」
Those thanking words from the bottom of his heart. It was nothing more than two words, but Yulifalet certainly felt his heart move from them.
He’d probably be laughed at with 「It’s not that simple!」 Or he might have been scolded, 「After all this time?!」 But either way, right then, in that moment, Yulifalet finally caught a glimpse of a part of what he was entrusted with. 『Hero』. He knew that he still wasn’t suitable enough to be crowned with that title. He didn’t know how many people he could save with his hand. But, even so, that’s just why he decided he wanted to save as many people as he could, with that hand.
That was probably the birth of 『Hero』 Yulifalet, in the real sense of the word. And then, the party of just four heroes with Yulifalet as the leader, set out once again on their journey to the demons’ city.