Chapter 113 – The Hero's Return (3)

The Hero was summoned.

-They summoned a Hero, and *that* little brat is what they got?

-I heard Sir Midnile is personally overseeing his swordsmanship.

-They say he’s pathetic, like he’s never even held a sword in his life.

The blond young man watched the summoned Hero train.

“What, is your world populated entirely by weaklings?”

“What do you think a person’s leg is, a wooden chopstick? What do you mean, broken… Oh my, it’s actually broken.”

“Wait. I’ll go get a bonesetter, so stay here… You crazy bastard, don’t run! Do you want to lose the use of your leg?”

The sight of the Hero limping away was visible.

To show such weakness just from some intense training.

The blond young man felt a sense of disappointment.

Stamina worse than an ordinary person. No visible talent whatsoever.

Two months had passed since the Hero’s summoning.

He was walking along, making appropriate conversation and company with a clingy noble lady, when he saw the Hero’s training ground.

The tip of the sword, thrusting toward a single point, drew a fluid, elegant curve.

It was a contradictory sight.

Swordsmanship is a technique for effectively killing people.

Yet, because it is an act of both taking and protecting precious things, it is paradoxically beautiful.

“It’s the Hero, isn’t it? Pfft, to think they’d drag something like that from another world. The Hero should be a beautiful and outstanding knight like you. Don’t you agree?”

“With that filthy mouth, how dare you.”

“Pardon…?”

The noble lady was so shocked by the blond young man’s words that she couldn’t close her mouth.

Instead of comforting the lady, who looked ready to cry as she backed away, he watched the Hero’s sword.

The blond young man felt the urge to spar with the Hero.

“Well, look who it is. The man of the hour. Hey, Hero. This kid here is the best knight in the country. If you beat him, you’re number one.”

The words of Sir Midnile, so boorish one could hardly believe she was a knight.

The blond young man furrowed his brow slightly.

She had always been a boisterous person, so it was fine.

But he could feel a competitive spirit rising in the eyes of the brat called the Hero.

The summoned Hero versus the blond prodigy.

The blond young man clearly demonstrated why he was a prodigy.

Despite his defeat, the Hero challenged him again.

The blond young man accepted his challenge. And once again, he delivered an overwhelming defeat.

The next day, and the day after that.

The blond young man realized the time it took to end their duels was gradually getting longer.

By the time he realized it, the cold sensation of a training sword was already at his neck.

“Whew, I finally won.”

The blond felt bewildered at the sight of the Hero smiling as he said this.

The two were now of similar skill.

The blond prodigy felt a sense of displeasure.

A guy who had only been learning swordsmanship for a few months was catching up to him.

He didn’t want to admit it.

For him, who had always been the best, to stand behind someone else was unthinkable.

The blond prodigy no longer sparred with the Hero.

Making various excuses.

Amidst all this, the Hero’s first campaign was scheduled.

***

The Hero’s first campaign was a crushing defeat.

The Hero lost his teacher, Midnile.

-What kind of battle can a little brat who can’t even wield a sword properly fight?

The blond young man scoffed at their words. That was the old story. The Hero had already become more skilled than him.

-What about Siegfried instead?

-That blond brat? You want to see him run wild, relying on nothing but his swordsmanship, unable to tell his head from his ass?

The conversation of these slow-moving bureaucrats was disgusting.

Midnile was a person with a deep connection to the blond young man as well.

She was the only teacher who hadn’t run away from him.

Her death left his mind in turmoil.

Unable to sleep, the blond young man got out of bed.

There was nothing like sword training to chase away worldly cares.

He went down to the training ground to swing his sword.

Just then, he heard the sound of someone training.

A sharp sound of cutting through the air.

A sword strike that refreshingly cut down a training dummy.

‘The Hero?’

The blond young man saw the Hero training late into the night.

Drip, drip.

The floor where the Hero trained was painted red.

He stepped in the spilled blood again and again, slipping and correcting the trajectory of his sword.

The blond young man looked at the Hero’s hands.

The bandages wrapped around his hands were stained crimson.

-I heard he wraps his hands in bandages because he’s scared of getting hurt during sword practice.

Someone had once criticized the Hero.

They were wrong.

It wasn’t that he was afraid of getting hurt; it was that his already torn and re-torn flesh was so ragged that he had no choice but to wrap it in cloth.

The next day, and the day after that.

Every day, until late into the dawn, the Hero mourned the deceased in his own way.

The blond young man, too, continued to watch him.

‘The benefits of the system.’

He had thought the Hero was strong because of the system’s benefits. But was that really true?

The blond young man knew that wasn’t it.

The Hero, sensing his presence, turned his head.

The blond young man asked him.

“Don’t you need a training partner?”

The Hero grew stronger.

He became the master of the Holy Sword, and the number of people who followed him grew.

When he came to his senses, the blond young man had become the captain of the Hero’s Royal Guard.

In just one year, he had grown strong enough to defeat the Demon King’s army.

A series of victories.

The people who had torn the Hero to shreds now shut their mouths and tried to change their tune.

The Hero pushed back the Demon King’s army with unstoppable momentum.

The blond young man watched the Hero from the closest possible vantage point.

The more he watched, the more amazing he seemed.

He, who was not much different in age from himself.

Was achieving feats no one else could and bringing peace to the continent.

The Demon King’s army’s defeat seemed imminent.

The Seven Kingdoms Alliance grew stronger by the day.

It was expected that the war would soon end. But the Demon King had one more ruthless move waiting.

The allied forces had advanced too deep.

It was the Demon King’s lure.

Countless lives were lost in an instant.

The Hero sortied to save them.

It was an overwhelmingly disadvantageous battlefield.

The goddess of victory smiled upon the Demon King.

The allied forces were defeated by the Demon King’s army.

A perilous retreat began.

Due to the reckless battle, the Hero suffered a grave injury.

For the Demon King’s army, it was a golden opportunity that would not come again. They pursued with all their might, solely to kill the Hero.

The Hero’s death would be a disaster. He was the one who had prevented the ruin of the Seven Kingdoms, and his existence was indispensable to ending this war.

Because there was no one within the allied forces who could defeat the Demon King.

“Well then, I’ll be going.”

No one could stop him.

Because he was the only one with the skill to act as a decoy Hero and lure the enemy.

The blond young man, resolved to die, fought to draw the enemy away until reinforcements could arrive.

His breath was already up to his chin, and his mind was hazy.

Hunger had turned to parchedness, and his vision was dark, as if a red curtain had been drawn.

They say a tiger leaves its skin when it dies, and a man leaves his name.

When I die, it will be for this man.

At some point, that’s what he had started to think.

The man who had opened his arrogant eyes.

A hero who, unlike someone like himself, possessed the power to save this world.

He recalled the spars he’d had with the Hero.

At least his swordsmanship would live on through the Hero.

How much time had passed?

He couldn’t count how many enemies he had cut down.

He coughed up blood.

A flower of blood bloomed as he was struck by the falling raindrops.

He could feel his own death, clear and certain.

What he saw through his flickering vision was…

“Sieg.”

The blond young man looked up at the blood-soaked Hero.

He had bought him time to escape, and yet he had broken through the enemy’s main force to come all the way here.

Just to save him.

A lump formed in his throat, and no sound came out.

“I will not let your death be in vain.”

He was satisfied.

And so, the blond knight closed his eyes in peace.

***

When he opened his eyes again, he had been turned into an undead by the power of the Undying Demon King.

A corpse with a rotting body.

He could not accept this shabby end for himself, who had once been called the continent’s greatest prodigy.

Above all, what he could not understand was that the Hero had left all his achievements behind and returned to the place where he had lived.

The blond young man—no, Siegfried—could not tolerate it.

He was everyone’s idol, a hero.

As the one who saved everyone and gave them a dream to believe in, he had a duty to take responsibility for everything.

At least, that’s what Siegfried thought.

The hero of salvation.

If he, at least, ruled over everyone, this ridiculous war could be brought to an end.

How much time had passed?

He was trapped in the inventory of the Hero he met again.

The new power he possessed was the ability to control domains and confine space.

He held no grudge against the Hero. The moment he had pointed his sword at the Hero, it had been an act of betrayal.

For him, it was the unavoidable price of a contract, and that price had been paid by granting Kei’s request.

“Withdraw.”

When Siegfried opened his eyes, a familiar sight greeted him.

“The Goddess’s City, Pandel.”

It was a familiar place.

In a way, it was the land where everything had begun.

The land where he first met the Hero and decided to become his comrade.

“You said our previous contract was over, right?”

“I believe I did. Are you planning to ask the water for an answer once more?”

“Aw, are you sulking? I mean, who told you to point a sword at me?”

The same relaxed and playful reaction as ever.

He didn’t know what the situation was. But the city’s condition did not look good.

“A war has broken out. Why are you here?”

A war had begun.

The struggles of humans fighting to survive and the undead moving blindly at their master’s command.

The dead and the living.

Those who must kill and those who must live.

Here, these two beings with clearly different stances would settle everything.

“I ask you. Though you have transcended humanity, do you still remember a knight’s loyalty?”

“…What are you doing?”

To Siegfried’s question, the Hero replied as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“A knighting ceremony.”

“Are you insane?”

“Nope, perfectly sane.”

At the Hero’s nonchalant words, Siegfried let out a laugh of disbelief.

“I aimed my sword at you.”

“Yeah, you did. Don’t do it again. Got it?”

“…”

“To be honest, I need someone to boss around right now…”

“…”

“Should I pay you? I’ll give you 500 won an hour. How about it?”

He couldn’t understand the Hero’s thoughts.

“A sword is for cutting down formidable foes and protecting the weak.”

It seemed the Hero was serious.

The Hero is strong.

Strong enough to take on a decent-sized legion by himself.

A monster who has transcended humanity. But he wasn’t omnipotent.

He was a man who knew how to distinguish between what he could and couldn’t do.

“Make it double per hour.”

Siegfried, expecting a trap since it was the Hero’s proposal, asked for double.

It was a tactic born from knowing the Hero well.

“Hmm, I can’t do that. Fine, since I’m in a good mood, I’ll make a special exception.”

“Returned from leave.”

Siegfried muttered.

It was something he had never imagined.

Even with this dead body, he could work for him.

He remembered him and wanted to make him a knight again.

Regardless of the reason, it was a tremendous honor.

“Are you crying?”

“It’s ichor.”

“Ah…”

Even in death, for this man.

Siegfried forced down the lump in his throat and asked.

“What can I help you with?”

It was an insane plan.

All the forces within the inner castle would wage a defensive battle against the undead legion.

The regular soldiers could hold out that way. But the necromancer before them now was not someone regular soldiers or knights could face.

Just as the Hero predicted, a legion commander-level officer broke through the castle walls with a zombie giant.

“Guooooooh!”

The giant roared, and beyond the collapsed wall, skeleton warriors and death knights began to pour in.

The knights fought valiantly. True to their name as humanity’s last knights, they were courageous.

However.

‘They’re still a long way off.’

The era of fierce warfare.

In his eyes, having lived through that era, they still seemed woefully inadequate.

Siegfried stepped forward and drew his sword.

*Swish, swish!*

His sharp, clean sword strikes sliced off the death knights’ heads.

It was a sword so fast that an ordinary person wouldn’t even see the afterimage of the blade.

“Oh my, what’s this. Isn’t that a Ghoul Knight? Aren’t you on our side? Why are you over there?”

The necromancer taunted from her perch on the zombie giant’s shoulder.

“That is because.”

Siegfried opened his mouth, his voice low.

For a moment, the necromancer witnessed Siegfried’s form vanish.

“My master wishes it.”

Startled by Siegfried’s voice coming from right beside her, she whipped her head around.

*Swish!*

A sharp blade-arc drew a vertical line.

*Squelch!*

The necromancer’s body was literally split in half.

Looking down at the falling necromancer’s body, Siegfried once again wreathed his sword in a thick layer of aether.

A one-sided assault unfolded.

The zombie giant reached out to grab Siegfried, who was carving into its neck, but it couldn’t even graze him as its body was continuously sliced apart.

“He’s strong… To think there was someone like that besides the Hero…?”

“Wh-what in the world is that?”

The knights stared at the scene for a moment, mesmerized.

Each strike was clean, without a single wasted motion, and utterly lethal.

*THUD!*

Unable to withstand the attacks of the man who climbed over its body, carving it up, the giant collapsed.

“Of course he’s strong. He’s the Hero’s right hand.”

Roistan muttered softly to himself.

The enemy’s wave attack, which they had feared most, could now be considered blocked.

Their morale boosted, the knights began to deal with the death knights one by one.

‘If you had Sieg with you, you should have gone together.’

Roistan grumbled inwardly.

When the one in the most danger was the Hero himself.

***

“Well now, they’re holding up pretty well. I guess that’s because the Hero is there.”

The legion commander, the 3rd Hero Shin Jae-ha, watched the battlefield with a mocking smile on his lips.

Even if he wasn’t in his prime, his opponent was the legendary Hero.

He hadn’t expected him to go down easily.

“Send in the 1st Legion. Let’s end this completely. Oh, and send in the Demon Dragon Tanigis too.”

The 1st Legion, composed of the absolute elite of the Demon King’s army.

Every last one of them was a valiant monster.

If these guys joined the front lines, even other legions of the Demon King’s army would be helplessly trampled.

Furthermore, sortieing with them was a Demon Dragon.

It was the revived ruler of the western mountain range.

“Advance.”

At the legion commander’s order, the 5-star monster.

The Demon Dragon let out a long roar and beat its wings.

*KRA-KOOM!*

Just then, with a sound that shook the very earth, the Demon Dragon, which had been taking flight, plummeted back to the ground.

“Lightning?”

The legion commander doubted his own eyes.

*SLICE!*

The Demon Dragon staggered to its feet, only to have its head sliced off by someone’s sword strike.

The gushing blood looked like a flood.

“Oh, my. Hello there. The city’s residents have been filing too many complaints about the stench, so I just came to check things out.”

The Hero, who was supposed to be in the castle, was here.