Ch.143The Main Character (1)

# Main Character (1)

After an uncomfortable night.

Esmeralda began exploring the surroundings while carrying the unconscious Lug on her back.

The reason Lug, who had barely regained consciousness, fainted again was simple.

Esmeralda, exhausted from treating Lug, had fallen asleep, and when she opened her eyes, she discovered the demon sword right in front of her face.

In the end, Esmeralda, unable to adapt to the suddenly changed environment, resorted to violence.

It couldn’t be helped.

She was someone who solved most problems with violence from the beginning.

Isn’t a hero someone who beats people with the justice of a holy sword?

“Is everyone alright?”

Esmeralda asked Lug, who was hanging on her shoulder.

Of course, there was no answer.

After circling around the cliff and returning to where they had been, Esmeralda could see it.

“I guess not…”

The landscape that had been turned into a wasteland after Force, the Legion Commander, swept through.

***

Around the time Esmeralda fell off the cliff after being defeated by Eleven, the hero’s party was also caught up in their own affairs.

First, Garnet, who had blocked Force to prevent Extra from dying, couldn’t withstand Force’s overwhelming power and was knocked down.

Even her past self would have struggled to defeat such an enemy at full strength, so how could her current self win?

Eventually, Garnet began to flee from Force while grabbing the unconscious Extra by the nape, and the other members of the hero’s party also started to leave the battlefield in their own ways.

Normally, they would have risked their lives together. Everyone knew that was the approach with the highest survival rate.

But now that they were separated, wasn’t one’s own life the most important?

There was no sense of camaraderie like needing to save companions or waiting for the hero. At least not for Eirene Saintess and Millia Asrin.

Eirene and Millia had immediately started to flee after confirming that Garnet was being pushed back by Force.

“…Get off, Eirene. Escaping together is inefficient.”

“Don’t say such hurtful things, Lady Millia. Oh, and it would be better not to think about dropping me. You wouldn’t want to experience something like last time again, would you?”

Eirene, with lower mobility, clung to Millia’s magic tentacles with tears in her eyes, while Millia tried to shake her off.

She knew that if they fled in different directions, Eirene, being a priest, would be targeted first.

“Girls! Take me with you!!”

And as the two fled, Tina, who had finally grasped the situation, also clung to Millia’s tentacles.

With two unexpected guests, Millia could only furrow her brow and mutter.

“Are you saying we should die together?”

“We should live together.”

“That’s right. Living together is best. I would risk my life for you two.”

“……”

“……”

Having joined late and missing the sticky, petty conversation between the two, Tina spoke with pure camaraderie.

The two began to feel a slight sense of guilt at Tina’s sincerity.

“Girls, were you waiting for me?”

“Oh! Big sis Garnet, you’re late. Sit here. The ride is good here.”

Tina smiled brightly and offered her seat to Garnet, who had caught up with her wings of flame spread.

Millia was just getting angrier at the growing number of unwelcome guests.

But knowing that saying anything more would only make things worse for her, Millia had no choice but to keep her mouth shut.

Thus, the three who had started to flee and Garnet who had joined them later—the hero’s party was surprisingly able to escape together as one.

Of course…

“As expected, he’s chasing us?”

The problem was that Legion Commander Force was tracking the hero’s party.

“Fortunately, his mobility seems low. Is he really just strong?”

“…We won’t get caught.”

“No, that’s uncertain.”

Legion Commander Force, having devoted everything to strength, inevitably lacked speed and technique.

But there was a reason he maintained his position as Force despite such obvious weaknesses.

“That idiot will chase us in a straight line. Moreover, once he sets a goal, he won’t stop until his head is smashed.”

When Force pursues fleeing enemies, he charges forward in a straight line, crushing everything in his path.

This means it’s impossible for fugitives to use obstacles to escape, as they typically would. If they encounter a wall while fleeing, they’ll inevitably be caught up to.

And individual mobility isn’t really a big issue either.

“Haha! Running away with your tails between your legs! How ridiculous!”

“That damn opportunist bastard.”

Because Legion Commander Twelve was carrying Force on moving sand.

Twelve, who used sand manipulation magic, had a surprisingly versatile ability.

“How long can you run? Puhahaha! Let’s go, Force!”

Twelve displayed a typical pattern of strong-weak-weak-strong.

Despite witnessing such an unsightly scene, the hero’s party without their hero had no choice but to flee with their tails between their legs.

***

After some time had passed since escaping from Twelve and Force.

The hero’s party was resting in a secluded location.

They had to rest because a severe cold wave started when night fell.

The pursuers, being people with stamina, had temporarily stopped their pursuit.

Whether they would give up the chase or resume tracking with their bodies in optimal condition after daybreak was unknown.

The consensus within the hero’s party was that they should recover as much strength as possible when they could.

Fortunately, they had found a good hiding place early on, and it was also a good situation for hiding and enduring.

“…A black campfire? So humans can use such magic too? It’s certainly useful when camping at night while avoiding pursuers.”

Garnet nodded as she looked at the black flames Millia had created.

It was a method unthinkable for magicians who insisted on fire-focused battles.

Despite having a fire lit at night, not a single ray of light escaped.

Garnet felt a chill run down her spine at the sight of the black flames that seemed to devour the surrounding light.

“Hm? Is that so? I guess you could think of it that way.”

“…?”

But surprisingly, Millia’s magic wasn’t created with the situation Garnet had in mind.

Her magic was more vicious and terrible than that of demons.

The black flames were also a byproduct created while making tentacle magic.

“It’s hard to get off if you touch it, so it’s better to be careful.”

“……”

The viscous black flames.

Those flames, which neither extinguished easily nor came off the skin, were incomparably crueler than Garnet’s flames.

“Well, th-they say development comes from failure, after all.”

Garnet, at a loss for words, decided to praise Millia.

Thanks to her, they could safely light a fire even in the middle of the night.

“By the way, what happened to Esmeralda? Nothing bad happened, right? Hmm… if Eleven was her opponent, she should be fine.”

Garnet didn’t know what situation Eleven was in now.

That the old swordsman had overcome aging and stagnation to achieve explosive growth. To the extent that even Garnet might be defeated by Eleven if she wasn’t careful.

“Ah, the hero was there.”

“…Well, she’ll manage.”

“Are you really comrades?”

“Ahhh! That’s right! What about Esmeralda?! We left her behind!”

Except for Tina, the reactions were indifferent, causing Garnet to narrow her eyes.

How did they seem even more distant than she was?

“Come to think of it, what happened to Lug? Is he with Esmeralda?”

“Ah, right! Mr. Lug! We need to find him right now!”

“I’ll bring out the tentacles.”

“Stop.”

Clearly different reactions.

Garnet couldn’t help but hide her tears again, thinking about Esmeralda, who was clearly lower in priority than Lug.

“Moving now would only benefit the enemy. Besides, Esmeralda is with him, right?”

Garnet felt like a nanny. She hadn’t imagined getting involved with this crazy party to this extent.

She first tried to dissuade the members of the hero’s party who were starting to become delusional.

It felt like experiencing a portion of the stress Esmeralda usually received.

“…Since he’s with Esmeralda, there shouldn’t be any problems.”

“That’s impossible. Being alone together now is the most dangerous situation.”

“Esmeralda is lecherous.”

“How do you two see Esmeralda? Isn’t this slander too severe, no matter how you look at it?”

Garnet scolded the two.

She began to persuade them based on Esmeralda’s usual behavior.

There was no special relationship between Esmeralda and Lug.

Rather, Esmeralda hated and found Lug annoying.

She even went so far as to ‘use’ Lug to mediate between the two.

If she liked him, she couldn’t do that.

Garnet, who recited these facts, seemed desperate.

“…Well, I guess that’s true.”

“I’ll trust Esmeralda.”

“Yeah…”

Thus, Garnet succeeded in dissuading the two who were about to launch a suicide mission.

Of course, she couldn’t know.

That the two’s concerns were happening at this very moment.

If they had known this fact, both would have shed tears of blood.

***

As time passed and early morning came.

Esmeralda, carrying Lug, began to stealthily explore the surroundings.

Judging by the extensive area of destruction and the direction it led, the hero’s party seemed to have escaped safely.

In other words, from now on, she needed to reunite with the hero’s party.

“Alright, Mr. Lug. From now on, there are two things we need to be careful about.”

“Two things, you say?”

Lug, who had woken up and started walking on his own, stared blankly at the devastated surroundings and asked.

“First, we need to move stealthily to avoid being detected by the enemy.”

“That’s obvious. Then what’s the second?”

Esmeralda spoke with a much more serious expression than when explaining the first point.

“What happened between us yesterday must not be disclosed.”

“From where to where? Does falling off the cliff count?”

“That’s fine. Trying to deceive them clumsily would be worse.”

“Then what about when you touched my private parts while I was sleeping, hero?”

“I did no such thing?!”

Esmeralda shouted with a bright red face.

But she knew Lug’s words had credibility.

After all…

“…Y-yesterday, nothing happened between us, right?”

When she opened her eyes, Lug’s demon sword was right in front of her face.

After embracing tightly and feeling each other’s heartbeats, she lost consciousness, and the situation when she woke up was suspicious.

“Please explain exactly what ‘nothing happened’ means, from where to where.”

“……”

Esmeralda quietly drew her holy sword in response to Lug’s statement.