Ch.315Side Story. A World with Too Many Heroes (1)

Hersema, this world had been under the invasion of the “Demon Lord” since ancient times.

One day, the demonic army of the “Demon Lord” suddenly appeared in Hersema and easily ravaged this world where divine power was weak. As nations on Hersema’s only continent fell one by one, the next target became the Kingdom of Wallon.

In this desperate crisis, the people of Wallon, unable to find a way out, prayed fervently to their patron deity. Taking pity on them, the deity sacrificed its meager power to bestow upon them a certain ability.

The Hero Summoning Ritual. This ritual, almost like a divine authority that summoned heroes from another world to save this one, required certain sacrifices in exchange for summoning a hero—a completed ritual that would bring forth a hero who would save the world through mutual consent.

The first summoned hero, the magic swordsman Peter, gladly cooperated after hearing the situation. He formed a strike team, stormed the Demon Lord’s (actually not) castle in one go, killed the Demon Lord (just a greater demon), and returned to his original world.

Thus, the world of Hersema was able to defeat the Demon Lord and regain peace, but… not all things in this world end with a happy ending.

The Kingdom of Wallon, seeking to exploit the Hero Summoning Ritual they had obtained, modified it and successfully created a revised ritual called “Hero Summoning Ritual v139 (Really Final Complete Version).”

This ritual brought people from other worlds, bestowed upon them the authority known as the “Status Window” to make them “heroes,” and then placed simple control devices on these summoned “heroes” to use them as military power.

Since this “Hero Summoning Ritual v139 (Really Final Complete Version)” forcibly brought over just about anyone, most were useless chaff, but thanks to the Status Window that accelerated growth to the extreme, the weak would die while the strong would become stronger.

Moreover, no matter how powerful they became, the control device in the summoning ritual allowed them to be used as troops regardless of their personal will. The Kingdom of Wallon recklessly summoned heroes to conquer the entire continent—and indeed, they succeeded perfectly.

Through an enormous army of over 100,000 heroes, Wallon annexed the continent by force, only to split apart due to internal conflict exactly three years later.

However, the biggest incident that occurred during this process was that the “Hero Summoning Ritual v139 (Really Final Complete Version)” was eventually spread throughout the world.

Not a single nation refrained from using this extremely convenient ritual for military enhancement and labor creation. Although there were numerical limitations due to the cost of summoning, each summon essentially provided free labor.

As a result, nations used these “heroes” as proxies in wars and exploited these summoned… kidnapped “heroes” however they pleased.

For example, most national rulers would take beautiful women among the summoned heroes as concubines (sex slaves) and use them as they wished. Some went further, treating them as mere commodities or products to be released into the market.

There were even cases where they would throw down swords and hold battle royale competitions out of boredom, or grind up useless heroes to produce life-extension elixirs.

Naturally, it wasn’t just royalty or nobles who behaved this way; to ordinary people as well, heroes were merely worthless tools and slaves.

In one country, a supposedly wise king, feeling sorry that only the powerful could use summoned heroes, ordered the heroes to obey all commands from the country’s people. As a result, approximately 30,000 heroes instantly became public slaves, witnessing unspeakable horrors before dying miserable deaths.

In summary, the humans of this world did not view summoned heroes as even minimally sentient beings.

They saw them merely as tools that popped into existence when a certain amount of sacrifice was offered to the summoning ritual, without the slightest consideration that these were beings forcibly summoned from somewhere else.

No, to be precise, their twisted moral sense treated heroes as mere consumables…

As a result, this cursed world slowly began to distort.

Wars now more closely resembled proxy conflicts where “heroes” rather than citizens were sent to fight, and summoned heroes who couldn’t fight were immediately enslaved or executed on the spot.

And in this reality—

[——————■■■■■.]

The root cause of this situation, the Kingdom of Wallon, was preparing to activate the “Hero Summoning Ritual v142 (Really Final Complete Version 6)” in the royal palace today as usual, to summon slaves… heroes from another dimension.

※ ※ ※

At this point, the Kingdom of Wallon was in considerable crisis.

There had been no problem with conquering the continent and exploiting it harshly using the power of heroes forcibly summoned from another world, but in the process, their “Hero Summoning Ritual v139 (Really Final Complete Version)” had leaked to the colonial territories across the continent.

Naturally, the colonial governors who obtained such a useful tool harbored rebellious thoughts, mass-produced heroes, and simultaneously declared independence. Having lost many heroes during the conquest and thus their advantage as first movers, Wallon could only take the beating one-sidedly…

Despite being attacked from all sides, the Kingdom of Wallon was barely holding on by leveraging their few remaining strengths.

That was the application of their accumulated know-how in the hero summoning ritual, upgrading the existing ritual to the “Hero Summoning Ritual v142 (Really Final Complete Version 6).”

They succeeded in reducing the magical power consumed during summoning by about half compared to the previous ritual, decreasing the required sacrificial materials to about 74% of the original amount, and even improving the average quality of the personnel brought in through summoning.

Thanks to this, they had somehow managed to fend off invasions from neighboring countries by continuing to extract heroes until today.

[——————■■■■■.]

And so, as they attempted to summon heroes once again today using the “Hero Summoning Ritual v142 (Really Final Complete Version 6),” intending to successfully complete the ritual and bring “heroes” from another world to exploit…

‘…Huh?’

After the 71st hero summoning using the “Hero Summoning Ritual v142 (Really Final Complete Version 6)” was completed, the people in the royal palace who saw the hero who seemed to have been forcibly dragged out showed reactions as if question marks were floating above their heads.

Despite their attempt to summon 200 heroes by offering sacrifices for 200 people, only a single being had been summoned.

The magicians conducting the summoning ceremony couldn’t hide their bewilderment at this unexpected situation, but that was only momentary.

Whether the hero was almost three heads taller than an ordinary person, or whether only one hero had been summoned, what needed to be done remained unchanged.

“Hey, you there. Follow me.”

Thus, the court magician, who was in charge of the summoning and now held the “control authority” over the newly summoned hero, ordered the hero to follow him to report this situation to the king, but…

“…This isn’t the first time, is it?”

For some reason, the summoned hero not only ignored the court magician’s “control authority” but even exercised language functions that should have been blocked.

The court magician tried to open his mouth and speak, but before he could, the summoned hero emitted a terrifying presence and instead intimidated the court magician.

“What?! You, how can you speak—”

“—I asked you a question, didn’t I?”

And naturally, the court magician of this era, treated merely as a hero summoning bureaucrat, could not withstand this presence and assert himself confidently.

“Gack! Gaaack!!”

Rather, the court magician, whose neck was suddenly grabbed by the hero who had approached in an instant, choked on his blocked breath, and after being released from that grip, still unable to regain his senses, spewed nonsensical words.

“Y-you… mere hero! How dare a non-human trash like you defy this court magi—”

—CRASH!!!

Of course, immediately afterward, the hero, who couldn’t bear to listen anymore, lightly struck the court magician, smashing him into the wall. At the same time, the hero began to notice various evidence of how summoned heroes like himself were treated, and his expression gradually hardened.

“Y-you all!! Kill him! Kill him now!!”

This suspicion turned into certainty the moment he saw a magician who appeared leading two people—probably heroes forcibly summoned like himself.