Ch.69Raising a Hero – 3

Flame Bears and their subspecies, Ice Bears. These creatures not only possessed superior physical abilities befitting bears but also used various special abilities.

They spewed ice and fire from their mouths and charged with elemental enchantments on their front paws. Moreover, they were disgustingly large. When standing on two legs, they reached about 4 meters in height.

“I’ll leave the back to you! Mira!”

In the distance, Brunhild charged head-on toward a Flame Bear that was breathing fire. Her holy sword absorbed the flame breath entirely as she closed in.

“P-please spare me! Please—guhk?!”

“If you cling to me like that, you won’t be able to dodge anything, so shut your mouth and stay still. Before I throw you to those beasts as food.”

The priest was whimpering and trying to cling to my back, so I kicked him away. He made a strange noise as he rolled across the floor. Perhaps because of his round shape, he rolled quite well.

The nuns were about to cling to me too, but after seeing the priest fly backward, they quietly sat down beside him. Having survived by fawning over that fat pig, they were quite perceptive.

“Uooooooo!!!!!!”

The Ice Bear, which had been circling and watching us, finally charged. A chilling cold enveloped its front paws, and white frost rose from them. An elemental enchantment.

I recalled what I’d learned during theory lectures. One-on-one, these creatures were powerful enough to make ogres seem trivial, but being magical beasts, they couldn’t think beyond the level of mere animals.

So theoretically, it was possible to kill them in one strike.

I infused Eternity with mana. The mana-imbued blade glowed blue. The Ice Bear, now right in front of me, raised its right front paw diagonally and brought it down with all its might.

Taking advantage of the opening, I pushed off toward its left side. The moment I launched myself away, the beast’s paw smashed down on the spot where I had just been standing.

Ice fragments scattered in all directions, and the floor cracked. As the frost-covered paw sprayed white mist like snow, I had already reached near its left front leg.

—Slash!

Eternity swung through the air. Though I hadn’t used any special technique, merely infusing the blade with mana was enough to cut through the incredibly thick fur, skin, fat, muscle, and bone in sequence.

The body, having lost the head that gave it commands, lost balance and staggered a few more steps in the direction it had been charging before collapsing. A loud thud echoed through the cavern.

“Hiiieek?!”

The severed head, after rolling quite a distance, stopped right in front of the high priest. Seeing the cross-section, the priest retched. Blood gushed from the severed body.

‘They said it was theoretically possible, and it really was.’

If you had reflexes and physical abilities to dodge by watching the front paws, and enough strength to simultaneously cut through a neck thicker than three adult men’s waists, along with tough skin, muscle, and bone, you could indeed kill it in one strike.

“Hey! Are you going to keep cheating? Why did you kill that one in a single blow too?!”

Having witnessed what just happened, Brunhild shouted incredulously while fighting the Flame Bear.

“Want me to help?”

“Oh, you…! I can handle this alone! You just watch and protect those people!”

The Flame Bear’s body was now about half-covered in flames. The holy sword cut off its left front paw, which hadn’t yet been engulfed in flames. Despite its size, the paw was completely severed.

But as soon as the Flame Bear roared, flames erupted from its skin, creating a new front paw. The flame-formed paw naturally stepped on the ground.

If given more time, a perfect new paw would grow. Brunhild seemed to know this and moved more aggressively to finish it before that happened.

—Crash!

The holy sword blocked a downward strike from the front paw. Brunhild momentarily dropped to one knee and let out a strained groan. It seemed slightly challenging to match its strength.

Even that was impressive. Without using physical enhancement like me, she had blocked a full-force blow from a 4-meter bear using only her natural physical abilities.

‘She has plenty of room to grow stronger.’

If only someone would diligently help her, that is.

Just as Brunhild, fighting while infusing holy power into her sword, finally managed to cut off the Flame Bear’s neck:

“Mira! I won—”

—Rumble…

Before she could celebrate her victory, the entire dungeon began to shake. Brunhild’s face filled with bewilderment.

Everyone except me, who had planned this in advance, was confused about what was happening, but soon they all realized the cause of the sound.

“The dungeon…!”

The walls, floor, and ceiling of the dungeon were collapsing simultaneously. Everyone’s faces turned pale at the sight of the dungeon itself crumbling.

“What’s going on?! Why is the dungeon collapsing?!”

“…I wonder why?”

I pretended not to know while poking away the nuns who were desperately clinging to me, begging me to do something. Everything was going according to the plan I had made with the Demon King.

“Hu-hurry! Let’s get out! This way! I’ll clear the path first!”

Taking advantage of the situation, the high priest started running toward the path we had come from. He moved at such a speed that it made me wonder why he had been panting so heavily before. The nuns hurriedly followed behind him.

To put it nicely, he was saying he’d clear the path first, but to put it bluntly, he was abandoning us and running away. And I had no intention of putting it nicely.

“What’s with them? We fought to protect them, and now they’re running away first?”

Brunhild also seemed dumbfounded. She must feel even more wronged since she had carefully controlled her distance to keep them from being engulfed in flames.

“They can’t possibly outrun us anyway. You know that. How far can people who can’t even use physical enhancement get?”

“That’s true, but…”

“Should we just abandon them and escape on our own? They betrayed us first, so there’s no reason we can’t do the same.”

“…”

Brunhild showed hesitation at the suggestion of abandoning them. The very fact that she was considering it was evidence of how much she had changed from the hero in the original work.

The original hero, influenced by Aria who always stayed by her side, was said to have a personality that couldn’t abandon even a single person. She would have probably rejected my suggestion outright.

“Aaaaargh!”

Brunhild couldn’t continue her deliberation. A scream from the priest echoed from the passage. The nuns who had fled were now crawling backward on the ground.

Chasing after them, a Flame Bear appeared, with the high priest’s waist in its mouth.

“Gu-guuuuh…”

Each time the Flame Bear clenched its jaws, the priest’s waist crumpled, and blood gushed from the orifices of his face. His abdomen, where the teeth were embedded, was being cooked alive.

After spitting out the priest with a “ptui,” the Flame Bear buried its nose in his abdomen and began tearing at the half-cooked flesh. Seeing this, the nuns retched and eventually vomited.

“S-save… guhk.”

The priest, being eaten alive, soon stopped moving. The nuns, despite vomiting and crying profusely, were still begging us to save them.

“They abandoned us and ran first, but now they’re begging us to save them? Well, do you think such people are worth protecting?”

“…I’m not sure.”

Brunhild had a complicated look in her eyes.

I had no intention of making Brunhild a perfect hero like in the original work, someone who would protect everyone. That was something I had already failed at.

And to change her value of wanting to protect everyone, I needed to shake the very premise. The Starlight Order, which appeared righteous but was actually far from it, was perfect for this purpose.

“Kyaaaah?!”

The dungeon resolved Brunhild’s dilemma of whether to save the nuns or not. The floor, which had been cracking in a spider-web pattern, finally began to collapse.

The Flame Bear, which had been feasting on the corpse, fell through the floor with a somewhat comical “kueng?” sound, and the nuns too plummeted into the depths below before we could help them.

“Well, it seems we no longer need to worry about that decision.”

“…I guess so.”

The rate of cracks forming accelerated. By now, about half of the cavern we were in had collapsed. Brunhild, who had been in a daze, finally spoke.

“The entrance is blocked…”

As she said, fallen rocks had “coincidentally” blocked the passage we had come through. With enough time, we could have broken through, but there was no time for that while the floor was collapsing.

“Then there’s only one answer. We have to go down.”

“Down? Huh? W-wait!”

I lifted Brunhild under my arm. Ignoring her struggles, I kicked off the ground and jumped into the collapsed crevice. As I accelerated, screams came from under my arm.

I surrounded my body with a barrier to prevent any potential impact, and as we fell faster than the falling rocks by stepping on them, we soon reached new ground.

“…Underground?”

Once my feet touched the ground, I put Brunhild down. She seemed amazed that there was another underground level beneath the collapsed dungeon, tapping her feet on the ground.

This structure itself was a collaboration between Elisier and me, though she wouldn’t know that.

I increased the strength of my barrier slightly. Debris that had fallen later than us was landing all around. Watching this, Brunhild muttered somewhat bitterly:

“…Those two must be dead, right?”

She seemed to be referring to the two nuns who had fallen before us.

“They must be.”

“…I see.”

She seemed to feel a bit guilty about the nuns, who, unlike the fat high priest, hadn’t directly done anything wrong.

But I knew that they too had committed all sorts of atrocities under the priest’s authority. It was none other than the hero of the original work who had them hanged.

Not the hero who now travels with me and has compromised somewhat with reality, but the hero who was dyed pure white while traveling with Aria.

The fact that even the kind-hearted Brunhild had hanged them herself gave an idea of how severe their atrocities must have been.

“Let’s start walking. We can’t just stay here doing nothing.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Brunhild and I walked through the underground space, still maintaining protective magic circles in case of any unforeseen situations. Even Elisier couldn’t control every single falling rock.

As we followed what looked like a passage, we came across a corpse. It was a body with only the lower half visible, wearing a nun’s habit, while the upper half was crushed under rocks.

Looking around, there was another corpse with only the left arm sticking out from under a pile of rocks. It was obvious who these corpses belonged to.

“…”

Brunhild was staring blankly at the bloodstains, which still maintained a slight crimson color. Wondering if she was too shocked, I moved closer to her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Um… Mira.”

Brunhild, who had been clenching her fist while looking at the corpses, turned to me.

“I’m a hero, right?”

“That’s right.”

Could she be feeling guilty for not being able to save people despite being a hero? That wouldn’t be good.

I know this method is somewhat extreme. But given the situation, it was necessary to accelerate the awakening that would have taken a year in the original work.

As I was running through various scenarios in my head, Brunhild’s words were unexpected.

“A hero shouldn’t be like this… but strangely, I keep thinking it’s fortunate that it’s not you, Mira, buried here. Even though as a hero, I should protect everyone…”

“…”

“What you said earlier keeps coming to mind. Whether such people are worth protecting. I’m so selfish. Thinking it’s fortunate they died instead of us because they behaved a bit unpleasantly. I heard the previous hero wasn’t like this. Mira, am I unworthy of being a hero?”

She seemed to have been seriously contemplating my words earlier.

This is enough. Now is the most appropriate time to change Brunhild’s values.

Not like the hero in the original work who shouldered everything alone and tormented herself thinking about the one person she couldn’t save out of 99, but a hero who is fundamentally good yet also knows how to look around her.

Since the awakening of a hero means accepting the burden of being chosen by the holy sword, it would be easier to bear that burden as a hero who accepts reality rather than one who is flawless.

One failure—me—is enough.

“Brunhild.”

I approached her and met her at eye level.

“…Yes.”

“I told you earlier. You don’t need to try to protect everyone. That’s true even if you’re a hero.”

If it had been Aria, the protagonist of the original work, she would have said something flowery like always striving to protect everyone, or working together to save as many people as possible.

But I’m not her. Knowing that it’s impossible, I couldn’t say such things.

“In this world, there are people worth saving and those who aren’t. And those people weren’t worth saving.”

I conveyed my experience, my position as a failure, my regrets of what could have been—all those emotions through my eyes. I wanted her to acknowledge that there are people in this world not worth saving.

“…Not worth saving?”

“The entire Starlight Order is full of corrupt individuals. Those two were similar. They fawned over the priest and committed all sorts of atrocities under his protection. They deserved to die.”

“…Really?”

Instead of answering, I gently removed strands of blue hair that had stuck to her cheeks. Brunhild quietly accepted my gesture.

“As a hero, you should try to save as many people as possible. You should strive for that. That’s true. It’s a good sentiment. But you need to understand that this applies only to people worth saving. You don’t need to worry about people like them. You can’t, either.”

“But I’m a hero… Even at the imperial palace, they said heroes always…”

“Have to be special? Have to strive to save as many people as possible? Have to endure hardships? No. You don’t have to. Listen to me. Before you’re a hero, you’re a human. Leona Brunhild, a human being. First, there’s you as a human, and then there’s the hero who wields the holy sword. There’s no reason to deny your humanity because of your duty as a hero. Why should you? Why should you sacrifice yourself for a duty you didn’t even choose?”

“…”

Her golden pupils dilated slightly. After removing the last strand of hair, I placed my hand on her head and gently stroked it.

“So, you don’t have to shoulder all the burdens alone. Look around when things get tough, ask for help sometimes, and occasionally express your desire to set everything aside and rest… Just try doing that.”

The last part was my fantasy of what I could have done differently. A fantasy of what it would have been like if someone had said these words to me. Because of this, I paused slightly.

If you just replaced the word “hero” with “savior,” those words would have applied exactly to me as well.

“Don’t try to be perfect on your own. You have people helping you. You have Aria, and though it feels strange to say it myself, you have me too.”

I swallowed hard to prevent the words “unlike me” from escaping my lips. The people who helped me all died, but Brunhild here will never face that fate.

I won’t let that happen.

“Well, I’ve talked a lot, but the essence is this: You don’t need to try to save everyone, and since you have people to help you, ask for help when things get tough. Don’t try to shoulder everything alone.”

I don’t know how deeply this advice will be received by her heroic nature.

But one thing is certain: if she accepts this advice, the Brunhild beside me will be completely different from the Brunhild that Priscilla, Rosaria, and Elisier have known.

“…People to help me.”

Brunhild, who had been absentmindedly repeating my words, stared at the holy sword in her hand for a moment, then nodded with a smile.

“Yes. I understand. I’ll do that.”