No to Being the Suffering Heroine! – Chapter 127

* * *[ Banaditsa ]* * *

After the arrogant intruder who couldn’t be satisfied even if torn into thousands of pieces, and the black-haired girl who was utterly unpleasant just to look at, left the fortress.

In the middle of the ruins shrouded in silence, Valfreyja, left alone on the hill, seethed with rage rising like flames from within the amethyst that bound her.

Throughout her long life, she had only felt such intense anger once before.

It was when she was defeated by the endless human armies that kept coming no matter how many she killed, forced to hole up in the fortress, and then submerged along with the fortress by the sword strike of the hero of that time.

A sword strike from the holy sword that carved a canyon into the plain with a single blow, changing the flow of the Rhine River itself.

The military fortress of Eisenstein, Banaditsa, collapsed with its foundation and was buried at the bottom of the canyon, then submerged by the river water that followed.

At that time, Valfreyja had consumed much of her power in continuous bloody battles and couldn’t prevent this. Once she couldn’t prevent it, there was only one way to protect Banaditsa.

To create a magical defense barrier large enough to cover the entire fortress, then imprison herself inside a soul stone to supply the magic power to maintain the barrier.

Valfreyja jumped into the soul stone without delay, completed the defense formula using the bodies of all living Valkyrias as sacrifices, and fell asleep.

Believing that if she just endured like this, reinforcements from Eisenstein’s main castle would come to wake her up again before long.

But no one came.

More precisely, they couldn’t come. Because the old Eisenstein was completely destroyed along with its stronghold not long after Banaditsa sank.

This was something Valfreyja, who had fallen asleep, couldn’t know.

Anyway, after an uncountably long time passed, Valfreyja finally woke up.

It was thanks to Hilde’s thrown spear partially destroying the seal of the soul stone.

And right after that.

She faced a pawn of Eisenstein – a Valkyria of the current era – who spoke with rudeness unimaginable in the past.

More precisely, someone she couldn’t help but mistake for a Valkyria.

‘…That’s not a Valkyria. It’s just something else occupying a Valkyria’s body.’

The oath of loyalty was an absolute brand that couldn’t be undone unless a god intervened directly.

The fact that such an oath had no effect was proof that the other party wasn’t a Valkyria from the start, but a completely different being.

‘Soul replacement, unilateral usurpation, fusion of two souls… I wonder which is the correct answer.’

Various methods to obtain another’s body flashed through Valfreyja’s mind.

They were all advanced magics impossible to even attempt without a mage of her level. That’s why it piqued her interest.

‘I shall cut off the limbs, split open the head, and directly question the exposed brain.’

Valfreyja smiled inside the amethyst. It was a mad smile mixed with killing intent and malice.

‘I wonder what kind of groans that arrogant tongue will spew out. I’m very, very much looking forward to it.’

The intruder wearing the mask of a descendant, so arrogant it was disgusting.

Valfreyja had become so enraged that she wanted to tear the other party apart and kill them after just three exchanges of dialogue, but…

Most regrettably, this time she had no choice but to let that intruder go.

The seal of the soul stone was so sturdy that even though it was a seal she herself had placed, she couldn’t escape without an external sacrifice.

Moreover, to properly escape, she needed not an ordinary human but a Valkyria as a sacrifice.

She needed to stuff the body of the sacrificed Valkyria into the soul stone in her place, to use as a magic power source to maintain the defense barrier until she could raise the fortress back to the surface.

If not, even if she managed to escape the seal, this fortress she had tried to protect would be crushed and shattered by the water pressure of the river.

In that process, even the soul stone and other legacies of Eisenstein would be swept away by the current, broken and lost without a trace.

However, Valfreyja now decided to willingly accept this.

If it were her former self, she would have chosen to remain sealed forever, but the rage she faced immediately upon waking had completely erased her sense of responsibility.

Of course, even if she decided to accept submersion, escaping the soul stone alone without a sacrifice was a tricky task bordering on impossible…

But she had plenty of time.

She also had vast knowledge and ability to achieve what she desired.

Crack.

Very slowly. So gradually that no one would notice.

But surely.

Her seal began to break.

* * *[ Irina Winter ]* * *

Rewinding time a bit, about two days after adventurer Hilde was discovered by her old party members and chose to flee.

“You found her with such difficulty and then let her escape? It’s absurd. If such a thing happened, you should have reported to me first!”

Upon learning this through Irina’s report, Gunther severely rebuked the two women who had acted rashly and let Brunhilde escape.

To be precise, he mainly rebuked Irina. He knew well that it was meaningless to criticize and scold Imelia unless he used violence.

“…”

Irina silently accepted Gunther’s criticism. She bit her lip and strongly suppressed the urge to argue back, saying things like ‘Isn’t it something that we found her at all?’

To achieve her goal of being granted the right to enter Alfheim, where the High Elves reside, she had to please Gunther.

* * *

The elven nation, Elfenland, was a deformed country where all wealth and civilization were concentrated in the capital, Alfheim.

High Elves permitted to reside in Alfheim could enjoy civilization superior to any other country, but elves outside the capital had no choice but to live hunting in the vast plains.

If they disliked that, they had to leave for other countries and live as foreigners among other races for their entire lives.

There were elves who settled in other countries like that and even established their own houses… but that was only possible for some exceptional elves.

Most elves found it difficult to adapt to life among other races, and there were even many cases of being deceived and killed or falling into slavery.

Therefore, entering Alfheim could be said to be the dream and goal of all elves.

To achieve this, one had to either offer all kinds of tributes to the High Elves of Alfheim and obey like slaves to beg for mercy, or achieve results so great that even they couldn’t help but acknowledge.

Irina chose the latter.

She aimed to be selected as a High Elf of Alfheim through the fame of being a member of the hero’s party and the achievements she would accomplish helping the hero.

In fact, her plan was going smoothly.

She obtained citizenship in the Kingdom of Rhine through connections with an elven family settled there, and succeeded in being selected for the hero’s party using her outstanding talent and connections.

The problem was that was the limit.

The hero’s party she had entered with ambition was no different from a ferry boat with holes from birth.

Imelia was a psychopath even to her eyes, but competent in her own way, and Brunhilde was an impeccable swordswoman except for her unsociable personality, but…

‘Friet… no, it was Friede now, right? That wretched little girl. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have ended up like this…!’

The hero Friet. His incompetence ruined all her plans.

Because the one who should have been the core of the party was pathetically and miserably weak, she had no choice but to stagnate, being covered in infamy and ridicule instead of gaining power and fame.

What offered her a new lifeline in such a situation was Gunther Hagen, the hero of the Kingdom of Burgundy.

A half-elf who was the son of a high-ranking elf even among High Elves, and the only blood descendant of Count Hagen.

Ordinary half-elves were such inferior beings that even ordinary elves looked down on them, but if half of that blood was High Elf lineage, it was a different story.

The difference between a common commoner and the illegitimate child of a great noble, perhaps?

No, considering that Gunther was one of the heroes, it would be fair to say the difference was at the level of a legitimate heir rather than an illegitimate child.

Anyway, Gunther’s father, the High Elf of Alfheim, made a proposal to Irina through Gunther.

If she brought down Friet’s party and entered under Gunther, achieving sufficient results, he would grant her the right to reside in Alfheim.

Although the possibility seemed slim, as long as he possessed the hero’s mark, even Friet could be a potential competitor to Gunther.

So, it meant to erase even the bud of possibility itself.

Irina agreed after about a minute of deliberation. There was no reason to refuse such an offer.

Breaking up the party was simple.

Wasn’t it a party that was precarious from the start due to Friet’s incompetence? It could be shattered so easily with just a slight touch.

Irina continuously cut down Friet’s self-esteem by pouring sharp criticism on him, and introduced Gunther to Imelia, who was heartbroken because Friet didn’t fall for her.

That was enough for her to do. The last hurdle, Brunhilde, was persuaded directly by Gunther.

That’s how Friet’s party disintegrated, and Imelia and Irina transferred to Gunther’s party as promised.

Brunhilde, who followed along, ran away for some reason, but that was Gunther’s problem to worry about, not Irina’s own issue.

The new life in the hero’s party that started like that.

Since Gunther also had existing party members, they were ultimately treated as second-string, but Irina could be satisfied with that.

Even if they were second-string, their strength itself was steadily improving, and thanks to following Gunther around and building up their own achievements, their fame began to gradually rise within Burgundy.

They might still be gnashing their teeth in the Kingdom of Rhine, but since Burgundy and Gunther were defending her, Rhine’s criticism wasn’t worth caring about.

If there was one thing that was unsatisfactory… it would be this current situation?

‘Brunhilde, that short-lived wench, what’s so special about her? Is he really bewitched by that girl?’

A fact she learned only after becoming part of the same party.

For Irina, it was something she couldn’t understand the reason for, but Gunther harbored a strangely strong obsession for Brunhilde.

When she ran away, he left her alone considering others’ eyes, but afterwards he persistently tracked her whereabouts to this extent.

That was the reason why she and Imelia had hidden in the Kingdom of Hervor in the first place.

After confirming that Brunhilde’s trail was cut off in the Kingdom of Hervor, Gunther judged that she was clinging to Heid’s party.

That she was being used as a secret force not revealed to the outside within Heid’s party.

Convinced of this, Gunther ordered Irina and Imelia to infiltrate Hervor and scout Heid’s party.

Saying that if it was confirmed Brunhilde belonged there, he would personally negotiate with Heid to have Brunhilde handed over.

But when they actually looked, forget Heid’s party, she was just playing adventurer with Friet who had turned into a girl in some rural small town.

Really, it was absurd for Irina.

To the point where she doubted her own eyes even when directly facing this woman, wondering if this was really the Brunhilde she knew.