In the appallingly short period of time which he spent transporting the colossal beast, I had to collect my thoughts. There was no precedent for rewarding a man who defeated a titan on his own!
After being ordered to visit the prince’s office, I was guided by his maid to a room in chaos. Not only were the prince and his bodyguard there, but the head priest Trabant was in attendance as well.
“Lord Chris, I was so worried about you!”
The stuffy man threw himself at me, his face shiny with tears. I evaded his first charge, but he spun around and grabbed me from behind and clung to me. I assayed a sleep spell on him, but it seemed he had an incredibly high resistance to magic. I really don’t want anyone but my wives all over me, thanks.
“I realize it was careless of me to tell you the monster’s whereabouts, and even to mention the existence of a titan, but still, why did you go alone? And with no preparation whatsoever! I thought you dead!”
As soon as he stopped crying, he started yelling at me. In retrospect, I thought I’d heard someone screaming my name earlier, but I was already comfortably situated in the golem carriage. Golems were many times faster than the swiftest of horses, so once they got going, there was no catching up to them.
Diane had gifted them to me, as a replacement for a dowry. I had to admit, racing them at top speed across the prairie was one hell of a good time.
Next time, I was thinking I’d take my two wives on a nice, long ride together.
“Uh. Sorry for worrying you? I guess? I’ll, uh, be more careful next time.
Not that I’m hurt or anything. Hell, I wasn’t even in any danger. Maybe you could let me off easy this time?”
I mean, c’mon, I just wanted to show off for the wifeys. I was probably feeling guilty about how everyone called me a hero when I hadn’t even done
anything. After about a dozen more excuses like that, the head priest reluctantly let me off the hook. I heard him muttering something like “By the goddess, next time he looks like he’s about to do that, I’m gonna send my granddaughter over to…” However, being a polite member of society, I ignored his grumbling and quietly took a seat on the sofa.
“All right, Sir Chris, let’s talk. Ever since the appearance of the Wolf King Courtaud fifty years ago, he’s slain the countless armies sent to best him. How did you defeat that terrifying titan?”
I took a sip of the tea Lord Charles offered me, then gave him a rough summary of the past day’s events.
“Midday yesterday, after you left, I was visited by Olivia’s friend, Diane Meitia. There was a little of this and a little of that—you know how it is—
and we ended up getting married. The maids working at my mansion found out, and within a day everybody across the city seemed to know.”
Pfffbt! Someone spat out their tea, and then Lord Charles and Trabant began to mutter beneath their breaths.
“Did he just say Diane Meitia ?! As in the third-richest family in the kingdom? ”
“He up and married her, just like that?! The hero certainly doesn’t waste any time! ”
“Oh wow, that’s great news! Congrats, Sir Chris.”
“Oh, thanks, Jean—Uh, I mean, Mrs. Caroling.”
From my understanding, this fit, bronzed beauty serving as the prince’s bodyguard was the one I had blessed in marriage with him yesterday. When I corrected myself, she giggled at me and replied, “Jeanne is fine.” Apparently she was one of the strongest knights around, so I was relieved to learn she was bubbly and friendly, and not at all the intimidating presence I’d feared.
“So, see, if it was just Olivia, who’d cut ties with her family, I figured I could enjoy the newlywed life a while longer until the development plan really kicked into gear. But when I married Diane too, well, I figured it wouldn’t reflect well on her, what with me being some nobody. I mean, setting the whole ‘hero’ thing aside, I’m just a commoner.”
“By the goddess, did you hear him?! The title of hero alone is enough for the nobility to squabble amongst themselves for the chance at a marriage!”
“Lord Chris, you’re no mere commoner! You’ve ascended to the place nearest the heavens themselves. You outrank even me, the head priest!”
“Oh, men. Hahaha. You guys really fret about looking good in front of your wives, huh?”
Well, of course. I mean, you have seen the two of them, right? They’re knockouts! Some hollow display of vanity wouldn’t do, not for such incomparable women as my wives. I’d wanted to prove that I deserved to be wedded to the two of them; to show clear, undeniable results.
“So I was thinking about what you said earlier, how defeating large monsters would mean equally large rewards, and I decided to go ask Trabant to tell me about the largest, most threatening monster he knew of. The sort that would win great accolades, right? So he told me about the wolf, and I figured, you know, I should go kill it.”
“But to kill a titan is nigh impossible, even with the most careful of plans!”
“Oh, great hero, you make it sound as though you decided to go for a stroll in the park!”
“So you’re the decisive type! Very heroic, very.”
Prince Charles and Trabant had gone awfully quiet. Were they mad at me? Maybe the whole “lone wolf hero” thing was a bit of a rash move. I was a married man now, with two wives to provide for back home—I had to be more careful.
“So anyway, I hopped in my golem carriage and set out for the eastern prairies. I have this monster-repelling magic I usually use, and once I was sure nobody was nearby, I used its opposite: a monster-attracting spell. I buffed up the radius to be pretty enormous, too.”
“Who would do such a thing?! Especially while alone!”
“Err, pardon me, great hero. What exactly do you mean when you say the radius of your spell was ‘enormous’?”
Trabant inquired, his face pale. Huh. The head priest must’ve been overworked too. He was clutching his stomach, just like the prince had done back when he was fatigued. What an interesting observation: did one’s digestive system get weaker when they were tired? I decided to be careful not to fall victim to the same fate.
“Well, when I checked my inventory afterward, I had about a hundred thousand dead wolves in there. That’s counting the big guy, of course—he didn’t hesitate to join the party.”
“One hundred thousand?! He must have been buried in wolf corpses!”
“What in the world has this man done?! ”
“Holy wow, that’s a lot of moonlight wolves! What’d you do when they all came at you?”
I haven’t really addressed this head-on yet, just mentioned it by the side, but among the few things that changed when I became a hero was my gaining the ability to use holy magic. Holy magic was essentially an ability to channel the goddess’s power to create miracles. Aside from that my magical capacity also expanded.
Capacity is essentially the amount of magic that could be put into a single spell by a given person. To put it directly, my maximum output increased.
“So, first I killed one wolf with some flame magic. That put the whole herd on guard. Not much for flames, apparently. They were downright terrified.”
“That sounds needlessly cruel. So this is what he’s like when he’s up against a whole herd?”
“Well, if they’re not utterly stricken with fear, they may soon channel that fear into violence.”
“Omigosh, omigosh. Then what happened?”
Jeanne was practically bouncing on her seat.
“I magnified their fear as powerfully as my capacity allowed. Dark magic is mind magic, you see.”
I could instead have simply forced them to fear me, but magnifying their existing emotions was easier and used less energy.
“I used that spell over the same massive radius, so it enveloped all of the wolves. They couldn’t run, but they didn’t simply cower, either—once your fear crosses a certain threshold, your mind dies, taking your body along with it.”
To be honest, they hadn’t put up that big a fight. I could have handled that huge wolf even before I became a hero. However, casting that spell over such a ridiculously huge radius, large enough to encompass a hundred thousand of them, would definitely have been beyond me. I could’ve done maybe ten thousand, tops. Though, even with that few, my inventory magic capacity was a lot lower, so I’d have been stuck leaving dead wolves all over the prairie.