While I was working seriously toward becoming a hero or whatnot, passing my trials, a real hero appeared and set the world on fire—a man who was summoned from another world to defeat the demon lord, just like the legend said.
I heard he was unbelievably strong despite being a kid. He told people his name was “level 300” or something. I don’t think there was anyone who could beat him with a sword.
And apparently he knew all sorts of things: how to make tasty food, stories no one had heard before, how to compete in both war and politics. The city people were more obsessed with his knowledge than his strength. They forgot that he was just a kid and started taking orders from him.
My village wasn’t destroyed by a demon, but by a person. The reason the persecution turned into an attack was part of that kid’s policy: unity and solidarity. We were all supposed to chant, Down with the demon lord!
In other words, each individual was supposed to lend their strength to the effort to defeat him. By doing that, all the influence and military might would gather in one place. Anyone who opposed the leader was driven out. He kept a tight rein on authority by only parceling out power to people who believed in him.
And apparently that worked quite well. I dunno anything about politics, but city folks must have been pretty open-minded if they let a single hero take all the benefits for himself.
We were a powerless people on the very edge of Seigaya. There weren’t many of us, and we used the dark arts. And somehow we had just barely managed to carve out a place for humans in the forest. We were a handy stepping-stone on the way to take out the demon lord and were seen as unpleasant outsiders.
It was raining that day. The army had only just shown up, but the village was lost. They said it was military training. Of course, the hero was there, too. The cheeky-looking little punk was dressed up in gleaming clothes.
“When I heard ‘people of the forest,’ I thought there would be fairy cuties or something. Who are these ugly mugs?”
We didn’t know why they were laughing at us. But they told us to move to the city because the army would be staying in our village now.
Of course, the adults said we couldn’t do that. If we went to the city, we’d be harassed and we wouldn’t have any way to make a living.
So they said they would let us live in the garrison. In other words, we would have to work ourselves to the bone for the army that took over our village. If we did that, then we could continue living as we had been. We just had to pay taxes and serve them.
A few of the adults tried to protest and were killed. While they were at it, they killed some of the younger remaining men, too. Their reason was that there were too many of us.
Us kids were spared. The hero acted all cool saying, I can’t kill women or children. I dunno why he spared them, but it was probably about satisfying his desires—the same reason he killed off the men.
There were some others who were spared: the wall men. It was assumed they wouldn’t put up a fight since they were already injured. But I knew better, and I had a plan. The invaders thought the dark arts were like good luck charms or tattoos. They underestimated us when they thought we had no anger or pride.
I gathered the wall men and announced that I would go to the city and kill the hero. “So teach me the dark arts,” I said.
They all agreed—except for the one who had saved my life.
For several years, I studied the dark arts. Whenever soldiers showed up, we hid in the woods.
At one point I spent several months in the woods on my own. I needed to get stronger. I worked on my physical strength, but more than anything, my dark arts. I wanna scare the crap out of them, is what I was thinking.
Then it was time to carry out my operation. I was going to go to the city and kill the hero. The wall men said they would come with me—because it would be a dangerous journey.
...Heh.
Yeah, I have to laugh. Now I’m an adventurer who lives in the city and heads into the dangerous forest. How does that work, right? You can only laugh.
There were four of us. The wall man I knew didn’t come.
The day we were setting out he said to me, “Maybe I shouldn’t have saved you.” When I asked him what he meant, he said, “You could have died in the forest.”
That was the last time I saw him. I was a bit, well, yeah—sad. But I wasn’t about to let that stop me.
We left the forest and walked. When we eventually reached a town, we snuck in at night. I was light on my feet and young, so I stole us some food and then we hightailed it to the next town. That’s how we moved. Nothing on the road could frighten us, but the busyness of the towns was hard to handle.
We traveled on, trying not to do anything that would draw attention. But when we arrived at the big city where the hero lived, we needed somewhere to hide out. Somewhere out of the way with no people around—somewhere dark where we wouldn’t be seen. In a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of town, there was a church. We made that our secret base.
The key location was where the hero lived. Apparently he had seized the mansion of the noble or whatever (the rich guy who previously owned the land), rounded up the lord’s daughter and other beautiful women of the city, and created a house where no other men were allowed.
That was fine with us. It meant all we had to do was get past the guards outside and the only people in the house would be women. We thought about when to make our move.
One windy night after a streak of fair-weather days, the wall men and I mixed poppybat blood into the guards’ drinking water. That much color and smell could be hidden. Dark arts could make piss water drinkable, after all.
Then we surrounded the mansion with a barrier and set it on fire. We made it easier to burn by covering it in vines grown with a dark art. Of course, we didn’t think that would be enough to kill the hero. Besides, I had decided to kill him with my own hands.