Chapter 38

Interlude Evsei I didn’t feel like adventuring after the battle at Malika. I cringed at the idea of teaming up with anyone else. Everybody who’d skipped that battle was a phony in my book. That said, I had to make money somewhere. So I looked for jobs I could do alone and earned enough to get by. The human side had technically won at Malika, so there was peace for a while. Five years later, however, the Demon Lord’s army was on the move again. All those lives lost for a measly five years of peacetime. It didn’t matter much to me, though. I figured I’d done my share of fighting already. It was around that time I heard the stories about Leonard, the adventurer who tooted his own horn about how he’d survived Malika. He only took the high-paying jobs, and apparently, he would do anything for cash. I found it hard to believe someone who’d lived through that hell would see adventuring as profitable. I saw him at the taverns where all the adventurers hung out. He seemed to be about the same age as me, a guy with a pasted-on smile that didn’t reach his eyes. I don’t like him. That was the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw him. He sure didn’t have the look of someone who’d experienced what I had. What the hell was he doing, acting all carefree about life? How could he smile? Had he forgotten what’d happened back then? That was when it hit me: Oh, right. The person I couldn’t stand was myself. Me, a person who’d survived the battle at Malika. The situation worsened by the day. The Demon Lord’s army relaunched its invasion, and the human side stayed on the back foot. Not that I did anything about it. My world had ended at the battle of Malika. It was as if I had died there, too. I closed my eyes to the fate of the world and just swung my spear, silently earning a living. That was it. But then he approached me. Leonard. Just when I was about to walk into my house, he called out to me from behind. “Yo. I’ve heard about you. They say you’re a survivor of Malika. How about you and I team up?” I knew this guy didn’t team up with anyone in particular. He changed parties depending on the job, and he was famous for hogging the lion’s share of the rewards. “Find someone else to bother,” I spat. “I don’t like you.” I had no reason to act chummy with Leonard, obviously. “Unfortunately, I happen to like you. Won’t you team up with me? Please?” That wasn’t the reaction I had expected. I’d thought he’d get grouchy and stomp away if I turned him down bluntly, but no. He had his usual flippant attitude, yet his eyes were dead serious. “I know your reputation,” I said. “You change party members depending on the job. There are plenty of other spearmen out there if that’s what you’re after. Why do you need me?” “Evsei, I’m not in it for a one-night fling. I wanna get to know you. I won’t cheat on you, promise. Cross my heart and swear to die.” He sounded like he was sweet-talking a woman. I was pretty sure he didn’t swing the other way, but I could have been wrong. I drew back, trying to recall what I knew about him. “It’s not a bad idea, y’know. I have two girls in my party—and they’re both absolute beauties. You only get a chance like this once in your life. What do you say?” Now he sounded like a tacky pimp in the red-light district. Definitely not how you’d invite someone into your adventuring party. He was so forceful about the whole thing that he chased me all the way to the door of my house. I’d never had this happen to me before. Just as things were getting dicey, somebody whacked the back of Leonard’s head with their staff. “Ouch!” Leonard clutched his head. Behind him, I could see two women. “I was an idiot for leaving this to you,” came an exasperated voice. It was the woman who’d bonked Leonard. Between her staff and the glasses, she was probably a mage. She was also very beautiful—her purple-streaked black hair caught my eye. “Yes, I can’t say I was impressed at how you used us as bait,” the other woman added. This woman had shoulder-length red hair and was dressed in a priest’s garb. Although she looked plain at first glance, she did have a nice, clean-cut face. There was a “good girl” vibe about her. Were these the party members Leonard had mentioned? This meant he wasn’t necessarily lying through his teeth. “Would you mind if we had a little chat?” the black-haired woman asked. “We’re all survivors of the battle at Malika. It’s not bad to talk about old times every once in a while, is it?” With such a beautiful lady saying that to me, how could I refuse? I let the three of them into my house. Leonard was a nuisance, but I could live with that. Ignoring him, I addressed the black-haired woman named Sophia. “So what about the past do you want to talk about?” Apparently, the redhead was called Nina. Which reminded me…I did get the feeling that I’d seen a young mage girl and priest around my age in the volunteer army. Just when I was thinking of urging Sophia and Nina to take a seat and leaving Leonard to stand, he just went right ahead and plonked his ass down on one of my chairs. “Just our life stories,” said Sophia. “It’s kind of a tradition, you could say. Everyone who experienced that battle has something weighing them down. Talking about it with others lightens the burden, basically. You can decide whether you want to join the party or not later.” At first, Sophia came off as a snob, but she actually seemed to be a frank and good-hearted person. “You’re making me spill my past to people I’ve barely met?” No matter how beautiful she was, I did feel some reluctance. “You have a point. Okay, I’ll start by telling you about us.” With that, Sophia began recounting her own life story. Maybe she was used to telling it by now, because she was weirdly good at spinning her words. Nina was next to speak, although her storytelling was stiff and solemn like a priest’s sermon. Although the two women came from very different backgrounds, I got the impression that they’d chosen to live very similar lives after surviving the battle at Malika. The way they escaped reality because of their survivor’s guilt—they were just like me. When they finished their stories, I glanced toward Leonard, but he just shrugged and told me to start first. That pissed me off a little; however, it would have been a bad look on my end if I refused to speak after the two women had volunteered so much about themselves. So I sucked it up and started telling my tale. “My dad was a mercenary. The spear was his specialty, so I picked it up, too. Swung it around for fun when I was a kid. The way I was brought up, I was fated to be either a merc or an adventurer. I picked adventuring. Part of it was ’cause my dad mentioned something along the lines of, ‘It’s easier being an adventurer than a mercenary.’ “Not to brag, but my skills were pretty good for my age. I’d been learning from an expert for way longer than everyone around me. So anyway, I joined a party that treated me well and made a nice, steady living. Same as you guys.” I looked at Sophia and Nina; they both nodded briefly. “And then, just like you two, I witnessed hell at Malika. All my party members who were so nice to me bit the dust there. Which I guess made sense. If you don’t have the chops, you die. That’s the adventurer life for you. But I couldn’t stand being on the back foot forever. So I decided to target the general of the Demon Lord’s army.” Sophia and the others gulped. They were a good audience—that made the story worth telling. “I found the bastard straightaway. He was this huge black-skinned demon who stood head and shoulders above the others in a crowd. Plus, he had a different aura. He reeked of danger. “I stayed low and tried to avoid fighting as much as I could so I could get around to his back. I was gonna stick my spear right through that black demon’s head. “Long story short, I managed to pull off the sneaking part. Not because I was actually good at it or anything; there was this warrior taking on the demons all by himself. Made quite a show. “It was Luke—same guy from your stories. Humanity’s strongest warrior. He charged at the black demon head-on. It was reckless of him, no other way to put it. No way could he pull it off. But since the demon’s attention was focused on Luke, his back was open.” At some point while I was telling the story, Leonard’s easygoing attitude had melted away, replaced by a brittle, tense expression. “I jumped. Higher than the black demon was tall. Nailed it, I thought. My spear was pointed straight at his head. But then he swatted it away with a light flick of his arm, just like that. Like it was a fly. And you know what he said when I fell to the ground? “‘It was right of you to target me. Sadly for you, you weren’t strong enough.’ “I was outclassed, basically. No wonder he was a general.” Just the memory of it brought a shiver down my spine. No human stood a chance against him in a direct fight. “So what happened?” Sophia nudged me to continue. Curiosity had gotten the better of her, it seemed. “I put on my best bluster. I said, ‘At least tell me your name.’ He was pretty good-natured about it. ‘It’s Berzera,’ he said, nice and clearly.” I said it jokingly, but nobody laughed. “So that good-natured demon swung his big, badass sword down at me. It had this black, malevolent aura around it. Honestly, I thought I was toast. I had my eyes scrunched shut. But when I lost all hope, this one warrior stood up before me. Luke. He stormed his way out of the circle of enemies around him and came all the way up to Berzera. It was unbelievable.” I was never going to forget that sight of Luke with his back turned to me—not for the rest of my goddamn life. In my eyes, nobody else could possibly be the Hero. No matter what anyone said. “Luke blocked the demon’s sword and said to me, ‘Leave this to me. You get to the rear and run.’ Sure, there weren’t many monsters at the rear. But if there’s one thing I hate, it’s being told what to do. So I tried to help Luke—at first.” I shook my head. “But it was no use. Luke and Berzera moved like lightning. I just…wasn’t strong enough to find an opening. And I wasn’t the only one; the other demons couldn’t even get close. “The two of them were equally matched at the start, but Luke started to get pushed onto the back foot as time went on. Which only stood to reason. He’d had to fight furiously just to get to Berzera. It was pure adrenaline keeping him going at that point. But he shouted at me without even turning to look my way. He was like, ‘What are you doing?! Hurry up and run! Don’t die in vain!’