“Assassinate the Hero? Me? Nope. No way. We’re talking about the Hero here!”
Life in service to the Gods was always filled with trials, but tonight, they were going way too far. They wanted me, all on my own, to go kill the Hero who’d defeated the Demon Lord? Whoever had written this idiotic order, I’d skip the inquisition and send them straight to the executioner. Nobody could possibly object.
“The Seven High Cardinals were nearly unanimous. You understand the weight that carries, don’t you? Inquisitor Alicia?”
In other words, if I refused, I’d be the one facing the inquisitors.
“Uggggh... Wish they’d all just drop dead.”
“Oh, come now, don’t say such things in front of the Gods!” the cardinal chided with a shit-eating grin.
I contemplated grabbing my bible and throwing it at the smug bastard; if I aimed right, I could probably get him right in the glasses. I resisted the urge, though. We were, after all, in front of the Gods. No matter how badly my stupid boss pissed me off, there were things I could and couldn’t do. What’s more, he was one of the Seven High Cardinals, second only to the pope himself. And so—
“Die!”
“Aha ha— Wha?”
—I settled for throwing the sheaf of documents back in his face as hard as I could.
“Come on, what kind of job is this to shove onto your darling inquisitor?” I complained. “You couldn’t push back even a little?”
“Oh, I did push back. I made counterproposals, offered compromises, raised concerns that we were being a tad hasty...” As he spoke, Glasses gathered up the divine orders and investigative dossiers that were now strewn across the floor. “But if I’m the only one in opposition, all that does is hurt my own standing.”
Ugh. Seriously, why couldn’t this idiot just die already?
I looked up to the heavens, gazing at the icons of the Seven Gods that adorned the cathedral. My role was to follow the divine orders I was given, track down targets suspected of heresy, and dispose of them. This was my Gods-given mission and my job. Naturally, I had no authority to overrule the judgments of the Gods, and no intention of disobeying in the first place.
They could at least do a better job convincing me, though.
“Weren’t you supposed to be convening to discuss whether the Church should canonize the Hero as a saint?” I asked. “How did you get from declaring him a saint to declaring him a heretic? Seems like a bit of a leap, if you ask me.” For the cardinals to completely reverse course that quickly, there must’ve been some kind of dire new development... “Wait, no... Were there suspicions that the Hero might secretly be a demon?”
The man they called the Hero was a figure of reverence, humanity’s champion. He’d won his title after single-handedly slaying countless demons—all of them superhumanly powerful—and finally returning with the severed head of their leader, the Demon Lord. It had marked a turning point in human history, an unprecedented triumph over the demons...
But, of course, there would always be voices of doubt. Was that really the Demon Lord’s head? they wondered. Did he really kill the Demon Lord? But if it was all just a scheme, if he’d shown up with a fake head in order to take down humanity from the inside, then—
“Mmm...” My boss interrupted my thoughts. “Well, basically, they’re jealous.”
I stared at him in stunned silence. “What?”
He finished collecting the scattered documents and gave me a shallow grin. “In their wisdom, ‘the Gods’ have decided that as things stand, the Hero poses an unacceptable threat to the authority of the crown and the Church.”
“Ah... So that’s how it is.” I quietly accepted the documents as he held them out to me once again.
I understood the reasoning now, as sickening as it always was. I’d already heard rumors of a new sect forming out in the borderlands, the “Church of the Hero” or some nonsense like that.
“This is ridiculous,” I grumbled. “The Demon Lord’s dead, but that doesn’t mean his armies have just vanished. Everyone else is still out fighting right this minute, aren’t they?” I’d noticed the cathedral was oddly quiet lately; that must’ve been why.
“Actually...” I thought to myself. “Hang on, was I ordered to remain here on standby so that...?”
“Bingo! It was so we could stick you with this job! Ah, it makes a cardinal proud to have underlings who are quick on the uptake!”
Not proud enough to take his damn job seriously, apparently. Also, this dumbass just said the quiet part out loud, didn’t he?
“It’d be a waste to let one of the other enforcers steal a juicy mission like this one. Talk about lucky!” he said with a grin.
“What do you mean, ‘lucky’? I’m the one putting my life on the line here,” I shot back. “You know, if you keep pushing people too hard, the Gods are going to punish you for it someday.”
“And if that day comes, I intend to humbly accept my fate.”
“Is that so?” In that case, shall I deliver it myself, right this second? I am a representative of the Gods, after all.
“It looks like there’s something you’re really dying to say... What’s the matter?”
“Just your imagination, Your Eminence.” I didn’t want to say anything at all—I just wanted to drop-kick him out a window.
“By the way, I’ve heard there was also a plan to bring the Hero into the royal family by offering him the princess, but apparently it didn’t go well.”
“Is the princess really that ugly?” We were a little ways away from the capital, and I’d never met her myself. Huh.
“Don’t be silly,” Glasses replied. “I wouldn’t call her a world-shattering beauty, but she’s lovely and elegant enough. Her breasts are bigger than yours too.”
Ah, yup, I’m going to kill him. I can kill my boss, it’s fine.
“She’s not the only big name they sent out to try and win over the Hero’s heart. There was the Shrine Princess of the East, the Heiress of the Southern Seas—the kinds of beauties any man would give up his life’s fortune for a single night with. And every last one of them got turned down.”
“From where I’m sitting, it seems like you’re the ones asking for divine punishment, tossing around women like objects.” Well, not like there was anything new about women having no power; that ship had long since sailed. “Anyway, don’t you think jumping straight from there to assassination is a bit much?”
Talk about a complete one-eighty.
“I won’t deny it.”
“If you did, I would’ve punched you into next week.”
Assassinate the Hero, huh? I wasn’t thrilled with the idea. But, well... I didn’t really have any other options.
That left me with a different problem, though: the Hero’s special traits.
I voiced the question that had risen to the top of my mind. “Is it really true that blades can’t cut him?”
I’d heard the rumors, but according to the dossier, his powers were the real deal. The Hero was a champion blessed with the love of the Gods—a supposedly divine protection that could repel any blade. So I’d get blocked even if I tried to kill him in his sleep? What the hell? That was way too overpowered.
“Are there any weaknesses?”
I kept reading through the dossier, but the lists of failed assassinations and rejected women didn’t give me anything obvious to work with. After that was a record of the Hero’s superhuman battle prowess; he’d taken the heads of too many infamous demons to keep count. He was a mysterious figure to begin with, but these documents didn’t even have anything about where or when he’d been born... Seriously, what kind of investigative dossier was this supposed to be? These investigators were completely phoning it in. I’d kill them.
“So, what am I even supposed to do here? I really don’t think I can take him in a fight.” I desperately hoped my boss wasn’t enough of an idiot to send me out with no plan whatsoever...