Over a hundred stakes of corruption hung suspended in midair.
They fired in rapid succession from every conceivable angle.
"Tch—!"
The Hero cut down the incoming stakes with his holy sword.
Quite the reaction speed.
Though the battle had gone on for some time, he was still holding his own.
To stay alive, the Hero fought with desperate skill.
Yet wounds, large and small, covered his entire body.
The accompanying bloodstains spread red across the grassland.
Even the Hero couldn't manage it completely unscathed.
"Demon Lord…!"
From time to time, the Hero would try to close in on me.
A surprise attack, but I deflected it without difficulty.
From there, I launched a counterattack by sending stakes flying.
In my former life, I would have deployed various defensive magics.
I would have been conscious of maintaining distance from the Hero.
My current self has no need to fixate on that.
That man's swordsmanship surpassed the Hero's.
It was power honed through immense training and lethal battles with demonkind.
Not something that could be so easily overcome.
The hero was struggling against the stakes of miasma.
No matter how many he destroyed, they regenerated as if nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, I still had plenty of power to spare.
As expected, there was an insurmountable gap between the hero and me.
I conjured a spear of miasma in my hand.
With a flick of my fingers, I launched it.
"...!"
Reacting instantly, the hero spun around and deflected the spear with his Holy Sword.
In the next instant, a stake fired from behind him pierced his right thigh.
The sharp, blood-slicked tip burst through his skin.
"...Ugh!?"
The hero dropped to one knee with a groan.
I followed up without pause, unleashing ten more stakes.
"Guh...!"
He desperately rolled across the ground to evade.
Those that would have hit were blocked by the Holy Sword.
Still, one stake gouged into his side.
The hero gritted his teeth and endured the pain.
(Still not dead, huh? He's stubborn.)
The agony of miasma flowing through a living body is beyond measure.
Normally, the transformation into an undead should have progressed immediately.
The hero was resisting through sheer willpower.
"Aaaargh!"
With his wounded body, the hero screamed and charged toward me.
From the holy sword, a swelling aurora of light erupted.
He swung it, launching a blade of light toward me.
I had anticipated that much and immediately erected a defensive barrier to intercept it.
Cracks ran across the surface where the light-strike landed.
Facing the hero's raw power, I sensed my defenses might shatter.
(You've got some fight in you...)
I cast an additional spell.
Hundreds of vines snaking up from the ground gathered before my eyes, forming a wall.
The wall of vines, though charred and scorched, managed to absorb the entire light-strike.
At that moment, something flickered in the corner of my vision.
It was the hero, who had slipped past the side of the vine wall.
He had used the light-strike as a feint to dash through!
"Die!"
The holy sword, on a sharp, direct trajectory, aimed to behead me.
I deflected it with my heirloom sword and thrust its tip toward the hero's chest.
He leapt backward, spraying blood, and narrowly dodged the stab.
I plunge the spear of miasma toward him once more.
At the same time, I command countless stakes to move.
The hero manages to deflect the spear with his holy sword, but he cannot respond to the stakes.
A downpour of stakes rains upon his back.
"Gah... aagh!"
The hero coughs up blood and collapses face-forward.
Submerged in his own blood, he shivers in fine tremors.
I watch him from a distance.
"It is over. The battle is decided."
"N-not... yet..."
The hero stabs his holy sword into the ground and, spilling blood, forces himself to stand.
His face is deathly pale, and his gaze, fixed on me, is unfocused.
He looks as though he might die even if left alone.
"Give up. Even if you stand here, it is meaningless. There is no possibility of you winning."
I declare this, but the hero shakes his head in refusal.
He lifts his face, spraying blood.
"But if I... die here... then the world's... peace..."
"Peace."
I murmur, unconsciously.
What we pursued was the same.
Yet the positioning is polar opposites.
The hero approaches with his holy sword used as a walking stick.
"If I just... just defeat you... the world will become peaceful...!"
"That is incorrect."
I denied him in a resolute tone.
The hero looked at me with a baffled expression.
A convenient moment.
I decided to confirm what had been bothering me.
With that thought, I posed a question to the hero.
"Clea Baton. Dwight Harvelt. Do these two names sound familiar to you?"
"..."
The blood-soaked hero pondered.
He couldn't grasp the intent behind my question.
He hesitated, unsure whether to answer.
During that time, I waited silently.
After a short while, the hero caught his breath and spoke.
"Approximately... ten years ago... the previous Demon King was killed... and those fallen heroes tried to seize his power... What of it...?"
"That is a counterexample to your ideals."
I fired a miasma stake, impaling his limbs.
The hero collapsed to the ground once more.
An additional stake was driven in there.
The hero barely moved the Holy Sword at the last moment, managing to deflect it.
Immediately after, he coughed up blood, his arm hanging limp.
The blade of the Holy Sword was losing its light.
"To defeat the Demon Lord and restore peace. An extremely reasonable method, wouldn't you say? But it didn't work."
"What... do you mean?"
"I tried, but I failed."
Various scenes flashed through his mind.
The memory of being cursed by the people in the Valley of the Dead.
The world going dark with an arrow embedded in one eye.
The expression of that person standing at the brink of death.
Our reward for saving the world vividly displayed the error of that choice.
Even now, I sometimes feel a phantom ache in my missing eye and chest.
Parts of me that no longer exist.
"You, the nameless hero of the Holy Sword. Your reasoning isn't wrong at all. It's a path I once walked myself."
The one who is truly insane is me.
It would be the natural order for the Demon Lord, who commits every possible atrocity, to be struck down by the hero, an apostle of justice.
By doing so, people would be saved.
I believed that, followed that person, and in the end, we slew the Demon Lord.
"However, the world is just too cruel and overflowing with despair. So much so that your ideals are ridiculed and spat upon."
"...Ugh..."
The hero was already at death's door.
He could barely manage to move just his neck to look up at me.
The fact that he was still alive was a miracle.
Blood seeping from his wounds had thoroughly soaked the earth beneath him.
"Even if you step over my corpse here, you will soon taste deep despair. And then you will understand the meaning of my words."
I approached the hero.
With stakes driven through his entire body, he looked pitiful and powerless.
Yet mockery was not permitted.
He was a young man who had shouldered the burden of being the hero, fighting tirelessly for justice.
He was not wrong.
It was the world—including me—that had been mistaken.
One cannot live by righteousness alone.
"You are about to die. But I will inherit your will that wishes for peace. Though this may not be what you desire."
"..."
The hero did not answer.
He remained motionless, looking down.
The pool of blood on the ground kept spreading.
(Has he finally died?)
To confirm this, I reached out to lift his body.
In an instant, a blood-soaked hand seized my arm.
"I'm giving up? Not a chanceeeee!"
The hero, who should have been battered beyond recognition, rose to his feet.
He pulled my arm while raising the holy sword ablaze with white light.
"——Well done."
With only that, I declared, then flashed my keepsake blade.
Immediately, the hero ceased all movement.
His torso split diagonally, and then quietly, fresh blood sprayed forth.