Meanwhile, The Hero’s Party (1)

The Hero, Vanrost Rain, was growing impatient.

Zombie Lizards were monsters he should normally have been able to defeat with ease.

They were essentially gigantic bipedal lizards that had become undead monsters, and even SS-rank adventurers could struggle against them. Normally, if he—the Hero—fought one, he could finish it with a single blow.

And yet he couldn’t kill them in one strike.

No matter how many times he cut them down, they kept getting back up.

A horde like this should have been wiped out all at once by Irina’s Fireballs, yet even when she fired dozens of flaming projectiles at once, the zombies refused to fall and came rushing toward them like a raging tide.

“Heyyyy! My Fireballs aren’t working!”

Irina, the mage, shook her head in disbelief.

No matter how many flaming projectiles she’d launched, she hadn’t managed to inflict a fatal wound on the Zombie Lizards.

“Healist.”

At that moment, Camula, the priest, stepped forward and cast Healing Magic.

The Zombie Lizard let out a piercing shriek and vanished as though it had evaporated.

The Hero Vanrost praised Camula.

“Well done, Camula.”

“Undead monsters are vulnerable to Healing Magic and fire magic, after all.”

Camula answered after letting out a sigh, while Irina looked unconvinced.

“B-But my fire magic didn’t work!?”

“Healing Magic is more effective than fire magic. And flames at your level are nothing more than minor burns to a Zombie Lizard. They aren’t enough to inflict a fatal wound.”

“No way…!! But it always worked before!?”

“Of course it did. Yuri had been casting magic-enhancement spells on you back then.”

“Huh? She was doing that??”

“Incidentally, Van, you should have had physical-enhancement magic cast on you as well.”

Irina knew that Yuri had sometimes chanted spells, but she’d never imagined that Yuri had actually been strengthening her magic, so she looked stunned. Vanrost was equally shocked, having had no idea that physical-enhancement magic had been cast on him.

He had sometimes felt power surging through him during battle, but had that actually been the reason?

“Zombie Lizards are monsters that even SS-rank adventurers can have difficulty defeating. You’re only S-rank, so they aren’t opponents you should be able to defeat easily.”

“But I didn’t know I had enhancement magic on me.”

“That’s because you never bothered listening to Yuri’s spells, isn’t it?”

At Camula’s words, Vanrost flinched inwardly.

He, too, had only ever been vaguely aware that Yuri was chanting something from a distance, and he’d had no idea what effects those spells were producing.

Irina puffed out her cheeks and complained to Camula.

“Then you cast magic enhancement on me, Camula!”

“I already have my hands full protecting myself. I don’t have the luxury of looking after all of you too.”

Camula answered flatly.

Then she looked bitterly at Van.

“Could you stop dumping this kind of exhausting work on me?”

“Exhausting work? Casting Healing Magic should be nothing for someone like you.”

“Using Healing Magic as offensive magic consumes an enormous amount of mana. And against that many undead, my current mana reserves would be exhausted almost immediately.”

Unable to hide her irritation, Camula protested rapidly, making Van want to cover his ears. There was no need for her to get so hysterically angry about it.

“Why did you even dismiss Yuri in the first place!?”

“H-He wasn’t that useful anyway.”

“Having him was obviously better than not having him! We could make him do all the tedious, unglamorous, and unpleasant work, and since he had a ridiculous amount of mana, he could spam Healing Magic and support magic as much as we wanted. Why did you dismiss him? And while I wasn’t even there, at that!”

“…”

Of course, it was because Camula would obviously have opposed it if she’d been present.

She had a tendency to overestimate Yuri’s abilities.

She seemed to have valued Yuri as a convenient pawn, but from Van’s perspective, Camula simply needed to put in a little more effort.

Camula would have gotten in the way if he tried to get rid of Yuri, so he’d dismissed Yuri while she was absent.

“You guys don’t have time to stand around. More and more of them are spawning.”

Rosa alone remained energetic as she hacked away at the Zombie Lizards. Given how much she cost, her performance was certainly impressive. She kept cutting down the Zombie Lizards over and over until they finally stopped getting back up.

While Irina and Camula had been arguing, Rosa had already taken care of half the Zombie Lizards.

Vanrost clicked his tongue and focused on cutting down the Zombie Lizards. He couldn’t defeat them in one blow, but after slashing them several times, they would eventually stay down.

(Could it really be that the reason we were able to deal with Zombie Lizards so easily until now… was because he was there?)

It was difficult to believe.

All Yuri had seemed to do was mutter something quietly from a distance.

(It’s true that he used to be talented. The villagers attached Yuri to me because they said they were worried about sending me off on my own.)

Van himself hadn’t been strong at first.

Ever since childhood, he’d been forced to study things he had no interest in simply because he was the Hero, and he’d also been made to practice swordsmanship and magic against his will.

He couldn’t count how many times he’d wanted to quit being the Hero.

Yuri, meanwhile, had displayed such extraordinary talent with the sword that even an active-duty royal knight had called him a genius.

Apparently, Yuri’s talent for magic had also been exceptional enough that a court mage had repeatedly invited him to come work under him.

Yuri had also defeated monsters attacking the village several times, to the point that some villagers had even said, “If only Yuri had been the Hero.”

Even after he reached the age when he was supposed to leave the village and begin his journey, Van had spent quite some time refusing to go.

He had thought that if he set out with his current abilities, he’d be dead within a day.

Then, one day.

When a village girl he had feelings for was nearly attacked by a monster, something like light awakened within him.

Power overflowed from his entire body.

Until then, he had only been able to use beginner-level magic, but in the blink of an eye, he became capable of intermediate and advanced magic as well.

His muscles also developed, and he began displaying stamina and physical strength far beyond the average person.

A royal knight called it “a miracle,” while a court mage praised it as “the power of God.”

He became capable of defeating the monsters attacking the village before Yuri could even arrive, and at last he gained confidence in his own power.

He then proudly set out on his journey, but the villagers still seemed worried about him and begged him to take Yuri along as his bodyguard.

He had reluctantly agreed to bring Yuri, but he’d always intended to cast him aside someday.

After awakening to his power, Van’s abilities improved rapidly, and he cut down powerful monsters one after another.

Even so, it annoyed him that Yuri still stood out more than he did.

So he ordered Yuri to leave opportunities for the Hero to shine.

Since Yuri had a habit of accidentally killing monsters whenever he had a sword, Van sold Yuri’s sword.

After that, Yuri stopped fighting very often.

He became useless, doing nothing but mumbling spells from the rear.

Meanwhile, Van rapidly climbed the adventurer ranks from E-rank all the way to SS-rank. Yuri also asked to take the promotion exam, but Van forbade it, telling him that a useless person had no need for promotion.

Then Van began gathering companions worthy of the Hero.

First came Irina, the cute young mage.

She was S-rank. The moment he introduced himself as the Hero, she readily joined him.

She was incredibly easy to win over, and after just a little flirting, she quickly became his girlfriend.

Next came Camula.

She was a female priest and, like Irina, an S-rank adventurer.

She was interested in monster ecology and plants, and traveled with Van because she wanted to capture more monsters to use as experimental specimens.

She was extremely beautiful, but no matter how much he flirted with her, she remained completely indifferent. Even so, simply having her accompany him made him look prestigious and feel good.

As mentioned earlier, Camula greatly overestimated Yuri.

The last one to join was Rosa.

She was a voluptuous, attractive woman.

Before Van could even flirt with her, she’d approached him herself and asked to join the party. Her fee was outrageous, but she claimed she was confident she could provide work worth the price.

If he needed more money, then personnel expenses had to be reduced. That was why he’d dismissed Yuri once he was no longer useful.

Now there were no other men besides himself, leaving him with what was essentially a harem.

He had expected to continue his journey in high spirits, and yet—

As he defeated the attacking Zombie Lizards, Van bit his lip.

They were only struggling by coincidence.

After all, Yuri had merely cast dull support magic.

He’d basically just stood there.

So what if he’d cast a few support spells? Camula could do the same thing, and if necessary, Van himself could as well. The Hero simply had few occasions to use support magic, and he wanted to avoid using such unimpressive techniques whenever possible.

It was nothing but support magic.

He simply couldn’t believe that Yuri had been the reason they’d never struggled before.