Battle Against The Hero’s Party (2)

“Huh…? Who are you?”

Vanrost stared at Yuri with his eyes wide open.

He seemed too shocked to even speak.

The person he had always assumed was a shabby-looking boy had turned out to be an extraordinarily beautiful woman.

Yuri looked at the Hero with cold eyes.

“Could you not suddenly start calling me ‘you’ like that? It gives me chills.”

“…!?”

Perhaps being told that he gave her chills had shocked him, because Vanrost fell speechless for a moment.

Then another powerful gust swept through, flipping back not only her hood but also the cloak covering her entire body.

He must have caught sight of the feminine figure beneath it.

The young mage let out a bizarre cry.

“H-Huh!? That’s Yuri-chan’s voice… but you’re a girl!?”

“Your hair and eye color are the same as Yuri’s, but… wait… you were hiding your sex this whole time?”

The female priest seemed confused as well.

So neither of them had noticed that Yuri was a woman. You would think fellow women might have realized it… but I supposed that only showed how perfectly Yuri had played the part of a man.

Vanrost pointed at Yuri with a trembling hand.

“…Yuri is a woman…? But you did the same work as the men back in the village, and you always dressed like a man…”

“Yuri is a woman. She spent her whole life hiding her sex so she could fulfill her duty as your bodyguard.”

“W-What…!?”

This time, I stepped in front of Yuri and readied my sword.

Then I addressed the Hero’s party.

“Yuri is my wife. I’m not giving her back to you.”

“――――!?”

Vanrost still seemed unable to believe it as he stared Yuri up and down.

Well, he had traveled all this time with such a beautiful woman and never noticed a thing. That was an impressive level of obliviousness.

At that moment, the female priest pointed toward our hands.

“You two still haven’t formally submitted a marriage registration to the Guild, have you? In that case, you are not legally married, so Guild regulations protecting married couples do not apply.”

It was true that married adventurers had to submit a marriage registration at a Guild Hall.

When they did, the Adventurers’ Guild gave them rings as a wedding gift and proof of their marriage.

Those rings served as official proof that they were husband and wife.

“So what? No matter what anyone says, Yuri is my wife. Anyone who tries to take my wife away from me is my enemy.”

Vanrost’s eyes bulged at my words.

“You intend to defy the Hero!?”

“And if I do?”

“Then I’ll show you just how terrifying the Hero can be!!”

Vanrost raised the Hero’s Sword and slashed at me.

The gleaming white Hero’s Sword collided with Diares, the God of Destruction, whose blade was pitch-black.

CLAAAAAAAAANG!!

A piercing sound rang out as though space itself had been torn apart.

The instant Diares touched the Hero’s Sword, its blade became wreathed in a sinister black aura.

That was dark energy capable of devouring the mind of any ordinary human who touched it. It was the complete opposite of the Hero’s light energy.

The Hero’s face immediately changed color.

“You… How can a human like you wield something like that!?”

“Who knows? For some reason, this sword seems to like me.”

While Diares was surrounded by a black aura, the Hero’s Sword radiated white light.

The Hero leaned his weight into his blade and pushed, but I didn’t budge an inch.

Gradually, the black aura overwhelmed the white aura and began putting Vanrost under pressure.

At that moment, the young mage shouted.

“I was holding back before! I’m serious this time! Fireball!!”

Several flaming projectiles, each larger than the one before, came flying toward us.

But Yuri had started chanting a defensive spell immediately after the young mage began hers.

The fireballs struck the defensive barrier and vanished.

The young mage puffed out her cheeks.

“Oh, come on!! Yuri, you little…!!”

“Irina, move aside. Binding—”

This time, the female priest tried to cast Binding Magic on Yuri.

But Yuri completed her spell first.

“Binding Magic (Restrin)!!”

The young mage and female priest immediately froze in place as though restrained by invisible cords.

“D-Damn it… Magic Nullification (Cancel Set)!!”

The female priest quickly chanted a spell, but Yuri’s Binding Magic did not come undone.

Seeing his immobilized companions, Vanrost clicked his tongue.

“You…!! Wave Shock!”

The Hero cast the spell at me.

But my body didn’t move at all.

Seeing me remain completely unfazed, Vanrost faltered for an instant.

“Damn…!”

Vanrost leapt backward to create some distance, then gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands.

The Hero’s Sword began shining brilliantly.

“How about this!?”

He swung the sword straight down from above.

Its speed might have been invisible to an ordinary person, but I simply jumped backward and avoided it.

Apparently unable to believe how easily I had dodged his attack, panic began creeping onto the Hero’s face.

“D-Damn you… You’re only B-rank!!”

“If I could, I’d have preferred to live a quiet, ordinary life fitting for a B-rank. But if it means protecting someone precious to me, I’ll fight even if the whole world becomes my enemy.”

“Don’t screw with me!!”

Diares and the Hero’s Sword collided again. It felt as though the two blades themselves rejected each other, regardless of what either of us wanted.

Every time the swords clashed, I felt an impact that seemed to repel them from one another. A painful numbness ran through my body as though an electric current had passed through me.

It didn’t bother me much, but every time Vanrost struck Diares with the Hero’s Sword, his face twisted in pain.

The Hero’s Sword had been created by Xenoric. It was probably fundamentally incompatible with a weapon forged by followers of the God of Destruction.

We stopped trading blows for a moment and put some distance between us.

Just as I was about to make the next move, Vanrost looked at Yuri again.

“Yuri, dump that old bastard and come back to me!! You were just an Errand Runner before, but starting today, I’ll make you my girlfriend.”

What the hell was wrong with this idiot Hero!?

The moment he learned Yuri was a woman, he suddenly wanted to make her his girlfriend…

I almost decided to stab him to death on the spot, but before I could, Yuri went pale and violently shook her head.

“Absolutely not!! I’d rather die!!”

“W-What did you say!?”

“After mocking me that much and treating me like I was nothing but a burden, what the hell are you saying now!? You’re disgusting!!”

“…!?”

Vanrost was stunned by Yuri’s complete rejection.

No, why on earth had he thought Yuri would happily come running back to him?

Had he completely forgotten how he had treated her?

“I’m personally offering to take you back, and you dare refuse me!?”

At that moment, the Hero’s Sword began glowing red.

It seemed to be responding to the Hero’s anger.

I had seen weapons before that drew out the wielder’s anger to increase their offensive power, but weapons like that often caused the wielder to lose themselves in rage and even injure their own allies.

Seeing Vanrost’s forehead bulging with veins and the whites of his eyes showing, I got a bad feeling and cast defensive magic in advance.

Yuri had already placed a defensive spell on us, but I wanted to be safe.

Vanrost clenched both fists and roared.

“I’ll never forgive anyone who defies me!! Explosion Magic (Vondis)!!”

The instant the Hero completed his chant, our entire field of vision was swallowed by fire and black smoke.

BOOOOOOM!!

The explosion thundered across the desert sky, startling the birds perched among the rocks and sending them all flying at once.

Casting defensive magic beforehand had been the right choice.

Even at the center of the blast, Yuri and I remained completely unharmed inside a colorless, transparent dome.

I fixed the Hero with a sharp glare.

Even if he had lost himself to anger, he had dragged Yuri into that attack along with me.

Vanrost truly was a worthless Hero.

No.

I didn’t even want to acknowledge him as a Hero.

I had no idea what idiot had chosen someone like this for the role.

“Amazing… If it had only been my defensive magic, I wouldn’t have been able to block all of that. We would’ve gotten hurt. That spell is powerful enough to defeat the dragon from the ancient ruins.”

I had no idea how strong that dragon from the ancient ruins had been, but apparently the Hero’s attack still wasn’t powerful enough to break through my defensive magic.

“Levitation Magic (Fuwaris).”

I wrapped an arm around Yuri’s waist and chanted the levitation spell, causing us to rise into the air.

As long as our bodies remained in contact, the spell affected Yuri as well.

The thick blast smoke made visibility poor, so the Hero hadn’t noticed that we were floating overhead.

Until now, I had been holding back whenever I used magic.

Even with the Wave Shock spell earlier, if I had misjudged my strength even slightly, Rosa and the Hero would probably have vanished without a trace. Worse, the force might have been so great that Yuri could have been caught in it too.

Even with the control mark placed on me by the God of Creation, my power was still far too great for a human to possess.

If I wanted to finish off the Hero’s party all at once with magic, I needed to make sure Yuri wouldn’t be caught in the attack.

Once we reached the height of the lowest clouds, I pointed my palm toward the Hero and the others below.

“Explosion Magic (Vondis).”

I put a “small” amount of magical power into it and cast exactly the same Explosion Magic spell the Hero had used.

The next instant, the Hero’s party was swallowed by a dome of black smoke and crimson flame.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM――――!!!

Compared with other offensive spells, Explosion Magic possessed destruction on an entirely different level.

And this spell had an absurdly strong affinity with me. Whenever I used it, its power multiplied several times over, so I had fired it with considerable restraint. If I misjudged my strength by even a little, Ice Heatland itself might have been blown away.

The shock of the explosion seemed to trigger an earthquake, and the rocky mountains trembled.

Blast smoke filled the area, leaving us unable to see anything for a while.

Eventually, a sandy wind swept through and cleared the smoke, revealing that the desert ground had been gouged deeply enough to form an enormous crater.

The castle currently hidden by illusion magic might also have been caught in the blast, but powerful defensive magic was constantly active around it, so it probably hadn’t suffered any damage.

Despite taking my Explosion Magic head-on, the fact that the Hero was still standing showed just how tenacious he was, but he no longer seemed to have the strength to fight back.

His legs were unsteady, and the blast had made his short hair stand on end like a chestnut burr.

Apparently unable to remain standing any longer, he collapsed where he stood.

The mage, priest, and Rosa all had singed, frizzy hair and clothes reduced to tatters. Their outfits were now about as shabby as Yuri’s had been when I first met her.

Unlike the Hero, none of them seemed capable of getting back up.

I slowly descended and landed atop the rocky ground, then looked down at the Hero and spoke coldly.

“You piece of garbage.”

“…!?”

Oops. Calling him garbage might have been a little too much.

I was different from who I had been in my previous life. I was human now, just like the Hero.

It wasn’t right to treat another person like garbage.

But I wasn’t taking back the “piece of trash” part. Vanrost’s personality was unquestionably rotten to the core.

Avoiding my piercing gaze, Vanrost looked toward Yuri as though pleading for help.

“Yuri… cast Healing Magic on me… Hurry up… you useless idiot…”

His voice came out in broken fragments, yet even now the Hero was still arrogantly ordering Yuri around while insulting her.

Yuri answered with a blank expression.

“You have companions who are far more capable than I am, so you don’t need me to treat you.”

“Th-That’s…”

“The village chief told me that if I ever stopped being useful to the Hero, I should gracefully leave the party.”

“――”

“I’m useless, remember? So there’s no reason for me to go back anymore, is there?”

“…!!”

With the Hero’s pride, there was no way he could admit it.

He would never be able to say out loud that Yuri had actually been incredibly useful… much less that they were in trouble without her.

He wanted to maintain the position that he was mercifully allowing a useless person like Yuri to serve him.

I let my murderous intent show for only an instant before speaking calmly to Vanrost.

“If you ever go near Yuri again, I’ll erase you from this world.”

“…!?”

Under my icy gaze, Vanrost’s body jolted.

His face immediately went deathly pale.

Now that he had been shown the overwhelming difference in our strength, he was afraid of me.

He couldn’t even bring himself to meet my eyes.

I turned to Yuri.

“What do you want to do, Yuri? If you’d like, I can erase all of them right now.”

“What!?”

Yuri’s eyes went perfectly round.

They had attacked us with something that could easily have killed an ordinary person. I had absolutely no hesitation about wiping them out.

Apparently realizing that I was completely serious, Yuri fell silent and thought for a while.

After looking coldly at the pathetic, trembling Hero, she said,

“If word spread that the Hero had disappeared, or that the Hero had died, I think the demons would launch an all-out attack on the continent.”

“Well, that’s probably true.”

“If that happened, the world would fall into chaos, and a peaceful life would become nothing more than a distant dream. Besides, Roy doesn’t need to dirty his hands for someone like him.”

I wouldn’t have minded dirtying my hands as much as necessary for her sake.

My previous life had been far worse anyway.

Still, fine. If it ever came to that, I could erase people like these from existence whenever I wanted.

Casting a sidelong glance at Vanrost, who was still standing there in a daze, I released the Black Wyvern from my Storage Ball.

At that moment, Rosa regained consciousness and slowly sat up while rubbing her back. Looking at us, she muttered with a self-deprecating smile,

“Well, now that’s a surprise… I thought Wolk was about the only adventurer who could ride that wyvern.”

I seated Yuri in front of me and pulled on the wyvern’s reins.

The wyvern’s beating wings created a powerful gust that sent desert sand swirling into the air.

Leaving the thoroughly defeated Hero’s party behind, we soared above the clouds in no time.