Fired From Being A Hero

In the throne room of the castle, I was making my report to the king.

“So, the Evil Serpent got away, but I destroyed the sea dragon’s nest.”

The king twisted his face in bitter displeasure.

“You failed to slay it again… What is wrong, Alec…? You were so successful in the past.”

“…It’s true I didn’t manage to finish it off… but since I destroyed the nest, I believe the damage to the coastal folk will go down…”

The minister standing beside the king spoke in a pompous tone.

“Is it not simply your age catching up with you? You can defeat small fry, but you are no longer able to bring down boss-class foes. In that case, do you not agree there is no point in calling you a hero?”

“Y-yes, sir…”

The king opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but only let out a sigh.

The minister brought over a tray with a pouch on it.

It looked like they were giving me something.

“What is this?”

“Hero Alec, you have done well up to now. Lay down your title and take a well-earned rest.”

“Eh!? — That’s so sudden!”

“This is His Majesty’s final mercy. One hundred gold coins. Take them.”

“But—there are still monsters—”

“Ah, let me introduce him. This is the new hero, Marius.”

A tall, slender young man appeared.

He had silky blond hair and sharply defined double-lidded red eyes.

Even from another man’s perspective, his face was so well-shaped he could only be called handsome. And on top of that, he was a noble’s son.

“Hello, former Hero Alec. As I’m sure you know, I’m Marius Forlight, a hero candidate who has been active for several years now. I made sure to properly finish off the Evil Serpent you drove into a corner for me.”

Marius smiled, his white teeth flashing.

I was average height and build, with black hair and black eyes and nothing particularly striking about me. I was nothing like him.

He was a hero whose popularity among women was currently exploding.

Inside, I thought, I knew it.

So Marius was the next hero.

Despite being a noble, he was friendly, affable, and easy to get along with.

He listened to what I said and acted on it.

I had thought of him as a cute junior.

—And on top of that, he was trying to give me half the credit for defeating the Evil Serpent.

I thought he was a good guy.

Well, if he was going to be the hero, then I supposed it couldn’t be helped if I got fired. That was what I told myself.

The minister pulled a bitter face.

“How many times does this make it now? Marius here cleaning up the monsters Alec failed to finish off… It makes it perfectly clear who is worthy of the title of hero.”

“Alec is getting on in years as well, so from here on out I alone will be more than enough. There’s no point in having two heroes, is there?”

“I am sorry… Alec.”

Only the king looked at me with a sympathetic gaze.

But as long as I kept failing my missions, it seemed he couldn’t say anything else.

“I understand…”

It was as if my dismissal was already a done deal.

With how poor I was at talking, I couldn’t even argue back.

I gave up on arguing and reached out, taking the pouch from the minister’s hand.

It was heavy and solid. It seemed to be full of gold coins.

They probably assumed that by accepting the coins, I had agreed to retire as hero.

The king spoke.

“Then, Alec. Leave your hero’s medal here and go take your rest.”

“…Yes, Your Majesty.”

I bowed, then took off the medal that hung on a chain around my neck.

I handed it to the minister and started to slink away.

But Marius smiled at me pleasantly.

“If people found out you quit being a hero, who knows what they’d say? It would be better if you slipped out through the back door.”

“Eh… Ah.”

“I know a good back way out. Come on, Alec, I’ll show you. This way.”

With a gentle, considerate-looking smile on his face, Marius took the lead and started walking.

As I trudged along after him through the castle corridor—I couldn’t help thinking.

This wasn’t for my sake.

It was to protect the kingdom’s image.

To put it more bluntly, it was the higher-ups trying to hide me, a failure of a hero and a disgrace to the kingdom.

And Marius had just voiced that hard-to-say idea in words that went down more smoothly.

I supposed this was what people called social finesse.

I had never been capable of that at all.

I had been a hero who could only single-mindedly slay monsters. No—now a former hero.

We arrived at the castle’s back entrance.

There really was no one around. From here, it didn’t look like anyone would see me go.

I looked at Marius and spoke.

“Do your best for my share, too. See you around.”

I tried to put on a brave front and talk to him in a casual tone.

But Marius looked down on me with a sneer of contempt.

“Huh? Don’t you think your way of speaking is a bit out of line?”

“Eh!? What did you say?”

“You’re not a hero anymore, you know? I was born a noble. A pauper like you has no right to talk to me so familiarly.”

“Wha… No, I took really good care of you, didn’t I? I taught you how to fight monsters, and I even let you have some of the credit for subjugations.”

“And you think I should feel grateful for that? You really think something like that cancels out the way you put me through such unfair treatment?”

“Unfair!? What are you talking about…?”

“Because a decrepit old man like you kept hogging the title of hero, a young, talented, handsome man like me got stuck doing nothing but grunt work. I’m superior in every way—my magic, my swordsmanship, my knowledge, my family line, my face! I’m the one who should be the hero basking in everyone’s praise. And yet what do you do? ‘Do this, do that, it’s better if you do it like so,’ all you ever did was boss me around!”

Marius hurled insults at me with a scornful smile.

I stumbled over my words as I tried to defend myself.

“N-no, that’s not it, I was only thinking of you—”

“You throwing your weight around as the senior was seriously annoying! I’ve been irritated this whole time! You filthy pauper! — Now hurry up and disappear! Don’t you ever show your face again—ah, but with a hundred gold coins you’ll burn through it all in less than half a year and die in a ditch anyway, so when that happens I’ll come have a look at your ugly dead face, hahaha!”

I was so stunned I couldn’t say a single word.

I had believed he was such a good guy. I had thought to myself that he would make a fine next hero.

Marius kicked my dazed body out into the back alley, then shut the door with a laugh.

“Paupers should die in the gutter like paupers—just like your parents did! Ahaha!”

The door slammed shut with a crack.

The sheer violence of his words left my thoughts frozen for a while.

I felt as if I had been betrayed.

—No, not “as if.” Surely…?

The reason I had been doing so badly lately, the way Marius had kept stealing my achievements for himself—could it all have been because of him…?

But there was no way to investigate anymore. The one person with the authority to look into such things, the hero, had been fired.

With nowhere to go, I had no choice but to start walking.

He could make fun of me all he wanted. It was true I had made plenty of mistakes.

But I could never just “let it go” when he insulted my parents too.

Thrown out of the castle’s back door, I staggered through the town.

Under the bright afternoon sun, people came and went along the stone-paved street.

For some reason, the everyday scene of people going about their lives felt strangely distant, as if it didn’t belong to me anymore.

—What do I do now… Where am I supposed to go?

My parents were dead. Our family home was gone.

Maybe the only thing I’d done for them as a son was letting them die happy, knowing their child had become a hero.

For the moment, I looked inside the pouch I’d been given, to see if there really were one hundred gold coins in it.

What I saw made my eyes widen.

They weren’t ordinary gold coins—there were one hundred large gold coins inside.

Ten million gort. Ten times what I had expected.
There was also a letter inside.

It was written in the king’s own hand.

“I am sorry, Alec. No one knows better than I how much you have done for this kingdom. But in these last one or two years, the number of monsters you’ve slain has dropped so sharply that even I could no longer defend you. Think of this as my poor attempt at making amends.”

The king who had doted on me like a child after I lost my father at a young age.

It hurt that I hadn’t been able to live up to his expectations.

…Huh? But even in these last one or two years, I had failed some missions, sure, yet the number of monsters I’d defeated shouldn’t have changed…

I didn’t understand anything anymore.

Maybe Marius had done something—but since I’d been fired as hero, I couldn’t even investigate.

More importantly, there was the situation right in front of me. Staying alive had to come first.

For now, how many days could I live on ten million gort?

A night at an inn cost twenty thousand gort, so that would be five hundred nights, right?

No, the hero’s party had always stayed at expensive inns, so a cheaper one would be… how much?

What about food for a day? How much did weapons and armor cost?

When I thought about all that, it hit me with a shock that squeezed my heart.

For thirty years, I had done nothing but fight as a hero, while my attendants had handled all my day-to-day needs.

“This is bad… I don’t know anything.”

I had been a hero since I was nine, so I had absolutely no common sense.

If anything, they might have kept me somewhat isolated so I wouldn’t pick up any strange ideas.

Cold sweat trickled down my back.

From now on, I would have to do everything myself.

I was a middle-aged man well past my prime, and yet I had no ability at all to manage my own life.

—There has to be something. Some way…

Should I rely on someone?

But a lackluster hero like me had no acquaintances to speak of.

I tried to picture someone I could turn to, but instead, Marius’s mocking face floated up in my mind.

Even people I thought I could trust might betray me.

In the worst-case scenario, someone might even swindle me out of this money.

I didn’t even know the going prices for things—if someone charged me ten or a hundred times the normal amount, I wouldn’t be able to tell.

I couldn’t trust anyone.

And I didn’t have the common sense to judge whether someone was trustworthy in the first place.

“Then what am I supposed to do…? Am I just done for…?”

All I could do was mutter in shock.

At that moment, I suddenly remembered something from long ago.

It was when I was fifteen years into being a hero.

In my twenties, I had wanted a girlfriend, but I’d been warned that a hero had to live a virtuous life or he would lose his holy power, so I had gone without drinking, smoking, women, or gambling.

I had wanted to meet all kinds of women.

So I had envied the men who bought slaves and built harems. In secret, I had wished that one day I could do the same.

—That’s it. Slaves!

Beings bound by slave magic, who would never betray their master.

People who would take care of their master’s daily needs.

Clutching the pouch full of gold coins in my hand, I headed for the back alleys of the city.