The Hero’s Return!

Near the Royal Capital.

Under the cloudy sky covered by dark red clouds, I was looking down at the ground from the door floating in the sky.

The Royal Capital was surrounded by high outer walls. The earth that had become a burned wasteland. The gigantic Great Demon King wearing a black robe.

A red-haired girl lying on the ground naked except for a single cloak, and a white woman collapsed with her wings spread limply.

—Liricia.

She still seemed to be breathing. However, when I looked at Liricia lying there so miserably, anger began boiling up inside me.

—To hurt the person I wanted to cherish most in this world, the person I wanted to love as an equal.

I will never forgive him!

I drew my sword, lifted it with both hands, kicked off the floor, and flew toward the Great Demon King.

I did not think about anything that came afterward, such as whether I would die if I fell, or what I would do if I could not defeat him.

I flew faster than I fell.

The Great Demon King moved his body as if trying to do something.

—As if I’d let you dodge!

As the wind struck my cheeks and violently shook my hair, I poured magic power into my sword and shouted.

“Haaaaah!”

An unprecedentedly vast amount of Holy Wave was released with me at the center.

The monster remains scattered on the ground were blown away, and the clouds covering the sky vanished in a circle, letting sunlight shine through.

“Guh, what is this amount of Holy Wave—!”

The Great Demon King stirred, but he could only move slowly, as if he were underwater.

I approached right above the Great Demon King while holding my sword aloft.

Several instants before contact, I compressed my Holy Wave. Range: zero meters.

My body and sword were enveloped in purifying bluish-white light.

“This ends now—Ultema Slash!”

Zwaaaan!

It was the ultimate sword technique used by a hero.

Putting all my power into it—magic power, physical strength, falling speed, everything—I cut through the immobile Great Demon King from his shoulder down to beneath his crotch.

While reducing my speed, I landed with enough force to almost crash into the ground.

The huge slash continued with too much momentum and passed behind the Great Demon King, blowing away even the remains of the dark castle.

The Great Demon King fell to his knees. From the impact, the left and right sides of his body shifted slightly.

From the cut, red, green, yellow, and blue jewels poured out like a waterfall.

They were the cores of the Dungeon Cores the Great Demon King had taken into his body.

As he tried to scoop up the spilling cores with both hands, his body shifted further.

“I-impossible… There is no way I could lose… Ah, my power… is leaving me…”

“Your self-righteous rule is over. Rest in peace.”

“My… world without conflict… with power…”

The Great Demon King scooped up the spilled cores with trembling hands and brought them to his mouth.

Several cores entered his mouth, and the Demon King’s head began to be covered in black darkness.

I had a bad feeling.

—Is he planning to enter a second form or something?

While feeling exasperated by the Great Demon King’s tenacity, I readied my sword and poured Holy Wave into it.

However, I did not have enough Holy Wave to fire the hero’s ultimate technique.

What I could probably do now was the holy knight’s ultimate technique.

I held the sword at my waist and took a thrusting stance.

“That’s enough. Give up—Holy Strike.”

While making my sword shine with Holy Wave, I thrust toward the Great Demon King’s head.

Holy Wave was fired from the sword tip with the force of a cannon.

The Holy Wave dove into the Great Demon King’s mouth and blew his head away.

The Great Demon King’s gigantic body fell backward.

With a heavy rumbling thud, the giant body split in two.

Even more multicolored cores overflowed from the split. There seemed to be more than a thousand of them.

“Did I really defeat him this time?”

As I watched for a while, the Great Demon King’s body collapsed into black smoke. However, since it was huge, it seemed like it would take time.

After confirming that it would not start moving again, I put my sword back into its sheath.

I hurriedly ran to where Liricia had fallen.

On the way, explosive cheers rose from the direction of the Royal Capital.

“He defeated him!”

“All by himself, against that monster!”

“Isn’t that Alec!?”

“It’s Hero Alec!”

“He’s our savior!”

“Alec-sama, hurray!”

While listening to the embarrassing cheers, I thought this was not the time for that and hurried to Liricia.

Then I came beside Liricia and crouched down.

I lifted Liricia, who was lying limply, while being careful not to hurt her wings.

“Are you all right, Liricia!”

In my arms, her long eyelashes trembled.

Then her gentle, slightly drooping eyes looked up at me.

Her face softened like a flower blooming, and she smiled.

The next instant, she wrapped her slender arms around me and hugged me tightly.

“Master! I thought I might never see you again! Masteeer!”

She laughed, cried, and rejoiced. While her expression changed rapidly, she clung to me with her silver hair swaying.

I also put strength into my arms and hugged her. Her soft curves felt warm against my hands.

“Thank goodness, Liricia. I’m so glad you’re safe…!”

The two of us embraced. We embraced tightly, as if melting into each other. For a long time.

We embraced so long that it felt as if our hearts and body temperatures had become the same.

—Then.

A voice muttered nearby.

“…Could you finally cast at least one Heal on me?”

I looked toward the voice in surprise.

The fallen Rubel had turned only her face toward us and was looking at us with sullen eyes. Her red twin-tails lay weakly spread across the ground.

I hurriedly moved away from Liricia and said.

“Whoa, sorry! Liricia, please!”

“Y-yes! I am sorry I did not notice, Rubel-san!”

Liricia placed her hand on Rubel and chanted Heal.

I tried not to look at that too much and looked around.

After all, Rubel was only wearing a single cloak over her naked body, so she looked indecently erotic.

I had a hard time figuring out where to put my eyes.

I looked around again.

Under the clear sky, while the cheers from the Royal Capital did not stop, the burned wasteland spread endlessly.

When I looked for Rāna, she was near where the Great Demon King’s corpse had been, pressing the sub-device against the cores scattered on the ground and collecting them.

—Ah, she’s handling the postwar cleanup. She’s better than me.

Come to think of it, was the Demon King all right?

I went to the Demon King lying on the ground. His aloha shirt was in tatters.

“Are you all right, Demon King?”

“Hmph, this much is only a scratch.”

The Demon King, battered all over, still lay there while putting on a brave smile.

While admiring the strength of his heart, I thanked him.

“Thank you for protecting Liricia and Rāna.”

“Hmph, I know nothing of that. I merely did what I wished to do. I have no reason to be thanked, fuhaha—cough, cough!”

The Demon King, putting up a brave front, coughed violently. Blood seeped around his mouth.

I grimaced and quietly asked.

“I’d like to cast Heal on you, but that would damage you, right? What should I do?”

“Hmph. My subordinate will arrive soon. I will never need your care in my entire life!”

“Is that so? I’m glad you seem energetic—oh? Looks like your subordinate came.”

Before I knew it, a beautiful woman was standing beside us.

She had slender arms and legs, large breasts, and a narrow waist. She wore a single cloth that looked like it had been wrapped carelessly around her, held only by a belt at her waist.

Her cleavage and navel were bewitchingly visible.

Her entire body had healthy wheat-colored, sun-tanned skin. I thought it matched the Demon King.

The beauty looked down at the Demon King through her sunglasses.

“I don’t remember becoming your subordinate, though?”

“Hmph, you may act strong only while you still can. One day, I shall make it so that you cannot live without me! Fuhaha—cough, gah!”

The Demon King tried to laugh loudly and vomited blood.

The beauty made an exasperated face, took off one of her sandals, stretched out her slender leg, and slid her bare foot under the Demon King’s aloha shirt.

—What an adult kind of play.

However, there seemed to be a problem, because the beauty glared at me through her sunglasses.

“Hey, you. Suppress that ridiculous Holy Wave.”

“Ah, sorry.”

I compressed my Holy Wave to zero meters.

Perhaps because I had fired off Holy Wave twice against the Great Demon King and was close to running dry, I was able to compress it fairly easily.

The play between the beauty and the Demon King continued.

As I watched, an evil presence drifted from the tip of the beauty’s foot.

Gradually, the Demon King’s injuries healed.

Then the Demon King raised his upper body and slowly ran his fingertip along the beauty’s leg.

The beauty seemed surprised and quickly pulled her foot back.

“Wh-what are you doing!”

“Did I not say it? That I would make it so you cannot live without me.”

“Y-you idiot.”

The beauty turned her face away in embarrassment.

Although she looked like a bewitching adult, her girl-like gesture was strangely cute.

The Demon King stood up. However, when he tried to walk, he staggered.

The beauty hurriedly lent him her shoulder.

“With this, I’ve repaid the debt from when you dug me out of the rubble.”

“Hmph, very well.”

The two began walking while leaning close to each other like a friendly pair.

I spoke to their backs.

“See you, Demon King.”

“Hmph, Alec. Tremble in fear until the day I conquer the world! Fuhahahaha!”

“Hey! Don’t suddenly laugh loudly next to my ear!”

“S-sorry.”

The Demon King shrank a little after being scolded.

Just like that, the two slowly left in the opposite direction from the Royal Capital where voices of joy were echoing.

—I thought they made a well-matched pair somehow. Though I did not know who the beauty was.

While smiling, I looked around again.

—Then.

Something was moving in the distance.

Toward the golden glowing entrance beside the collapsed demonic castle, that object was crawling.

For an instant, I thought it was the remains of a monster, but I was wrong.

I shouted in astonishment.

“That’s the Pope!? Don’t tell me he’s alive! He should have been crushed like an insect!”

As expected of the top of the Church. Even after receiving damage that should have killed him, it seemed his healing magic had made it in time.

The Pope, whose legs and body had been ruined so badly that he could not stand, had nevertheless come within a few meters of the golden entrance.

—If I let him escape, we might lose the Dungeon World War we finally won right at the very end!?

I ran across the ground with all my strength. The earth was burned red and festering here and there.

As I got closer, I heard the eerie laughter of the Pope crawling along the ground.

“…Not yet, not yet…! If my dungeon remains as it was right after the World War began, then I am the number one in this world. Kukuku!”

“As if I’d let you!”

I increased my speed further.

However, the Pope crawling forward was unexpectedly fast.

Before I could get close, the Pope reached his hand toward the golden glowing dungeon entrance.

His fingers reached it—.

However.

With a thwack, the Pope’s outstretched hand was knocked away by a kick from a long leg.

Because his arm was thrown violently backward, a dull crack echoed.

The Pope screamed in agony from the pain of his broken bone.

“Nuaaaah! —Wh-who are you!”

The Pope, pouring greasy sweat from his wrinkled face, interrogated him.

A figure slowly appeared in the golden entrance.

A tall, slender, handsome man with messy black hair hiding his eyes.

It was Edgar, the A-rank adventurer.

Edgar wore a smile at the corner of his mouth and lightly tapped the bag he carried on his shoulder.

“I brought all one hundred and twenty cores. Good work, Pope-san.”

“Wh-whaaaaat!”

The Pope screamed so loudly that I wondered where he still had that much strength left.

He stretched his withered branch-like arm toward Edgar and shouted.

“G-give them back! Those are mine, give them back! I am the Pope of the Luktia Church!”

“Too bad♪ You’re not the Pope anymore. You’re a heinous villain who tried to destroy the world.”

Edgar winked with the eye hidden behind his black hair.

The Pope’s breathing grew rough. His whole body began convulsing.

“It’s a lie… I— I was going to become the next god… It’s a liiie…”

The Pope arched his entire body strongly and convulsed repeatedly.

Then, when his strength suddenly left him, he collapsed onto the ground.

Edgar tilted his head and crouched down, then placed his fingers beneath the Pope’s withered neck.

“…He’s dead. A heart attack? Well, once his hope was cut off, I guess his willpower gave out too. What an anticlimactic end.”

I went beside Edgar and spoke while looking down at the Pope.

“I was wondering why I didn’t see you. You infiltrated the Luktia Holy Papal State?”

“Yes, the dungeon entrance had just opened, you see. I went against the flow and did various things.”

Edgar gave a thumbs-up and grinned.

I could only smile wryly and scratch my head.

“As expected of you, Edgar.”

“I’m nowhere near you, Alec-san.”

When Edgar said that to me, for some reason, laughter welled up inside me.

From the distance, Liricia came running while flapping her white wings.

“Masteeer!”

I tried to hold back my laughter, but when Liricia hugged me with great momentum, I could no longer endure it.

Under the clear sky where the dark red clouds had vanished, I laughed from the bottom of my heart.

Liricia in my arms also smiled with her whole face and laughed happily.

At that instant, the sound of bells echoed as if striking the great sky.

Wrapped in light, Liricia and I laughed together even more.

Thus, the Dungeon World War ended.