Bang!
Kwooooom!
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
Xion was smashing up the hidden chamber so hard my ears rang.
‘I must never, ever mess with that guy, no matter what happens.’
Resolving as much, the mage backed away from the rampaging Xion.
Xion’s fury went on for a while after that.
Judging that the chamber might actually collapse at this rate, the mage restored the failing magic in real time and shielded the space to keep it from caving in.
“Calm down, hero. Keep this up and the Duke will come down here.”
Of course, if the Duke sensed the commotion and came, the one in danger wouldn’t be us but him.
In his current state, Xion would kill the Duke on sight, title or no title.
In the end, Xion couldn’t hold back and tore a parchment, one protected by magic, cleanly in half.
‘What a waste.’
The mage was sincerely crestfallen.
Not because of the record written on it. It was just a shame to see a precious piece of ancient dragon magic get damaged.
The torn halves of parchment, their iridescent sheen gone, fluttered down to the mage’s feet.
“First, breathe. Put the parchment down in your hand! Your opponent is a god. No matter how mad you get, there’s nothing you can do this instant.”
“Graaah!”
“If you don’t pull yourself together, there won’t be anyone left to save the Demon King, you know?”
At the words “save the Demon King,” Xion finally settled a little.
His eyes still burned with killing intent, the anger not yet cooled, but this much was fine. At least he was in a state fit to talk.
“You said you found information here about this generation’s Demon King, Reinhild, didn’t you?”
“Uh, I did.”
“Where is it?”
“This one. I grabbed the closest thing because I wanted to see what it was, and it turned out to be exactly the kind of info you’d be looking for. So I marked it separately.”
Xion tossed the crumpled documents any which way and took what the mage handed him.
It was a pristine parchment, as if it had been placed there only a few days ago.
This was the truthful record left by none other than Xion’s father, the current Duke of West. On it was written everything the Duke had done behind Xion’s back.
[Infuse the Demon King with the hero’s mana.]
A mere human should not expect the god to descend to the human realm when meeting a god.
Nor can a human cross into the divine realm. When the hero hears the god’s voice, the hero is considered to be in a third space, neither the human world nor the divine.
In other words, during the eight hours Xion met the High God, in this world it was as if the hero did not exist.
The High God exploited this point and, for exactly those eight hours, appointed Xion’s party member as a provisional hero.
Breaking the rule that only the firstborn of House West becomes the hero was difficult even for a god, but granting a temporary authority to a companion already belonging to the current hero’s party was within bounds.
Of course, that required advance preparations.
If you cannot break the rules set by the god, then you overwrite them with new rules that do not break them.
So the High God issued an oracle: that if Xion failed to properly undertake his duty, another would be installed as hero. Based on that oracle, the god obtained authority to create a provisional hero during the period when Xion did not exist in the world.
Thus Xion’s companion became an eight-hour provisional hero.
Pathetically weak compared to the true hero, Xion, he nonetheless set out for the Demon King’s castle bearing the High Priest’s blessing.
And, wielding the hero’s sword, he attacked Reinhild.
[If the provisional hero stabs the Demon King with the hero’s sword, arrange it so that all mana is transferred to the Demon King.]
To have all mana transfer means to extract everything, leaving not even what sustains life.
The provisional hero would have died the instant he stabbed Reinhild, even without any counterattack.
Xion felt not the slightest pity for his companion’s pointless death.
What worried him was not the companion who acted on his own, was used, and died, but the Demon King Reinhild who had absorbed the hero’s mana.
‘Rein…’
A hero’s mana is lethal to a Demon King.
If mana mixed with holy power was injected in large amounts over a short time, Reinhild would have perished in horrific pain as his whole body burned up.
Even if Xion had not directly attacked Reinhild, it would still have been recorded as the hero’s feat.
Fortunately, the provisional hero’s mana did not wield power of that magnitude.
Reinhild did not die. He merely suffered.
The holy power mixed into the provisional hero’s mana bound Reinhild’s heart and impeded his recovery. Until all the holy power was expelled, even using mana would have been painful for him.
Thinking of Reinhild in agony made Xion’s chest ache.
The look in his eyes as he gazed at him in torment rose up before him, and he felt on the verge of tears.
Crackle.
The stiff parchment was crushed to a ruin in Xion’s hand.
The mage swiftly snatched the parchment away from Xion. He couldn’t just stand by and watch another precious enchantment be lost.
“Smart plan. Planning by the Duke of West, direction by the High God, starring the provisional hero. A fine production, really.”
“If you make light of Rein’s suffering, I won’t stand by.”
“Heavens, as if I would dare.”
Unable to contain Xion’s fury, the mage flipped quickly to the next sheet on his behalf.
‘Oh ho, this is quite…’
He didn’t show it outwardly because the fledgling hero would hate it, but the scheme was more tightly woven than expected.
To the point of being praiseworthy.
The Duke had noticed that the relationship between hero and Demon King was not bad. He might even have known that Xion cherished the Demon King.
So he devised matters so that Xion’s very existence would become the thing that tormented the Demon King.
So their relationship would change into that of a real hero and Demon King.
‘Could it be that every Demon King in history died this way?’
According to the records, the Demon God was not sacrificing the Demon King simply to absorb the Demon King’s power.
The Demon God sought to absorb none other than “the High God’s power.”
Although the High God’s power was fatal to the Demon God of the opposing attribute, if properly absorbed it could grant tremendous strength.
Thus the Demon King was used as a filter that would strain out everything harmful from that power.
The method was simple. First, place the High God’s power bestowed upon the hero into the Demon King’s body and let it suitably fuse with demonic energy. Here, “suitably” means to the point that the Demon King is driven to death in the process.
Immediately thereafter, the Demon God need only absorb the Demon King’s corpse along with a portion of the High God’s power—done.
There was not a single downside to the Demon God.
Having read the records left here by previous heroes, the Duke of West hit upon the most perfect way to dispose of the Demon King, and thus laid this plan.
“After this incident, didn’t the Demon King start hating it when you came near?”
“How did you…?”
“His body will have developed a rejection response. If anything, if this Demon King were vaguely weak it wouldn’t matter, but because he holds such vast power, he would have tried to absorb all the mana that entered his body.”
“Then are you saying the provisional hero’s… mana remains in Reinhild’s body?”
He clenched his fist so hard that his nails dug into his skin and blood dripped from Xion’s hand.
“This isn’t the time to be jealous that another’s mana is inside the Demon King. Until the holy power pooled in his heart has fused with demonic energy, just your coming close will make him feel foul. For, say… ten years?”
However great the High God’s power bestowed upon the hero, the strength injected through a provisional, not true, hero wouldn’t be that strong.
The mage ran a quick estimate and concluded that in ten years Reinhild would finish digesting the holy power.
“Until then, it’s best you don’t get close. The hero’s aura left in the Demon King’s body will be stirred up by your mana and interfere with his recovery. And on top of that, it’ll put him in a foul mood.”
“It wasn’t to that extent.”
“Then to what extent?”
“Rein was in such pain from just my touch that he couldn’t breathe. As if… scalded by searing fire.”
“That shouldn’t be possible…”
Was the provisional hero strong enough to do that much harm to the Demon King?
‘Absolutely not.’
The companion the mage had seen did not possess that degree of power.
Even if he sacrificed his life and poured everything of himself into the Demon King, he wasn’t someone with that level of impact.
Wearing a grave expression, the mage turned a few more pages.
If what the Duke did didn’t end there. If there was something Xion didn’t know that dealt a critical blow to the Demon King, then surely that too would be recorded here.
So many records the Duke had concealed over the past weeks; it took time to find what he wanted.
“…”
Finding the desired information, the mage very quietly, as if nothing were amiss, hid the parchment.
So Xion wouldn’t notice.
But Xion wasn’t the sort to miss such a move.
“What did you hide?”
“It was nothing.”
As if he would believe that.
Xion easily snatched back the parchment the mage had concealed.
On it was written something he would have been better off not knowing.
[Device to trigger a holy-power burst at the moment the Demon King and Hero Rexion West reunite.]
The provisional hero’s purpose wasn’t merely to mix holy power into Reinhild’s heart.
When the true hero visited that place, the last residue of the High God’s power remaining in the provisional hero’s body would erupt, spreading holy power throughout the entire Demon King’s castle.
That, to the very end, was the true reason the High God and the Duke created a provisional hero.
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