I Picked Up the Abandoned Hero

125. Struggle in destiny

“How much do you know about the Demon King?”

“I don’t know that much.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“The only thing I know is that I was chosen with the destiny of defeating the Demon King, and other than that, I heard little by little from Alfred.”

“I see, for example?”

“They say he lights up women a lot.”

Little Alfred blinked his eyes after hearing the story.

“How did such an evaluation come about?”

“Didn’t they order you to kidnap the princess without fail? Moreover, he used the kidnapped princesses as servants. “I know this because I evacuated them myself.”

“Well, it might seem that way. Actually, that’s true. The devil bastard did reveal a bit about the woman. “It was necessary, though.”

“Why was it necessary to kidnap the princess and not the others? No, in the first place, how do you know something that even Alfred himself doesn’t know?”

“Should we call it a difference in memory…? Well, let’s skip that.”

Little Alfred told the story little by little while watching Arcel’s magic stone overload work.

“Actually, there is a reason why the Demon King is so fanatically obsessed with the princesses. The first is to act like a Demon King. Second, it was to avoid acting like the devil. Anyway, I probably wouldn’t have liked it that much. Managing more than a dozen women is not easy. “It’s too much to manage with just you right now.”

“That sounds strangely unpleasant. So, why does acting like a demon lord have something to do with kidnapping?”

“It’s because of the remnants of old memories. A wonderful warrior saves the princess who was kidnapped by the devil. “These old stories are very common and boring, aren’t they?”

Now that I think about it, according to the records, the hero before Arcel defeated and rescued the princess who had been kidnapped by the Demon King after a fierce battle.

If we think about the identity of the Demon King… Maybe it has something to do with it.

Even more so if it is through your own experience.

“Then what does it mean to be uncharacteristic of a demon lord?”

“I tried to break my own destiny. If you reign as the Demon King and pretend to be hostile to humans, you end up being defeated by the next hero, or if the hero is weaker than you thought, you have to continue as the Demon King, right?”

“With that, I still can’t understand the story accurately.”

“In short, I was trying to eliminate Hermod’s successor in order to prevent the current queen from appearing and to eradicate the legend of this cursed warrior and the demon king. Well, I had to find one of many princesses, and my personal desires were also mixed in.”

Little Alfred said that the reason the devil was kidnapping the princesses was to get rid of Hermod’s successor, the current queen.

But from Arcel’s perspective, it was even more incomprehensible.

“In that case, it would have been better to have kidnapped Hermod’s princess from the beginning. Why did you kidnap the other princesses as well?”

“My memory wasn’t accurate. When the Demon King became the Demon King, he forgot many memories of his past. Even if it’s a precious memory. “I even forgot all the nostalgic memories of how we once shared life and death together and even shared love.”

The answer is that it is due to instability of memory.

“You know that, right? That guy doesn’t seem to be in his right mind. That’s a side effect of trying to forcefully restore erased memories in order to revive them. Thanks to you, I went back and forth a bit. In fact, not a little, but quite a lot.”

“Umm…”

Maybe that’s really the case.

Even to Arcel, the Demon King did not seem to be in a normal condition.

Alfred also said that the Demon King would suddenly be in a good mood and then get angry, and even when he would be angry, he would suddenly smile with satisfaction and act like an infallible psychopath.

If you think about it, it was similar to the characteristics of those who went insane as a side effect of having their memories manipulated.

“In other words, the Demon King tried to break this cursed evil habit by kidnapping Hermod’s successor?”

“That’s right, in the end, only Hermod’s successor knew the legend of the hero and the method of planting the seed of the devil in the hero. “After recovering a piece of his memory, he continued kidnapping the princess and trying to find Hermod’s successor.”

In fact, the Demon King succeeded in kidnapping Hermod’s successor, the current queen, using Alfred when she was a former princess.

However, at that time, Arcel succeeded in getting the princess back from Alfred before she went to the Demon King, so it probably did not go as planned by the Demon King.

“If that were going to be the case, wouldn’t it have been better to destroy Hermod’s kingdom directly? “A demon lord would have that kind of power.”

“I told you, right? The Demon King was out of his mind. Moreover, it would probably not have been possible for the Demon King to attack the capital of Hermod Kingdom directly. Because in his subconscious, measures were taken to ensure that even if other countries were destroyed, Hermod could not be touched.”

That includes means through the hands of others.

If that were possible, the Demon King would have ordered Alfred to erase the Kingdom of Hermod as soon as he found out that the heroes had been created in the Kingdom of Hermod.

The fact that he didn’t do that was only due to the fact that the Demon King couldn’t do that.

“Anyway, the Demon King struggled to escape his fate, although he failed when a hero appeared.”

“…Is that me?”

When Arcel heard those words, he felt guilty.

If the princess had been allowed to be kidnapped then, the tragedy that occurred later would not have occurred.

However, at that time, King Hermod had passed away, and on the day of the coronation, Alfred had kidnapped the princess, causing Arcel to pursue her even more desperately.

“But there is no need to be so, the Demon King did not break his fate with his own hands and entrusted it to you. “It was probably because he believed that you could do better than him.”

Little Alfred said that the reason the Demon King was subdued was because he trusted Arcel.

I didn’t understand the other things at first, but that one made even more sense.

In the end, Arcel was the one who hindered the Demon King’s efforts to break his fate, so why do we say that the Demon King trusted Arcel and was defeated?

“What does that mean?”

Arsel immediately looked back to ask, but little Alfred had already disappeared as usual.

“Alfred?”

I looked around, but there was no one.

It seems as if Arcel was alone from the beginning.

“You believed in me? Ugh-“

Then, just a little bit, memories of the past came back, along with a headache.

Arcel had almost no memories of when he personally defeated the Demon King.

This is because he faced the devil in a state of trance, never giving up, even though his body and mind had already reached their limits.

But I remembered just a little bit of that time.

Just one moment.

–

-Then I will believe you. You can do it better than me. I’m tired now, so don’t leave everything to you.-

The scene before the Demon King himself was decapitated by the holy sword.

“This memory…”

Arsel touched his forehead in dismay.

Honestly, I wasn’t surprised that the Demon King was directly defeated.

Because even Arcel knew that he could not defeat that monstrous Demon King with his own strength.

Instead, I was curious about what the demon king had entrusted to himself to the point of choosing death himself.

What do you believe about yourself being weaker than yourself?

Why on earth did they entrust everything to me?

Ttogak. Again.

“You-!”

At that time, I suddenly heard someone walking here.

“…I came down because I was wondering if a stray cat might have entered the basement.”

When Arcel pulled out the holy sword and turned around, the queen was standing there with sad eyes.

“You were a warrior, not a cat thief?”

The queen gestured as if she was happy to see her.

Arsel immediately grabbed the holy sword and cut down the queen.

†††

“Get out of the way!”

“I’ll get out of the way, but you say you don’t like this guy?”

Alfred held the holy sword and threw a huge piece of debris at the charging Morian.

Cow!

A building on the outskirts of the capital city was blown to the ground, but Morian ran at a frightening pace, chopping down the rubble as if nothing had happened.

“Honestly, how is that possible? No matter how long the holy sword is, there is no way it can cut down a building that size. “Are you doing some kind of magic?”

A sight that somehow feels absurd.

Alfred continues to fire rubble to block the Morrían’s advance, but it only cuts him down in the same way.

Although it was not easy to advance due to the large number of them, the Morarians were eventually approaching the capital little by little.

“Ugh…!”

“Huh? “What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”

Then suddenly, Morian touches her forehead and complains of her pain.

Did Arcel succeed in executing his plan? Even if you want to, it’s still too early.

According to Alfred’s calculations, it would take at least another hour for Arcel to succeed in overloading.

“Mmm, my head… Ah!”

This is assuming that there is no interference, and if Arcel is more virtuous than expected, the time could be doubled or tripled.

“Have you ever felt sick from the food you ate yesterday? “If I pick your head, you’ll be fine. Would you like to pick it?”

Anyway, it can be said that it turned out well.

Already, it was disgusting to see him moving forward like an ignorant assault tank, filling everything with his body, but it can be said that he was lucky that his body suddenly developed a problem.

“Just stay like that for a moment! “I’ll pick it so it won’t hurt!”

Alfred took advantage of that opportunity and dropped the blade of the huge guillotine on Morrían.

I know it won’t work anyway, but isn’t it worth leaving it to me?

Kwajik-!

“Huh?”

But something unexpected happened.

It is not surprising that Morrían caught the falling guillotine with her bare hands and destroyed it.

Instead, for a moment, Alfred felt a familiar aura from Morian that he knew very well.

“…Alfred.”

Morian called Alfred in a strangely rough voice.

“Hey, what are you? Why are you suddenly calling me such a disgusting name? Our relationship isn’t like that yet, is it? “It won’t be forever.”

Alfred’s fur stood on end like a cat.

It was not that he was wary of Morrían, but that his body reacted to the instinctive aura of disgust he felt in the moment.

“Alfred…!”

“Why is it like that all of a sudden?!”

Morian, who had fallen down on his forehead, suddenly flashed red eyes and rushed towards Alfred.

She even threw away her holy sword and tried to catch Alfred with her bare hands.

Of course, it was an ignorant charge, so Alfred easily dodged it, but the disgust he felt from Morian increased more than before.

“Ugh… Why is my head like this all of a sudden…”

Morian complained of her headache while holding her forehead again.

It seemed like he had come to his senses.

However, one of Morian’s eyes had changed from the blue eye that resembled Arcel’s to an ominous red.

“Wait a minute, those eyes… You can’t believe-“

Alfred had felt this kind of energy in the past.

It wasn’t just once, it almost felt like everyday life.

And now, I should never have to feel that again.

†††

Arsel quickly pulled out the holy sword to cut down the queen who had stormed into the basement.

Kaang-!

However, the holy sword was blocked by the queen’s staff, more precisely, a spear shaped like a staff.

“…What on earth have you been doing? “What else is that?”

Even though it wasn’t the Queen who blocked it herself, the Queen’s spear itself blocked Arcel’s sword.

“I am also a queen in name and appearance, but she has to protect at least her own body. So she made it out of a few spare holy swords.”

“I kept doing it, but now even the souls of the warriors are being dishonored? “They sacrificed themselves so sublimely by giving their all just because they were chosen by her without even knowing who she was?!”

“They say it’s a noble sacrifice, but… honestly, I don’t know if it’s that noble. “I don’t know if it’s the hero right now or the hero from that squadron, but before that, he was too weak to even be a match for the Demon King.”

Arsel gritted his teeth at the queen’s shameless attitude.

For the sake of peace, the Kingdom of Hermod has committed acts of deceiving and humiliating dozens of warriors.

But there is a limit to what I can endure, saying things like that even though I can’t atone for it.

“If you thought you would be safe with a toy like this, you were sorely mistaken!”

Boom!

Arcel cuts down her spear in an instant and kicks her queen with her feet, sending her flying up to the wall.

“…It’s not just a toy, the warriors who used the material for this spear were weak, but the Holy Sword is truly a legendary sword given by God.”

The queen spits out her blood from her mouth and doesn’t show any sign of pain.

The hole in the chest created by Alfred was still the same in the first place, so it seems impossible to kill him completely by simply mutilating his body.

“The hero does not call the one chosen by the Holy Sword. “I’m talking about those who sacrificed themselves to protect their families and for the peaceful daily lives that should be taken for granted.”

“Ah… That’s a nice word. “Do you think it would be okay to engrave it on the pillar of the archives?”

“Shut up, before I cut out your tongue.”

“The hero is cruel.”

Arsel plunged the holy sword into the queen’s chest.

Of course, he won’t die, but he won’t be able to move as long as his chest is stuck and pinned by her sword.

“But isn’t this too much? “I don’t think it’s a warrior’s job to harass a helpless woman like me…”

Of course, maintaining a normal smile even in such a state was beyond creepy.

“Your plan is over. I’ve already found out the location of the magic power you stole from me. “I also found everything about the artificial hero you were talking about.”

“It seems like that… I kept it hidden, so how did you find it? Was there any guidance from God?”

However, Arcel was no longer swayed by the queen’s words and decided to remain silent and do what he had to do.

This is the center of the Queen’s plans.

The children in the magic stone are probably in the pre-completion stage of becoming the artificial hero the queen spoke of, and the red magic stone at the center of this place is responsible for supplying Morian’s magic power.

In other words, if this place is dealt with after overloading the magic stone, the queen’s plans will be foiled.

“I can’t help it. Then I will surrender here. “It looks like our cute next hero is also stranded.”

“…”

And yet, the queen still smiles.

Arcel tried to ignore it as best as she could, but she couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of discomfort.