I Picked Up the Abandoned Hero

36 – 36. Welcome Ceremony

An ant hell, as if a hole had been drilled in the world, continuously sucking in everything around it.

As Alfred entered the place himself, he continued to explain the magic.

“Most of these teleportation-related magics are often combined with sealing magic, temporarily converting and sealing the teleportation target in the form of magical power. Synchronize with the magical power at the desired location to break the seal there.”

There were a lot of things that were rather difficult to understand.

“Is that so…”

In the first place, Arcel, who had never learned magic professionally, gave up on understanding it halfway through.

“From here on out, only students who have completed more than 10 years of specialized education courses will be taken by the standards of advanced courses and magic schools.”

It’s because I was able to somehow understand the principles, but there were many things I didn’t even know the meaning of each word when I went into the advanced course.

“It seems that we are spending quite a long time teleporting, but the time outside is not so.

Rather than that, why is Alfred continuing his lecture on magic in this situation?

“Aren’t you bored waiting?”

Even though he was going directly to the lord, one of the most powerful demons, he didn’t show any tension at all.

“Anyway, as I said earlier, magical particles can be seen as similar to atoms, and most magical energy that is not made in a specific form has the property of waves, so using that property to travel long distances at once-“

Fortunately, Alfred’s explanation stopped there.

It was because they arrived at the place where the owner of the territory, the lord, was before he knew it.

Until now, only each other’s voices could be heard and the vision was dark, but now the light comes in again and the vision is clear.

Pak!

“…Dangerous, my head almost got blown off again.”

Alfred immediately caught the arrow that was flying towards his head.

I didn’t have to ask who the owner of the arrow was.

“Hey! A goblin with a bow over there! Why don’t you keep your eyes open! You almost hit me in the head! Don’t you know that friendly fire by mistake is the scariest thing in war?”

This is Stella, who should have arrived one step ahead of Alfred and Arcel.

“Shut up, you damn demon! Misfire?! I was aiming for you from the start!”

Stella, who was standing on the outer wall of the castle, shouted.

“Stella, what is the situation?”

Arsel quickly looked around.

There were quite a few traces of battle around.

Several things that were presumed to be Stella’s arrows were embedded in the walls or the floor, and other than the arrows, strangely, there were marks left as if they had been cut with something like a blade.

If that’s the case, there will be people who fight Stella.

“Over there, the grandmother over there is Clendy Impaler, a vampire and the lord of this land. It’s Vlad III.”

“…Grandma?”

“Feel free to call me Granny Clen.”

There was a woman where Alfred pointed.

A woman resembling a human with her black hair hanging down and her face pale to the point of being white.

But her sharp fangs and elf-like pointy ears naturally let her know she’s not human.

“Grandma?”

But she looked too young to be an old man.

As Arcel asked, questioning this.

“Of course, it looks like that on the outside, but on the inside, it has matured and even spoiled, a thousand-year-old old man- kek!”

“Alfred?!”

Something like a giant claw rose from the ground and strangled Alfred.

It looked like a scorpion claw.

However, the black outer shell is more like a steel or metal outer shell rather than a creature’s outer shell.

“Now, who do you call Grandma?”

In an instant, a woman named Clen appeared right in front of her, very furious.

In her voice, you could even feel the pressure she felt from the demon king.

Of course, compared to the demon lord, it was lower, but that didn’t mean it was less dangerous than the demon lord.

“That’s what Grandma Clen does, though she’s younger than my grandma.”

Alfred deliberately slit his sleepy throat and held his head in his hands.

That bizarre sight is something a headless knight, Dyurahan, would do.

Of course, there are very few cases where Dyurahan deliberately cuts his own throat.

“…Alfred, didn’t the lord of this place say he was kind to you?”

Anyway, that couldn’t be said to be favourable.

You would understand if I said it was rather hostile.

“A demon who hates me terribly, doesn’t he try to kill me? Then it is favorable.”

Arsel raised his eyebrows after hearing the answer.

It’s new, but it was a mistake to accept Alfred’s standard of benevolence as one’s own.

“You, I won’t let go of the fact that you made me swallow that stinky mouth!”

Then Stella shouted, tying an arrow to her string.

Various magic circles are engraved on the Elf’s bow.

An arrow created with magic is shot towards the sky, and the arrow rising upward emits a great light and scatters into hundreds of arrows.

“Get down, arrow of the rainy season.”

“Wow, you look really upset.”

“Are you okay?”

“It’s okay. I’m used to losing my hair now.”

Alfred put his head back together and immediately picked up Arcel and retreated out of range of the arrow.

The arrows scattered in hundreds of directions only rained down on the demon lord, Clen.

An arrow scatters into hundreds of branches, and the arrows scattered into hundreds of arrows concentrate their fire on one point again.

Quaang!!!

An explosion of light occurred and a storm raged.

Probably, if the arrow was fired at this castle, it would be powerful enough to shatter the outer walls.

“…Nonsense, it’s not something that can be prevented like that.”

However, when the smoke dissipated, not a single wound was visible on the lord’s body.

I just brushed off my clothes with my hands as if they were covered with dust, but I didn’t move one step from the previous position.

“Your skills aren’t too bad, elf. Thanks to you, I will have to re-groom the outer skin.”

The only thing that blocked the arrows was the strangulation of Alfred just a moment ago, but this time the scorpion’s skin itself appears and seems to have defended all the arrows.

A scratched outer skin was revealed in front of the lord who brushed off his clothes.

“It will be enough to hunt wild animals in the forest.”

The lord caressed it with his hand as if feeling sorry for it.

“Isn’t it? I wonder if they can even hunt crows.”

Of course, Alfred didn’t forget to laugh at Stella, who didn’t get hit.

“This is…!”

In the end, a very angry Stella takes the arrow back into her hand.

“Arsel, get as far away from here as you can. Because I think I will be satisfied only if I blow away those two demons without leaving a single bone behind!”

“Wait! Calm down, Stella! If you use something like that here, even the people outside-“

It was a magical force that was incomparable to anything before.

If the last one was 1, this one is 10.

A level that does not stop at the level of blowing away the simplicity.

If the previous attack was just an attack with a lot of power, now this is an attack full of will to blow up what is in front of you, taking self-destruction into account.

“I can’t! They’re all demons anyway! I’d rather blow them all away!”

“That is not possible. Because this is my estate.”

“Wait, what-“

Pu-wook!

However, I was stopped in an unexpected place.

Stella’s Back Something like a scorpion’s sting appeared from the wall behind her, and in an instant pierced her thin white neck.

“Ugh… What is this…”

Puff!

In the end, Stella stumbled and fell unconscious.

It seemed that he hadn’t thought that an attack would come right behind his back without any sign of it.

“Stella!”

Arcel ran right over and hugged Stella.

And I glared at Clen with both eyes.

“There is no need to be so hostile, on the contrary, Grandma Clen treats us favorably.”

“What are you talking about, Alfred. She just choked you, and this time Stella…”

“Think about it, I haven’t laid a hand on you right now, have I? Perhaps when the ear-blind came here, she was startled and fired an arrow. I was attacked for telling reality as it is-“

Alfred stopped talking and hung his head.

Because the same poison needle that just stabbed Stella’s throat was aimed at him.

“…A beggar. Originally, as an old woman gets older, she becomes more sensitive to looking down at reality as it is.”

“Exactly. After all, that proud tongue makes me want to cut it off and feed it to her wild dogs.”

“Thanks, I have some good insight.”

“…”

Clen’s eyes shoot at Alfred.

Even though the eyes were simply directed, even though they were not directed at him but at Alfred, Arcel felt his whole body tense.

‘I can’t believe there were still demons with this much power.’

A demon with this level of energy would surely be a demon with the power to easily trample all but the demon king and Alfred in the demon army.

Perhaps if he subdued the demon lord and continued his later days normally, that demon tribe would surely have become the second danger next to the demon lord.

“The bottom line is that I didn’t send life to you or the dwarves. I also send life but not kill. Right?”

“…Is it really like that?”

Alfred dodges all of his stingers by twisting his head or jumping slightly while he is talking.

In the end, it flew alone and fell away from the floor and walls where the stinger appeared.

“It really is. I don’t have a hobby of hurting guests who visit my estate.”

“…”

Clen said as she approached Arcel.

If necessary, I intend to pull out the holy sword right away.

The holy sword was currently worn around the waist wrapped in a cloth that concealed mana, so it could be pulled out at any time.

“…Especially, if that guest is the hero who defeated the demon lord, we should welcome him even more.”

“How did you do that-“

But when Clen saw Arcel, she seemed to realize at once that she was her hero.

Alfred’s disguise was perfect, and there was no clue that he was a hero except for the fact that he smelled like a human.

“It’s because the demon king’s grudge remains in your blood. It must have been natural since he was the hero who defeated the demon lord.”

“In one word, it is Gaeko. Vampires have a very good sense of smell to distinguish delicious blood.”

“Gagko?”

“There is a dog that barks at that. The dog’s nose.”

I felt a strange tension, but everything was blown away by Alfred who came down again.

Arsel looked at him with a puzzled expression.

“You smell very bad.”

“Is it because I bought garlic bread at the market earlier?”

“I should put that garlic in the list of banned items. Of course you too.”

“Of course, I am not something to be bought and sold.”

Alfred smiled and clung to Arcel.

It’s a bonus to spray perfume in your mouth while passing Stella that Arcel was holding to the instantly summoned skeleton.

In addition, he puts a silver necklace around Arcel’s neck.

“…I’d rather have a mother.”

Clen touched her forehead and let out a tired sigh.

I knew it, but it was because talking to Alfred consumed her mental power more than I could have imagined.

If I tried to talk more than this, her blood pressure would rise and eventually her blood vessels would burst.

She finally gave up on talking to Alfred, and went up to Arcel and said,

“You seem to be the most normal here, so I will tell you. I didn’t bring you here to investigate the theft or identity theft.”

“Then what purpose did you bring it here?”

“There is no specific reason. I was just wondering what the end of the demon king was like.”

Said Clen with a smile.