The Hero Becomes the Duke’s Eldest Son

Chapter 175

‘…Damn Leo.’

Aden swallowed his curse internally.

‘So, he turned into an egg again…?’

Leo, who had completely stolen and eaten the highest-grade fruit Aden was about to consume, reverted to his egg state once more, just like before.

It hadn’t been long since his first growth phase ended, and now he was entering his second growth phase.

But how many times did he have to grow before it ended?

Would he go through a third, fourth, or even fifth phase?

As these pointless thoughts ran through Aden’s mind, he finally had no choice but to resign himself.

‘Well, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.’

Leo’s growth meant that Aden’s mana reserve, which he could utilize, would also expand.

So, in fact, it was a good thing.

It was just a bit annoying that Leo had devoured the fruit without a word.

“Aden-nim, everyone is ready.”

“Oh, really?”

The southern great forest that Aden planned to visit this time was located near the southern grand temple, the last temple that Elise had not yet visited.

‘The Sacred Fire Order’s southern grand temple is established in a border city of the southern great forest.’

From the main temple of the Sacred Fire Order in the east, the grand temple of Syres in the north, to the grand temple in the Sacred Kingdom in the west—now, the only one left was the southern grand temple. Once Elise ignited the Sacred Fire there, her pilgrimage would officially be complete.

‘And I will obtain the last sacred relic.’

Leo, the Eye of the Flame, and the Winter Hibernating Larva—he had already acquired three out of the four sacred relics left by the Lord of the Sacred Fire.

Now, only the one in the southern grand temple remained.

‘Considering the Winter Hibernating Larva, the last sacred relic might be a dud…’

But the thought that there was a treasure waiting for him that only he could obtain was quite a special feeling.

Priest Bali burst into hearty laughter.

“Kuhahaha! Finally, the pilgrimage is coming to an end!”

“Heeing, I’m a little sad.”

-Woof! Woof!

While Priest Bali was delighted at the thought of finally returning to the main temple, Elise seemed to feel a bit regretful.

Aden lightly tapped Elise’s head and said,

“Don’t be too sad. Don’t you want to see your dad Joseph’s face soon?”

“…I do.”

“See? You can always travel later.”

“Okay!”

Cassie lazily mumbled, removing her pipe from her mouth.

“Near the southern great forest, huh? My hometown is also around there.”

“…Are you talking about your hometown, Cassie?”

“Yeah. You know about my race, don’t you, Sir Knight?”

“Ah…”

Row finally seemed to understand, while Elise tilted her head in confusion.

“Huh? What? What does the forest have to do with Cat Sister’s hometown?”

As Elise looked puzzled, Aden calmly explained,

“Most of the beastmen are from the southern great forest.”

The southern great forest was a harsh land.

It was a remote place where it was difficult to even maintain a village unless you were as strong as the beastmen.

Aden asked,

“Come to think of it, Cassie, are you also from a tribe in the great forest?”

“Well, yeah. I left the tribe to study alchemy in search of a way to cure my illness. It’s been almost five years since I left the tribe… My mom probably thinks I’m dead by now.”

“Hmm… That’s unfortunate.”

Elise blinked her eyes and asked,

“Cat Sister, don’t you miss your parents?”

“Well, not really.”

“Why?”

“Partly because beastmen are individualistic, and I had over ten siblings, so my parents often confused our names. I don’t even know who my father is because my mom messed around with too many men.”

“T-Ten siblings…?”

“W-Wow, that must have been some family.”

-The Demon Sword Saere shouts, “It’s a mess! A mess!”

The party heading towards the city with the southern grand temple consisted of Aden, Row, Elise, Cassie, Priest Bali, and Nine, totaling six people.

Hermit decided not to go to the south and chose to stay in the Frozen Land.

‘She’s getting along so well with Gustav that she doesn’t want to leave.’

The dragon, who had tasted the new field of magic engineering, was deeply engrossed in studying it in Stoneheim, burning with academic passion and creative desire.

According to Gustav, thanks to her, the speed and results of the research had increased exponentially.

‘For her, staying in Stoneheim would be safer.’

The Demon Sword Balak, which possessed the terrifying power to control all dragons, was a dangerous artifact. In the current situation, where it was unknown whether Chaos had obtained the sword, if she were discovered by Chaos, no one could predict what might happen.

In the worst case, the Mad Dragon might return, and such a future had to be avoided.

‘After all, that was the content of the advance payment worth 200 tons of gold.’

Shouldn’t one listen closely to the words of a big spender?

Priest Bali said,

“By the way, it’s going to take a long time to reach the southern grand temple.”

This place, the Frozen Land, was practically at the northern end of the western continent.

To reach the southern grand temple, they would have to pass through at least ten cities by carriage.

“So, even if we go as quickly as possible, it would take about three months by carriage…”

“Ah, Priest Bali. We’re not going by carriage this time.”

“…Pardon?”

“There’s a faster, more efficient, and comfortable way, so why bother with a carriage?”

Aden shrugged and pulled something out from his chest, grinning as he showed it.

“We’ll just ‘open it’ and go.”

Aden’s extraordinary means of transportation, the key to Hetos’ workshop, gleamed as it appeared.

* * *

The reason Aden accompanied Elise on her pilgrimage was because a lot of travel was necessary to carry out his revenge, and the pilgrimage provided a good pretext for it.

‘And I also obtained sacred relics from the Sacred Fire Order.’

It was a fortuitous encounter and a divine treasure that only came to Aden. Not seizing such an opportunity would have been foolish.

The border city near the southern great forest, Southren.

Aden and his party arrived there through Hetos’ workshop.

“Damn it, yeah. My workshop is basically your personal ride, huh?”

“It’s fortunate you realized that now, Hetos.”

“Argh! If you hadn’t saved Stoneheim, I would have taken back the workshop key long ago!”

Hetos was about to explode in frustration, but as always, Aden ignored it.

Upon arriving in Southren, Aden and his party headed straight to the southern grand temple located in the center of the city.

“Aden-nim, the city seems a bit desolate.”

“The people’s expressions aren’t good either.”

“Yeah. I wonder what’s going on.”

Most of the shops had their doors locked and weren’t open for business, and few people were wandering the streets.

With these questions in mind, Aden and his party arrived at the grand temple.

“…Oh! To meet the Holy Maiden’s party here, it’s such an honor! Truly, truly fortunate!”

The middle-aged priest who introduced himself as Karbasha quickly ran out to greet Aden’s party upon hearing of their arrival.

Aden found his enthusiasm curious.

‘He’s a bit excessively delighted, isn’t he?’

Of course, all the priests of the Sacred Fire Order they had encountered so far had been fervently welcoming towards Elise and himself, but there was something different in High Priest Karbasha’s emotions.

‘Joy, relief, and desperation.’

Yes, High Priest Karbasha was looking at Elise with an expression like someone who had found salvation in the midst of despair.

Aden asked him,

“High Priest, has something happened in the city?”

“Well…”

“Karbasha High Priest!”

At that moment, a young priest came running in, breathless.

“A disaster! More wounded have arrived!”

“What…! How many this time?”

“Thirty-three! Two of them are on the verge of death!”

“Hah, and now there are thirty more….”

The mention of wounded made Aden narrow his eyes.

‘It seems like something serious is happening.’

High Priest Karbasha wiped his face with his hands, his expression one of exhaustion and desperation, as he looked at Aden and his party.

“You’ve only just arrived, but I must ask for your help. Please assist us.”

* * *

A little later, guided by Karbasha, they arrived at an area filled with temporary medical tents.

“Grrr… Grrroooan…”

“Hey! Someone, get over here!”

“Aaah! My leg! My leg!”

“Grr! Please, calm down!”

The place was chaos and pandemonium.

“My God, Lord of the Sacred Fire… What on earth is this…?”

Priest Bali was so shocked that he instinctively called out to the deity.

Everywhere, people with injuries and amputations were wrapped in bandages, groaning or screaming.

Aden looked at High Priest Karbasha.

“I want to hear an explanation, but…”

“Gaaaah!”

“…I suppose we should deal with the patients first.”

Seeing the tents filled with patients, the party’s expressions changed, and without a word, they immediately sprang into action.

Elise began healing the patients using her Holy Power.

Cassie and Aden distributed potions they had prepared with alchemy, along with a large quantity of Holy Potions that Aden had stored in his Subspace Pouch. Row and Priest Bali quickly moved around, distributing these

potions.

There were nearly a few hundred patients, and many of them were in critical condition.

Before they knew it, the day turned to night, and it was only after half a day of intense work that things began to calm down.

“Whew… Finally done… I’m thirsty!”

“Elise-nim, here’s some water…”

“Ugh, I’m exhausted…”

“Phew, Cassie, you did well.”

“You too, Sir Knight… But the handsome young master doesn’t seem tired at all, even though he moved the most.”

“Because I’m a Master.”

“Wow, that’s really annoyingly enviable… Ouch! Why’d you hit me?”

“You know what you did wrong.”

Everyone except for Aden, who had reached the level of a superhuman, was utterly exhausted, their energy completely drained.

After drinking water, Elise, who was extremely tired, fell into a deep sleep.

High Priest Karbasha, his face pale from overuse of Holy Power, expressed his gratitude with a moved expression.

“Thank you for actively helping with the treatment. As expected of the Holy Maiden and her apostles. Thanks to you, we can rest a little easier.”

“Let’s get straight to the point, High Priest Karbasha.”

“Yes, please speak.”

Aden’s sharp gaze turned to Karbasha as he finally asked the question that the critically injured patients had prevented him from asking earlier.

“Where did all these injured and critically wounded people come from? The city’s atmosphere doesn’t seem right—has something happened?”

“All of them are survivors of a monster subjugation.”

“A monster subjugation?”

“Yes. Recently, there has been an abnormal phenomenon where the monsters and beasts in the southern great forest have become ferocious. Monsters that usually don’t come near the city have started to descend, so we organized a subjugation force.”

“But it seems like the results weren’t very successful.”

“…That’s correct. Out of the four hundred members of the subjugation force, over a hundred have died, and many of the rest were brought back in near-death condition.”

“Hmm.”

Aden briefly recalled his memories.

Did something like this happen in his previous life?

‘I think something similar happened, but I’m not sure…’

Given how eventful his past life had been, and considering that this occurred over ten years ago, Aden wasn’t certain.

He opened his magical secret notebook just in case and checked it, but there was no record of such an event.

This left two possibilities.

‘Either this is a simple, temporary event I didn’t know about, or it’s a new event that occurred because the future has changed.’

If it’s the former, the monster’s ferocity would be a temporary phenomenon that would end without much incident. But if it’s the latter, the story would be different.

‘There’s a high possibility that Chaos is involved.’

The forces Aden had interfered with the most so far were the warlocks and the three major cults.

And the abnormal ferocity of monsters fit well with Chaos’s machinations.

‘The problem is the lack of information.’

The possibility that Chaos was involved was high, but Aden had no way of knowing what they were planning or what was causing the monsters to become ferocious.

Without that knowledge, there wasn’t much he could do to solve the problem.

‘The guy from the Somora of Delight or whatever was nothing but a fool with useless memories. He wasn’t any help at all.’

Despite being one of the top executives, he knew very little.

‘All I know is that the leader of Chaos is extremely powerful, the executives are under the curse of the leader’s control, and that there are only five executives left.’

Even the Chaos executives didn’t know the final goal of their leader. They simply followed orders faithfully.

Since there was no information sharing among them, Aden couldn’t obtain much information.

As Aden thought about how he wanted to throw that arch-lich to the wolves if possible, he heard a voice.

“Uuuuh.”

“Ah, Elise-nim, you’re awake?”

Elise, who had been sleeping soundly using the enlarged Choco as a bed, woke up.

She let out a cute, big yawn, rubbed her eyes, and then spoke in a still sleepy voice.

“Aden oppa, the God told me to deliver a message to you…”

“…What?”

“…!”

Everyone in the room was shocked. High Priest Karbasha’s beard quivered.

“Could it be… an oracle!”

Elise, as the Holy Maiden of the Lord of the Sacred Fire, was a bridge between the God and humans.

If Elise said something, it wasn’t just a dream or nonsense.

Elise, still sleepy but clear in her words, said,

“‘Go to the first grand temple and ignite the Sacred Fire.’ That’s what he said.”