Exiled to the Graveyard of Heroes, I Revived Them All and Now an Unprecedented Nation of Legends Has Been Born - Chapter 05; Interlude

Interlude: Summoning of the Otherworlder (Ixion Kingdom’s Perspective)

While Elott was slowly gathering allies at the bottom of the abyss—

In the Ixion Kingdom, the First Princess, Melia Le Ixion, was performing the ritual to summon an otherworlder in accordance with prophecy.

Standing beside her was her fiancé, Glenn.

“Phew… it really was troublesome gathering all the sacrifices needed for the ritual.”

“Wow, you’re a cruel woman, Princess Melia. Attacking beastmen villages and raiding elven settlements? Doesn’t your conscience ache at all?”

“Oh my. And yet I heard stories about a certain warrior—who, despite being engaged to me, still violated beastman girls and even married elven women.”

“…Oof, so you found out about that, huh?”

Glenn laughed as he wrapped an arm around Melia’s shoulders, shamelessly squeezing her generous breasts.

There was no love between them.

Glenn only cared about one day securing the position of consort.

Melia, meanwhile, tolerated him so that when she became queen, she could avoid political marriages with even more troublesome partners.

It was a relationship of mutual benefit.

Sex was simply another outlet—just one of the things they shared. They had lain together countless times, and to outsiders, they might even look like a picture-perfect, affectionate couple.

“…”

Watching the two of them in silence was a young girl.

She was once Elott’s lover—

Now, she was nothing more than one of Glenn’s concubine candidates.

The Saintess, Nia.

“Hm? Hey, Nia. What are you staring at? Want me to take you to bed too?”

“…No. Don’t talk to me.”

“Tch, so cold. I let your little sister go, just like I promised, didn’t I? Or are you regretting that choice—saving your only family and leaving your lover to die?”

“…!”

Nia’s expression twisted in pain.

Glenn caught it, and his lips curled into a nasty, mocking grin. He stepped closer, gripping her chin and forcing her face upward.

“C’mon, forget the dead already. If he really loved you, he’d want you to move on and be happy, wouldn’t he?”

“D-Don’t touch me!!”

“Oh?”

Nia slapped his hand away and stormed out of the ritual chamber.

“My, my… looks like you were rejected.”

“Heh, all the better. Forcing a defiant woman like that down is what makes it fun.”

“You’re vile… but I can’t say I dislike that.”

“Hah! That’s rich, coming from the one who can’t say no to me at night.”

“Q-Quiet, you. …Anyway, enough chit-chat. Let’s begin the ritual.”

Melia stepped before the massive magic circle and began chanting, her incantation echoing for several long minutes.

Within the circle, the dozens of beastmen and elves lying in heaps began to convulse.

Some coughed blood, some clawed at their own skin, and others went mad, smashing their heads against the ground until they died.

Melia never wavered. Her chanting continued without pause.

At last, every sacrifice ceased to live, their bodies melting into sludge and flowing into the glowing circle.

“—!!”

In the next instant, the magic circle flared with an eerie brilliance.

The light was so blinding that Melia and Glenn shielded their eyes. When it finally subsided, four boys and girls now stood within the circle.

“Eh!? W-What the heck!?”

“One moment the classroom was glowing like crazy, and now… where the hell are we!?”

“C-Calm down, you two!! This has to be some kind of filming set!!”

The four teens were completely lost, unable to make sense of the situation.

All except one.

Among them stood a plain-looking boy with black hair and black eyes. Unlike the others, he stayed calm, quietly scanning the room. After taking it all in, he gave a firm nod—then shouted at the top of his lungs:

“IT’S AN ISEKAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!”

“Y-Yamada-kun!? Why are you suddenly yelling!?”

“Shizukuishi-san!! Don’t you get it!? This is another world!! Look at the magic circle under our feet!! Look at that gorgeous princess over there!! It’s totally real!!”

“E-Eh… another world? Isn’t that… the genre of novels you’re always reading, Yamada-kun?”

“Exactly!!”

Hearing the words “gorgeous princess” made Melia’s mood soar. With a sweet smile, she gracefully stepped forward to address the four.

“Everyone, I thank you deeply for answering my summons. Please—I beg of you. Lend me your strength to drive away the great calamity that threatens my kingdom!!”

“““““C-Calamity!?”””””

Tears welled in Melia’s eyes as she pleaded.

The four otherworlders, still unable to fully grasp the situation, decided for now to at least hear her explanation.

Of course, Melia’s story conveniently left out all the unpleasant truths.

“So basically… you want us to lend our knowledge to protect the Ixion Kingdom from some calamity that’s coming soon?”

“Exactly, Lady Shizukuishi.”

The girl who spoke—Shizukuishi—was a striking beauty with long, glossy black hair tied in a ponytail, giving her a dignified air. With a serious look, she shook her head.

“I’m sorry… but we can’t really help you.”

“Eh?”

“We’re just ordinary high school students. We don’t have any special knowledge or skills.”

“S-Such a thing…”

Melia’s face twisted into sorrow at Shizukuishi’s unexpected refusal.

But in truth, her mind was elsewhere—

(That old hag!! I paid her so much, and she dared to feed me lies!? For deceiving royalty, she’ll be executed in the cruelest way possible!!)

She was already plotting how to dispose of the fortune-teller… though the woman had long since fled the kingdom, leaving no trace behind.

Then, suddenly, Yamada shot his hand into the air.

“Fufufu… naive!! You’re too naive, Shizukuishi-san!!”

“Y-Yamada-kun? What are you talking about?”

“In our world, there are countless things considered normal that simply don’t exist in this one! Just teaching them even the basics could make a huge difference!!”

With that, Yamada puffed out his chest and launched into a proud lecture about the civilization of his world.

“I see… so, iron boxes that run without horses, iron ships that float by buoyancy, and iron birds that fly in the sky… What else is there?”

“Well, there’s also telephones… and for weapons, guns, I guess.”

“Weapons…!! Please, tell me more about this ‘gun’!!”

“Eh? O-Oh, sure!!”

Melia latched onto the mention of otherworld weapons and eagerly listened as Yamada explained what guns were.

If she could reproduce their terrifying power, perhaps Ixion could avoid its prophesied ruin.

No—why stop there?

If they could also recreate the “tanks,” “fighter planes,” and “battleships” Yamada spoke of, then Ixion wouldn’t just survive—they would rule the entire world.

A wicked smile crept across Melia’s lips.

For a great power like the Ixion Kingdom, gathering the right engineers to replicate such weapons wouldn’t be difficult.

They would start small—with guns.

First, create something simple, like a matchlock musket. Then refine it, mass-produce it, and distribute it to the entire Ixion army.

Melia clasped Yamada’s hands in feigned gratitude.

“Thank you so much, Sir Yamada!!”

“W-Wow, really? Aw, shucks!! Hahaha!!”

Overjoyed, Yamada puffed up with pride and went on to share even more knowledge of his world.

But in Melia’s heart—

(These otherworlders still have plenty of use. I’ll squeeze every drop of knowledge out of them before I dispose of them. Fufu… make yourselves useful, little pawns.)

Though Melia spoke words of thanks, in truth she looked down on the otherworlders.

All it took was a little display of helplessness, a few sweet words of gratitude—and they’d spill knowledge left and right.

In some ways, they were even easier to handle than heroes blinded by their obsession with revenge against monsters.

At that moment, Shizukuishi raised her voice.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes, Lady Shizukuishi? What is it?”

“We… can go back to our original world, right?”

Melia’s smile froze for just a split second.

“…Fufu, but of course. I wouldn’t summon you here without a way to send you back. So please, rest easy. Think of this as a little sightseeing trip in our kingdom.”

“If that’s the case… then I suppose it’s fine.”

Melia had lied.

The forbidden tome hidden in the castle’s underground archives had indeed described the method for summoning otherworlders.

But nowhere in its pages was there any mention of a way to return them home.

Shizukuishi’s sharp question rattled Melia more than she let on.

(This girl… better to dispose of her sooner rather than later.)

Melia reached her decision instantly.

What she didn’t know was that, at the very same moment, Shizukuishi too had silently judged her—

As someone who could not be trusted.

―――――――――――――――――――――

[Afterword]

A Random Tidbit

A saintess who betrayed her beloved hero because her sister was held hostage… pretty spicy, isn’t it? I kind of want to push her even further. In the end, I’d like to leave her neither alive nor dead, neither broken nor whole—just completely driven mad.

If you found that entertaining, smash those ★s to fuel the author’s writing energy!

And if you thought, “So the saintess had baggage after all,” or “Yamada’s basically the war criminal here even if he doesn’t know it,” or even “The author’s sudden shift in tone cracked me up,” —then don’t forget to leave a comment, bookmark, rating, or review!