Vol 1 Chapter 0 – Prologue ②【Vol 1: The Beastkin Hero Arc】

Remembering the expressions of his comrades right before they teleported away, Allen felt a pang of guilt.

They were all irreplaceable friends to him.

He certainly wasn’t lacking in memories with them.

The Second Seat of the World Knights, Eufaria Oberon—Eufa was a princess of the Fairy Kingdom, one of the nations in the Human Alliance.

Despite being from the long-lived fairy race, she was a young girl of only sixteen. At that age, she was an unmatched magical prodigy.

She had shown Allen, who couldn’t use magic, a wide variety of spells.

Whenever Allen acted surprised or impressed, the corners of her usually expressionless mouth would turn up just a fraction, and she would puff out her chest proudly. It was incredibly cute.

However, it took a long time for her to become that attached to him.

That incident where she dabbled in forbidden arts to resurrect her brother who died of illness, and tried to sacrifice her own kind… well, that was a fond memory now.

(…I managed to desperately persuade her and somehow avoid a catastrophe. I’m really glad she reconsidered back then.)

She has a slightly dangerous side, but he figured she was a good kid at heart.

The next to come to mind was the Third Seat of the World Knights, the hero of the giant race, Gavreel.

(I really had a hard time getting Gavreel to open up.)

Even though he currently enjoyed a brilliant, resounding reputation as the strongest hero of the giants, his background was as unconventional as it gets.

Originally, Gavreel was a member of a fiercely brutal bandit brigade that was top on the most-wanted lists across various nations.

It was excruciatingly difficult to instill emotions into a slaughter doll who had zero hesitation in taking another’s life and simply followed his boss’s orders.

Allen drilled it into him that the people he killed had loving families too, and in the end, Gavreel rebelled against his boss of his own free will and successfully struck him down.

Sparing the life of the guilt-ridden giant had honestly just been a coincidence.

(…He was the only one in that bandit gang who surrendered, so I just let him live. There was no deep meaning behind it. After regaining his emotions, he apologized profusely for having killed a noble I knew during his bandit days, but honestly, that noble was always cornering me at evening banquets to talk about complicated political policies, so I couldn’t stand the guy anyway.)

Judging by the results, sparing his life must have saved a lot of countries.

Next to be remembered was the Fourth Seat of the World Knights, a beautiful, dark-skinned woman with crimson hair and a highly provocative body.

(Labilia is the number one warrior of the Amazoness race, and the woman who currently serves as their queen.)

The Amazoness race lived on a lush, nature-filled island far off the continent.

They possessed the truly bizarre racial trait of only giving birth to females, but they were famous for their rough and violent temperaments, preferring battle over three square meals a day.

The Themiscyra Battle State. It was a nation that provided military force like mercenaries to the Allied Kingdoms, and in exchange, demanded men for the sake of their race’s reproduction.

Bloodlines meant nothing; the strongest became the queen.

And Labilia, a member of the World Knights, was the current queen and a genius in swordsmanship.

With her unparalleled martial prowess, she had secured her position on the throne.

However, according to her, she didn’t actually like fighting.

When Allen had visited the Battle State on a mission, she had been a girl envisioning a rather adorable future, her dream being to become a bride.

Her own people mocked her relentlessly for being soft and bullied her for it.

But in Allen’s eyes, she—who was considered an anomaly by her race—was the normal one.

(…If anything, it’s the vast majority of the Amazoness race who are out of their damn minds.)

Men are weak creatures. They are merely tools for the reproduction of the race. That mentality must have been hardwired into their genetics.

They refused to listen to a single opinion, and even if he tried to lend a hand, he’d be vehemently rejected with a, “We don’t need a man’s help!”

Compared to them, Labilia, who actually held normal conversations with Allen, looked like an absolute angel.

On a side note, when they were on a mission together a few months ago, she saw him eat too many dishes made with a red fruit called Toma Berries at the local lord’s mansion and throw up. Things had been somewhat awkward between them ever since.

She had been so severely shaken up she was practically crying. She was probably disillusioned by the fact that he couldn’t even manage his own physical condition.

As the leader of the World Knights, Allen deeply regretted exposing such a pathetic side of himself.

The fourth comrade he recalled was the Fifth Seat of the World Knights, the man boasting one of the greatest minds around.

The figure of a halfling who constantly carried the scent of medicine.

Nozes Megistos.

He was an alchemy genius.

“Halflings lack physical strength, so if I don’t go at least this far, I’ll never be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you guys.”

Saying that, he used himself as a test subject, turning his body into a metallic lifeform. Allen had been astounded by his resolve. At the same time, Allen genuinely grieved for the irreversible thing he had done to himself.

(In exchange for gaining the power of a hero, he ended up with a body completely incapable of sex. He can’t leave behind any descendants now. Well, he’s a metallic lifeform, so he can leave behind plenty of clones. But he can’t have sex anymore. It’s not just on the level of impotence. It made me truly sad.)

He could no longer crack dirty jokes in front of him. Well, he never really planned on making those kinds of jokes anyway, but still.

Regardless, he wondered if Nozes had really wanted power that badly. Allen felt pathetic for not noticing his suffering. When he told Nozes this, the alchemist’s eyes went wide, and he just stared blankly at him for an eternity.

And finally. The time for reminiscing was at its end.

The Sixth Seat of the World Knights. The hero of the beast-kin, Leonhardt.

A silver knight, her entire body clad in armor.

The days he spent with her were the ones he could recall most vividly.

His beloved disciple, for whom Allen himself had been the godfather.

When they first met, he had assumed she was a boy, so he ended up giving her a masculine name.

When she was later revealed to be a girl, he felt incredibly apologetic.

“…So even you make mistakes, huh, Allen?”

He remembered those words, spoken with innocent eyes and profound surprise.

The lion-kin she hailed from were a robust race, often hailed as the kings of the beast-kin.

However, her birth was by no means a privileged one.

She didn’t remember her parents’ faces.

A war orphan living in the slums of a certain city, Leonhardt was captured by slave traders when she was eight years old.

She was sold off to a magical scholar who caused numerous incidents by conducting atrocious human experiments.

There, she was subjected to horrifying experimentation.

(And yet, that child who was ruled by a hatred that cursed the entire world… is now a splendid hero.)

Since meeting Leonhardt in a city he visited for a mission five years ago, she had become a younger sister, a disciple, and a comrade to Allen.

In a complete departure from the past, her mind had also matured.

She should be able to live on without his help now.

He was certain his comrades wouldn’t change, even if he died.

They would protect this world, just as they always had.

(With this subjugation of the Demon King as my finale, the role of Allen Norsh will come to an end. I’m going to die.)

Standing before the Demon King, the very incarnation of absolute power, Allen had already cemented his resolve.

Though, it wasn’t a resolve for physical death.

“—Welp, let’s get this killing over with, yeah?”

“W-Wait a minute! I’m begging you, just wait, Allen?!”

Pathetic words spun from the Demon King’s terribly deep, heavy bass voice.

The Evil Eye Castle had been reduced to a mountain of rubble as far as the eye could see. The surrounding ground was melting the red-hot debris due to extreme temperatures, sending steam rising into the sky.

It was just a few seconds after the members of the World Knights other than Allen had vanished, whisked away by an Angel’s Staff equipped with a teleportation effect.

Before the black-clad knight lay the Evil Eye King Gaivis, rolling around and crawling on the ground like a caterpillar, his arms and legs completely severed.

Allen expressionlessly tilted his head as he pressed his beloved sword against the King’s throat.

“Waiting won’t change reality, Demon King.”

“…I-It happened in an instant… I was overwhelmingly in the lead just a moment ago.”

“You were.”

“Why did this happen? What in the world occurred?”

“Couldn’t you see it? I swung my sword seriously, and this happened.”

“…?”

The Evil Eye King froze, repeatedly blinking the countless eyes covering his grotesque, goat-like face.

“What are you talking about?”

“In short, I wasn’t being serious until now. When I got serious, you ended up like this. Understand?”

Gaivis’s expression twitched at Allen’s heartless declaration.

“T-That is not what I was told?! How do you possess such power…! The Holy Empire provided me with an ample supply of sacrifices, enough to easily strike you down?!”

“…What do you mean?”

Phrased like that, it sounded as if the Holy Empire, the leader of the human nations, had been cooperating in empowering the Demon King.

But that was impossible. Why would they help the demons they had been at war with for five years? He must have misheard.

“I-I see! I’ve figured it out! The source of that absolute power… You poured the vast majority of your lifespan into the Lightning Annihilation Sword, didn’t you?!”

At that moment, Allen’s face contorted.

“H-Haha! It is as I thought, isn’t it?!”

“No… um…”

“I see, which means you are destined to die alongside me. How pitiful, it seems things are going according to the script after all. As long as you die, the rest will sort itself out. Someday, the era of the demons will surely come.”

In response to Gaivis smirking triumphantly, Allen frowned, his mouth twisting into a scowl as he continued.

“…Well, I guess I can tell you. You’re going to die anyway.”

“…?”

“Truth is, the thing Asmodeus drains isn’t my lifespan. It’s my sex drive.”

“…Huh?”

“But like, drawing out incredible power by getting my libido sucked dry is super lame, isn’t it? Saying it’s my lifespan just sounds way cooler, right?”

“…”

“Sorry. Unlike you, I’m fully capable of living out my natural life. Well then, that’s that.”

The moment Allen raised his sword to deliver the finishing blow, the Demon King frantically raised his voice.

“W-Wait, wait, wait! Or rather, Allen, hasn’t your tone of voice completely changed?!”

“Up until now, I was just playing the part of a cool, mysterious knight to be the ideal hero. My true self is just a half-assed, lazy handsome guy.”

Taking that as the end of the King’s final words, Allen brought his sword down without hesitation, but the Demon King twisted his body and somehow managed to catch the slash with his horn.

“Hey, that was dangerously close! You were totally trying to kill me just now, weren’t you?! Listen here, Allen! I have planted a dark curse in this Evil Eye Castle that will detonate in the sky the moment I die! Its power exceeds even my imagination—”

“That’s fantastic!”

Allen rejoiced.

Conversely, all of Gaivis’s eyes widened in shock.

“W-What are you so happy about?! Y-You’re creeping me out?!”

Being called creepy by a Special Grade monster actually gave him a bit of a shock.

“No, I mean, that’s the perfect mechanism to make it look like we took each other out.”

From the very beginning, Allen had planned to fake his own death in this battle.

That was why he hadn’t gone all out while his comrades were around.

(I’m so tired of it. I’m done being a hero…)

Constantly being expected to do things, relied upon, continuously acting as the continent’s guardian.

Always behaving as the ideal knight and a role model hero for everyone.

Not being able to scratch his ass when it suddenly gets itchy during a ceremony.

Not being able to go out and play in the nightlife districts because there are always eyes watching.

Freaking out about his own stupidity being exposed every time some noble brings up complicated political talk at evening banquets.

And above all else, having zero days off. Obviously, he was swamped with work.

He was completely exhausted from constantly playing the part of a pure, brilliant, and utterly flawless hero.

(I’m just a normal guy who coincidentally happened to be granted the most combat talent in the world. I’m sick and tired of spending all my time just commuting back and forth between the tower and the battlefield.)

Allen was only twenty-two, but he had already earned enough money for a lifetime.

He wanted to move to some small village on the frontier and live a life of comfortable leisure. He wanted to become a NEET. He wanted to sleep his days away without anyone expecting a damn thing from him.

Since he had defeated the Demon King aiming for world domination, the world should be at peace now. There was surely no need for the hero Allen’s power anymore.

“—Killing you is my final mission. Allen Norsh will take you down with him, Gaivis, and die together right here.”

“Wait! Slaying me will not bring about peace?! War will never truly end! After all, humanity has been fighting over territory since ancient times?!”

“…What are you talking about? Once I defeat the Demon King, there won’t be any reason to fight the demons anymore. Sorry, but I have to kill you no matter what. You’re my master’s sworn enemy, and more importantly, none of the other World Knights would be able to kill you. Slaying you is the first and only step to me becoming a NEET.”

“You’re killing the Demon King for that reason?! N-No, wait! Truly, just spare my life, anything but my life! I have a daughter—”

“Sorry, not interested.”

Allen chopped off the Demon King’s head without a shred of hesitation.

His end was truly anticlimactic.

The head of the goat-like monster, scattering blood and devoid of breath, dropped with a thud.

A few seconds after Allen sheathed his beloved sword, looking down at the massive corpse that no longer twitched.

With the corpse at its center, a gigantic, pitch-black magic circle suddenly deployed, large enough to swallow the entirety of the Evil Eye Castle.

“…So it wasn’t just a desperate lie. I’d better hurry.”

Just as the Demon King had said, the very earth supporting the floating Evil Eye Castle in the sky began to rumble.

Before his entire field of vision was engulfed in a blinding flash, Allen made his escape from the Evil Eye Castle.

Judging by the scale of the magic circle, the resulting power was going to be absolutely absurd, yet Allen wore a carefree smile.

At this moment, swept up in the excitement of the new life spreading out before him in the future, he was entirely oblivious.