Vol 1 Chapter 4 – Carrying On a Best Friend’s Will【Vol 1: The Beastkin Hero Arc】

The halfling-race had always been the target of contempt, considered the weakest of all races.

On average, they stood no taller than a human child—around twelve years old—and their appearance remained unchanged even after reaching adulthood.

Unlike the fairy-race, they possessed no exceptional reserves of mana. Unlike the giant-race, they had no overwhelming physical strength. Unlike the beastkin, their five senses were nothing remarkable.

They lacked the rare combat instincts of the warrior-women of the Amazonian race. And the human-race—sovereigns of humanity’s six races—were well-rounded in every area without a single obvious weakness.

The weakest of the six races. That was what the halfling-race was.

Because of that stigma, everyone in the halfling-race had pinned their hopes on Nozes.

Because he was born with the qualification of a hero.

The Mana Core is an organ found in every living creature in this world—an essential reservoir of mana for casting magic, using Enchantments, and activating Battle Skills. In humans, it is located right next to the heart—exactly in the center of the chest.

Generally speaking, Mana Cores are divided into five types.

Type: Mage
Type: Knight
Type: Pugilist
Type: Enchanter
Type: Healer

The differences between each type are significant.

A Knight-type cannot use magic or Enchantments but can use Battle Skills—a Mage-type, conversely, can use magic and nothing else. Each type has clearly defined strengths and weaknesses.

And Nozes—along with every member of the 【World Knights】—does not belong to any of those five. Truly rare individuals are sometimes born possessing a unique Mana Core.

A Brave Core.

Every 【World Knight】 throughout history has been born harboring a Brave Core.

That was why, twenty-two years ago, Nozes’s fate was sealed at birth.

He was born a commoner in the halfling nation—the Kingdom of Lemuel—but before long he was taken into the royal palace and given an elite education.

Having grown up in a single-parent household, Nozes was separated from his beloved mother at the age of five.

“Listen well, Nozes. You will become a World Knight without fail. To change a world that looks down on the halfling-race, you must become a hero. That is the purpose of your existence.”

“…Um… I would like to see my mother…”

“If you have time for that, you have time to train.”

“The hopes of our entire race rest on this. Depending on how well you perform, a future may come where the halfling-race is no longer discriminated against.”

Nozes’s mother had contracted a terminal illness. A disease that gradually turned the body to metal.

Its cause was unknown, and at present only palliative treatment was possible. Yet Nozes was never permitted to visit his mother even once.

Even so, he never grew bitter. He worked hard to do what he could—for her sake. The elite education he received covered not only martial arts such as swordsmanship and spearmanship, but every academic field as well.

Among those fields was alchemy.

By the age of ten, he was developing medicines one after another in pursuit of a cure for her illness.

But in the end, his mother passed away before any cure could be completed.

Even so, his extraordinary achievements were recognized.

The 【World Knights】’ seat for the halfling-race had been vacant, which lent further weight to his case—the kings of the nations belonging to the Human Alliance put Nozes forward as their nominee. His character and accomplishments were acknowledged, and with a majority of the world’s kings behind him, Nozes was appointed to the 【World Knights】 at the record-youngest age of twelve.

Five years after that, the war against the demon-kind broke out. With the Demon King’s army invading, great things were expected of Nozes.

But the demon-kind were strong. He could barely make a dent. Alchemy—the field he had always been devoted to—was never a tool for defeating enemies.

It was a power to create.

So the glory always went to the other 【World Knights】.

Allen. Eufaria. Gavreel. Labilia. Leonhardt.

Slaying the Demon Commanders was always their doing.

(I was never cut out to be a hero. At my core, I was just a humble alchemist. I never wanted to become a hero. I only ever wanted to cure my mother’s illness.)

Without realizing it, he noticed that the hopeful eyes the entire halfling-race had once turned on him had shifted to looks of disappointment.

“Nozes—it is your fault that we, the Kingdom of Lemuel, have no voice within the Human Alliance. Pull yourself together.”

“They’re mocking you as the weakest World Knight! Doesn’t that bother you?!”

“Have you heard? About that human-race 【World Knight】, Allen. Apparently he captured one of the Eight Demon Commanders—【Revenant】. And compared to him, you’ve achieved absolutely nothing in this Great Human-Demon War. Don’t you feel ashamed?”

“You say you can’t go on?! Don’t be absurd! Do you have any idea how much we’ve invested in your training—how many times are you going to disappoint us, Nozes?!”

To stand shoulder to shoulder with the other World Knights.

The expectations of an entire race bore down on Nozes as crushing pressure. Having already lost his mother—having already lost any reason to live—he resorted to a final measure.

He alchemized his own body and discarded his human form.

He transformed every part of himself into flowing, liquid metal.

Through that, he became strong. His skin boasted a hardness surpassing iron, and he could no longer be killed by piercing or battering.

As long as he had mana, he could regenerate even if his body was cut to shreds.

He had become strong enough to stand alongside the other 【World Knights】. When he hunted down one of the Eight Demon Commanders singlehandedly, the people showered him with praise.

But not a single thing about how he felt had cleared. His hollow heart remained unfilled.

Since losing his mother, his emotions had long been dead—and by now, the hopes and dreams of his race meant nothing to him whatsoever.

It was thanks to the 【Obsidian Knight】 that his withered heart started beating again.

“What have you done, Nozes… If your body has become like this, then you… you can never go back to the way you were, can you?”

He cried as though it were his own suffering.

Eyes slightly downcast, staring at Nozes’s now-metallic lower half.

“…That’s true, but—if I don’t produce results—”

“Results? What are you talking about?”

In that moment, all Nozes could do was stare in blank bewilderment. He had always believed, until then, that no one gave him a second thought. That he—a halfling, powerless and small—was not considered a true comrade.

“Even before your body became like this, you were an irreplaceable comrade who kept our frontlines standing. Do you have any idea how much your mass-produced recovery potions saved us?”

“…”

“You’ve been fighting right alongside all of us this whole time, haven’t you? Stepping onto a battlefield isn’t the only way to fight. Defeating enemies isn’t the only way to wage war. Isn’t that right?”

Even without producing visible results, what he had been doing was valued.

Before he had ever become a metallic being, Allen had seen Nozes as an equal comrade. Unlike his own kinspeople who only ever sought raw strength, Allen was the first person to ever properly recognize his worth.

(……Had you been seeing me this way… this whole time?)

That made him happy.

“Was I… allowed to stay just an alchemist?”

“Of course you were. If you were troubled, you should have talked to me. I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner, Nozes.”

The image of the knight in black bowing his head deeply—that image now existed only in the past. The friend Nozes respected had not come back.

“——Watch over this world for me.”

The final request of the only friend—aside from his mother—who had ever truly reached his heart. Nozes intended to fulfill it no matter what he had to sacrifice.

All he had to do was give everything he had for the better world his best friend desired.

＊　　＊　　＊　　＊

The base of operations for the young man known as the 【Obsidian Knight】 stood in Whiteworth, the capital of the Holy Imperial Kingdom—and it drew the eye more readily than even the imperial residence of the reigning Emperor.

A tower that pierced the heavens, clad entirely in jet-black—known informally as the 【Tower of Silence】.

Allen Norsh—first seat and captain of the 【World Knights】, hero of the human-race, and the man once hailed as the 【Obsidian Knight】—had lived there together with a single young woman.

While the heroes of other races lived surrounded by large numbers of retainers, Allen alone kept no attendants by his side. It was said this was because Allen was not particularly fond of being waited upon.

“……Allen-sama……”

That was part of it—but the truth ran deeper.

All of it was to protect a single young woman. And the young woman herself knew it.

The opulent interior prepared for the world’s greatest hero. Gifts and treasure chests sent from nations across the world gathered dust untouched in a corner of the room, piled like a mountain.

Having just finished straightening the sheets of a bed that had gone unused for days on end, a young woman with deep violet hair dressed in a gown exhaled a warm, heavy breath.

The hair cut evenly at her shoulders and her intelligent, sharp-featured beauty were both exceptionally refined—and paired with her gown, she looked less like a servant and more like the princess of a sovereign nation.

She removed her glasses and wiped away the tears streaming ceaselessly down her face, sniffling again and again.

And before she knew it, as always, she found herself cradling the journal the 【Obsidian Knight】 had left behind against her generous chest.

“……You never once laid a hand on me, and yet…… you really are cruel, Allen-sama……”

Inside the journal, Allen had written in meticulous detail about the feelings he had held for the young woman.

She herself had felt a debt to him she could never fully repay—she would have offered herself to him at any moment—yet he had never once reached for her.

To now read words that amounted to a confession only after he was gone was simply and utterly painful.

“——Princess Arianne, Your Highness.”

As memories of her time with him drifted through her mind one after another, a voice called her name in the silence of the tower—where there should have been no one else. The young woman—Arianne—shuddered and flinched.

“……eek—p-please don’t speak up so suddenly. Nozes-sama!”

Standing behind her was a fellow glasses-wearer—Nozes, hero of the halfling-race, round-framed spectacles perched on his nose.

“Sorry—I actually arrived more than ten minutes ago, but you were crying the whole time, so there was no opening to say anything.”

Arianne dried her eyes with a handkerchief, turned a flat, unamused look on him, and opened her mouth.

“……Pardon me for saying this to a friend of Allen-sama’s, but… I’ll be honest. That’s unsettling.”

“My apologies for that.”

Nozes apologized with a bright, breezy smile. The attitude behind it—a “that ought to take care of it” shrug with not a drop of genuine remorse—drew a sigh from Arianne.

“……What brings you here?”

“Even if you’ve been removed from the imperial register, you were once a princess. I thought you might still harbor some feelings toward the Emperor, so I decided to let you know in advance.”

“……Know what?”

Unable to follow his vague words, she tilted her head in suspicion. But Nozes brushed past her question and posed a different one of his own.

“Allen cared deeply about you. So I don’t want to cause you any unnecessary grief. Bluntly—what do you think of the Emperor?”

“……I hold no particular fondness for him… I was removed from the imperial family, after all. That said, when I ask myself whether someone with as little mana as I have was fit to be royalty, I have to shake my head. So I don’t hate him now either.”

“Indifference, then.”

“……What are you trying to say?”

“……A world conference is apparently being held soon. Do you know what’s on the agenda?”

“……I have no connections to the outside, so I don’t.”

A world conference was a critical gathering where the kings of nations across the human continent discussed various matters of import. If a problem arose that a nation’s own army or knight order could not handle, that nation’s king could submit a mission request to the World Knights.

If a majority of the gathered kings voted in favor, the World Knights could be mobilized—and a formal dispatch would be issued.

In other words, it was also the conference that determined the World Knights’ mission assignments.

In addition, the nomination and selection of new World Knights were also brought to the table.

It was possible that the selection of a successor to Allen—the first seat—might be undertaken: a new World Knight for the human-race.

“What’s being deliberated this time around is whether to proceed with a counteroffensive into the demon continent.”

“……Excuse me?”

But the agenda item she was told was nothing she could have imagined—and Arianne went rigid.

“The peace that we—no, that Allen staked his life to build—the imperial nation is trying to destroy. I can’t let that stand. How many lives do they think were lost in the Great Human-Demon War?”

“……Is that really true?”

The knight orders of every nation had been worn to exhaustion by the fierce fighting against the Demon King’s army.

That meant the prospect of other kings providing forces for an invasion of the demon continent was vanishingly slim.

Even if Allen’s sacrifice was held up as a rallying cry, that would not change.

Yet perhaps the imperial nation possessed some material capable of swaying the other nations. Otherwise they would never have submitted such an item for the agenda.

“……I heard it directly from Gavreel when he came to the palace, so it appears to be true. Even so—Allen really is something. I’m certain he knew, even before his death, exactly how the imperial nation would steer public opinion afterward.”

Nozes pushed up his glasses with a gesture of exasperated admiration. Allen had passed on with the words Watch over this world for me, entrusting it to his comrades.

In all likelihood, Allen had seen this situation coming—and that was why he had asked his fellow World Knights. He had wanted them to stop the imperial nation’s scheme to use his death as propaganda.

If that was the case, then all Nozes could do was stake his life to fulfill that wish.

“……Gavreel and I no longer see eye to eye. It will likely come to fighting between comrades—but it cannot be helped. Those who disturb the peace… whether hero or king, I will deal with them.”

“……What are you saying, Nozes-sama?”

The halfling hero—who looked for all the world like a baby-faced young boy—muttered something terrifying with a completely straight face, and Arianne felt goosebumps crawl up her arms as she rubbed them.

“……Someone who feels nothing won’t feel any pain when they die. I’m glad we could talk, Your Highness.”

“Wait—Nozes-sama——”

Arianne reached out without thinking—and her hand caught only air.

Nozes’s body, turned away from her, melted into a slow, oozing liquid, pressed flat against the ceiling, and slipped into the cracks.

By splitting himself into liquid form, he could infiltrate anywhere.

Newly reminded all over again of his inhuman ability, Arianne shuddered—then sank onto the bed with a look of utter exhaustion.

(……What is going to become of this world… from here on out……)

What kind of world was taking shape now—a world without Allen in it. The former princess could only feel afraid.