Chapter 16

“You think sparing my life will make me betray my people?!”

That was what Ivan heard as he pinned one of Eiphelos’s shoulders down with his knee and exposed the wounded area.

“Ha! Planning to torture me, are you? Go ahead, then! I am Eiphelos, centurion of His Excellency the Sixth Demon General’s Guard Infantry Division!”

That was what Eiphelos said as Ivan pressed around the injury, spread the wound open, and pulled apart the torn flesh of his chest.

The moment Ivan began pouring the healing potion into it, the demon’s once-confident voice started to shake.

“Sulfuric acid…! You vile—”

Ivan did not bother correcting the misunderstanding.

Privately, however, he was impressed.

The wound had completely torn through one of Eiphelos’s lungs. As the healing potion flowed over it—

“Ghhhhh…!! You… cursed… humans…!”

“I won’t forget you either! Not even in the afterlife!”

“…It’s… useless…”

At that point, Ivan could not help but admire him.

The shattered lung must have been knitting itself together unevenly while the remnants of the healing potion pooled inside it. The fact that Eiphelos could endure such a thing at all was astonishing.

But soon, Ivan let out a quiet chuckle.

“Remember me…”

Crunch!

Eiphelos’s eyes shone with grim resolve as he bit down on his tongue.

A series of horrible crunching sounds followed.

Ivan pulled the potion away and sighed.

Just imagining what it would feel like to have potion poured into a wound like that made his chest feel heavy.

Fortunately, he had no memory of ever entrusting his body to a healing potion while suffering an injury that severe.

When he had sustained his worst wounds, he had already been unconscious.

He had heard that they had practically bathed him in potion. Even if he had still been conscious beforehand, he likely would have blacked out from the pain.

“Ghhhh… ngh…”

“You must have spent too long fighting in the field. You still believe that superstition.”

“Mmph…?”

“Biting off your tongue won’t kill you. People aren’t made that fragile. In the first place, the only way an immobilized person can take their own life is through cardiac arrest.”

For some unknown reason, the belief that one could end one’s life heroically by biting off one’s tongue was widespread throughout the world.

It was remarkable.

Had someone once seen a person accidentally kill themselves while eating?

Professional operatives like Ivan had always wondered about that.

The more “brave” a warrior, knight, or general was on the battlefield, the more vulnerable they seemed to such superstitions.

Perhaps it was because grandeur and heroic death were what they considered romantic.

Ivan stared down at Eiphelos with a pathetic look for a long while, then let out a deep sigh and checked how much potion remained.

That had been his last bottle.

Now, not even a third of it was left.

“This will only prolong your suffering. I’m not trying to torment you, Centurion. This is medical treatment, and this liquid is a healing potion.”

“Mmph… ngh…!”

“Stop. You’re reopening the wound.”

Ivan forced Eiphelos’s mouth open, poured in every last drop of the potion, and clamped his jaw shut.

The demon struggled to spit it out, but his eyes soon lost focus.

His half-severed tongue soaked in the healing potion, which then slid down his throat and spread through his body.

Healing potions treated only physical injuries.

Drinking one offered no particular benefit unless there was a perforation in the stomach or esophagus.

Of course, someone suffering from esophagitis might feel as though their entire esophagus were burning before being completely cured, but that was beside the point.

“Mmmph…”

“Do you have enough strength to speak now?”

“Poison Spider… Petrovich…”

“Hm…?”

With his eyes unfocused, Eiphelos began muttering blankly.

His gaze shifted to the thick beard covering the entire lower half of Ivan’s face.

Then it rose toward Ivan’s eyes and forehead.

“I heard… you were dead… This method…”

“Ngh…”

“The Extermination… Unit…”

“So that’s… what it was…”

Had he personally fought on the battlefields during the war?

Ivan narrowed his eyes.

“Why did you come personally? Your people can’t be in such good shape that they can afford to throw away someone like you as disposable manpower.”

A centurion was merely a low-ranking commander.

In other words, during the war, he would have been common personnel in plentiful supply.

He was hardly an important figure.

But that had been during the war, when the demons’ full strength had remained intact.

Now the Demon King and most of the Seven Dragon Generals were dead.

The remnants had been torn apart and driven from the wider world.

For years, they had been locked in a struggle for supremacy, each pursuing their own ambitions according to the law of strength.

A centurion from those days was now an exceedingly valuable active-duty officer.

The sort whose combat ability and command skills had already been proven.

“Not anymore… Cough! Not anymore.”

“What?”

“Did you really think… we would keep insisting on operations we knew would fail…? The Alliance… Your complacency… Ghh… disgusts me…”

When the demons had attacked Eshidis, they had concealed their identities and hired mercenaries.

Most likely, followers remaining within the Alliance had assisted them.

And the operation had failed spectacularly.

Afterward, they realized the plan had already collapsed before it even began.

Their trail had been discovered before they could put the operation into motion.

We cannot rely solely on our followers.

There is a spy among us.

Believing themselves outmatched in the intelligence war, they had decided to send someone trustworthy.

The mission absolutely had to succeed.

Other targets might have been negotiable, but there was one person they had to kill at all costs.

The Hero’s daughter.

At the same time, they also had to account for the possibility of failure.

If they sent someone too important and lost them, the damage would be impossible to contain.

That made Eiphelos a test case.

A commander capable of succeeding in most operations, yet expendable enough that losing him would not cause catastrophic damage.

Ivan looked down at Eiphelos with bitter eyes.

The demon had volunteered while fully understanding exactly how his superiors valued him.

Even if the operation succeeded, he could not have returned alive.

They would have needed to erase every trace.

No matter how peaceful the era had become after the war, there was no way to carry out an act of terrorism near Pritchenkaya and return without leaving evidence behind.

The fact that Eiphelos had entered this place expecting death from the very beginning stirred a powerful sense of kinship within Ivan.

He let out a deep sigh.

“There won’t be another attack after this. You failed.”

Naturally, Eiphelos would be subjected to brutal torture and magical restraints.

Or perhaps they would release him and allow him to return home.

Krasilov’s Counterintelligence Command would put a tail on him.

No matter how quickly he fled, there was no safe way for him to return from the vicinity of Pritchenkaya to his own camp.

Even if he somehow made it back alive, he would inevitably be suspected of being—

A traitor who sided with the enemy to save his own life.

The demons would shun him.

Or they would interrogate and execute him.

But one last thing remained.

“Do you understand your situation?”

“Kill me.”

“Your own people have abandoned you. You can neither return nor move forward. The only place left for you is the afterlife.”

“…”

“I was talking to myself. You don’t need to answer.”

Ivan sat beside him and looked up at the sky. Eiphelos’s ragged breathing sounded at his side.

“If you fail and are discarded, they can claim this was nothing more than an act of terrorism committed by a small group of radicals. Your superiors will explain it to the Alliance that way as well.”

“…”

“Your existence alone will already have driven the Alliance’s vigilance to its highest level. Naturally, they won’t be foolish enough to attempt another attack.”

“…”

“Is there anything you want?”

“What… are you planning to do with me…?”

“You have three choices left.”

The first was to remain detained and be taken to Pritchenkaya.

Then he would receive the gracious hospitality of Krasilov’s Counterintelligence Command for attempting to assassinate an important state figure.

Afterward, the Counterintelligence Command would fabricate a connection between his superiors and the Crown Prince’s faction, then launch a political offensive.

Ivan gripped his axe and raised it.

Slowly, he took hold of Eiphelos’s horn.

Eiphelos squeezed his eyes shut and murmured quietly.

“Even though you wander through the Valley of Death.”

“Fear not, for I shall bring you comfort.”

It was the Demon King’s prayer.

Ivan had heard it far too many times.

When the Demon King was still alive, nearly every demon’s final words had been the same.

They died yearning for the Demon King.

Fanatically.

Therefore, Ivan knew the next lines as well.

“I am the Southern Cross in the darkest night.”

“I am the lighthouse upon the storm-tossed sea.”

“I am your cradle and your fortress.”

Fear not, for I shall bring you comfort.

Still holding Eiphelos’s horn, Ivan whispered,

“Are your parents still alive?”

“…What?”

“If not, I run an orphanage.”

“What are you talking about…?”

“I shelter war orphans who have nowhere else to go, regardless of their country or race.”

Four years ago, when the Demon King died and Ivan decided to retire, his superiors had given him one final order.

Go and kill the Seven Dragon Generals.

It had meant:

Go and die.

The order had been issued to every member of the Extermination Unit.

The Extermination Unit had once consisted of eight strike teams.

After that order, only one remained alive.

When Ivan returned after succeeding, Elizaveta had stamped his discharge papers while crying.

She told him never to draw attention again.

To live as though he were dead.

She apologized for failing to stop the order.

She said she was grateful simply because he had returned alive.

Even when the names of all those who had gone before them were forgotten, their honor would remain forever.

Therefore—

“If all you want is to survive, you can cast away who you are and live forgotten, as though you were dead.”

“I don’t deserve that.”

“Everyone deserves that. Your loyalty and faith do not define your entire life.”

If you wish, I will break your horns.

They will be the final chains binding your body.

But if you prefer, I can lower the axe a little farther.

That is your final choice—

To live as a person, or to depart as one.

At Ivan’s words, Eiphelos closed his eyes.

He released a deep breath.

Then drew several short, strained breaths.

“I want… to live.”

“You chose well.”

Crack!

One more name was added to the register of Saint Vasilisha Orphanage.

Orphan.

In his fifties.

Former demon.

After the failed assassination of Eshidis, the threat posed by the demons had increased dramatically.

In other words, the reason Isabel’s tutorial had been designed to be so difficult was Ivan’s own actions.

And that meant—

The tutorials are not occurring simultaneously.

This was not a game in which every character handled their own event at the same point in time immediately after character creation.

Rather, the events experienced by each starting character occurred at different times.

Ivan stroked his chin and fell into thought.

The demons were not merely AI that moved according to predetermined instructions.

Like everyone else in this world, none of them were NPCs.

Even events that unfolded according to familiar clichés could ultimately reach different conclusions depending on the variables involved.

If so, what could he predict?

What should he do?

Ivan turned his gaze toward Isabel.

She was looking at the survivors with sorrowful eyes.

Keep these children alive until graduation.

Because this was another world built around an academy story.

Because that was how it had to be.

Even if there were no players, characters, or NPCs, that one thing could not be allowed to change.

He could worry about everything else afterward.

“Mister.”

“Mm.”

“If I hadn’t boarded this train today, then their families… the people who were aboard this train would still be alive, wouldn’t they?”

The dead were not mere NPCs sacrificed for a cutscene either.

Most likely, yes.

Looking toward the night sky as it gradually began to brighten, Ivan answered.

“Do you know how many people the Hero killed?”

“…What?”

“Including indirect casualties, it could be estimated at no fewer than thirty thousand per year. People sent to battlefields where defeat was inevitable in order to support the Hero’s operations and draw the Demon King’s army away.”

The Hero’s Party had essentially been an assassination squad.

Their purpose was to kill the Seven Dragon Generals and the Demon King.

To make those enemies lower their guard, the Alliance had been forced to hand them overwhelming victories on other fronts.

As part of the fundamental grand strategy of creating a diversion, there had been times when defeat was deliberately imposed on other battlefronts to support the Hero’s Party’s infiltration.

“Everyone present at the time knew that. The Hero, me, even the soldiers on the front lines.”

“…”

“Yet even then, the Hero smiled.”

Because otherwise—

If he imagined himself failing,

If he lamented his inadequacy,

If he allowed himself to be crushed beneath the weight he carried—

Then the lives of all those who had died for his sake would have been wasted.

So the Hero chose to smile instead.

Even in an age when hope was so scarce that one had to split the heavens apart just to search for the morning star.

Because he himself had to appear as hope to everyone.

The moment he collapsed, the Allied Kingdoms would have come to an end.

“Look.”

Ivan raised his hand and pointed toward the sky.

In the east, dawn was breaking, staining the heavens blue.

In the west, the moon had already lowered its head and disappeared.

Yet even at the edge of the sky—

Far in the distance—

The morning star still shone in the brightest hour.

Just as it had continued to shine through the darkest night.

“Ah…”

“That is the star your father carried in those days. Now it is the star you have inherited. A Hero does not mean the strongest person.”

“The… bravest person…”

“Yes. We called those who never knelt beneath any burden and never lost their smile, no matter the moment, Heroes. So now, you must become their Hero.”

Looking toward the survivors gathered in grief, Ivan pressed his hand firmly atop her head.

“Isabel, daughter of Maximilien. Raise your head and straighten your back. The sorrowful receive sympathy, but those who always smile inspire admiration. Stand with hope in your heart. Live by feeling gratitude for another’s sacrifice before guilt. Live in a way that proves to everyone that their sacrifice was not in vain.”

Like the morning star.

Never losing its light even beside the moon at its brightest.

Still shining clearly beside the rising sun.

As a symbol of hope.

Just like that.

Isabel stared blankly at Ivan for a while before suddenly coming to her senses.

“Have you ever thought about shaving that beard?”

“No.”

Ivan answered with visible disgust.