The Last Place Hero's Return

Marianne stared ahead in disbelief, her mouth hanging open as if she simply could not comprehend the situation unfolding before her. “What in the....”

Even if the negotiations had failed, neither she nor the others could have imagined I would launch a sudden attack here, in a room where all the Masters were gathered.

“A-are you out of your mind?” she shouted.

I shrugged. “Well, that’s the question I should be asking you.”

Her face twisted with anger. “Johan!”

Johan sprang up as if rebounding off the floor and drew his sword. “You bastard!”

A Master truly was a Master after all. Even though I had smashed his head straight through a hardwood table reinforced with special magic, so sturdy it could dent steel, the only injury visible on his forehead was a small scratch.

A brilliant white aura ignited around the blade of his sword. Johan’s strike came sweeping toward me in a beautiful arc. If the word textbook were refined to its extreme, perhaps this was what the resulting sword strike would look like. There were no dazzling tricks, no flashy techniques. And yet, the curve traced by his blade held such perfection that it inspired awe.

Johan’s swordsmanship had indeed reached a level worthy of the title Sword of the Holy Empire. But that was all there was to it. Watching the incoming sword, I smirked. Ashen Flames flared as they wrapped around me. An enormous surge of mana erupted from my soul stigmata and spread through my body.

I didn’t even need to draw my sword. The release of pure mana alone slowed down Johan’s ferocious attack. The gap in our mana reserves was so overwhelming that any comparison was meaningless. If mana among heroes functioned like weight classes in a fight, then the difference between Johan and me right now was greater than that between a five-year-old child and a grown adult.

Normally, the gap wouldn’t have been this big. However, with high risk came high return. Absorbing the remnants of the Demon God had increased the risk of turning the world into ashes, but it also granted power worthy of that risk.

“Johan!” Marianne shouted.

A burst of radiant white light exploded from her, swirling through the room and flowing directly into Johan. With the blessing alone, Johan’s mana instantly multiplied two or threefold. It was such an enormous boost that it explained why Marianne, despite being a support-type combatant whose combat ability was difficult to measure, firmly held the second rank among the Masters.

However, before me, the boost didn’t matter much. At best, it was like a five-year-old had suddenly become ten. I simply muttered, “Ignite.”

With a thunderous roar akin to a lightning strike, the entire headmaster’s office trembled. The blazing embers greedily devoured the white light, swelling with even greater intensity.

Johan stared at me, stunned, as the Ashen Flames burned away his mana. “This is insane!”

* * *

Johan had already known that Dale’s mana was abnormal ever since the incident with the Warp Gate, but this was incomparable to before. Moreover, Dale didn’t even look strained. Back then, Dale had unleashed an enormous amount of mana, but looked like he would collapse from exhaustion at any moment. Now, he was simply crushing Johan with an absurd amount of mana as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Camellia suddenly rose from her seat. “Dale!”

For a moment, Johan allowed himself a sliver of hope. Perhaps the Empress would intervene and calm this insane situation. However, contrary to his hope, it was the complete opposite.

She declared, “I shall fight alongside you as well!”

“Are you kidding me, you lunatic!” Johan couldn’t help but spit out a crude curse utterly unbefitting a man of the clergy.

He already had no chance against Dale alone. Now the Empress herself was joining the battle against him. Johan clenched his teeth and turned toward Marianne. If he had been alone, he would have fought to the death without hesitation. But Marianne stood behind him. She was the Pope who carried the future of the Holy Empire and the Seven Star Church on her shoulders.

* * *

Johan lowered his sword and bowed his head. “We’ve lost.”

“Good thing force works even when words don’t,” I said nonchalantly.

The remark angered him. “You bastard!”

“Do you understand now?” I asked.

“Understand what?”

“Reality.” I pulled a fallen chair upright, sat down, and continued, “To be honest, I don’t know exactly how powerful the Prophet of Eternity is. However, at the very least, he was strong enough to bring about the death of the Demon God five hundred years ago. He accomplished what even the Great Five Heroes ultimately failed to do.”

Slowly, I turned my head and looked at the five Masters in the room. “So, let me ask you something. Is there anyone here who believes they’re stronger than the Great Five Heroes?”

“Hmph. What kind of question is that? Naturally, I am far stronger than them,” Camellia immediately replied.

“Ah, right,” I muttered. Camellia indeed had the right to say something like that. I turned to the others. “And the rest of you? Does anyone else think they’re stronger than the Great Five Heroes?”

Silence fell over the room.

After a moment, I continued, “The Prophet of Eternity’s goal is the end of this world.”

“The end?”

“Yes. Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Basically, a rather elegant way of saying, ‘Let’s all go to hell and die together,’” I explained.

Shock appeared on their faces.

“If I’m a bomb that might explode someday, then the Prophet of Eternity is a bomb that is guaranteed to explode.” I looked around at the Masters with sunken eyes. “Are you confident you can stop him without me? A man who accomplished what even the Great Five Heroes could not?”

“Well....” Johan trailed off and averted his gaze.

I continued, “This isn’t a matter of belief. Honestly speaking, whether you trust me or not doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. This is a matter of reality.”

This wasn’t about believing someone or not. There wasn’t even room for such leisurely debates.

I stared at them again. “You asked me earlier if I was in my right mind. Let me ask you the same thing. Your Holiness, what exactly were you thinking when you asked me to die?”

“I...” Marianne was at a loss for words.

“If I die, what happens next? Can the Masters gathered here combine their strength and stop the Prophet of Eternity? You’re already struggling just to deal withone person, me.”

“T-that’s...!” The Pope tried to retort but fell silent in the end.

“Justice without strength is hypocrisy. Conviction without power is deception.” I stared directly into her eyes. “I’ll ask again. Can you stop the Prophet of Eternity with your power alone?”

“I...”

Marianne shut her eyes tightly. For someone who had devoted her entire life to the Seven Star Church, the very existence of the Demon God was so impure it made her stomach churn just to speak of it. It was something that could not be compromised with, something that could never be tolerated. But the wall of reality standing before her was so vast and overwhelming that she could barely even feel that sense of impurity anymore. It was so immense that it could shatter the beliefs she had carried her entire life.

“I retract my earlier statement,” Marianne said with a trembling voice. “I will cooperate with you.”

Johan was shocked. “M-Marianne? What are you...!”

“It’s my decision as the Pope.”

“But...!”

“Johan!” Marianne stomped sharply. “If you continue to defy my orders, I will exercise my authority as Pope and excommunicate you from the Seven Star Church.”

Johan bit down on his lip so hard it nearly bled and lowered his head.

Marianne turned to me with sorrowful eyes. “Is this enough for you?”

If the Prophet of Eternity truly was the approaching apocalypse and if the Demon God was the only hope of escaping that end, then she would willingly cast aside her beliefs and join hands with the Demon God. That was the responsibility and duty she bore as the Pope.

“Yes. I respect Your Holiness’s decision,” I said firmly.

Hesitation and conflict lingered in Marianne’s expression, but there was no need to press the matter. This alone had definitely taken immense resolve from her. Not many people were capable of abandoning their faith in the face of reality. It was especially so for a religious figure who had lived her entire life guided by belief and devotion to the gods, even more so when the one she was compromising with was the Demon God she had spent her whole life hating. Such a compromise would feel like denying her entire life.

That was why I extended my hand toward Marianne with the utmost respect. She took my hand and smiled bitterly, saying, “The Pope who joined hands with the Demon God... Perhaps future generations will remember me as the worst Pope in the history of the Seven Star Church.”

“But without that decision, there might not even be any future generations to remember you,” I said.

“Dale, you say rather cruel things for someone who doesn’t look the part,” she replied.

“What do I look like?” I asked.

“Heh. Well, I have quite a few things I’d like to say, but there’s a rather scary woman glaring at me from over there.” Marianne glanced toward Camellia, shrugged, and sat back down.

“Whew. Now then.” Headmaster Ryu, who had been staring around the wrecked office with complicated eyes, let out a deep sigh. “What do you plan to do about that video? We may still cooperate even after learning your identity, but I doubt most heroes will feel the same.”

“I have someone who can help with that,” I said.

“Someone who can help?”

“Albert Hoover. He’s a cadet,” I added.

“The son of the Hoover family? The one that controls the greatest information guild on the continent?”

“Yes.”

Headmaster Ryu frowned thoughtfully. “No matter how powerful their information guild is, covering up an incident of this scale would be difficult.”

“We won’t cover it up. In fact, we’ll do the opposite.”

The headmaster looked at me with clear confusion. “What?”

“In that sense, I’d like to ask all of you for a bit of acting,” I said.

Leaving the Masters staring at me in bewilderment, I curled my lips into a grin.

* * *

At a garden filled with pure white chrysanthemums, a man wearing a white mask sat lazily in a rocking chair, humming to himself. With anticipation in his voice, he murmured, “Well then, how will they respond, I wonder?”

Just then, a hurried voice called out to him. “P-Prophet!”

“What is it?”

“Well... T-these videos, they’re spreading in the heroes’ community.”

On the screen that the follower brought up, several videos played. They all had the same composition, only the people in them were different.

—Lionel Ryu, from now on, you are the Demon God.

—Camellia Padsha, from now on, you are the Demon God.

—Marianne, from now on, you are the Demon God.

—Johan Basilio, from now on, you are the Demon God.

—Khalid Han, from now on, you are the Demon God.

In the videos, Amon, or something that looked like Amon, was surrounded by raging flames, shouting repeatedly at the Masters that they were the Demon God.

The Prophet of Eternity looked at the videos and let out a quiet laugh. “Well, would you look at this bastard?”

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