“Temar, what are you staring at?”

“......”

“What, are you out of your mind?”

A mocking tone.

So light it felt like it might float away.

It was a familiar way of speaking, yet the voice sounded strangely unfamiliar, and it dragged Temar’s mind awake.

Temar’s dark brown eyes traced the person in front of him with obsessive attention, studying every detail.

Blond hair bleached nearly white by the sun.

A face that had lost all its baby fat, a height that had shot up.

But those deep amber eyes were the same.

“......”

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

The habit of smiling with his eyes half-folded, the curve lingering at the corners of his mouth—even that carried something almost businesslike.

It was Luman, with a face far too beautiful for a Hero.

“Your age....”

Temar started to speak, then pressed a hand to the side of his head as if a headache were coming on.

“Why?”

“...Nothing.”

“Get it together. You need to guard the young lady properly. You already upset your brother enough.”

“Guard her?”

“That’s strange. Temar, are you sick or something?”

“...No.”

For some reason, Luman felt unfamiliar.

A strange thing.

For a companion who had always been by your side to feel unfamiliar.

Looking irritated, Luman told him to get a grip, punched him lightly on the shoulder, then went back to where the campfire was burning.

It was camp.

The fire crackled, lighting the faces of the people sitting around it.

The face of a girl with purple eyes and hair. Ren’s face. The face of a man smiling with his eyes....

That girl was Coco?

Why was Ren here?

The two of them were dozing.

He could have sworn he had heard voices just now.

But for some reason, that man irritated him.

Temar walked over to wake Ren, but—

Luman grabbed his hand.

Because Temar’s hand had already seized the smiling man by the throat—the man with the long scar running across his face—without either the sleeping girl or boy noticing.

“Temar! Are you insane?!”

“Ah.”

“‘Ah’? ‘Ah’?! Are you crazy?”

“Khh—cough—!”

“......”

“Temar. If you don’t want to wake your brother, let go. You haven’t forgotten what Ren said, have you?”

Ren’s words suddenly came back to him.

That he hated dishonorable Heroes.

When had he heard that?

The moment strength left Temar’s hand, Luman kicked him back and caught the man.

Though “kicked back” only amounted to forcing him back a step or two.

Breathing roughly, the man shook his head as if trying to clear it. Luman patted him on the back. A cluster of light flicked from his fingertips and sank into the man. The man’s breathing calmed somewhat, and with a face still pale from shock, he looked at Temar.

Startled. Frightened.

“Are you all right? Hey. Mr. Dell Belkerman.”

“He bothers me.”

“What?”

“What did I say?”

Temar muttered blankly.

“How about you go wash your hair in the stream or something?”

Luman looked disgusted. His golden eyes swept over Temar as if suspecting him.

But Temar only felt wronged.

It didn’t feel like he was the one speaking.

His mouth was moving on its own.

“Let’s kill him.”

A fierce light flashed from Temar’s left hand.

“Temar.”

That man—that man—lifted those disgusting lips and smiled. As if the gasping breaths of a dying man had all been an act. Then his eyes rolled toward Ren, sleeping leaned against the girl like a puppy.

He should rip those eyes out—

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

As if answering him, light condensed in Luman’s hand too. A blindingly bright light, one that would swallow Temar whole without hesitation at any moment.

Only when he saw that light did Temar barely manage to shut his mouth.

What was this?

Why was he like this?

Was he dreaming right now?

But everything felt too vivid for that. The tingling drag of his nerves was no dream.

Temar forgot even what he was doing. He only acted the way he was made to act.

He stopped thinking altogether.

As he ate, as he spoke to Ren, Temar only kept repeating the same thought:

Ren had gotten so big before he even noticed.

Ren and Lady Coco went into the carriage. Their quiet murmuring voices drifted out pleasantly.

A cliff, of all places.

That thought crossed Temar’s mind for no reason.

Didn’t □□□ die on a cliff too?

But right now, everything was so peaceful.

They were riding along when the carriage suddenly stopped moving, as if something had caught in the wheel. Looking down, a jutting rock had jammed itself perfectly against it. It was wedged so tightly it looked like they would have to lift the entire carriage.

Temar and Luman had no choice but to get off their horses to move it.

“Don’t get down.”

That wasn’t something Temar said.

His lips formed the words on their own.

But it was as if Luman couldn’t hear Temar’s voice at all.

And Temar himself didn’t understand why he had said it.

Then he obediently followed Luman anyway, stepped down from the horse, and put his feet on the ground.

The carriage exploded that very instant.

Masked men appeared above the cliff.

And soaring up into the sky along with the shattered fragments of the carriage...

were the severed limbs of two people.

Why?

How was that even possible?

Was it shock?

Or was it a premonition—that something that had always been bound to happen had finally arrived?

Maybe it had simply been inevitable.

Bodies wearing out after being used to the breaking point. One year away from the battlefield.

And even so, the quiet arrogance that no one would dare stand against a Hero—

maybe that was what had led them here.

For it to end this meaninglessly...

Even though they had always known Heroes could die.

Luman’s and Temar’s eyes met in midair.

Blood burst over them like a fountain, drenching their whole bodies.

Even on the brink of death, the only thing Temar could see was Ren throwing himself off the cliff.

Temar couldn’t even speak.

With vision soaked in blood, all he could do was track Ren’s back, his brother’s expression, the place where he was falling.

He couldn’t even save Ren.

There was no way he could live with his arms and legs cut off.

Even for a Hero, that was impossible.

He didn’t know how much more generosity the “Hero’s Miracle” would show them.

No—

how much more of its curse.

It had merely been forced onto them.

A Hero had never been allowed to refuse it.

A face like an evil spirit sticking its head from black smoke leaned out.

“Ha ha ha ha! I only snuck a little of it out, but the effect is incredible. Gives me chills. To think it would really work. To see a great Hero end up like this.”

That easygoing voice licked /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ at the dying Heroes’ ears like a snake.

Bell Delkerman, his gentle mask now gone, revealed a face the Heroes knew all too well.

The face of a man stained with murder and blood, driven by red madness.

The very face of the man Temar had grabbed by the throat.

That bastard dragged his bright red tongue across his lips and looked down at the Heroes, now reduced to little more than torsos and necks, as if mocking them. Cruel delight gleamed in his eyes.

“Haaah... so it’s true what they say. A Hero without authority is no different from a fragile beast. Heh heh heh.”

“Ha ha ha ha!”

Bent over laughing, Dell Belkerman straightened and smiled pleasantly.

“Captain.”

“Captain.”

“The young lady...”

“Forget it. I’ll go after her myself.”

“You don’t think she died, do you?”

“As if. Didn’t you see that man jump after her? Honestly.”

Dell Belkerman rubbed the scar running across his face.

“I don’t get why people struggle so hard when they’re going to die anyway. Heh.”

“What should we do with the bodies?”

One of Dell Belkerman’s men glanced at the Heroes.

His face was blank with disbelief, like he still couldn’t accept that the death of Heroes was right in front of him.

“Throw them somewhere. Whatever. Hm. I was hoping at least one of them would still be alive. Think the little brother knows anything?”

“Looks like he doesn’t know a thing.”

“Even so, he should still be useful enough. As long as he doesn’t know those two are dead.”

Dell Belkerman bared his teeth and grinned.

“Well then, shall we go hunting? Clean this mess up properly. We should get rid of the bloodstains. There’s way too much here to pass it off as blood from mere injuries.”

Dipping a finger into the Hero’s blood pooled on the ground and lazily licking it off, Dell Belkerman threw himself over the edge of the cliff.

By then, Luman’s and Temar’s bodies no longer functioned properly.

Pain like an axe splitting their core apart hit in time with their slowing heartbeats. Agony raced through their severed limbs and burned through every tiny cell in their bodies. Their vision blurred, then was swallowed by darkness. It felt like being consumed by fire.

In the end, only hearing and pain remained.

Ah... maybe thought too.

Temar wondered dimly.

So this was how a Hero died?

It wasn’t exactly the glorious death the name suggested.

This was the first time even they had experienced the pain of having their whole bodies cut apart.

There had been times when swords pierced deep through their stomachs, times when deep stab wounds split their backs open—

but never pain so great it cut thought itself in half.

Right now, nothing at all was dissolving into Temar’s memory.

Darkness and pain.

That was all.

He probably would have died like that.

If one name and one face had not risen in his mind.

If he had not remembered the one death he never wanted to face.

“That kid. Pretty thing.”

“A girl?”

“No. Heh.”

“You really are sick in the head for liking boys.”

“At that level... you could manage too.”

Dell Belkerman’s men had pulled off their masks and were snickering.

After the filthy jokes came talk of what to do with the boy and the girl.

Violation was already the decided first step.

After that, the only question was how long they’d be used before dying miserably.

Inside a body already dead and broken, thought moved slower than a miracle from a billion light-years away.

A boy? Who? Ren? Who’s Ren?

Use him?

Their end?

“The end is obvious. Heh.”

The men burst into helpless laughter, making crude gestures with their hands.

All while they kept shoveling dirt over the blood soaking the ground and spilling over the cliffside.

Temar couldn’t remember clearly.

He didn’t know what kind of monstrous trick it was.

The pain ripping through his body doubled, and with the sensation of every part of him—every vein, every cell—being dragged back out and forced together, he found himself standing on his feet.

The arms and legs that had been torn apart and crushed across the ground began clumsily reattaching. The blood that had soaked the earth red as if predicting death crawled back into their bodies like insects. At the very last moment before death, the white light of radiance had brought forth the Hero’s Miracle.

Feeling that savage force coil around his body, Temar exploded into motion and slaughtered them.

And then he threw himself from the cliff.

The crushing thing inside his mind, like it had endured eons beyond counting, had already swallowed the human being named Temar whole.

The fear on the faces that met him when his vision cleared—

Temar slaughtered them.

He jumped from the cliff, severed Dell Belkerman’s head in a single strike, and kept killing until Luman left carrying Ren.

Temar had forgotten there was even anyone beside him.

The only thing he remembered, vaguely, was....