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It’s a cliché thing to say, but the Demon King, the one who had taken over Hein Sera Aster’s body, was unbelievably strong.
Just awakening as a Hero wasn’t nearly enough. I had to grow through countless battles to the death after that. Even then, it still wasn’t enough.
If it weren’t for my reliable companions, I don’t think I’d be standing here now.
But defeating a Demon King with that kind of power wasn’t going to come without a cost.
Friends, family, a lover, I lost many things I held dear.
Still, when I finally defeated the Demon King, I thought we’d done it. That the world would finally be at peace.
But reality wasn’t so kind.
At first, the people and nations all praised us.
They honored even the comrades who had died along the way.
Of course, that didn’t mean the pain of losing someone important, of losing Serena, ever went away.
But still, it offered a small comfort.
Eventually, though, everyone grows used to it.
They grow used to peace.
I still don’t really understand how things ended up that way, but at some point, the three of us started being watched by the Guynes Empire.
It’s not entirely unreasonable, I guess, fearing those who hold enough power to defeat a Demon King.
Whether or not it makes sense is another matter.
Those unpleasant days dragged on, until the inevitable happened.
The first was Emmy.
She was poisoned during a banquet.
Next was Gardem.
Someone told Gardem who killed Emmy. He went to avenge her, walked straight into a trap, and was killed.
The Empire claimed that they had only been monitoring us because remnants of the Demon King’s army were lurking nearby.
They said it was those remnants who had killed Emmy. Who had killed Gardem.
I believed them.
And I went on a rampage, crushing every remnant I could find in pursuit of revenge.
But the Demon King’s remnants were clever. They hid well, they ran well. I couldn’t wipe them all out.
Those days went on and on.
And just when even the once-mighty power of the Hero began to fade.
That’s when the Empire made peace with the Demon King’s remnants.
They said the constant fighting, even after the Demon King’s fall, had left everyone weary of war.
After the peace was declared, demons were to be treated as demi-humans.
There’s no way I could accept something like that.
So I protested. I lashed out. And before I knew it, I’d become the enemy of both humans and demi-humans.
Not just demons this time, humans too.
But with my strength waning, it was only a matter of time before I was taken down.
Wounded in a skirmish, I dragged myself into the forest and collapsed inside a hollow tree.
Watching my blood slowly spill out, I kept asking myself,
What went wrong? Who was to blame?
But no matter how much I thought, no answer came.
And so, wishing I could do it all over again… I died.
◇
What happens when a person dies?
I wondered about that as a child, but I never thought I’d get to find out firsthand.
When I woke up, I was still me. But time had somehow regressed.
I didn’t know why. I couldn’t explain it.
Still, I was glad. I felt like I’d been given a second chance.
My child-sized body took some getting used to, and moving around freely again was miserable until I adjusted.
But when I saw my parents alive… I couldn’t help crying.
They had died during the great invasion, when the Demon King’s army returned in full force.
So I began to think about how to make the most of this chance.
I came up with a lot of plans, tried many things, but in the end, one goal remained.
I had to stop Hein Sera Aster from becoming the Demon King’s vessel.
And while the Demon King was searching for a new vessel, I would destroy his soul.
A Demon King without a vessel, just a soul, could be beaten by me alone.
Even if I wasn’t at my peak, I could still draw on a decent portion of my power as a Hero.
That’s why I decided to grow closer to Hein.
The reason the Demon King possessed Hein was because his soul leaned toward darkness.
The Demon King could only inhabit a body with an evil soul.
That was something we had learned over the course of our journey.
But there were two major obstacles.
First, Hein himself was an unbelievably awful person.
Second, I hadn’t realized just how much I hated Hein.
The day I enrolled, the moment I saw his face, my blood boiled.
I saw how coldly he treated Serena and couldn’t stop myself from stepping in.
And thanks to that, Hein probably hates me now.
Or so I thought.
I started noticing that this world was different from what I remembered.
Hein, who had been so violent, brutal, and vicious, was strangely quiet.
He even spoke politely to the teachers.
Sure, there were still some similarities to the Hein I knew, but even so, he was clearly not the same.
Still, that didn’t change what I had to do.
Whether I liked it or not, I had to get close to Hein, crush any seeds of evil within him, and make sure there was no room for the Demon King to take hold.
Then, before the world even realized the Demon King existed, I would destroy his soul.
All of this needed to be done as quietly as possible.
That way, the world would never recognize the Hero as a dangerous entity, and Serena, Emmy, and Gardem would all survive.
Even if the enemy turned out to be human, they wouldn’t see the Hero Party as a threat.
The same goes if they were demons.
The Demon King would simply disappear without anyone even knowing. There’d be no one left to seek revenge.
It really did seem like the perfect plan.
But I quickly realized it was going to be harder than I thought.
I couldn’t get close to Hein at all.
Like this morning…
「Hey!!! Good morning, Hein!!!! Beautiful weather today, huh!? 」
I tried to cover up my disgust with a loud, cheerful greeting, keeping things upbeat and casual, but…
「……」
Hein glanced at me like I was a rock in the road, then ignored me.
Sure, he wasn’t snapping at me just for making eye contact like he used to, but fundamentally, nothing had changed!
Hein was still a bastard!!
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