-Are they really… heroes who devoted themselves for the continent and humanity?
As a priest, Andrew couldn’t understand it.
How could they so easily smash the gravestones where comrades who fought and died together were sleeping.
They were five hundred knights who had left on the great expedition to the Demon Realm together, taking the lead and dedicating themselves with example at the very front.
They didn’t shake the continent with their names like the Eight Heroes, no one recognized them, but at least here, in this ‘Garden of Knights,’ the citizens had spent their own charity to raise these stones to honor them.
He couldn’t understand at all why they had to break them and ruin them.
“……”
I stood quietly in the center of the city’s square, looking at the gravestones shattered and scattering.
Originally, the names of five hundred knights,
“James, Noah, Lucas, Jacob, Zion, Bihma, Bram……”
those names still vivid in my head, should have been carved into this stone.
They deserved that.
Because they had risked death at the very front of the Demon Realm with me, dedicating themselves to the end.
Because they were honorable people who could throw away their own lives to protect family, friends, and someone else.
But the gravestones were broken, the surface was ground away, and instead they had been filled with other names.
『Maxim.』
『Gracia.』
『Master.』
『Darkstar.』
『Black Jade.』
『Banhee.』
『Wilhelm.』
『Lucifer.』
—The great eight heroes who saved the continent from the Demon Realm,
who saved humanity from the Demon King.
As if their own praise mattered more than five hundred knights.
They had packed it in, cramming it full like that.
I could tell how the Eight Heroes, at least Maxim, thought about the dead who had joined the great expedition.
They are pushing out the ones who truly fought, erasing them.
They are in the middle of wiping out the very fact that they ever participated in the great expedition.
Probably like Wilhelm.
“……All the honorable ones died back then.”
Only those who didn’t know honor,
only cowards and shameless wretches, survived.
But I have no intention of dumping responsibility on those who fled from fear.
Fear is instinct, and that place was hell.
But to run away and then pretend it never happened, and on top of that disgrace the honor of those who fought with everything they had, I couldn’t just watch.
Not only disgracing it, but nauseatingly claiming that honor as if they had done it, turning the real into the fake and the fake into the real.
And among those eight who shout about honor, ludicrously, there were even people who hadn’t participated in the great expedition at all.
I was genuinely curious.
Why are they doing this?
The world is in danger.
Pangaenia, Earth, everything is in a dangerous state.
When even joining hands isn’t enough, why are you trying so hard to split apart like this?
Why,
why does it provoke my anger this much.
“Knock it down!”
“That side! Put more strength into it!”
“Uh, it’s falling!”
Kuuuuung!
When I turned at the roar, I saw statues toppling over.
Statues carved in the likeness of the honorable knights who had led the Garden of Knights.
The identity of this city, its pride.
They were using the citizens to knock them down.
“We can’t do this anymore!”
“Why do we have to do something like this?”
“If you want to knock it down so badly, you do it yourselves!”
People resisted.
Then a soldier drew his sword.
“Do you want your necks cut and hung in the square too? This is an order personally given by the Eight Heroes, Lord Maxim. Marquis Weiser agreed as well.”
“You must’ve threatened him with force, there’s no way the Marquis would agree!”
“You bastards. What Eight Heroes? What did old lady May do wrong!”
“How could you do this to someone who only just found the strength to live again!”
“You sons of bitches! I can’t take it anymore!”
When the people rose up, the soldiers met them head-on.
“Anyone who resists dies!”
“You think we’ll be scared just because you say that?”
“Draw your swords!”
No matter how much they were Maxim’s soldiers, Maxim was still part of the Balan Kingdom.
Those soldiers were also of the Balan Kingdom, and this city belonged to the Balan Kingdom too.
Yet they drew swords at their own people this easily.
They didn’t even hesitate to kill.
I looked at the severed head hanging in the square.
‘May.’
The old woman who had sobbed in front of the gravestone when I first visited this city,
the true grandmother of Zion, one of the five hundred knights engraved on the stone.
I remembered carrying her collapsed body to Priest Andrew.
Only now, after all those days of tears because she couldn’t accept her grandson’s death, she had finally tried to live again, and yet.
The problem was that.
The gravestone. She must have protested because her grandson’s name was erased, and had her head cut off for it.
-Ignore it, and flee. If Maxim finds out you’re here, he won’t stay still.
Priest Andrew’s words echoed in my head.
Ignore it, and flee.
Right. Logically, that wasn’t wrong.
Maxim is strong.
Even if he was a deserter, he had been the mercenary captain of the mercenary corps I personally hired.
At least Level 10.
And a Level 10 who possessed the ‘qualification to transcend.’
Qualification to transcend meant raising every stat to the level cap.
Only those who reached Level 10 and pushed every stat to 100 could transcend.
If he had become even stronger than back then, or if by some chance he had transcended, there was no possibility I could win right now.
The most realistic method would be to ask the White King.
To blow up this bastard’s city together with Maxim.
“Aaagh!”
“You sons of bitches!”
So should I endure?
Compromise with reality.
Should I pretend not to see it and ignore it for now.
“I’ll do it.”
“Isn’t this why you hired me, so I’d dirty my hands in times like this?”
Isabella and Isaac drew their weapons.
At that moment.
《A ‘party’ has been formed.》
《A ‘bond’ effect is added.》
Now, for the first time, our rhythm matched.
《The ‘Heart of the Iron-Blooded Monarch’ does not exclude the emotion of ‘anger.’》
《This is something a monarch ought rightly to be angry about.》
《Hidden trait Quest: Iron-Blooded Monarch begins.》
I shook my head.
I didn’t endure.
As the Knight King, as the one who had led them, I had every right to be angry.
***
“So you’re the conman who claims to be the Knight King’s successor?”
Spinning his dagger, Maxim sneered.
He wondered who was causing such a ruckus, and it turned out to be some conman claiming to be the Knight King’s successor.
After the Knight King Wilhelm died, how many people had claimed to be his successor?
“How funny. A mere Level 6, calling himself the Knight King’s successor!”
Maxim burst into laughter.
Because the opponent who caused this mess was only Level 6.
Like this, Maxim could see his opponent’s level.
His Observation skill, ‘Level Confirmation,’ transcended twice, fixed and revealed the ‘level’ of everything in Pangaenia.
Since it was only for checking level, he couldn’t learn anything else, but that alone was enough.
Thanks to that, unless something had the ‘Unobservable’ option, he could confirm all of it.
The reason Maxim had survived this long.
Of course he had, he only fought enemies whose levels he could beat.
And a mere Level 6, he could tear apart with one finger.
‘He isn’t alone. Still, they’ll be nothing special.’
He didn’t think this fake successor could have made it here alone.
Besides, there were still people slaughtering the lord’s castle soldiers.
Party members, probably.
Because there were people helping him, it was possible.
“Marquis Weiser, did you bring in a fake like this to kill me?”
“……!”
“What should I do. I must kill him and then make you pay for your sins too—”
“Deserter Maxim.”
“……?”
Deserter Maxim.
Maxim frowned.
“Are you talking to me?”
“You ran the instant you saw ‘Ahram’ without even looking back, and yet you’re called one of the Eight Heroes?”
“……”
“You abandoned even the three hundred mercenaries who’d shared life and death with you, just to save yourself, how could you ever be a hero?”
“……!”
In that instant, the smile vanished from Maxim’s lips.
Almost no one knew about his desertion.
Except for the remaining Eight Heroes, everyone else was dead or had been killed.
Yet this ‘self-proclaimed Knight King’s successor’ was spouting a story no one knew.
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“Come to think of it, there was money you owed me.”
“Money?”
“Twelve million Gold. The money I paid to hire a bastard like you.”
“……!!!”
The amount he’d paid him personally, separate from hiring the mercenary corps.
No one knew that amount except the parties involved.
Only him, and Knight King Wilhelm.
Maxim’s mind snapped awake.
Someone who knew all the things nobody else knew.
“You bastard…… no way…….”
No way.
It couldn’t be, but,
if by some ten-millionth chance what stood before him wasn’t fake.
The true disciple of Knight King Wilhelm,
an insider,
or.
‘Phantom….’
Player, Phantom!
If not, none of this made sense.
But seeing a Level 6 brat staring him down so boldly, it couldn’t be Phantom. Phantom, like Maxim, never fought a battle he could lose.
Even if he wasn’t Phantom, he was certainly someone extremely close to Phantom.
‘If I push him to the brink, he’ll spill everything.’
If he could identify and lure Phantom and catch him.
With that information, he could grow stronger faster than anyone.
Becoming the sole hero, not one of the Eight Heroes, would be only a matter of time.
Hwaaaaak!
Black flames surged over Maxim’s whole body.
Demon Heart.
The star-like power that had made him stronger.
‘I’ll end it quickly.’
A mere Level 6.
He could tear him apart with one finger.
The kid wouldn’t even see his movement.
Maxim kicked the ground. Accelerating, he reached him in an instant and swung his dagger at the shoulder joint.
He would sever every muscle and tendon, then pour boiling water and salt into the wound and torture him until even forgotten memories came spilling out.
Chwaaaang!
……But it was blocked.
He saw the movement and blocked it exactly.
Maxim couldn’t help being puzzled.
‘What was that just now?’
Because that wasn’t the movement of Level 6.
And his hand and wrist hurt like they were burning.
There was no way such crude Iron Swords could deal that kind of damage.
“Holy water…!”
Only then did Maxim realize both of the bastard’s Iron Swords were coated in holy water.
Not ordinary holy water either, but clearly the highest-grade holy water.
Just clashing blades had stung this much.
“You had something to rely on.”
Maxim chuckled softly.
Sure, he’d barged in because he had something like that.
But he still didn’t think he’d lose.
Even if the swords were coated in holy water, all he had to do was not get hit, right?
With holy water that high-grade, there couldn’t be much of it.
At most, just a little smeared on the blade.
‘Acceleration of Evil.’
Maxim’s heart began to pound like mad.
His eyes darkened, and the world slowed down.
A world of acceleration only for him.
The absolute authority he had gained by absorbing the Demon Heart!
Toward the painfully slow bastard, Maxim moved in all directions, circling fast.
His speed was astonishing enough to leave afterimages.
It was toying.
The kid would fall without even knowing where he was stabbed while standing still.
Repeat that a few times, and he’d tremble with helplessness.
With a triumphant smile, Maxim thrust his dagger.
Sseuuk!
Ppuk!
“Keoheok…?”
But the short scream that came out was his own.
Among countless afterimages, the kid caught the real body and stabbed it precisely.
He didn’t know how he’d done it, but a minor hit would normally heal by the Demon Heart’s regeneration.
Yet Maxim couldn’t come to his senses.
‘W-what is this amount of holy water?’
The flesh around the pierced chest rotted away at a terrifying speed.
A high-level body is hard as steel. And a body reinforced by the Demon Heart couldn’t be cut by anything.
But it was cut. Cut, and decayed. Regeneration was impossible.
He couldn’t believe it.
He couldn’t accept it.
How could a mere Level 6 catch movements beyond Level 10, and on top of that deal damage?
This wasn’t a case of smearing a little holy water.
He had drenched the entire sword in it.