Chapter 76

* * *[ Belita ]* * *

‘A hero?! Why is a hero… why is he here…?!’

Belita trembled like a rabbit facing a tiger, breaking out in a cold sweat.

The hero of Hervor, Heid.

The man standing before her eyes was a monstrous existence she had never even imagined meeting, one she should never have encountered.

Heroes were originally beings like swords prepared by the Goddess to defeat the Demon King.

Between Belita, who was nothing more than a vicious criminal, and the title of hero, there was as vast a gap as between a goblin and a dragon.

Of course, even if one received the hero’s engraving, they wouldn’t immediately become strong enough to face off against the Demon King, so Heid, who had received the engraving not long ago, wouldn’t be as powerful as the heroes in stories, but…

“Uh, uh, uhh…”

For Belita, who was shaking with her teeth chattering, there wasn’t much of a difference.

Whether an opponent ten times stronger than her or a hundred times stronger, either way they were equally impossible for her to face.

She could tell just by looking. The man standing before her was so strong that she couldn’t even touch a hair on his head.

“Won’t you at least bow your head, you lowly thing?”

Heid slightly narrowed his refined eyes as he looked her over, then tossed the lump of meat he was holding in his left hand at her feet.

With a thud, it fell to the ground and rolled like a ball, stopping as it hit the tip of her foot. A lump of meat about the size of a head… no, the head itself.

“Ugh…!”

Belita reflexively looked down and gasped as if a centipede had touched her bare skin.

A man’s head, horribly mutilated with dried blood caked all over it.

The bulging eyes were unfocused and glazed over, the nose had been completely torn off, and the lips were sewn shut with thick thread.

A face that looked like it had suffered terrible torture at the hands of a gloomy and cruel pervert. It was a face she knew well.

They weren’t close, and if anything, he was closer to being an enemy, but still.

‘Hicks…?!’

The 5th ranked Abyss Priest of the Exorcism Reversal Society. Hicks the ‘Sewn Mouth’.

Like Ord, who was ranked 4th, he was one of the Abyss Priests that Ariane had warned might interfere in this matter and to be cautious of.

…Judging by his appearance with everything below his head missing, it seemed he had chosen the wrong place to interfere.

“Judging by your reaction… it seems you were indeed in cahoots with these ones.”

“Oh really? That’s too bad. I should have burned her more slowly then!”

Diren, the female magician who had incinerated all of Belita’s subordinates with a flame storm, grinned with a face that didn’t look regretful at all as she walked up next to Heid.

“We had quite a hard time dealing with that one!”

A woman with slightly dull blonde hair tied in twin tails and green eyes. Her large, slightly upturned eyes resembled those of a mischievous cat.

“We even let one escape! How embarrassing, embarrassing~!”

“Diren. Your manner of speech.”

Another woman who walked up behind her admonished Diren that her way of speaking was excessively flippant.

A woman in armor with the same dull blonde hair and green eyes as Diren.

Her long hair cast shadows on her face, and with dark circles under her eyes, she had a haggard look as if she hadn’t slept for ten days.

“You’re the one who’s too gloomy, sis! You should smile like this, like this~”

Diren pushed up the corners of her own mouth with her index fingers as she spoke frivolously. As if pointing out her sister Diarin’s expressionless face that looked like she had seen it all.

“…”

Diarin didn’t answer. Nor did she smile. In fact, she wasn’t in the mood to smile at all.

The only thing Diarin wanted now was one thing: to cut off that red-haired woman’s head, end this farce, and return to the city.

“Diren. Be quiet for a moment. Can’t you see I’m speaking?”

Instead of the silent Diarin, Heid turned slightly to the side and restrained Diren.

“Ah, yes! I’m sorryyy~”

Diren nodded with a frivolous tone and covered her own mouth with her right hand.

It was an attitude that was not just childish but extremely disrespectful, yet no one in this place pointed out Diren’s behavior. Though for different reasons.

Heid just smiled faintly as if watching the antics of a jester, while Diarin kept her mouth shut knowing it was pointless to say anything more.

And Belita was in no position or situation to point it out in the first place.

‘These ones…? Not ‘this one’ but ‘these ones’… and she said one escaped? Then.’

Belita could now fully understand the situation.

The fact that the two Abyss Priests who had been after the Jötunn heart, Ord and Hicks, had moved together and were simultaneously crushed by Heid.

Probably Ord had somehow managed to barely escape, while Hicks, who couldn’t escape, ended up like this with only his head remaining before her.

“Magic to control hordes of monsters, and the curse of ‘Silence’ that interferes with spellcasting. Both were quite troublesome fellows.”

Heid turned back to look at Belita and opened his mouth.

“However, you… don’t seem like you’ll be much trouble.”

A clear death sentence.

A chilling fear surged up her spine and struck her mind. The all too vivid sensation of death awakened Belita’s survival instinct.

Boom!

Belita reflexively kicked off the ground and launched her body with all her might.

‘I have to escape…!’

Not towards the man standing before her with his guard completely down, but in the exact opposite direction.

There was no option to fight.

She was certain that even if she used the troll’s arm and her innate blessing simultaneously to launch a surprise attack, her own neck would be separated before her fingertips could touch the opponent’s head.

These were opponents who had faced two priests blessed by the Abyss simultaneously, killing one and chasing off the other without a scratch.

Even Ariane, Belita’s master, would give up fighting alone against such formidable foes.

“Is that a rabbit?”

…In fact, even the option to escape didn’t exist for her now.

Crunch!

As Diren muttered lowly while looking at the fleeing Belita, the ground where Belita’s feet touched opened its maw and grabbed her ankles.

Earth attribute binding magic.

“Ugh, this…!”

Belita gritted her teeth.

In an instant, mounds of earth had risen up and enveloped her entire lower body from her ankles to her waist, hardening like rock.

‘It’s over…!’

Belita was certain there was no way to escape.

Although the troll’s arm could easily shatter such rocks, these opponents wouldn’t give her the leisure to do so.

“How impolite. I didn’t give you permission to leave, yet you try to turn your back on me of your own accord.”

Heid approached leisurely while mocking her.

Belita felt as if she was seeing her whole life flash before her eyes.

“If you wish to depart, first put down that chest. Then I’ll allow you to leave this place. Just your soul, that is.”

Leave your body behind, he meant. It was blatant mockery. Mockery that no matter how much she struggled, there was no way for her to survive.

Belita had already accepted this fact, but…

“…This Lady Belita cannot leave empty-handed.”

She still had one choice left that could be called a final struggle.

“Is this heart so precious to you? Your Highness the Prince.”

So she forced a smile on her trembling lips.

As death approached, she recalled the orders her master had given her.

Find and seize the Jötunn heart.

That was Ariane’s first order.

It was an order that had now become impossible to fulfill.

However.

There was still a second order remaining.

If you can’t bring it back… destroy it. So that no one can obtain it.

If I can’t have it, no one can.

The second order, overflowing with the mindset befitting an Abyss Priest, breathed a final strength into Belita’s left arm.

Crack!

Before anyone could even try to stop her, the troll’s arm crushed the huge chest into pieces.

Along with the half-rotten lump of flesh inside.

“…Hah.”

Diarin lowered her head deeply and let out a faint sigh.

“Ah…! She crushed it! What a waste!”

Diren jumped up slightly with an exaggeratedly shocked face as if fireworks had exploded right in front of her.

“How about it? It’s meat porridge made by this lowly woman herself. Would you like to try some?”

Belita smiled as she showed the crushed flesh dripping with rotten fluids.

It was a smile born from the satisfaction of somehow fulfilling the second order, and the contentment that even though she was going to die anyway, at least she had managed to irritate her opponent.

“Ha.”

Heid also clicked his tongue and laughed. Though the emotion contained in his laughter was of an entirely different kind from Belita’s.

“You lowly thing. You insist on making me waste my time. Did you not think you would regret this?”

Heid asked while wrapping his right fist with his left hand. To Belita’s ears, it sounded like a threat that he would make her regret it.

“Ha. I’m going to die anyway, what’s there to regret?”

Of course, such a threat wouldn’t work on Belita who had already given up on her life. She was going to die either way, so what was there to regret?

“You think you’ll be able to die? How shallow-minded.”

“What, are you planning to keep me alive and torture me? Go ahead and try, you brat.”

Belita, who had given up on her life, spat and cursed. She was no longer afraid of Heid.

Surely a prince of a country wouldn’t stoop to raping her, and at most he would just torture her a bit or throw her to the prisoners in jail.

If it came to that, she could just commit suicide right away.

Before Heid could get close enough, she could smash her own head with the troll’s arm and it would be over cleanly.

Belita took a deep breath and put strength into her left arm again. Swallowing dry saliva to suppress her clinging to life.

“Well… it will be quite different from what you’re thinking. Very much so.”

Heid chuckled at her defiant answer and then pulled out his sword with his right hand.

The holy sword of the Kingdom of Hervor, Tyrving.

Squelch, squish…!

A wet tearing sound like flesh and bone being ripped and crushed.

Belita stared blankly at the scene before her, even stopping her attempt to smash her own head.

“You, what are you doing…?”

It was a sight that would inevitably make one’s head go blank.

Anyone brought here, not just her, would have ended up with a dumbfounded face like hers if they saw this scene.

“What, arm…?”

If they witnessed the sight of a man pulling a longsword out of his own left arm.

“Ugh. That looks painful. Sis, why does our country’s holy sword look like that?”

“…I don’t know.”

Diren shook her head with a disgusted face. The sight of a serrated longsword tearing through and emerging from a person’s arm seemed to be a grotesque spectacle even to her.

Squelch…!

And so, the holy sword of the Kingdom of Hervor, Tyrving, finally revealed itself to the world.

In the shape of a longsword with a hilt one and a half hands long.

A purple gem was embedded in the center of the crossguard, and small serrations densely covered the blue-silver blade, giving off an ominous atmosphere.

“Whew…”

Heid let out a long sigh as he lowered his left arm after pulling out the sword, and the left arm that had been split in half stuck back together and healed completely.

It was a phenomenon Belita couldn’t understand.

Both the fact that such a sword was inside a person’s arm, and the fact that the arm that had been split open while pulling out the sword instantly returned to its original state.

‘…Wait, isn’t that supposed to be a holy sword?’

A summoning method that seemed more like a demonic sword than a holy sword.

Confused by the incredibly bizarre sight, Belita didn’t even realize it herself, but she had ultimately lost the chance to commit suicide by smashing her own head.

“It’s over.”

Before her mind could regain its senses, Heid pointed Tyrving’s blade at her and activated its power.

“…No, perhaps I should say it’s a new beginning?”

As an incredibly cruel smile spread across Heid’s lips-

Woong!

The gem at the base of Tyrving’s blade vibrated lightly and emitted a purple radiance.

The power of subjugation.

An absolute power of brainwashing that no one in the world except those with the hero’s engraving and the Demon King could resist, penetrated Belita’s mind like a fog.

“…”

Diarin, who had been quietly watching this scene, spoke softly.

“…Isn’t this a waste on a woman like her?”

A remonstration asking if it wasn’t excessive to use the holy sword’s power on a lowlife who could be finished with a single strike.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’ll keep her in that state forever.”

Heid snorted lightly as he answered.

The power of subjugation that Tyrving possessed could brainwash up to three people at a time, but this didn’t mean it could only be used three times in a lifetime.

It was just that if he tried to brainwash more than that, the brainwashing of the first person would be undone.

“Even so, she’s of no use as combat strength…”

“Shouldn’t she pay the price for making me waste my time? Besides, this wench is likely a minion of the Abyss Priests. She might know some useful information.”

“…Punishment and information gathering. Is that all?”

Diarin’s voice lowered further. Her tone seemed to carry a hint of interrogation.

“Diarin.”

Red eyes filled with displeasure. Heid muttered Diarin’s name in a low voice, as if in warning.

The atmosphere became so chilly it seemed killing intent might flow. At that tense moment.

“What’s this, what’s this? Sis, are you perhaps wary of a new woman joining? How cute~!”

Diarin’s sister, Diren, hugged her sister and made a fuss. As if asking why everyone was being so serious.

Heid, who had been staring at her expressionlessly, soon let out a faint sigh and erased the displeasure that had settled in his eyes.

“Don’t cross the line, Diarin. And don’t pity that thing either.”

“…I apologize for my rudeness.”

Diarin answered with her head bowed deeply. With her lips tightly bitten behind the hair covering her face.

“Prince, Prince! What should we do with this woman? What would be the most fun?”

Diren glanced at her sister’s head, then smiled brightly again as she clung to Heid’s arm and asked.

“Well, whether she’ll be useful or not… we’ll have to find out from now on.”

“If she’s not useful, will you kill her? Burn her to death?”

“No, rather than that… Hmm. Yes, that would be good.”

Heid, who had been pondering for a moment while stroking his chin, nodded as if he had come up with a good idea and answered.

“We’ll make her show the most shameful appearance she can imagine in the middle of the capital’s square. So that she’ll engrave unforgettable shame and humiliation in her heart for the rest of her life.”

If the brainwashed Belita turned out to be completely useless, he planned to play with her for a while and then throw her in the square when he got bored, ordering her to self-harm in a shameful state.

“How about it? Doesn’t it sound interesting?”

“That does sound fun!”

Diren clapped her hands and laughed while clinging to Heid’s arm.

“…”

Diarin, who was standing behind them, just silently stared at the dazed Belita with eyes as dark as a corpse’s.

At the woman who had met someone she shouldn’t have met, done something she shouldn’t have done, and as a result, had been robbed of her right to die as a human being.