The Former Hero Began To Be Re-Evaluated

21 – The Third Hero (4)

I know this is not just an illusion.

I had the illusion that I was just following the path, but I wasn’t the one who couldn’t tell the difference between that illusion and the real follower.

There was definitely someone following me right now.

‘There is no one in particular…’

Then who on earth is it?

No matter how much I thought about it, it was difficult to think about someone following me.

Not only am I not a warrior now, but this is not the empire where I mainly work.

I can’t say that I stayed quiet because there were things like preventing a rebellion there in the border kingdom of Artes, but that doesn’t mean I did anything that would make anyone follow up.

Besides, you dare try to follow the hero?

It was impossible to do that unless the person had a very strange hair condition.

What is following me?

I was quite curious and waited for the person to appear.

“…”

And then the other person finally showed up. When I saw that person, I felt a little dispirited.

“Beast race?”

It wasn’t anything special.

The opponent who appeared before me was just a beastman with black ears and a tail.

It was a girl of the beastman tribe, slightly similar age to Lia.

There wasn’t anything special about it other than that it looked pretty cute.

Then why did this child follow me?

The reason could be seen just by looking at it.

You can tell by looking at the sloppy outfit and slightly gaunt appearance.

I guess it was because of the smell of the food I brought during the ancestral rites that I was drawn to it.

It is not that uncommon for a beastman to walk around starving like that.

Because the beast people were the target of discrimination in the empire.

People say that I am a human being with ears and a tail, and that I feel bad or something.

Because of this, the beast people are persecuted and end up engaging in various bad things.

And then they are persecuted for doing those things again, and they continue to be discriminated against in a bad cycle.

I wondered if there was any need to discriminate, and I wanted to eliminate discrimination if possible.

As a warrior, I was too busy dealing with demons, so I didn’t have time to worry about it.

“Is this what you want to eat?”

Anyway, if you wanted food, there was nothing I couldn’t give you.

I was going to leave it like this anyway and go back.

Because I couldn’t eat it all by myself.

Even if a good thing is good, if you can share it, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to share it.

I asked a girl from the beastman tribe.

“Give it to me.”

Uh huh… With Malbonsae.

Apart from his cute appearance, he had a very foul mouth.

Huh. Look at this?

If someone sees it, will they know to leave it to you?

“Give it to me. I’ll give it to you if you do it.”

After hearing those words, the thought of just giving it away disappeared.

It’s okay to just give it, but shouldn’t the recipient feel at least some gratitude?

I waved the food in front of my eyes and provoked it slightly.

“…”

It was a girl from the beastman tribe who gritted her teeth while looking at me like this.

It looked like it wanted to rush in and steal the food right away.

If you make good use of the physical abilities unique to the beast people, you will have a high chance of winning against an ordinary adult male.

But, they couldn’t rush to attack me right now.

Your sixth sense seems to be quite sharp, huh?

The beast people have instinctive senses.

Instinctively, you can tell whether your opponent is stronger or weaker than you, and if you are strong, you can tell how strong you are, and if you are weak, you can tell how weak you are.

There are differences in the sixth sense among beastmen, but the beastman girl in front of me seems to be very sensitive.

It wasn’t Nafira…

He must be feeling quite a sense of fear from me, a former hero.

“Please give it to me. They say I’ll give it to you if I do it?”

But the reason I couldn’t run away was because I was so hungry.

I didn’t say much.

Who is eating it?

You can eat a lot of delicious food with just one word, so I don’t know why you don’t.

I slowly waited for the beastman girl.

“…Give it to me. If I do, will you give it to me? Really?”

In the end, the girl from the beastman lowered her tail.

He asked me carefully, feeling much more relaxed than before.

No, I didn’t completely let my guard down, but I still wanted to eat food, but since this was the only way, I felt like I was doing it reluctantly.

“Okay. I’ll give it to you.”

I confirmed her question once again.

If you do, I will give it to you.

“Please.”

After receiving the confirmation, the girl from the beastman tribe answered right away.

“Now eat.”

I did as I was told, so I should keep my promise, right?

I moved to the side.

So that she can eat food.

“Wagjak wagjak.”

She finally got her food.

The girl from the beast-human tribe immediately rushed to the food and started eating it.

Even as she stuffed the food into her cheeks, she did not let go of the food with both hands.

Well… Eat it slowly. It’s not like I’m running away.

I couldn’t help but chuckle while looking at that scene.

But the laughter quickly died down.

‘Now that I think about it, you met Napira like this, right?’

It was because it reminded me of memories with my warrior party member, the beast Naphira.

In the past, when I, a warrior, was traveling with my party members, I discovered Naphira.

Her starving cat, I fed her her own food.

And he let me into the party.

I couldn’t ignore her when she said she wanted to make her tribe independent.

I remember liking her because she was talented and tried hard.

‘A real b*tch…’

But in the end, he was a traitor.

Who would have thought such a betrayal would occur?

I have taken good care of you, but is it right for you to throw me away like that just because I was fired from the position of warrior by the Prime Minister?

Even now that I think about it, I wonder if there really are such b*tches.

If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have been nice to you.

I shouldn’t have given him food or included him in the warrior party.

“Shall we take off now?”

After…

For a moment, I thought about a party member from the past.

These are bad relationships that I don’t want to think about any time I think about them.

I’m still a stranger anyway, so I guess I’ll have to do it slowly.

There was a long way to go.

I guess I should stop thinking about random things and get started now.

I was about to leave this place.

“But why do you keep following me?”

When she turned her head, she saw the girl who had given her food earlier.

He continued to follow me from about 10 meters behind.

No, why are you following me…?

# # #

“That… That…”

The party members wanted to avoid answering Alex’s question as much as possible.

Once again, the questions Alex asked were not ones that could be answered carelessly.

However, Alex persistently forced them to answer, and the party members could not avoid it.

In the end, I had to answer something.

“We have to follow the hero. Still, we are party members of the hero’s party, so if we don’t trust the hero, who can we trust? We have that level of trust.”

In such a situation, Aila had no choice but to step forward.

She said she would still follow the hero.

For now, we have to get over this situation…

Of course, she didn’t know what those words meant.

She was fully aware that it would be like saying that she would actually participate in her treason.

But the reason she said this was because she really had no choice.

Each of the party members of the warrior party could not give up their own goals.

What happens if they disagree with Alex’s words and he doesn’t accept them as warrior party members?

The party members were the ones who were in the most trouble.

But I couldn’t report Alex to anyone else.

They were warrior party members who had already failed to subdue the demon king twice.

Would you trust these party members? Or will you now trust the warrior appointed by the Prime Minister?

The result was obvious.

Now was the time to thank Alex for accepting them as party members and agree with his words.

I decided to think about things later.

“I see. The saintess will follow me. hahahaha. This feels good.”

After hearing Aila’s words, Alex smiled with great satisfaction.

Because he heard what he wanted to hear most.

“What about the other party members?”

“I… I will follow you too.”

“Me too.”

“Me too.”

After hearing Aila’s words, the other party members also agreed.

In the end, they all had the same thoughts as Aila.

Even if there was a risk of treason, they could not give up the purpose of joining the warrior party.

Now was the time to instill trust in Alex.

Because it shouldn’t have happened in the warrior party.

“hahahaha. Thank you. Thank you so much for trusting me so much.”

All party members fell for his words.

Alex smiled contentedly as he looked at the party members.

“Of course, I’m not saying that’s really the case, so don’t worry too much. hahahaha. It’s just a joke.”

And, he once again emphasized that it was a joke.

He said he was just asking.

“Now we have to defeat the demon lord. Let’s leave quickly.”

Alex took the lead.

Anyway, what a hero had to do was nothing else but defeat the Demon King.

I should take the party members with me and set off for the next destination.

‘… Is it okay to follow a hero like this?’

The party members followed Alex one by one.

And Luna, the wizard of the warrior party, had no choice but to follow.

However, I continued to feel worried.

Is it really okay to trust and follow a hero like this?

I was worried when I was Herald, the hero before Alex, but I wasn’t this worried back then.

The Herald basically didn’t feel like putting the party members in danger.

But, Alex is different.

If I followed a hero like this, I felt like something really big would happen.