The Porter Has No Interest in the Hero’s Party

“Hmm, hmm hmm…”

The hero’s fake cough. His red face and all of us grinning. Everyone’s gaze was directed at the hero, who was sitting in his chair, deliberately focusing only on the map. Feeling our stares while we sat in our chairs, the hero opened his eyes wide, shook his head, and asked:

“Wh-what? What is it?”

“How adorable.”

As if agreeing with Ashuria’s words, Mille nodded, and I laughed outright. Lena, stroking her dagger, said:

“Nothing, we were just thinking how cute our hero is. So, are you feeling better today?”

“…… I’ll brief you on the next operation area.”

Since we knew he might really get upset if we teased him any more, we agreed to just smile warmly and brightly. Having escaped from the uncomfortable gazes, the hero regained his composure, his ear color returned to normal, and his stammering speech returned to its original serious tone.

Interestingly, the hero normally had a very tender voice, but when flustered or excited, his tone got even higher. Among nobles, there were many young men with such elegant and delicate voices due to never having to raise their voices, and the hero seemed to be one of those.

“Next, we’ll head to the Edels region. I’ve received orders for us to pack our luggage as quickly as possible and join the military camp, as there’s supposedly an intense battle happening with the demon race. We’ll probably be tasked with destroying key enemy facilities or assassinating commanders again.”

“I want to do it this time. I want to kill demons too.”

Mille said, raising her hand. The hero nodded with a faint smile.

“Sure. If there’s such a mission this time, let’s have Mille do it.”

“Yay!”

Mille’s childlike joy warmed the atmosphere for everyone. As usual, we packed our belongings and moved on to kill more demons.

Hoping that the next village would have even prettier and more attractive widows.

“Waaaaa! Waaaaaaaa!”

There’s a saying about the hour of the dog and wolf. It refers to twilight, when you can’t distinguish whether the shadow approaching you with sunset at its back is a dog or a wolf coming to devour you. We could only freeze momentarily when we saw the long spears placed on a distant hill and someone’s head impaled on the end.

The head, appearing only as a deep black silhouette against the backlight, couldn’t be identified as either a demon or an ally. The war had already ended before we arrived, and only the victory celebration remained. Our fate was divided into two options: join that party or end it.

The hero asked Mille:

“Um… Mille. Can you see who’s impaled on that spear?”

“I can’t see.”

Even with an elf’s good eyesight, it was impossible to clearly distinguish silhouettes while looking directly at the sunset. It would have been easier to tell if we could see flags, but either both sides’ flags were broken or cheers rose instead of flags, and spears swayed.

The hero carefully observed the spear silhouettes in the shadows, then heaved a sigh of relief and said:

“It’s human. The spear form is one of ours.”

The spears of the Empire and Kingdom differed in shape. The Kingdom’s spears were narrow in width and long, while the Empire’s spears were wide. The demons’ spears were an intermediate form, like elongated leaves.

Now, countless objects like pointed church spires rose and collapsed repeatedly before us.

Above those magnificent cheers, heads swung loosely. They were probably demon heads. Demons who were once renowned generals in this region were experiencing a lonely triumph, looking down at the plains they once ruled with their bodies abandoned elsewhere.

The hero said:

“Seems like we won. It’s fortunate we won, but…”

“This is kind of deflating.”

As Lena said, everyone looked deflated. We had minimized our rest time on the journey after hearing news of an intense battle in the village, but we didn’t expect to be greeted by fanfare and smoke.

Winning a war is good, but the feeling of not having contributed at all to that victory often leaves people with a strange sense of lingering regret. This feeling couldn’t be resolved with the consolation that it was fortunate not to have to fight. In fact, Mille, with a very depressed face, fiddled with her bow and said:

“I wanted to kill them…”

There was no time to guess why Mille was feeling down. Ashuria patted Mille’s shoulder and said:

“Mille, now is not the time to be depressed. You know that, right? We should announce our arrival, join them, and take a rest.”

“…Yeah. I understand.”

Mille regained her spirit at Ashuria’s assertive words. Lena whistled, and the hero walked ahead with his sword in hand. As we got closer, we could see more clearly people intoxicated with excitement, linking arms and cheering, or sitting down to drink water.

The soldiers embraced each other’s shoulders, and military songs could be heard. I scanned the soldiers’ figures, then turned my gaze.

“Is something wrong?”

Ashuria was there. She was looking at me with a strange expression. My expression must have been quite poor. Unusually, Ashuria gathered holy power in her hands and said:

“If your leg is sprained from the journey, I’ll heal it. It would be unfortunate to fall just as we’ve arrived.”

“No. I’m fine, Ashuria. It’s nothing. I was just thinking about something else. Contemplation is truly important time for a porter. You’d be surprised at how much philosophy is contained in my head.”

“…You seem fine.”

Ashuria nodded and withdrew her hand. Soldiers who spotted the hero began to cheer, beyond just dancing.

“It’s the hero! Hero! Hooray!”

“Hero! Hooray!”

It was quite embarrassing to receive cheers without having done anything. The soldiers, intoxicated with victory, repeatedly called the hero’s name as if he had brought the victory, and the hero, embarrassed, rubbed his nape and hunched his shoulders.

Lena seemed to enjoy the cheers, extending her hand to respond to the soldiers, and seeing the beautiful woman’s enthusiastic response, the soldiers raised their voices.

“Hooray! Long live the hero’s party!”

“Woooooaaah!”

“Hoooraaaay!”

The commander, sitting on a demon corpse, burst into laughter and waved his hand.

“Hahahahaha! Everyone, stop! Stop! The hero’s party has arrived, and the war is over! I’ve given you enough time to rejoice, now we must reorganize our formation!”

The commander descended from the corpse and bowed his head to the hero in greeting. From his movement sliding down from the corpses to his greeting posture, he exuded a noble’s dignity, like watching an elegant peacock. Though ordinary in appearance, his eyes were alive with intelligence, and his sturdy physique proved that he had navigated numerous battlefields with skill.

“You must be tired from the long journey, Hero. I am Randolph, the commander in charge of the Edels front.”

“Pleased to meet you. We moved upon receiving orders. Is there any mission you need to assign or need help with?”

Randolph raised his finger toward the sky. At the intersection of his finger and the pole was a demon’s head. It was a gruesome corpse even from afar, but up close, its loneliness and emptiness were amplified.

The soldiers lowered the pole at Randolph’s hand signal, and we could see the head cradled in Randolph’s hands.

“She’s beautiful.”

Though decapitated, she was a relatively beautiful demon. Her eyelashes were long enough to dust off dirt, her lips traced an elegant curve even without blood, and her expressionless face looked like a sculpture. Lena added to my muttering:

“In a way, isn’t this also a widow? What do you think?”

“Seems more like just a dead person.”

Randolph, ignoring our joke exchange, stood with a triumphant expression. The hero asked:

“By any chance, do you have information about what position this demon held?”

Randolph nodded. His confident demeanor made us watch him with great expectation. Had he, who annihilated the demons and beheaded the enemy general, also possessed outstanding information-gathering abilities alongside his military prowess?

At Randolph’s gesture, a soldier standing behind him presented a letter. Though splattered with blood, it was still readable.

“This demon’s name is Viezra. She was quite a famous commander among the demons. But who am I? I am Randolph, knight of Edels. I beheaded her in one stroke and commanded the soldiers to slaughter the remaining forces.”

At Randolph’s waist hung a sword thinner than others’ weapons. He seemed to be a master of the sword who freely ravaged the battlefield with that toothpick-like weapon. The hero nodded and unfolded the letter. Without anyone taking the lead, heads gathered to check the contents of the letter.

“As you’ll understand when you read the letter’s contents! This Viezra, as an officer favored by the commander…”

Everyone half-listened to Randolph’s excited explanation.

The hero read the letter with a serious expression, then frowned, and I, Lena, Ashuria, all looked at each other with strange expressions. Mille, who was more interested in Viezra’s head held by Randolph and hadn’t read the letter yet, had an expression of not understanding our atmosphere.

“What? What’s wrong?”

The hero silently passed the letter to Mille. Mille read it, narrowed her brows, then exclaimed:

“Ah! I’ve heard this name before. Isn’t it the name written in that letter from before?”

“…Yes. That’s right.”

What Viezra had been holding was a love letter.

[Viezra. I heard you’re having a hard time on the battlefield.

But I also heard that enemies tremble at your martial prowess.

Viezra. If I expand this front, the only demon I would entrust the assault team to is you.

I pray that you defeat the enemies with your martial prowess.

The demon who loves you most in the world.

Daemon.]

Very passionate.

“…What kind of demon is this guy anyway?”

Lena, who had been momentarily lost in thought, asked, but no one could answer her question. Daemon was truly a mysterious commander.