Only the Party Members Returned, Not the Hero

34. Justice of the Hero (3)

34.

Elise looked at me wondering if she was serious, and as I continued to hold out her hand, she let out a sigh and nodded her head, saying yes.

“I don’t know if you would believe me if I said this now, but there was something I wanted to say.”

This time Elise held out her hand to me.

It’s clean, but the swordsman’s calluses are white.

“Please lend me your sword for a moment.”

There were many people who wanted to borrow a sword today.

I lifted the sword I had kept at her waist and put the handle in her hand.

Luxurious armor and an old sword.

Elise held my sword vertically, examined the blade and her handle, and began injecting her mana.

The blood-red mana climbed up the sword, covering the blue light remaining on the blade.

“It’s a cheap sword.”

“I will not deny it.”

“But you used it like a holy sword.”

“… I will not deny that either.”

For a person who could only get one sword, the quality of the sword becomes unimportant.

Elise laid her sword flat on the ground and ran her bare hand over the side of her sword to stroke it.

She closed her eyes and quietly whispered her magic phrase.

The magic circle goes up from the handle of the sword to the tip of the blade.

“Hero, do you know why swordsmen call sparring a sword talk?”

Opening her closed eyes, Elise held out the handle of her sword to me again and said,

Receiving the sword she handed me, I shook her head.

“The sword leaves traces of the person’s habits and mindset, how they use it in training, and even how they use it in combat. The longer the sword is used, the more it stands out.”

To be honest, I don’t know because she’s never looked at someone else’s sword, but I think I can understand what she’s trying to say.

“I think the warrior must have guessed Darhan’s personality and attitude while sparring.”

“That’s right.”

“So, your sword I just touched.”

Elise paused her words for a moment.

It’s true that the twilight dawn makes people sentimental, but she reconsiders whether it’s okay to pour out her heart to Ellen.

If Ellen gets stronger, she’s good for Tanya too.

Besides, as Tanya told Ellen, she wasn’t the worst person.

Occasionally he would say or act in a way that nobles don’t, but it wasn’t to the point of feeling bad.

Perhaps there was a misunderstanding between the two.

Or, her own brother’s unilateral fault.

After finishing her worries, Elise opened her mouth again.

“… I thought she was similar to my sword from the past. At that time, I was so caught up in the past that I couldn’t think properly.”

Obsessed with the past.

She stared at Elise, wondering if she was saying something after she had investigated me, but her eyes were infinitely serious.

It wasn’t a reprimand or sarcasm, it was an eye that reminded me of the past.

“You must be aware that Tania was banned from anchoring.”

“I found out about it in the past.”

“After I found out about it, I shuddered with guilt and apology. The fact that the curse that runs through the Ergeneuque family bloodline was placed on my younger brother, not on me, became a burden on my heart, as if I cowardly escaped judgment.”

Elise did not think that her talent was special.

She inherited some of her excellent talent from the Ergeneuks family and excelled her others, but that was it.

I thought that if there was anyone who could truly be called a swordsman genius, it would be Tania, not herself.

So, one day when her mother cautiously called herself.

When the anchor was forbidden, she shed tears saying that she had been manifested by Ananias.

Elise’s heart was tied to her sister and dragged around.

“At that time, I swung my sword like a warrior. And, why am I saying this anyway?”

Elise held her empty hand in the air as if supporting her wine glass.

When the cool dawn wind passes through her grasp.

The translucent red mana created a sword that looked just like my old iron sword.

“Because black manago and mana are images.”

It was beautiful.

She too, her kendo.

“Take your sword, Ellen.”

The tip of the red sword pointed at me, and I instinctively coated the iron sword with blue mana.

As a precise, sharp thrust was directed at my right shoulder, I deflected the blade against the blade.

The blade of the iron sword is blocked by the wrist guard.

“Why do you think the warriors symbolized justice and goodness? And why do you always think the demons are defeated in the end? Because of the existence of a goddess?”

Mana collides with mana.

“Among the images that people can contain, the strongest is justice.”

Elise’s slash is blocked by my blade.

“It’s good.”

I pushed the sword to the side and turned her body one full turn to create a horizontal cut towards Elise’s side with rotational force.

“Because it is hope.”

Kakang-

Red mana and blue mana explode.

“What’s in Ellen’s sword?”

On my sword.

Elise’s footsteps are pushed back by the bell slashing that struck like lightning.

The ground in the pasture where her feet were planted dug deep, and a spider web-like incontinence formed.

My sword contains anger.

Elise stands up with her sword to block the horizontal slash that cuts through the wind.

Once again she is pushed long to the side of her.

The sharp sound of metal waking up the dawn resonates.

My sword contains destruction and hatred.

“Ellen, you now.”

The red magic that was manifested as Elise’s sword began to chip and crack here and there.

“I am holding a sword that is more suitable for a demon than a warrior.”

Shoot down towards Elise again.

No swordsmanship or anything.

An iron sword of overwhelming destructive power, a mixture of her physical power and her magical power, is directed towards her.

If you block it, it’s strong enough to lightly break Elise’s sword.

But.

Elise didn’t stop.

“… ?!”

The long, red magic sword was scattering into the air before I knew it, and her magenta eyes stared at mine.

A sword that breaks quickly.

The sword that passed her forehead narrowly cut through the air and hit the ground in the meadow.

By all means –

The blue mana that could not be captured drew a half moon, cut the floor, and tore the magic circle surrounding it to shreds.

The blue mana, which devours and pulverizes anything at random, stopped only after devastating one side of the forest for a while.

In pastures that have almost doubled.

I looked at Elise with empty eyes.

My sword swung at the end contained longing.

Before the day I became a hero.

Even before the day I entered the warrior school.

Just before the day my father became an apostate.

Even if you are not rich or famous.

Nostalgia for the day when I was able to enjoy everyday life.

“… You are really strong More than anyone I’ve ever seen. Ellen.”

I couldn’t find the lost days again, so my sword contained the malice that had accumulated arbitrarily, like drawing a picture that had already been ruined.

“But in order to cut the same level of mana, you must draw the future.”

“Why?”

“Not to regret, but not to regret.”

A drop of red blood flows from Elise’s forehead.

“Not to hate, but not to hate.”

Ride the forehead, ride the eyelids.

A drop, two drops, riding on the skin that flickers once, forms under the eyes again.

“Not for longing, but to not miss any more.”

The blood that flowed down like tears soaked the floor.

“Mana originally flows forward, so Ellen must find a reason to wield her sword in the future, not the past.”

In order to cut what can’t be cut, that’s what you have to do.

Elise told me.

***

“… However, I am not forcing you to forgive. Ellen.”

Elise started calling me Ellen, not a hero.

The person himself didn’t realize it, so he had a nonchalant expression on his face.

The bandage on his forehead was a little funny, but it was inevitable.

“Did you know?”

“Not all, but some. It is already a widely spread rumor that you and the expedition members are not on good terms, and I have always heard about you from Tania.”

“I must have cursed all kinds of things.”

“At least not recently.”

I sighed.

Elise’s words were not the absolute truth. She just told me in her own way about the problems she had and how to solve them.

I was free to decide how and how much to accept.

However, it occurred to me that what she said was not entirely wrong.

A sword more suitable for a demon than a hero.

Perhaps, before I returned, I became a demon.

No justice, no good, hostile to the goddess.

There was no reason not to be a demon.

“Ellen, I can’t understand your past, and I don’t know if I have the right to say this to you in the light of my sister’s faults to a large extent.”

Elise sat on her floor with her buttocks pressed next to me, who was sitting with her legs crossed.

She hugged her knees and stared at the empty space in front of her.

“I want you to win as a warrior.”