Side: Amahashi Kakeru

Grandma, in the memorial portrait.¹She looked so happy in that photo.

It was a photo from the last time the three of us had gone on a hot-spring trip together, before Grandpa passed. Maybe three years old by now, but we'd picked it because it was so like her.

The forty-ninth-day memorial was held at the family temple.²

It was a place I'd come to often when I was little; I'd played in the main hall plenty of times. Back then, I never once imagined Grandma's funeral and her forty-ninth-day memorial would be held here.

Once the whole series of memorial services was done, we interred Grandma's remains in the grave where Grandpa and our ancestors rested.

Sleeping in a deserted spot like this—wouldn't that get lonely? The thought crossed my mind for a second, but, well, Grandpa was here too.

I wanted to believe they were having a good time of it.

The interment was done and the relatives had left the grave, and as I lingered there alone, before I knew it my uncle had come back.

"Kakeru, are you holding up okay?"

"Yeah. I've made my peace with it."

I'd lived three whole years in another world. That much time had passed.

Over there, I'd taken many lives. Monsters, the demon race, and others besides—human lives too.

I figured I understood the weight of a life well enough by now, and it wasn't something to make a fuss over at this point.

"Did you cry? You've got to cry, or you won't be able to move forward."

I hadn't cried, really. There'd never been time for it. I'd just endured those three years over there on the single thought that I was going to make it home to Grandpa and Grandma. Without that, I didn't think I'd have come back alive.

They'd surely be proud of me. Grandpa and Grandma would.

"I'm fine. I've come to terms with it in my own way."

"Well, if you say so…"

In my heart I called out to Grandpa and Grandma—I'm home—and promised them I'd come again.

"Let's head out, Uncle."

"Kakeru, you've gotten stronger."

Those words nearly shook me. Even understanding it was half meant as encouragement, the thought that he might have seen through the difference from three years ago…

"That's because Grandpa and Grandma raised me."

I had to keep moving forward. There was still more for me to do. Pricia and the others were living in another world they had no ties to, in the middle of an uncertainty where they couldn't know what lay ahead.

I had to keep it together.

"So, then… who's your type?"

"Huh…?"

"Don't play dumb. There's no way you live with beauties like that and feel nothing. I'll bet even Grandma never figured the homestay folks coming over would be such knockouts."

Who's my type? Come to think of it, I'd never really thought about it.

They were all good-looking, and they weren't bad to be around or to look at. Even so, I might not have any feelings beyond that, anything like liking or disliking one of them.

I'd been keeping myself from thinking along those lines.

"Get yourself a girlfriend. You'll regret it if you don't fall in love while you're a student. Maybe it's because Grandpa and Grandma raised you, but you've always been kind of hopeless when it comes to that stuff."

At my uncle's slightly teasing tone, I let out a wry smile.

Maybe I did want a girlfriend. But when I thought about how much of my secret I'd have to let her in on, I figured I'd probably hang back.

"Must be nice, though. If only I were a little younger and single…"

My uncle was grinning, and it made me laugh, remembering the old days—when, right then, I sensed someone there. With my Skill sealed, I'd let my guard down.

"My, you two look like you're having quite the time. You can go back to being single, you know?"

My aunt was smiling sweetly, but her eyes weren't smiling at all.

"I—it's a joke, just to cheer Kakeru up, that's all…"

I quietly took a step back, careful not to let my uncle notice. Not that I was running away, of course. And my aunt wasn't really angry, either.

It was just that with me standing there, my aunt couldn't very well let it slide. Given the position she was in.

"Hey, Kakeru—oi! Don't run off on me!"

"Oh, Kakeru's fine. You were just being considerate, weren't you?"

I envied them, honestly. They bickered, but they got along, my uncle and aunt did.

Me too… Was I ever going to be able to have a marriage like that someday?

It felt like a tall order. I couldn't picture it at all.

Side: Noctia

I'd held out a faint hope that there might be some reason he'd been chosen as the Hero, but… so far, nothing to show for it.

Well, my real aim had only been to see Kakeru's homeland, so I didn't mind.

Still, perhaps because she'd seen Kakeru's homeland, the look on Pricia's face was clouded. They forced the role of Hero onto someone who never wanted it. If someone asked her whether there was any justice in that, she likely couldn't answer.

To begin with, where Kakeru and the modern Heroes were concerned, the summonings ran counter to the will of the gods. Among the demon race, there were even those who said they were not Heroes called by divine oracle.

I was mulling over such things when Kakeru came back.

"What do you all want to do after this? If we're heading back to town to stay at a hotel, we should start looking soon. My uncle and aunt said we could stay here, though. And if we do stay, they asked if we'd join the post-rite meal afterward. Apparently there's food left over from people who couldn't come at the last minute."

Kakeru looked low himself. He was hiding it, but he hadn't fully worked through his feelings about the family he'd lost.

To Kakeru, Pricia and the others were comrades, and I was the Demon Lord. I wasn't sure this was quite the right way to put it. Not a friend, not a lover, not family.

A working relationship. It was plain enough that, while he was over there, Kakeru had treated it that way as he struggled desperately to survive and make it home.

"If it won't be an imposition, we'd be glad to accept."

Pricia took up the invitation. With the human race, turning down this sort of offer caused friction. There was no particular benefit to refusing either, so of course she accepted.

But the moment Kakeru was gone, Pricia let a downcast look show plainly. So she'd noticed it too—that Kakeru was pushing himself.

"Pricia, you mustn't make that face."

"I know, Filia. But, you see, I remembered a story I read long ago at the royal castle. A tale called The Hero's Return. The Hero who defeated the Demon Lord was welcomed home warmly by his family and the people of his village, and lived happily ever after. And yet… Kakeru…"

No one had any idea what came after the return. For that matter, there was no way to even confirm whether a Hero had truly returned at all. And in spite of that, by teaching that the returned Hero lived happily, they kept themselves from feeling any guilt over sending him off to fight.

The human race's rulers were a vicious lot too.

"It isn't something to be so pessimistic about. Kakeru-san was surely working hard so he could come home here. We cooperated toward that as far as we were able. That fact doesn't change. And besides, we aren't the ones who summoned him."

Sanctina. In looks and in temperament she was anything but strong. And yet a core of strength showed through here and there. Was that the quality of a Saint, I wondered? Or was it something in her own nature from the start?

"You're right. I think the best thing we can do is help Kakeru face forward and find happiness."

Just as Filia was lending her support to Sanctina's words, Kakeru came back. It seemed the post-rite meal was ready.

Pricia was impressive, as ever. She had the bearing to keep Kakeru from seeing any of her hesitation or low spirits.

The Hero and the holy warriors. In ancient times, they were comrades gathered to fight the Demon Lord.

There was even a theory that it had all been an extension of a quarrel among the gods themselves—that the holy warriors, too, had been gathered to suit the gods' convenience.

I didn't know the truth of it myself.

That form, hollowed out by the passage of time, was taking on a new shape in the Hero's homeland. Was this something the gods had foreseen?

Perhaps Kakeru and the others were even beginning to outstrip the gods' own designs.