JULIUS, AGE 17: ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Soon, the whole world learned that I’d been attacked by demons.
The demon race was ending its long silence and going on the offensive.
Rumors spread like wildfire, and the empire began tightening its security at the border.
I started preparing myself so I’d be ready to run into battle at a moment’s notice, too.
But the demons made no further movements, and time quietly went on.
“It’s the hero!”
“Sir Hero is here!”
The excitement of the adventurers who came to greet me goes to show how desperate they are.
We’ve arrived in a wasteland near a certain village, where a simple base has been built.
Really, it’s just a few tents with virtually no defenses, so it can hardly be called a base at all.
The adventurers are using this modest outpost to fend off a monster invasion.
“Now we’ll be able to beat that earth specter!”
An earth specter is an earth-attribute variation of the spirit race of monsters, which is said to be nearly as dangerous as dragons.
The way these creatures live is very different from normal monsters. In fact, some say it’s not even clear if they’re living things at all.
They appear out of nowhere and produce small spirits, their underlings.
Then the small spirits gradually spread throughout the area, while the parent specter stays in place and keeps spawning more. Meanwhile, the unleashed minor spirits will start to attack any living creature they encounter.
This cycle continues indefinitely unless the specter is defeated.
On top of that, small spirits are considered C rank as soon as they’re born, a danger level at which most average adventurers would form a party to defeat an individual monster.
And while even one small spirit requires that level of countermeasures, a specter can produce about ten small spirits a day.
If left alone for more than a week, that could easily be a big enough force to devour an entire town.
Thus, specters have to be defeated by adventurers or soldiers as soon as they’re discovered.
Fortunately, since they produce so many small spirits, they’re not hard to find. If anyone stumbles upon a small spirit, the parent is bound to be not too far away.
And for some reason, spirit monsters only appear in areas close to civilization.
If they started producing small spirits in an area far removed from any settlements, they might create a number of small spirits without being noticed, until it would be near impossible to defeat them, but that has never happened in recorded history.
Instead, they announce themselves as if asking to be found.
It’s not known how spirit monsters are born, and they have certain features that make them seem like nonliving things, such as not needing to eat or sleep. Some people even believe that they’re tests from the gods.
But I don’t really care about the truth behind them.
As long as spirits are monsters that cause harm to people, I have only one course of action.
“What’s the earth specter doing now?”
“It would be faster to show you than to explain. Come this way.”
The person in charge here, a general from this nation who also participated in the anti-human-trafficking force, leads me outside the tent.
“Over there.”
He points at a place so distant that it’s barely a speck to the naked eye.
The earth specter is surrounded by countless small spirits.
It looks like a strange figure made out of rocks and dirt, like something inhuman making a creepy attempt to imitate one.
And it’s surrounded by a swarm of small spirits—smaller than the parent but still vaguely humanoid.
However, since these ones are scrabbling around on all four thin limbs like insect legs, they look like an even more disturbing imitation of humanity.
At a glance, there are at least thirty.
“There’s quite a lot of them.”
“We’ve been fighting to try and reduce their numbers, but we can barely keep them from increasing. The soldiers and adventurers are getting exhausted, so it might be difficult to even keep that much up before long.”
The general turns back toward the tent and heaves a sigh.
The tents are full of injured soldiers and warriors or others who are taking turns resting.
They all look visibly drained, and even the general himself looks far more haggard than when I last saw him.
The battle against the spirit will continue until the parent spirit is defeated, and it keeps producing small spirits all the while.
But the spirit itself is around the same danger level as a dragon: rank S.
This has to do in part with the small spirits that it continuously produces, but even on its own, the monster is not an enemy that can be taken down easily.
“Time is of the essence when fighting a spirit. Let’s move out to defeat it right away.”
There are adventurers and soldiers fighting the small spirits even now.
But no matter how many they defeat, the parent spirit will keep making more unless it’s defeated itself.
The general and his forces are getting more and more exhausted, but the enemy can keep producing small spirits indefinitely.
“But you’ve just arrived, Sir Hero. Are you not tired?”
He suggests that we should rest first, since we arrived so late at night, but I shake my head.
“I’m sure you and the other people here are far more exhausted than I am from fighting for so long. It wouldn’t be right for us to rest while you continue to battle. Right, everyone?”
I turn to the rest of my group.
“Fine by me.”
“Of course!”
Hyrince and Yaana respond at once, and Jeskan and Hawkin nod mutely in agreement.
“All right, then let’s go!”
Everyone else nods firmly.
“General, please gather anyone who can still fight. We’ll charge in with everything we can muster.”
“Understood!”
The fire returns to the haggard general’s eyes.
I watch as he rushes over to the tents, then I head out toward the earth specter with my friends, helping others who are fighting small spirits along the way.
“Sir Hero?”
“It’s the hero!”
“Hooray! Hooray!”
“Now we can win for sure!”
The people who were fighting the small spirits fall in step behind us.
They’re deeply exhausted, yet they follow us with firm footsteps.
Now that the hero has joined the fight, they finally see a chance to win this endless battle.
That restores their fighting spirit.
“Everyone! I’m here! We’re going to win this battle!”
I shout encouragement in order to raise their morale even further.
A chorus of war cries echoes through the wasteland.
I defeat one of the small spirits with a single spell.
Small spirits are C rank, so they’d pose a fair challenge to an ordinary adventurer, but my stats as the hero make it easy to defeat them.
And as I defeat more spirits along the way, the soldiers and adventurers who were busy fighting them all join us.
By now, we’ve almost reached the earth specter.
It seemed normal from the camp, but now that we’ve gotten close, I can see that it’s easily three times the size of a human.
And there’s a ring of small spirits protecting it.
“We’ll deal with the earth specter! The rest of you, draw off the small spirits around it, but don’t take on more than you can handle!”
I start weaving a spell as I call out orders.
Of all the monsters I’ve fought, the earth specter is second in danger ranking only to the likes of the phoenix and the Nightmare of the Labyrinth.
I can’t hold back!
“Here we go!”
My wide-range light spell crashes into the earth specter and its surroundings.
I was hoping this might wipe out a bunch of the small spirits in the process, but no such luck—the earth specter countered my spell with Earth Magic.
It constructed the spell so quickly!
Ever since I embarrassed myself by walking into the demons’ trap, I’ve been training whenever I have any time to spare.
I still can’t compete with Master, of course, but my magic has gotten considerably stronger.
Yet, the earth specter was able to counter my spell in an instant.
One thing is for sure: This is going to be a tough fight.
The small spirits scatter toward us.
“Counterattack!”
As I call out to them, light envelops all our allies.
Yaana has cast support magic on them to temporarily raise their stats.
Hyrince moves in front with his shield at the ready and blocks the first of the small spirits.
“Raaah!”
The spirit slams into his shield, but he pushes it back.
Other small spirits make their way around Hyrince’s shield, but Jeskan and I cut them in two.
At the same time, battles with the small spirits are breaking out all over the place.
“Keep pushing forward!”
“Right!”
Jeskan and I press onward toward the earth specter, defeating small spirits as we go.
The earth specter smashes a hand into the ground and grabs the giant boulder that emerges.
“Look out!”
Just as Jeskan shouts, the earth specter flings the boulder toward us.
It’s huge—huge enough to flatten our bodies easily.
I launch a Holy Light Sphere at the giant boulder.
The balls of rock and light crash into each other and explode.
Hyrince uses his shield to fend off the small rock fragments that fly toward us.
We keep moving forward, closing the distance between us and the earth specter.
The earth specter seems to realize that it can’t defeat us with boulders and smashes both its hands into the ground, shaking the entire area.
For a spirit that manipulates earth, causing a local earthquake is no challenge at all.
Some of the soldiers and adventurers tumble over or fall to one knee.
While my companions and I don’t lose our balance, we do stop moving.
Then the earth specter’s arm swings toward us from the side.
“Hyrince!”
“Guh?!”
Hyrince, who was spearheading the group, gets sent flying, along with his shield.
“Bastard!”
Jeskan takes this opportunity to get up close to the creature’s legs and swing his ax at its shin.
“Eh?!”
But his ax makes only a shallow cut before it stops.
This thing is tough!
“Hunh?!”
The earth specter deals a sharp kick to Jeskan, sending him flying just like Hyrince.
Then I bring my sword down toward the monster’s head.
While the earth specter was focused on Hyrince and Jeskan, I used Dimensional Maneuvering to get above it and prepare one big strike.
But the earth specter raises its hand to protect its head from my sword.
See if I care!
“Aaaargh!”
My sword fills with the power of holy light.
Then it slices the earth specter’s arm right off and plunges into its head.
The earth specter topples backward, hitting the ground with an enormous rumble.
But that wasn’t enough!
The earth specter is still alive.
I have to finish it off while it’s still down!
As I career toward the ground, I take my sword in my other hand, pointing it down toward the creature for the finishing blow.
The earth specter swings its remaining arm toward me.
“Julius!”
Hyrince’s shield and Jeskan’s ax block the arm together.
They both threw their weapons simultaneously to try to stop its attack. However…
“Oof!”
The earth specter’s arm doesn’t stop, and it smacks me down hard.
I hit the ground once, then bounce back upward. As that happens, I activate Dimensional Maneuvering and manage to land on my feet.
“Urk…”
As I cough violently, the taste of blood fills my mouth.
I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy.
The earth specter uses its intact arm to right itself.
Its other arm has been cut off, and its head has a deep fissure on the top.
The monster’s definitely taken a lot of damage, too.
I guess we’re about even.
But then my entire body feels better all at once.
It’s Yaana’s Healing Magic!
She’s been behind us with Hawkin all this time, but she must have cast Healing Magic on me from a distance.
Thank goodness! Now I can do this!
The earth specter swings one of its legs upward.
Is it planning to use its leg to cause an earthquake now that it’s missing one arm?!
“Not gonna happen!”
Jeskan’s sickle and chain wrap around the other leg, the one keeping it upright.
“Heave-ho!”
Then Jeskan and Hyrince pull on the chain with all their might.
Since it was standing on one leg, the earth specter pitches sideways, about to fall.
While it tries to recover, I shoot four Holy Light Spheres at it.
Simultaneously firing multiple spells—the biggest attack I can do right now.
“Gooo!”
The four balls of light crash directly into the unbalanced earth specter, knocking its body backward instead.
The monster crashes down onto its back again.
This time, its body breaks apart, and it shows no signs of standing up again.
“Did we win?”
A voice breaks the silence, followed by others.
“We won!”
“We wooooon!”
Cheers erupt around the battlefield.
I raise my sword toward the sky. “Come on! Let’s clean up the rest of these small spirits!”
Forcing back the desire to collapse on the spot, I focus my energy on getting rid of the rest of the spirits.
Some belated reinforcements come to join us, and before long, we’ve wiped out every last small spirit.
We carry the giant remains of the earth specter back to the village, where we’re greeted by a chorus of cheers from the villagers.
Now these people are free from the threat of the earth specter.
That thought instantly puts a smile on my face.
“Here, Mr. Hero!”
I turn around to find a little girl offering me a flower.
“Is this for me?”
I crouch down to her eye level and accept the flower—just an ordinary wildflower, the sort you could find anywhere.
“S’all peaceful here now thanks to you, Mister!”
“Thank you.”
To me, the little girl’s words and the flower she gives me in gratitude are worth more than the most expensive bouquet.
It makes me feel like what I’ve done wasn’t for nothing.
“You’re so cool, Mr. Herooo!”
As I gaze at the flower, a boy suddenly pushes aside the little girl and jumps in front of me.
“You beat that thing, right?! How can I get strong like you, huh?!”
The boy points excitedly at the remains of the earth specter and looks at me eagerly.
I know that boys his age admire strength, but…
“You can’t.”
“Huh?!”
Brushing the boy off with a cold response, I walk past him and kneel next to the girl he pushed aside, who’s sitting on the ground crying.
“That must’ve hurt, huh? Don’t worry—I’ll heal you.”
I pat her head gently and use Healing Magic to fix up her scrapes.
“There, all better.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. You’re okay now.”
“It stopped hurting! Thank you!”
The little girl stops crying.
“Kids who hurt the people close to them can’t get strong.”
I turn back to the boy, who’s standing there stunned.
“I’m sure you want to get strong enough to beat monsters like that one,” I say, gesturing to the earth specter. “But if you use that strength to make people cry, you’re not really strong at all. That’s a bad thing. You made this girl cry, and that was very unkind of you.”
“Oh…”
“Strong people don’t make anyone cry. Only bad people do that. You can’t be strong acting this way.”
He might be too young to understand what I mean, but he needs to know that it’s wrong to do bad things.
“Now, since you were bad, you have to apologize.”
“Weh…”
“Don’t you know that a hero has to defeat bad people? So if you’re going to be bad…”
“I’m sorry!”
I ended up threatening him a little, but the boy finally apologized.
“Good. Just like that. As long as you don’t do bad things, I’m sure you’ll get nice and strong.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. But if you forget that and do more bad things, I’ll have to come defeat you, so remember to be good, okay?”
“’Kay.”
After that, the boy and girl make up and walk away holding hands.
“I guess teaching kids to be good is one way to stop evil from happening, like you said way back when.”
Jeskan smiles as he watches the children leave.
“It might not be the kind of strength that boy was looking for, but I’d be happy if he can be strong enough to walk the straight and narrow instead of turning to crime.”
“True.”
I’ve traveled all over the world, defeating monsters, bandits, and so on.
Those things have meaning on their own, of course, but I think I can have a small effect by showing people what kind of hero I am, too.
Hopefully, that’ll turn out to be a good influence.
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