Only the Party Members Returned, Not the Hero

2. Only party members returned (2)

2.

A warrior must be beautiful.

You have to be just, you have to be strong, you have to have an indomitable will, literally.

I am neither beautiful nor just nor indomitable. It seems to have been strong. Because I was ranked first in the hero academy. However, it was just a struggle to find a way to live, and it was not something to be praised by anyone.

Moreover, it wasn’t such a big deal that I received a confession of love from a person the size of a saint.

I love you.

I had never heard of it before….

“… ….”

I ran away from EL and sat down in the middle of the shabby little garden at the back of the mansion.

Ironically, the saintess’ I love you was nothing special. To the extent that anyone who went to the school of warriors has heard of it at least once. It didn’t mean that the saintess was a slut, and since the doctrine of the goddess Errantera, which is the only deity of the continent and served by the saintess, represents love, the greeting itself was something like “I love you, brother.”

So why I hadn’t heard of it, I had to remember the religion lecture in the first year of the warrior school. Maybe that was the starting point.

“Omniscience means knowing everything. Almighty means you can do anything. So it is omnipotent. It can be said that it is the perfect word for Goddess Errantera, who created the world, created mankind, and is still giving the power to fight the legions of demons through the holy powers of the holy warriors.”

El, who looked young somewhere, was giving a lecture enthusiastically. The subject matter was the foundation of Erantera and the origin of mankind.

It’s a pity that I was the only student sitting in her eager classroom, and that’s because I missed the first religion class by myself, and also, I had no intention of taking the class at all.

I would have pretended to listen roughly now.

“Saint, I have a question.”

I raised one hand. When ELle wondered if her rogue student was finally impressed by her own lecture, she smiled and nodded her head.

Until then, she had the expression of a benevolent shepherd who had to guide her lost lamb.

“The goddess Errantera said that she is omnipotent and kind.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then why is there still evil in the world?”

“Yes?”

“If you don’t know how to get rid of evil, you’re not omniscient; if you don’t have the ability to get rid of evil, you’re not omnipotent; if you don’t have the will to get rid of evil, aren’t you good?”

“Oh, no. Goddess trains human faith through the presence of evil….”

“No, man. Isn’t it just a matter of creating a human being with unshakable faith from the beginning? Training is done because it is lacking, but you can make it not lacking from the beginning. Do you know how many people are infected with that evil right now?”

“That’s the test of the Goddess….”

Trial of the Goddess?

That’s crazy.

I almost looked around a few times because of that.

I didn’t want to hear the old-fashioned sound, so I waved my hand around. The saintess, who kept her mouth shut due to her disrespectful attitude, looked at me with glaring eyes full of resentment instead of an invisible benevolent expression. Of course, I didn’t even care.

“What do you think the virtue of a saintess is? Just tell me one thing.”

“… Modesty?”

“Quietness? Is it so. Let’s assume that if the saintess was wearing thongs. What do you think?”

“Yes, yes?! How could you say that… !”

“Look, that sounds dirty. Evil is the same. Because there is evil, people see evil and think about evil? How peaceful would people have lived if they hadn’t created evil in the first place?”

“Hey, I didn’t think anything dirty!”

“Looks like your face is about to explode?”

“Holiness, blasphemy!!”

“Then why are you making a divinity that will be blasphemed? .”

I remember that after I said that, I finished it in moderation because I was afraid that the saintess who was yelling at her with her face flushed red would collapse from high blood pressure.

She said that at the end she was a bit bullsh*t, but the message she was trying to convey was clear.

Is the goddess Erantera really good?

We had such a philosophical, religious, and high-level discussion late at night in the classroom at the warrior school. It was my one-sided victory, and the saintess, weighed down by the sense of defeat, did not greet me from the next day.

Anyway, for that reason, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard a greeting like ‘I love you brother’.

Of course, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard the word love itself.

So, even if you say “I love you” With an expression that is not just a simple greeting, you can’t say “Me too”.

“… Shiva.”

Angry, hate…. It wasn’t like that.

This is the f*cking fear of the unknown.

It was a sh*t filled with frustration as to why in the world I was treating people like idiots until yesterday, and acting as if I was a benefactor for the rest of my life, even though only one day had passed.

No matter how much I look back and look back at my past, I have never done anything worthy of such undeserved love. I could only swear on that one thing. I’m not proud of anything.

“Ah, were you here?”

Flinch.

I trembled like a rabbit before a predator. When a human encounters an incomprehensible situation, he feels so helpless. Elish smiled when I turned my head to where the voice came from, like an old hinge that hadn’t been oiled.

“I’m sorry I interrupted you while I was resting. Was the morning class too hard? If that’s the case, I could have cast a relaxation spell on myself….”

“No, just something to think about.”

“I see. Ah, in that case, can I ask you a favor? That, the pocket watch you always carried. Do you still have… ?”

“This?”

Leaving Elish’s creepy friendliness behind, I take out the pocket watch I always carry in my pocket and shake it. Elish’s head also nodded up and down.

I take out an old pocket watch and examine it. It was the only keepsake of my father.

A pocket watch with nothing odd or special about it.

“But this….”

“… ….”

“… Why….”

Before I finished speaking, I felt a visceral displeasure and pulled back the hand holding the pocket watch. It was because Elish was staring at my watch. With eyes overflowing with desire, as if they would rush at it right away, put it in their mouth, and swallow it.

“Why, why. What?”

“No, wait… It will only take a moment! Why do you avoid it like that!”

I jumped up and took a step back.

Like a cat whose child has been taken away, Elish approaches me step by step, matching the distance with me with pitiful steps. I step back in time.

Elish is a wizard. It was also a very promising mage, perhaps to the point of joining the archmage line after enough time. And, as usual with wizards, he was full of excessively high academic zeal and intellectual curiosity. When triggered by one thing, it was the magicians who could not sleep and showed paranoid obsession with their feet shaking, and Elish was the one who went one step further.

But why?

Why?

Why a pocket watch like this that you can buy with money to buy potato bread from a fence in the neighborhood and then change it?

“Wait a minute… How could it not be?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Why, why?”

“I’m just in a bad mood.”

“That, don’t do that…. If you want, I’ll take a quick look right in front of your eyes, Ellen. How can it not be that much? I’ll pay enough….”

“Payment? What are you going to pay?”

“… Money?”

Elish is a very rich man.

“What? Money? Are you saying you’re going to buy your father’s keepsakes with money? Is money enough? Can money bring the dead back to life? This is why rich people are.”

“It can be saved, but with undead magic….”

“What? Undead? This is a very big day person! Why, you say let me meet your dead parents, and then smash the graves to make them undead and drag them around? Kill again after some time?”

“I, I was wrong….”

It’s strange.

Why are you beating me like this today?

I got into the mood and talked nonsense to my heart’s content, but it’s not like I can’t lend you anything. It’s not about breaking it, and it’s not about carrying it and running away. Tania and EL were approaching from a distance at the tumultuous sound. After sneaking a glance at the two, I handed out my pocket watch to Elish.

“Now, only this time. I don’t know what you’re saying there’s something to see….”

Still, I feel a little better. I was able to figure out why at least one in three people had been so nice to me all morning.

Perhaps he found something in this pocket watch, which inadvertently piqued Elish’s curiosity. So he must have wanted to ingratiate himself with the idea of researching pocket watches.

It was only then that I began to see the world. Aside from Elish, then Tania and EL are also saying that they want something from me.

“What’s up?”

Just as I was thinking that far, Tania came closer and asked her like that. It was still a soft voice that seemed like it would blow away in the wind. The usual Ankaljim didn’t contain a single grain.

“… It’s just that Elish asked me to show you something.”

Elish, who had taken the pocket watch from my hand before I knew it, seemed to still want to keep his words, squatted down in front of me, carefully propped the watch on top of both palms, and stared at it.

What do smart kids know just by looking at them like that?

Tania and EL also looked at Elish. I quickly started looking at them. I wonder if that watch has anything to do with the other two.

‘Chal-kang-chal-kang-chal-kang!’

“… ?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“… ….”

And then.

The hour hand of the watch, which had never moved since I got it from my father, moved three times and made an old iron sound.

“… Elish?”

“… ….”

Elish didn’t answer my words.

Just looked up at me with eyes that grew deeper.

“Tania?”

Soft and heavy feeling felt in one hand.

Tania was holding my hand and bowing her head.

“… EL? A saint?”

ELLE knelt down before I called and began to say her prayers.

“What?”

In the atmosphere of infinite reverence, I didn’t even think to let go of my hand.

“Why are you doing this….”

In a space full of unknown kindness that no one answers.

I wanted to run away.