Ruti the Hero Was Alone

"Get it together, Ares! How many times has it been now?!" growled

Danan, a member of the Hero's party and bearer of a Martial Artist

blessing.

"If we're out, then we can just go back and buy more, can't we?"

Ares the Sage responded, seemingly unperturbed by his companion's

anger. His lips trembled slightly despite the rebuke, a clear indication

that he, the Sage, felt humiliated at being scolded like a child by an

uneducated man like Danan.

Currently, the Hero's party was in the Desert of Bloody Sands

searching for a weapon that had been left there by the previous

demon lord. Their goal was to either get their hands on it or destroy

it before the current demon lord's army could make it their own.

However, this was the third time they had needed to return to a

settlement because they had run out of food and water. Part of it

was just that they did not know where the weapon was, and

searching took time, but there had also been a clear increase in the

number of times they had run out of supplies in the middle of their

journeys ever since Gideon—Red—had left the party.

"How much time do you think we've wasted in this desert going back

to the same place?! The reason we couldn't get the help of the

desert people is because you screwed up the negotiations!"

"It's a legendary weapon. It's not something anyone could find by

just spending a day or two looking. And I did my best with the

negotiations, but the desert peoples were no better than thieves

who wouldn't even obey the king of their land. If you've got

complaints, though, then feel free to do it yourself next time," Ares

said with a shrug.

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Ares's confident and dismissive attitude only served to further

aggravate Danan.

"You're the one who said you'd take care of gathering supplies and

doing the negotiations in Gideon's stead! Where's that big talk

now?!"

"Unlike Gideon, I can't spend all my time doing odd jobs," Ares

responded casually. To him, Danan was getting angry over

inconsequential details, but when he noticed Danan's expression

turn dead serious, a danger signal flashed in the back of his mind. By

then, it was too late.

"Screw it. I'm going to go find Gideon. We won't get anywhere at this

rate."

"Wait a minute! We're headed to the previous demon lord's secret

facility! If you leave now, we'll be down a man should a fight break

out!"

"At this rate, we're just going to get wiped out anyway. I only joined

this party because I thought it was the most direct route to beating

the demon lord. If that's no longer true, then there's no point in me

being here." Danan was serious. Or at the very least, he looked that

way to Ares. He glanced at the Crusader, Theodora, looking for some

help, but she just closed her eyes and crossed her arms as if it had

nothing to do with her. Tisse, the assassin who had joined in

Gideon's place, was faithful to Ares, since he had hired her, but she

would not be of any help in a situation like this.

"Pushing Gideon out was a grave mistake, Ares. You were too hasty."

"Like I've said every time now, I didn't push him out. He said it

himself." Ares's excuse did nothing to change the sneer on Danan's

scarred face.

At that moment, though…

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"Are you going to go look for my brother, Danan?" a cool voice rang

out. One cold enough to freeze Danan's sneer.

"Milady, I…" Danan, whose body was encased in the armor of his

own muscle, shrank back, as if cowering before a single little girl. It

was a similar response to the panic that prey might experience when

a mega-predator it had no chance of defeating or escaping was

staring it down.

The Hero, Ruti. Her small body was wrapped in platinum armor, and

the Holy Demon Slayer sword hung at her waist as she looked up at

the bear of a man, expressionless…

She was the strongest being chosen by God. The Hero who had been

granted supernatural strength in order to save the world. Even a

martial artist like Danan, who could tear steel apart with his bare

hands, understood instinctively that he could not win against her.

Danan swallowed nervously.

"I-if we leave things to Ares any more than this, the party will fall

apart. We need your brother, Gideon. Even you…"

"Even I, what?"

"N-no, nothing…" It was no good. Danan's knees started to buckle. It

was all he could do to resist the impulse to break eye contact with

her. Even just that was enough to grind down the mental fortitude of

a man who had lived through hundreds of life-and-death battles. It

was only a brief silence, but to Danan, it may as well have been

hours.

"I'll allow it. Go."

"Eh?"

"Danan, go in search of Gideon. We will continue the journey."

"W-wait, that's…"

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"That is all." With that, Ruti retired to her personal tent.

She alone had a personal tent because she was the party's leader,

but the real reason was because not even Ares could endure being in

a cramped tent with her. Excepting for when they were adventuring,

Ruti generally just did things on her own. The only exception to that

had been Gideon.

"P-please, wait a minute, Ruti!" Ares desperately chased after the

young woman.

Danan breathed a deep sigh and sat himself across from Theodora,

who still had her eyes shut.

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"So what will you do?" Theodora asked.

"There's nothing I can do but go," Danan responded with a shrug.

"Even though I prided myself on being the cornerstone of the party's

attack."

"Second to the Hero, you mean."

"Well yeah, she's on a whole other level. I can't believe there was

really a time when she was weak."

"Everyone starts out weak when their blessing's level is low… But I

agree. Though Ares might know more about her from back then,

since he was in the party from the start."

"Ares, huh…?" Perhaps because he had finally calmed down, Danan

reverted to his usual insolent tone. Rubbing the scar on his cheek,

Danan lowered his voice a bit. "Do you think there's anything to the

idea that he killed Gideon for getting in his way?"

"Hmm."

"I don't think there's any question he wants to marry the Hero. He's

the son of a failed duke, and the family is clinging to what status it

has left. I'm sure he has dreams of reviving his family's title. If the

Hero and the Sage who saved the world became a couple, they could

rally a lot of support. He might even be able to parlay that into

carving out a duchy all his own to rule… There might be something to

what Yarandrala was saying."

After Gideon had disappeared, Yarandrala, a high elf, had pushed

Ares on the matter. Her blessing was the Singer of the Trees, which

allowed her to control plants. Right after Gideon disappeared, she

had used that to investigate any traces of his whereabouts but

turned up nothing.

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In truth, Gideon had known of her ability and had taken steps to

disappear without her being able to find him. To Yarandrala, it just

made the situation feel all the more unnatural. She suspected that

Ares had attacked Gideon for blocking his way to glory. When the elf

grabbed the Sage by the collar and hounded him about it, Ares broke

his promise to Gideon and even went so far as to say that Gideon

had deserted them.

High elves were not known for being short-tempered, but they were

passionate. They would not get angry over nothing, but when they

did, it was a blazing rage. After hearing Ares's words, Yarandrala did

not hesitate in the least, slugging him in the face then and there.

Ares was incredibly prideful. When she punched him, he flew off the

handle and immediately fired back with his magic, and Yarandrala

fired back with her own. It was a battle between two blessings at the

pinnacle of the mage line. The Sage and the high-level spirit mage

blessing of the Singer of the Trees. Ares brought a meteorite crashing

down with his Meteor spell, and Yarandrala called forth a Tyrant

Spirit, summoning a wooden giant that could shrug off the incoming

meteorite. If Danan and Theodora had not cut in to separate them,

the local geography would have been drastically altered, for sure.

"I can't understand you people" was the last thing Yarandrala had

said before leaving the party.

"Yarandrala was crying," Danan muttered, thinking back to the day

the high elf had left.

"…She was."

After Yarandrala left, Danan and Theodora had blamed Ares's short

temper. Both for pushing Gideon out and for getting into a fight with

Yarandrala. Because of him, they had lost two comrades. But Ares

had merely tried to brush it off as Yarandrala's personality having

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always been a problem. That evasion pushed Danan beyond anger,

dumbfounding him.

If Yarandrala were with them, their search would be much easier

thanks to her ability to control plants. But that line of thought just

started stoking Danan's anger again. He quelled the fury with

another sigh.

The man thought back to what she had said at the time. Since he was

going to be looking for Gideon now, he could not help but consider

that possibility. Ares had said that Gideon ran away, but it was not as

if there was any proof that Ares hadn't killed him. Danan recalled the

menacing look on Yarandrala's face. If Ares had actually admitted to

killing Gideon there, either he or Yarandrala would probably have

died in the ensuing fight. It was possible Ares just said what he had

as a desperate excuse. Had he really killed Gideon, then Danan's new

journey would never end.

Faced with the unusual sight of Danan's troubled face, Theodora

smiled slightly.

"Sir Gideon is truly skilled at battle. I'm amazed he could fight at the

level he did with nothing more than common skills."

"I feel the same. I always thought he was a tactician worthy of

respect."

"That didn't seem to stop you from always criticizing him for

mistakes in combat."

Danan shuddered with a start. The insolent man's shoulders drooped

as if ashamed of himself.

"I… That's just the sort of personality I have… I can't settle down if I

don't call a mistake what it is… But I can swear on my Divine Blessing,

I never once thought Gideon wasn't critical to our party, let alone

that he was anything like a burden holding us back."

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"Then maybe you should have actually let him know that."

"…Which means you think Gideon left on his own?"

Theodora snapped the stick she was holding in her hands and tossed

the two pieces into the fire.

"Sir Gideon is a man that both you, the greatest martial artist of our

times, and I, the assistant instructor of the temple knights' style of

spear wielding, have acknowledged. No matter how skilled a magic

user Ares may be, would a swordsman respected by two of the

pinnacles of physical combat really be so quickly overpowered in a

one-on-one versus a mage?"

"That's right!" the martial artist exclaimed.

There had been a bit of an inflection in Theodora's words, as though

she was trying to convince herself, too. Danan could recognize that.

Gideon must still be alive. He was a comrade we trusted with our

backs countless times, in dozens of do-or-die situations. If we're still

alive, then he should be, too.

There was no way he would die on them.

"Tch, if that's how it was, I should have gone looking for him sooner.

Then we wouldn't have had to deal with this pain-in-the-ass desert."

"Yes, if I had said something sooner, I could have been the one to go

out looking for him."

The two of them looked at each other and exchanged smiles.