This World Needs a Hero

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[Translator – Night]

[Proofreader – Gun]

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Ivar thought.

Who is the man in front of him?

Was it the leader who fought together on the battlefield, Ted Redymer?

Or is it an unidentified monster who has taken over his identity?

Because of his clouded mind, he couldn’t make a clear judgment.

No matter how much he squeezed, twisted, and bent, it didn’t seem like it would end until the end.

But didn’t he use Ted Redymer’s unique techniques, including the salvation ritual, emitting the same atmosphere and energy as him?

‘I feel like he’s possessed.’

But deep down, he hoped it was the leader.

No, it had to be.

So that his testament would have meaning soon.

“Please come over here.”

Fortunately, ‘he’ slowly approached Ivar without turning away.

Ivar wanted to stand up, but he didn’t have the strength to move a finger.

“Hoo, wheeze.”

He lay down and coughed up a foul-smelling breath.

His body felt cold like it had fallen into the Arctic Ocean, yet hot like it had been thrown into the desert sun.

He might stop breathing within ten or twenty minutes if left alone.

‘…Ten minutes should be enough.’

He had already abandoned regrets in life.

There was only one reason he was holding onto consciousness.

Ivar looked up at ‘him’ and opened his mouth.

For this request… no, to demand a deal, an explanation was needed first.

“A woman named ‘Adria’ is held hostage by Theo. And my son too.”

The Hero looked down at him without saying a word.

It was a face that showed no hint of what he was thinking.

There was no hint of anger at daring to make a request.

Ivar’s eyes trembled slightly.

“I guess you guessed it. The fact that I have a family is probably unknown to anyone.”

“It’s obvious. There aren’t many reasons for someone who had their homeland burned by the demons, slaughtered their tribe members, to collaborate under the demons.”

After a moment of silence, the Hero asked calmly.

“Do you have any regrets?”

Ivar made a pained expression and nodded.

“…It was to protect someone precious.”

Adria.

She was an outsider who had been stranded in the Great Mountains.

Since the moment he first met her until now, forcibly separated by Theo.

Ivar loved her with all his might.

He was willing to break the custom of unconditionally marrying tribe members as the successor of the tribal chief.

The sweet honeymoon ended in ruin just two months later due to the invasion of the demon army, but the memories had supported Ivar until now.

‘It couldn’t be replaced with anything else.’

He knew he would be condemned by everyone for his betrayal.

But at that time, he had no other choice.

By betraying once and twice, he had become irredeemable.

Ivar looked up at the Hero with a pleading expression.

“I am a sinful villain, but she… my son did nothing wrong. Isn’t it the duty of a leader to protect the weak? If there’s a chance to save them, please…”

The Hero interrupted him.

Still, his voice was devoid of any emotion.

“I only ask one thing, Ivar.”

“Ask.”

“Did your betrayal truly serve them?”

Ivar answered incredulously.

“Of course. If I hadn’t betrayed, my son… Adria would have been torn apart and died. Do you think I, who had my homeland burned by those bastards and had my tribe members massacred, wanted to collaborate with them? I hate those bastards more than anyone! Don’t deny that.”

But the Hero only shook his head firmly, despite his fervent protest.

“No, your betrayal was selfish for yourself.”

As Ivar was about to retort with a grimace, the Hero’s lowered eyes looked down at him.

It was a gaze that allowed no dissent.

“As much as they were precious to you, they must have cherished you too. Am I wrong?”

“But…!”

“Who hopes for a loved one to live a life of harming and deceiving humans on the side of demons, no matter what bond they build?”

It was the moment when Ivar’s words faltered.

“I ask you again, Ivar. Did you really betray them for their sake?”

“I… No!”

“Or was it for yourself? Were you afraid of losing yourself, fearing the loss of someone precious?”

The harsh question shattered Ivar’s rationalization.

Ivar was about to say something more, but closed his mouth with a miserable expression.

The Hero murmured softly, looking at him.

“Sometimes, there’s a fate worse than death. Both you and your family seem to have experienced it.”

His words seemed to touch a nerve in Ivar.

“What do you know… What right does a monster like you, who sacrifices everyone under the guise of justice and fairness, have to say such things?”

“A monster like me?”

“Yes, a monster! Whether you build any kind of bond, it’s all just a long-term game for the leader!”

The Hero couldn’t help but chuckle at Ivar’s defenselessness.

‘He thinks Ted used his comrades like pawns? What kind of delusion is this?’

Yes, there was a time when he thought so too.

Ted Redymer is cold-blooded and knows nothing but mechanical calculations.

He continues to make judgments of all values ​​with ruthless fairness.

But it wasn’t like that.

“They wanted it too.”

“What?”

“To willingly sacrifice themselves for justice. To be the flames of the weak by turning themselves as firewood…”

Ted too.

His comrades who left their names on him as tattoos were the same.

“To you, who knew neither pride nor responsibility, it must have seemed forced.”

“I, I…”

“Your power was mighty among heroes… but your thoughts and perspective are worse than those of an ordinary person, Ivar.”

Ivar’s eyes shook mercilessly.

The Hero finished speaking with contempt and disgust.

“Someday, when I trample the realm and hang Theo, if I find the child and its mother resembling you, I will rescue them without hesitation. Surely, my comrades will do the same. But it’s not because of your pitiful request. It’s because we decided to live like that long ago.”

“…”

How Ivar felt about this last statement, only Ivar would know.

He became expressionless like a dead person, then reached out and grabbed the Hero’s sleeve.

His large hand lacked strength.

“…I’m not asking you to save them without any cost.”

The Hero raised an eyebrow at the unexpected words.

‘Cost?’

There weren’t many types of costs Ivar, who was dying, could bear.

The Hero made the most plausible inference among them.

“Are you offering information?”

Ivar nodded silently. His dull eyes, overwhelmed by guilt, regained a glimmer of light for a moment.

The Hero felt curious.

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[Translator – Night]

[Proofreader – Gun]

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Information provided by a collaborator who had long served the demon forces at the last moment.

That would undoubtedly be valuable.

He leaned closer, and Ivar brought his mouth close to the Hero’s ear, as if determined.

“I…”

…But he couldn’t finish his sentence.

Splat-

It was a sound of a kind he had never heard in his life.

Ivar’s mouth, about to disclose ‘information’, instead spewed screams and blood.

The stinging sound reverberated through the air as Ivar’s mouth was forced backward, a hand protruding from his throat.

The wrinkled hand that emerged from within Ivar writhed like a giant spider, covering his face, and then punctured his eyeballs with its index and middle fingers, bursting them.

“Guh, guh!”

Ivar writhed in pain, but there was no way to escape from the hand that emerged from his own body.

But it didn’t end there.

Ivar’s blood, which fell to the ground, didn’t seep into the ground but quickly solidified, then began to boil.

The Hero watched the grotesque and eerie scene with trembling eyes.

‘…What in the world?’

A few hours ago.

When the mother ghost returned after resolving the curses in the hideout, her words flashed through the Hero’s mind.

“We found and neutralized most of the curses by thoroughly searching the vicinity to find the mediums. However, there was one, a curse whose medium was very cunningly hidden. Even I couldn’t fully interpret it at my level.”

The mother ghost was a skilled practitioner when it came to curses.

That she couldn’t interpret a curse to that extent.

The Hero felt puzzled.

“Did it feel dangerous like other types?”

“Not exactly. It wasn’t aimed at invaders like other curses. It’s just that the medium was…”

The mother ghost’s eyebrows furrowed in frustration.

“It was Ivar.”

Ivar’s blood boiled ceaselessly.

Ivar’s breath remained until the red vapor took a pale form.

Considering his injuries and the amount of blood loss, it was not surprising that he passed out immediately, but some strange force was holding him in this world.

‘…Old man?’

Steam rose from Ivar’s boiling blood until it took on the form of a common-looking old man.

But there was something strange.

It felt more like facing a reflection in a mirror than a tangible entity.

In fact, there was nothing palpable about it.

Holding a staff, with eyes deeply wrinkled, he alternated between looking at the Hero and Ivar.

There was a faint smile on his lips… no, the Hero shook his head.

Can that even be called a smile?

‘It’s unpleasant.’

Human laughter is qualitatively different from that.

It was just a bunch of overlapping wrinkles.

There was no sense of vitality, just artificial and eerie.

Iris of Laplace commented.

▼

Commander of the Demon Army’s Second Division – The Elder of Loss, Theo’s demonic energy can be sensed.

▲

The Hero consciously suppressed the rapidly rising tension.

…He has no real body.

His main body was defeated while fighting the Allied Forces in the First Dungeon.

‘Some kind of avatar?’

The Hero quickly checked his mana levels.

Mana was slowly accumulating, but he was far from ready to fight properly.

Fortunately, it seemed that the creature had no immediate intention of attacking.

“Well… It’s been a while.”

The old man bowed to the Hero and then stood in front of Ivar.

Despite Ivar’s blind struggles and protests, Theo casually began to speak.

“Traitors betray again when they are in danger. Did you really think I wouldn’t take any measures? You’re too naive and foolish, Ivar.”

Ivar couldn’t respond properly because of the hand emerging from his mouth.

But there was deep despair in his expression.

Did he think his wife and child were in danger once his betrayal was exposed?

His eyes seemed to plead for a moment before dropping.

Theo tapped Ivar’s chest with his staff and spoke.

“By the way, Ivar. Let me ask you one last thing.”

“Guh, guh…”

“Did you really believe everything was just a coincidence? Seriously?”

It was a cruel mockery in a highly pleasant tone.

“Did you truly believe that your meeting with Adria was fate? That the shipwrecked beauty just happened to stumble upon your tribe deep in the mountains and fell into a destined love with a barbarian like you? Did you truly believe that even the demon army attacking the tribe a few months later was just a coincidence? Did you really believe that?”

There was no way to know if those cruel words were true right here and now.

But after a brief silence, Ivar let out a scream unlike anything before.

Scream-

But his outburst of anger and regret ended quickly.

Bang-

Ivar’s body burst like a balloon.

Under the pouring blood, the old man who had been standing still turned his crimson-stained eyes towards the Hero.

The Hero looked at the scene with sunken eyes.

In this way, evil always lurked deeper and stickier than human cognition.

It wasn’t surprising that a collaborator was like this.

Iris of Laplace commented on Ivar’s death.

▼

The scorch marks disappeared with the blood.

▲

▼

Salvation Ritual: “The Fifth Ritual, Horizon,” is now fully open.

▲

▼

Understanding of the recorded figure: ‘Ivar Waitanka’ deepens.

▲

… But the Hero’s eyes didn’t linger on those things.

His gaze remained fixed.

Theo slowly pointed his staff at the Hero.

“Such extreme resentment makes for good ingredients for curses. Ivar left quite a legacy.”

“… ”

A disturbing and chilling aura emanated from around them.

But there was no change in the Hero’s expression.

The disgust and anger he felt now were too overwhelming to be frightened.

The culprit of most of the misfortunes he had experienced and witnessed over the past year or so was right in front of his eyes.

The Hero raised the Black Hope, pointing it at Theo.

The power of ‘paradox’ weighed heavily in the air.

“I will make sure you pay for this.”

The old man flashed another eerie smile.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

As the curse energy clustered around him and poured toward the Hero, Theo’s avatar disappeared from the main clearing.

Woo-

With the curse energy penetrating his body, the Hero moved forward without hesitation.

The destination was where Ivar’s body, drenched in blood, lay.

There, on the sticky ground, characters were carved with fingers.

The handwriting was so poor, as if written by a child, but it was still readable.

The Hero read it aloud.

“I am not alone… la.”

Just as he was about to write a name, he met his death.

The sentence was cut off there.

The Hero recalled the recent communication.

[Boss, see you soon!]

[Introduce us to your disciples too!]

[Aren’t they technically our juniors!?]

[Wow, it’s been a while!]

Preparation seemed necessary.

‘Another traitor.’

Looking back, clues to it’s identity were already slowly accumulating.

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[Translator – Night]

[Proofreader – Gun]

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