"Me? A hard-working civil servant, I guess?"
Thinking about how he had taken the king's place and worked for so long not too long ago, his mood became a little complicated.
Frieren also seemed to notice that they had picked up on something, and she asked Ash with her eyes.
But he only gave a slight shake of his head, then voluntarily confessed himself, "There's nothing to hide. Actually, I used to be a deserter."
"A deserter?", Himmel looked a little surprised.
"I got tired of the endless fighting between humans."
"So you ran away? But is it really okay to say that out loud? If you were found out, you'd be executed, right?"
"Not really a problem. I don't think they could beat me anyway."
"H-haha, so it comes down to winning or losingm"
That way of thinking, completely unlike ordinary humans and with no intention of following the law at all, made Himmel give a wry smile.
But Ash added one more sentence, "In the end, no one in that country will remember me anymore."
"Forgotten?", Himmel was surprised, and Heiter exclaimed in shock, "Even though you're this strong? Could it be… that country has already been destroyed?"
"Countries in the north get wiped out at any time these days," the dwarf Eisen picked up the conversation, closing his eyes with a sigh, "That's why I keep saying we should speed things up. If this keeps going, who knows how many more countries will be destroyed. The strongest human, the Hero of the South, is already almost in the north, and we haven't even left a single country yet."
"Then let him go first. After all, if you're doing what you like and helping people at the same time, what's wrong with that?", Himmel said calmly, "Going on adventures happily, delving into dungeons to defeat monsters and look for treasure, and in the end, if you end up saving the world without even realizing it, isn't that wonderful?"
Compared to Eisen's seriousness, Himmel clearly had his own philosophy.
And this kind of conversation obviously wasn't happening for the first time. Eisen only sighed and gave up on saying more.
But just as he was about to fall silent, he seemed to remember something and spoke again unconsciously, "That said, if we moved faster, we could defeat the Demon King sooner and help more people, right? And…"
"And?"
"I've heard that a terrifying great demon has appeared in the north, like a meteor falling from the sky. It attacked the rear of the Empire, and in a series of indiscriminate assaults, killed many imperial nobles and even razed three cities to the ground, causing at least over a hundred thousand casualties," Eisen's words were heavy, but the content made Ash's expression turn a little subtle.
Because, he was obviously talking about him.
Even without horns, falling from the sky was enough for people to see him as a demon. In such a chaotic battlefield, they wouldn't have been able to see many details anyway.
He was sure he had never destroyed any cities, but the rumors seemed deliberately exaggerated, probably to create a sense of urgency. Much like how Flamme had tried to trick him into becoming a hero, using this kind of story to draw more people into becoming heroes and heading to the front lines to fight the Demon King's army.
But no matter what, in this idle chatter, he had already blended into this hero's party as a passerby, at least for the time being.
He had joined the hero's party under somewhat strange circumstances, and in the blink of an eye quite some time had passed. But, none of the good things he'd imagined ever happened.
Just as Frieren had said, there were no encounters with beautiful girls. Instead, it was rather boring and leisurely.
Rather than rushing to save the five realms of the world, it really was just as Ash had guessed at the beginning. It was basically sightseeing and travel, wandering around and occasionally exploring dungeons.
Even though this was far from the tense excitement of the stories, it didn't seem too bad.
However, the leisurely days didn't last very long. Ash suddenly thought of something, and one day, saying he had urgent business, he briefly bid everyone farewell, flew back north, and took Liene with him.
He let that child go and see for herself, and record, the fighting style of the Hero of the South, Frank.
As the strongest human warrior, Frank's future sight couldn't be copied, but his close-quarters combat ability alone was already powerful enough. Even without future sight, he could still stand at the pinnacle.
After finishing all this, he sent Liene back again, then said goodbye to Frank. He planned to train on the side and sightsee with Frieren and the others, treating it as a way to relax, but—
"Don't rush off yet, have a drink first?", Frank, for some reason unusually enthusiastic, dragged him into a tavern and drank heavily all night. And late into the night, when they were full of food and wine...
"My friend~ this is where I get off. Farewell!"
Frank shook his cloak and turned away with a bold laugh. Under Ash's gaze, he waved without looking back and disappeared into the quiet streets of the night.
"Haa! Something feels off somehow?"
Standing where he was, Ash drained the wine in his cup, shook his head, and stood up again.
But before he could even leave, he noticed a note beside Frank's seat.
For some reason, Frank had left him a letter, telling him to go to his hometown. It seemed that in the small hut where Schlacht had once lived during their training together, there was a letter Schlachtt had left behind long ago.
"Those two big oafs even pull something like this?", Ash was a bit dumbfounded, but he didn't take it too seriously. He unhurriedly traveled from the north back to the southern lands.
.
.
.
Following the instructions, he found, inside that hut, a piece of parchment wrapped in a wooden box.
[By the time you see this, we will all have perished.]
[This is not a sudden change, but the long echo of destiny. To a certain extent, it may as well be called fate.]
[This operation is not only for your sake, but more for the future of the demon race a thousand years from now. Also, although you are still young, you are already strong enough to defeat ordinary great demons, but now is not the time for you to ascend the throne.]
[In the world of demons, the strong are supreme. Without earth-shaking power, no one will submit. And the human extermination forces and hero parties that have only just been organized will also regard you as a thorn in their side, vowing to eliminate you at all costs.]
[Therefore, if you rush to ascend the throne at the moment the Demon King falls, you will inevitably face total war from the entire world, including from within the demon race itself.]
[You still need time to settle and accumulate power for yourself. This is a lonely and long journey. You must gather strength silently with extraordinary patience, waiting for the moment when the time is ripe… remember this.]
"What is all this?", Holding the parchment, Ash stood there dumbfounded.
He understood the message perfectly. If he foolishly waited for the Demon King to die and then stepped up, if he couldn't fight the entire world, he'd definitely be finished right away. And he certainly didn't have the combat power of that Demon King.
But what truly shocked him was, that 'These two, second only to the Demon King and Serie as the strongest, are both about to die?'
'No, now it is... already dead?'
———
At the very moment Ash was reading the parchment, on the northern lands, Schlacht's blade pierced through Frank's back. Frank, also covered in wounds, plunged into his arms and stabbed Schlachtt through the heart with sword and knife.
Almost at the same instant, they inflicted fatal wounds on each other. And at that very moment, both of them tacitly stopped, separating for the time being.
"So this is goodbye," Schlachtt murmured as he gazed silently at the sky, then quickly turned his eyes to the staggering man in front of him, "As expected… no matter what… our first true meeting… was bound to end like this."
"H-haha! There's no helping it… If it were any other way… that Demon King would always remain the Demon King."
In the futures Frank had observed, every time Frieren's party defeated a truly powerful great demon, it had been by the narrowest of margins. Though in reality, they hadn't even encountered three of them.
Aura aside, the Bose the Immortal of the Seven Sages of Destruction had almost trapped them completely with his barrier. Frieren had already been waiting for death, only for him to die in the end because of underestimating them.
They couldn't defeat the Sage of Corruption Qual at all, and before losing, could only design a plan to seal him away.
If sacrifices were not made, if he did not defeat enough great demons, they simply would not be able to reach the Demon King.
And in this chaotic battlefield, aside from Aura who could not be found, the other Sages of Destruction were all present, along with another great demon comparable to their level. No matter how one looked at it, they could easily flatten an entire nation.
Yet even when eight fought one, three of the Sages of Destruction were cut down on the spot by Frank, and in the end, he perished together with Schlacht.
This was precisely what he had once meant by "opening the path." For Frieren and for Ash alike—now, he was fulfilling that promise.
Schlacht and Frank looked at each other in silence, then quickly mustered their last strength and, drenched in blood, charged at one another once more.
BANG!
The clash of blades sent sparks flying, along with a terrifying shockwave.
No one could count how many flashes of sword light intertwined there.
Even though both had already suffered fatal wounds, it was as if they were about to begin another battle to the death. But in the next moment, no one knew who pushed whom. The two of them fell together off the cliff.
"So this is… the necessary sacrifice?", As he fell, Frank murmured softly to the blue sky.
"You could say that…", Almost in the next instant, Schlachtt quietly closed his eyes as well.
At the moment they fell, the cliff above also collapsed, countless rocks and sand pouring down after them.
Even though they could see the future, they still chose to compromise at this moment and embrace the future—
—One they had already simulated countless times.
Or perhaps it could be called fate.
———
Under a gray, overcast sky.
A fine rain dampened the town that Ash himself had once built, beneath the snowfields.
Thanks to the silver mines above the snowfields, the town had gradually flourished. But on this rainy day, the residents hurried past, and the place carried a sense of desolation reminiscent of its earliest days five hundred years ago.
Walking along the town's oldest street, watching one familiar scene after another, memories should have come flooding back, yet, Ash couldn't remember a single one he wanted to.
What happened here had all been too trivial. The only thing he remembered was that this was where he had met his first friend, Cassie.
And now, already someone with very few friends to begin with, in the blink of an eye he was left with only Frieren, and an elf named Millie, whose survival he didn't even know anymore.
"Life really is unpredictable... It should be like that. But even if you could see the future, you still chose to die together in the end?", The death of his friends filled his heart with an indescribable melancholy.
This made him unconsciously return to this familiar street before going back to the hero's party. Like how people sometimes, without knowing why, feel compelled to return to their hometown. And to him, this town was, in a sense, much like his old village, something close to home.
Even though the people from the past could no longer exist.
"Even so, this place really is boring. Sigh! Come to think of it, even if I've become stronger than before and can do more things, even if I really do become the Demon King one day, what meaning would that have for me?"
He didn't actually crave power that much. Compared to the lonely sense of achievement at the top, he preferred a free and easy life.
At most, he just hoped to look after the people he knew. But… old friends were like leaves in the wind, always falling away.
By now, it seemed there was nothing left to wither. Making new friends… demons were too strange, and humans died too quickly.
"Still, what Cassie said back then, I think I kind of understand now," Ash murmured as he looked up at the gray sky, yet he could no longer remember what his first friend had even looked like.
Five hundred years had passed for the world. For him, dozens of years had passed as well.
And just as he was carrying that faint melancholy, about to leave this place and never return, a nearby window suddenly opened.
"Y-you are… could it be Ash?"
"Hmm?"
The unfamiliar voice made him turn his head in confusion.
Just like the voice, it was a completely unfamiliar boy. Yet for some reason, the look on his face was even more shocked than Ash's, whose name had just been called.
"What?"
"Y-you… no, s-sir, are you really… Mr. Ash?"
"My name is Ash, that's right. Who are you?", Seeing the boy stammer like that, Ash couldn't help frowning.
Because the boy's expression clearly didn't look like someone who had mastered future-sight magic, like Frank or Schlacht.
If it wasn't that, then things became rather intriguing.
"Ah, ah… I-I'm Anderson! My mother is—"
The flustered boy rattled off his entire family's names in one breath. Seeing that Ash still didn't seem to understand the situation, he enthusiastically invited him inside.
———
Anderson led Ash into the living room, then finally searched his parents' bedroom and took out a delicate wooden box hidden deep inside the wardrobe.
The box was clearly protected by magic. The magic stones were even replaced periodically, and special preservation measures had been applied. The materials used were also of very high quality.
Inside the box was a palm-sized magical device. When opened, it revealed an image of Ash. Or rather, a magically preserved scene, and in that image he was dressed in full armor.
It was obvious that it had been "recorded" five hundred years ago.
The magic device providing the image had clearly been repaired many times, carrying the sense of having crossed a very long span of time.
"Could this be… something Cassie left behind? N-no, that's impossible, right?"
The overly familiar image brought back memories of the time it had been recorded, yet now he couldn't help suspecting that he had fallen under some kind of mental attack.
After all, five hundred years had passed. For humans, countless generations should have come and gone.
Seeing his incredulous expression only made Anderson even more excited, "You really are Mr. Ash? You actually really exist?"
"What? This?"
"I don't know! I don't know anything! Grandma just told me to do this! If I ever met the person in the image, I had to greet him, and then…", Anderson gathered himself for a moment, then stared into his eyes and slowly said—
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