CHAPTER 70 - Kei vs the Heroes. Part 1.
Drin, even though she's the one who knows Kei best, couldn't replace him. She's a demon, and Luna doesn't know her yet. If she had pretended to be Kei, Luna would have killed her the moment she sensed demonic magic.
Mia, although she has known Kei for years, cannot use magic. The pills require magical concentration to work.
Mio also has demonic magic, so she was ruled out too.
The Elves, especially Terkiana, were a good option, but it was decided that Eris would do it because of her intelligence. Her personality may be extremely outgoing and full of energy, but she is very smart despite her reputation. After all, she crammed herself with knowledge to become the librarian of a school considered elite.
If any problem arises, she would be able to improvise on the spot. She doesn't have Drin's advantage of being able to act 100% like Kei thanks to their familiar contract, but it seems those worries won't be necessary. The Queen is helping Kei for some reason; now the question is "Why is she doing it?"
[I assume you're receiving the information, Grandma.]
Kei speaks with his grandmother, but the other side of his mind is chaos. "The Queen is playing along with me?!"
He couldn't understand why the Queen had said that. Doesn't she want his identity revealed? Is she afraid of losing her kingdom? No, Kei didn't feel that was the reason.
The reason he was invited to the party and why the Queen doesn't want to reveal his secret must be more complex. There has to be some motive, some reason, but Kei doesn't understand it.
"So… do you know where he is?"
"We managed to capture one of his accomplices. He'll show up soon to save her."
"His accomplice?" said Kei Molfer (Eris).
The original Kei immediately contacted everyone and confirmed they were in position and safe. Which accomplice was she talking about? He started recalling all the people close to him, thinking of those he hadn't seen in a long time or heard nothing from.
He racked his memory until he remembered a woman he had lost all contact with long ago. A certain Elf who had accepted his mission in this country. And indeed, it was her.
At that exact moment, the great doors of the hall burst open and a group of guards entered, dragging Nisei across the floor as if she were a simple trash bag.
Nisei was badly injured, her body bearing the consequences of entire weeks of torture, but she didn't complain about the pain. Her frustration and fury overshadowed the physical agony. After everything she had seen, her pain was nothing compared to what the demons had done to the children.
A suffering that goes beyond the imagination of the most sadistic writer.
"I don't work for the hero Kei! Besides, the Queen killed the villagers, not the hero Kei! I saw her!" Nisei shouted with a broken but firm voice, spitting blood as she spoke.
The heroes approached and surrounded her. Her words were full of… lies.
"She's lying," said Riafra.
"I knew Kei was the villain of this story," said Kaya.
"This has to be a mistake," murmured Bandia, visibly uncomfortable.
"Y-yeah… K-Kei is good," stammered Charlotte, clenching her fists nervously.
Luna clearly sensed she was lying, but she remembered Kei's words: "When you consider me someone dangerous, open it, please."
"Kei isn't a bad person. This doesn't make sense," she thought.
Near grabbed Nisei by her long ears and brutally lifted her off the ground. Face to face with a hero, Nisei only growled.
"The hero Kei is on the demons' side, right?"
"I don't fucking know! I've never even seen him!"
"Another lie."
Near was about to decapitate her with her sword, but Luna saved her because she saw Kei (Eris) leap toward them to rescue her.
At that moment, Near would kill anyone who got close, so Luna grabbed Eris by the arm and pulled her away from Near while carrying Nisei with her other arm.
They moved far away from her while Frima prevented Near from attacking them.
"We need to get information out of her first!" said Frima, hugging her while resisting her powerful headbutts.
"Idiot, you almost got yourself killed! Why did you try to save this Elf?!" Luna told her.
"I hired this Elf's services! It must be a misunderstanding!"
The Queen walked toward them, showing no particular annoyance. She knows everything, so she was prepared for this.
"We know the reason for the hiring, but during her mission she met the hero Kei and betrayed humanity. She will serve as an example! The demons will never win! The traitor hero Kei must die!"
The Queen stood in front of Nisei and a guard handed her a sword.
"You damn bitch!" said Nisei, spitting in her face.
The disgust from those present was immediate, but when they tried to spit on her and hurt her, they stopped instantly upon hearing Kei Molfer shout. Doing something a Molfer considers wrong could mean death. A common-sense fact for everyone in the world.
"Don't allow…! Hmmmmh!" Eris shouted before being restrained by Luna.
She covered her mouth and held her so tightly that her bones were breaking with every passing second.
Yes, maybe Eris suffers a lot during training, but unlike Kei and Drin, she doesn't like it at all.
[Idiot, idiot, I'm Eris, nya! I don't love pain, and it hurts so much, nya!]
[I'm sorry, the Queen is forcing me. And don't cry—Kei wouldn't cry over something so small. They'll get suspicious.]
Luna dragged Eris away, leaving Nisei alone. For Luna, she was beyond saving. She had been forbidden to do anything to rescue her, forbidden to speak. Her main order at that moment was: let the Queen do whatever she wants with her.
The Queen wiped her face and smiled.
"Goodbye."
The blade of the sword headed toward her neck, but Nisei didn't look away or show regret or fear. She knew the Queen perfectly and wouldn't give her the pleasure of seeing her suffer. She had witnessed the pain the Queen had caused; the screams of those children still echoed in her mind. The only thing she regretted was not having been able to protect them.
It might be too late for the children, but not for her.
Less than four centimeters remained before the blade would sever her head, but a certain feminine hand stopped the sword's edge.
Kei—the original—stopped the attack and hugged Nisei from behind.
His hand was nearly cut in half, but before a single drop of blood fell, he embraced her from behind, jumped with her, and used the Queen's face as a springboard, knocking her down.
The heroes surrounded him almost instantly, but none of their first attacks landed; he dodged every one.
Kei hadn't trained to fight them. He had trained to dodge their attacks (at least the basic ones).
"I'm not evil!" said Kei, removing the dress and returning to his "normal" form—that is, his young adult appearance.
The hero Kei appeared. A 23-year-old Kei, wearing tight white pants and a black short-sleeved lycra shirt that immediately highlighted his incredible physique. Did it serve a purpose? Surprisingly, yes.
"You won't escape!"
Gelisha tried to catch him from behind, leaping toward him with such force that she destroyed everything in her path. The guests were unharmed thanks to Luna.
It looked like an easy catch, but Kei changed direction in an instant and jumped toward the window on his right. That move wasn't improvised; it was planned. Kei knew they might attack that way, so he changed direction the moment his foot touched the ground.
She, because of her excessive speed, couldn't stop and ended up flying out the window in front of them, landing face-first in the freshly watered garden and covering herself in mud.
"…Fuck," she said, too embarrassed to get up.
Back to Kei: he kept running while being chased by the heroes—except Luna, who stayed beside Eris. Her full power drops by 90% when she uses her divine power, so using it to capture the hero Kei would be stupid; it would be like a mouse jumping in front of a cat yelling "eat me, I'm delicious." Since no one ordered her to capture him, she stayed with Eris.
"Can you run, Nisei?"
"Yes… Are you really… good?"
She knew the Queen was allied with the demons, and if the hero Kei was considered her enemy, that only meant Kei was not on the demons' side. Trusting him was her only option right now.
"The Queen works for the demons. We have to stop her."
"Kei, I'll kill you!" shouted Near, trying to smash his head with a massive punch.
Nirfei, who had been hiding in Kei's chest, burst out and became a huge flame that enveloped Near's entire head, successfully blocking the attack. Her fist couldn't penetrate it, as if a normal human had punched a brick wall.
Near stood there with her mouth open. Dodging her attacks was one thing, but taking one of her punches? For her—and not counting fights with the other heroes—this was the first time her punch had done no damage. Not even Sei Molfer would survive one. But her surprise wasn't just that; her fist actually hurt from the impact. It trembled slightly with pain.
"What is this thing?" said Near.
"I'm not a thing, idiot!"
Nirfei wrapped around the right half of Kei's face, forming half of her own face as she started laughing at Near.
"I am the great Nirfei! Kneel before me, commoner!"
Kei's skin crawled, and he quickly threw Nisei away from him.
"Nirfei, shut up!" he shouted mentally while tossing her.
Provoking Near was never a good idea; now his concentration had to be 100% on dodging to avoid being killed.
Was that part of his plans? No, Nirfei had ruined them. Out of the 437 active strategies, only 195 remained. 242 strategies ruined by Nirfei.
"Now!" shouted Kei.
Drin, in her demonic form, emerged from the ground, grabbed Nisei by the arm, and sped away at maximum velocity. At the same time, Gelisha jumped over Kei, and the instant her foot touched the ground in front of him, she attacked. Earlier she had only tried to capture him—that's why she went for his back—but she would never attack an enemy from behind. Warrior pride? No, she considers it cheating, and as someone who loves challenges, she hates taking the easy way.
Kei dodged the attack by simply shifting his body to the left with a push from his foot and smiled at her, activating his special ability to the maximum.
"You're really cute when you're angry."
"Don't talk—just fight!"
Kei quickly moved away from her.
He had tried to use his ability on her, but it didn't work. The heroes have resistance to status effects, and that seems to include his own special ability.
"It really doesn't work on the heroes no matter how much I improve it," Kei thought.