I Picked Up the Hero Who Banished Me

3 – [Prologue – 04]

Perhaps she was a little headstrong.

Perhaps she was a little foolish.

Perhaps she was a little emotional.

Perhaps she was a bit of a burden to her companions.

Olivia understood this, but she had also pulled her weight and trusted her companions that much more.

She had been a burden, but she had also helped them, and while she had gotten annoyed when their shortcomings caused problems, she had never held them deeply accountable for it.

Companions…

Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be?

Inflicting burden, giving aid.

Receiving burden, receiving aid.

A burden, yet simultaneously a joy, that’s what she thought comrades were, and Olivia still believed in her companions. She had no intention of revealing that they hadn’t exactly performed admirably during the Demon Lord subjugation.

Truth be told, the supporters did their part adequately, and after the Demon Lord’s fall, they provided treatments and various conveniences.

Rushing forward, striking down enemies – that wasn’t the entirety of battle.

Knowing this, Olivia trusted them, and she held no ill will toward any of them.

But.

But!

BUT!!

“Ku, hah…!”

Spitting out blood, Olivia ran.

A branch clutched in her hand.

She barely managed to channel her stagnant magic, continuously deflecting the attacks hurtling towards her.

Olivia couldn’t fathom why, but her magic wasn’t activating properly. She only suspected it was due to a poison, ‘The Reaper’s Venom,’ and there was nothing she could do.

“Hah, hah…”

Why?

What went wrong?

Mistakes were made.

Unfortunately, Olivia wasn’t a perfect hero.

But she had saved many lives enough to offset those mistakes, and by defeating the Demon Lord, she had brought peace to the world.

But still, is she doing all this *because* Olivia is ‘strong’? Is there no affection built up until now, not even a little?

How can she aim for a fatal blow like that, attack with the intention to kill?

“…….”

The weather grew gloomy.

As if to mirror Olivia’s mood right now, the sky, once blue and vast, was covered by dark clouds, turning a dull gray.

‘A cliff, is it.’

Running endlessly, I’d reached a cliff.

It was incredibly high.

Megurut Cliff was among the highest in human territory, and the thought that no one could survive a fall was instinctive.

If it were Olivia, she could fall without much issue, but that was Olivia with her magic activated.

If Olivia fell now, serious injuries would be unavoidable, and there was no question about Olivia with a severed arm and poisoned, unable to use her magic.

*Whoosh!* Olivia used a branch to deflect an arrow flying towards her.

*Crack!*

It was just a tree branch, and she couldn’t activate her magic properly, no matter how hard she tried, so Olivia realized she was reaching her limit.

“You’re a monster, no doubt about it.”

“……!”

“You lost your arm, the reaper’s poison is coursing through your body… and yet you’re not only using your magic, but you even deflected the Elven Princess’s arrow? And even managed to run this far.”

“What… what do you want to say?”

“That you’re clearly an existence that needs to be eliminated.”

“Why… I never… I never had any intention to be an enemy of the kingdom.”

* * *

*Cough,* Olivia spat out blood.

The blood from her severed arm was no longer stoppable, and the magic she barely clung to was growing increasingly faint.

No.

Not just her magic, but her consciousness itself was fading. Something akin to instinct warned her that if she lost consciousness now, her life would leave her body in short order.

“You say you have no intention of hostility, but how sincere is that? More than anything, an existence like you, so far beyond the norm…just your presence is a threat. How can we know when you’ll deem our kingdom the enemy?”

“……”

“You only uphold your own justice, with no interest in the reasons for wrongdoing, or anything like that. Things that are bound to happen as long as a nation exists. How do we know that you, so prone to extreme thinking, won’t see the corruption within our kingdom and decide it ‘must be incinerated’?”

Her breath hitched.

“If we could bind you to the kingdom, that would’ve been ideal, but…you’re stubborn, and reasoning doesn’t work on you. A hero’s role is to defeat the Demon King. At that point, your purpose is finished.”

“Heh, heh heh…”

“What’s so funny?”

Clutching her arm, Olivia spoke.

“Pathetic, honestly.”

“……”

“In the end, it’s just you whining, ‘I did a lot of bad things, I’m scared of punishment.’ …Me, extreme? You think *this* isn’t extreme?”

“……”

Silence.

That, for Olivia, was an answer.

“Say something! Yeah!! Maybe I was a bit much!! Maybe I acted a little foolishly!! Maybe I acted emotionally!! But was that such a huge crime that you had to feed me that Death God poison or whatever, get the king’s permission to steal my holy sword, and then dump me here to die!! …*Cough!* *Hack!* If you’ve got a mouth, speak!!”

Olivia’s priority was always human life, which sometimes resulted in her being overly destructive to buildings or not thinking about people’s feelings when she was saving them.

And further, she had delivered ruthless judgment on the wicked, so if someone saw it from the sidelines, without knowing the circumstances, she thought they could be terrified.

But it was necessary, and Olivia believed it was what a hero was supposed to do.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t done things worthy of criticism.

“……”

For a moment, Royce’s face flashed in her mind.

The man she abandoned because he was a commoner had done nothing wrong.

She knew it wasn’t right to call ‘being born’ a mistake. It was undoubtedly her own stubbornness and foolish fantasy that made her abandon him. And the fact that her party members agreed, well, that was just a convenient excuse.

“Alex! Belita! Reinaa!!”

“People are born with their vessel set. You always told us to know our place, to know ourselves, right?”

“……!”

Alex laughed.

Those were the words Olivia always used to say.

She spoke as if she were rationalizing banishing Royce with that very logic.

“That’s what you are now. A hero who doesn’t know their place and won’t work for the kingdom.”

“You, you’re a bad man.”

“If protecting the nation is evil, then I’ll become a villain. Don’t worry, you’ll be marked down as fallen in battle. Thanks to your urgency, we didn’t visit a single village on the way here. Meaning, no one among the people has seen the hero after you defeated the demon king.”

“A, Alex……!”

Lydia drew her bowstring.

“You were a perfect hero who died taking the demon king with you. …Your wish came true, hero.”

“……!! You b*stard!!”

*Thwump!!*

Suddenly, Olivia’s body grew heavy, and she immediately understood it was the pressure of Belita’s divine power.

Unable to run, yet refusing to fall to her knees out of sheer pride, Olivia looked at Alex, Belita, and Lydia.

The people who had been her comrades.

“Shoot.”

“……!”

Lydia bit her lower lip for a brief moment, then shot an arrow at Olivia.

“Kuh!”

In that situation, Olivia swung her branch.

*Crack!!*

In the end, unable to withstand it, the branch shattered.

Of the several arrows that flew straight, one pierced as if through her heart, and another, deflected by Olivia’s resistance, instead of going straight through her head, pierced her left side.

If you could call it part of her head, one-third of her head was torn apart by the arrow.

Her consciousness fading, she flew backward.

There was a cliff behind her, and as Olivia fell over the cliff, she looked at the faces of those who had been her comrades.

‘That much for me.’

Olivia reaches out a hand.

Knowing it won’t reach.

Knowing there’s no hand filled with kindness or affection anymore.

‘Was I…wrong?’

I don’t know.

The things I did wrong surfaced,

but so did the things I did right.

Just…

The shock of being betrayed by someone I thought was a comrade.

It just hurt.

*

*Swoosh, swoosh.*

Rain falls.

Olivia had fallen from that high cliff, into the river below.

The height was such that there was little difference in the impact whether it was land or water, so Olivia’s entire body was a mess of wounds, to the point where she wondered, “How am I even alive with these injuries?” and because of the Grim Reaper’s poison, she couldn’t even generate magic anymore.

If she hadn’t accidentally snagged on a rock, there’s no telling how far she would have been swept away, and in the worst case, she would have drowned.

‘The worst case…?’

Maybe it would have been better to die.

I wanted to live as the perfect hero.

I had thought that dying together with the Demon King would be the most perfect ending for a hero, but unfortunately, the Demon King wasn’t strong enough for Olivia to sacrifice her life for.

What Alex had said had pierced Olivia’s core.

I want to live as a hero.

No, I wanted to die as a hero.

It strangled Olivia like an old curse, and that was the reason why she had exiled Lois for being a commoner.

Olivia knew just how absurd the reason was – that there had never been a commoner in any past hero party – which is why she had spouted that nonsense.

‘Why… me?’

Was her fault really *that* big?

Had she discriminated against people for their birth status, something they couldn’t change, and now, was she justifiably being discriminated against for the power she possessed, something she couldn’t change either? Was she just a tool to defeat the demon king, and once that task was done, a tool that could be destroyed without a second thought?

*Thud.*

Her strength finally gave way and she collapsed forward. Olivia felt herself dying more and more under the pouring rain.

A third of her head was gone, her heart was pierced, and she lost an arm.

On top of that, she had been poisoned by something called ‘the Reaper’s Toxin’, and the contract with the holy sword had been forcibly severed.

She herself didn’t know how she was still alive.

No, maybe Olivia had already died during the demon king subjugation, and what was here was merely an illusion.

‘Dying? Just like, this? Without any fanfare?’

She could feel, with every sense, life seeping out of her body. Or, should she call it her soul?

Either way, this was the end.

At least, people would remember Olivia as someone who bravely died in the act of defeating the demon king.

That was all Olivia could think about right now.

Even the desire to live was fading, and it was that very moment, as she was truly dying, that she heard a voice.

“Hey! Wake up! No, what in the…!”

‘That voice…’

It was a voice she recognized.

Her consciousness, which had been sinking deep down, opened its eyes at that voice, and Olivia looked up at the face of the person who had called to her.

The blurry figure wasn’t clear, but the distinctive black hair was not something easily missed, and so I knew immediately who it was.

There was a man, banished by Olivia for reasons of his unchangeable birth.

“Lo, Is…”

As she called his name, Royce smiled awkwardly.

“To remember my name, I’m honored. …But this isn’t the time for such words.”

Without hesitation, Royce lifted Olivia.

*Stop it, I’m already beyond saving.*

More than anything else, knowing the poison had coursed through her entire body, Olivia was certain of her death.

But the question was fleeting, and in Olivia’s fading consciousness, a single question overwhelmed all others.

*Why, me?*

Why are you trying to save me?

Watching Royce desperately run with her in his arms, Olivia lost consciousness completely.