MTLNOVEL Chapter 9 - We're Fine Without You!... Or So We Thought
“…You, you dare. Cough! You dare to hang me, a princess, on a tree cough! and sleep so comfortably… you.”
“Sip.”
“Ugh! Drinking tea alone while someone is talking… No, more importantly! Give me some tea too! I’m thirsty!!”
I asked Misha to remove the human tree planted outside the house as it was an eyesore. When Misha chanted a spell in Elvish, the tree shrank as if someone had pressed a reverse button, becoming a sapling.
Serena looked at Misha, who had effortlessly dispelled the magic, as if she were some kind of monster, saying that removing the devil’s tree is much harder than growing it.
The captured people fell to the ground with a thud. It doesn’t seem like anyone died, but they all looked emaciated as if they had become malnourished.
“Misha brewed tea for Master. Misha only wants to work for Master. I don’t like other humans.”
“Grr…! I really don’t like this elf! Why doesn’t an elf, whose status is lower than a commoner, listen to me?”
“Master. Can’t we just use this person as forest nutrients? She keeps picking fights and it’s annoying… even though she’s not my master.”
“Eek!!”
Isabel was actually less affected. According to Misha, humans pickled in chemical products are not very liked by the tree, so she was probably drained less.
By chemical products, she probably means clothes with a lot of color or cosmetics.
“Stop it, Misha. It’s a waste of time. You go outside for a bit.”
“Yes~ Master.”
The house is too small to have a room to stay in. I left Misha outside for a while and started a conversation with just the princess and Serena at the table.
I didn’t really want to talk, but I had to because they probably wouldn’t leave otherwise.
Well… I could guess what they wanted to say.
“Huff… huff… That elf. I’ll tell Father and definitely have her killed. I’ll make her pay for insulting royalty…!”
“Stop talking nonsense. Just say what you came for and get out quickly.”
“What…! Get out…!!”
The first time she’s heard such vulgar language.
Isabel felt dizzy at this unprecedented rudeness. She was already drained from being hung on the tree, and now being cursed at, it felt like she was receiving all the stress of a lifetime in one day.
“Faust… you. Fine. I’ll get to the point. As the princess, I order you. Become the hero and save this world.”
“Not interested. Find someone else. You’ve said what you came to say, right? Now get out.”
“…………….”
The reddened Isabel just opened and closed her mouth like a broken radio. Serena, with a servile expression, looked at me cautiously and said:
“Are you still not over your anger, Faust? You know… as you know, only people from another world can become heroes, right? Right now, you’re the only candidate.”
“What do I care. Just summon anyone else from Earth.”
“…The dimensional summoning magic circle has a cooldown time, so it can’t be used for the next 100 years. If there’s no hero for 100 years, the country of Aurelia itself might cease to exist, you know? Please, show some mercy.”
“Huh… This tea is really delicious.”
Before I knew it, I had emptied the teacup while drinking absentmindedly.
Misha is outside… and I’m too lazy to brew it myself.
“Isabel. Go and fetch some tea.”
“Huh?!”
“Why are you making that expression like you don’t understand? I said go brew some tea.”
“Serena. Go brew some tea.”
“No, you do it. Then I might consider the hero talk.”
“…………….”
Isabel glared at me so fiercely that her cheeks trembled, then struck the teacup with the holy sword. The pottery I had made myself shattered into pieces.
“Forget it! I’ll never ask someone like you for anything again!”
“Is that so? Suit yourself.”
“Faust! Be prepared! I’ll make sure you pay for your crimes, including the disrespect that elf showed me earlier! I’ll show you how terrifying power can be! No matter if you’re a hero candidate, you’re just a commoner! And I am the princess standing at the pinnacle of the nation!!”
“Alright, now hurry up and go back. You’ve said what you came to say, right?”
“You seem to be under some misunderstanding.”
Isabel raised one corner of her lips and sneered. Swinging the holy sword around as if it wasn’t anything special, she covered her mouth with a fan adorned with peacock feathers.
“We have no~ problem even without you. In fact, the previous hero didn’t really achieve much either, right? He was an incompetent man who died as soon as he went on an expedition. But we were fine. We have centuries of know-how and! a defense system built up that doesn’t need the hero’s power! You… you seem to think you can throw your weight around this time, but keep being stubborn. Just live like a worm in this mud house alone! We won’t come looking for you again!!”
“Can you really keep that promise? You can’t take it back.”
“You’re really playing around. Who does he think he is… no, really, if someone heard this, they might think you’re actually someone important. Know your place? You pathetic life, cleaning horse dung!”
Isabel kicked the table with her foot and looked at me provokingly.
When I showed little reaction, that crazy princess stabbed and broke our furniture with the holy sword, making a mess, before finally seeming satisfied and walking out.
Honestly, it’s not like this house contained items I was particularly attached to, so the damage wasn’t severe, but it certainly became an occasion for me to be greatly disappointed in the human called Isabel.
Serena looked back and forth between me and Isabel before hurriedly chasing after the princess.
“Your Highness! Princess! You shouldn’t do this!”
“What shouldn’t I do? Did I say something wrong?”
“You should go back right now and… um… ap-apologize to Fa-Faust…”
“What? What did you just say?”
Isabel suddenly stopped and glared at Serena with eyes colder than a snake’s. Serena, whose every day was like walking on thin ice, knew very well that she should never offend royalty, but felt a sense of duty that she had to say this one thing.
“Without a hero, everything is over. The world won’t function normally, I’m telling you.”
“What nonsense are you talking about? Are you stupid by any chance? What does a hero do? Is there anything more than showing off with a holy sword and wasting taxes? Come to think of it, you were a member of Lucy von Letlerea’s party, right? You guys ended up not even properly fighting the demon race, didn’t you? But our country was still peaceful, right? In the end, the hero’s party is just a relic of the past, and we don’t need to grovel before a hero.”
“Th-That’s not true. That’s really not it, Your Highness.”
“What’s not true?”
Usually, when she spoke this far, people would get scared and back off, but Serena stubbornly talked back, which made the princess a bit puzzled.
“Even if the hero himself doesn’t do anything, the very existence of the hero makes the magical world go round. For example, the reason we don’t see the Demon King’s army invading when we look at the sky is… the chamamak that blocks the approach of demons…”
“? Chamamak? What’s that? Huh? But why is it so dark?”
In the sky that they naturally looked at while explaining the magic system to the princess—a huge dragon was spreading its wings, overturning the clouds. Dragons, even young ones, are said to be fantastical creatures that require at least 10 formally graduated magicians from the academy to take down… they’re known to be particularly fierce among the Demon King’s army.
“Dr-Dragon… To approach this close… As, as expected, the chamamak is…”
“Kyaaaah!! Monster! It’s a monster!! This is strange!! Why isn’t the defense system working? In case of an aerial attack, the automatic interception magic installed on tall towers should repel enemies!!”
“Th-That too is a system created by some hero 320 years ago, so it doesn’t work without a hero.”
The dragon kept looking around as if searching for something. The capital’s residents were all startled by the dragon appearing in the sky and fled to their homes, but the palace was too far away.
Eventually, the princess caught the dragon’s eye.
<…Found you. There you are>
“Kyaaaah!!! Th-The dragon is looking at me!! Kyaah!! Th-The dragon is approaching! Serena! You’re quite a powerful magician, right?! Quickly save me!!!”
“Th-That’s. My magic also becomes stronger when linked with the hero. Right now, even if I confronted the dragon, I probably couldn’t even scratch it… If the hero were beside me, I might be able to put up a fight with enough firepower even against a dragon.”
“Then bring the hero!! Quickly!!!”
“…Even if we ask Faust to come now, he definitely won’t come. Right after you said you’d never visit him again.”
“…Th-That’s.”
Words she said with her own mouth.
She remembers clearly as it wasn’t long ago… but she didn’t expect a crisis situation to come this quickly.
“…Sa-Save me…”
Even if she regrets it now, it’s already too late.
The dragon’s strong hand grabbed the princess.
With one flap of its wings, the dragon was already far away, becoming a small dot in the distance.
——The news that the princess had been kidnapped spread throughout the country.
If we’re talking about forces that could deal with a dragon… logically, only the hero’s party could.
However, the king also knew the news that Faust was refusing to be appointed as the hero.
It’s a matter of losing face for the king to be rejected by a commoner multiple times.
Rather than relying on a hopeless hero, he tried to gather the strongest soldiers and magicians to recapture the princess. However, both the soldiers and magicians showed reluctance as if they had made a promise.
Especially the renowned elites confidently advised the king that this operation could not succeed.
“Mana flows in the atmosphere, and we embody it as magical power to use magic. But the amount and quality of mana flowing in the atmosphere is enhanced only when the hero is linked with the world. Even the same magic becomes less than one-tenth as powerful in a situation without a hero.”
“It’s the same with the swords used by soldiers. With just a normal sword, it’s hard to even hunt beasts. Only magically enhanced magic swords or magic spears can fight against the Demon King’s army, but the first person to combine magic and weapons was the daughter of a blacksmith who loved the first hero. That daughter’s feelings added magical power to the weapons. Without a hero, we can’t infuse magical power into weapons. How can we defeat a dragon with ordinary copper or iron?”
“We absolutely need a hero, Your Majesty.”
“This is like a cat fighting a tiger.”
—Show us the figure of a hero wielding the holy sword.
—We absolutely cannot march out before that.
That was the common opinion of the strong ones gathered from home and abroad. When the king ordered them to march out no matter what, they all ran away, leaving only the trash-like common soldiers.
Feeling that this wouldn’t do, he tried to look for a suitable envoy to invite Faust again, but the rumor that Faust didn’t want to become a hero had already spread widely, so no one wanted to take on that mission.
In the end, the king himself had no choice but to go and ask Faust.
If not, his only daughter would die. If his daughter dies, not only would it be sad, but the royal bloodline would be cut off and the country would fall.