(The One That Defies God) Arifureta Novel X Male Oc

(Vol 3) Chapter 5: The Empire and the Heroes (Classmate Side 3 Part 1)

Around the time when Hajime and Ryoko defeated the Hydra in mortal combat, the party of heroes had to temporarily aborted their mission and returned back to the Kingdom of Hairihi.

The clearing progress had dropped due to a lack of comprehensive intelligence they had on the floors up until now. Due to the overwhelming strength and difficulties of the monsters, the members fatigue resulted in them to take a break and rest for the time being.

Although the town of Horuado would have been a good place for recuperating them, a servant of the royal family was sent to meet them and send a message that the heroes and guards were to return to the palace immediately.

Time just seems to fly.

From the beginning of their arrival by the God Ehit's oracle, for some reason, the empire which they had assume was an ally did not conduct the hero summoning and prevented the citizens from being able to meet the heroes right after they were summoned.

However, it had been thought that the empire had not moved even after knowing the heroes summoning. This was because the empire had been founded 300 years ago by famous mercenaries, establishing the title of a 'holy land' for adventures and sell-swords with it's meritocratic system.

For them, the topic of heroes suddenly appearing and leading humanity was unconvincing. The Church was also in Hoelscher, and as such it was not an exception to having believers, but they were less devout compare to those Hairihi. Most of it's people were either mercenaries or were involved in some sort of business, and as such there more who valued profits over faith. If anything, this was just a story.

Based on that, it might be possible that after the heroes were summoned, a new light was formed and several of the people began to believed in the faith. Of course, there were those were openly against showing obesant attitude towards Gods infront of the church. While Haihiri would have been happy to patronize such a meeting, the empire particularly His Imperial Majesty would likely don't care.

However, news of the raid in the (Orcus Dungeon) breaching through the 65th floor and subsequently beating out the previous record definitely piqued several heads in the empire. The members of the expedition team reqested a meeting with both the church and the King.

After the news was meticulously related to Kouki and his friends on the carriage, they soon arrived at the palace.

The carriage entered the palace, and upon their descent from it they saw a figure of a boy followed by a beautiful young girl. The boy was around ten years, and had blonde hair and blue eyes. The girl was much like her brother but she was a few years older compare to him. The boy had an aura similar to Kouki, albeit a bit more mischievous. This was Randell S.B Hairihi, Prince of the Kingdom along with her older sister, Liliana S.B Hairihi, the Princess. While Liliana was more than happy to the carriages of heroes returned, Randell was like a puppy excited to see his owner coming back home. If it were the case, his imaginary tail would have been wagging excessively and was rushing to his meet with his beloved calling out her name in a loud voice:

"Kaori! You made it back! I've been waiting!"

Of course, Kaori was not only the one there, for the rest of the expedition team were present. To them, it was easy to see that Randell was devloping strong feelings for Kaori, although she doesn't seem to have notice it just yet.

From the moment Prince Randell had laid eyes on Kaori, he had been making aggressive approaches towards Kaori. That being said, he was only ten years ago. In her eyes, she had only see him as an emotionally attached child, that oddly resembled her during her younger years with Ryoko. He was just as clingly as she was when it came to her brother.