Is it Okay to be a Hero as well as the Demon Lord?

Chapter 10: The Klerical Kingdom (Part 1)

Chapter 10: The Klerical Kingdom (Part 1)

Currently I was kneeling on the ground facing the Heroes as they berated, scolded and basically gave me an ear-full. It was a wide range of complaints from Carl's 'you should have trusted us to go with you', Gary's 'Why didn't you take me a long it sounded like fun', Sayuri's very extended 'We were worried and at least tell us what you're going to do', and Alicia's... well I let her punch me a few times and she was quite happy with that. As punishment it was decided that I would do something for each one of them no matter what it was, well within reason at least. Because there was only one of me they decided to take it in turns and played rock-paper-scissors to decide who went first. The order would go, Gary, Carl, Alicia and then Sayuri. Sigh... I had a lot of work ahead of me.

With that done and dusted we went back to Tollot to pick up the things we had left at the inn. Along the way we passed a certain destroyed building. A large crowd of people had gathered and Guards were keeping them from getting too close.

"Isn't that the slaver's office?" Carl asked in surprise, "What the heck happened to it?"

"It looks like someone blew it up," Gary said indifferently.

"Who would-," Their eyes landed on me.

I stepped back with my hands held up, "Hey don't look at me like that. Do you really think I'd go that far?" I averted the accusation.

"Yeah, like Dave would go on that much of a rampage," Alicia laughed. Well she was right in a sense, I went on a far greater rampage.

"Besides if you look carefully it looks like it fell apart more than it exploded right?" I said hopefully.

"It does kind of look like that," Carl noted with shrewd eyes. Of course it did, I made it so it looked like it collapsed due to bad architecture and it just so happened that a strong earthquake occurred in that exact spot, and mysteriously only that spot.

The Heroes dropped the topic and we headed to the inn. After collecting our bags we left Tollot straight away but not before hearing rumours about how all the slaves in the area had just vanished. I acted as surprised as the other Heroes and their suspicions on the culprit passed me by. On another note I wonder how Sebastian was doing handling the new town. He'd probably kidnap Alferir from the castle and force him to help, unknown to me I was actually right on the money.

It was just past noon and although I hadn't slept for all too long I was still able to summon the cloud with no trouble and resume our journey. Sayuri and Carl suggested for someone else to drive and I happily agreed as I lounged on its softness. Gary led the cloud towards the Klerical Kingdom's capital and although he couldn't make it go as high or as fast as I could, we still would make it within a few days.

After several hours of cruising Carl asked a significant question that surprisingly I hadn't really thought about,

"Hey Dave, the Heroes are summoned around once every fifty years to stop the Demon Lord right?"

"Yep," I replied absent-mindedly.

"And the previous Heroes were about our age?"

"Well not really, from what I've read you guys are actually some of the youngest. Most of them were summoned in their mid-twenties."

"Well fifty years is a pretty long time but shouldn't they still be around?"

He had a point..., "Well I used to think that the Heroes just went back home eventually but the King said they couldn't do that." According to the stories from my father and grandfather they just stopped appearing. For the first few years to few decades they'd butt heads with our family but then as peace settled throughout the continent they just disappeared.