I apologize for the late submission.
My personal reasons caused the delay in posting.
I would appreciate it if you could refer to the activity report for the circumstances.
Another side
Time rewinds a little.
The moment Jiro declared the second round to God, Suella saw Jiro rise to his feet.
At that moment, seeing Jiro standing, she saw a hero there.
As Jiro turned, his and Suella’s gazes overlapped for a fleeting moment.
He smiled briefly then, and she saw his lips move as he silently mouthed, “Go.”
“Let’s go!”
Jiro stood up.
Ideally, she would have rushed to his side immediately.
However, her actions, ignoring Jiro’s will, were held back by the two lives fussing in Suella’s arms, anxious from her recent childbirth.
She would not look back again.
Believing he would surely appear before them again, Suella ran faster than anyone else.
Immediately after, the sound of a clash echoed.
The violent tremor threatened to disrupt her footing, but her body, enhanced by magic controlling her physical abilities, exhibited potential beyond that of an ordinary person, even in her weakened postpartum state.
Suppressing the urge to look back, Suella and the others ran.
“Suella, I really…”
“Himik, please don’t look back.”
Himik, who ran alongside Suella, cradling the wounded Amili and flapping her wings protectively over Suella, called out to Suella with apprehension.
Without even seeing her face, Suella understood what Himik wanted to say and spoke over her, preventing her from continuing.
Himik wanted to go help Jiro.
Suella understood and sympathized with that feeling.
But she couldn’t affirm it, so Suella continued to run forward.
If she hadn’t been pregnant yet, if she hadn’t had the two children she held in her arms, she would have undoubtedly stood by Jiro’s side and fought with him.
But now, she had become a burden to Jiro.
Fighting while protecting them offered Jiro no chance of victory, even in the slightest.
Suella understood this.
Without proper weapons, they understood intellectually that their best course of action against a Hero was to escape the area with all their might.
However, their hearts screamed in denial.
The roar from behind them.
It was a fierce sound, one that suggested it couldn’t be mere combat.
Suella, leading the charge, could only clench her teeth so hard they creaked and pray for Jiro, who was holding off their pursuers, to be safe.
“Suella! You’re safe!”
Despite the anxious journey, Suella and the others managed to reach the teleportation circle installed within the company to a safe zone.
Guided by patrolling demons near the teleportation circle, they entered a plaza-like area.
Many other non-combatants were present, including several Testers.
Relieved that not everyone had been captured, Suella turned at the sound of her name and saw Keiri rushing towards her.
“Thank goodness! I heard the teleportation circle in the dormitory wasn’t working, and I was so worried…”
Keiri approached, a smile of relief on her face as she welcomed the group.
She first went to her best friend, Suella, but then noticed something amiss.
Suella was holding an infant, Himik had handed Amili over to a nearby soldier, and Muil was showing Memoria to a medic.
One person was missing.
She frantically looked around, but the man who would normally be there, recounting their harrowing experience with a wry smile, was nowhere to be seen.
And everyone else had grim expressions.
“…Where is Jiro-kun?”
“He’s fighting.”
She had harbored a bad premonition, but she couldn’t help but ask.
And Suella’s response shocked her.
“Haa!? With the Machine King in that state, and you had to escape the opponent you were facing… Could it be?”
“A Hero has appeared.”
Keiri only had information about the Seraph’s attack.
With many casualties and conflicting reports, the latest information had not been confirmed.
Therefore, this news was so critical that it made her lose her color.
“Immediately raise the security level to the highest! Begin transferring the injured and non-combatants to the deepest part of the evacuation facility! All combatants, including executives, prepare for battle!”
Keiri, who already held significant authority as a leader, acted quickly.
She berated her bewildered subordinates, shouting at them.
“A Hero has appeared! Move it! If you don’t, everyone here will be annihilated!! Hurry!”
Her words were like declaring a natural disaster, but they had a more than sufficient effect as a motivator.
And Keiri judged that this spur was necessary.
The fact that the evacuation facility had not been attacked meant that Jiro was holding them off effectively.
“Form defense lines with platoons! Mages, reinforce the barrier!”
A moment’s respite was worth its weight in gold.
But Keiri thought about how great the cost would be to create that gold.
The Hero was a symbol of fear for the Demon Lord’s Army.
In Keiri’s mind, this meant she would likely never see that man again.
She clenched her fists.
The fate of soldiers who had faced Heroes in past history was generally predetermined.
While some survived, it was mostly in cases where the majority of soldiers fought and fled across the vast battlefield, barely escaping with their lives.
Surviving a one-on-one battle with a Hero was something even the Demon Lord could only do with a low probability.
This common knowledge made Keiri acutely aware of Jiro’s potential death.
“…Idiot.”
She murmured it so softly that no one could hear.
Watching Suella, who was soothing a crying child nearby, overwhelmed by the surrounding anxiety, and praying for Jiro’s safety, an emotional word escaped Keiri’s lips.
However, contrary to her inner thoughts, her mind understood that Jiro had made the best choice.
The fact that someone had stood to confront the enemy while everyone else had escaped indicated that Jiro had undoubtedly done his utmost.
“Hmph! Whoever it is! General, no, contact the Demon Lord! Have him come here as soon as possible!”
This outcome was unacceptable even to Keiri, who cared for her best friend.
Shaking her head, telling herself there was no time for grief, Keiri decided she should take more proactive action, even if it might be too late, and seek help for Jiro.
Perhaps nothing she did would matter.
Perhaps in a few seconds, the Hero might attack this evacuation facility.
Carrying such anxieties, she worked frantically to draw forth even the slimmest possibility of success.
She did not hesitate to prepare countermeasures.
She had received reports of an attack on the homeland, but this was the main assault, so Keiri pieced together the puzzle and created a compelling reason to summon him.
At worst, the entire company could collapse, and she had nothing left but passion to rely on.
“Send a familiar to check on the entrance!”
“Understood!”
She instructed a nearby soldier to make arrangements to gather even a little information, but this turned out to be meaningless in a good way.
“The Demon Lord! The Demon Lord has come!”
A soldier’s voice, loud enough to be heard from one end of the evacuation facility to the other, was filled with joy.
It was understandable; their greatest force had come to their rescue.
Now they would be saved.
Everyone thought so.
While everyone felt relieved, only Keiri and Suella’s group looked pale.
They hadn’t received the news they wanted to hear yet.
The Demon Lord had arrived.
This was good news, but had he arrived in time? That was the biggest problem.
As the atmosphere around them relaxed, only the area around Suella’s group remained tense.
Keiri updated the information, but no report came from the vicinity of the entrance.
The soldiers deployed around there had been annihilated, and even the guards had been eliminated.
Was it okay or not?
As she wavered with such uncertainty.
Keiri was operating her tablet with irritation when it happened.
“Hey! Are you going to move with injuries like that!?”
“Mage! Use Healing Magic! …Wait, later is fine!?”
The entrance suddenly became chaotic.
Confused voices.
Worried voices.
Anxious voices.
All of them seemed to be directed towards one person.
Even though they were worried about Jiro, Suella and the others sensed something had happened.
“!”
As their gazes turned towards the entrance, their eyes widened.
They spotted a man limping, leaning on an oddly shaped Ore Tree, staggering as he walked.
“Yo, managed to survive.”
The man, Jiro, raised a barely moving hand with a surprisingly nonchalant smile and offered an awkward smile to Suella and the others.
“Jiro-san!”
“Jiro!”
“Jirou-san!”
Upon seeing him, three women were the first to rush forward.
Seeing Jiro, Keiri, who had been surprised, watched Jiro with a wry smile without chasing after the three women.
There were signs of minor treatment, perhaps with a Potion, but that was it.
The damage to his left side was undeniable, and he was covered in wounds.
He was clearly severely injured.
Anyone would immediately call for a doctor.
Despite this, his tenacity in propping himself up with his weapon plunged into the floor beside him to embrace Suella and the others was admirable, both as a man and as a woman.
Suella, weeping tears of joy, and Himik and Memoria, who had been treated and were able to move, finally showed expressions of relief on their faces.
“Sorry for making you worry.”
Despite his apologetic expression, Jiro was relieved that Suella and the others had escaped safely.
For Jiro, he had faced his greatest enemy, but if there had been even one more Hero-class enemy lurking, Suella and the others would not have been safe.
Three women in addition to two infants.
Normally, such a burden would be nothing to his physique, but in his injured state, it was slightly taxing.
Keiri, watching from a distance, was impressed by his ability to not show it.
“Thank goodness. Truly, that you’re safe.”
She didn’t throw herself into his chest, but Suella, standing before him, gently leaned into Jiro, mindful of the infant in her arms, and allowed tears to fall from her eyes.
“Yes. That’s right. I’m glad you came back.”
Memoria, standing beside Suella, felt the same.
Her usual calm demeanor was temporarily suspended; she smiled with pure joy and welcomed Jiro.
Her eyes were teary, and her voice trembled, but she conveyed her joy to the fullest.
“Jiro, Jiro.”
Himik, overcome with emotion at his survival, simply called Jiro’s name while gripping his shoulder.
He, however, understood her emotions and gently stroked Himik’s head.
He drew gazes of almost murderous jealousy from single male demons or those without girlfriends, but Keiri felt that’s why they weren’t popular.
The tension she had felt until moments ago naturally dissipated.
The incredible commotion that had erupted in the middle of the night.
She had felt her life shorten when she heard they were attacked by a Hero, but in the end, the worst outcome was avoided.
“Perhaps he’s grown too.”
Keiri would later learn of his tremendous growth, but that was for later.
The growth she referred to was usually reuniting with Suella and the others on a bed in the infirmary after he had taken on a reckless endeavor.
Seeing Jiro return to the woman he loved, even if it meant crawling, Keiri admired him, not as a man, but as a human being.
“Ah, I should get a lover too.”
Keiri deliberately let out a remark, seemingly envying Suella and the others. The men who moments before had been consumed by jealousy straightened up and subtly began to make their presence known.
“Well, work is more important right now.”
She built them up, then let them down.
Reading the mood, and as if telling them not to interfere with her best friends, Keiri finally smiled and left a parting word for her friend.
“It’s good, isn’t it.”
Then, thinking that Jiro would undoubtedly need treatment afterward, she decided to bring a skilled medical officer and left the scene.
Today’s Word
The outcome can change greatly depending on one’s efforts.
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*The first volume of the novel has been published by Hayakawa Bunko JA.
It was released on October 18, 2018.
The e-book version was released on October 31 of the same year.
The second volume was released on December 19.
The third volume was released on February 20, 2019.
The content has been revised and expanded from the original web novel, with the addition of an unpublished interlude.
Please consider purchasing the new releases as well!!
A comic adaptation is being serialized by Kodansha in “Young Magazine The Third.”
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