I Paved a Flower Path for My Nephew and Ended Up Becoming the Hero
—!
Rain of fire was falling on a world that darkness had settled over.
But no screams could be heard, no sounds of anyone fleeing.
Because they had all died.
In this place where nothing but corpses remained, all that was left was Alex himself, and—
CRAAASH! CRASH!
—the Demon King and the Hero, fighting over there.
But the Demon King and the Hero did not know that Alex was here.
Because Alex was in a ghost's state.
'Leo!'
The voice calling out to his nephew, the Hero,
'You damned Demon King bastard!'
and the voice cursing the Demon King — neither reached them.
If even his voice could not be heard, how could physical force work?
SLASH!
Even when he threw his body in to block the Demon King's attack, it passed straight through and struck Leo's body.
Again and again, it happened.
Alex the ghost had no choice but to chase after his nephew Leo, who was being attacked while he stood helpless.
But.
'Leo! Dodge!'
Even if he could not be heard,
'Damn it!'
even if he could not block it.
Deep golden hair flying, Alex threw himself in front of Leo again and again.
So that Leo, left alone after the reinforcements and his friends had all died, would not have to fight in loneliness. So that Leo at least could win and return alive.
Because by some chance, just once, he might be able to block the Demon King's attack.
However.
"Ugh!"
The god did not grant Alex's wish.
<Leo....>
No — could not grant it.
Because even Solenius, the Chief God, was lending his power to the Hero with the resolve to be annihilated.
The Demon King, who sought to kill every existence on the continent and make it his own, was that powerful a being.
"I'm, I'm all right...."
Leo struggled even to breathe out.
The brilliant golden hair that had drawn everyone's eyes had turned white at some point, and one of his two sky-blue eyes, which had sparkled like jewels, was shut and bleeding.
"Haa."
On top of that, the left prosthetic arm the Mage Tower Federation had fitted him with moved so poorly that it seemed about to break down.
The Age of Ruin.
An age in which the fear and dread of a death that might strike at any moment had to be accepted as fate.
The Hero of this age, Leo Solenius, had fought until his whole body was breaking against powerful enemies to reach this place.
'Let's run, Leo!'
Alex tried once more to persuade him, knowing he would not be heard.
'Forget the continent, forget the last city, let's run!'
What was any of that worth?
To me, my nephew is the most precious, the most treasured thing there is!
But the Hero rose again and gripped the Holy Sword. Though there could not have been a single unbroken part left of him, he stood up straight.
'Damn it!'
If his nephew was going to be that way, then his uncle had no choice but to help.
It was fine even if his soul was annihilated. If it was for Leo.
But as though they stood in different spaces, Alex's efforts did not reach.
CRASH!
Helplessly, he had to let the Demon King's attack pass through.
"It ends now, Hero."
With those words, the pure white skull embedded in the Demon King's chest flickered with dark green flame.
Alex and Leo tensed sharply.
Because whenever that skull flickered with dark green light, especially powerful magic came pouring down.
And just as expected, spells poured out of the empty air.
Leo dodged what he could or deflected it with the Holy Sword as he ran at the Demon King.
Burning every bit of divine power he had, and his own soul as well.
<Leo...!>
Solenius, the Chief God, added his strength to Leo's too.
Even if his own existence vanished, he wanted to be of help to the Hero he had chosen.
CRAAASH!
The Hero gathered all his strength and struck the Demon King.
'Aaargh! Just block it, damn you! You useless body!'
Alex, still in his ghost's state, flew this way and that, hurling himself in front of attacks he could not block.
"Vanish! Demon King!"
The Hero Leo became a single ray of light and flew at the Demon King. He put everything into this attack.
CRASH! CRAAASH!
Breaking through the layers upon layers of barriers, Leo closed in on the Demon King.
More strength poured into the hand gripping the shining Holy Sword.
Leo took the Holy Sword in both hands and drove it straight in.
And at that very moment.
The pure white skull embedded in the center of the Demon King's chest shone.
Dark green flame.
The omen of the magic everyone feared.
But Leo did not fall back. Instead he clenched his teeth and put still more force into the Holy Sword.
Just then.
Dark green light shot from the skull like an enormous arrow.
'Leo!'
Knowing he could not block it, Alex threw himself in front of it. As he had hundreds, thousands of times until now.
And at last.
Alex's wish came true.
'...!'
The streak of dark green light was blocked by Alex's body and stopped in midair.
'I blocked it! I blocked it!'
But his joy lasted only a moment.
As if mocking the rejoicing Alex, the streak of dark green light that had halted for the briefest instant passed through Alex's body as though nothing had happened at all.
And it went straight on to pierce through the chest of Leo Solenius, standing behind him.
"...Kuh!"
It was the heart.
The part where his heart had been was punched clean through, as though it had been carved out entirely.
But Leo Solenius did not feel the pain.
Because a moment ago, when the streak of dark green light had stopped for the briefest instant, he had seen a figure appear, faint though it was.
A young man with deep golden hair and light green eyes.
"...Un, cle?"
Why was the uncle who had died twelve years ago here....
'Leo!!'
Somehow he thought he could hear the voice too.
"Ha... haha...."
THUD—!
Leo, dropping limply to the ground, laughed without meaning to.
'Our Leo!'
'Uncle!'
His short but happy childhood came back to him.
That time when he had known nothing and had lived protected by an uncle who was barely in his teens.
'...I wanted to do well.'
Leo's breath faded, little by little.
'...I'm sorry, Uncle.'
Finding the parents his uncle had wanted so badly to find, protecting the people and his companions, striking down the Demon King.
He had not been able to do any of it.
'I... actually....'
He wanted to tell his uncle.
The uncle who had been the only guardian he could lean on.
'I was scared... of all of it....'
Fighting the enemy, watching his companions get hurt, getting hurt himself, protecting people, defending the continent,
...and being betrayed, too.
Of course it was work a Hero ought to do, and work he had wanted to do himself.
But there had been fear as well.
The kind of fear any person would inevitably have, the kind he could only speak of to his uncle.
'...I missed you, Uncle.'
Even if it was an illusion the Demon King had shown him, it was fine.
Even if it was his own delusion, it was fine.
Leo, glad that he had been able to see his dead uncle at the last, shed a few small tears and closed his eyes.
It was the death of Leo Solenius, the last Hero of the Solenium continent.
'I... blocked it... I was finally able to block it....'
With both hands trembling, Alex tried to lift Leo's body, gone cold, with all the care he had.
But a ghost could not touch a person's body.
His hands passed straight through, and Alex struck the ground.
'You should have run!'
Alex shouted in a voice that shook and shook.
'What is a Hero worth! What are people worth! What is a continent worth! You at least... you should have lived....'
Alex tenderly stroked Leo's body, riddled with wounds, a hole punched through where his heart had been.
'You idiot....'
Why did it have to be Leo?
There were plenty of skilled knights, and wealthy nobles, and priests overflowing with divine power — so why did it have to be Leo, a commoner and an orphan, who was chosen as the Hero?
He could understand it.
Because Leo had been a good child.
Because he was the kind of child who drew people's eyes and won their affection just by being there.
And he had talent as well; teach Leo one thing and he would grasp ten — that kind of genius. He put in enormous effort too.
Even Alex himself would have trusted him with the world.
'But still, not like this....'
If that was how it was, then he should have been let to win. He should have been let to triumph.
'He should have been let to survive and live long and happily! You damned Chief God bastard!!'
He knew that the Chief God had also done his utmost to help Leo, but he could not help resenting him.
Because Leo had been only eighteen.
Because even compared to himself, who had died at twenty, it was still a young age.
'Damn it!'
Alex, who had been shouting and hollering, dropped down where he stood.
It was all already over.
At the end of grief and rage came emptiness.
'...But why am I not disappearing?'
If there was a world of the dead, he wanted to meet Leo even if it was only there.
To tell him it must have been hard, that he had been through so much, and to curse the bastards who had betrayed him and that Chief God bastard to his heart's content.
'You didn't even know I was with you the whole time, did you?'
From when Leo was six years old to now, at eighteen.
He wanted to tell him that for twelve years, his uncle had always been at his side.
'I wonder if my sister and my brother-in-law are there too?'
His sister and brother-in-law, who had left on a mercenary commission when Leo was a baby and never returned, must already be dead as well.
'Then it'll be a family reunion after a long while. I'd better hurry along too.'
Alex smoothed Leo's face, which looked as though he had fallen asleep. Though of course it did not touch.
'You're still so young.'
Looking at the boyish face of Leo, who had only just become an adult, Alex whispered.
'You did well, Leo. My nephew really is the best.'
If Leo had heard it, wouldn't he have broken into a wide smile?
'Rest well.'
Enough hardship now, enough worrying.
'Sleep well, our Leo.'
Alex wished for him to rest in complete comfort, enough to make up for all the rest he had never gotten.
'I wanted to make you happy....'
Just then.
[Got...!]
A voice was heard.
[Sto... grab it!]
Some man's voice.
'What? What did you say?'
At the voice that had suddenly come to him in a place where even the Demon King had left and he alone remained, Alex started in shock and looked around.
In that instant.
Everything before his eyes went black.
***
"...?!!"
At the feeling of his back burning, Alex's eyes flew open.
"...!!"
It hurt so much that he could not even scream.
He had spent twelve years in a ghost's state with no physical force at all, so he had no immunity to pain like this.
He had already died, and now it felt like he was going to die again.
His vision was blurry.
Grass and bare earth and, spread across it, bright red blood.
'...I feel like I've seen this somewhere....'
His experience traveling with the Hero's party (though the Hero's party had not known it) did not seem to have been in vain; even in pain that felt like dying, Alex managed to keep hold of his wits.
Whatever else, Alex the ghost had come to train his mental fortitude, at least, diligently.
'So then....'
GRRRRR!
At the howl of a wolf coming from behind his back, Alex's light green eyes went wide.
He remembered!
This was when he had been attacked by a wolf and died.
He wondered for a moment whether it was his life flashing before his eyes, but considering the vivid pain he felt in his back, it seemed to be reality.
'In that case!'
He had returned to the past. He could meet the young Leo, alive!
'But why does it have to be now!?'
If he was going to be sent back to the past, then send him to some other point in time! Where was there an idiot who would send him back right before he died, of all moments!
Grinding his teeth, Alex still worked his mind for a way to live.
But there was nothing he could do.
The wound on his back was too deep and it was hard even to breathe.
He had no weapon that could deal with the wolf circling around him, and not so much as a healing potion.
'Damn it...!'
He thought he was going to die like this again.
He thought he was going to become an uncle who was of no help to Leo again.
Just then.
A certain voice rose in his head like a brand seared into his soul.
[Sto... grab it!]
'Stone? Grab it?'
Grab a stone?
Before the fallen Alex's eyes, on the ground, there were stones large and small. But somehow those did not seem to be it.
That was when something came into Alex's blurred field of vision.
A glass marble.
A short distance away lay a round glass marble. Strangely, there was something like a green gas inside it.
Alex felt intuitively that he had to grab that thing.
So with a body that would barely move, he crawled with great effort and stretched his hand out toward the glass marble.
'...I touched it!'
FWOOOSH—!
At that very moment, an explosion of flame burst out of the glass marble.
'...?!'
The green flame swept past Alex before he had a chance to react, and began to swallow up and burn the wolf that had been about to attack him.
On top of that, the warm, lethal quantity of blood Alex had spilled also seemed to become fuel for the green flame, and blazed up.
In the blink of an eye.
The wolf and the blood had all vanished.
Alex, watching with startled eyes, realized that the green flame was coming toward him.
'...!'
Faced with the green flame that looked like it would turn him to ash the way it had the wolf, Alex hurriedly tried to move his body and get away.
But naturally, he failed.
As the green flame relentlessly covered his whole body, Alex squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the pain.
But there was no pain.
Instead, the wounds on Alex's body healed rapidly.
"...Haaah!"
As the pain gradually faded, Alex's breath, which had seemed on the verge of stopping, slowly came back as well.
"...What, is this...."
Just as Alex was at a loss over what had suddenly happened.
[Oh! Hello?]
[Otherworld human friend!]
A bright voice was heard.