Lily Arsiana faintly remembers the Hero.
She only sees him in dreams, so although she yearns for him, she tells herself they are nothing more than her own delusions.
She was having that dream even before she came to the trade city of Gran Neal.
The young man in the dream had a rare gift for being a Hero.
His holy affinity was extraordinarily high. He grew stronger the more cornered he became. He could grow furious for someone else's sake. He was the ideal Hero straight out of the old tales.
And with a sword, no one in the world surpassed him.
He had talent even as a rookie. In close combat alone, Lily had once reckoned he would someday rank among the top five in the world.
But that someday came very quickly.
The young man showed a gift that could only be called beloved by the goddess.
With a sword, no one surpassed him. And that did not mean only people and monsters.
It meant neither god nor demon could beat him with a sword.
When he hunted a dragon with a fruit knife, Lily became convinced he would one day slice apart even the magic of Demon King Chronova with that sword.
He had a frivolous, coarse side, but that was simply something to teach him out of.
Until he could stand alone, Lily meant to pass on everything she could teach.
The Hero of Bloodless White Porcelain1.
At some point people began to call him that.
His graceful swordplay stole the hearts of all who watched. The wicked did not even realize they had been cut. His figure, cutting down enemies without a drop of blood on him, was praised as otherworldly.
A sacred light had come into the world.
A proper Hero. A holy Hero. The ideal everyone had wished for.
In that dazzling light, Lily learned for the first time why she herself had been born.
At the same time, watching him grow into someone she could never have imagined when they first met, she learned she had made him carry a heavy burden.
That was exactly why she had decided to put him before her own life.
There the dream ends. The young man's face and shape melt into mist and vanish.
Perhaps a divine oracle. No, she thinks, it is only a convenient dream.
To keep from being crushed by the unreasonableness of the world, she finds herself reaching for a strong light.
As if her own weakness were being held up before her, Lily never spoke aloud of that too-convenient dream.
"Holy Seal: Cell Hyperactivation - Heal Blast."
A giant bat dove out of the night sky, so she burst it open.
Blood and flesh rained down and the battlefield turned thick with the smell of blood. On the stage Haruya had set, he must be running wild by now, she thought.
But the word that slipped from her own mouth surprised her.
"Beautiful..."
Haruya's swordsmanship was beautiful.
Graceful, as if painting with a brush. Fast as lightning. Without a wasted motion.
The weapons of the villagers who rushed him were shorn apart as if drawn into his blade. For every strike they threw, he answered with more than ten.
For all that violent movement, he never sounded short of breath.
Swordsmanship that stole the eyes of onlookers, as if loved by the goddess.
When a Silver Wolf lunged from behind, he took its head without even turning properly. The wolf did not realize it had been beheaded, kept running a few steps, then died.
Then Lily noticed something else. He wasn't dirty.
He isn't splattered with blood?
Not monster blood. Not human blood either.
Haruya was striking to disable the villagers, but he was also swinging his sword.
Villagers he cut could no longer grip their weapons, or collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.
Could he be cutting only their tendons? At that speed, in that melee?
Impossible. Could a human even do such a thing?
Moving that fast, harming nothing else, cutting clean.
She wasn't looking directly at the wounds. Yet the bleeding was light, and Lily sensed somehow that these were injuries that would heal remarkably cleanly.
"Bloodless white porcelain..."
She realized she was whispering it.
Bathed in moonlight, with the monsters' eyes and even time seeming to be pulled toward him, he stood there.
As if everyone here had become his audience, Haruya stood at the center of the world.
Truly beautiful. So someone this beautiful exists in this world.
Her chest moved, and Lily tried to throw every word of praise she knew at him.
But Haruya himself laughed vulgarly.
"Hah! This is the power of survival instinct! The power of wanting fun2!"
"...Tch."
Lily tried to throw every insult she knew at him, but they were in the middle of a fight, so she stopped.
Would teaching him still be in time, even now, she wondered.
Difficult, she thought, smiling wryly. And she watched him, thinking he seemed firmly resolved to build his harem.
Bathed in moonlight, Haruya overlapped with the Hero from her dream.
"Hey-hey! Any trashy little parasite scum hiding among the villagers too ugly to fight trash like me3? Come on out!"
No. They don't overlap at all, Lily decided.
Perhaps provoked by the taunt, black mist began to rise from the fallen villagers.
The mist gathered in the sky, then knotted into a single gaseous mass.
"Hah, all of them!?"
The black gas writhed hard.
"Humans, humans, lowly trash humans!"
"Monster scum so low it's gas - that's pretty funny!"
"You've seen the form of us Ragion... don't think you'll die easy! Trash humans!"
The collective parasite calling itself Ragion writhed with irritation.
Ragion - a name she had never heard. Lily readied her staff. Swordsmanship alone could not fight an intangible gas monster, she judged.
Ragion seemed to think the same. It spread its gas to swallow Haruya.
"Lord Haruya, step behind me!"
She moved to raise a holy barrier, but Haruya didn't move.
Instead he smiled as if to tell her it was fine, and for some reason that put her completely at ease. She caught herself and tried to cast anyway, then realized it was pointless.
"Trash human! I'll melt flesh and bone into sludge!"
The gas closed in. Haruya, perfectly calm, settled his sword at his hip.
A clear ring trembled out, like a bell.
Just as she registered it, he had already swung straight sideways.
"Humans are idiots! Idiots, idiots! Gas can't be cut... whaaaat!?"
Ragion's body had been sliced clean in two across the middle.
It could not seem to regenerate. The gas thinned into the night sky.
"Why why why!?"
"Why did you think gas couldn't be cut. Of course it can, it's gas."
"I got mocked... by TRASH!"
No, gas normally can't be cut, Lily thought.
Lord Haruya's sword was utterly ordinary. No sign of enchantment. Had he poured life force into it? Or was it pure technique?
Haruya wore a face that said of course gas can be cut.
Perhaps sensing its death, Ragion flustered and spread its gas.
"No no no! Why to trash like you!"
"Yes, hi, I'm traaash!"
"Ugh...! If I had a better vessel, a better body! Someone like you!"
Ragion got that far, then stopped shouting.
It remembered its candidate for a parasite, Lily realized. She began weaving a purification art so she could blast it if the gas came near, but -
"Hey, hey, there's a fine vessel right in front of you."
Haruya taunted it.
Unable to grasp his intent, Lily stared, bewildered, whilst Ragion's voice shook.
"Wh-who'd parasitize a creepy human like you! Who would!"
"Huh? Scared, are you. Just as expected of sub-trash lifeforms."
"...You'll regret this! You mass of trash!!"
The gas drifting in the sky gathered into a ball, shot at high speed into Haruya's open mouth, and forced its way inside.
His body convulsed violently.
Whilst Lily stood frozen without a word, Haruya's stolen mouth laughed in triumph.
"We won won won! We win, human! No, trash-"
Then Haruya flipped his sword upside down.
And drove it with all his strength into his own stomach.
The blade punched through his torso, the tip bursting from his back, and he sank to his knees. Haruya coughed up blood and black mist together, and Lily clearly heard Ragion's wail of this can't be fading into the night.
"Idiot. You take damage when your host does, right? What were you doing parasitizing an enemy head-on."
Haruya breathed out, saying it was over, over.
Lily ran to him, her face white.
"Lord Haruya!? Are you sane!?"
"You're supposed to ask if I'm okay."
"...You look okay."
"No, not okay. Sword went clean through. Hurts like hell."
Haruya was grinning loosely.
He hadn't been sure it would finish the thing, yet he'd done it anyway - whether that was courage or recklessness, Lily couldn't tell.
Perhaps you will become a Hero who gives light to the world.
She felt it closer to conviction than premonition.
And she was also convinced things would not go the way he wanted.
"That was far too reckless, Lord Haruya."
"Wasn't reckless. I could do it because we have a priestess."
"...Because you trusted your companion's strength?"
"Yes, yes."
Blood ran from his mouth as Haruya laughed.
Something in that laugh sounded like he was covering something up.
"Did you throw your body in because you thought I might be parasitized?"
"Huh? Weell..."
His eyes wandered.
This person's eyes have wandered like that now and then ever since we met, Lily thought, suspicious.
"Were you not supposed to save yourself first?"
"...When I threw myself in, what did you think, Lily?"
"I was angry."
"Yes! That! That's what I wanted to tell you!"
He just thought of that now, didn't he, Lily thought.
Perhaps he was the type who acted without thinking much at all.
"You are a helpless person."
Lily was smiling naturally, and she didn't even notice she had smiled.
Only Haruya saw that smile, and he ended up staring, dumbfounded.
"What is wrong, Lord Haruya?"
"...No, just... you're cute."
Haruya had often said she was cute, but Lily felt this was the first time he had said it and meant it.
She felt it, but to her that was a small matter.
"Then I shall pull the sword out for treatment. All at once."
"Huh!? W-wait a bit! Ten seconds! Give me ten seconds!"
"Understood. One- two- ...ten!"
A voice nothing like a Hero of light, a thoroughly pathetic scream, echoed into the night.
Nothing like a Hero of light - but she had learned there was also a light like Haruya's, and Lily smiled quietly once more.
Trivia:
- Lily's dream of the Hero is implied to be a genuine memory rather than fantasy, which casts her entire devotion to Haruya as something predestined rather than mere admiration.
- The title Bloodless White Porcelain foreshadows Haruya's signature trait of cutting enemies without spilling blood, a detail introduced in the dream before it is confirmed in battle.
- Haruya stabbing himself to destroy Ragion from within reveals a reckless tactical cunning, showing he trusted Lily's healing ability more than he let on.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ A poetic epithet meaning bloodless white porcelain, evoking the image of a swordsman who cuts down foes without a single drop of blood staining him or his blade.
2 ↩ A crudely censored lewd joke; the circled character replaces a word for sexual desire, used here as a vulgar comedic boast about survival instinct.
3 ↩ A harsh Japanese insult meaning trash or scum, repeatedly traded between Haruya and Ragion as a running verbal jab.
Notes:
• Lily Arsiana - Priestess of the Great Goddess Church with waist-length translucent silver hair and a slender, small frame. A devout, strong-willed follower whose loyalty to the Hero borders on fanaticism, she possesses strength exceeding Silver-Iron rank and wields a holy staff with healing magic. Orphaned by an evil dragon, she formerly educated Haruya.
• Demon King Chronova - A powerful demon lord who fell from grace while serving Goddess Flora. Attempted to plunge the world into darkness. Bound his soul to the Dark Temple to drag the hero down with him in death. Speaks with archaic, grandiose diction. Ruler of the Dark Temple who wears high priest-like garments. Possesses defensive and offensive magic including Chronowall and Chronosfang. Dignified yet easily flustered, particularly by the intruder's nudity. Values formality and tradition.
• Haruya - Solo adventurer in the trading city of Gran Neal, formerly the Holy Hero who defeated the Demon King Chronova. Maintains a bronze-rank adventurer status deliberately to avoid responsibility and attention. Slim-built young man in plain breast armor with a longsword and a large hip pouch of adventuring tools. Harbors a singular life goal of losing his virginity at a high-class brothel and building a harem, a dream he loudly declared at guild registration, earning him infamy among female adventurers while being well-liked by male adventurers for his candid lewd talk. Secretly a returnee from death who deliberately destroyed his hero-route reputation.