The Demon King’s Seal Has Been Broken

2 – The emperor apologizes to the hero

In the end, I was stripped of my status as a warrior.

In the process, the emperor tried to stop it somehow, but many of his subjects already agreed.

It was a really unavoidable situation at the point where the princess, the current real power of the empire, would not give up on that decision.

And now, with all of those things over, I was about to leave the imperial palace as Rag, an ordinary person rather than Rag the Hero.

Since I had nothing to do here anymore, it would be right for me to leave on my own now.

After putting down the hero, I feel empty and refreshed for some reason…

The moment I was about to leave the imperial palace feeling this feeling.

“yes…?”

“Wait, are you okay?”

There was one person blocking me.

A benevolent old man with a long white beard.

It was Vinhelm, the emperor of the empire.

he stopped me

It seemed that he wanted to talk to me.

“Yes… I understand. His Majesty Vinhelm.”

I bowed my head to such an emperor and showed my respect.

Well, the road wasn’t that busy anyway, and there was still some time left for the carriage. It doesn’t matter if we talk a little bit here.

I readily accepted, and the emperor led me to the garden inside the imperial palace.

We arrived at the garden full of the scent of flowers and walked down the path where colorful flowers were blooming.

“Your Majesty Vinhelm… just call me Grandpa like before…”

In the meantime, the emperor looked at me and smiled.

“hahahaha…”

Of course, even if the emperor said something like that, he couldn’t comfortably call him ‘grandpa’.

In the past, when I didn’t know the emperor’s identity, I said grandfather, but…

From now on, I’ll never be so gullible again…

It was a story from an immature past.

It felt like I was thinking of the past.

“Was it around this time three years ago…?”

And it wasn’t just me thinking about the old days.

Even the emperor seemed to be thinking about the past.

That day three years ago, the day the emperor and I first met.

“I went out into the city in a normal disguise that day…”

Now the emperor is quite frail and looks tired even from walking…

Until 3 years ago, he was a very active person for his age.

He was healthy enough to fake his identity and visit the streets almost every weekend to see how the people live.

And that’s how the relationship with me started.

“And I was attacked by a demon…”

On the same day as usual, while running errands at the blacksmith’s house where I work, I came across a stream by chance.

But then, of course, the Witchbeast attacked the city.

Even the timing is bad.

In the process, I and the citizens were put in danger.

Of course, even the emperor who was walking in the city was suddenly attacked by the demonic beast. The city quickly became a mess.

The situation was really on the verge of death.

“Do you remember how you defeated that beast with a single sword…?”

There, for some reason, I had the courage to do so.

He hadn’t learned swordsmanship at all, and hadn’t touched a sword at all other than blacksmithing.

However, the result of struggling to survive somehow with the sword I brought to sell.

I accidentally defeated a huge demon beast.

And I fell in love with the emperor and was chosen as a hero.

“Well, that was in the past.”

That was already 3 years ago.

It seems like yesterday when the emperor brought me to the imperial palace and made me a hero…

3 years have already passed like this, and I felt like I was about to quit being a hero. Time flies so quickly.

Looking back, it’s not such a bad memory…

I thought so.

“I’m sorry…”

“Yes…?”

The emperor suddenly began to apologize to me.

As if lonely, the words he spat out while sighing at me.

I was taken aback by that statement.

Why are you suddenly apologizing…?

No matter how much I thought about it, I had no reason to apologize.

“I really consider you a better warrior than anyone else… You were pure, strong and just…”

So I was taken aback, but the emperor continued to speak without concern.

“But isn’t it like this…? I’m really sorry… to make you a hero who didn’t want to be a hero… it’s my fault that it turned out this way… I gave you a bad experience… I don’t know if he made it…”

I’m so sorry for me…. I mean.

He told me in a sinking voice that he was sorry for making a hero.

Well, back in the day, I really hated being a hero.

I was suddenly dragged into the imperial palace, and they were saying stupid things like I was a hero, but I couldn’t be happy with that.

“I don’t think so.”

But there was no need to be sorry.

I said it with sincerity.

“At first, I didn’t want to be a hero, but now that I think about it, it wasn’t such a bad experience…”

Obviously, at first, I didn’t want to be a hero at all.

And to be honest, even after 3 years, I still don’t want to forgive.

However, if you ask me if I regret becoming a hero, that’s not the case.

Traveling as a warrior was really a valuable experience above all else, and it was very rewarding.

Rather, I am grateful to the emperor for making me, now an ordinary young man in the countryside, a warrior.

I didn’t like it, but in the end it was good.

“And it’s true. The only thing I couldn’t do was seal it.”

And well, even though it ended badly, isn’t it true that the demon lord couldn’t be sealed in the end?

The job of a warrior is natural, but it is a job that requires you to be stronger than anyone else.

The fact that such a hero couldn’t kill the demon king, that fact alone makes him disqualified as a hero.

A warrior can never be anyone. Because it is the existence that should be everyone’s hope.

You have to be stronger than anyone else, and always win.

But I didn’t get that part right…

So, I had no regrets at all, and I had no reason to feel sorry for the emperor.

“… You are still the same. Really… You are more like a hero than anyone else…”

The Emperor who heard me say this…

The emperor looked at me and smiled sadly.

Oddly enough, I don’t think of myself as a hero, but the emperor often tells me that I am more like a hero than anyone else.

“Rag. It’s an old man’s request… Hey… Please don’t hate Lesia too much.”

Anyway, the emperor turned around and looked at the garden and brought up the story of the princess.

The story of the princess who banished me from the position of the hero, asking me not to resent him.

“Lesiah certainly did something wrong with Rag, but… that’s my responsibility… I didn’t take care of you on the pretext of being busy with state affairs, and I didn’t properly educate Lesia… If you’d rather resent me, resent me.” I’ll do it…”

It was her own fault that she became like this.

Even though he had guessed that this would happen, it was his own fault for not using his hands.

The emperor was blaming himself for the result of my becoming like this.

“If only I had worked a little harder…”

If I had paid a little more attention, I might have been able to change it…

The emperor said he regretted it.

“In my opinion, Your Majesty was more sage than anyone else.”

But I didn’t really agree with the emperor’s words.

An empire that has been invaded a lot by demons.

If it wasn’t for an emperor like Vinhelm in such an empire, it wouldn’t be strange if it perished long ago.

Rather, he did everything he had to do by maintaining the country like this now in such bad conditions.

This wasn’t flattery, it was the sincerity that came from my heart.

“Well… I seem to have received it satisfactorily, and the princess seems to have grown up better and prettier than anyone else.”

And I think I received a lot from the emperor myself.

In particular, I received it without lacking materially, and I still had enough money to use it.

Also, in the case of the princess, I don’t particularly resent her.

The princess was only saying that because she hadn’t seen the demon king, and anyone would have said that if they didn’t know the truth.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with her nature…

“…”

Emperor who heard me say this.

He didn’t really say anything.

“I’ll just go.”

In any case, it was now time to leave.

Now that the stem of the conversation has stopped, it will be perfect if you leave.

I bowed my head to the emperor, and just as I was about to leave…

“I ask you one more question. Was the demon king strong…?”

As I left, the emperor asked me a question.

Like I’m very curious.

“No matter how much I think about it, I don’t think you will be pushed by the Demon King.”

Like how the hell I couldn’t do anything but seal the Demon King…

Since the emperor highly values my skills, I asked him with an expression that he really didn’t know.

As if there was no way I could only seal it unless the demon lord was that strong…

“… it was very strong…”

Unlike before, I responded to the emperor with a slightly serious expression.

The Demon King I met was really… very strong.

I don’t want to see you again… It was a disaster itself.

“If you show up in the world one more time… I’ll never be able to handle it…”

A demon king who must never appear in the world again.

This was my evaluation of the Demon King.