Do Heroes Need Welfare Too? - Chapter 82

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 82

The words that came from the nobleman’s mouth, who I naturally expected to call him the Hero, were completely unexpected.

The Former Emperor was the current Emperor’s older brother.

He was the First Prince, and despite being the child of a concubine, he had proudly ascended to the throne with the full support and trust of all the ministers in the succession struggle.

However, I heard that he died tragically from a sudden illness.

That nobleman seemed to have unfortunately developed premature aging at a young age. Of course, Adam and the Emperor did resemble each other.

The Former Emperor, whose face I didn’t know, would also resemble the Emperor since they were blood relatives.

But Adam is not the Former Emperor.

Their ages are different. If he were the Former Emperor’s son, the age might roughly match.

‘And most importantly, I know Adam’s parents, don’t I?’

They were tenant farmers who always abused Adam harshly. They tormented him with all sorts of complaints and made young Adam do all kinds of work.

Even though they had another son around Adam’s age, they only tormented Adam to death.

‘Thanks to that, I saw bad endings several times right after starting the game if I didn’t give divine oracles immediately.’

Anyway, even if he was a trashy father, he was still his father.

The Former Emperor? That’s ridiculous.

Lindel hurriedly left when he heard the voices of the villagers.

Even while limping with his crutch, he kept glancing back and checking behind him.

It seemed like he was trying to gauge whether what he saw was real.

Or as if he was seeing a phantom that would disappear if he looked away.

I don’t know why the nobleman made such a face.

He might have mistaken Adam for someone he knew.

I tried to catch the nobleman, but I missed the timing because the villagers appeared first.

When I checked the spot where the nobleman had been again, his figure had disappeared.

“Iberis? It’s Eve! Thank goodness. I found Ben but couldn’t see you, so I was worried.”

“That Mercenary Queen is amazing too. She jumped right into the fire as soon as it started to save people.”

“Right. If the Hero had made her his companion, he might have defeated the Demon King more easily!”

“Then is she stronger than the Hero? She climbed up four stories like a jaguar in a flash. According to recent rumors, the Hero is-“

“The Hero is what?”

The villagers who hadn’t noticed Adam quietly standing behind them were gossiping about the Hero.

I felt a little embarrassed.

I already disliked nobles speaking ill of Adam, but even the villagers I trusted were doing this.

It was funny how he was hiding behind me despite being a head taller than me.

I deliberately grabbed Adam’s arm and led him forward.

He wasn’t someone who should hide in the shadows.

He especially wasn’t someone who should quietly listen to people’s nonsense.

“Oh my! H-H-Hero?”

The people who finally realized Adam’s presence were startled.

Some cleared their throats awkwardly, perhaps remembering what they had just said.

Adam bowed his head to them.

Though his face looked tired, he dutifully acted upright and proper.

While his attitude was admirable, thinking that he had lived in a situation where he couldn’t say he was struggling even when he was made me feel depressed.

“Hero? Hero my ass!”

Then a shout was heard from a little distance away.

It was the voice of an elderly man.

The young person’s voice that followed seemed to be scolding him.

I slipped away to see what was happening.

‘Isn’t that person… Elderly Former Hunter?’

An old man was surrounded by people.

When a villager said something to him, the old man shouted loudly.

It was that old hunter who had excitedly told Ben about seeing the Hero at the Demon King’s Castle.

He was also someone who terribly loved the Hero.

A Demon King that appeared less than half a century later.

That meant there were people who had seen the previous Demon King.

That was Elderly Former Hunter.

His eyes, snorting with anger, spotted me.

“You wench! Not only did you bring the Demon King, but you survived in the end!”

He said this while glaring at me with bloodshot eyes.

It was Adam’s simple movement that stopped the old man who was rushing as if to grab my hair.

Adam, who had embraced me by wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me to his side, extended his arm to block the old man’s approach.

When Elderly Former Hunter saw Adam, his bloodshot eyes rolled back even more as he thrashed about wildly.

I don’t know how such spirit could come from such an aged body.

However, Elderly Former Hunter rushed at him like a newborn puppy that doesn’t know to fear a tiger.

His face was confident that the people behind him would take his side.

His face when talking about the Hero was different from the past.

It was filled only with rage.

“This is why I opposed a commoner of unknown origin becoming the Hero!”

Now he was even pointing and shouting at Adam.

But Adam, accustomed to such words, remained calm.

Then the old man, feeling guilty, flinched and targeted me again.

“We shouldn’t have let you into the village!”

“We shouldn’t have given birth to you!”

The old man’s voice overlapped with someone else’s voice.

It was a scene I could never get used to.

Someone screaming at me, and me silently accepting it.

Here, because I was the one in the wrong, no one would protect me…

“Why are you doing this to our child!”

“Aha, you were in cahoots too! You were the Demon King’s minion! To destroy our village again! To kill again!”

Elderly Former Hunter rushed to grab my collar.

But the villagers blocked my front, and Adam obscured the old man’s view.

“What Demon King!”

“Iberis has done so much for us.”

“Eve is like our own child.”

The villagers hid me behind them and shouted one by one.

I felt something warm inside me. Someone was pointing and shouting.

Was it because this situation was scary, or because I almost died trapped in the fire earlier?

Even as my body trembled frantically, tears came when they took my side.

“The Demon King is dead! The Hero over there killed him! Elderly Former Hunter. Didn’t you also see that strange black smoke in the forest disappear!”

Yurina said this while beating her chest in frustration.

But the old man raised the veins in his neck as if possessed by evil.

“I saw it! The exact same appearance, that unforgettable face!”

Repeating the same words, the old man trembled all over.

Now his gaze was no longer directed at me.

His vacant focus was only looking at the ground.

The moment his remaining malice disappeared, the old man’s legs seemed to give out as he collapsed on the spot.

Perhaps because someone almost died from the old man’s actions, people didn’t help him up.

Instead, they came to me and wiped the ash from my face.

Even though no one paid attention to him, the old man continued muttering incomprehensible words.

“It’s the Demon King, it was the Demon King…! Please believe me! That was the best choice. Iberis…”

The collapsed old man burst into tears like a child.

That sight was like a madman, yet also like the final cry of someone who had nowhere to lean on, so I couldn’t say anything.

That didn’t mean he agreed with the old man’s words though.

‘There’s no way the Demon King is still alive.’

After all, he had directly seen the Hero’s holy sword pierce through the Demon King’s abdomen.

It was reasonable to think that, as the villagers believed, the old man had grown senile with age and committed this act after mistaking someone else for the Demon King.

However, seeing the old man crying with his face pale as a sheet, a small seed of doubt began to sprout.

‘Right before killing the Demon King…’

Come to think of it, he recalled Adam’s trivial messages.

[Your Hero shows you a flower he picked up.]

[Your Hero mutters quietly, wondering what God likes.]

[Your Hero carefully asks if you happened to hear what he said earlier.]

He recalled Adam and the messages that had informed him of every single trivial action, one by one.

‘Those messages that told me about every little detail never once said that the Demon King had died…’

He had only heard that Adam saw the ending after hundreds of retries.

He never said the Demon King had died.

As this “what if” hypothesis raised its head, goosebumps rose all over his body.

“That can’t be…”

He muttered quietly without realizing it.

Without noticing that Adam, who had been staring intently at him for some time now, had a strange look in his eyes.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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