The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 90

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 90. An Ordinary Day (2)
“…A lie?”
I recalled the conversation I’d just had with Harris.
‘There didn’t seem to be anything particularly strange about it.’
I turned to look at Elisha, who was tilting her head and smoking a cigarette.
“Did you discern it through your Blessing of Insight?”
“No. The Blessing of Insight doesn’t have the convenient ability to detect lies.”
Elisha shook her head with a bitter smile.
“Then how did you determine that Harris was lying?”
“Time.”
“…Time?”
What problem could time possibly be?
As I looked at Elisha with unresolved confusion, she took a drag from her cigarette and continued her explanation in a calm voice.
“Harris claimed he woke up to the commotion outside around 1 AM and went to check.”
“Yes.”
“How could he possibly know it was 1 AM?”
How could he have known it was 1 AM?
“Well… he must have looked at a clock, right?”
“There was no clock in Harris’s house. He wasn’t wearing a wristwatch either.”
“Ah.”
Heroes have Hero Watches and can check the time whenever they want, but Harris isn’t a hero.
“Of course, he could have asked someone else for the time. But…”
“No sane person would go searching other houses to ask the time while a villager is being dragged away by a Demon Beast right outside.”
“Exactly.”
Elisha nodded with a faint smile.
“…That’s impressive.”
I let out a genuine exclamation of admiration at Elisha’s sharp insight.
I know my own mind isn’t particularly sharp, but I’ve always prided myself on having developed some discernment thanks to my past life’s experience.
‘No matter what, I can’t surpass innate perception.’
Elisha’s ability to see through someone’s lies with just a few words of conversation was something I couldn’t help but marvel at.
“What’s so surprising? I have no idea why Harris made a false statement in the first place.”
Elisha stubbed out her finished cigarette on the ground and sighed.
“We should hear statements from other villagers as well.”
“Let’s do that.”
Elisha and I visited the homes of nearby villagers to gather additional statements.
After checking on a few households and asking around.
“At least the fact that a Demon Beast appeared and kidnapped a villager is true.”
“The Demon Beast’s appearance and the number of eyes also match Harris’s statement.”
When I synthesized the villagers’ testimonies, I couldn’t find anything significantly different from Harris’s report.
“Hmm… it seems I may have been mistaken.”
Elisha swallowed hard, her expression tinged with embarrassment.
Unlike my initial hypothesis that Harris had fabricated his testimony through lies, the statements from the villagers were remarkably consistent.
“At this point, we have no choice but to seek out that Demon Beast directly.”
The Crocodile Demon Beast that allegedly abducted one villager every night.
Only by meeting that creature—which bore a similar appearance to the Eight-Rank Demon Beast that had invaded the midterm evaluation—could I uncover the connection between this incident and the Beast Archbishop.
“Very well. Then we have no time to waste lingering here.”
“Let’s depart at once.”
Elisha and I turned our steps toward the Mountain Behind Village, where the Crocodile Demon Beast had supposedly headed.
That was when.
“Um, excuse me… Are you… are you heroes?”
A middle-aged woman with dark circles etched beneath her eyes approached us.
“We are.”
“Ah! So you really are heroes!”
The woman’s eyes shone with the fervor of a priest of the Holy Kingdom who had beheld the Seven Gods themselves as she fell to her knees.
“My child was abducted by that Demon Beast last night! Please… please save Rumi from that vile creature’s grasp!”
The woman wept profusely, her forehead pressed repeatedly to the ground.
“I’m just a humble village woman, but Rumi has shown remarkable intelligence and talent since childhood—far superior to other children! Perhaps… perhaps she might even awaken a Sacred Mark and become a hero someday! So please…!”
“Calm yourself.”
Elisha helped the middle-aged woman to her feet, who had been striking her forehead against the hard earth.
“If the child is alive, I will bring her back. Do not worry.”
“Th-thank you, hero!”
The middle-aged woman wept with gratitude in her eyes.
“….”
Elisha’s expression turned bitter as she walked away from the woman.
When we had gone far enough that the middle-aged woman was no longer visible.
“Sigh.”
Elisha withdrew a cigarette from her pocket, placed it between her lips, and ground her teeth.
“…I’ve made another promise I cannot keep.”
At her murmur tinged with regret, I let out a quiet click of my tongue.
“The chances the child is still alive are… virtually nonexistent, aren’t they?”
“That would be correct.”
Elisha nodded, her eyes growing dim.
“The only hope is that this Demon Beast is abducting villagers for amusement rather than slaughter… but even so, it’s difficult to hold much optimism.”
Elisha drew deeply on her cigarette, her lips trembling slightly.
Though she feigned composure, the deep sorrow that dwelt in her violet eyes could not be concealed.
“…Are you alright?”
“Heh. How many times do you think I’ve experienced something like this?”
Elisha shrugged her shoulders and continued walking.
“Losing a child to a Demon Beast attack in a small village like this is quite ‘commonplace.'”
“….”
“Well, Candidate Dale hasn’t actually worked as an active hero yet, so this must be your first experience with something like this.”
No.
It isn’t my first time.
In terms of experience, I’ve likely witnessed far more despair than she has.
Those who lost loved ones to Demon Beasts, those whose lives were trampled by Demons.
Tragedies pervading every corner of the world beyond the reach of heroes’ hands.
The kind of commonplace suffering you could find anywhere—nothing special about it.
But….
“Let’s go.”
Elisha crushed out her spent cigarette and walked briskly ahead.
“…Yes.”
I quickened my pace to follow in her footsteps.
* * *
“The Demon Beast’s habitat seems to be… this way.”
Elisha moved forward with practiced steps, her violet-gleaming ‘Evil Eye’ glinting as she went.
“It’s made its nest quite close to the village.”
“It probably thought there was nothing here to threaten it.”
If we hadn’t come here today, that assessment wouldn’t have been wrong.
“That cave there.”
Elisha pointed to a massive cavern between the rock faces.
“A Demon Beast mutated from a crocodile lives in the cave, then… It’s definitely a Demon Beast with a high number of ‘eyes.'”
Fundamentally, Demon Beasts often retained the habits of their pre-mutation forms.
But that was only true for Demon Beasts with fewer ‘eyes’.
The more severe the mutation from magical energy, the more a Demon Beast forgot its original nature.
“Let’s go in.”
“Yes.”
Elisha and I cautiously entered the cave, staying alert to our surroundings.
Splash, splash.
The sound of water pooling on the cave floor echoed quietly through the darkness.
“Grrrrrrr.”
A savage growl echoed from within the cave.
The Crocodile Demon Beast, which had been lying asleep on the stone floor, discovered the intruders and slowly rose to its feet.
“It’s coming.”
Elisha prepared for battle, spreading thin silver threads around her.
“Professor, wait.”
I stepped forward, blocking Elisha’s path.
“What is it?”
“Look over there.”
“…!”
Scattered across the cave floor where I pointed were seven unconscious people lying motionless.
Three of them had already stopped breathing—dead—but the remaining four still clung to faint, shallow breaths.
Among the survivors clinging to life was the daughter of the middle-aged woman I’d met in the Rural Village.
“…She was alive after all.”
Elisha’s trembling eyes fixed on the young girl with orange hair and a face full of freckles, her breath barely visible as it escaped her lips.
“I’ll handle the Demon Beast. Professor, please focus on extracting the survivors first.”
“…But.”
“Your ‘web’ is far more effective at protecting the survivors than my sword.”
Once the real battle began, the cave would shake violently, sending stone fragments and stalactite shards flying in all directions—lethal for ordinary people without a Stigma.
Especially for those already weakened to the point of collapse.
“…Understood.”
Elisha nodded and stepped back a pace.
As she spread both hands wide, hundreds of silver threads wove themselves into a web formation, enveloping the survivors.
“Roooaaarrr!”
The Crocodile Demon Beast snarled savagely.
Its body covered in steel-like scales, its protruding snout, razor-sharp claws, and a tail long as a whip—
‘That’s the one from the midterm evaluation.’
I couldn’t yet confirm whether it was connected to the Beast Archbishop, but it was definitely the same Crocodile Demon Beast I’d fought before.
‘Back then, I barely won even using Ignition.’
So what about now?
“I’ve gotten considerably stronger since then, though.”
I twisted my lips into a grin and bit my hand roughly.
Blood flowed from the torn skin.
The blood pooling at my fingertips took the form of a blade.
Beskal, the Demon Sword.
The moment I grasped the Demon Sword—which granted tremendous power in exchange for blood—my entire body surged with vitality as though I’d received Iris’s Blessing itself.
“Grrrrr!”
The Crocodile Demon Beast roared ferociously and charged forward.
Boom, boom, boom!
With each step, shockwaves rippled through the entire cave as if it might collapse.
“Roooaaa!”
Sharp claws slashed toward my throat.
Clang!
Blade and claw collided.
My body, which would have been pathetically sent flying backward before, now stood rooted to the ground with unshakeable firmness.
“Grrgh?!”
Instead, it was the Crocodile Demon Beast that was forced backward by the superior strength.
The creature’s four pairs of eyes narrowed in disbelief—it couldn’t fathom being pushed back by a human who wasn’t even half its size.
“Roooaaarrr!”
It roared harshly and this time lashed out with its whip-like tail.
The tail, covered in steel-like scales, whistled through the air with a sinister cutting sound as it swung toward me.
‘I think I’ll let this one slip through.’
With that thought, I angled my sword diagonally and was about to step back when—
—Dale, about your swordsmanship. It just doesn’t feel like it suits you, you know?
Suddenly.
Yurina’s words echoed through my mind.
“….”
A body different from my past life.
Mana different from my past life.
Yet my memories remained trapped in that vast Snowy Wasteland, wandering endlessly.
Then.
“Well, I’m not used to this sort of thing.”
I channeled the full force of my mana into the blade as if detonating it.
Ashen aura and flames blazed along the sword’s edge.
Instead of stepping back, I surged forward, meeting the thrashing tail head-on with a fierce swing.
KRAAAASHHHHH!!!
A deafening roar that shook the entire Cave.
Beneath the swirling ash and flames.
“GRAAAAAAHHHHH!”
The severed tail of the Demon Beast tumbled to the ground.

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