Falm Academy is still reputable these days for training prospective Heroes, but it is no longer exclusive to the nobility. In fact, its doors are open to anyone with merit.

“These days, yes. Not at the time. It had lost its original purpose, and it was basically a place for noble families to send their boys for clout. In theory, anyone can enroll with enough money, but hardly anyone was crazy enough to dish out that kind of cash. There’s plenty of other ways to get stronger, like going to a private school, apprenticing under a famous swordsman, building experience as an adventurer—you name it.”

Then why did Ares attend Falm Academy?

“Simple. Because he wanted to become the Hero. Sure, there are many ways to become a strong warrior, but if you want to be acknowledged as the Hero, you have to go to Falm Academy. Although, when you think about it, no way is that an actual requirement. But it’s what I believed at the time, and he thought the same.”

What was your first meeting like?

“I’d love to say I don’t remember, but it still haunts my dreams. I sneered at him and said, ‘You’re not qualified to be the Hero.’”

How did he respond?

“‘Even so, I have to become the Hero.’ I didn’t expect to hear that from a commoner, and it made me furious. I was about to cut him down right there on the spot, but you can imagine the teachers put a stop to that. ‘No spilling blood on school grounds,’ they said. Even the teachers thought he didn’t belong there, but they obviously didn’t want me to outright murder him.”

What was Ares like as a student?

“Mediocre. Apparently, he had a short stint as an adventurer before he enrolled, and he had some pretty good fighting skills. But he was self-taught with the sword, so he had to relearn the basics. We sparred many times right up until graduation, and I never lost a single bout.”

Did Ares believe that he would excel at the academy?

“That whole thing about him getting exceptional grades was made up after the fact. His acquaintances at the academy completely changed their tune about him once he defeated the Demon Lord. Suddenly, they were saying stuff like ‘Even as a student, he shone like a Hero.’ Truth is, he didn’t shine at all. He was certainly unusual, though.”

How so?

“He’d keep fighting in mock battles until he either won or passed out. A small scrape or two wouldn’t make him give in. Even when he was up against a teacher, he made it into a life-and-death thing. When he didn’t understand a lesson, he would keep asking the staff or his fellow students questions until he got it. He’d keep practicing his form until the early hours of the morning.”

That makes him sound like he was merely a passionate student. It’s a rather unremarkable thing to say about him, if anything.

“It went way beyond ‘passionate.’ The concept of rest didn’t exist for him. He didn’t have a moment of spare time. He used it all for ‘the sake of becoming the Hero,’ quote unquote. He didn’t sleep. He just kept doing what he was doing until he literally passed out. Some people tried to mess with him since he was a commoner and all, but they quickly stopped bothering. Everyone could see that his zealousness was abnormal.”

All that hard work, and his grades were still average?

“No, he did improve quite a bit. I mean, when you go to those lengths, you’re bound to get some results. But no amount of effort makes up for a lack of natural talent. That’s the cold, hard truth. At the end of the day, he never surpassed me in the sword, and he never became the best in the other fields, either. Of course, his grades weren’t bad. But anyone would get his results if they put that much into it… Granted, not that there’s anyone else out there with his work ethic.”

Indeed, Ares was not the valedictorian. I believe that title went to you, Leon.

“That’s because of my father’s backing as a count. If a member of royalty happened to be in the same cohort, they would have been the valedictorian instead. Although to be fair, my grades were pretty decent.”

Leon grinned. His smile was cocky yet endearing.

By the way, you called Ares your friend, but when exactly did you strike up that friendship?

“It was during our field exam at the end of our third and final year. We capped off our studies by going on a monster-fighting expedition to the Great Forest of Lozorof.”

Even nowadays, the Great Forest of Lozorof is known as a monster hot spot. The field exam is still a long-standing tradition.

“‘Hot spot’ makes it sound like the whole place is crawling with danger, but the strength of the monsters varies quite a lot depending on where you are. It’s a fairly big region, and the kingdom has made plenty of headway in it. The students go to an area with relatively weak monsters, plus the teachers are veteran adventurers, and there are knights to keep them safe. There’s hardly any danger…most of the time. But on that day, a demon targeted our group.”

That’s a famous story. It’s even part of the literature. The demon who attacked your group was defeated by the people who would later form the Hero’s party.

“It wasn’t as glamorous as it sounds. Almost all the teachers and knights who were guiding us were killed. Some of the students died as well, of course. When you really get down to it, the kingdom’s oversight is to blame. They shifted the narrative by waxing poetic about the surviving students.”

Now that you mention it, the many casualties were attributed to the demon’s strength, which highlighted the bravery of the students who managed to take it down.

“Later, I learned that the demon was not particularly strong among his kind. He was just a crafty one. He was going for a low-risk, high-reward play by targeting potential Heroes while they were still students. The fight would have gone better if the teachers and knights weren’t stuck trying to protect us.”

Even if he was a weak demon, they’re still the strongest monster race. How were the students able to defeat it?

“Simple. In terms of raw ability, we outclassed him from the start. We might have been students, but Maria, Solon, and I were leagues above the demon. We just didn’t have much actual combat experience. Beating weak monsters was one thing, but we didn’t know how to coordinate against foes stronger than us. I was beaten soundly when I tried going at it alone. Solon panicked when his best spells didn’t work. Maria was dazed when she couldn’t heal the dead.”

Maria the Holy Maiden and Solon the Sage were renowned members of the Hero’s party, though they were not yet able to tap into their strength at the time. What about Ares?

“Well… As soon as he saw the demon, he shouted at everyone to run. ‘Don’t stay still, just scatter.’ I thought he was a coward for telling people to flee without engaging. But the students who listened to him survived, and the ones who tried to fight the demon died.”

What did Ares himself do?

“He fended off the demon when the scoundrel tried to pursue the people who were fleeing. Ares never tackled his foe head-on. Instead, he looked for openings and kept the demon in check. Even acting alone, he tried to save as many people as he could. When the demon knocked me off my feet, he got in between us. If not for him, I’d be a dead man.”

Did Ares tell you to run?

“No, actually. He said, ‘Get up! Fight!’ Darn presumptuous of him, don’t you think? Imagine someone telling you to fight right after you got your backside handed to you. I thought I didn’t have a chance.”

But you did fight.

“It was my first time ever getting beaten up so soundly. My pride was in tatters, but the commoner was still willing to fight even by himself. No way was I going to run, not when I was a nobleman—and a count’s son, no less.

“Besides, he said it himself: ‘Weren’t you gonna be a Hero?’ I squeezed out what little courage I had and stood up.

“Looking back, I think that was the first time I ever showed courage. I’d never faced a single lick of hardship until that moment. It’s why I folded at the first threat I faced and assumed I was going to die.”

How did you fight an enemy you couldn’t beat?

“The same way he did. I didn’t face it head-on. I kept my distance and struck the demon where he had his guard down. I’d always thumbed my nose at that way of fighting. To me, it was a weakling’s tactics, unbecoming of a knight. But that’s what makes it effective against opponents that are stronger than you. I should have been using that style from the start when I was up against a monster that’s stronger than a human.

“I don’t know how many times he and I made cheap shots at that demon. He told Solon to use spells to slow down the demon, and Maria started focusing on just healing us. That’s how we won.”

Was that your first time fighting together as a party?

“It sounds simple when you put it that way. I never thought we would win at the time. I didn’t even know whether our attacks were working. We were just able to fight because he did it without a single bit of hesitation. He was getting knocked down, too—who knows how many times? But it didn’t matter; he’d always get right back up.

“It was only later that I realized that he’d been picturing this kind of scenario all those times we had those mock battles in class. That’s the reason why he never conceded defeat in those fights and just kept going at it until he won. Somehow or other, he’d been absorbing all kinds of things from those lessons… When it came to figuring out how to fight a strong opponent, the difference between him and us became very clear in that field exam.”

Did you start thinking of him as a friend because he saved your life?

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Leon cast his eyes toward the empty sky.

“That’s when it hit me: ‘Oh, this guy was the Hero all along.’ I’m not being a sore loser when I say this, but I was the one who did more damage to the demon once we got back on our feet. In terms of raw ability, I was stronger than him. But that’s not what being a Hero is about. A Hero needs to be strong, yes, but that’s not the only thing that matters. Status has absolutely nothing to do with it, of course. A Hero calls the entire system of classism into question.

“I was not the Hero. That incident was the first time I acknowledged a person for who they were, hierarchy be damned.”

Why did the Hero die?

“Because it was Ares’s fate. That’s all.”

Fragment 1

Soon after I started at the academy, someone said this to me in the classroom:

“You’re not qualified to be the Hero.”

He was a blond, well-built young man. His blue eyes made a strong impression, as did his clean-cut features.

“Even so, I have to become the Hero.”