Chapter 618

618.

Reina opened her eyes.

She quickly surveyed her surroundings.

The familiar building allowed Reina to swiftly grasp the situation.

‘My room in the Flove estate.’

Reina, still lying down, checked the clock and realized it was morning.

Her whole body was in pain.

It was the aftereffect of forcibly moving during the ambush.

‘Considering my body hasn’t fully recovered… it hasn’t been a day yet.’

After confirming her condition, Reina realized she was alone in the room and stood up.

At that moment,

Knock-knock—

The door cautiously opened.

“M-mistress.”

It was Anna, the head maid of the Flove main house, who entered.

Seeing the now conscious Reina, Anna looked on the verge of tears. Reina asked her,

“Anna, where are the uninvited guests?”

“T-they’re in Master Leo’s room…”

Hearing this, Reina rose to go to Leo’s room.

Upon arriving at Leo’s room, she saw the Hero Slayer casually reading a book inside.

“Did you come? Reina Zerdinger. Or should I call you Reina Flove now?”

Without looking up from the book, the Hero Slayer wore a relaxed expression. Reina asked,

“What are you doing here?”

“Gathering information. Finding out what sort of person Leo Flove is.”

The Hero Slayer looked up at Reina and grinned.

“Let’s do introductions first, shall we? My name is Zorea Iner. You call me the Hero Slayer.”

“Iner?”

Reina’s eyes twitched in recognition.

Long ago, a powerful hero family stood in the central continent.

Countless heroes gathered under the Iner name.

Truly, the greatest of hero families.

But then they disappeared.

“Yes. The master of the family erased by shadows.”

Hood still covering his face, Zorea spoke wistfully.

“An incomplete one, but I was known as The All Master—a hero. Of course, it was only the glory of the past.”

“All Master?”

A name she had never heard before.

If it had ever been recorded in history, it would have been impossible not to know.

Reina, perplexed, soon recalled certain figures.

“The Shadow Lords.”

“Indeed, astute of you. A promising hero candidate, as expected.”

Zorea whistled.

“Those loathsome Shadow Lords thoroughly erased my existence from history. Knowing my name wouldn’t even remain in history, I probably should have made louder moves back then.”

During his lifetime,

Zorea achieved only the feats befitting a true hero.

And acted more heroically than anyone else.

No one would have ever thought the noble hero would hunt other heroes in the dark just for the sin of possessing power.

After being hunted down by shadows, his records were completely erased.

Thus, his name was quickly forgotten in history.

“If it bothers you so much, why didn’t you live properly?”

“No worries. The world will no longer forget my name now.”

“What’s left of your name will just be infamy.”

“Ho ho ho… You’re mistaken. I didn’t yearn for the accomplishments of a hero.”

Zorea burst out laughing.

“As long as the world knows I existed, that’s enough. Whether it’s infamy or renown, the form doesn’t matter. All that matters is for the world to know that the Hero Slayer was none other than me.”

“What about you who clung to life like a rat even after getting a new one?”

“Of course. I wanted to leave a perfect legacy in history. This new chance was good, but…”

Zorea burst into hearty laughter as he removed his hood.

“…I’ve turned into this grotesque skeleton.”

Clack-clack-clack

The white skull teeth chattered together.

Despite his absurd appearance, Reina’s expression remained cold.

*

Seeing the cold Reina, Zorea said,

“Such a shame, truly. If you had grown as you were and become a true hero, you would’ve wielded unimaginable power. Even more so than the current head of the Zerdinger family, Selde Zerdinger.”

“You’re the one who turned me into this condition. Now you’re saying what?”

“Can’t help but feel regret.”

Whoosh—

Zorea’s body was engulfed in flames.

Realizing it was her own kind of flame, Reina gritted her teeth.

After being enveloped by flames, the figure that emerged was that of a young woman just shedding her adolescence, causing Reina’s face to stiffen.

“Though losing my flesh wasn’t bad in this way. Now I can become whoever I desire.”

Zorea cheerfully spun in place.

At this sight, Reina’s hands trembled with the veins popping out.

This was the appearance she had lost.

Standing in place, Zorea spoke,

“You see, I only hunt during the most radiant moment of my prey. I want to preserve that time eternally.”

Zorea’s gaze turned to Reina.

“At this point, you were truly shining. More so than any hero I’ve seen before. Despite sacrificing yourself, despite knowing you might d*e, you didn’t hesitate to burn yourself out for others. There was not a hint of regret in burning your life away for someone else. It was blindingly brilliant. That’s why I didn’t cut you down immediately but merely left you as you were. I thought even if you survived, you would still become an extraordinarily noble person.”

But Zorea narrowed her eyes now transformed into Reina’s past image.

“But that was not the case. You regret the sacrifice you made back then, don’t you?”

Zorea clicked her tongue.

“If I had known, I would have left you to grow into an even nobler being earlier instead of hunting you.”

“So why don’t you just k*ll me now?”

“Is there any value in killing you?”

Zorea burst into laughter.

“All you need to do is serve as bait to lure Leo Flove.”

Reina’s tightly clenched hands trembled.

“So, who is Leo Flove anyway?”

Zorea looked around the room.

“Rare to see such a person leave so little trace behind.”

A person naturally leaves traces of themselves in the place they stay.

Their character, their preferences, their dislikes.

They imprint far more on their surroundings than they might expect.

It may seem trivial at first glance,

But those trivial things can form the weaknesses of prey.

Hence Zorea came here to learn more about a man named Leo.

But there was nothing to be found in Leo’s room.

With a slouched head, Zorea looked at Reina with indifference and said,

“You’re truly useless for anything but bait.”

With that, she walked out of the room.

“Shall I go welcome the guests then?”

Left alone in Leo’s room, Reina looked down at her hands.

Reina recalled the past, gritting her teeth.

A distant past.

Before she lost her flames—

As a first-year student, she heard that Ellen Lunda, the top student of the same grade in her rival school, was in peril.

Ellen shared the same phoenix flames as her, and though they were from different schools, they had bonded deeply enough to risk their life for each other.

When she heard that Ellen’s team had failed their attempt on a hero dungeon,

Reina didn’t hesitate for a second and jumped into the dungeon to save Ellen.

Normally, entry to the hero world is impossible once it begins,

But during uncontrolled bursts in dungeons, it’s possible to be pulled in.

Ellen’s group had failed, and the uncontrolled burst proved it.

If they succeeded, the burst would’ve stopped immediately.

But the burst continued and the dungeon expanded.

A clear sign of their failure.

Even with the uncertainty of life and d*ath, Reina jumped in without any hesitation.

She saw it.

The charcoal-colored sky.

Seeing it, Reina understood.

The hero’s world she had entered was the world of the “Era of Catastrophe”, during the time when the beginning heroes lived.

In search of Ellen, Reina scoured the surroundings and finally found Ellen as the sole survivor.

Together with Ellen, she desperately sought the dungeon clearance condition.

Engaging endlessly with bizarre monsters,

Soon they reached their breaking point, and she felt d*ath approaching.

Then…

“When I came to my senses… the world had already been cleared, and I had lost my flames.”

It was a miracle that she had even survived.

Her injuries were severe.

She thought using the flames too recklessly had caused her to lose them.

“Thinking back now… they were stolen by the Hero Slayer.”

Reina gritted her teeth.

What the Hero Slayer said was true.

She regretted what had happened.

Her choice to sacrifice her future for another.

Even now, she regretted that choice.

It was as Zorea had said.

She wasn’t noble.

As Reina clenched her teeth, her expression turned puzzled.

She recalled the gray sky from then.

Until now, she had deliberately avoided those memories.

The last moments in the hero world where she had decided not to give up.

“Certainly… it must’ve been morning then.”

A memory surfaced in her mind of dawn breaking during the Era of Catastrophe.

And another thing she had brushed off as a hallucination.

“A person.”

Someone falling towards her from the sky, facing the sun.

She had clung to the resolve that the person would save her.

What she had thought was a hallucination then.

But…

“Could it have been… the moment the Era of Catastrophe ended?”

Reina looked around the room after this line of thought.

It was her son’s room, who followed in the footsteps of the Hero of Beginning, Kyle.

Reina took a deep breath.

“Right, the fact that I didn’t give up brought me to where I am now.”

Reina stepped out of the room.

“Leo will win.”

But she couldn’t leave everything to Leo.

Returning to her own room, Reina looked at the sword hanging on the wall.

It might not help at all.

After all, she was no longer a Zerdinger knight.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not a knight.”

Even though she wasn’t a Zerdinger knight anymore,

Reina had never stopped thinking of herself as a knight.

“A knight is someone who protects others.”

And this was the Flove family’s land, where she was the lady of the house.

“There is still something I need to protect.”

From the first time she held a sword,

Reina had admired the knights in fairy tales.

She dreamed of becoming like them.

It was perhaps a childish dream,

But chasing that dream had cost her everything.

She certainly regretted sacrificing everything to save her friend.

But…

If faced with the same scenario again.

Even if it meant living in regret again.

Reina would make the same choice.

“Because it’s me?”

And so Reina picked up her sword.

“I must protect the people of this land from harm.”