Re; A Hero’s New Life in a New World!

Chapter 20 — “Their Hope”

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     A man wearing a white robe was limping across the forest – he was a member of the Eye of the Midnight Sun. He was the one who had escaped Otto earlier. The eventually stumbled across a foggy area. He looked up and both his eyes and mouth widened in joy. There were several large rocks afloat in the sky.

     “The base… I need to let the masters know that Vetto-sama needs reinforcements…!”

     “—Do you?”

     Shocked by that unexpected voice, the man hesitantly looked to his side and saw a woman there – Cinder. Her eyes began glowing as she gracefully began walking over to the terrified man.

     “Wh—Who are you?!”

      “You don’t need to worry.”

     The man began limping away, sensing only malace from the woman. Two other people, Emerald and Mercury, popped out and surrounded him, blocking any route of escape he may have had. Too terrified to even move, he didn’t notice that Cinder caught up to him.

      She grabbed his head, he fell to his knees as he felt his skull melting. Only screams of absolute agony could be heard across the forest, but alas, no one helped – in fact, no one else heard his pain. It was only the beautiful woman and the other two.

      His entire body burned up and fell hardly to the ground as the woman let go of him.

      “Sheesh, that was rough,” Emerald commented. “But I guess it had to be done.”

      “Was that the last of em?” Mercury asked.

      Cinder nodded. “Yes, no one else was able to get away.”

      “Finally!”

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     Vetto laid on the ground, motionless.

     Once Subaru landed, he too laid on the ground. He was simply too tired to move.

     “His mana presence… it’s gone,” Aisha thought to herself. “This time… they really won.”

     “Subaru!” Justice was the first to run up to him. He pulled him up and gave him a brotherly hug and pat him on the back. “You.. really did it!” It was then that Subaru realized the impact of what he just did. He slowly began to nod his head. “I… I did..!”

     “Subaru!” “Subaru-kun!”

     Emilia and Rem were the next to run up to him. With Rem bear-hugging Subaru, he almost fell down until Justice caught him. Otto, Aisha, and Ulysse walked up to congratulate him too.

     “Well done, Natsuki-san!” Otto said. “I was on the verge of crying the entire time!”

     “Y-You did good, I guess,” Aisha told him. “But don’t get cocky.”

     Eventually, the villagers all started to clap in excitement. Everything seemed to be going well as the sun slowly started to set.

     Vetto laid there. On the brink of death he was remembering all of the fun times he had with his elf-brethren. He could hear the humans celebrate which continued to rage him, but he couldn’t do much.

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     A younger Vetto could be seen crying.

     “Vetto-kun, don’t cry.”

     Vetto held a small bird on his hands. It was dead.

     “They were tormenting this bird. I couldn’t forgive them. Patolli… I’m sorry, thanks for always helping me.”

     “What are you saying? We’re friends, aren’t we?” he asked. “I’ll help you anytime. Still, we’re just like this bird. We’re not strong, but they’re jealous of the fact that we can fly, so they hurt us. —I’ve got a feeling that, someday, us and the humans will be able to understand each other.”

     Vetto smiled, wiping his tears away.

     –

     –

     Hope, hm? It really is sweet. To us, Patolli was… yes, he was hope itself. But that hope was stolen from us. 

     By you humans.

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     Vetto’s body exploded with magical energy, it was enough to make the air quake. His body was being covered with layers, upon, layers, upon, layers, of absolute magic power.

      Justice’s eyes twitched.

     “You’ve got to be kidding me..!”

     Vetto’s body was lifted up into the air, where it stood in the absolute center of a massive sphere of magical energy.

     “I’m taking you all with me—no, I will blow this entire village and the mountains around it away.”

     “He’s going to self-destruct isn’t he?!” Otto cried.

     “What power…” Emilia shivered. “It’s erasing my weakening magic spell.”

     “This means that we have to fight again, huh?” Subaru prepared his exhausted body. Justice nodded. “Yes, it does.”

     The heroes knew what they had to do; Justice generated fire around his hands, Emilia created crystals of ice, Subaru held tightly onto his weapon, Ulysse radiated a purple aura, Rem brought out her flail, Otto covered his face and began to pray.

 Aisha stood behind all of them and felt disappointment in herself, not even in the most desperate of moments could she even attempt to help.

     Something landed at hyper-sonic speeds in front of the heroes before any of them could even move. A screen of smoke hid the new visitor; none of them knew what was going on–

     “Myyyyyyy, this whole situation is exasperating.”

     The screen of smoke eventually disappeared revealing:

     “Roswaal!” “Roswaal-sama!” “Ros-chi!” they all screamed in unison.

     “Roswaal, where were you this whole time?” Justice asked him.

     “Weeeeeell, I was trapped by a tricky spatial magic-user – but, as you can see, I got out. An old dog can trulyyyy learn new tricks.”

     “That’s awesome, Ros-chi!” Subaru commented. “You’re a whole cavalry unit by yourself; with your help, we can beat this guy again!”

     “While I do appreciate the compliment, Subaru-kun, assistance is not required.”

     Justice shrugged, “What do you mean?”

     Roswaal began to walk towards the huge sphere of magical energy that encased Vetto. “I’m saaaaying that I can handle him by myself.” He stopped. “Youuuuu all have been putting your lives on the line while fighting him – as the Kingdom’s stroooongest mage, I have to go all out as well.”

     “—-You all have done a splendid job.”

     The jester mage released his mana.

 Roswaal radiated a combination of light blue and pink aura. The others could only watch as he unleashed his massive power. The size of his aura level could be seen from high up in the sky. The mere presence of his mana being released was able to create an immense pressure around everyone.

     “Getting trapped and pushed against a wall certaiiiinly was worth it. To think I’d learn a new spell now of all times. If only she were heeere.“

     “DESPAIR. DESPAIR.”

     “Ah, hellooooooo, Despair-kun. you have stated that you wanted to fight me last… and here I am. I wooooon’t hold back. ☆”

     Roswaal began to absorb mana from the atmosphere. Mini orbs of light spawned and spun around Roswaal’s open palm. He grasped the orbs and closed his hand, small jolts of light bursting out. “No matter how strong your magic is — this spell has absolute authority.”

     “Soul Splitter.”

     Several lavender copies of Roswaal appeared behind him, all having that trademark mischievous grim the clown possessed. With a single wave of his arm, all of the Roswaal clones began to fly straight at Vetto. Beginning to gain speed, the clones began to turn into thin lines. Several at a time, the lines of purple magic bypassed the layers of pierced through the beast-man’s chest.

      Each line sliced through him, practically slicing parts of his soul away. Vetto’s barrier of magic, that would normally cause explosions within the slightest of touch, had no effect on this massive spell. As he took hit after hit, his body moved like a ragdoll, unable to do anything – unable to fend anything off.

      As the final line struck through him, the beast-elf’s body fell down and his magic began to dissipate.

      Silence passed as everyone held their breaths, expecting the beast to get up once more time and scream “Despair” once more… but as time passed by, nothing happened.

      “I can confirmmmm that he’s deceased – his mana has left his body.”

      That one sentence led to everyone rejoicing – the Emilia camp, the villagers, and even some of the animals. Subaru was the first person to collapse.

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     After Vetto was finished off, all of his robed minions that were still there were captured and incapacitated aside from Alecdora who’d mysteriously disappeared. Everyone that was injured by the attackers were taken to the nearest town and placed in a hospital to recover.

     Subaru, Aisha, Ulysse, Ram, Rem, and Otto all were placed in one room to recover, each laying on separate beds. The other three weren’t harmed as much, thus they needed little to no healing and were free to be walking around.

     Subaru’s eyes twitched in annoyance. “I can’t believe we have to wait an entire day for Otto to heal up so we can leave,” he claimed. “Otto, you’re so useless.”

     “Why must you insult me, Natsuki-san! I helped out a lot!”

     “Sure you did, none of us were even there when you fought the ice-guy or whatever, how can we be sure you weren’t lying about all that?”

     “Huh?!”

     “Barusu, you and Otto are equally useless,” Ram quipped. “Not only do we have to wait for him but we have to wait for your stupid arm to heal as well.”

     “I am not useless…” Otto claimed sadly.

     “Me?!” Subaru exclaimed, bringing his body up. “I defeated Vet–augh!” Before he could finish his sentence, he moved his arm a little too much, bringing in pain. Seemed that it was broken and many bones were shattered during the fight but the hospital mages were being paid a high sum of money from Roswaal to heal it.

     “Subaru-kun are you okay?!”

     Rem worriedly asked him. “I have some small amount of mana left, I can try healing you!”

     “Rem, don’t waste your precious mana on dirt.” her older sister commanded.

     “Yeah, I’m fine,” Subaru answered. “Hurts a bit but the nurses said that it would be healed soon so I have to bear it out. Also Ram quit insulting me!”

     “Now you know how I feel, Natsuki-san!”

     “Otto can you shut up? And Ram, you weren’t even awake during the entire fight, how’s it feel knowing I contributed more than you?”

     “Actually I was, I just couldn’t move my body and felt there was no need, I simply let you have your time to shine since you desparately needed it.”

     “Hah?!”

     Aisha, with Ulysse sleeping her lap in his dog formed, looked at the others unamused.

     “Commoners are so embarrassing.”

     “We heard that!” Subaru pointed at her. “Anyway what are you even doing here, you weren’t hurt at all in the fight!”

     “I’m only here for Ulysse to heal up,” she said, lifting up his paw. “He scratched a paw! Trust me, I hate it in here.”

     A figure walked into the room as they all conversed.

     “Emilia-tan you’re here! You look so beautiful standing there! You came here to visit us and make us happy even though you weren’t hurt, talk about an angel! EMT! EMT!”

     Aisha’s eyes twitched. “Please shut up, you ape!”

     “HAH?!”

     “You guys are so funny,” Emilia laughed. “I checked in on father Orsi and sister Lily, they’re healing up just fine and they wish to see us off tomorrow.”

     Rem turned to Subaru. “Subaru-kun, we should come back here again!”

     Otto looked towards the window near him. “You guys need to come see this!”

     The group heard cheering noises of some kind. They walked over to the large window and saw a crowd of villagers smiling and cheering at them. They were yelling many things but by far the most common thing was, “Thank you, heroes!”

     The heroes smiled, knowing that even though they came out injured, they still managed to help all the people of the village.

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      Outside, Vetto’s body lay, a cloth covering it. Near it stood Roswaal with a bashful smile. The mage felt someone’s presence approaching him so he turned his head to see who it was. He smirked as he saw the knight with red hair, Justice.

     “Myyyyy, what might bring you here, Justice-kun? Shouldn’t you be back resting?”

     “Nah, I actually feel perfectly fine for some reason, just a matter of my mana healing.”

     He continued, as he walked closer to Vetto’s body. “But to answer your question, I’m here to pray, it’s kind of a tradition where I come from, to pray for someone who recently died.” He squatted down and closed his eyes and muttered some stuff before finishing.

     “Is that so?” Roswaal furrowed his eyes. “Seems as though your amnesia is starting to wear off.”

     “Uh– yeah, sorta,” Justice flabbergastedly responded, he’d realized that he completely forgot about his amnesia lie. “I’m also here ’cause Subaru told me to get a nice-looking rock or something as a souveneir for Beatrice.”

     “Interesting; those two seem rather close it seems.”

     “Yeah, a weird pairing, they are. What about you, by the way? Why are you here?”

      “I knew him as an acquaintence, you could say,” Roswaal shrugged. “I came to sayyyyy my final goodbyes.”

     Justice found it interesting that the two men knew each other. He decided not to look too much into it however. He knew Roswaal was smart and had an eye on him and Subaru. He didn’t want to make himself look too suspicious by prying for more information.

     “What’s going to happen to him and his minions now?”

     “His body will be sent to the capital for an autopsy and his minions will be interrogated,” the jester smiled. “From theeeeere, it will no longer be in our control, but defeating an enemy of this caliber will surely help out miss Emilia with the election.”

     “Right.” Justice looked up at the sky. A sense of anxiety grew over him, not knowing what would come in the future, not knowing how much the supposed election would be affecting them. He didn’t know what would happen, but he knew what he had to do–

     –Protect Subaru and defeat Salem.

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[Previous Chapter] — [Next Chapter]

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Re;Hero Q&A #2

Q: What type of person do you like?

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Sorry for like the 2+ year hiatus omg, continuing this story was always at the back of my mind but I kept forgetting! I made the Q&A thing as a sort of “thank you for waiting” gift haha. Also, I’ve been noticing that during the hiatus, this site was getting a lot of views and comments and that really was something that made me happy!

Anyway, I can’t confirm or deny that this series will become a weekly thing by any means, but I definitely will be posting chapters whenever I have the time and inspiration! Again, thank all of you for waiting so long for this, hope you enjoyed this chapter. Also, I’ve been re-reading some of the chapters and I’ve noticed that despite being the main character, Justice seems to receive MUCH less actual content than Subaru does – so moving forward, the series will probably shift a lot more to Justice’s perspective and things of the like.

Until Next Time!

— Mugen

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