Ever since the attack by
That said, the incident had changed my thinking a little.
I couldn't treat this world the same way I treated Japan.
It was a dangerous place where my life could be threatened at any moment.
But I didn't want to change who I was at the core.
Maybe it was a naive way of thinking after coming this far, but I didn't want to completely abandon the moral values I had cultivated in Japan.
So from now on, I still wanted to avoid killing people as much as possible.
That said, I needed to be able to protect myself.
The incident with Hugo had caused quite a lot of worry for everyone around me.
Kathia in particular had apparently been more shaken by my attack than I had imagined.
"When I heard that Shun had been attacked, my mind went completely blank."
That was what she had told me in her own words.
I would surely have the same reaction if something happened to Kathia.
When I told her that, for some reason she looked down and started mumbling to herself.
"Seriously? Me, really? No, that can't be right, can it?"
I had no idea what to make of it.
If anything, I ended up worrying about her because of how she was acting.
But causing everyone concern was the undeniable truth.
If the teacher hadn't rushed to help, I might have been killed by Hugo.
When I thought about that, I felt afraid.
I was afraid of dying.
And so I resolved to become stronger.
I had already been making efforts to grow stronger, but I took it far more seriously than before.
I used the Skill Points I had been hoarding, picked up Skills that looked useful, and focused on leveling those up.
As part of our classes, we sometimes defeated Monsters.
Even with my training, I had almost no real combat experience, so I dispatched them with ease.
But Experience Points flowed in.
And when Experience Points came in, my Level went up.
Unlike when Hugo attacked me, I was no longer at Level 1.
As my body grew, my stats—which had leaned heavily toward magic—became more balanced.
Now that a proper physical foundation had been built, my physical stats had caught up with my magical ones.
At this point, I could probably call myself first-rate in both swordsmanship and magic.
Even so, I continued to train.
I had grown stronger.
I could feel it.
But I knew people stronger than me.
I didn't think I could reach that level.
But I wanted to get at least a little closer.
Maybe my ambition had grown along with my strength.
At first, I only wanted to become stronger to protect myself.
But lately, I had started wanting to protect the people close to me as well.
Well, there was nobody nearby weak enough to need my protection—Sue included, and she was the most dependent of them all.
Even so, I wanted to be strong enough to make a difference if something happened.
And it wasn't just people close to me that I wanted to protect anymore.
Starting with Parton, I had gradually grown closer to the students who followed me without any ulterior motives.
We weren't close enough to call each other friends, but if I could protect them, I wanted to.
Lately, I sometimes wondered if this was the instinct of royalty.
Had
Thinking that, I felt as though I had gotten a little closer to him.
I hadn't seen nii-sama since we entered the academy.
I had no idea where he was or what he was doing now.
I had heard rumors that the Demon race was becoming more active, but inside this closed-off academy, outside information was hard to come by.
Maybe he was fighting the Demon race.
Well, there was no need to worry about someone like nii-sama, but still, the Demon race's movements were on my mind.
Perhaps in response to those movements, the teacher had also been absent lately.
She used to attend classes from time to time, but for the past year or so, she had hardly shown up.
I ran into her on campus from time to time, so she was definitely using this place as her base, but what she did during those periods of absence, I still had no idea.
Speaking of someone who hadn't been seen—there was one other.
Hugo, too, had not shown his face even once since that attack.
I didn't even know if he was still at the academy.
Right after the attack, I had heard scattered reports of sightings on campus, but for the past few years, there had been nothing.
I figured he was probably gone from this academy for good.
I wouldn't be honest if I said I wasn't curious about what became of Hugo.
What he had done was something I still couldn't forgive.
But at the same time, I couldn't help feeling a trace of pity.
The Hugo who had been consumed by power had lost all of it.
For someone who believed power was everything, losing that power must have been equivalent to losing everything.
I knew it was a naive thought, but I still couldn't stop myself from feeling that sliver of sympathy.
With both the teacher and Hugo gone, the days passed with surprising tranquility.
I attended classes, chatted with Sue and the others, and trained when I had time.
That was how each day went by.
It was so peaceful that I almost questioned whether the Demon race was really making threatening moves at all.
*You have met the conditions. You have acquired the Title "Hero."* *As a result of the Title "Hero," you have acquired the Skills "Hero LV1" and "Holy Light Magic LV1."* The voice that shattered that peace.
"Huh?"
Since I was in the middle of class, my confused exclamation echoed through the classroom louder than intended.
"Shurein-san, what's the matter? Is there something you don't understand?"
The teacher in charge of the lesson asked me.
Even her voice filtered right through my clouded mind.
"Shurein-san? Shurein-san!? What's wrong!?"
My complexion at that moment must have been quite pale.
Because this didn't make sense.
There was only one person in the entire world who held the Title of Hero.
And I knew of only one Hero.
Once you obtained a Title, there was no way to relinquish it.
That meant the Title of Hero could not be given up either.
Not while you were alive.
That was what this meant.
That was what had happened.
I couldn't believe it.
I didn't want to believe it.
But that Title was undeniably recorded in my Status.
On this day, one Hero died, and a new Hero was born.