The famed dragon slayer

We were eventually walking, I had to be careful as my wound was still healing. Hera and I are somewhat on good terms, If I had to say, We're pretty good acquaintances.

This entire time I've been holding onto this blade, I studied it. I'm no hero.. hell I'm not even here to slay any demon king I'm just being sent to grab a life crystal and return home. A pity though, James the Hero would be a good name

"Hey Hera, how many official heroes were there?" I asked

she looked a little surprised but answered

"four heroes, every 100 years a new demon king arrives, the rest weren't given any divine weapons to recognize them as official"

"can you tell me about each of them?" I asked

"The first hero, known as Kaelan Stormwell was born as a simple farm boy. taking care of his parent's farm he didn't expect his life will turn out like this. One day a young angel fell from the skies, this angel was still new to this but grew too confident and fell from the heavens. With a broken wing she traveled for a place to stay, she was confronted by a pack of thugs hoping to clip her wings but Kaelan saved her and fought even though he was suffering from each hit. Each time he went down he picked himself up until the Thugs called it quits and left.

Kaelan helped and nurse this broken angel, his bright blue eyes comforted her. She was able to fly and left to the heavens remembering the kindness this boy shared with her. Years passed and the Demon king broke out and marched upon the lands, he wanted to control the land created by the deities and later enslave the deities. The goddess couldn't do anything as she had rules to not interfere with humanity in anyways, so she asked her most trusted angel to choose a human of noble heart and bring down the blade to the chosen hero. The same angel remembered the boy and his kindness and chose to be the first sword-bearer.

She brought the blade to him, the now young man, he was surprised but knew that he must if he wanted to stop the Demon king and his army. The blade recognized him as being worthy and gave him the full potential of the divine sword, his once-blue eyes turned to gold. In one year he managed to get strong enough and gathered a team, including the angel to help him slay the Demon King.

He was successful and his team disbanded leaving to their own paths as for Kaelan he disappeared."

she spoke quietly after this, clearly dishearten at the thought of his fate.

"Anyways for the second hero, his name was Cayden, he had no family name as he was born into a war from his dead mother's womb. Cayden was saved and put into an orphanage in Arvandor the hostile nation state. The noble families were well-fed while the streets were filled with plague and famine. The thing that separated him and the other unfortunate souls was that he was born with golden eyes, a hero's eyes.

Cayden when growing up got into fights, he fought his way through his poor life until on death's door, He was approached by a different sword bearer, she offered him the weapon, and he took it but instead of having a divine sword, he changed it to fit his means. A war spear that repaired his body, the spear spat out flames around him making it a devastating weapon. He was informed that another Demon king is about to emerge in two years so he went into training.

Instead of doing something similar to Kaelan, he chose to kill, slay, and conquered his enemies humans and monsters alike. This hero who was born without love or compassion learned demon magic and used artifacts cursed or not. His divine weapon now saw him as unfit and denied him full access to the weapon but with sheer power, he made the divine weapon submit and forced the power out of it.

Of course, he had a team but he cared little about them, when the Demon king arrived most of them were slain, and only a lucky 2 escaped. He fought the Demon King but with even with his brutal training and killing he still wasn't a match for him. This was when the hero decided to sacrifice himself, taking the demon king with him, and exploding his divine weapon. He died but his body wasn't found. "

She looked troubled

"The goddess wasn't happy that this hero almost failed but not only that he forced a divine weapon and used demon magic. She wanted to find a hero years before the next demon king arrived, 90 years passed and she searched for this hero.

She finds her, Astrea Ironheart. She was a child born with golden eyes and a sense of Justice. Astrea was born in a noble household.

The same sword bearer who approached Cayden came to Astrea the young 9-year-old and bestowed the blade to her. She took it and made it into a sword with the same likeness of an angel's blade, it determines your sins and makes it stronger against them based on their sins.

She took this hero role seriously and trained her entire life, she learned swordsmanship, and combat and focused on getting stronger. She stay true to her ideals and roamed the lands finding comrades like herself. During her travels, she slew many enemies such as the blood prince of the vampires, the twin demons, and the beast of hell Morzell.

when the time came she slain the demon king without much problems, due to her hero blood and the divine weapon she essentially became immortal. She is now the queen of Lumina the kingdom bathed in golden light."

she smiled

"For the fourth hero, he was somewhat of a somber young man, he was the most gifted, being natural to any skill he learned, he was quiet and accepted the sword, he didn't say anything when holding the blade. He didn't say much during his journey and traveled alone. But If I was to comment on him, he was a mix of all 3, Kindness, Power, and justice. When the time came he slain the demon king by himself. He returned the blade to the goddess and lived a quiet life in a cottage outside of the iron mountains. He still lives there, I think he's 97. he did his job and wanted a nice life of relaxation, a noble life that angels like us like to see"

she looked at us

"That was the story of the 4 main heroes, they started 400 years ago and the last hero finished his role 77 years ago"

"So the next demon king arrives in 23 years?" Rose asked.

"correct but it's a shaky, ordeal. The demon heirs need to spend time battling to the death to see who makes the next demon king so it depends on how fast they are killing each other," she responds.

We walked past through town of Dragon Reach, the shops and buildings were huge and were decorated with draconic designs. There were elves, humans and some lizards walking the streets.

It was busy a street, Tron asked one of the villagers what's the ordeal.

"Oh it's the Dragon slayer festival!, its when we celebrate the great dragon slayer who slain most of the dragons here so we could call this village home!" the old lady said gleefully, She points us towards a massive statue in the middle of town.

When we got a better look at the statues it was a man decorated in dragon-scale armor, his helmet with a huge horn on top of the forehead, It had a T shape mask making the wearer able to see. The man had a long lance and around the pole of it was filled with draconic designs. A definite dragon slayer enthusiast.

Hera gasped when she saw the statue.

"Carter?" she said with disbelief

"Who?" Rose asked

"Carter he was one of the adventurers that accompanied Me and Kaelan," she said with a bit of happiness but also a tone of mourning."

She chuckled

"He was the craziest out of all of us, never caring about his life, only the thrill of the danger," she said

Rose walked up to her

"Did you not know of the fate of the party?" She asked.

"No, I was too focused on other things that time passed by. For us immortals time passes by very quickly. I should've expected that humans who weren't blessed with hero blood wouldn't live long..."

"What about the others?" Tron asked.

"There was Leora the elf cleric, Sedric the noble half-orc wizard, and Chaus the demon-bonded human." She spoke

"Wait you had a human who was using a demon?" Rose was shocked by this news.

"Yes, personally I wouldn't want a demon to be sleeping a few feet next to me but classic Kaelan wanted to give this person a chance and Chaus saved our lives countless times" she spoke

"A human with a friendly demon contract, interesting... I never heard of it before" Tron spoke.

I excused myself saying I had to use the outhouse. I walked around the corner out of sight and into a nearby alley.

I carried the blade with me this entire time. I leaned on the wall examining it. I wonder...

"Divine weapon do you see me as a worthy hero?"

Nothing... still nothing.

"Divine weapon?" I asked again

A voice speaks in my head

"No. I do not see thee as worthy, your heart is filled with greed, you're very rude and most importantly you don't possess hero blood"

I sighed. Should've known, I look at it and put it into my pocket dimension.

Even though they tried to reassure me I still feel pretty much useless. I chuckled to myself

"I really need to pull myself together man...getting this down for a sword I don't need."

I walk out of the alley and return to the group, they seemed to participating in the festival.

Tron was eating a giant boiled egg, Rose was holding a toy replica of the dragon slayer Lance and Hera just stood in front of the statue.

I decided to head outside of town for a bit, I didn't want to do some weird dragon stuff over there. When I got to a good field I pulled out a new device I've been working on. It was a small ball, it took two different things to activate it, one to push it down and slide it.

It was something similar to my pocket dimension, I throw the ball and at the same time it teleports me in, and once it hits something I teleport out. It's not perfect, I tried it once back home but I was trapped in it for a few hours, something about the sensitivity being too low.

I fixed the sensitivity but I also made a failsafe, a small remote if the ball fails to get me out.

I pulled out something from my pocket dimension, It was a suit, not the regular one but a bulky heap of iron and metal, I called it the Hellbringer. The hell bringer was supposed to be a trump card, it far exceeds the angel's strength, has the durability of a mountain, and has the speed to make the fastest demons cry. The strongest invention I have, but of course with great power comes great flaws, the goddamn suit sucks too much power that it makes the brothels even jealous, not to mention it starts to short circuit after ten seconds. So If I had to properly use the suit I would only use it for fifteen seconds or I'll destroy the whole thing.

I worked on it, I focused on all of the smaller problems, like working on the cooling with its battery, as well as fixing up some of the joints to make it run smoother.

After a while I heard something in the distance, Hera and the rest of the group were running towards me, they looked in a hurry.

"Run James Run!" Tron yelled.

Hera had one of the toy replicas of the dragon slayer's lance.

I put away my suit, my wound was healing fast due to the spray I used, so I no longer had to worry about making it worse from running.

I started to run with them, into the woods, I looked behind us and a group of angry villagers in the distance were running towards us.

"What did you guys do!?" I yelled

"Hera stole the dragon slayers lance from display in the lord's castle during the festival!" Rose responded.

"His weapon doesn't deserve to be collecting dust in a display!" she yells.

I sigh as we try to lose them in the woods.

This is hell...

___________________________________

Short tales

The village hidden in storms.

A village lay in the mountain tops in the eastern region of Eryndor. It was known to little, but those who know of its existence know it by Denkiyama village.

This village created powerful warriors with techniques and swordsmanship that those call it electrifying. They never had people to leave except one.

He was exiled, dishonored, and stripped from his name. The only thing he had was a blade covered in dried blood and his shame.

He wanders the land, looking for a good warrior's death to regain his honor, but until then he drinks his sorrows away.

Those who know of him call him the lone wanderer.