125. Lecturing

"W-wait a second!" Shinobu tried to stop Hiiro from leaving.

"What?" Hiiro replied coldly. But, Shinobu still bravely asked even though there was an Evila in front of her. The fact that he didn't get rid of her was proof that she should be alright for a time being.

"You're really Okamura, Okamura Hiiro, aren't you?"

As Hiiro was currently taking the form of an Oni, her confusion was not unreasonable. However, from what Shinobu could tell, his voice, physique, and even his attitude clearly belonged to Okamura Hiiro himself.

"If it's me, then what?"

"I'm sorry." Shinobu lowered her head to apologize. She carried on. "I know that you have no obligation to listen to my request! But besides you, I don't have anyone else I can rely on!"

"What do you want?"

Shinobu thought for a moment. The little girl who brought them knew that Hiiro knew both of them. Thus, she decided to gamble and let Shuri, who was wounded, could rest.

They knew the little girl called Hiiro, a teacher when they participated in a war. At that time, they met the little girl when the war happened.

Different from the original story, Hiiro was already prepared for the war. And since he knew Nikki was already strong enough, it was also a chance for Nikki to gain experience.

Then, Nikki excitedly rushed to the front line to take down so many of Gabranth soldiers. Shinobu and Shuri witnessed how strong she was. All of the heroes were frozen still by the amount of bloodlust overflowing on the battlefield.

King Rudolph told them that they only need to suppress them. But, what they witnessed was brutal slaughters between the two sides. They couldn't do anything since they didn't prepare beforehand. The pretty suppression they'd been thinking wasn't pretty as they thought. Instead, it was replaced with one word, War.

The war was quite brutal before Hiiro came to take down the elite ones. But, he didn't take care of everything and instead teleported somewhere.

The war couldn't be stopped and some stronger ones appeared one after another after Hiiro left. Since Nikki couldn't do anything to the stronger ones, Liliyn and Silvan took a step forward and sent Nikki back. It was at that time Ornoth joined the front line as well.

Since a higher-level battle was started, the heroes who were frozen on the spot were caught in the middle of the battle. As a result, they were thrown away and separated into two groups.

Shinobu and Shuri were lucky enough to meet Nikki. However, two of them didn't know what happened to the other heroes.

Thinking about that made Shinobu shudder. She looked at Izumi. Although she didn't know who he was, the fact that Izumi's appearance was similar to Hiiro's, she concluded that they knew each other pretty well.

After taking a deep breath, she started to speak.

"We can't carelessly leave here since we are participating in a war. And Shuri-chan is still yet to recover. I—"

"Please shelter us for a while…is basically what you're getting at, isn't it?"

Shinobu shuddered when she heard Hiiro's cold tone. But, she mustered her courage to ask.

"Can you… do it?"

Hiiro stared at her eyes for a while, then let out a sigh. He was truly amazed by her as if she didn't consider her current situation at all.

"Look here, you guys are the enemy that came to attack this country, don't you know? In addition, although it's due to a request, I'm currently placed in a position where I have to protect this country. You really have the gall to be able to ask such a thing." He stopped for a moment while looking at Shinobu. He carried on. "You guys are heroes, aren't you? You are the saviors summoned by the Humas race in order to destroy the Evila race thoroughly. Yet, you guys are asking "since we can't fight anymore, can we please live here until our wounds heal?". You really have quite some nerve."

Shinobu bit her lip since she couldn't say anything in the face of Hiiro's bitter words.

Hiiro didn't stop.

"In the first place, didn't you guys think something was strange? For example, the reason why a group of carefree, game brains like you was sent to the battlefield. No right? You are made into pawns because you are too stupid!"

"S-such a thing can't be true!"

At that moment, Izumi sneered.

"Heh, are you sure? Two of us already met that stupid king and confirmed directly."

"Two of you?"

Izumi nodded in confirmation.

"I participated in the conference as a new member of the Cruel Brigade. And Otamegane teleported there just in time for that stupid king to show his true nature. Well, if you don't believe me, you can ask the princess who is currently in Judom's care."

"…it…it can't be…"

Then, it was Hiiro's turn to say.

"In the first place, how were you guys able to put your trust in such a king? A king that sacrificed his own daughters for revenge can't possibly be a good king."

Shinobu didn't know what to say. It was as if reality was trying to topple her mentality.

"You see, the king lied when he said the key to return to earth is in the demon lord's grasp. And you believe in such an obvious lie. That's why you're so stupid. Why would the demon lord know of it? Suppose that they did know it, why would the Humas who know summoning magic not know it?"

After that, Hiiro used his magic to teleport. His figure disappeared, but then reappeared with several books in his hands.

He threw those books out to her. Shinobu tried to catch the books nervously, but only caught two of them.

"What are these?" Shinobu asked timidly.

"Books. Can't you tell?" Hiiro replied shortly.

Shinobu twitched her cheek.

"I know these are books, but what for?" Shinobu wanted to say that but didn't dare to do so.

Seeing her expression, Izumi was the one to reply.

"Those are the books that tell about the summoned heroes. Basically, what he wanted to say was, in these books, no summoned heroes can go back to their world. Instead, they strangely sacrificed themselves in order to purify the land and whatnot. Until now, none of the news said that there was a descendant of the hero in this world. That means they died when they were young. Do you understand what that means?"

Shinobu received an incredible shock, she did not blink as she was rendered petrified. Following this, her face gradually grew pale.

"B-but, that was just a story."

"Yes, it's just a story. But it's a story based on real life. The fact that heroes couldn't go back to their world and how they sacrificed themselves didn't change at all. It's a good thing if it's just fictional. But, the worst case scenario is when that story is real, what will happen to you? Do you want to sacrifice your life? Well, from these stories alone, I bet you didn't know if you guys were gonna sacrifice yourselves." Izumi held his chin and started to ponder.

Hiiro furrowed his forehead and his thoughts tingled as he wanted to ask him.

"What do you mean by that? Brainwashing?" Hiiro decided to ask.

"No. Think about it! Deep in their heart, humanity tends to believe that they are a superior race. Because the Humas race was the same as the heroes from another world in terms of appearance, they blindly believed that Evila was a wicked race. That's why they are easy to use. For example, these heroes over here believed that the demon lord held the key to letting them return to earth. If hypothetically they were able to defeat the demon lord, they would definitely bring the demon lord to the Holy Oldine temple so they could return to earth. However, instead of getting their ticket back to earth, they were trapped in a formation that was used to prevent them from escaping the sacrificial ritual." Izumi explained the possibility that happened to the heroes.

After hearing Izumi's explanation, Hiiro also considered that ritual might be the reason why every hero summoned to Edea couldn't go back to earth and was sacrificed in that temple.

"This is the biggest possibility." Hiiro murmured. Then, his gaze shifted to Shinobu.

"Anyway, it was the fact that you useless bunch incapable of killing people still naively thought that the Evila would easily surrender even if they were outnumbered. That stupid king was most likely aware, that's why he turned you into disposable pawns in this war. On the premise that you guys would die in the war, that stupid king would use that to fuel the people's anger and spark a further war. Something along those lines."

"Y-you're lying. There's no way such a thing would happen."

"It's up to you whether you admit it or not. Anyone would try to hide their mistakes anyway. The script is like this… The heroes fought with all their might. However, the Evila used cowardly methods to deceive and kill them. Such a thing shouldn't be allowed. Then, to dispel the regrets of those deceased heroes, the stupid king fanned their people to take revenge for the heroes… In other words, he will orchestrate your death as a detonator."

As if she were expressing disbelief, Shinobu held both hands to her cheeks and made an expression filled with despair.

"No way… if that's the case, what should we do? We can't go back to Victorias if it's like this…"

"That's none of my business. From the start, they were too suspicious. I was amazed that you guys didn't even notice. That's why I left."

"Wouldn't it be great if you told us at that time?"

"Don't be so fucking naive!"

Hiiro coldly replied.