Chapter 1 - Executed by a Childhood Friend
The Demon King is dead.
The evil that had been strangling the world was gone, but the real problem was what came after the ending.
"Clay, you conspired with the Demon King to deceive the continent."
Evidence emerged from the dead Demon King that there had been a spy in the Hero's party.
And it was me.
"Countless people who trusted you died because of your cunning plot. You must take responsibility for that sin."
And the one passing judgment on me was none other than my childhood friend and the empress of the Iser Royal State, Tia de Mezzeler.
With my arms tied behind me by a rope that nullified magic, I was kneeling on a platform.
She was seated on a throne, which was raised higher than the platform right in front of me.
She had just become an adult, and her face still had a youthful innocence, but her blue eyes were lifeless and faded.
Her long blonde hair was a bit dry and brittle, whipping around in the air.
She must have been agonizing over this, too.
The Holy State Alliance, which held power over the continent, must have pressured her to execute me.
She probably had no grounds to save me.
'If only she had believed in me.'
The investigation's findings were so definitive that everyone in the Hero's party turned their backs on me.
Tia was no different.
The accusation that I had communicated with the Demon King was something everyone had accepted.
'Even if it wasn't me.'
There probably was a spy.
We faced so many opportune crises that it was too coincidental.
That's why when the evidence came out, it was hard for everyone to believe me.
If I disappeared from this place, the spy would smile and cause more havoc, but it was no longer my problem.
I just let out a hollow laugh.
"...The sentence."
Tia's lips trembled, and my fate was sealed.
"The criminal, Clay, is sentenced to death by hanging."
At that moment, the crowd surrounding the execution site hurled abuse at me.
"You bastard! Our village was massacred because of you!"
"Do you even know what you've done?!"
"May you regret what you've done bitterly in hell!"
A stone flew from somewhere.
It hit my head, but I didn't even feel a tickle.
Soldiers simply stood me up.
They turned me around and dragged me to the gallows.
It seemed like Tia was about to say something during that process, but I didn't care anymore.
I had worked so hard for this world, and this was the reward I got.
I looked down at my bare torso and saw the clear marks of torture left on my body.
Among them were the sealing circles that priests had inscribed multiple times to completely block my powers.
My body was so gruesome it made me wonder if all this was really necessary.
So, it was better to just die.
There was nothing left for me.
"..."
As the rope was placed around my neck at the gallows, the stone-throwing intensified.
More marks were added to my already wounded body.
I took one last look around.
Among the angry crowds, I could see the people who had been in my party.
The mage, Yuru.
The one with a small stature, hunched over, not looking in my direction.
All I could see were strands of her blue hair peeking out from under a wide-brimmed hat.
The beastkin warrior, Nael.
With her lush, dog-like tail hanging low, she stared intently at me.
She looked both angry and gripped by despair.
The elf archer, Yelena.
She was said to have lived longer than her appearance suggested, having followed me out of the forest of the unknown relying only on me, but she had never told me her real age.
She looked at me with green eyes, a gaze of unknown thoughts, without even tidying her white hair that was lightly swaying in the wind.
'It's lonely.'
I never thought I would feel so lonely when it was time to go.
Swoosh.
A rope was placed around my neck, which was held straight.
The rope was coated with special shards of glass, so as soon as it tightened, my skin was torn.
"Gah!"
The pain made me gasp for air.
Even as they saw me like this, the people only spat insults.
Watching them, darkness swelled in my heart.
"Fine, you guys have a good one."
I glared at them with bloodshot eyes, whose vessels had burst from the pain.
"I'll be watching from the other side to see how well you do."
The soldiers moved away from me.
The end was near.
One of the soldiers grabbed the handle to release the trapdoor I was standing on.
The crowd's shouts now felt distant, like noise from outside water.
I slowly turned my head and looked at my childhood friend who had passed this sentence on me.
"Tia, I..."
At that moment, the soldier pulled the handle, the trapdoor fell, and my neck snapped like a broken doll, my words left unfinished.
The last memory I had was of Tia, with her eyes squeezed shut.
Clay.
A hero who became the leader of a party formed to eliminate the Demon King who had risen to power in the west of the continent, Pandea.
Wielding a holy sword forged by the dwarves, he confronted the demon race and won countless battles, earning him the title of a veteran hero.
However, he was later revealed to be a criminal who had conspired with the Demon King to bring down other nations.
There were some who speculated that the Holy State Alliance, fearing his growing influence, might have framed him.
However, those who voiced such opinions were arrested for blasphemy and given capital punishment.
It seemed his name was being forgotten by everyone.
***
Bang!
In a tavern in Iser.
The elf archer, Yelena, was sitting alone, downing drinks.
The noise of her placing the glass on the table was so loud that everyone was paying attention to her.
"Ma'am, you seem to be drinking a lot. Maybe you should stop..."
Bang!
The glass hit the table again, and Yelena immediately stood up.
She left a few coins on the table and walked out of the tavern.
"I'm sorry, Clay. I'm so sorry. For making it happen..."
She muttered the same words and disappeared into the dark streets.
She wasn't the only one living her days in a daze.
In an underground fighting arena.
The beastkin warrior, Nael, stood on the stage, where people who had bet black money were watching.
"Aaaaaah!"
She roared, having just brutally thrown a challenger who had come up on stage.
The crowd went wild.
As a former member of the Hero's party, her physical strength was unparalleled.
"More! More!"
The crowd's crazed cheers continued, and another challenger came up onto the stage.
Gritting her teeth, she stomped her foot on the stage and let out another roar.
The crowd raised their arms and responded to her roar, but no one knew the pained look in her eyes.
While she was doing that, the mage, Yuru, was holed up in a small room in the Blue Magic Tower, where she was the tower master, with a wall of spellbooks piled up around her.
She wasn't reading them.
She had long mastered all the magic passed down in the Blue Magic Tower.
But she hadn't stopped learning just because she was a genius.
She was in deep confusion.
She couldn't accept any further knowledge until this confusion was resolved.
And the source of that confusion was the dead Clay.
Was he really the Demon King's spy?
Even in the interrogation she had conducted, he had emitted corrupted magical energy, or magi, which could only come from the Demon King's spy.
So she had to accept the outcome, but she couldn't stop the tears welling up in her eyes.
"Why, big brother..."
Her confusion led to resentment toward him.
But within that resentment, she was filled with longing for him.
And she wasn't the only one who felt that longing.
Crash!
Inside the imperial palace, Tia was looking out the window at the stormy weather outside, where a heavy downpour was falling and lightning was striking.
Still standing there with lifeless eyes, she suddenly opened the window and went out onto the balcony.
The fierce rain heavily soaked her blonde hair.
She regretted closing her eyes in his final moments.
She should have at least watched him until the very end.
Of course, she wasn't sure if she could have truly kept her eyes open if she went back.
"...You are the one in the wrong."
As Tia bit her lip, something hot, unlike the cold rainwater, flowed from her eyes.
***
It was during this time that everyone was struggling to cope with the aftermath of the hero's death.
Rumble!
A bolt of lightning struck somewhere in the barren lands, not even a cemetery.
"Ugh..."
Something, no, someone who had been hastily buried, stretched a hand out of the mound of dirt covering them.
"Ugh! Ugh!"
Gasping for air, the person struggled violently and finally broke through the dirt to reveal their face.
"Ptoooey!"
Cough, cough.
As he coughed and spat out the dirt from his mouth, the person, no, the man who had been executed, Clay, muttered with a bewildered expression.
"What is this?"
He had been resurrected. Unaware of the turmoil this would cause for the members of the Hero's party.