The Devil Does Not Need to Be Defeated

"I knew that would catch your attention." Vivian, who didn't know what Shien was thinking at the moment, smiled.

"Actually, this isn't really a secret either. Pretty much everyone in the Kingdom knows."

As he heard Vivian start with that phrase, Shien himself felt really uncomfortable.

Everyone knows… Everyone know… It's that freaking everyone knows thing again!

It this harassment against me for being from another world? So I'm not familiar with this place, so it's my first time here, so I don't get anything, alright?

Shien, who was feeling like his intelligence was being insulted, was somewhat regretful. Why couldn't he have read some more back at the guild library?

If he read some more, he'd definitely know more of those things that everyone knows, righ?

But being treated as an illiterate by others really was hard to take.

At this moment, Shien deeply realized the greatness of studying. He even thought of an block for telling everyone to properly study and always reach for more knowledge.

Of course, there's no way that Vivian could know that Shien was going off in his head again, and she started explaining.

"I know what you're thinking. You must feel like the Hero's Holy Sword is a power that only you should have. It shouldn't be transferable, and the moment a Hero dies, the Holy Sword should have disappeared as well, right?" Vivian freely spoke.

"Actually, that is indeed how it is. For all the Heroes who were summoned to this world before, after they died, their Holy Swords would also shatter without even leaving so much as a fragment."

"However, a thousand years ago, when the Hero Mitra who founded this kingdom was about to die, he asked the three great goddesses for a favor in order to leave some power behind for his descendants and the Kingdom."

"That favor was to make him into a living tribute to be sacrificed to the Holy Sword."

Shien suddenly stopped walking at that point.

"Tribute?"

Shien was utterly flabbergasted.

"That's right." Vivian nodded and confirmed as she continued on, "The Holy Sword is a power born from the concept of ‘Hero', so the moment the Hero dies, it would naturally as vanish alongside said Hero."

"Given that, then before the Hero dies, use the Hero himself as a tribute and, via ritual, sacrifice him to the Holy Sword."

"With that, the Hero basically has become the Holy Sword itself. Since there was no more concept of death, the Holy Sword naturally could remain."

"This was the theory that the Hero Mitra came up with a thousand years ago, and you saw the result of that, right?"

Shien had nothing he could say in response.

"Was he suicidal or something?" Shien did all he could to try to not sound sympathetic, "Rather than making such a sacrifice, I think he'd be better off looking for some way to gain immortality."

Since this was a sword and sorcery fantasy world, and there were long-lived raced like gods, demons, and elves, then as the Hero who even defeated the Demon King, it shouldn't have been that hard with his powers to find some way to become immortal, right?"

Worst comes to worst, as the greatest contributor to the defeat of the Demon King, couldn't Mitra just directly ask the three great goddesses for immortality?

Shien fully believed that goddesses on the level of the three great goddesses should be easily capable of such a comparatively minor matter.

Yet, in the end, he ended up giving himself up as a sacrifice. Just what kind of idiocy does one have to have been infected with to do something like that?

However, this time Shien was wrong.

"Do you really think the Hero Mitra was dying of old age?" Vivian gave a bitter smile, "No, the main reason that the Hero was dying is because he received heavy injuries during his battle with the Demon King. Those injuries lingered and remained with him, causing complications. In the end, it even lead to the Hero Mitra's eventual death."

"That…" Shien had nothing to say to that.

Injuries caused by the Demon King?

Doesn't that mean that said injuries can't be healed even by the Highest God Omnis?

In that case, it's pretty natural for Mitra to have GG'd.

"That said, the Hero Mitra died around 99 years old. For humans, that's pretty long-lived." Vivian followed up in explaining, "For that reason, the Hero ended up deciding on his deathbed to leave behind his Holy Sword for his descendants to continue to protect this country."

The result was that he, via ritual, sacrificed himself to the Holy Sword, allowing the Holy Sword to remain in this world.

"However, the Holy Sword is still power exclusive to a Hero. Even if it was left behind, it's not something that just anyone could use." Vivian continued to explain.

"In order to become the new wielder of the Holy Sword, two conditions must be met."

"The first is that they must have inherited the Hero Mitra's bloodline. Thus, only the royalty of the Mitra Kingdom, of the direct line of descent, can use the Holy Sword."

"The second is that they must have talent and potential no less than the Hero Mitra himself. Be it in unique skill or divine blessing, neither is allowed to be worse than the Hero Mitra himself."

"Only by satisfying both conditions is one able to wield the Holy Sword and become the inheritor of the Holy Sword."

"I think you can understand just how stringent those two conditions are."

Of course he could understand it.

It basically means that if it's not a descendant of Mitra who can also match up to him, then they won't be able to wield the Holy Sword.

To match up to the Hero who defeated the Demon King?

Not even any of the other Heroes throughout history could do that.

It just goes to show just how stringent that particular condition was.

"Throughout the past thousand years, who has satisfied this condition?"

That was Shien's only question.

Vivian however simply smiled without speaking. She just gazed back toward the princess's room, which told Shien all he needed to know.

The answer is - "only this one."

In all of a thousand years, only that princess had satisfied that condition.

"Otherwise, how would she be known as the Hero of the current era?"

The reasoning was just that simple.

Shien finally somewhat understood just why so many people so fanatically idolized that princess.

It wasn't just because she was pretty. Rather, it was because she was basically born into this world with the aura of a protagonist.

"<I Reincarnated Into Another World As A Hero But Discovered That I'm Not the Main Character?>"

"<It's the Princess of the Other World That's the Hero?>"

"<Born as the Hero's Descendant, but is Even Stronger Than the Hero?>"

Shien instantly came up with dozens of light novel names.

Those titles… Are seriously true!

Thus…

"Vivian, you can go back on your own." Shien suddenly said to Vivian.

"What is it?" Vivian stopped for a moment.

"I'm going to go see that princess again." Shien directly stated, "There's something that I wanted to ask her."

In response, Vivian tried to signal that she could accompany Shien back.

However, after thinking it over a bit, Vivian stopped.

"Make sure you don't startle them then."

Vivian only left that final piece of advise.

"Got it." Shien agreed.

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