I Have Become The Heroes’ Rival

The children said the spirit loved festivals, so the Lord invited outsiders to the island and distributed food and alcohol.

And once you ate here, you would be assimilated into this life for eternity. This place did not exist. In fact, it belonged to the land of the ‘dead’.

That was probably what the Lord wanted.

In any case, he didn’t want anyone to question this situation. And to only eat, play and enjoy the festival.

Because that was what his spirit wished for.

The more I thought about it, the more insane it was.

“You didn’t eat the food.”

The man, stopped by Felix, mumbled that some outsiders didn’t listen to his words and how it was such a headache. Then he raised his voice and spoke to us.

“What’s the matter? Free food, free alcohol, and the theater you see over there do not charge an admission fee either. No one needs to work here. There is art and literature, and all we have to do is enjoy the lovely moment every day.”

It was a softer response than I expected. The man was trying to persuade us rather than to intimidate us.

‘They must be reluctant to let outsiders seek the Lord.’

I carefully studied the atmosphere around me.

The situation unfolded exactly as I had guessed. Some of the people who had been laughing and chatting earlier turned to look at us coldly.

Should I try to break the ice and apologize for ruining the merry festival? If I apologized, would it work?

I grabbed the hem of Felix’s clothes tightly. I thought it would be nice if I just fainted like this.

However, I had courage thanks to him.

‘Th-this is a head-on breakthrough.’

That’s right. We had been here for a while, and we couldn’t do this forever in case Claudia was in some form of trouble.

I spoke with the spirit of striking a stone with an egg¹.

“Ahh, who in the world would decline freebies? To allow people who aren’t working to eat and drink, we welcome it with open arms.”

Of course, I liked it so much that I would volunteer to become bald.

Since I was able to empathize with it, I could say those words so naturally and artfully.

“We were extremely impressed by the grace of the Lord, who allowed us to enjoy these things without any cost. We wanted to meet him in person and say thank you, isn’t that right? Ho-ho-ho.”

I told him we were genuinely enjoying the festival here and gave a bashful laugh.

As I was holding a glass of wine that I received from the entrance, I decided to stagger like I was drunk and then clung to Felix’s side with a kittenish gesture.

He flinched and stiffened before looking down at me. The hand wrapped around my shoulder suddenly tightened.

Ouch. I grimaced in pain, and in an instant, the strength in his hand quickly loosened, and his hand fell beside me.

In fact, normally, I would be too appalled to do something like this, but in this situation, my acting skills flowed out like running water.

I felt like if we made a single mistake, the people around us would rush towards us like ghosts.

It was a survival instinct. I had to do something to avoid the scene from a horror movie.

Then Felix stared down at me, who was immersed in acting, with a strangely stiff expression.

‘Do-don’t look at me like that.’

I was caught up in embarrassment and just watched him hide his hands behind his back as if he felt uncomfortable.

And then he spoke lightly to the man again.

“I’ve already enjoyed enough alcohol and food.”

“Then can I introduce you to a good inn?”

‘What are you talking about, mister!?’

“It’s too bad that the Lord, who has given us this pleasure, doesn’t enjoy it together with us…….”

I pretended to be an outsider who seemed to have a great personal interest in the Lord.

As if I secretly wanted to win the favor of the Lord, who served us food and alcohol every day.

“I wish I could have a drink with the Lord.”

Then the man blinked and immediately laughed. He burst out laughing at me!

He threw back his head and laughed for a long time, and then he wiped away the tears around his eyes and spoke.

“This is what happens when outsiders turn up.”

After that, he clutched onto his stomach again and hysterically laughed. What’s with his reaction?

Was he mocking me with, ‘Are you the one who’ll seduce the Lord?’ through his laughter? If that’s the case, I was really hurt.

In the first place, it was futile to avoid the situation, and I had no intention of getting involved, but if he kept laughing like that, he might end up with a piercing stitch.

“What’s wrong with having a drink?”

As I puffed up my cheeks as if I were sulking, the man waved his hands and said.

“No, I’m not looking down on the young lady, but, even in the dark, you’ll never be able to seduce the Lord.”

“Why?”

“Well…….”

“What’s the fuss?”

At that moment, an unfamiliar voice suddenly intervened. It was a low, sandpapery, and very dreary voice. The people who were laughing and chatting in a peaceful atmosphere suddenly changed as if they had all witnessed a disaster.

As if they were being strangled, their face turned blue, and they quickly pressed their head on the floor with a frightened expression.

The man, who had been giggling at my words, was startled as if he had burned himself. He trembled and quickly moved away from me.

The atmosphere instantly reversed like turning the palm of your hand. The festival turned into a place of mourning.

It was because of a man who miraculously cut through the crowd and was approaching us at a leisurely pace.

He was a rather menacing man with black hair curving down to his waist.

Despite his impressive appearance, the atmosphere was so suffocating that the word ‘beast’ came to mind before the word ’handsome’.

Even if I was born without a tail, I could sense the power of an overlord who would crawl up, cut off anyone’s head, and take his rightful place.

At the same time, it was rather devastating.

“Lo-Lord?”

From the aura he was radiating, he was an absolute ruler.

However, judging by the force that showed no mercy, he was undoubtedly a monarch that ruled the people with overwhelming power and fear like the King of Beasts.

I could see why the mister said I wouldn’t be able to seduce the man even in the dark. I wouldn’t even dare to be in the same space as the man, even if I were a temptress with a reputation for seducing men.

At any rate, if I managed to maintain eye contact with the man, I could clap my hands at my immense courage.

It was not sarcasm. I was serious.

“Who is seducing whom?”

The man loitered like a beast closing in on the siege.

I broke out in a cold sweat. By the time the man came near, I literally had fifty thousand thoughts.

Even now, I was thinking, ‘I was mistaken. I thought the Lord was the same species as me. A beast like you, who is not a human being, is not in the range of acceptance. I’ll leave you alone.’ And then I’d run away after that.

No, I didn’t even mean to seduce you in the first place.

I just made an excuse to find out who the Lord was and where he was, but now I was dying from shame. Why did he abruptly appear at this moment?

His spirit was too fierce for me to say, ‘Thank you for saving me the trouble of looking for you.’ I just wanted to ask him to turn around and go back the way he came.

“Who the hell is this?”

Even that alone was enough to bring me to my knees², but the Lord was glaring at Felix with a suffocating and fearsome gaze.

It was as if he was looking at an enemy.

Huh, wh-what? Did he recognize him?

But Felix was unmistakably wearing an artifact that altered his appearance.

It was magic where one couldn’t recognize Felix’s existence unless the person was like me and had often met and talked with him face-to-face.

There was no way Felix and the Lord could have gotten so close to that point that the magic didn’t work.

But then why was he staring at Felix as if he wanted to kill him?

‘Is the magic really not working?’

I didn’t know what on earth was happening and stiffened.

The man tore his mouth open and revealed his white teeth. It was a smile that combined anger and madness.

I couldn’t breathe for a moment because of the ferocious energy.

“The Devil’s bastard……. How dare you crawl in here?”

* * *

^{1. “To strike a stone with an egg” means to attempt the impossible.↩}

^{2. “To bring someone/something to their knees means to render a person or group submissive by weakening or defeating them.↩}