When she saw Kagami run, Takako immediately grabbed Alice and followed behind him.
“For him to run away is like saying that he admits it!”
“I’m only running away because you won’t listen to me! Let’s meet again.”
Kagami began to run towards the position that Rex had been hiding in as he sighed. They headed northeast of Balman, towards the Demon King’s Castle, which was located in Atros, one of the four countries.
“Kagami-dono, there is a carriage stopped ahead of here! Since we are heading towards the Demon King’s Castle, I secured it earlier, because I thought it would be necessary! Let’s go ride it.”
Menou yelled out to Kagami as he pushed his way towards him and pulled him along.
“A carriage…How did you secure it?”
“I seized it from one of the peddlers that were heading out of Balman.”
“Just as I was trying to convince the hero’s party that you aren’t a bad guy at all~. If I confirm the safety of the Demon King after going to his castle, it seems that I will have to hand you to the Hero’s party.”
“Whether I have one or two carriages, I’m still the guy who attacked the town. For me, the most important thing is to confirm the safety of the Demon King. Be at ease, I did not want to dishonor Kagami-dono, so I neither killed those peddlers nor deprived them of their goods. I only took their horse and their carriage.”
“Eh, but thanks to your actions, the Hero’s party found out about this place, didn’t they?”
“…………Ahh.”
Kagami proved that he had been aware of how he had conveniently been found out by the Hero’s party. Although he considered flinging Menou away for a moment, Kagami resisted the desire and ran towards the wagon.
Kagami made a bitter expression when he saw the wagon.
Although two horses were on standby next to the wagon, which was designed to carry things and had a tent over it, no matter how he looked at it, they weren’t horses at all. Their upper halves were part human. They were the Kenta-Uros.
“They should be thankful that you deprived them of such a thing.”
Kagami muttered while placing a hand on his head and groaning, seeming to hate it from the bottom of his heart.
“Even though they seemed fine, since those Monsters were being used, I released them. Of course, those horses acknowledge me and will let me ride them.”
As if to say that he was being praised, Menou was thrown inside of the carriage. Without needing to be reminded that they were in a situation where the Hero’s party was catching up to them from behind, Kagami also climbed into the carriage.
Behind them was Takako, who seemed happy as she caught up with them, and Alice, who had been carried by her and seemed to be bored to death. They also got into the carriage.
“Time to depart! Start running! If we head straight to the west from the forest, we will surely come out of it!”
Although Kagami climbed into the carriage and tried to remain expressionless as he said that, the two Kenta-Uros desperately fixed their eyes onto him and yelled.
“Human, we are a noble existence.”
“Ah, yes.”
“We said that it is only the Demon who is allowed to ride us. As if we will let you guys, who are inferior beings, be carried. It will be forever shameful. Get lost.”
The moment the Kenta-Uros said that, Takako made an appearance from inside the carriage, holding a whip. Kagami immediately moved over to Alice, and with a ‘Kids shouldn’t look at this!’, he covered her eyes with his hands.
The carriage began to move with a blistering speed. With a ‘Hohohohoh!’ from Takako, a yell of ‘nnaaaaaaah!’ resounded from the Kenta-Uros. When Menou saw this scene, he pondered on whether it was a good thing that he had ridden a Hell Crow.
By the time the Hero party got there, the carriage using the two Kenta-Uros had already dashed away. If their Level was high, it was natural for them to be quick at running away. There wasn’t any worry about the Hero party catching up if you thought about the distance the Kenta-Uros could travel with their inexhaustible stamina.
“Th-they ran away…!”
Tina muttered as she stopped and panted.
“C-Certainly…they said that they were heading towards the Demon King’s Castle. If that’s the case, they will surely stop by one of the towns along the way. Either way, their destination is the same. We will probably meet again somewhere.”
Krul, who had chased them in the same way, muttered as she also stopped and panted. Behind her, Rex was calmly leaning against a tree and Palna was standing next to him, gazing coldly at the carriage that was dashing away.
“Do you resent them?”
Rex, who realized what she was gazing at, also looked at the fleeing carriage and asked Palna.
“It doesn’t concern you. It’s something unrelated to you.”
Palna responded without looking into his eyes, and Rex muttered ‘I see’ back to her.
It didn’t mean that Rex personally held resentment towards the Demons. It was just hatred for Monsters. He just couldn’t recognize the existence that spawned them and called themselves Demons.
His reason was clear and simple. His parents had been killed by Monsters.
He deeply hated Monsters and he couldn’t forgive those who called themselves Demons for continuing to spawn them. He thought that his existence was a divine revelation. A revelation that allowed him to be born with the role of a Hero. He then continued to develop his powers to fulfill that revelation. He had often thought of a world without Monsters. However, Kagami had said that there were also Demons who hoped to reconcile and didn’t want to spawn more Monsters.
Although Demons were surely an existence that were meant to be killed in the same way as Monsters, he felt that it was wrong to kill Demons who wanted to reconcile. It was unavoidable, but that wouldn’t change the fact that it would be a simple slaughter.
The annihilation of Demons was absolutely essential in order to exterminate those hated Monsters. However, the facts that 『Other than Demon no longer spawning Monsters, nothing will change for Humans』 and 『Even until now they have never tried to attack and eliminate humans』 weighed heavily on Rex’s shoulders.
“It…can’t be helped, huh.”
Rex confronted the reality that he felt had somehow evaded him, and his disgust towards Kagami increased further. Even though Kagami hadn’t been given a revelation, he was strong, and this reality would always pit them against each other.
Even though Kagami hadn’t said that he was excellent compared to himself, who was a hero, Rex didn’t feel that it would be said.
Rather, he just had to feel as such to make it easy for him to attack, be it the Demon King Army or something evil. Monsters were hateful, yet Demons were…the Demon King.
“We’re going, Rex. Princess-sama is saying that we should go and prepare a means of travel, so we will return to the town.”
Krul and Tina had already gone back so Palna spoke to Rex, who was thinking about something seriously.
“…You shouldn’t worry about it.”
Palna turned around and began to walk ahead of him, returning to town.
“There is no need to worry.”
As she finished speaking, Palna continued to proceed to their original purpose.
The annihilation of Demons.
For Palna, who had her beloved person killed by Demons, things like Monsters made no difference to her.