Chapter 51: Holy Armor (2)

In the past, I had pondered about what a hero truly was.

A hero who defeats the Demon King and saves all the people they hold dear - someone who could only exist in fictional works.

These days, there were too many works that twisted this brilliant image of a hero into something decadent, calling it a subversion of clichés.

Cases where they were expelled from their party for strange reasons, or abandoned for losing their abilities.

'Verdandi is the best hero I ever conceived.'

A righteous person to the point of being consumed by their own sense of justice, a hero who would rise again no matter how painful the ordeal.

Because of this, she was sometimes exploited by villains, and ultimately became corrupted into a new Demon King, becoming the final boss who would pass on the role of hero to the next generation.

'In contrast, Sieghart is the ideal hero I imagined.'

I had set up Sieghart, the protagonist, as an antithesis to her. A hero who, unlike Verdandi, was not altruistic and fought only for himself.

At the time, I thought this much was necessary to subvert the traditional hero story...