The Hero Who Became a Monster Girl Will Never Fall to Evil

Splash!

Cold water drenched him from head to toe. Bruised and swollen, Lao Liu snapped his eyes open.

His puffed-up eyelids made it hard to see, but that shiny bald head instantly brought back the terrifying memory of the beating before he blacked out.

Lao Liu whimpered, “Don’t—don’t hit me anymore! I’ll talk, I’ll talk, all right?!”

“Then start. What’s your name?” Luna sat on a bench, looking at the man collapsed against the wall.

“We... don’t have names...” Lao Liu muttered.

Luna gave a heavy nasal hum. “Hmm?!”

Lao Liu flinched in terror and blurted, “M-my name’s Lao Liu! That’s what the others call me! Of course, you can call me Brother Liu if you like!”

“Then tell us who’s behind you. Otherwise, don’t blame us [N O V E L I G H T] when we break your legs and toss you out to feed those lunatics waving farm tools as weapons,” Luna said calmly.

“I-I-I...” Lao Liu’s brain whirred frantically. “We—we were just following behind you to pick up leftovers, that’s all...”

“Is that so?”

Luna straightened up slightly and spoke softly, “Then you’ve lost your value. Kare, Pus—strip him naked, drag him out, light him up, and use him to distract those madmen.”

The two stepped forward, grabbed Lao Liu by both arms, and began to drag him away.

He struggled wildly—only to receive a punch from Arc!

Thud! Crack!

That was the sound of bones shattering. A searing pain surged through his nose, burning and throbbing. Covered in blood, Lao Liu screamed,

“You’re adventurers, not bandits! You can’t do this! I’m a licensed adventurer with the Adventurers’ Guild—I’ll report you!”

“Captain Luna, this one’s too stubborn. Should we just kill him to avoid trouble?”

Yuancherin made a throat-slitting gesture, her beautiful eyes glinting coldly without a shred of light.

“No...”

Just as he was being dragged over the threshold, Lao Liu finally broke and shouted, “We’re here to recover the Holy Sword! To recover the Holy Sword!”

Pus and Kare kept dragging him without mercy.

“I’m not your enemy! I’m just following orders...”

Luna raised her hand slightly, signaling Kare and Pus to pause. “Whose orders?”

“O-our organization... doesn’t have a name or title. Everyone calls each other by the tiles from an old domino game spread among the people...”

Coughing blood, Lao Liu continued, “Guys like us at the bottom are just scattered tiles. Even if you kill one Lao Liu, another Lao Liu will appear right after...”

“Oh, that low on the ladder, huh? Then why work so hard for them?” Yuancherin asked with a smiling squint.

Lao Liu gave a bitter smile. “Do I have a choice...?”

...

Meanwhile—

Vieya swung her sword again, splitting open another rift as she led the group in search of the correct space-time.

She didn’t even know how many times she had swung the Holy Sword; her arm no longer obeyed her, trembling every time she tried to lift it.

“I used to swing a sword ten thousand times without blinking, and now I’m done after barely a dozen... I’m a Level Seven slime girl, for crying out loud—how am I this useless?!”

Her cute little face had collapsed into a pout somewhere along the way. Rubbing her sore arm, she complained to the floating ghost beside her,

“Are you sure your method actually works? It’s been forever...”

“So sorry,” said the ghostly woman gently. “Without my Holy Sword, I can’t do anything. From here on, it’s up to you.”

“You’re a Demon King! Does it even matter whether you have a sword or not?”

“Mhm, you make a fair point. But I’m dead, you know? A Demon King stripped of all Authority—can that still be called a Demon King?”

“...”

Vieya fell silent, clutching her arm weakly.

“Vieya, are your hands sore?” Menesis asked, concerned.

At the same time, Rania also stopped and turned toward the white-haired girl, her eyes filled with faint worry and confusion.

By all logic, once a Holy Sword was subdued, it should reinforce its wielder, amplifying their physical and magical attributes.

But with Vieya, it was the opposite—not only was there no enhancement, it almost seemed like the sword was draining her life instead.

“If it’s too heavy, I can hold it for a bit,” Rania offered tentatively.

“...I can hold it myself.”

Vieya shook her head. She could show weakness to anyone—but not to her own student.

After a moment’s thought, she rested the sword tip on the ground and dragged it like a burning stick as she walked forward.

She came up behind Rakaide. “Well? Is this the right space-time?”

“Not sure,” Rakaide replied.

“‘Not sure’? What’s that supposed to mean?” Vieya frowned. Before, his answers had always been either yes or no.

Even though they were all no—

Still!

How did “not sure” suddenly enter the mix?

“The air’s filled with something strange...”

Rakaide closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and after a long silence sighed. “There’s a chance Captain Luna’s team is here. I mean—maybe.”

Menesis walked over. “Do you think they might have used a pheromone-disruption potion?”

“Possible,” Rakaide said, expression unchanged. He suspected there was more than one group here.

That nameless corpse found near the Hero armor earlier was the best proof. ƒrēewebnovel.com

“I see.”

Menesis adjusted her hat brim. “Then we search this space-time. If Captain Luna’s really here, we’ll find traces of her.”

“What do you think, Vieya?” she asked, looking up.

“Ah, another decision for me, huh?” Vieya put one hand on her hip, gazing off into the distance. “Then let’s search—hmm?”

An icy hand suddenly clamped around her ankle, like an iron shackle.

She slowly looked down.

And met a pair of crimson eyes!

“Save... the Hero... we...” The owner of those eyes rasped hoarsely, his body shriveled like a mummy that had lain for thousands of years inside a pyramid.

“Hmph!”

Rania snorted coldly, stepped forward, and kicked the mummy away hard.

“They look just like those people we saw in the mine tunnels... all trapped here,” Menesis murmured.

Rakaide nodded silently. “Living neither as humans nor ghosts, dragging their rotting bodies, never able to leave this forsaken town, never able to truly die.”

“To make them rot endlessly, unable to live or die... the Demon King’s cruelty really knows no bounds. The least they could do was let them die quickly.”

Menesis sighed, stepped forward, and slashed the mummy’s neck, ending its misery.

“All right. Let’s move on,” she said, then glanced at Vieya’s ankle where she’d been grabbed.

“You’re not hurt, are you? Those half-dead things carry heavy contagion and corpse poison between their fingers. One mistake and you’re infected.”

“I’m fine.”

Vieya said nothing more, only gave a small shake of her head.