I Picked Up the Abandoned Hero

54 – 54. What the Ashes Left

The Witch of Embers was one of the most notorious of all witches.

The name witch is usually given to wizards after committing a terrible crime that humans should not commit.

In most cases, they are acquired for reasons such as brutally killing family members or conducting horrific experiments.

However, the scale of the Witch of Ashes was extraordinary.

She didn’t just kill one or two people, she reduced the Terrarium Kingdom, her hometown, to ashes.

However, it should be noted that she did not simply massacre many humans.

The Terrarium Kingdom had many famous wizards, but it was all destroyed by a single ash witch without a single survivor.

In other words, it was as if she had won against all the wizards in the Terrarium Kingdom by herself.

The Witch of Ember left such a legacy at an age when she was not even an adult, so how much of a monster was she in her alternate life?

“…Ah, did I fall asleep again?”

There are not many people left in the world who remember that.

Because it was in the very distant past.

“Where is this place?”

An old story.

Clen fought for her life against a mysterious woman who had invaded her land from her past.

The girl who seemed to have lost her temper barely came to her senses after running wild for an hour.

Originally, that hour would have turned all the land here into inferno, but it didn’t because Clen somehow blocked her lady’s advance.

Although the process was very arduous…

“This is Vlad’s land. And you didn’t dare to trespass on this land, so you set the nearby area on fire.”

Fortunately, when the girl came to her senses, the white flames that seemed to cover the whole world disappeared.

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As if her own grandfather hadn’t said it was the end of the world for nothing, the unidentified flame would probably have been enough to cover the whole world if it had lasted one more day.

However, the peculiar thing is that when the flames disappeared, the burned forest and the disappeared humans returned to their original state.

I have never heard or seen such magic.

I have seen fires that are simply terribly hot, or fires that will never go out, but I have never seen the magic of fire that restores what has been burned.

Even if the rain of fire from the sky was already a catastrophe that would bring destruction to the world.

“…Sorry. Those who fell victim to my magic would have returned to normal. You can rest assured that even if you rest for an hour, you will be fine.”

The girl tried to disappear somewhere with her cane.

“Wait, what the hell are you?”

Clen grabbed it and set it up.

I was strangely interested.

Clen couldn’t even imagine that a human could have such power.

I thought that even if there were strong people among humans, being a hero was everything.

However, that mysterious girl was not at a level that could be simply described as strong.

“You have something other than a human smell mixed in.”

I wondered if it could be defined as a human being, as if destruction had taken on a human form.

‘It was dangerous.’

Just five minutes ago, the situation was hopeless.

For the first time in Clen’s life, her life was threatened.

She returned to the form of a monster and possessed magic that would overwhelm even herself. At first, she was just a girl scattering white flames, but when she got in her way, she started attacking in earnest.

“And all those spells are things I’ve never heard of, and I don’t think I’m just a human wizard.”

And all the magic the girl used was something she had never seen before.

Once tied, the light of bondage that could not be released, the black body that devours space, and even the alter ego using flames.

The light of bondage that emerged from the shadows continued to pursue Clen tirelessly, and each time a black black body appeared, it absorbed everything within a radius of 10m.

All the traces dug into the ground are that.

Furthermore, if you luckily dodge or block all of those attacks and try to attack the girl, the shape distorts and shatters into white flames.

And before I knew it, the girl appeared elsewhere.

The girl has been using only magic that even Clen has never heard of.

‘Is this guy really human?’

You can feel how terrible those magics were when you look around the wasteland.

The dense forest has become a desert with nothing left.

Of course, it was also because when Clen turned into a monster, she became gigantic and exhaled vicious miasma.

But most of the damage is due to that girl’s magic.

Fortunately, when fighting, it was only the forest where no one lived, far from the castle, but that did not mean that the magic was never threatening.

If it wasn’t for Clen, she would have died dozens of times already, and it was just dangerous magic.

Even so, all the damage caused by the girl was slowly being repaired.

“People call me a witch. Are you sure you said the witch of embers? It’s a strange nickname, but you should know it that way.”

“A witch?”

The girl who called herself the Witch of Ash apologized and disappeared.

When the girl disappeared, everything was already restored.

The burned land, the forest turned to ashes, everything went back to normal like a midsummer night’s dream.

That’s the story of when I first met the Witch of Embers.

After that, Clen met with the Witch of Ash several times, and as they talked about whether they liked it or not, they became quite close.

“My name is Helena.”

Her girl gave her own name as her Helena, and at the same time learned that she was in her position as a wanderer.

“If you have nowhere else to go, go north to the deserted forest. There’s an old cabin there. No one goes to that forest.”

With Clen’s help, the girl lived a lonely life in a small cabin deep in the forest where no one lived.

She said she was dangerous, and she seemed to be trying to isolate herself from the world.

Sometimes she goes out in the woods and buys books about magic, and in the process she runs into Clen.

At that time, it was not as large as it is today, but it was thanks to the fact that there was a small village in Clen’s territory.

She lived like that for quite some time.

A lot of time has passed since the demon king fell at the hands of a hero and the small village of Clen turned into a huge commercial city.

Of course, Clen, a vampire among the demons, did not get old or aged over the years, and his appearance did not change so much that even a human girl was terrified.

The girl always had the same appearance, befitting her nickname of a witch.

Occasionally, even if countless humans were lost by the Witch of Ash outside of her, she did not cause much damage to her own territory in the end and left it alone.

But one day, the girl suddenly disappeared completely.

When Clen visits the forest where the girl lived, only an old, empty cabin is left there.

[I’m leaving this place because I’m not feeling well. Thank you so much.]

With a short note attached to the cabin.

“…One less thing to worry about.”

Slowly retracing her memories, the last time she saw her girl, Helena, who had always looked the same, felt strangely full.

In addition, she vomited and fell several times along the way, and in the forest where the girl lived, she could feel the waves of unknown magic power.

At the time, Clen didn’t know what had caused the girl to disappear.

She thought it was either that she was ill or that she was dying because of it.

“Ah, are you the demon who is the owner of this land? Nice to meet you, my name is Alfred. I came to extort taxes from this land like a robber on the orders of the demon king.”

Since then, years have passed, until a mixed race of a white-haired human and her demons came to her own estate.

Thinking back, I felt like my life was twisted from then on.

†††

The fight is over.

The battle lasted about an hour.

Of course, it was Clen’s victory.

In the first place, Clen had already defended his territory from the Witch of Embers long ago.

But she wasn’t even a real witch of ash, and she couldn’t be defeated by the undead with only a small amount of bone meal.

It was not possible to exert the power as it was in life, and since there was no proper ego, there were many unstable parts in the use of magic.

“Haa…! Ha…!”

However, Clen was just so tired that she couldn’t even get her body up anymore.

Clen sat down, her legs loose, her legs reverted back to her original form.

The reason she wasn’t defeated was because she had consumed all of her mana, the fuel that enabled the undead to move.

“Kuh, that madman… I never thought he would use my mother as a necromancy…”

It was after Clen had exhausted most of her stamina and her mana.

No matter how incompletely resurrected as the undead witch of ash, the terrible magic of the past was not going anywhere, so I had to stop it with all my might.

If it wasn’t so, the witch of ash, resurrected as an undead, would try to burn the entire world as it did in the past, and now, without consciousness, she would not be able to control herself like she did back then.

Puff!

“Keuugh…”

Eventually Clen fell to her floor.

Persevering is also barely persevering.

Even the upper, which boasted invincible defense, is vulnerable to attacks that have nothing to do with hardness.

The black body absorbs everything it touches.

Moreover, the scorching heat that would have already consumed her bones if she were a human continued to eat away at her stamina.

At least the rain that fell from the sky cooled the heat.

“As expected, Grandma Clen can’t help the time?”

“…Go away.”

After that, Alfred appeared upside down in the sky.

After Clen collapsed, she appeared as if she had waited.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to evacuate though, honestly, I didn’t want to go to the world of nymphs with dwarves.”

“I told you to turn it off.”

“Can I lend her a hand? You deliberately adjusted it, but anyway, you succeeded in stopping the mother, right? What a great! Everyone stand up and applaud!”

As Alfred said, it was a great job, but when the skeleton clapped, all it did was crackle.

On the contrary, it only made me feel worse.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s not something that can be done with an apology, but I’ll beg your forgiveness.”

“What does it change when you, the hero, ask for forgiveness? This must be the work of humans.”

However, when Arcel comes out from behind Alfred, the venom subsides somewhat.

Clen looked away from her, avoiding Arcel’s eye contact.

“If you apologize, you have to forgive or curse. No matter how stubborn I am, I can’t even stand still.”

“I will never forgive you even if you kneel and bow to me.”

“Then you have to bow twice?”

Clen vowed to stomp Alfred first at all costs once she regained her strength.

“Now, let’s turn a little to the right.”

“You damn bastard.”

And to my great annoyance, Alfred turned his head and forced Arcel to make eye contact.

Arcel was making her face as if she had no face.

It seemed that she was already prepared to accept Clen’s hatred towards her humans and her anger on her behalf.

Come to think of it, Clen was really stunned that she did that even though it wasn’t Arcel’s fault.

“…Tsk, I get it. As you said, let’s hold off on destroying the kingdom of Hermod for a while.”

In the end, she raised her hands and surrendered.

“Already, raising both hands like this is all I can do. Do whatever you want to kill or torture here.”

“Then let me torture you-“

“Alfred.”

Arsel glared at Alfred as he blinked and pulled out the instruments of torture.

Alfred shrugged his shoulders and put his instruments of torture into his pockets.

Clen realized that it would be dangerous to use her words carelessly in front of Alfred.

“After…”

It’s not easy to catch even a small bug in this state anyway.

If you go to the kingdom of Hermod, you’ll probably be caught more easily than an ordinary monster.

In order to fully recover her strength, she would have to go into recuperation for at least a few days. Even though she was a fake doll, the ash witch was just as dangerous.

As Alfred said, it was a disaster that would burn at least half of the world.

“But don’t get me wrong, I didn’t forgive you for this. Someone must pay for this sin.”

Clen looked at his estate and said.

Thanks to Alfred’s precautions, the damage wasn’t that great, but still, many people were injured and even died.

There were also quite a few buildings that were burned or collapsed.

Anger still welled up in his head, but on the contrary, he also felt that he had been too hasty.

“Perhaps humans are responsible for all of this.”

Anyway, if we had recklessly advanced like a moment ago, the culprit would have easily escaped in the end.

Human beings were a species that survived no matter how hard they tried to destroy them.

I couldn’t truly condemn him in that way.

The only thing Clen gained from confronting Alfred was to regain her cool.

“The culprit, is it…”

Arcel muttered and bit her lip.

It seemed that he had already guessed who the culprit Clen was talking about was.

Assassination Group Sabah.

Such an organization is never driven by personal matters or grudges, and of course someone instigated it.

It also means that it is the work of a person who has such an influence on the human side to the extent that it causes such terror in the land of Clen, which has power comparable to that of the demon king.

Even for Arcel, this is something that can never be ignored.

“Let’s go back, will you both catch a cold if you keep getting rained on like that?”

At that time, Alfred gave Arcel a hug.

“No, put me down for now! I can even walk alone! Why are you suddenly hugging me like that again!”

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“It’s a personal hobby, so please understand. I won’t leave Grandma Clen here, so rest assured.”

Arsel, who struggles again, is of no use either.

It was the same that Arsel was already tired.

“Look, Grandma Clen. I’m already asleep.”

I struggled to move my arms and legs, but it wasn’t long before I fell asleep from exhaustion.

“…”

Klen looked at the scene and turned his head away.

Thanks to that, my head became calm again, but I couldn’t help but feel annoyed.

I just wanted to quickly return to the castle.

If you want to repair collapsed buildings and take care of the injured, you won’t be able to go into recuperation right away.