The Fake Hero Is Too Strong

Chapter 232

I shouted as if crying out.

“I will add the law right now. From now on, all the negative energy will be focused on Idria.”

“Yes. I will add it.”

Tap.

A screen window appeared.

Up to this point, it was content I had seen before as well.

But the next sentence was something I had never seen.

I nodded boldly.

“Yeah.”

And the screen window disappeared.

Bion spoke in a somewhat moved voice.

“With this, the hero system has disappeared. Well… to be precise, it would be more accurate to say it has become useless.”

“That’s not what’s important right now.”

“Huh? This is what we have suffered all this time for. Can’t we at least be a little emotional about it?”

I shook my head side to side.

Tap.

Lisel suddenly clapped her hands.

“Mr. Mide! Don’t tell me?”

“As expected, you are quick on the uptake. Sometimes.”

“Thank you.”

“Looks like you didn’t hear the last part. Anyway, Bion, call Idria to this place right now.”

As soon as the name Idria came out, the others seemed to realize my plan.

On the faces of the companions who had worked together for so long, exclamation marks appeared.

Only Bion had no idea what was going on.

“What….”

“Mide! Let’s make Idria come directly to the lab.”

“Yeah, good idea. We have to save even one minute and one second.”

“No, everyone…”

“You should stop talking and run too.”

Tap.

Neril grabbed Bion’s hand and started running down the hill.

She ran as hard as she could but got caught by us in just a few seconds.

“Huff, huff.”

“Noona, you should exercise. I’m not really in a position to talk either, but still.”

“Shut up?”

“Bion unni. We just added the law, so now all the negative energy should be flowing toward Idria. Mide hyung plans to ask Idria to replenish the lab’s energy.”

Bion’s face turned pale.

“No, you are asking the Demon King for help? Does that even make sense?”

Why wouldn’t it make sense?

Xenia answered.

“We have already helped the Demon King several times. This time, it’s the Demon King’s turn to repay us.”

“That’s ridiculous. In a way… no, however you look at it, we blatantly used Idria. We made the negative energy gather to her and put her under eternal surveillance.”

“Doesn’t look like she thinks so. Well, even if she didn’t, we can just threaten her.”

“Xenia, you weren’t that kind of person.”

“Ah, stop talking nonsense and just run!”

Then Offense stepped in.

“There’s no need to run.”

“Huh?”

The next moment, we were all sucked into our own shadows.

And when we came to our senses again, we were inside the building.

I said in admiration.

“Weren’t you only able to move by hearing about the form of the shadow?”

“I don’t need to hear it now. I can roughly guess it. Probably because my fame is much higher than back then.”

“Impressive.”

“That’s enough admiration, let’s move on. I don’t want her to die either.”

At those words, we all looked at Bion.

“How much time is left?”

“W-Wait a moment, everyone. The law was just added, so not even a fingernail’s worth of negative energy has gathered to Idria yet. Even if the Demon King replenishes it, at best we will only add a few minutes.”

“…….”

“I’m grateful for how you all feel, but this won’t solve the problem. Just send me off cleanly. Okay?”

Neril snorted and said.

“Cleanly. That really doesn’t suit us.”

“Huh?”

“If we were the kind of refined people who did things cleanly, we wouldn’t have made it this far, fighting an existence we couldn’t even figure out how to deal with. We would have just ‘cleanly’ accepted defeat and given up.”

“……!”

“How about you? If it looked impossible, were you the kind of person who just sat down and gave up?”

Tears welled up in Bion’s eyes.

“No….”

“Right. Heroes aren’t people who solve everything in one stroke with overwhelming power like in fairy tales.”

“…….”

“They flail around ugly to fight a reality they don’t like, cleverly use the situation, and sometimes pull off giant scams like Mide, and somehow seize the future they want. That’s what heroes are.”

“…….”

“We don’t like you dying like this. So no matter what, we are going to save you.”

Bion finally nodded.

“Once we call Idria, we will have about four minutes of negative energy left. Please convince her within that time.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry.”

“O-Okay… I called her.”

Soon, we heard a presence we hadn’t felt before.

We quickly turned around.

Idria was blinking her golden eyes as she looked at us.

“Is this a dream? I don’t recall falling asleep.”

“Idria. Help us out a bit.”

“Ah, Mide. Looks like you added a law. My power is gradually growing.”

“Let’s talk about that later. The situation is urgent right now.”

Idria let out a small laugh.

“What exactly do you want me to help with?”

I looked at Bion.

She pointed somewhere with an anxious expression.

“Do you know what that is, Demon King?”

“I don’t know what it is. And I don’t know who you are either.”

“That is a vessel that contains the source of power that can maintain this place. And that source of power is the negative energy of the entire world that should be flowing toward you even at this very moment.”

Where Bion pointed was a massive empty chamber, surrounded by materials and technology unknown in this era.

I jumped up toward that place.

My party members did the same.

“What is this?”

“Ah. Something is bubbling over there.”

Just as she said, a murky, brown, slime-like substance was boiling up in a corner of the cavity’s floor.

That slime was right on the verge of drying up completely.

“So that’s the condensed negative energy.”

As I murmured that,

Idria came up with a leisurely attitude.

She floated slightly in midair and asked,

“You are all too tall. If you want to show it to me too, why don’t you step aside?”

“This isn’t the time to be saying things so leisurely. Just like Bion explained a moment ago…”

“Bion? The woman who explained just now wasn’t Bion.”

Damn it, where do I even start explaining?

No, I can’t explain.

There’s probably not even three minutes left.

Ku-gu-gung.

At that moment, the ground suddenly trembled.

At the same time, something crumbled down with a clattering sound.

Looking at the debris that fell right in front of my nose, I said,

“It’s collapsing.”

“Yes.”

Bion nodded with a dark expression.

She spoke to Idria.

“For now, well… if you just cut off one of your arms and throw it in there…”

“Ha.”

“I can’t think straight because this is so urgent, but for now, if it’s one arm, we can buy about five minutes. In the meantime, the negative energy will gather to you again, so after five minutes, you can throw in the other one… if you repeat that a few times, we can probably buy a whole day.”

“…….”

“If a day passes, then next time, just one wrist for thirty minutes. The next day, just one finger for two hours.”

“Stop. I don’t want to hear it.”

“If you keep repeating it like that, before long, even just offering up a single fingernail should be enough to last a hundred years.”

Idria made a face like it wasn’t even worth listening to.

Instead of dealing with Bion, she looked at me.

“I don’t know what’s going on since you dragged me here so suddenly. Didn’t I already express enough thanks last time?”

“…….”

“We parted as if we would never see each other again, so what is this supposed to be?”

“Idria.”

“There are many things I’m grateful to you for, but I think I have repaid that enough by becoming the vessel of the negative energy. Send me back to the island I was on.”

Damn it.

Even now, time is passing.

Of course, Idria’s situation is just as urgent.

A phrase I had repeated out of habit came to mind.

We are humans.

Idria is a Demon King.

Humans don’t need to understand a Demon King’s circumstances.

And likewise…

“I’m a Demon King, so I don’t care about your urgent circumstances.”

“…….”

“That’s what you said to me, Mide. You are not going to take that back now, are you?”

I bit my lip.

Bion slowly closed her eyes.

It was the face of someone who had given up on everything.

That was when…

“Hmm. What if I go in there?”

It was Trail’s voice.

We were all startled and turned to look at him.

Adwin shouted in shock.

“What are you saying, hyung?”

“You said I also use negative energy as a power source. I’m getting stronger even now, am I not? As Idria gets stronger.”

“No, that’s…”

“Then if my soul goes in there, wouldn’t it be able to buy a little time?”

Xenia said,

“Then who is going to monitor Idria?”

“I don’t think we have the leeway to think that far.”

“Wait a second!”

“Wait!”

Huh?

That last “wait” wasn’t from our party members.

It was Idria.

And in quite a hurried voice.

She clicked her tongue once…

Shck.

And very refreshingly tore off her own arm.

Then she threw it toward the slime that barely had even a handful left.

Bubble, bubble.

Idria’s arm melted into the slime.

A moment later.

Though only a tiny amount, the volume of the slime increased just a little.

“…….”

We were both shocked and dumbfounded by the situation, and stared at Idria.

But she wasn’t looking at us.

She glared at Trail and said,

“Bion. You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

Then Trail scratched his head with an awkward expression.

“Sorry. I learned a bit of trickery from Mide.”

Thump.

As if the strength had gone out of her legs, Bion collapsed to the floor.

Neril knelt to meet her eyes and said,

“You didn’t want to die after all. Your face was totally pale.”

“Sniff……”

“I’m glad. That you are safe.”

Hug.

Neril held Bion in her arms.

The other party members also came over and patted her shoulders and back.

“I could tell right away you were pretending to be strong.”

“Yeah. You had exactly the face Serein unni makes when she loses a gold coin.”

“Hey, it feels like everyone is only teasing me these days… has the target completely shifted over to me? From Offense?”

“They say married couples are of one mind.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Wow. This guy still hasn’t noticed.”

I let out a small laugh and looked at Idria.

Her arm had already regenerated perfectly.

“Please take care of it in five minutes, too.”

“Do you think I’m some kind of errand boy?”

“Since you helped anyway, be a little more generous. I will explain properly.”

“Hmph.”

Idria jerked her chin toward Trail.

“Not you, Mide. Bion.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You explain.”

“Um. Will that be okay?”

I nodded to Trail.

Soon, Trail explained all the secrets we had heard, without leaving anything out.

During the explanation, Idria cut off parts of her own body several times and threw them into the cavity.

Little by little.

You could feel the murky slime on the floor slowly rising.

If we keep suffering like this for a while, then later on, even just a single fingernail would indeed be enough energy to maintain it for a hundred years.

“…That’s how it is.”

“Ha.”

Idria made a strange expression.

“I had no idea you were an existence created through my soul, Bion.”

“Mm.”

“So that’s why I felt that strange sense of closeness to you…”

“……?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

She gave a small smile and asked,

“Then in a sense, couldn’t you be called my child too?”

“Cut the crap. It’s different from Pirensha and Serein. Adwin handled things perfectly, unlike you, and that’s why we are different individuals.”

“Mm.”

In a small voice, she murmured,

“That’s why I think I’m glad.”

TL: I lowkey want to ship Idria and Bion, but it’s just too weird.