Chapter 70: That Was A Flag
With that reminder from Leisha, Shien finally remembered.
Before, when Vivian was talking about finding Leisha, she actually did state the following.
"The one that the Old Demon Faction is seeking is here in Lamdrion right now. This matter is therefore a very unstable factor. Therefore, we must find her, investigate her goal for coming here to Lamdrion, and even figure out the cause behind this whole incident. That is the quest that the guildmaster personally gave us."
Indeed. Vivian did say that they needed to figure out Leisha's goals and the cause behind the incident. She never said anything about investigating just who Leisha is or her history.
Plus, when he subjugated Jillian earlier, that knight captain also made a very ugly expression when he saw Leisha's portrait. That was enough to prove that to those people at least, Leisha's identity wasn't really a secret.
Therefore, Leisha's identity was probably more clear than what Shien had thought.
Only, that brat had talked about stuff like stealing the Demon King's Mansion and stealing something very dangerous from the very start, so it couldn't be that her real identity was some kind of chivalrous thief, right?
… Should he just catch her and bring her back anyways?
Shien's gaze toward Leisha started changing.
"…!"
Leisha's sharp instincts seemed to have detected something. She gave a full bodied shiver and her gaze at Shien became very alarmed.
Although she didn't know just what this off-the-rails Hero was thinking about, Leisha at lease knew that it was definitely something not good.
Thus, for the sake of self-defense, Leisha hurriedly changed the topic.
"Anyways, although I'm not really in your camp, I'm not your enemy either. There shouldn't be any bad points to working with me, so please consider it!"
Given the way she said it, Leisha was already showing quite the humble attitude.
It really made Leisha feel tired. The sensation of not knowing just how she got there became stronger and stronger.
"Hmm…"
Shien crossed his arms and started to seriously consider it.
Destroy a major faction within the Old Demon Faction huh?
It's not like he absolutely can't do something like that.
At the very least, after he met Jillian, Shien's impression of this Old Demon Faction was already the worst. He wouldn't feel a drop of guilt even if he were to completely annihilate them all.
Besides, if the Old Demon Faction were to really try to come and save Jillian, then Shien doesn't know just what will happen to Lamdrion. However, what Shien does know is that those guys would definitely try to make trouble for him.
After all, given the scenario, at that point, that poser with a name like that of some mook boss in a certain anime should quite hate Shien at that point. He'd think himself shamed and want to take revenge, so if he did end up getting rescued, then as the common tropes go, he'd try coming back for revenge like a common villain. That kind of development was so common a child could think of it.
Besides that, he'd definitely try to come take revenge super publicly. For example, taking the people of the town as hostages to force Shien into a trap, or trying to destroy the entire town along with Shien to force him to die in regret. That was the proper behavior for villains after all.
At that point, Shien himself would "have no choice" but to pull out the Holy Sword, and insta-kill all the villains, but that would also end up exposing his identity and end up getting the attention of various greater factions. Then he'd be taken seriously or idolized, depending on his settings as a protagonist. That was also a cliché.
If Shien really did want to be the main character here, then that was the textbook method. Al he needed to do was to follow along.
Unfortunately though, Shien wasn't that kind of person.
In that case…
(Why not just wipe out all of those Old Demon Factions now in secret and without any risk of discover. Then, just toss all the blame onto this great chivalrous thief.)
Shien was instantly enlightened.
However, before that, Shien still had some things he wanted to confirm.
"Are you sure that just the two of us are enough to annihilate that major group of the Old Demon Faction?"
Shien's meanings were quite clear. He didn't want to end up meeting some super boss in the end and get wiped out in return.
"You're seriously worried about that?" Leisha ended up laughing at that, "You could stand uninjured before me even at such a low level. If you add to that the power of the Holy Sword, then is there really anyone who would be a match for you besides someone on the same level as the three great goddesses and the six great demon lords?"
"That's not certain." Shien didn't take things lightly at all. Instead, he spoke very seriously, "How am I supposed to know just what level the people coming are going to be? Or how strong they'd be? Plus, everyone knows the saying about how a spear from the front is easily dodged, but a dagger at the back is hard to avoid. If they can't take me head on, then how am I supposed to know if they'd try something in secret?"
At the very least, Shien doesn't believe that reality would be the kind of thing where so long as he was strong enough, he could simply ignore all threats.
It must be said, in the current day and age, even a warrior race capable of blowing up planets could be nearly killed by a laser gun. A certain guy hiding upside down in a life support capsule all day would also somehow fall under the gun of a double agent controlling some strange object. Shien at least feels that it's better to be safe than sorry.
"You really are one strange guy." Leisha gave a bitter laugh at that, "True enough, the Old Demon Faction does have a number of sneaky methods that they can employ. I can't guarantee that everything would go perfectly either. However, this time, it's us who is attacking them, not them acting in secret. So long as we stayed vigilant, then with our powers, even at the worst, we should still be able to retreat with our lives, right?"
Shien had extremely high level resistance skills, plus the protection of the Holy Sword. Even if he couldn't win, he's still be fine. That much he had already proved right in front of Leisha.
Leisha herself was a user of space magic. If she just wanted to run, there's practically no one who could stop her.
It was because they had such powers as insurance that Leisha dared to invite Shien to go destroy a major section of the Old Demon Faction with her.
"Unless the other side has some kind of unusual unique skill user, but the chances of that is very low, so we probably don't have to worry about that."
Leisha was acting quite confident there, but Shien felt like that was a flag…
Although…
"Unique skill huh?"
Shien considered it.
"That's right." Leisha nodded, "Unique skills are very special abilities. It might be useless, but it also might end up showing earth-shattering effects and reversing the entire tide of battle. That's why everyone who had awakened a unique skill will generally always be taken seriously. You too managed to become so abnormal as such low levels because of your unique skill, right?"
Thus, whether or not one had a unique skill, and what kind of effect that unique skill had, was enough to directly determine one's abilities and power.
"Normally speaking, it's one thing if you don't have a unique skill, but in a situation where a unique skill exists, the general calculation is to first take in the strength of the unique skill, and only then start factoring in level and skills. That's the proper way of calculating someone's true power."
Leisha so explained.
"Take the six great demon lords of the demon world for example. Their subordinates' levels and skills aren't actually all that much lower than theirs. However, as the Demon King's direct kin, the six great demon lords add have extremely terrifying unique skills, capable of easily crushing their subordinates whose aren't that much different in terms of levels and skills."
"It's also because of that reason that the Heroes throughout history were considered the hope of the world. It was because they'd generally all have super strong unique skills. They'd also have Holy Swords which won't lose to unique skills at all. With both of those factors, even the three great goddesses or the six great demon lords wouldn't dare take them lightly."
"You were only summoned to this world fairly recently, but given that you're the Hero, you should be able to grow very quickly. In the future, when you meet any enemies, you mustn't ignore the effect of unique skills, alright?"
Shien fell silent in response to Leisha's words.