Runaway Hero and the Battlefield

“Hear me, mortal whelps. Your pathetic Hero has been defeated. In one year’s time, my armies will surge forth into your lands and raze them to the ground. We shall slaughter you, down to the last man, woman and child. Fall to despair as you await us.”

And thus it begins, humanity’s final year. The Hero Alan has fallen, leaving humanity no recourse in the face of the Demon King’s overwhelming might. And the demons, vindictive and cruel, take great pleasure in that fact. As the Demon King declared, they want nothing more than to kill the helpless in despair. If that weren’t the case, the Demon King alone would have conquered us in mere days.

Sure enough, in a single year, my nineteenth, the whole of humanity’s lands shall become like this field. Gray and desolate, rejecting all life and goodwill, razed to the ground and scarred by violence. And with those barren fields spread wide, I shall be alone. Even more alone than I find myself now. Wholly, permanently, helplessly alone. No longer will it be the case that I do not reach out my hand, but that there is nobody beyond my fingertips to grab it.

I still remember this battlefield well. So well I fled here by instinct when I could no longer bear my aloneness. This battlefield is the site of my first great failure, the first of many. I was still nascent as a warrior, though not wanting for greater training. I had been ordered to aid the regiment of human troops encamped here. They were tasked with holding back the Demon King’s armies and keeping them from the human lands behind them.

I had heard that they had grown weary so far from home and for so long, and though I myself had long stopped feeling such a thing, I couldn’t help but hope for their eventual return. I was to relieve their worry by defeating the enemy. I was to give them a well deserved break, no matter how short it may be. And when I was to return to the capital, I intended to recommend to the king that a new regiment take their place.

Alas it was not meant to be. Such thoughts were nothing more than fruitless distractions, I’m sure now. They never had any problems maintaining their defence, and had never once been overrun. And yet, that was the case when I arrived. The demons had begun their work, killing men too tired to resist. I’m sure the soldiers only lived so long because the caprices of the demons who thought it would be far more amusing.

Each disfigurement of the earth is another cenotaph, a hollow monument to the life and death of these soldiers, and thus to my failure. I swiftly felled each of the attacking demons, and with such ease I could only feel shame.

In accordance with the standard, the few survivors remaining and I gathered the dead and piled them in the flags they flew. As the highest ranking among us, I was tasked with setting the pyre alight, letting their fallen souls fly freely. The soldiers stood away from me, most having a severe distaste for watching their brothers in arms burn away. As I watched the fire take hold of them, I realized something was wrong. I knew I should’ve done something to stop it, and it was well within my power to reverse their course, but I found myself incapable of anything. I watched uselessly as the winds blew away the ash; the last remnants of those brave soldiers were forever lost to the demons’ lands.

I was never punished. Not even a single chiding. Not even a single one of the bereaved enraged at my impotence.

That was not my only failure here, however. That day would also be the moment that ensured another of my greatest failures would come to pass. Among the survivors was a prodigious healer girl the same age as me. As a medic, she was able to hide herself away before the attacks could reach her. She watched the others die from afar. I had won her admiration in spite of everything.

She pledged herself to my service and entreated me to take her along on my quest. I myself have no access to healing magic, and so on that front I had no reason to deny her. However, more than any logical reasoning, I was charmed by her. I had had no experience with girls my own age up until that point, and so I could not resist her. That I did not deny her then is another of my greatest failures.

I watched her be taken from me by the Demon King’s armies. She was taken from me right before my eyes and I still did nothing.

I couldn’t handle it anymore, so I ran away here. Something in my heart found it pertinent for me to reminisce about my repeated failures. The lost souls, the lost loves, and a man who can’t find a way to lose himself. I have no need to worry at the present moment, however.

My barrier seems to have been far more effective than I anticipated. I had only expected to buy a meager week at best. I only wanted a week so I could wallow before I surrendered myself. And yet, it now appears I have earned humanity another year to live, and the knowledge of our doom with it. I have still done nothing of value here, only postponing the inevitable, and yet this too would make me loved.

No matter how weak and wretched I become, nothing changes. No matter what I do, I am lauded as a hero and beloved by the people. I cannot shake it, no matter how little I care for it. I have not done a single thing deserving of all of this, and yet it is always foisted upon me. Even the Demon Lord himself, in telling of my pathetic flight from battle, made it sound as though I lived and died a hero.

But that itself is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for. I am finally free of it all. The Hero is dead. The Hero Alan is no more. All that remains now is Alan, a coward of the lowest degree. And all I have is this one final year.

I suppose my flight isn’t over yet, if I still have so much time. I’ll keep running away, until I find that place where I’m wholly alone as I await my own death. I’ll run until I find it, that unknowable place at the edge of the world.