Chapter Nine: Everything so far was just the introduction

Not thirty seconds had passed since the Mighty Week ended, and yet another loud, unbearable sound echoed throughout the capital.
And as if that sound wasn’t enough, I was suddenly faced with all the strongest knights and adventurers, heroes included, their weapons pointed directly at me.
“What’s going on!?” Milta panicked as murderous intent filled the air, all of it directed at me.
“Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah!” My heartbeat shot through the roof and my breathing quickened.
I couldn’t think anymore. I could only see them, frozen as my body gave up on me. The tolling of the bells grew louder and louder, shaking my mind apart.
It was almost invisible—like a shadow—but then I felt a sudden thrust in my stomach that sent me flying meters into the sky. The pain was excruciating, as though the very word pain had been born from what I was feeling. I found myself airborne without even knowing who had struck me.
And then, even though it was still the afternoon, a bright, blinding light followed me into the sky. The last words I heard were:
“Blind Piercing!!”
In an instant, holes were punched throughout my body.
I didn’t know what happened after that. I couldn’t have known. When I began to regain consciousness, the only word I heard was a desperate cry repeated again and again:
“Heal! Heal! Heal!”
Even though I was in ultimate pain, warmth spread over me, and little by little the agony began to fade. When I managed to open my eyes, I couldn’t see anything—it was too bright. A different kind of brightness than when I had been attacked.
“Milta… I guess I’ll sleep for a while…”
It felt like a long nap. Even in my dream, I couldn’t move. I just lay there in the dark, staring upward into nothing, waiting for my body to wake up.
After what seemed like days, loud noises pulled me from the darkness. I opened my eyes in fear.
“Wha-t…”
I was in an unfamiliar room, large enough to be a king’s chamber. The ceiling was high and made of stone, and thick metal bars stood before me with a hostile crowd gathered on the other side.
The room was lit by glowing stones embedded in the walls. As I tried to move, only the clinking of chains answered me.
I followed the sound with my eyes and realized thick golden chains bound my wrists and ankles, suspending me meters above the ground. My body hung between floor and ceiling like some grim display.
“So, you’ve finally come to, huh?” a young man’s voice called from behind me as footsteps approached.
He walked into view, passing below me to stand before the crowd. Their eyes were filled with killing intent, but he turned to face me calmly.
“Those chains holding you are my holy weapon. My name is Rataradun Dicelli Rart. People call me Rart, otherwise known as the Seventh Hero.”“Lord Rart, please rid us of that abomination!!” someone in the crowd shouted.
“Yes, destroy that bastard!” others followed.“He showed up the moment Mighty Week ended—he must have been waiting to destroy us!”
What are they saying? What is going on here?
I should have been the one screaming, not them. What had I done to deserve this cruelty the very moment I set foot in the capital?
“Why… why are you doing this to me!? What have I done to you people!?” I roared.
The crowd hushed at my voice, fear rippling through them, before whispers began.
“Hey, he looks fine to me. Didn’t he take a direct hit from a holy sword?”“Is it because the Healentek girl healed him?”“No, even the greatest healers can’t undo wounds from a holy weapon.”“You say ‘they,’ but isn’t she the first true Healentek in decades?”“Yeah… most were wiped out. Only children without the arts survived…”
“Silence!!” Rart cut them off, and the murmurs died.
“Vile creature,” he sneered as he floated to my level. “You may look like a human, but you did a poor job disguising yourself.”
Vile creature? Why? Why am I being treated like this? Why me? Tears welled up as confusion and despair broke me.
“What are you crying for, demon? You went through all this trouble to disguise yourself and catch us off guard, but you failed. Drop the act. It’s over!”
“What have I done to you? Why do you call me a demon? Aren’t you the same as me?” I pleaded, desperate to make sense of this madness.
“…Hahahahahaha!” He laughed in my face like I was insane.
“What are you saying? You are a powerful demon, right? For decades, this city has stood—and never once has the third bell rung. Only a monster of your level could trigger it.”
From his words, I pieced together their meaning. The capital had three bells to warn of demons.Normal demons cannot enter the barrier, so when a super-strong demon, like a demon lord’s subordinate, crosses, the first bell rings. And when a demon lord crosses, the second bell sounds. The third bell was thought to respond only to the queen of demons, but instead, it rang when I arrived.
“What’s your relation to the queen of demons? If the third bell responded to you, then you must at least be the strongest we’ve ever seen, right!? Are you her right-hand man? Tell me, just who are you!?”
His method of interrogation was dirty, as he slapped me after every question, each blow making my nose bleed.
Then he clenched his fist tight, and I could feel his strength even before he hit me.
“Tell me!!” he yelled, throwing a face-shattering punch straight at me.
The pain was so severe it felt as if my brain had been crushed directly. I blacked out for a moment.
“Tell me… who are you?” When I came to, he was asking the same question, his face twisted in delight.
“Who… am I?… I don’t… know.”
Forcing the words out of my swollen mouth, I replied, hoping to put an end to it. But that only angered him further.
“Are you mocking me!?” he roared, before shouting, “Torn Torture!”
The chains holding me began to shake, and slowly I felt my right arm being pulled.
“No… no… NOOOO!!!” I screamed as my hand was slowly twisted and torn from my body.
“W-why…?” My tears stopped, choked off by the agony, as the chain that had ripped off my arm fastened itself to my chest.
The chain now embedded in my chest held my body in place while the one on my left hand twisted and ripped off my other arm.
“AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!” My screams echoed through the cave-like room while the spectators cheered loudly for their so-called hero.
Then it came to my legs. In the same manner, the chains from earlier now bound to my chest, tore them off one after the other.
I didn’t die or pass out from the pain itself — but from the shock of what I had been turned into. My body collapsed into a pool of my own blood, my severed limbs scattered around me.
When I opened my eyes, I was being held tightly, blood and tears soaking into my shirt.
That scent… “Milta…” She was crying so hard as she clung to me.
“I’m sorry! It’s all my fault! It’s all because I brought you here!”
Her tears made me cry too, and this time it wasn’t just silent tears. I wailed as loudly as I could.
Apparently, I was in an underground cave. After collapsing at the gate, Milta had healed me enough to keep me alive. She was then dragged away by the adventurers, while Rart dragged my broken body here with his chains.
It had been five hours since then. Milta was prevented from entering to make sure she wouldn’t heal me after Rart left thirty minutes ago. They only allowed her in once they confirmed I was truly dead.
When she saw my limbless body, she panicked and poured healing into me until all of my limbs had returned. Then she clung to me, weeping.“Milta… who am I?” I asked, resting in her arms.
“…I don’t know. You were strange from the start, but you were a good person. I didn’t realize it myself until after the Mighty Week ended, but you are not normal. You give off an aura that could only belong to someone powerful, someone close to the queen of demons. Yet apart from your aura, I don’t feel any hatred from you. I know for sure you’re not a bad person. There has to be a reason behind this. If only the others would understand…” she said softly, her comforting tone easing my troubled mind.
“Milta, thank you. But… if you keep sticking with me, you’ll become a suspicious person too. I don’t want to put you in danger. You have a bright future ahead of you. You’re the world’s greatest healer, after all…”
“No…” she interrupted firmly before I could finish.
“We promised to go on adventures together, didn’t we? And besides… I didn’t heal you. I can always feel it when I heal someone with my magic, but… I didn’t feel anything, not even after healing you twice. I was sure you had died at the gate, and I was sure you were dead when I came in here. But you weren’t. You healed yourself.”
“Thanks, Milta. You should be more confident in yourself. I’m sure you’ll become the greatest healer in this world.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them…”
She must have felt guilty, but none of this was her fault. If anything, it was the fault of whoever had brought me into this world without a single clue of what I was supposed to do.
Milta stayed with me for a while until I began to regain my senses. That was when an elf guard in brown leather armor with a bow entered and asked her to leave.
She told me to hang on, promising, “I’ll come back tomorrow,” as she exited the cell.
“What time is it right now?” I wondered aloud as I lay flat on the floor, staring up at the cave ceiling dimly lit by luminescent stones that resembled stars in the night sky.
Even though I had regained my senses, my body was so sore I couldn’t move a muscle. The pain had dulled, but my strength was gone.
My thoughts drifted to home. My home in the world I left behind. How I wished I could go back to those boring old days.
The sense of reality here was overwhelming, and my lack of knowledge only made it worse. I might not have been a geek type, but everyone knows the normal route of being summoned into another world is to save that world.
Why is it different in my case? Is this some kind of bug in the game? Did the programmer of this world make such an incompetent mistake, casting me as the villain just like that?
With bitter thoughts of dissatisfaction and blame, I finally drifted into sleep, hateful eyes watching my every move from outside the cell.