I Am Not the Heroine

Winer Alpares said it was fine for the hero party to stay at his mansion.

“Since you’re the ones fighting for us, you certainly deserve to stay in a nice place.”

With that, he assigned four butlers and maids to each person.

“Hero, may I have your armor…?”

“I’ve prepared a simple grape snack for Lady Ariya.”

“In contact with the royal knight order, I’ve arranged the attire that Lord Serelin prefers…”

They even went so far as to assign an elf maid for the elf princess Rapirie.

“Princess, I will be at your service. Call on me anytime.”

“Uh… huh?”

Who would have thought a fellow elf would be serving in a human mansion?

Rapirie’s eyes widened in surprise.

“She was sent by the Elf Kingdom to serve Lady Rapirie.”

Winer Alpares insisted strongly that no one was living as a slave.

Though Rapirie had nothing to say at first, she bit her tongue more after hearing the elf maid’s positivity.

“Um… may I ask your name?”

And the older butler, looking a bit awkwardly at me, asked my name.

“My name is Rui.”

I meekly told him my name.

“Lady Rui. I will guide you to your room.”

As I moved with the butler, I caught eyes with Count Alpares.

Something felt odd, but I followed the butler to the room anyway.

“Well, everyone! Let’s regroup after checking our rooms!”

“Okay!”

“Sure!”

“Got it.”

“Yes.”

The hero party scattered as if caught in a tide of servants.

Surely, this wasn’t the kind of scattering mentioned in novels, right?

“This way.”

No way! They got separated inside the ‘Fortress of Dusk’, after all.

I reached a room with the guidance of one maid.

It felt like a noble’s chamber straight out of a romance fantasy, filled with luxurious decorations in a sky-blue color.

It was almost reminiscent of my eye color.

“….So soft.”

Perhaps because it was a room particularly prepared for the guests, the bed was extremely soft.

Such magic that could tempt a noble like me to flop down and flail my limbs around!

Truly worthy of being called a magical creature.

“….Rui?”

Oops.

Fortunately, when I turned around, it was Rapirie, not the hero, standing there.

She gave me a subtly incredulous look, as if she’d seen what I was doing on the bed.

“Was something going on?”

“Huh?”

“I asked if something was going on.”

With a frown, she raised her voice in a threatening manner, and only then did Rapirie nod.

“Yeah, there was. Rui was flopped on the bed, rubbing around like crazy.”

“Ugh.”

“So slow.”

I lunged at Rapirie to attack, but as an archer, catching her was no easy task.

In the end, I had to issue a final ultimatum to gain the upper hand in this situation.

“Next time, I’ll just have to leave out Princess Rapirie’s equipment.”

“….Huh?”

“Since you’re so fast, it should be fine without my equipment.”

“N-No.”

“And I doubt you need help with your stuff anymore, do you?”

“No, I’m sorry!”

Hah.

You should’ve done that from the start.

As I watched the elf princess clinging to my robe, begging, an overwhelming sense of superiority washed over me.

I, somehow, seemed better than the princess…

“….What are the two of you doing?”

Serelin, noticing the commotion, appeared and gave us a confused look, momentarily halting the situation.

*

“Let’s separate for a while and act on our own.”

The hero party decided to operate individually at their large base in the city of Alpares.

It was perhaps a natural decision.

Since there was no significant threat to unite against yet and the range of magical creature appearances was vast, spreading their forces made sense.

“So, I think it’s best if Serelin, Rie, and I take the northern, southern, and eastern gates.”

“The statistics from the Adventurer’s Guild show that the western gate has hardly any appearances.”

No wonder.

That’s because the Fortress of Dusk emerges from the western gate!

Until the fortress shows up, they plan to draw some magical creatures to the other three directions while gradually whittling down their strength.

‘Lucky for me that I’m being left out.’

Thanks to that, I might get a chance to cast some magic on the west in advance.

“I’ll take the eastern gate, where the magical creatures appear most frequently.”

“If Aswel does that, I’ll take the southern gate.”

“Hmm, then I’ll go to the northern gate.”

Aswel, Rapirie, and Serelin made their plans, and next was Ariya.

“I’ll circulate through all gates to attend to the injured.”

Lastly, everyone looked at me.

“I guess I’ll check on the western gate’s defenses, just to be safe.”

That much wasn’t wrong.

Some might call this ‘slacking off,’ but the hero party didn’t say so.

“It’s good to minimize variables.”

“Rui could pull in some of the forces stationed at the western gate, right?”

I felt trusted for my skills and personality.

Right now, I was indeed a proper member of the hero party.

‘This isn’t bad.’

In fact, it was more than favorable.

‘Shall I start planning?’

I began to form a more concrete plan instead of merely sketching vague ideas.

Let’s develop a plan that could benefit the hero party without disrupting the story’s progression.

*

“The hero and his companions have left the mansion.”

“You really put in the effort from the very first day, don’t you? That’s why you’re a hero.”

Winer Alpares’s gaze fell upon the hero below.

The hero with black hair. One day, he had been brought in by the Emperor alongside the saint of the church.

Though there was confusion at first, it was quickly subsiding.

Everyone there, as well as those who later heard of the hero’s arrival, had thoughts of “it’s finally come.”

‘But to think that “prophecy” would involve us.’

I expected it to take longer.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter that much.’

Ultimately, Alpares would just continue his course as Alpares.

What mattered was that the hero party stayed in the city now.

No one could predict what incidents might happen next.

The magical creatures could vanish without a trace or the demon race could band together for an invasion.

Thus, Winer Alpares was crafting as many strategies and plans as he could.

Dozens of strategies based on ‘four’ heroes.

But right now, there’s a chance all those plans might need to be thrown out the window.

‘Rui, was it?’

The girl with white hair.

Her robe decorated with red patterns resembling her hair and her striking blue eyes.

She claimed to be the mage of the hero party.

According to reports from two months ago, there had been no mage in the hero party.

Initially, it was predicted that the [Sorceress] would join the party, but after his refusal, a whole year passed without a mage joining the hero party even once.

Yet now, she was here.

Not just any mage, but one with an impressive appearance that seemed hard to believe.

“Count.”

“What is it?”

“….It’s classified as unknown.”

“That the informants of House Alpares couldn’t verify the identity of a single mage…?”

“They said the mana backlash from the robe she wore overpowering all the detection tools used by our informants.”

“Well, that’s the least you would expect from the mage of the hero party.”

If a central figure like a mage could allow mere informants’ tools to go undiscovered, that would indeed be strange.

But on the other hand, since they achieved so many feats, I was also wary of believing it so easily.

‘The [Sorceress] mentioned by the Emperor must easily surpass that level.’

A mysterious mage who bore the title of the Empire’s star.

No one, aside from the Emperor, knew the face of [Sorceress].

No one knew if [Sorceress] was male or female.

But two things were certain.

[The Sorceress] was under the Emperor’s generous protection.

And that [Sorceress] possessed magical skills worthy of that protection.

‘The only one comparable would be…. [Master Whitesmith].’

A mage who produces transcendental magical tools that even the Great Mage struggles to replicate.

Like [Sorceress], their identity remained secret, but they were a bit more well-known.

Occasionally, magical tools from [Master Whitesmith] would show up at auctions.

‘Wasn’t the knight captain’s sword a magic sword crafted by [Master Whitesmith]?’

I heard there hasn’t been a new captain appointed since then.

‘My mind is racing.’

The white-haired girl riding the black horse slowly exited the mansion.

How would she compare to [Sorceress] and [Master Whitesmith]?

“That feels a bit unfair.”

I shouldn’t compare them at all, considering one is dubbed the Empire’s star and the other is at the pinnacle of magical tools.

Winer Alpares felt a tinge of regret for the mage of the hero party and adjusted his mustache.

“Approach her in a traditional manner.”

“Understood.”

After the butler left, Winer downed the remaining tea in his cup.

This was as far as he would go in welcoming special guests. Now, it was time to return to his work.

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