Lord Demon is behind you

etc.Wait, wait, wait.

"Why,……"

How is this going?

The brave felt that he needed to sort out the status quo.Now he has initially got rid of the sequelae of mind control, but his head is still foggy, and he is slow to respond to anything - but the cockroach that is close at hand does not allow him to be in a daze.

He grasped the most terrible question in front of him: "Why did you appear here? Miss Sylvia, you should... be a witch on the eighth floor?"

"That's right. That's why I'm here."

The witch on the eighth floor, the most trusted paladin Silvia of the princess, tilted her head when she heard the words, and said indifferently.

"But, isn't it here..."

Isn't this the ninth floor?He had obviously bypassed the eighth floor and directly reached the ninth floor, where he also met Princess Irene who is the final boss——

The brave man recalled what happened before he lost consciousness.

The robot grabbed him to his side, and then performed a powerful self-destruct attack on the spot.

The strong impact of the self-explosion shattered all the surrounding monsters into primitive data streams. Even Princess Irene might not be able to escape, most likely injured.Regardless of the wall, ceiling or ground, they were all shattered into slag by the power of the explosion, and he was thrown into the air at that time, and then, he should have fallen from the formed hole...

— At that time he... fell.from the hole in the ground.

The brave finally grasped the point dullly.

"Where am I now?"

"As you can see," Sylvia raised her gun, "This is the eighth floor of the Demon King's City. This is my area, so Her Royal Highness ordered me to defeat you."

"……How can this be--"

I've never heard that in the Demon King's City, you can jump to another level by this method.

The brave man looked directly above his head in a daze.There is no ceiling on the eighth floor, and the starry sky directly above is completely covered, which looks very far away; from here, it is impossible to tell whether there is a hole on the top of the head.

It shouldn't be.Aren't there separate spaces between each floor of Demon King City?Even if he fell from the hole, he should just fall into the bottomless fragmented space and fall endlessly, not...

"I see. You don't know how you got here, do you?"

Sylvia gave him a meaningful look.

"No need to be puzzled, you did fall from the ninth floor. Although each floor of the Demon King City is in an independent space, the seventh to ninth floors are counted as a whole, so there are some related nodes; as long as Break through the floor in the right place and it's possible to jump directly to the next floor."

The other party explained dullly.The brave man is very familiar with this tone. When she was a companion before, every time she encountered a similar situation, she would always use a similar flat tone to explain.

"--I see."

Speaking of which, the robot moved carefully for a while after grabbing him, as if it was choosing a position... Was it just looking for a "node" at that time?

To think of using this method to make the brave man escape, that robot, what is it...

...Although it can't be regarded as a successful escape.The female knight in front of him was still a formidable enemy for him; in a sense, it was even more difficult to deal with than the princess.

Sylvia looked at the brave man calmly: "It's really good luck for you to be able to escape from Her Royal Highness. However, that's it. My order is to knock you down unconditionally, so—"

She stabbed the brave man in the ribs with the butt of the gun again.

"Stand up, Your Excellency the Brave. Come and fight me."

Her face was very flat, and there was no sign of impatience, and she couldn't see anything called "fighting spirit" from that face.However, the brave man knew very well how powerful she could unleash with this calm appearance.

The brave man pushed away the witch's spear, stumbled to his feet, and gripped the sword in his hand again.

By this time, he finally had a real sense of the situation in front of him.

Because of the help of the robot before, he escaped from the princess successfully and fell to the eighth floor; however, the eighth floor is the boundary of the loyal knight of the princess in front of him.

The princess gave the knight orders to bring him down—either to capture him alive or to kill him on the spot.In any case, if you can't win the one-on-one battle here, you still can't reverse the status quo at all.

"Even if you just slept, you still seem to be in poor condition." The knight looked at him and said.

Really bad.The brave man quickly checked his status: he had lost about half of his health, but he still had a lot of vigor left; however, the most terrible thing was the negative buff of mental decline still hanging on the status bar.After experiencing so many messy things before, these buffs are still firmly attached to him. Obviously, they are high-level types that are difficult to remove, and they may have extremely bad effects at any time.

Besides, what was "sleeping" just now?He must have lost consciousness and fell into a coma.

However, compared to the time when the sky was spinning and the ground was spinning and I couldn't even stand firmly, it was still much better.

"Ah. But don't worry; I can still fight."

You can't back down here, and the Brave knows that very well.Facing an enemy like a knight, running with his back to her would only lead to a worse death for himself.And if there is a last stand, maybe there is still a little chance of winning.

"is it?"

Unexpectedly, looking at his current appearance, the knight lowered the gun in his hand instead.

"You really haven't changed at all. But I don't want to take advantage of others. After all, it is impossible to win by force. Anyway, even in your heyday, it is impossible for you to defeat me now. If this is the case, I will give you some more time to spend It doesn't matter if you rest. Just take this opportunity, how about you come and listen to me tell a story?"

"--story?"

This really surprised the brave man.In my impression, this knight named Sylvia has never been a storyteller; her straightforward tone is enough to ruin all atmospheres.When the girls had a tea party around the bonfire and told stories at night, even the brave man who was admittedly not good at telling stories was more popular than her.

Although...such as giving the opponent a chance to rest and recover, allowing the opponent to play in a state of complete victory, this is indeed something that a paladin who has always been great and upright can do.

"I understand, thank you for your compassion. Please tell me, I will listen carefully."

Either way, it's a good thing for the Brave.He took out the recovery potion from his backpack and sat down on the spot.

"Hmm... where should I start? I'm not good at this."

The knight, who had always been cold-hearted, softened his expression a little.

"...Then let's start from the beginning. About seven or eight years ago, the trainee female knight who ranked last among the rookies of the Kingdom Knights was sent to the side of the most unpopular princess at that time because of her gender. her bodyguard."

"The princess she serves is quiet and smart. She looks arrogant and stern, but she is actually gentle and kind. However, the princess herself was rejected by the royal family because of her excessive excellence. Except for the slick elder brother and the young girl who just learned to speak, there is no Anyone willing to pay attention to her, and then pushed her out to leave the palace and live in another city."

The brave man immediately guessed who she was talking about: the characteristics are too obvious.Princess Irene was indeed rumored to be quite intelligent in her early years, and she seemed to have been feared by the royal family because of this.

"Her Royal Highness is a magician of the spiritual department, and needs more human behaviors as samples for research. After arriving in other cities, she will leave the residence with her guards every day, go to the streets of the city, and observe from the perspective of an outsider. All kinds of human behavior: different ages, different sexes, different occupations, different classes...all kinds."

"Where there are people, there is crime. Even in cities where royal families live, various incidents of violence inevitably occur every day. When princesses and knights occasionally encounter such things, they either stand indifferently Walk over and act as if you didn't see it; or hide and record the whole process as a sample of observation - because this is not something they can interfere with. Even if they are princesses and knights... No, precisely because they are not favored Princesses and knights without fighting power should not meddle in other people's affairs."

"Not only them, but everyone in this city is like this. They can only show indifference to the same situation. Ordinary people will never interfere with crimes that have nothing to do with them. Even the patrol groups responsible for maintaining law and order often try to trying to squeeze money out of violent gangs. That's the human reality: everyone thinks so."

"One day, when they walked through a certain alley, they saw the usual violence again. Drunk men beat their elderly parents and young children, and took away their parents' pensions to gamble— — This kind of thing is too common in the bottom of that city."

"However, this time, a strange young man stood up and stopped the violent man. He looked like an adventurer who broke into the city from the countryside, although he seemed to have walked out of a legacy song. The appearance of a standard brave man, but the equipment on his body is terribly poor."

"At that time...whether the princess or the knight hated this kind of person very much. He didn't understand the rules of the world at all. He only wanted to satisfy his desire to be a hero, and interfered with other people's lives casually; he didn't think about it at all. What impact will his actions have on others. Even if he stops the violent man this time, after he leaves, the man will only get worse next time, making the old man's life even more painful—they all think so. "

"...That's it."

Hearing this, the brave man threw the empty medicine bottle back into his backpack and sighed.

He himself was probably the type that was hated by them.

"Coincidentally, in the next few months, they would run into that adventurer in every corner of the city from time to time. Every time they met, he was either teaching the gangster who bullied girls, or dealing with the gangster who forced protection money , or to catch habitual thieves on the street; sometimes to help passing old people move things, or to pull away children who are about to be caught under the wheels of a carriage.”

"On several occasions, he was chased and intercepted by underground forces who didn't like him, and he was beaten up until his nose was bruised, but within a few days he appeared in the streets and alleys like a normal person, continuing to do the same thing as before. The equipment has been replaced piece by piece, and replaced with better and more expensive varieties; his skills have become more agile, and the whole person has obviously become stronger; but his behavior has not changed from the beginning to the end."

"Her Royal Highness is very curious about the motives of this person's behavior, because those mediocre people who are moved by themselves cannot last so long. Besides, this young man himself does not seem to be a rich person. Finally one day, she couldn't help stopping I asked him to sit down, and asked him why he insisted on doing such a good thing—”

"—how do you think he will answer?"

The knight stared at the brave man suddenly.

"...Huh?" I didn't expect to be asked a name-calling question after hearing a story.

"He said," said the knight, imitating the tone, though obviously very stiffly, "'You ask me, why do I do those... Didn't you admit the wrong person?'"

"After that, Her Royal Highness left very angry. Until a long time later, she could not forget to complain to the knight that a human being who can't even remember what he did is more annoying than a villain who consciously endangers others. But the knight can see that , when she was complaining, her eyes flickered: she was missing that young man, and she became more and more curious about his inner being."

"Later... the princess and the knight returned to the palace, and never paid attention to the affairs of that city again. Until a few years later, when His Majesty the King introduced the very famous newly promoted brave man to the prince and princesses—the picture he had once seen The face that had passed before suddenly appeared in front of them again."

"—"

--what.

The brave man was stunned.

Speaking of the hero who was once introduced to the royal family by the king, isn't it just...

"……I?"

The person she mentioned in the story just now is the brave man himself...?

The brave couldn't find many matching details.Seven or eight years ago... At that time, he should have only been around, and he was indeed a poor boy who was just fledgling.He did seem to have stayed in some medium-sized city at the time, doing something like a mercenary for a period of about a year.Olga met at that time.but……

"At that time... I don't remember any good things I did. You must have admitted the wrong person, right?"

The time is too long, even if the brave man tried his best to recall, he could only recall a few vague fragments.At that time, he rarely stayed in the city, and spent most of his time fighting monsters outside the city, honing his combat prowess and earning commissions on the other hand.

Like in her story, she fights against the underworld/evil forces and helps the disadvantaged... No matter how she sounds, she is a kind person who is countless times more caring than him at that time.

"—that's right."

The knight lowered his eyes slightly, and pursed his lips tightly.

"I don't even remember what I did—what a self-consciousness. That's what's always hated you the most."