My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's

Just as we were about to leave, Yoru and Tsuda burst in, looking flustered.

Weren’t they supposed to be with Crow and Ria?

Is it really okay to leave them behind?

“Ah! There you are!! Barely made it!!!”

“See? I told you both they'd be over here! Listen to what I say!”

“Say it with more confidence,” Tsuda muttered.

Yoru was making a huge racket with his growls.

Honestly, hadn’t they become too friendly with the hero party in such a short time?

“Is something wrong?”

I called out to the two, who looked like they were searching for someone.

Maybe it was an urgent errand from Crow.

After catching their breath, they exchanged glances and Yoru spoke.

“There’s a fool of a hero over there they called for.”

The hero, slack-jawed in surprise, hurriedly shut his mouth at that.

“And—Noah too. We were told to bring the two of them here…”

Tsuda said, then glanced nervously at Noah’s expression.

I tilted my head. From Tsuda’s wording, it didn’t sound like Crow had sent for them.

“Who called them? The idiot son?” I asked.

“Ah, no. It was the daughter,” Tsuda answered.

Yoru had been deliberately vague about who called, but Tsuda answered straightforwardly.

Noah’s daughter? Was that Crow’s sister?

Wasn’t she supposed to be dead?

Noticing the confused atmosphere, Yoru opened his mouth.

“...By a magical artifact made by the former Hero, the hero and your daughter have come from the afterlife for about a day.”

He explained concisely.

Apparently, thanks to a magical tool the former Hero created, Crow’s sister and the former Hero had come over from the world of the dead as spirits.

Summoning the dead is impossible even in this world, but then again, that’s the former Hero for you.

Even without the hero being summoned from another world, the title “hero” tended to mark someone extraordinary.

Noah listened as if she understood, but she didn’t look happy despite being able to see her supposedly dead daughter.

We hadn’t known each other long enough to read all the subtleties on her face, but it was clear she wasn’t pleased.

Why that was, I didn’t know.

“I see... Alright, I’ll go. You two, guide us.”

“If they were called, I’ll go too. It might be valuable information from the former Hero,” Zeal said.

Noah left the room to prepare. She’d probably change into something more mobile.

The hero was already in combat gear, so he seemed to be going with Tsuda as-is.

After they left through the door, we sat back down.

“With Tsukasa-kun gone, we’ll need to revise our strategy.”

“Right. If we use the previous plan unchanged, Kyousuke’s burden will be too great.”

We both nodded at Zeal’s words.

Of the heroes, the one with the next-highest stats after me was balanced in both attack and defense and had a wide field of view.

Judging from past fights, if my style is concentrated, single-target strikes, that hero fights as a party leader who rallies allies and wins together.

Kyousuke and Zeal, who had fought alongside that hero, were also party-oriented, working together to take down foes.

Putting people with different styles together would only mess up what they’d built so far.

In simpler terms, it’s like grouping the class introverts and extroverts into the same team.

There was a reason we were breaking up a well-coordinated party to redistribute the groups.

I hadn’t watched the heroes’ party closely, but I knew they had enough skill to make it through this forest.

Kyousuke had given me a rough rundown—it sounded like a pretty harsh journey.

What stood out was that as they got closer here, Kyousuke and the hero grew exhausted, and there were many moments where non-combatants ended up saving them.

In short, Kyousuke and the hero were putting everything into every fight.

Zeal confirmed he’d seen signs of that too.

They’d been moving from town to town completing guild requests, nothing so deadly that they’d learned how to take it easy in combat.

Because they didn’t know how to hold back, they wore themselves down unnecessarily on the way here.