Published: March 21, 2026
"The Lagoon family ordered the demon king subjugation to get rid of Lord Crow because he had royal blood, and they did it together with friends from the Adventurer Guild who were gold rank and close to each other back then."
"...Yes. That's right."
Noah's husband—my father and Aria's father—was descended from a royal line closer to the source of Adrea Kingdom's first generation royalty than the Lagoon royal family. Had he tried to replace the Lagoon line, the stubborn nobles who cared about bloodlines would have supported him, and his lineage was enough to tilt the balance against the Lagoon family. The reason the Lagoon family became Adrea's royal family and seized power was apparently because, long ago, my father's house withdrew from candidacy and pushed the Lagoon family forward as the next candidate.
Many of the people in my father's family were mild-tempered and had no desire to be a royal family, so when my direct-line only son—my father—married Noah, who is of the Human race, they didn't oppose it; in fact they welcomed it. Maybe they were simply tired of bloodlines and thrones. I once heard from my paternal grandfather that if my mother hadn't been Human, I might have been raised up by a house opposing the Lagoon family.
"I was young back then. My father had left the house to marry my mother, so even if my father's family replaced the royal house we would have had no succession rights or similar authority. I felt safe. I never imagined the Lagoon family would fear my father's house trying to seize national power so much that they'd try to eradicate the bloodline and even attempt to kill Aria and me, who had nothing to do with the main household. My father, who died around when Aria was born, supposedly passed away from a mere epidemic."
I mastered the ancient language and honed the skill "Inversion." Leaving Noah and Aria at home, I traveled most of this world with my childhood friend Ritter, avoiding the Demon Clan territories. The Elf territory was especially hard to enter, but we had saved an elf in the Human territory who turned out to be from a household serving the royal family. He repaid the favor and let us into Elf territory. That elf was Luke. Together with Aoi, who we met in Yamato Country, we formed a party and chased our dream at the Adventurer Guild until we reached gold rank.
By then I had completely forgotten that I had royal blood, and honestly I didn't want to return home. I loved my sister and mother, of course, but living freely with my friends was genuinely joyful. Looking back, that was the happiest time of my life.
"The situation changed when the Adrea Kingdom summoned Ritter and me, and requested Aoi and Luke to join. The order was to subdue the demon king."
Ritter and I, being from Adrea, couldn't disobey a royal order; Aoi and Luke, being other races, could have ignored the summons, but because we were going they returned with us to Adrea's Royal Castle.
We had doubts about the demon king subjugation order issued by Adrea's king—the current King Igusam Lagoon's father. We had traveled many continents and had never heard of damage caused by the Demon Clan at that time.
"But in the end we accepted the order. By then we were all gold rank adventurers, nearly at the top of this world, and it was exciting to have a new challenge, besides we were curious about traveling the Demon Clan territory."
Maybe the kingdom had dealt with demon matters in secret and there had been some incidents we didn't know about.
But it was all a trap.
"They abandoned their comrades as pawns, and when we returned—unable to defeat the demon king—they revealed Ritter's hidden profession of 'hero' and the citizens, told that the royal name had been used to send the hero to his death, displayed the executioned relatives of my father's family."
Ria gasped at my words.
Ritter Ganador really was the profession "hero," but he made various magical tools as a hobby and pretended to be a "magical tool maker" to everyone except party members. If people knew he was a hero they'd demand he slay the demon king, and he also wore his own status-concealing magical tool so appraisal magic wouldn't detect him; unless someone leaked it, it shouldn't have been discovered.