Published: March 21, 2026
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"My real family was an old noble line that had fallen generations ago. By my father's time we were nothing more than a slightly wealthier household among commoners."
The carriage jolted as it turned.
Ria, who nearly fell, clung tightly to Yoru in a panic.
"I became royalty about fifty years ago. Until then I lived in that village. But one day demons attacked the village where my house was, and everyone in the village except me died… I thought they were dead."
Ria bit her lip hard there.
I tilted my head at the change in her mood.
"What kind of demon attacked the village?"
I had a bad feeling.
Hatred colored Ria's eyes.
"It was a slime. A monster that should have been taken out in one blow absorbed the entire village. It wasn't an ordinary slime. Slimes come in many colors, but until that day I had never seen a black slime."
I drew a small breath.
My bad feeling had been right.
A black slime — the same kind that had captured Amelia the first time we encountered it.
I had thought that slime might have been released by someone targeting the Elf race’s beauty, intending to enslave them. But if the Beastmen were affected too, that's an entirely different matter.
I also wondered about the kidnapper-looking knight who carried a sword bearing Uruk's crest, whom we met in Elf territory. What was really happening to the Beastmen?
"It must have been modified by someone and released artificially."
"When you said earlier you thought they were dead… what did you mean by that?"
I repeated the question to Ria, who was muttering while looking down.
Her expression darkened further.
"You remember what I said when we first met? 'Do you know what kind of sacrifices were made to summon the hero?'"
"Come on, you don't mean they sacrificed the captured Beastmen to summon the hero, do you?"
That had crossed my mind when Ria mentioned it before the labyrinth.
But I dismissed it then. I couldn't imagine sacrificing so much just to summon a hero; I still thought the summoning had been for a reasonable cause.
Against my hope, Ria nodded.
"That's exactly it. Even after I learned I was a guardian, I put barriers on my family and some villagers just in case. A guardian's barrier isn't like an ordinary barrier master’s fixed structure — it can be applied to moving objects."
I understood. That meant she could place barriers on people themselves.
They might not give much offensive power, but for defense they function almost like an enchantment.
"As a guardian, if something I've barred dies by a cause other than having the barrier broken — for example, if I had set the barrier to protect against physical attacks only and someone dies of deadly poison — the barrier naturally disappears. And I can sense that too. When the slime absorbed them, my barriers hadn't all vanished yet. But one day suddenly every barrier disappeared. By then I had been taken in as royalty, so I used my powers as a princess to investigate what had happened."
I looked away.
I could imagine what came next without her saying more.
"There was nothing in Beastmen territory, but it was happening in Human territory. A cursed hero summoning. I traced the timing of my barriers disappearing and the enormous magical power poured into the magic circle for the summoning — they matched. I decided to go to Human territory to see the hero with my own eyes."
That's where she met me.
I suddenly wondered if Ria knew I was brought here by a hero summoning.
When we first met, I spoke to her only after slipping out of the heroes' line.
Even if she had investigated me when we later encountered Amelia, she probably only learned titles like 'the one who commands demonic beasts' or, unwillingly, 'dark Assassin' — and likely didn't know I was a summoned hero.
Among the Beastmen, only Ringa realized I was one of the summoned heroes. Given that Ria had just become royalty, it's unlikely she and guild master Ringa were connected.