[Heaven Rewards Diligence, every effort will reach its end.]

[Current Skills: Return to Fundamentals (Chroma) lv.1, Spatial Secret Technique (Chroma) lv.1, Sacred Spirit Affinity (Chroma) lv.1, Hundred-Forged Body (Chroma) lv.2, Blade Body (Chroma) lv.1, Realm of Clarity (Chroma) lv.2, Rejuvenation (Chroma) lv.1, Wrath of Finality lv.3, Mana Concealment lv.3, Magic to Show Fond Memories lv.3...]

[Current Remaining Time: 526 years.]

[Held Monster Time: 24,500 years (Fusion Available) (Enhancement Available)]

"With this much time, I might as well give my strength a proper boost."

Deep in the night, Banxia lay in bed. Moonlight filtered through the window like thin gauze and settled across the side of his face.

Eyes half-closed, his gaze drifted over the system panel floating in the air above him.

After several rounds of Chroma skill upgrades, he'd worked out a few patterns.

Getting an ordinary Chroma skill to lv.2 took roughly five thousand years.

A special attribute like Spatial Secret Technique had cost him five thousand years just to get started, and every level after that would probably multiply several times over.

He didn't have much use for it right now anyway. A portable space the size of two rooms was more than enough to carry what he needed on the road.

No rush on that one.

His current Chroma skills were: Return to Fundamentals, Sacred Spirit Affinity, Blade Body, Rejuvenation, Spatial Secret Technique, Hundred-Forged Body, and Realm of Clarity.

The last two sat at lv.2. Everything else was still lv.1.

Not that lv.1 was anything to scoff at. Out in the real world, that was a ceiling most geniuses spent their entire lives trying to touch.

"Figured as much — Hundred-Forged Body is still the most reliable." After turning it over in his head, Banxia settled on that most foundational Chroma skill.

Unlike other skills that leaned hard on innate talent, this one only cared about time.

Put in the work, get the results. Simple as that.

Going from lv.1 to lv.2 had barely hit a wall. A powerful physique, massive regenerative capacity, resistance to all elements, cross the threshold once, and you were a top-tier warrior of the age.

And Banxia's real trump card had always been this body. Nothing else came close.

He rolled onto his back, stared up at the ceiling, and let his consciousness sink into the system like a tide.

The time on the panel began to move.

[Year 1: You begin contemplating the original intent of the dwarven creator. The so-called Hundred-Forged means using a hundred methods of cultivation to push the body's adaptability and physical limits as far as they can go.]

[But you understand that it's incomplete. How could there be only a hundred methods of cultivation in this world? The Hundred-Forged Body was the limit of the dwarven race, not yours.]

[With enough accumulated time behind you, you resolve to pursue true perfection. You will endure every hardship the world has to offer and forge a body that truly cannot be destroyed.]

[Year 1,000: You're certain you're on the right path. Weaknesses you never noticed before are being smoothed away one by one. Your body ascends another tier.]

[Year 10,000: The sharpest blade in the world can no longer cut your skin. The heaviest mountain cannot break your spine. The deadliest poison cannot rot your organs...]

[Hundred-Forged Body lv.2 → Hundred-Forged Body lv.3.]

Banxia slowly opened his eyes. By the moonlight coming through the window, he looked over his body, which appeared, on the surface, completely unchanged.

Inside, it was another story entirely.

"Didn't expect lv.3 to be on a completely different numerical plane from lv.2."

He slowly closed his fist. A surging power, deep and quiet as a current running beneath the ocean, moved silently through his muscles, his bones, his blood.

More noticeable than the raw strength was something harder to name: a steadiness that had settled into every part of him.

That kind of composure only came after your resistances rose across the board and your regeneration completely transformed.

The dwarven secret arts really did run deep.

Wait.

No. That wasn't right.

He thought back to the panel's description from a moment ago.

At this point, it wasn't the dwarven Hundred-Forged Body anymore.

This was something that belonged to him alone, an ultimate realm piled up through an almost boundless accumulation of years.

The original "Hundred-Forged" meant tempering the body through a hundred training methods, covering as many environments as possible.

Banxia's Hundred-Forged Body was no longer bound by "a hundred."

He had taken everything in the world that could be cultivated, everything that could be imagined or endured, and folded it all into a single craft.

And so he had climbed to a Chroma lv.3 skill built purely on physical tempered flesh, something that had almost never appeared in this world's history.

[Held Monster Time: 14,500 years (Fusion Available) (Enhancement Available)]

"Still over fourteen thousand years of monster time. Should be enough to enhance two more lv.1 Chroma skills."

Banxia hesitated.

He had a lot of skills. Which two should he push first? Or should he skip ahead and fuse something entirely new to Chroma rank?

Or maybe level up his favorite outfit first. Or that precious pair of underwear — cool in summer, warm in winter — and get those to Chroma rank.

He turned it over for a moment, then made up his mind.

"Blade Body to lv.2 first. Then it's time to level up Return to Fundamentals."

He'd been using Blade Body constantly ever since he fused it. It had basically become his go-to in a fight.

But at his current level, it was starting to fall short. Even the weakest demons could block it without trying. The days of cutting through enemies like grass were over.

Return to Fundamentals had fallen even further behind, it hadn't kept pace with his body's strength in a long time.

It was his first Chroma skill, and its value was never in question. With it, any weapon felt natural the moment he picked it up. Stealth, combat footwork, light travel, everything got a lift.

Same category as Hundred-Forged Body. Pure all-around utility.

Stack just those two Chroma skills together, and he could casually crush an average Great Demon.

The word "exaggerated" didn't even begin to cover it.

No point waiting. Banxia's eyes narrowed slightly, and the time on the panel began to drain.

[Year 1: You begin exploring what Blade Body can become. The startup cost of having to actively swing your hand every time is too high, in real combat, it's a liability.]

[Year 5,300: You reach the legendary realm of the Heavenly Sword. Without lifting a hand, you can launch slashes with a reach of a thousand meters, released in any direction, up, down, left, right, in every direction at once, forming a complete slashing domain with no blind spots.]

[Blade Body (Chroma) lv.1 → Blade Body (Chroma) lv.2.]

"Keep going."

[Year 1: You realize your fundamentals can no longer keep up with your current body. You begin thinking about how to push them further.]

[Year 4,700: After long cycles of refinement and reflection, you elevate all of your fundamentals once more.

The instincts of a warrior, an assassin, and a ranger have been absorbed entirely into your flesh.]

[Return to Fundamentals (Chroma) lv.1 → Return to Fundamentals (Chroma) lv.2.]

"That's better."

Banxia shifted his gaze to the updated panel.

[Heaven Rewards Diligence, every effort will reach its end.]

[Current Skills: Hundred-Forged Body (Chroma) lv.3, Return to Fundamentals (Chroma) lv.2, Blade Body (Chroma) lv.2, Realm of Clarity (Chroma) lv.2, Spatial Secret Technique (Chroma) lv.1, Sacred Spirit Affinity (Chroma) lv.1, Rejuvenation (Chroma) lv.1, Wrath of Finality lv.3, Mana Concealment lv.3, Magic to Show Fond Memories lv.3...]

[Current Remaining Time: 526 years.]

[Held Monster Time: 4,500 years (Fusion Available)]

...

Chapter 100

"Have you heard? Lord Galien from the inner city, and the president of the Rien Chamber of Commerce — they colluded with demons. Tried to assassinate the Hero..."

"No way?!"

"I heard it from my uncle. He's a guard in the inner city. Apparently they're doing the execution today — bisection, right in the central plaza."

"Is that actually true?"

"I told you, my uncle mentioned it when he came back last night. I'm not sure myself."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

In the outer city, several half-grown boys took off running toward the inner city at full sprint.

The same scene was playing out all over town.

Colluding with demons was already an unforgivable crime under human law. Add in an assassination attempt on the Hero, and there was nothing left to discuss.

The outer city was unusually empty today. Most people had set their work aside and were flooding toward the inner city's central plaza.

Work would always be there. But watching noble lords and chamber presidents get publicly executed, that was a once-in-a-lifetime sight.

Even during civil wars, nobles rarely executed each other. At most they'd take hostages and demand a ransom. But today, before the eyes of the entire city, these people were going to be put to death by bisection.

Just hearing about it made the blood run faster.

...

Inner city. The streets.

Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.

The marching band beat their bass drums, each heavy strike falling like a toll, slow, deliberate, announcing the end of something.

Behind them came a line of plain carriages. Inside each one, the day's condemned waited.

Both sides of the street were packed. A dense, dark mass of people shuffled forward alongside the procession. Knights and guards lined the edges, keeping order.

No one had imagined it. A penalty unused for centuries, and here it was.

The procession arrived at the central plaza.

In the dead center stood the execution instrument: an ancient guillotine, though its blade sat far lower than usual, aimed squarely at the condemned's waist. The wooden frame and iron channel had been scrubbed clean, looking almost new.

"Halt—!"

The guard captain's order cracked through the air. The procession stopped. The drums cut off.

Silence fell hard. Only wind moved across the plaza, lifting a few early-fallen leaves.

Perhaps out of some lingering aristocratic sentiment, City Lord Thorn had organized this execution on a grand scale. It was both a punishment and a message: this is what happens when you side with demons.

The guard captain opened the carriage door, folded down the step, and said nothing throughout. Then took the long staff and struck the carriage door twice.

BANG. BANG.

That seemed to wake the people inside. The realization of what came next settled over them.

They stepped down one by one, faces drained of color, legs barely holding. Before them stretched that dark, endless crowd.

On any other day, these people would never have been allowed to meet their eyes.

Today, those same people were the audience.

It was all that damned Hero's fault.

Hatred churned inside them, but faced with this silent ocean of onlookers, it felt thinner than paper.

"It's time. Begin." The executioner stepped up beside the guard captain, voice low, but every word landed cleanly in the ears of the condemned.

"Move." The guard captain looked at the figures who had once been untouchable.

A person of that rank, saying the wrong word in front of these people even once, would have earned a flogging. Now the guard captain was the one escorting them to answer for their sins before the Goddess.

"...Gentlemen, what — what should I do?" The merchant, past fifty, could barely keep a steady voice. Legs shaking.

The guard captain glanced at the executioner. No idea either. The last time a noble had been executed here was centuries ago, in the history books.

"Remove your coat. Take off your cravat." The executioner's expression didn't move.

Colluding with demons. Plotting to kill Lord Banxia. These people had no death coming that was too severe.

As an executioner from a family that had served the inner city for generations, enough filth had been heard, the kind hidden under the polished surfaces of people like these.

Dying once wasn't enough. Dying ten thousand times wouldn't wash it clean.

When the condemned began to move, the crowd erupted. Cheers rose in rolling waves.

The condemned themselves were barely present. Dizzy, soaked through with cold sweat, they couldn't even remember pulling off their coats. By the time awareness returned, their cuffs were already drenched, clinging to their wrists with a bone-deep chill.

"Now put these on yourselves." The executioner held out the nooses.

"Sir... surely this isn't necessary..." Galien made one last attempt to salvage some remnant of aristocratic dignity. A strained smile. A voice dropped to barely a whisper. "There's a pocket watch in my coat. Worth thirty gold coins..."

Several executioners glanced at each other. Not a flicker of expression between them.

"After the execution, everything on your person belongs to us anyway."

"..."

Whatever was left of Galien's smile died completely.

With the executioners' efficient "assistance," hands were bound behind backs, nooses secured, and the condemned were marched toward the platform like animals headed for slaughter.

Staring at the bisection guillotine waiting ahead, these nobles and merchants, people who had lived long and comfortable lives, felt something they had nearly forgotten.

Fear.

They reached the platform.

The high noble refused to go quietly. Without warning, a wild shout tore out toward the crowd:

"I die innocent! I have committed no crime! None of you understand! That human should not exist! He will destroy this world! He will ruin every last shred of peace and order—!"

Most of the crowd sneered.

The people further back couldn't make out the words. They assumed it was begging.

Some mocked. Some laughed. Some mimicked the imperious posturing these noble lords had always carried, wailing in exaggerated imitation.

So this was what the great and mighty looked like, when the end came. No different from the rest of them.

DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM!

The drums surged back. Execution time.

The executioners locked the condemned down onto the platform. Then, without expression, pulled the lever.

The blade dropped with a crash. Blood flew.

The severed upper bodies did not die at once. They convulsed. Mouths opened and closed, trying to form words, producing nothing but streams of red bubbles, a few faint, wet gurgles, like someone drowning.

"Long live the Hero—!"

The plaza detonated.

Wave after wave of sound crashed upward, high enough to feel like it might tear the whole execution ground from the earth.

In the middle of that roaring celebration, more than a few observing nobles stood rigid and pale, cold sweat running steadily from their temples.

They didn't move. Couldn't wipe their faces. Couldn't meet anyone's eyes. They stood locked in place like marionettes nailed to their seats, listening to a sound that could swallow the world whole.

Had the commoners always been this loud...?

...

Inner city. The Hero's residence.

"Lord Banxia, are you really not going to watch?" The maid stood at the young man's side, barely containing excitement.

A public execution of nobles, actual high nobles, the kind you never got to see in everyday life.

Since Banxia had declined the invitation, City Lord Thorn had invited his two companions and the head of the chamber of commerce to attend as witnesses instead. Which meant right now, it was just the two of them at home.

"What's worth watching about that?" Banxia was stretched out in the rattan chair, waving a hand dismissively. He opened his mouth, and Tsubaki Rurikawa dropped in a piece of fruit she'd just peeled. He chewed without hurry.

He really had no desire to get mobbed by the entire city again, like the last time he'd come back.

It was a little embarrassing to admit, but he'd only recently figured out that he was kind of socially anxious.

It wasn't that he disliked crowds exactly. It was more that seas of people gathering because of him, dark and endless in every direction, made him feel weirdly unsettled.

He just wanted to lie here quietly, eat fruit while his pretty maid attended him, and doze in the sun.

Everything else, everything that wasn't monsters, could stay with Roxy and the others.

"You know, lying in the sun is actually great for a stomachache." His lower abdomen felt pleasantly warm right now. He squinted contentedly and opened his mouth for the next piece of fruit.

"Ptui." He sat up. "That one's rotten."

Tsubaki Rurikawa looked flustered. "Eh... it looked completely fine from the outside..."

"Don't worry about it. I'm not blaming you." He spat out the bad fruit, then lay back down.

"Master truly is a kind person." The girl had seen plenty of nobles who'd beat servants over far less. She looked at the young man with soft eyes now. "If it were one of those nobles, they'd go straight to flogging over something like this..."

The words were barely out before she regretted them.

Because Banxia's eyes lit up. He sat up straight and looked directly at her.

"I've made my decision. For that mistake just now, I'm going to have to punish you a little."

Tsubaki Rurikawa: "..."

She was wearing her usual black-and-white maid uniform today, a long-skirted dress, with a pair of sheer white garter stockings on her legs.

Right now, her face had gone full panic.

Punishment... was Master going to flog her?

She couldn't help it. A pitiful look crept onto her face.

"Hey, don't make me out to be that kind of person." Banxia sounded aggrieved. "I have zero interest in physically punishing humans."

"Not corporal punishment... then could it be..." Miss Rurikawa's cheeks went faintly pink.

She had long since prepared herself to offer more than just her service. But now that the moment seemed to be actually arriving, her heart was doing things she hadn't given it permission to do.

Her master was the strongest man in the south. He had defeated the Great Demon Geist, defeated Xiaoyan, conquered mythological labyrinths, and built a legend that most people would never come close to. And she was the daughter of a fallen noble family.

That gap, the impossible distance between them, layered over the fact that she was his maid, made her nervous. And under the nerves, something else. Something she couldn't quite name, but couldn't make herself want to put away.

"Please... please be gentle... Master..." She looked up shyly at him as he rose from the chair.

Wait. They were in the courtyard.

What if the mistresses came back and walked in on this,

She kept telling herself this was wrong. The anticipation kept swelling anyway.

"In that case..."

Banxia told her what he wanted.

The maid froze.

Then tilted her head slowly, shoulder-length hair swaying with the motion, an expression drifting onto her face that didn't quite have a name.

"Master. Please don't make jokes like that."

"That wasn't a joke. That was the punishment."

"Even if you say it isn't a joke..." Miss Rurikawa hesitated, resting hands on the hem of the apron. The expression that followed turned serious in a way that did not look entirely intended. "You want me to lift my skirt and show you my underwear. You're genuinely serious about this."

The maid had serious concerns about whether something had gone wrong with the Hero's preferences.

"Of course I'm serious. And ideally you could look a bit more disgusted while you do it. That would be better."

The young man answered without a trace of hesitation.

The girl despaired.

This great hero. This gentle master. This slayer of monsters. This person who had done things songs were written about.

When had he turned into this? Or had he always been?

Tsubaki Rurikawa gripped the hem of the apron. Hands moved slowly upward.

The line where thighs met the white stockings began to show. The lace trim framed skin pale and soft enough to pull the eye and hold it there.

Higher, and that was the sacred territory men spent their lives dreaming of.

Under her master's expectant gaze, her fingers lifted just a little more.

"...That's enough."

"Master is absolutely hopeless." The maid lowered her skirt, expression deeply unimpressed.

"A maid is not supposed to talk back to her master." Banxia's face went very serious. "That infraction calls for an even stricter punishment."

"Ehh? That's not fair..."

"This is an important principle. Miss Rurikawa should understand, no matter how close a superior and a subordinate become, the proper hierarchy still has to be maintained. Otherwise you develop bad habits, and when it really matters, my orders won't land the way they need to."

The logic was airtight. The expression accompanying it was that of someone absolutely planning to eat another person alive.

Tsubaki Rurikawa took a small step back.

"Master just wants to discipline someone for personal enjoyment..."

"Congratulations. You're right."

That one hit like a bucket of cold water.

After all these days together, she was only finding this out now, that her master, who presented such a shining face to the outside world, was harboring a deeply problematic inner darkness that could never be allowed into the light.

...

That afternoon, Roxy and the elf returned home from standing in for Banxia at the execution.

After a long session of talks, though in truth, Kaguya Shinomiya had led the entire negotiation from start to finish while the two of them stood to the side in something of a daze, they had secured benefits for Banxia that far exceeded any reasonable expectation.

Before long, the Xiaye Chamber of Commerce would likely become the largest chamber in Alterna, and from there begin expanding outward.

"I'm back." Roxy pushed open the door and immediately noticed something strange. The maid wasn't there.

"I'm going to rest. Don't call me for dinner." The elf had been off lately. Those words were the whole of it before the door to the room closed.

"Sure." Roxy nodded and glanced toward the courtyard.

Banxia's rattan chair was still there. Banxia was not.

Banxia disappearing to do things she didn't know about was normal. She'd gotten used to that.

But the maid?

With that question in mind, Roxy went inside.

They had made plans yesterday to practice cooking together today.

"Miss Rurikawa? Are you home?"

"...Yes. I'm here." A muffled voice came from the study.

"Hm?" Roxy tilted her head. That voice sounded strange.

She followed it to the study door and reached for the handle, but before she could push it open, the door opened a crack on its own. Miss Rurikawa's face appeared in the gap, flushed pink, showing only half.

"I'm sorry, Miss Roxy, I, I'm a little busy right now... could you give me just a moment... I, um..."

Roxy's hand stopped. A flush crept onto her own cheeks before she could stop it.

That feeling. She recognized it. It was a little like a certain day she'd rather not think about.

"It's, it's fine. Everyone has moments where they need to... take care of certain urges. I understand. Miss Rurikawa, I will pretend I was never here."

Roxy retreated, face red, and remembered at the last second to add in a low voice:

"The books in there are very valuable. Please be careful..."

"Mm... okay..."

➤ Next: Heading North Once More