I Can Hear the Saint’s Inner Thoughts

83 – The Harmless Mage (2)

* * *

“What…the hell happened…?”

Glaktar couldn’t help but look bewildered, seeing the pure white scenery filling his vision and the clerics surrounding him.

Surely, just a moment ago, he was fighting Astal in the arena of the Forsaken Hollow, ruled by Durahan, one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Demon Realm.

Unlike the Demon Realm, where succubi ran churches and offered prayers to idols, the clerics here wore pure white armor and vestments.

“A-Ah, you mustn’t move yet! Your injuries haven’t fully healed!”

Among them was a masked boy who seemed to be in charge. Wearing silver armor, he was praying for Glaktar and using healing magic.

That figure is definitely a paladin.

Why are these people, who originally shunned supposedly evil demons and devils, and who move according to the words of the celestial Lumina, healing me?

“Am I… in heaven?”

Graktaar muttered, watching the shimmering light surrounding his body. He couldn’t think of any other possibility.

Clearly, the Supernova Astal used was powerful enough to turn him to ashes. He’d unraveled the magic circle like thread, surpassing the limits of what a human should be capable of.

“Mere frenzy wouldn’t have been able to withstand that heat…”

Graktaar clenched his fist, recalling the moment the supernova exploded before his eyes. It felt strange to have feeling back in his fingertips.

“Don’t speak such ill-omened words! According to the words of the celestial Lumina, anyone can go to heaven!”

At that moment, the paladin in front of him slapped his own hand and smiled.

Feeling the tingling pain creep up his body, it seemed he wasn’t truly dead after all.

“I am Wilhelm, a paladin of the Holy Kingdom of Aurelium! I’ve been tasked with healing you, by your brother’s request!”

“I am Graktaar. Brother…, are you talking about Astal?”

“Yes! He is the only brother I follow! There is no one on this continent who does not know the harmless mage, Astal Kaisaros!”

Graktaar couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief, seeing Wilhelm treating even an orc like himself with such politeness.

So that’s the hero party’s mage for you.

The fact that he’d gone to such lengths to find a way to save him, even within the Dullahan’s arena, was just absurd.

Wouldn’t it have been easier to just kill him, advance to the finals, and succeed in killing the Dullahan?

“…Brother just now, with incredible speed, tore through space and deposited you here, Graktaar-nim!”

The story he heard from Wilhelm was even more unbelievable.

To save him, he had transformed his body into living lightning and unraveled various defensive magics like thread to use them.

“How did you know that?”

“I’m immune to magic since birth! I just noticed it when I touched that cocoon thing, and a burnt orc popped out!”

“Even if I could be your enemy? You’ve got some nerve on you.”

Graktaar couldn’t help but chuckle, looking at Wilhelm’s bright smile. How could he be such a spitting image of Astal?

Normally, humans and monsters, or demons, have such twisted values and ways of thinking that they can’t understand each other, which is normal.

But the two of them here were an exception.

Of course, the paladins and nuns around Wilhelm were visibly shuddering and afraid of Graktaar, the orc.

“Come on, my brother has a reputation, you know? He wouldn’t come running to me trying to save someone he should be killing, would he?”

Hearing Wilhelm’s words, Graktaar was reminded once again of Astal’s real nickname.

In the Demon Realm, he was called things like “Mad Mage” or “Living Nightmare,” but his original name was “The Harmless Mage,” because he made sure no one got hurt.

“The Harmless Mage… I never understood why they used such a strange term until now. So that’s what it meant.”

“Yeah! My brother’s the hero who saved my hometown when I was a kid! Thanks to him, nobody died!”

“…Hero, yeah. That b*stard is definitely a hero.”

Graktaar sighed deeply and added a word.

He’d pulled strings to save him in the arena where someone had to die, and he’d gathered these clergy just to save a simple orc like him.

“Oh, right! My brother gave me this too!”

Wilhelm reached out to Graktaar, who was wearing a blank expression, handing him something. What was in the boy’s hand was something he could never forget.

“This is…”

“He said it was something you lost.”

A locket with a picture of him and his lover, Sharana. He’d definitely thrown it on the arena floor hoping someone would pick it up just minutes before the fight with Astal began.

Glaktar couldn’t help the tears that sprang to his eyes the moment he saw it.

The miserable past, where he had to kill his beloved with his own hands to survive in the arena, flashed before him.

He remembered his lover, deliberately exposing vital points and throwing herself into the line of fire to die, urging him to live at all costs. At first, he thought he should honor her will.

But fighting in this arena dozens, hundreds of times, he finally realized that it was wrong.

In the end, for the sake of the one you love, you have to die together if you die, and live together if you live. Glaktar knew that better than anyone, which was why he had given that advice to Astal.

“…I don’t deserve this. It’s something I already threw away.”

“Regrettably, I’m a paladin, so I can’t accept bribes either, you see!”

Wilhelm showed no sign of backing down against Glaktar, who refused to wear the locket again.

Before Glaktar could even wave his hand in refusal, Wilhelm had already hung the locket around his neck. Knights were, after all, well-trained elites, so gaining the upper hand against a wounded and exhausted orc wasn’t difficult.

“It suits you perfectly!”

“……”

Wilhelm smiled brightly as he looked at Glaktar wearing the locket. Even Glaktar found it hard to counter the boy’s pure smile.

“Heh, damn…”

Glaktar couldn’t help but smile back.

He had clearly come to the arena prepared to die, but the problem was that his opponent just *happened* to be a harmless mage.

* * *

After defeating Glaktar (actually, I had him hidden away in the Aurelium Holy Kingdom), I was able to lighten the burden on my heart and defeat the arena warriors at a pace faster than anyone else, making my way to the finals.

“Astal! Astal! Astal! Astal!!”

After numerous battles, even demons and monsters were now shouting my name and cheering me on.

Of course, to prevent eavesdropping or information leaks, I hadn’t told anyone that Glaktar was still alive.

Victoria looked at me with sad eyes a few times, but each time, I just nodded silently and smiled at her.

That Durahan, who often resorts to underhanded tactics, even went so far as to implant magic stones in Graktar’s body to track his location.

I purposely used flames to burn and shatter the magic stones inside him, so no one will ever know I spared his life,

but you never know.

“Fight and kill! Fight and kill! The weak have no right to live!”

Hearing the voices of the crowd in Forsaken Hollow, wanting me to kill my opponent as brutally as possible, I couldn’t help but frown.

What kind of psychotic thoughts do demons and monsters even have,

that they consider devouring or violating people as mere entertainment?

I faced countless enemies to reach the finals of the arena.

There was a hydra with multiple heads, a basilisk rumored to be the grave of magicians, and even a famous greater demon with horns on its head.

I used the methods Graktar told me for all of them,

freezing them and then dismembering their limbs, or turning them to ashes using a supernova.

“…Is this the last one?”

I swallowed bitter water as I looked at the giant tentacle monster in front of me.

A monster with such a bizarre body structure that it was hard to tell where its eyes, mouth, or vital points were.

If I hadn’t focused on its movements as Graktar advised and figured out where its weakness was, I would have been the one captured by the tentacles and torn limb from limb.

“W-wait a minute…spare me! I’ll give you anything you want! Women? Or power? I’ll give you money or even a dragon’s heart! Please…!!”

“I don’t need it.”

I froze and burned the strangely named tentacle monster, obliterating its very existence, and opened my mouth. Because after this, I would finally get the chance to fight Durahan.

“All I want is revenge.”

I muttered to myself, thinking about Durahan watching this match from the VIP seats far away.