There was a reason why I had taken away the fighting power of the Keystone Beast. These guys were monsters beyond human comprehension. It was not hard to imagine that if they had any power left in reserve, they would use it to deliver a painful counterattack when you least expected it. For that reason, I carefully took away its strength. "Grrrrr...!"
The beast tried to put on a brave front, but its eyes had lost their strength.
I wasn’t naive enough to overlook that.
"You picked the wrong opponent."
I spoke calmly, without anger.
Since the opponent was an emotionless beast, such sentiments were pointless.
"I was a greater monster than you. That’s all there is to it."
There was no way it could understand.
There was no need for it to understand.
Even so, I couldn’t help but say those words.
With that, I decapitated the Keystone Beast.
*Splash*
The huge body that lost its head rained blood.
Of course, I had anticipated this and made sure to avoid getting drenched.
"It's over."
*Klink*
I sheathed my sword and turned on my heels. The threat was gone.
The problems at hand, especially the ones that needed to be resolved immediately, were now taken care of. All that remained was a mountain of cleanup to do. Skirmishes between nations, funerals for those who had fallen, calculating the adventurers' share...it was enough to give me a headache just thinking about it. In reality, these were far more troublesome than the Keystone Beast.
Well, the only reason I could think such a thing was because I had defeated the Keystone Beast. As long as it existed, there would never be a bright future for this land.
It will not tolerate anyone other than itself. That's the nature of this being. "That monster was taken down in the blink of an eye...!" "That's the hero...!" "Is this the power of a hero...?"
The people who had been freed from the nightmare stood there in amazement, shocked by the unbelievable sight. They knew who I was, so they must have been scouts sent by the prince I had met earlier.
I knew someone was following me, but since they didn’t interfere, I allowed their presence.
They must have been operating under the assumption that I might not be able to handle the monster.
They had to consider what to do in that case.
Well, after seeing the power of the monster, it was probably a reasonable decision.
No matter how much of a hero I may be, thinking that one person could resolve this situation showed a lack of crisis awareness as a leader.
You could even say that they were living in a fantasy world. The prince was in despair, but he certainly didn't want to die. Otherwise, he would have taken his own life long ago, fearing a future where he would be brutally killed by that Keystone Beast.
The reason he didn't do so was probably because deep down he had an attachment to life and, in some way, a minimum sense of responsibility as a leader. Or so I thought.
Chapter length 1336 characters.
Note: This is the last chapter the author published not only for the volume but for the entire novel. Ah, for those wonder why this volume chapters were consistently around 1k characters, it's because the author was trying to post once a day. They managed to do so for about a month before dropping the novel completely.
Due note that this is most certainly not the final chapter I am translating for this novel. There are still many side stories to come.
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