I Became the 101st Hero – Chapter 55

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Wjin
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The Black Tortoise gang’s headquarters stood silent, the aftermath of a brutal massacre.

A lone figure emerged from the building.

He wore a mask, his clothes stained crimson, drenched in blood.

‘Will this solve the problem?’ he wondered.

Of course not.

They were just tools, easily replaceable.

He had to strike at the root, sever the head of the snake.

‘If I kill Gineus…’

But a voice in his head screamed at him, warning him of the consequences.

A Demon King killing another Demon King… it was tantamount to declaring war on the entire Demon King Council.

They had tolerated his actions so far, his occasional acts of heroism, his disregard for their authority, because he was useful to them.

But killing another Demon King… that was a different story.

‘They’ll all come after me.’

If that happened, he wouldn’t survive.

But… what was the point of his existence anyway?

Did his long life even have any meaning? Was there anything in his past, in his endless existence, that could compare to the intensity of the emotions surging through him now, the burning rage that consumed him?

‘I’m going to kill Gineus.’

He didn’t need a reason, didn’t need to justify his actions.

He was driven by pure, unadulterated rage.

As he turned towards the Company headquarters, ready to unleash his fury…

“There he is! The Masked Man!”

“Who is he?!”

Men armed with weapons surrounded him.

They were heroes and hero candidates who had been patrolling the area.

He glanced at them, assessing their strength.

‘None of them are a threat.’

He would have ignored them if he wasn’t covered in blood.

But they wouldn’t let him pass.

‘Fine.’

He would cut his way through.

Swoosh!

His movements were too fast for them to react.

It was as if time had stopped for everyone but him.

His blade flashed, striking down heroes who were standing a distance away from him.

“How…?”

“I get it! He’s a Demon King!”

Libero sheathed his sword and continued on his path, leaving the incapacitated heroes behind.

The swordsmanship he had just displayed… he could have done that even before he became a Demon King.

And yet, witnessing those techniques, they had concluded that he must be a Demon King.

A thought struck him.

‘Why did I…’

Become a Demon King?

He had become a Demon King during the Age of Chaos.

The numbers assigned to Demon Kings weren’t based on their strength, but on the order in which they were born. He was the 13th Demon King.

But that wasn’t important.

500 years had passed since then.

He had lived for so long that the reason he had become a Demon King was starting to fade from his memory.

He managed to recall one reason.

‘I became a Demon King for immortality.’

But why had he needed immortality?

‘It was…’

He was interrupted as a hero stepped in front of him, blocking his path.

It was the hero he had seen in the bar earlier.

And he was strong. Strong enough to earn a sliver of respect from Libero.

And then, the reason he had become a Demon King surfaced in his mind.

‘I needed power.’

That was it.

The reason he had hunted down powerful heroes all this time…

It was to reach the pinnacle of swordsmanship, to gain ultimate power.

‘But why won’t this rage… this burning anger, subside?’

He had remembered his original goal, the reason he had become a Demon King.

But all he could think about was killing Gineus.

He formed his sword, crimson particles coalescing around his hand.

Whether it was to kill Gineus or to simply grow stronger…

One thing was certain.

He had to defeat the hero standing before him.

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‘He’s a Demon King?’

The hero stared at the man clad in a blood-soaked mask.

He looked menacing, certainly.

But that was it. He didn’t seem particularly strong.

‘The Masked Man… this is definitely him, but…’

He was the 157th ranked hero.

People said he had the potential to become a high-ranking hero. But there was one thing holding him back.

‘Lack of achievements.’

To become a high-ranking hero, you needed more than just skill. You needed extraordinary accomplishments that set you apart from ordinary heroes.

Something like single-handedly defeating a horde of Chaos Beasts, or conquering powerful Chaos Beasts in quick succession.

But the most prestigious achievement… was slaying a Demon King.

Of course, for an average hero, slaying a Demon King was an impossible task.

Demon Kings possessed strength rivaling that of high-ranking heroes, and their regenerative abilities were extraordinary.

But that didn’t mean there were no records of humans slaying Demon Kings.

1st to 70th.

The numbers assigned to Demon Kings weren’t based on strength, but on the order in which they were born.

In fact, the lower the number, the weaker the Demon King tended to be.

That’s why, out of the thirteen Demon Kings who were born during the Age of Chaos, only three were believed to have survived.

And one of them was the infamous 13th Demon King, the Hero Slayer.

He was said to be able to move freely within the human world, even inside the barrier. Even high-ranking heroes were no match for him.

The Order had been trying to capture him, but his elusiveness made it an impossible task.

And recently, he had received a tantalizing piece of information. The Masked Man currently active in Sak was rumored to be the 13th Demon King.

Unlike those other useless Demon Kings…

If he could take down the 13th Demon King, a Demon King even the Order acknowledged as a serious threat… he might be able to achieve high-ranking hero status in one fell swoop.

This was a golden opportunity.

‘I can’t let this chance slip away.’

He thought back to his years of training, honing his body into a weapon.

He could feel the power surging through him, the power of the relic embedded in his fist.

‘Let’s do this.’

The masked man formed a sword out of thin air.

A sinister-looking blade, dark and ominous.

He approached, his sword raised.

‘I’ll just shatter that sword with my bare hands.’

His fists, empowered by his relic, were harder than steel.

He met the oncoming sword with a powerful punch.

But then… something strange happened.

Time slowed to a crawl.

Or rather, it felt like his time had slowed, while the masked man continued to move at normal speed.

‘This is…’

He remembered hearing stories about it at the Hero Academy.

A legendary swordsman from the Age of Chaos, a swordsman who could bend space and stop time with his blade.

Back then, he had dismissed those stories as mere legends, tales exaggerated and distorted over time.

He never imagined he would encounter a figure from 500 years ago.

“You’re…”

But he couldn’t finish his sentence.

The masked man’s blade had already sliced through his neck.

“You’re too weak,” the masked man said, his voice emotionless.

He needed stronger opponents if he wanted to reach the pinnacle of swordsmanship.

His gaze swept past the fallen heroes, his target now fixed on the Company headquarters building in the distance.

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“What… what is happening…?”

A massacre was unfolding below.

And the ones being slaughtered… they were heroes.

None of them were high-ranking, but they were still heroes, cut down like wheat before a scythe.

“Damn it!”

She had assumed Libero would show some restraint, that he wouldn’t go this far.

She had expected him to destroy a gang, perhaps cause some chaos, and then retreat back to his shadows.

But she was wrong.

‘Was he always like this?’

He had always been a gloomy, melancholic creature, following the Council’s orders without question, his only deviation from his monotonous existence being his strange little acts of heroism.

But now… he was charging straight towards her, his eyes blazing with fury.

‘Why?’

What had triggered this sudden change?

She had no idea.

Fear, a cold dread, constricted her heart.

“Is he insane?”

He was more terrifying than any hero she had ever encountered.

Even though he was a Demon King.

Suddenly, the noise from the streets vanished.

All she could hear were the occasional screams of terror and the distant sounds of battle.

‘Don’t tell me…’

Then, she heard footsteps on the stairs.

Heavy, measured steps. The sounds of clashes, of flesh tearing, of screams cut short.

He was coming.

‘Stay calm, Gineus.’

He must have sustained some injuries in his previous battles.

And she was Gineus, the 67th Demon King.

In terms of raw power, her Demon Body was far superior to those older, weaker Demon Kings like the 13th.

‘But if I release my Demon Body, they’ll know who I am…’

She quickly opened a box she kept in her office, retrieving a weapon she had been developing.

It was a prototype weapon, a pile bunker, that launched a metal stake at high speeds using compressed gas.

‘I can only use it once, since the gas needs to be compressed in advance…’

But it was the most powerful weapon she had ever created.

She aimed it at the staircase.

If she timed it right, she might be able to kill him with a single shot.

He appeared at the top of the stairs.

His blood-soaked mask and clothes made him look like a demon from hell.

She flinched, her heart pounding, but she couldn’t afford to hesitate.

‘This is my chance to kill him.’

He had come to kill her. There would be no consequences, no repercussions for eliminating a threat.

And if news spread that she had killed a Demon King, even a powerful one like the 13th, the value of her pile bunker would skyrocket. It was still in its prototype phase, after all.

A cruel smile spread across her lips.

‘Die for me, Libero!’

Hiss!

Steam erupted from the pile bunker as she pulled the trigger.

A deafening roar, a shockwave of compressed air, and the stake shot forward with incredible force.

It was too fast to dodge.

His sword met the oncoming stake, trying to deflect it.

But it was impossible to stop its momentum.

“Ugh…”

The stake pierced his body.

But not where she had aimed. Not through his heart.

He had managed to deflect it at the last moment, changing its trajectory.

The stake tore through his right arm, shattering bone and muscle, but it wasn’t a fatal blow.

‘Damn it.’

She had failed to kill him with a single shot.

She couldn’t hesitate.

He was already forming a new sword in his left hand, charging towards her.

‘Demon Form!’

Her body transformed.

Wings sprouted from her back, horns from her head.

And though invisible to the naked eye, her limbs, her entire skeletal structure, shifted, adapting to her true form.

‘Faster… faster!’

She needed to fully transform into her Demon Form to access her full power, her most devastating techniques.

She wasn’t sure if they would even work on another Demon King like Libero, but it was worth a try.

But he didn’t give her time to complete her transformation.

“Agh!”

His sword flashed, severing her left arm.

Thanks to her enhanced agility in her partially transformed Demon Form, she had managed to avoid a fatal blow. But she was bleeding profusely, the pain excruciating.

“Stop it! Libero, stop this!”

He didn’t listen.

His eyes were vacant, devoid of emotion.

He was a mindless killing machine, driven by rage.

‘He’s not in his right mind!’

A sane Demon King wouldn’t go on a rampage, killing heroes and then attacking another Demon King.

It was suicide, an act that would make him an enemy of both humans and Demon Kings.

‘If there’s a crack in his mind…’

His sword was a whirlwind of death, her regeneration struggling to keep up with the relentless onslaught.

Her body was reaching its limit.

But she was almost fully transformed.

‘Libero… let’s talk. What do you say?’

Gineus, now in her full Demon Form, smiled, a cruel glint in her eyes.

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