The NTR Hero Knelt Before The Demon King – Chapter 32

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: selkie
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Holy Knight Amelda.

Her life followed a few self-imposed principles.

She resisted nothing she deemed unavoidable, choosing to simply go along with it.

And within that flow, she focused solely on savoring whatever she could.

This was the life philosophy of Amelda the elf, and it was a rule embedded in her heart, guiding her down a single path every time she made an important choice—a path named acceptance and compromise.

When she first became a holy knight, heeding the call of the divine…
When she joined the hero’s party, meeting the expectations of those around her…
When she was swept up in the waves of worldly pleasures introduced by Torare…

And even when her companions suggested abandoning the hero…
She always prioritized not resisting the will of those around her and focusing on securing her own small gains.

However, at this moment—
The life she had lived, one that only pursued personal safety amidst the flow of the larger trends, found itself suddenly crashing against an unforeseen rock, dragging her into a pit of despair.

– Crackling!!!
“Kyaaaaaaaaah!!!!”

A searing piece of metal branded her chest.
Amelda screamed in agony, enduring an unimaginable pain she had never experienced before.

The horrific sound of burning flesh, the sickening stench, and the devastating sensation of it all—she suffered in excruciating agony.

Watching her writhe in pain…
He, General Achilles, whom Amelda knew well, spoke in a cold voice.

“There’s no need for mercy. This woman is a servant of the wicked Pope who deceived and exploited countless people with false doctrines. Make sure she pays fully for her sins.”

“Yes, General!”

At his command, the soldier brought forth the heated iron once again.

Seeing this, Amelda, shaking in terror, slowly began to shake her head.

“No… please… stop… I beg… I beg you, pleaaase!”

But before her words even finished, the burning iron descended upon her chest once more.

Her cherished body, made of delicate flesh, was tormented in the worst way possible.

Her mouth opened in a fresh scream of agony, but—

No one in that place showed even the slightest hint of pity for her suffering.

They didn’t torture Amelda to extract a confession or to coerce her into any action.

Their reason for torturing her was simply to inflict pain—to express their hatred and enmity toward the elves, who had now become, effectively, their enemies.

The endless torment continued with no sign of stopping, with no sign of relenting.

All Amelda could do was scream and cry in agony,

And…

Regret, pointlessly, the choices of her past.

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“Huff… huff… huff…”

The merciless torture continued for what felt like an eternity, to the point where it was impossible to gauge how much time had passed.

In reality, it had lasted about four days before a brief pause. Amelda, with handcuffs bound to her wrists, was thrown alone into a solitary cell.

A narrow, dismal space where only a faint light seeped in.

There, Amelda, still in the throes of unrelenting pain, gasped for breath, her face void of emotion.

However.

In this moment, the greatest agony tormenting Amelda wasn’t the pain gnawing at her entire body, nor was it the despair of a future too bleak to imagine.

The cause of her deepest suffering was something else altogether.

It was her fate, standing at the end of the path her life had taken, that tortured her heart.

The wretched reality she was now living, far removed from the person she thought she’d become, and the past decisions that led to this point.

‘Where did it… all go wrong? Where on earth… where…’

Amelda had always chosen what she believed to be the best path for herself.

Yet, now that she’d met this terrible end, this seemingly endless abyss without a glimmer of hope, it felt as if her entire life had been invalidated.

No, in truth, the harsh reality left no doubt that her life had gone entirely astray.

‘I chose what I thought was best every time… tried to stay as safe as possible… I chose a path that wouldn’t defy the current… but the result… why did it end up like this… why…’

The result felt like failing a carefully prepared test, scoring zero and even being forced to retake it.

As Amelda despaired over this, the words of a certain man who had once criticized her life came back to her mind.

“Aren’t you a holy knight? Act more decisively.”
Those words…
Spoken by a man who always combined advice with complaint. A man who had possessed the strongest power of any person she’d met.

He was blunt with everyone, always advocating a strict, straight path.

The man who was now gone.

The hero’s words.

When she’d heard them, Amelda had felt only irritation, defiance, and scorn in her heart, though she hadn’t shown it outwardly.

Until then, Amelda hadn’t doubted her way of life.

Following a path that indulged in the fruits of pleasure and desire, she’d regarded the hero’s words as mere scolding—a nuisance that only reinforced her dislike for him.

In her mind, as long as that hero’s strength was there, the war would eventually end, and she thought all she had to do was to appease him enough to pluck the fruits that fell.

But the hero’s nagging had persisted regardless of her thoughts, causing her already low regard for him to plummet even further.

With those feelings in mind, Amelda found it easy to agree with her comrades’ plan to eliminate the hero.

In doing so, she’d been free to plan a sweet life alongside Torare, as an added bonus.

However.
As a result of these actions, Amelda was now in the depths of despair, in a pit without dreams or hope. And in her mind, she couldn’t help but recall the hero’s unfiltered advice to her.

It was like how people recall their parents’ scolding when they’re pushed to the edge of life.
In her deep despair, she thought that if she had walked the right path, the outcome might have been different…

This naturally led Amelda to feel a deep sense of regret.

‘If only… if only I’d listened to your words… if I’d gone straight on my path like you said, instead of being swayed… maybe then…’

No one could know how things would have turned out if she’d made a different choice.

But for someone who had hit rock bottom, looking back on past possibilities and clinging to them was only natural.

Added to this were her mental exhaustion from the severe torture, her despair over a future devoid of hope, and the guilt she’d long ignored.

These tangled emotions began to drive Amelda toward thoughts clouded by delusion, leading her to distorted and exaggerated notions.

And as a result, twisted forms of “what ifs” began to grow in Amelda’s mind, particularly around her final decision involving the Demon King, which had sealed her fate.

‘What if I had refused Torare’s hand and stayed with the hero? What if I’d truly supported the hero, not with empty words but sincerely… maybe then I wouldn’t have met this ending.’

In truth, their strategic goal for the final battle had been overly simplistic and self-serving for something meant to conclude a long journey.
The plan had been to pit the hero against the Demon King directly to drain his strength, then take down the hero when he was exhausted.

But…

If they hadn’t intended to discard the hero and had only aimed for victory, they could have approached the plan differently.

Perhaps if they’d carefully taken down the Demon King’s subordinates one by one and joined forces to defeat the Demon King together…

Maybe, just maybe, Amelda wouldn’t be a miserable criminal undergoing merciless torture, but rather, a hero honored for ending the war.

And perhaps her beloved country, the Elf Church, wouldn’t be in its current crisis either.

‘Yes, maybe the hero’s strict attitude and his stern warnings were meant to prevent this kind of situation…’

Reflecting back, she thought she had seen a resigned look in the hero’s eyes as he headed toward the Demon King alone.

Although she hadn’t seen clearly from where she was standing, she had caught a faint smile on the hero’s lips.

Amelda, with her sharp Elven vision, had thought it was simply a sign of confidence in victory. But now, she felt that perhaps it wasn’t.

Maybe that smile had been a glimpse of the hero foreseeing the failure of the Demon King’s defeat and the possibility of her current miserable fate.

This thought solidified in Amelda’s heart, already fraught with instability, and she began to voice her remorse and apology aloud.

“I’m… sorry, hero. I… I should have listened to you… I should have taken your advice… and come to my senses earlier… because of my foolishness… because of me, who chased after pleasure blindly, like a dog panting…”

Amelda, who had already felt guilt for tarnishing the honor of a hero who had fought and died for them to the very end, had now had those feelings resurface and mercilessly tear at her heart once more.

Accompanied by a distorted perception and an excessive overestimation of the hero’s existence.

“I was wrong… it’s my fault… my fault, hero…”