A few days later, we finally found the warrior that we needed for our party. To be more precise, he was the one who found us.
"Hey, I heard you kids are looking for a knight or a warrior to join you!"
A burly guy with a short beard and bulging muscles strode over, his body clad in armor and a massive axe slung across his back. He grinned bearishly and did a mocking bow.
"Bradley, at your service!"
"Oh, that's great!" Herman brightened up and strode up to him to offer a handshake. "I'm Herman, and I have the privilege of being chosen as one of the seven Heroes. Unfortunately, I'm young and inexperienced, but I'm still resolved to defeat the Demonic Emperor and save humanity!"
"Hah! I like your ambition!" Bradley thumped his chest confidently. "Don't worry! With me around, we'll definitely crush those demons!"
At first, the girls seemed delighted at the appearance of what appeared to be a veteran knight. He appeared to be in his early thirties or late twenties, with the usual collection of scars and grizzled features. His axe and armor looked worn out, speaking of countless combat. He was the experienced warrior we needed.
Having unsuccessfully tried for a few days, we were on the verge of giving up. Most of the promising and experienced knights and warriors had already joined the other Hero parties, and the remaining weren't good enough, having lacked the skills needed for an elite squad who had to operate behind enemy lines for extended periods of time.
Also, many of them preferred to stay with their regiments and fight alongside their comrades, rather than join an unfamiliar party and learn from scratch on how to work together. Not only that, a lot of them took one look at our party and declined, most probably because they weren't convinced that our party was worth joining.
I could hear the soldiers whispering to themselves about how Herman's party resembled more of a harem than an actual demon-slaying unit. Three beautiful girls, all of whom had little to no combat experience, and Herman himself didn't actually inspire much confidence with his youth and inexperience. They didn't take us very seriously.
"I'll show them," Herman had muttered darkly. "They will regret ever making fun of me."
"Well, there are a few who are willing to join us," I had begun, remembering a few bright prospects, but Miranda had shot me down.
"They don't have the experience! Our party is already imbalanced and amateurish as it is already. We'll be making fools of ourselves if we accept those guys!"
"It's better than nothing," I had argued. "Experience can be gained and accumulated. Everyone starts from somewhere. We'll grow at our own pace."
"No, that will be too slow." Yvonne had gnawed on her fingers, looking impatient. "At this rate, we'll fall behind the other Hero parties. We'll be a laughing stock!"
"We are already way behind the other Hero parties," Herman had said gloomily, looking downcast. "And those bastards are laughing at us."
Not all of them. If they would just adjust their expectations and listened to my advice…
"We'll keep trying," Herman had decided. "If we still can't find anyone after a week, then we'll do what Klein suggests and accept those amateur knights."
"It might not be optimal, but we'll figure it out," Irene had assured everyone with that usual dazzling smile of hers.
As fate turned out, though, the others got what they wanted. Bradley, an experienced knight, had come to us on his own. The girls were swooning over him initially…until they caught his gaze.
"It's a pleasure to meet you!" he boomed with a grin, leering at them. Instinctively, the three of them backed away. Miranda and Yvonne hid behind Herman, uncomfortable under Bradley's lecherous gaze.
For some reason, Irene chose to use me as a shield, probably because the other two girls had already taken Herman. Nonetheless, I was surprised by her actions. I thought she would have happily tried to seduce Bradley and made use of him to climb up the social ladder or something. Maybe Bradley was such scum that even a whore like Irene wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole.
"Aw…you're breaking my heart." Bradley's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Am I really that scary?"
"No, that's a good thing."
Herman, as usual, was able to turn the situation into his advantage. He beamed optimistically and confidently, causing even the annoyed Bradley to grin.
"Since our enemies are demons, the scarier you are, the better it would be! Let's work together and put your terrifying strength to use, to defeat the demonic legions!"
"Hah! I like the way you think, Hero!"
And that was how we recruited our first warrior.
*
"Get them off me!"
Bradley was screaming like a little girl, swinging his massive battleax frantically as he tried to cleave apart the huge insects that were trying to crawl all over his body.
"Stop moving!" Miranda shouted, trying to hit the big bugs with fireballs. Her spells connected and incinerated large swathes of them, but Bradley flinched at a near miss. His eyes widened when he saw an inferno erupt a few centimeters away from him.
"Ugh! Hot, hot!" he shrieked, and then glared at Miranda while still swinging his axe. "What the fuck are you doing?! You'll burn me to death!"
"How am I supposed to help you then?!" the multi-mage retorted.
"I don't know! Think of something! Ouch! These fuckers are chewing my skin off!" Howling, Bradley swung his axe again even as tears leaked from his eyes. Shaking my head at the debacle, I cast my spell and froze the entire swarm of bugs that were crawling all over his body.
Not just them – I also entombed the rest of the swarm that was spreading out from Bradley's position, almost like a black tide. The flesh-eating scarabs were immediately frozen before they shattered at a snap of my fingers.
"Cold, cold!"
Bradley was jumping about, shaking the broken frost from his body and shivering. He glared at me as he wrapped his arms about himself.
"Why did you do that?! Are you trying to freeze me to death?!"
"You were the one asking us to get the bugs off you," I replied with a roll of my eyes. "Or should I have let them eat you alive instead?"
"You…!" Bradley bellowed and stomped toward my position.
"That's enough," Herman snapped. "All of you! We are supposed to be the Hero party! Conduct yourselves better!"
"Hero party? Us?" Yvonne scoffed. "We are nothing but a big joke!"
I didn't say anything, staying silent as I observed Irene cast healing spells on the spitting and grumbling Bradley.
Needless to say, our newest addition was a disappointment. It had been a few weeks since we began traveling together and undertaking quests, but Bradley was turning out to be far from the experienced warrior we had envisioned.
He might possess immense brute strength, but that was his only…uh, strength. Unlike most knights, he didn't have much skill with a blade – not that swinging an axe around needed any real technique (actually, it did, but that wasn't the point). He lacked the finesse and discipline of a knight, as well as their composure, always recklessly charging off to the front and hoping that his raw muscle power would see him through. He refused to listen to our advice, to retreat or hold back, often calming that since he was the most experienced warrior in our party, we should be listening to him instead.
"Actually, Klein is the most experienced adventurer," Irene had begun, but she had fallen silent when Bradley glared at her. I didn't back her up because she was mistaken. I had only two years of adventuring under my belt whereas Bradley had over a decade of experience in battle. I still appreciated her sentiment all the same.
But he sure as hell wasn't behaving like a seasoned warrior who had survived countless battlefields. Not only that, he would often sexually harass the female members of our party, taking every chance to grope them wherever, until Herman put his foot down and warned him that we would kick him out if he refused to stop his licentious behavior.
That did the trick, and Bradley henceforth contented himself with prostitutes or girls from the villages we visited whenever we undertook a quest to exterminate demons. There were plenty of complaints, but Herman would dismiss them and point out that it was a small price to pay for our services.
I had vehemently objected, of course, but my protests fell on deaf ears, and nobody listened to me. I did my best to compensate the villagers, but there was very little I could do.
"What does it matter?" Bradley was growling, bringing me back to the present. "We won, didn't we? We exterminate the scarabs like they asked us to. They had better pay up."
"No, it's just that…" Herman sighed and covered his face with a gauntleted hand. "…while the other Hero parties are engaging the demonic legions, we are stuck far behind the frontlines, performing cleanup missions and exterminating insects. It doesn't seem like a very heroic job."
"It's a bug hunt," I said cheerfully. "I hate bugs. The sooner we can wipe them off from the face of the earth, the better."
Herman chuckled at that. "I don't disagree." But he sighed again and looked up at the sky. "But I just want something better, you know? I'm a Hero. We're one of the seven Hero parties. We shouldn't be doing such mundane tasks. We should be on the frontlines, engaging the demonic legions and taking the fight to the Demonic Emperor."
"Don't worry." Miranda raised her staff and mana wreathed around her. "My magic is getting better."
She glared at me enviously, even though most of her progress was due to me giving her advice on casting magic spells. I was beginning to regret teaching her, but it was necessary. Otherwise our party wouldn't be able to progress.
"Pretty soon we���ll be able to engage the demonic legions, once I've mastered more powerful intermediate spells!" Miranda proclaimed proudly. She glanced at me, and then turned away grudgingly. "Until then, I'll have to suffer the tutelage of someone else."
"Do you want me to help you or not?" I snapped.
"Kuh! It's just…frustrating that I've to lower myself to learning from a mage who only has average talent!"
"What does it say about you when you're inferior to Klein, who you claim only has average talent?" Irene asked, putting her hands on her hips. "Certainly, your ability to control multiple elements is impressive, but your potential hasn't translated very well on the actual battlefield!"
"Ugh! Just leave me alone!"
"I think what Irene is saying is that you are in no position to criticize Klein when he has clearly contributed more than you."
"Yeah," Bradley said. "I would rather get hit by his ice and suffer a cold than be burned to death by your fire spells."
"That's not what you said earlier!"
"Enough!" Yvonne yelled. "Just listen to yourselves! We're all squabbling over petty matters and stuck doing all these shitty missions! Hero party, my fucking ass! We're an embarrassment! I can imagine how everyone is going to make fun of us when we return to the capital!"
Silence filled the air, and for a moment, nobody said anything. Then Miranda finally spoke up.
"There's a ritual," she began. "A forbidden one, though, but it has the ability to bestow great power upon the Hero."
Everyone stared at her, intrigued. Miranda smiled conspiratorially.
"Of course, it demands great sacrifice."
"What kind of sacrifice?" I asked suspiciously.
"Human sacrifice."
"Then forget it."
"Why are you the one making the decision?" Yvonne snapped. I glared at her.
"Are you actually advocating that we sacrifice people to power up Herman? It's our duty to save the people of Havan Kingdom. What are you going to do if you sacrifice them instead? Isn't that defeating the whole purpose of being a Hero?"
"…Klein is right," Herman finally said. I wondered if it was my imagination that I heard reluctance in his voice. "We're progressing just fine without having to resort to such drastic measures. Instead of seeking shortcuts, we should focus on working harder."
He straightened up and his usual optimistic smile was back on his handsome face. The atmosphere instantly lightened up. Sheathing his sword, Herman turned toward the nearest town with a determined expression.
"Let's go back for now. Tomorrow, we're going to take on a mission of a much higher difficulty and prove ourselves to the kingdom!"