***(?)
For all my life, it was all I could remember. I knew where it all went wrong, but I couldn't get over the wall of futility, it was supported by reality. A role, it was something I was born with, something I can never get rid off.
I am the Hero, a magical girl destined to kill the Demon King of this generation. The world would give birth to me so I would blossom with the best specs, the highest stats. But just because I'm born with it doesn't mean I can use it immediately.
An end goal that brings hope to humanity, a light that reaches every dark corner of this malformed earth. A fruit that only bears at the journey's end, I had to train and manually work hard to get there. My hair wasn't white like veteran magical girls who boasted of their astonishing talent and fast growth. It was pure black when I was born and as I grew up, and when I awakened as a magical girl... It was a cherry red. Brownish orange and greyish yellow was common, in fact every colour had existed. They were magical girls. Was there really anything that made me truly special? Not the label of 'Hero' that I was born with, but something that made me... Me?
... I... Was born with nothing. As far back as I could remember, these hands could only grasp at nothing. That is the same now and before... But... I was fine with it.
***(Present)
I am the ruby hero, Shining Miliacrul Evradenia. My... Friends called me Milia. I roam the entirety of the human territory, looking for demons to purge. Every now and then some would escape the demon kingdom, then it falled to me to execute them. Like this...
Before my eyes was a fire that rose higher than the skies. As the hero, I have high resistance against demonic magic, but the people do not... I was too late. It takes copious amounts of time to travel across the land, I could not spontaneously guard every human settlement at once. So it often comes to this...
I gripped my sword tighter, it was a reliable partner that had given me my moniker along with my magical girl combat dress. The blade was an unadulterated mass of saturated red, like a ruby purer than any in existence, it hums with a soft red glow. A tiara like ornament adorns the top of my head, a handle of gleaming gold outshone by the embedded red gems.
Compared to these 2, the rest of my dress was a gentle mix of pale pink and white. It looked like light adventurer garb, wrapping my skin protectively in layers of leather and cloth that didn't hinder my movements too much.
If I ever untransform, the dress would dissipate back into magical particles. So it wasn't really possible to sell off the sword and the tiara.
I enter the chaotic fiery mess, there was likely to be no survivors but I have to try. This heavy feeling, this regret at not being able to save everyone, it is always present in my chest. Like a devilish arm squeezing my heart no matter how much time passes, it would always be there. It was only right after The Great Disaster... Even the capitals of the continental factions can not afford to build entire cities with fire resistant materials...
So these settlements that are interspersed between wide swathes of land... They receive little support and their architecture is even more primitive... The fire would burn greatly and consume their wooden pillars and walls without pause. It might have been a while since the fire started, my heart quickly comes to grips. I walk through the place, the temperature was still tolerable for magical girls in the areas where the fire wasn't so strong. So I stepped through the combusting air.
Tch, they're not gonna make this easy. Passive, [Ruby Hero's senses]. A detection type skill that keeps me aware of surprise attacks. But it can also function as a far seeking radar of 100 km radius. There... A large mass of magical particles only at 23 km away. I could make it there in one second.
[Ruby Hero's obligation], it kept her stats at least at B grade no matter what debuffs or magic was thrown at her. She had trained all the way to an A grade manually from the bottom, so when she realised the effects of this skill it wasn't particularly pleasing. In fact she hated it, it denied her hardworking and gave her powers beyond a 'normal' magical girl, as if everything she did was for naught. As if her life was a sham.
I threw away these inhibitions, for a short moment my mind focuses on a single aspect, killing. I leapt with all my strength, leaving a large crater behind in the burning ruins. With a single slash of my blade and landing next to them, their leader had been beheaded. Extremely effective demon extermination, always kill the strongest first. It will inject horror into their veins, distracting the weaklings for a good moment. Using the recoil from land, I swing a wider slash to cut off multiple heads at once.
Now they finally recover their composure, but numerous demons had already been cut down without even a single chance to use their prided magic. That is the sole advantage that demons had over humans, every demon could use magic and even the weakest was C grade. No D or E grade demons exists. It was like a threshold for a demon to wield an ego, any weaker and they wouldn't be able to hold intelligence.
They were a race built on bloodshed, and while I recognise that it is ironic of me to subject all of them to the same thing, death, I would prioritise human lives over their potential harm. For those they might harm in the future, for those they've killed in the past, I will carry everyone's regrets in my back and inside my blade. The lament of the human race... My lament... It permeates and makes my every strike heavy. The next demon attempts to parry my strike, but it slices through their sword, helmet and entire body, bisecting them.
My passive informs me that they've finally organised themselves by surrounding me. But while it might limit their casualties by being in places my blade can not reach... I simply have to cut them down one by one until they couldn't surround me.
"ALL WARRIORS!!! FIGHT FOR YOUR COUNTRY, FIGHT FOR DEMONKIND!!!!!"
(Demon)
"UOOHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" (Demons)
They get themselves worked up on their own, perhaps they see me as a threat to their entire species now. Well, I wouldn't deny that. It is my life's purpose to eliminate the demon species and usher in an era of peace. It is solely my duty, my obligation. Letting my strength run wild, my aura crushes the ground under my feet, forming a deep crater that their weapons cannot reach. I pounced into the air and landed as fast as I could, slicing another demon in half and leaving a secondary crater with my blade.
Smoke wafted off the shiny ruby blade now stained with plenty of blood. I lifted it into the air while stretching my back, the other demons could only stare in silence as they awaited their deaths. I twist my blade and shoved it under my armpit with a full strength grip and thrust, piercing the chest of the demon attempting to kill me from behind.
"Now! While the sword is stu-!" (Demon)
I released my blade in an instant and with a left cross, I punched his head off his neck. He couldn't finish his words in time and his facial tissue had been reduced to a red mist. I pluck out my sword from his collapsing corpse then turned around to face the rest. I wouldn't care if they had some political motive or not, I was absent from that world even within the human sphere of influence. For the entire year and a half since The Great Disaster, I've been exterminating demons all this time.
With their moral down, I cut down the rest in an instant while leaving one alive. I realise a few months right after The Great Disaster... Rather than aimlessly wandering around looking for demons, torturing the information put of the ones I actually find is unequivocally far more efficient. That was how I got word that this town was in danger... Yet I was late anyway. The previous demons I encountered were sent simultaneously with this group... So even if I saved that other settlement, it was time wasted that could have been used to save this one...
"Peh!"
I spat at his corpse after wringing the last bit of information out of his body. Disgust welled up in my throat everytime I had to do this, spitting it out had become a psychological tradition at this point.
"Off to the next one."
Had I grown accustomed to it? No... Everytime i see demon blood I am reminded of human blood, I end up pitying them a little but go through with it anyway. After all, this will be all I have.
***
I do not remember even a single glimpse of my birth parents. I was picked up by a magical girl and trained from young. A crude wooden shack was my home, there was nothing outside. We practically lived in the middle of nowhere. Every morning I trained with an old uncle called Mr Leil. He would instruct on my physical exercises before leaving in the evening to get supplies from the city. Occasionally he would bring back books and teach me words straight from the dictionary.
"... Master, what is this word...f... Fff...? "
"It says Friend. It is someone you form a close bond with." (Leil)
"Then... Are you my friend?"
"... Yes..." (Leil)
Every now and then he would have an expression that I couldn't describe with my rudimentary vocabulary. Well if I were to try at the top of my head right now... It would be something like sullen? Or solemn. His regret was expressed on his tensed cheeks, eyes and scrunched wrinkles. At the same time, he restrained the amount of emotions that he expressed, perhaps out of fear or a way to damage control.
He was a coward, running away from the possibility that I wouldn't be able to develop my emotions properly. Well, screw him!! I manage to develop them perfectly well... So well that this sensation of my heart sinking to the ground wouldn't leave... I suppose he told them through my bedtime stories... Morals. Modern stories of superheroes, comics, manga. There was always some moral that painted my imagination vividly like paint splashing upon an empty canvas.
The notion of a hero was thoroughly embedded into my psyche. Even with the perpetual loneliness that accompanied those days, I was thinking about the heroes in those stories. That is why... Albeit extremely childish for anyone of my age, I want to be a hero. I'm fine with being the hero as long as my effort was acknowledged. It was probably very unlikely for it to do so, but I will hold onto hope. I'll become my own hope and keep going.
***
That's why... I cannot lament. This is my destiny, I've already cried my heart out in those days. So now it's time to do my duty. My legs trudge through the rough terrain like usual, as if it had become muscle memory to traverse uneven ground. I was only allowed to leave when I was 14, but I held an attachment to that place where I was training at. It wasn't like a boring jail cell, in fact there was plenty of nature to play around with. It was much more desirable compared to living through the trash in the back alleys.
It further contributed to my confusion when I saw Master's complex emotions. A sense of discomfort always wraps around his face when he watches my happiness. On the other hand, I was truly happy to have gained a warm bed, tasty food and entertaining books in that shack. It was far better compared to my previous standard of living, while he likely only tasted bitterness at the wasted potential... I could have lived a normal life... I bet that was what that old fool was thinking.
I wonder how he was doing... We were in the middle of nowhere when The Great Disaster occurred, we were living far outside of urban areas so the effect of the disaster was drastically diminished for us. Master and I survived and I set off on a journey. It was when I was 17, only 3 years after I first step foot into the city. I saw how life was like in the cities and the concept of... 'school'? It was greatly confusing but it looked like a lot of fun to be with others of the same age...
Unfortunately that peace was permanently interrupted and now I'm on a never ending quest to eliminate the demons. I'm getting quite close to the kingdom, after fighting so many weaklings I was thinking that I should go the next stage and begin attacking their elites to train further. In the Sanctuary, I met these cute girls who were running around frantically. One of them seemed very panicked, she must have thought I was some kind of officer... Well, it was fun to tease her though.