Chương 5: Chapter 4: The Hero Joins Equilibrium

The hero, surprised that she had suddenly arrived in enemy territory, said, "Why have you brought me here? Don't you know how dangerous demons and monsters are? Now that we are on the demonic continent, do you think we can leave alive?" I then said, "You don't have to worry; I am more than strong enough to keep us alive in this place, let alone such a remote part of the demonic continent. Now, look ahead of you. What do you see?"

The hero, who couldn't do much in this situation as she was bound by magic, looked toward the village. The hero then replied, "I see a normal-looking village. What about it?" I then replied, "Since you know it's normal, why do you think monsters and demons are dangerous? The village in front of you is from the demonic continent. As you can see, some monsters and demons are vulnerable and innocently trying to live their lives.

The ones you usually see are the aggressive ones who hate humanity, or simply unintelligent monsters." The hero, suddenly realizing this, looked back at the village. The crops were scarce, but the village did have a farm that was much smaller than any you'd see on the human continent. The village was also very small, only containing a few hundred monsters and demons. The land looked dry and cracked. The houses looked poorly made but were somehow sturdy enough to hold up.

The place could only be described as very poor—much worse than any village on the human continent. I then explained, "This is one of the medium-sized villages. As for the larger civilizations, they contain a few thousand monsters. Even cities only had tens of thousands of inhabitants. The demonic continent's population is quite small, and most of them are of an intelligent race that roams around rather than living in civilization.

The majority of the intelligent ones live in the capital, where the Demon King's castle is." The hero then replied, "I still don't understand why this matters to me, as you just said there are monsters and demons that are hostile to the human race. We should still be fighting against them to achieve peace." I then said, "Since you still don't understand, then let's continue to visit a few more places." We then left to visit more monster civilizations. Every one we arrived at was quite small and poor.

There were many of these civilizations, but they all seemed very badly off. I then took the hero to the second-largest civilization on the demonic continent, as we shouldn't get too close to the Demon King's castle. The place was much larger than anything before; though it was bigger compared to humans, it was the size of a small city or a big town. The hero, finally seeing the situation in the demonic continent, had mixed feelings. This place had such horrendously bad resources.

If humans lived in this place, they would die off so fast, and yet monsters and demons managed to survive here. If it were humans, they would immediately try to find a better place to settle, so the monsters' current actions made sense. The hero, finally with one last doubt, asked, "Since monsters just needed land, why do they invade the human continent? The humans have plenty of land and should be willing to trade some land for the service of monsters."

I then said, "Do you really think humans would so easily hand over land? Think about it: this isn't Earth. The humans here have no real morality like yours. The culture here is even more primitive than our civilization hundreds of years ago, let alone now. I have heard from other heroes that time in this world flows differently from ours. If I guessed right, it should now be the year 2026 in your world, right?" The hero nodded and said, "Yes, that's right. What about it?"

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"Don't you realize how old I am?" I said.

"You are over a thousand years old, so you should be from... the year 1026." She trailed off as she realized.

"Wait, then how come you seem to know my culture so well? And how are you so young after a thousand years?" the hero asked. I then said, "As for how I'm so long-lived, that doesn't matter. As for time-wise, I'm from the year 2016, not 1026; this is because this world is a hundred times faster in time flow. So, I know the current culture of modern day, so stop putting your modern ideas in this world. This world works on power and wealth.

The humans won't be so kind as to give away free wealth, not to mention they could enslave demons for free labor." The hero suddenly realized her situation. She had been too caught up in trying to uphold modern-day values that she ignored many aspects of current world culture. This world is indeed not the same; she has seen many nobles with wealth as well as many in poverty on the streets.

The hero didn't think that far as homeless people did exist in the modern world too, but now that she thinks about it, there are far too many homeless people. The human nobles have sucked the common people dry and massive amounts are in poverty. The hero then suddenly had many realizations that she hadn't really thought about before. She was suspicious but never really thought too far into it. After much thought, she finally asked me about all her doubts.

I then answered everything that I could answer and told her things she hadn't found out yet. Finally, she asked, "What do I do now? All I've been doing since coming into this world was fighting demons and monsters. There's really not much I can do other than what I've currently been doing." I then gave her an option: "How about joining my organization? Since I realized the truth of this world, I have been keeping the world intact by making sure nothing changes in the war.

Though we sometimes get careless and the balance breaks, we have managed to make the balance stable again."

"Is your organization doing the right thing, not ending the war?" the hero asked. I responded saying, "I think it is right. You may not have realized it, but why do you think the humans have survived so far without the hero before I came?" The hero responded by saying, "I don't know. I always assumed that they were strong enough until a hero came around."

I then said, "With how often a hero is summoned, the humans should have fallen long ago, and even before I came around, the humans have survived for hundreds of years before needing a hero to fight the demon kind. The humans definitely have hidden tricks to fight against the demons. I do not feel like risking my people to fight against them until I am confident."

"Then what about the demons? Why haven't you done anything about them?" the hero asked. I responded saying, "The demons too have their own secrets behind them; they are powerful monsters and demons who have yet to come out to fight. These demons are even stronger than Demon Kings who have appeared." The hero finally understood why the current balance was the right solution. Neither side were easy to take down. It's better to just keep things the way they were.

I then said, "We usually don't push things too far, otherwise, one day if we mess up, either side might use their hidden means and a lot of beings will die. We don't know what tricks they have yet as they have still never used them in the time I have been in this world, but from what I can tell, their means probably use a lot of resources so they are reluctant to use them." Gaining all this information, the hero then thought about her decision. After a lot of thought, she finally came to a conclusion.

She finally said, "Alright, I'll join your organization; please take me in, as I too want to keep the peace." I said, "Welcome to Equilibrium." I then realized I hadn't asked for her name, so I asked, "So, what is your name?" She, too, at this moment realized she hadn't introduced herself as she had only been fighting with me until now. She then said, "I am Himari Hana." I then explained to Himari about the details of Equilibrium and the hierarchy of the organization.

I then told her, "Since you are new, you shall start off as a pawn. So work hard and rise through the ranks, and I will give you more resources to get stronger. Let's now go back to headquarters, and we'll give you a big beginner gift. We shall change your class to 'Outsider,' which gives you the ability to never age. Another power that the class gives you that you are probably familiar with is a system. This system tells you your current strength and lets you distribute skill points and level up easier."

Himari, hearing this, suddenly said in surprise, "What did you say? A system?"