[14th Round] 2000 Years of Love
“It’s time to get started!”
A feature of the USF race was the subjugation of heroes.
To escape from the Fantasy World, I just needed to absorb all the younger heroes who would dare confront the former MAX-Class Hero.
“Hey hubby, do you really think it’ll be that simple?”
“I didn’t say it would be easy.”
I didn’t know how long it would take.
I had already managed to absorb most of the heroes from the First Hero’s house, but even that wasn’t enough to make even the smallest hole in the system.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many heroes it would take to defeat it.
I didn’t have to think about it to know my situation wasn’t ideal.
However, I would never let these obstacles stop me. I wouldn’t be able to sleep well until I hit my father-in-law for leaving his business and his cowardly daughter with me.
Sharp outbursts of anger, loss of appetite, insomnia, constipation, xerophthalmia…
Because of him, I gained so many illnesses!
“You claim to be sick, yet you still have the strength to torment your wife!”
“That requires a different strength.”
I had heard that one’s sex drive increased when in a difficult position.
“Don’t misunderstand my words about absorbing heroes. There’s no point in causing senseless harm. The Fantasy World’s system is now run by the First Angel, which means if you want to take away her power, you’ll need to win the heroes over to your side.”
I had to win those idiots to my side?
“Elaborate.”
“You and my aunt have an almost equal position. The Angel comes first, then the Demon Lord. Together, you two are supplying this world with Divinity and Dark Energy. Unlike my father, who was considered a criminal, you’ve become the largest investor of this school.”
“Hoho!”
Largest investor! Interesting title.
“Before your rise, my aunt was the only investor and majority shareholder, but now I have part of her power over the system. You, as my husband, also became a shareholder when you invested in the institution.”
“Interesting…”
Before I was kidnapped by the vile members of the teaching staff, I was just a student. An innocent soul who didn’t know anything about society yet!
Therefore, I wasn’t as well versed in all these promotions and distribution of rights.
“Heeheehee! Drug Hero, are you a techie?”
“Shut up, Addicted Spirit. Go on, my cowardly wife.”
“Ahem. In such a situation, the company’s shareholders can decide who will be the CEO. However, this is a school. Both its students and teachers are considered “shareholders.” The faculty members are followers of my aunt, making it difficult to convince them, which is why we’ll target the students instead.”
“In other words, we need to win over the heroes?”
Then it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be! Students knew better than the teachers what the soul of their schoolmates craved, after all.
And in the past, I was a hero. I understood them more than most ever would.
“Don’t expect everything to go that smoothly. As you already know, Divinity accompanies the heroes throughout their journey in different forms such as the Holy Sword, Divine, Blessing, Relic, Divine Dragon. It doesn’t matter if they’re sleeping or fighting. My aunt sponsors their days. On the other hand, they have a clear awareness in their heads that the Demon Lord is villainous.”
“I see your point.”
We still had a long way to go.
But these difficulties were nothing compared to my 1st round.
The local savages forced me, a pathetic schoolboy who couldn’t even catch a cockroach, to kill the malevolent Demon Lord.
No matter how I thought about it, it was an unreasonable demand.
But I was able to handle everything within a decade!
Of course, it wasn’t a pleasant trip!
There were times when I had to run away because I was losing to some villager or when I had to drop my weapon and hide in the woods out of fear of goblins. I was beaten by a fragile female mercenary, after which I spent the whole day in bed, covered with a blanket.
But I didn’t give up. I saw it through to the very end.
“What’s with that look?”
My head’s just spinning from the mere thought that the teaching staff and this entire education system have turned an innocent boy into the successor of the Demon Lord and my insidious husband…”
“None of that was my fault.”
“I know. It’s the corrupted education system’s.”
I didn’t like it, but Ssosia and I looked at each other and smiled.
Our thoughts coincided.
***
Obviously, there was no dimension of Fantasy that didn’t have a Demon Lord.
Thanks to the eyes and ears of my clones, I was able to find out the location, plans, and condition of all the heroes that hadn’t graduated yet.
My friend Sieg was one such example.
“This simply cannot be! Sylvia is my woman! She should only look at me! Why is she flirting with male humans when she hated them as the leader of the elves?! How could this happen?!”
Unfortunately, he was unable to adapt to the 5th curriculum.
“Sir Hero, is there a problem?”
“There is! Listen to this, Lanuvel. Elf Princess Sylvia isn’t in the slave market and doesn’t even have a spirit! I don’t like the way she played with them!”
“Ooh… I would like you to come to your senses. Your strange behavior is delaying the trip.”
“No! I’m okay!”
Since I became the First Hero to kill the Demon Lord instead of my senior, changes took place in the Fantasy World.
Some aspects of it remained the same, though.
The “Dumpling Kingdom” was still located on the Central Continent, and Lanuvel, pretending to be cute, still summoned heroes.
But that was the end of it.
Each of the 12 floors of the palace had flush toilets that weren’t unisex but divided for males and females.
There was fresh air in the royal garden, which once smelled of ammonia, and the maids, who had finished cleaning early, sat on the benches and chatted nonchalantly.
I decided to eavesdrop a little.
“Sir Hero Sieg.”
“Just call me Sieg…”
“Okay, Sieg!”
“Aren’t you adjusting a little too fast?! The Lanuvel I know isn’t like this!”
“This isn’t the time to be fantasizing about ransoming Princess Sylvia from the black market! The Demon Lord has risen!” She replied hastily.
“Don’t worry. If I wanted to, I could kill him in six years. Sylvia is much more important right now. She hates humans, yet she now wanders their land. To add salt to my wound, she also decided to flirt with the prince! None of this makes sense!”
“There is nothing strange about that. Princess Sylvia ran away from home to marry a human, after all.”
“What?!”
That was surprising for me too.
“The ruler of the elves can only marry those of their own race to preserve their bloodline. Because of that law, there is now a psychological struggle between Prince Nasus and Princess Sylvia as they both attempt to avoid succeeding to the throne. However, when it became clear that Sylvia would still inherit the throne, she immediately ran away from home.”
She allegedly now traveled through human kingdoms and seduced young princes.
The pitiful Third Elf King Elfheim had seemingly completely changed the culture of his people while he ruled the kingdom.
Now they were friends with humans!
Perhaps they might even be on greater terms than that…
“This simply cannot be…”
My friend Sieg looked as if the end of the world had come.
“I don’t want to upset you, but if you want to marry Princess Sylvia, you must at least become a prince first. Right now, you’re just a boy who can’t even control his sex drive at the sight of elves.”
“Aren’t you too rude?!”
Lanuvel finally said something good.
Heroes like him could never defeat me, the Demon Lord, due to the limitations that bound those stuck in the regression loop.
▷ Race: Arch-Human
▷ Level: 19
▷ Job: Hero (Experience 500%)
▷ Skills: Male Strength Z, Interpretation A, Sword Mastery E, Endurance F, Magic Power F…
▷ Status: Depression
Upon his regression, Sieg was left with only one transcendental skill, Male Strength Z, but the rest of his skills disappeared, which were then replaced by new ones.
Male Strength Z was only useful in bed, and it also required that he had a woman he liked with him.
It was still better than having no skills at all, though.
“Isn’t it better not to have them at all? He doesn’t even have a woman he can use it with, and the more transcendental skills a hero has, the harder it becomes for them to upgrade other skills to Z-rank. Wouldn’t it have been better for him if all of his skills changed and he started over from scratch?”
Ssosia’s assessment of Sieg as she watched him with me was realistic and merciless.
As expected of a typical married lady with a cruel character.
“Cowardly hubby, don’t upgrade that stupid skill no matter what. It’s already hard for me to deal with you as it is.”
“I wouldn’t have done it even if you begged me.”
That aside, I noticed Sword King Alex took the initial training of the Heroes into his own hands, was nowhere to be seen.
Where did he go?
As if on cue, Lanuvel, amid scolding Sieg, suddenly opened up a new topic.
“Follow me. I want to introduce you to a companion.”
“Is it Alex?”
“Oh? How did you know?”
“Because it’s always him.”
I didn’t know how much he had progressed, but he had an expression similar to a hardened B-rank Hero.
Completely arrogant!
“I see… Then guess the other person.” She pouted.
“There’s someone else? That’s new…”
“She’s an incredible beauty!”
“Gorgeous? Oh! Sylvia!”
“No! Stop thinking about Princess Sylvia already. Someone like you shouldn’t even dream of her. You’re correct in guessing that she’s not of the human race, though.”
They walked outside the royal palace as they talked to each other.
Lanuvel swung her hips in different directions as usual, and Sieg walked behind her, smiling broadly.
Where were they going?
Not long after, they arrived at the house of some wealthy people, a luxurious mansion with a spacious garden and a pond.
I couldn’t believe that Alex lived in a place like this. A cave was much more suitable for a savage like him.
“Sir Alex! It’s me, Lanuvel! Open the door, please!”
“HM? What brings you over, Miss Lanuvel? Please wait a bit. Let me just dry my hands…” The Sword King immediately replied from within his abode.
After the click of a lock was heard, the door opened and appeared…
Oh! Oh my God!
“I think I’m going to go blind…”
“Why? Is this the first time you’ve seen a man in an apron? All you do is fight, so I doubt you’d be able to appreciate such a scene’s true worth. Househusbands are quite popular now, you know.”
Who did she take me for?
My father often used to cook in an apron instead of my mother, who had trouble cooking… Damn!
“Did you just say your mom can’t cook?”
“I never said that…”
“Hmm…” My cowardly wife looked at me intently.
Ignoring her, I returned my attention to Alex.
The way his white apron hugged his bulging muscles made him look pathetic.
I didn’t know how women could like such a worthless look.
I then looked at his stats.
▷ Race: Celestial Human
▷ Level: 999+
▷ Job: Sword God (Sword Mastery = Divinity ↑)
▷ Skills: Sword Mastery G, Eternal Youth ZZ, Love Z, Cooking MAX, Cleaning MAX…
▷ Status: Blessing, Happiness
His Sword Mastery had reached the rank of the divines. It certainly came across as a shock, but that wasn’t what caught my attention the most.
Eternal Youth ZZ.
Thanks to this skill, he could now live a long time without ever growing older.
And the rest of his skills, except for Sword Mastery, were all household-related. Almost all of them were MAX-ranked, too.
“It seems he’s lived agelessly for two millenniums,” Ssosia concluded, glancing at Alex.
“Is that possible?”
“For as long as a skill’s rank is high enough, then nothing is impossible. In the past, the Hero’s companions my dad killed were resurrected without memory to help new heroes.”
However, the reality of this era that treated me as the main character was different.
Although there were some companions who drowned in the sea due to an accident, there was no mass extermination, as in the original story.
Therefore, it wasn’t that strange for some of them to learn how to oppose natural death and live for over two millenniums.
But that was just a theory.
Two thousand years was a long time.
There was a high probability that a time would come when everything they did would feel boring, at which point they’d most likely want to retire. How could they overcome that problem?
The answer was obvious.
“Sieg, as you know, this is Alex. And the beauty hiding behind him is another companion. Her name is Chicken. I couldn’t find that word’s meaning even among the ancient languages, but apparently, that was what her past owner called her.”
“Chicken…”
Knowing its true definition, Sieg began to look even more confused.
I reacted similarly.
What kind of person would give her such a stupid name?
“Alex doesn’t like her real name, so he calls her Snow Woman. For your own safety, Sieg, you better call her that too. Lady Snow Woman? You can come out behind him. Although Sieg looks despicable, he is the Hero chosen by God.”
The same Snow Woman I knew peeked out from behind the Sword King’s back. And instead of hands, she waved her wings.
“Hello! As Lanuvel said, I am the Snow Woman! My full name is White Chicken. I like the name my previous owner gave me, but Alex doesn’t like it, so please call me Snow Woman. Since I have no hands, he takes care of me.”
The Snow Woman smiled sweetly, flapping her snow-white wings. Sieg, witnessing her beautiful face, looked fascinated.
But it didn’t last long.
“Kh?!”
Alex grabbed him by the throat and shouted.
“Don’t stare at my wife, whom I have taken care of for the past two millenniums, Hero, unless you want me to rip out your shameless eyes.”
The Sword King was a married man in the 5th curriculum.
[14th Round] 2000 Years of Love
“It’s time to get started!”
A feature of the USF race was the subjugation of heroes.
To escape from the Fantasy World, I just needed to absorb all the younger heroes who would dare confront the former MAX-Class Hero.
“Hey hubby, do you really think it’ll be that simple?”
“I didn’t say it would be easy.”
I didn’t know how long it would take.
I had already managed to absorb most of the heroes from the First Hero’s house, but even that wasn’t enough to make even the smallest hole in the system.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many heroes it would take to defeat it.
I didn’t have to think about it to know my situation wasn’t ideal.
However, I would never let these obstacles stop me. I wouldn’t be able to sleep well until I hit my father-in-law for leaving his business and his cowardly daughter with me.
Sharp outbursts of anger, loss of appetite, insomnia, constipation, xerophthalmia…
Because of him, I gained so many illnesses!
“You claim to be sick, yet you still have the strength to torment your wife!”
“That requires a different strength.”
I had heard that one’s sex drive increased when in a difficult position.
“Don’t misunderstand my words about absorbing heroes. There’s no point in causing senseless harm. The Fantasy World’s system is now run by the First Angel, which means if you want to take away her power, you’ll need to win the heroes over to your side.”
I had to win those idiots to my side?
“Elaborate.”
“You and my aunt have an almost equal position. The Angel comes first, then the Demon Lord. Together, you two are supplying this world with Divinity and Dark Energy. Unlike my father, who was considered a criminal, you’ve become the largest investor of this school.”
“Hoho!”
Largest investor! Interesting title.
“Before your rise, my aunt was the only investor and majority shareholder, but now I have part of her power over the system. You, as my husband, also became a shareholder when you invested in the institution.”
“Interesting…”
Before I was kidnapped by the vile members of the teaching staff, I was just a student. An innocent soul who didn’t know anything about society yet!
Therefore, I wasn’t as well versed in all these promotions and distribution of rights.
“Heeheehee! Drug Hero, are you a techie?”
“Shut up, Addicted Spirit. Go on, my cowardly wife.”
“Ahem. In such a situation, the company’s shareholders can decide who will be the CEO. However, this is a school. Both its students and teachers are considered “shareholders.” The faculty members are followers of my aunt, making it difficult to convince them, which is why we’ll target the students instead.”
“In other words, we need to win over the heroes?”
Then it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be! Students knew better than the teachers what the soul of their schoolmates craved, after all.
And in the past, I was a hero. I understood them more than most ever would.
“Don’t expect everything to go that smoothly. As you already know, Divinity accompanies the heroes throughout their journey in different forms such as the Holy Sword, Divine, Blessing, Relic, Divine Dragon. It doesn’t matter if they’re sleeping or fighting. My aunt sponsors their days. On the other hand, they have a clear awareness in their heads that the Demon Lord is villainous.”
“I see your point.”
We still had a long way to go.
But these difficulties were nothing compared to my 1st round.
The local savages forced me, a pathetic schoolboy who couldn’t even catch a cockroach, to kill the malevolent Demon Lord.
No matter how I thought about it, it was an unreasonable demand.
But I was able to handle everything within a decade!
Of course, it wasn’t a pleasant trip!
There were times when I had to run away because I was losing to some villager or when I had to drop my weapon and hide in the woods out of fear of goblins. I was beaten by a fragile female mercenary, after which I spent the whole day in bed, covered with a blanket.
But I didn’t give up. I saw it through to the very end.
“What’s with that look?”
My head’s just spinning from the mere thought that the teaching staff and this entire education system have turned an innocent boy into the successor of the Demon Lord and my insidious husband…”
“None of that was my fault.”
“I know. It’s the corrupted education system’s.”
I didn’t like it, but Ssosia and I looked at each other and smiled.
Our thoughts coincided.
***
Obviously, there was no dimension of Fantasy that didn’t have a Demon Lord.
Thanks to the eyes and ears of my clones, I was able to find out the location, plans, and condition of all the heroes that hadn’t graduated yet.
My friend Sieg was one such example.
“This simply cannot be! Sylvia is my woman! She should only look at me! Why is she flirting with male humans when she hated them as the leader of the elves?! How could this happen?!”
Unfortunately, he was unable to adapt to the 5th curriculum.
“Sir Hero, is there a problem?”
“There is! Listen to this, Lanuvel. Elf Princess Sylvia isn’t in the slave market and doesn’t even have a spirit! I don’t like the way she played with them!”
“Ooh… I would like you to come to your senses. Your strange behavior is delaying the trip.”
“No! I’m okay!”
Since I became the First Hero to kill the Demon Lord instead of my senior, changes took place in the Fantasy World.
Some aspects of it remained the same, though.
The “Dumpling Kingdom” was still located on the Central Continent, and Lanuvel, pretending to be cute, still summoned heroes.
But that was the end of it.
Each of the 12 floors of the palace had flush toilets that weren’t unisex but divided for males and females.
There was fresh air in the royal garden, which once smelled of ammonia, and the maids, who had finished cleaning early, sat on the benches and chatted nonchalantly.
I decided to eavesdrop a little.
“Sir Hero Sieg.”
“Just call me Sieg…”
“Okay, Sieg!”
“Aren’t you adjusting a little too fast?! The Lanuvel I know isn’t like this!”
“This isn’t the time to be fantasizing about ransoming Princess Sylvia from the black market! The Demon Lord has risen!” She replied hastily.
“Don’t worry. If I wanted to, I could kill him in six years. Sylvia is much more important right now. She hates humans, yet she now wanders their land. To add salt to my wound, she also decided to flirt with the prince! None of this makes sense!”
“There is nothing strange about that. Princess Sylvia ran away from home to marry a human, after all.”
“What?!”
That was surprising for me too.
“The ruler of the elves can only marry those of their own race to preserve their bloodline. Because of that law, there is now a psychological struggle between Prince Nasus and Princess Sylvia as they both attempt to avoid succeeding to the throne. However, when it became clear that Sylvia would still inherit the throne, she immediately ran away from home.”
She allegedly now traveled through human kingdoms and seduced young princes.
The pitiful Third Elf King Elfheim had seemingly completely changed the culture of his people while he ruled the kingdom.
Now they were friends with humans!
Perhaps they might even be on greater terms than that…
“This simply cannot be…”
My friend Sieg looked as if the end of the world had come.
“I don’t want to upset you, but if you want to marry Princess Sylvia, you must at least become a prince first. Right now, you’re just a boy who can’t even control his sex drive at the sight of elves.”
“Aren’t you too rude?!”
Lanuvel finally said something good.
Heroes like him could never defeat me, the Demon Lord, due to the limitations that bound those stuck in the regression loop.
▷ Race: Arch-Human
▷ Level: 19
▷ Job: Hero (Experience 500%)
▷ Skills: Male Strength Z, Interpretation A, Sword Mastery E, Endurance F, Magic Power F…
▷ Status: Depression
Upon his regression, Sieg was left with only one transcendental skill, Male Strength Z, but the rest of his skills disappeared, which were then replaced by new ones.
Male Strength Z was only useful in bed, and it also required that he had a woman he liked with him.
It was still better than having no skills at all, though.
“Isn’t it better not to have them at all? He doesn’t even have a woman he can use it with, and the more transcendental skills a hero has, the harder it becomes for them to upgrade other skills to Z-rank. Wouldn’t it have been better for him if all of his skills changed and he started over from scratch?”
Ssosia’s assessment of Sieg as she watched him with me was realistic and merciless.
As expected of a typical married lady with a cruel character.
“Cowardly hubby, don’t upgrade that stupid skill no matter what. It’s already hard for me to deal with you as it is.”
“I wouldn’t have done it even if you begged me.”
That aside, I noticed Sword King Alex took the initial training of the Heroes into his own hands, was nowhere to be seen.
Where did he go?
As if on cue, Lanuvel, amid scolding Sieg, suddenly opened up a new topic.
“Follow me. I want to introduce you to a companion.”
“Is it Alex?”
“Oh? How did you know?”
“Because it’s always him.”
I didn’t know how much he had progressed, but he had an expression similar to a hardened B-rank Hero.
Completely arrogant!
“I see… Then guess the other person.” She pouted.
“There’s someone else? That’s new…”
“She’s an incredible beauty!”
“Gorgeous? Oh! Sylvia!”
“No! Stop thinking about Princess Sylvia already. Someone like you shouldn’t even dream of her. You’re correct in guessing that she’s not of the human race, though.”
They walked outside the royal palace as they talked to each other.
Lanuvel swung her hips in different directions as usual, and Sieg walked behind her, smiling broadly.
Where were they going?
Not long after, they arrived at the house of some wealthy people, a luxurious mansion with a spacious garden and a pond.
I couldn’t believe that Alex lived in a place like this. A cave was much more suitable for a savage like him.
“Sir Alex! It’s me, Lanuvel! Open the door, please!”
“HM? What brings you over, Miss Lanuvel? Please wait a bit. Let me just dry my hands…” The Sword King immediately replied from within his abode.
After the click of a lock was heard, the door opened and appeared…
Oh! Oh my God!
“I think I’m going to go blind…”
“Why? Is this the first time you’ve seen a man in an apron? All you do is fight, so I doubt you’d be able to appreciate such a scene’s true worth. Househusbands are quite popular now, you know.”
Who did she take me for?
My father often used to cook in an apron instead of my mother, who had trouble cooking… Damn!
“Did you just say your mom can’t cook?”
“I never said that…”
“Hmm…” My cowardly wife looked at me intently.
Ignoring her, I returned my attention to Alex.
The way his white apron hugged his bulging muscles made him look pathetic.
I didn’t know how women could like such a worthless look.
I then looked at his stats.
▷ Race: Celestial Human
▷ Level: 999+
▷ Job: Sword God (Sword Mastery = Divinity ↑)
▷ Skills: Sword Mastery G, Eternal Youth ZZ, Love Z, Cooking MAX, Cleaning MAX…
▷ Status: Blessing, Happiness
His Sword Mastery had reached the rank of the divines. It certainly came across as a shock, but that wasn’t what caught my attention the most.
Eternal Youth ZZ.
Thanks to this skill, he could now live a long time without ever growing older.
And the rest of his skills, except for Sword Mastery, were all household-related. Almost all of them were MAX-ranked, too.
“It seems he’s lived agelessly for two millenniums,” Ssosia concluded, glancing at Alex.
“Is that possible?”
“For as long as a skill’s rank is high enough, then nothing is impossible. In the past, the Hero’s companions my dad killed were resurrected without memory to help new heroes.”
However, the reality of this era that treated me as the main character was different.
Although there were some companions who drowned in the sea due to an accident, there was no mass extermination, as in the original story.
Therefore, it wasn’t that strange for some of them to learn how to oppose natural death and live for over two millenniums.
But that was just a theory.
Two thousand years was a long time.
There was a high probability that a time would come when everything they did would feel boring, at which point they’d most likely want to retire. How could they overcome that problem?
The answer was obvious.
“Sieg, as you know, this is Alex. And the beauty hiding behind him is another companion. Her name is Chicken. I couldn’t find that word’s meaning even among the ancient languages, but apparently, that was what her past owner called her.”
“Chicken…”
Knowing its true definition, Sieg began to look even more confused.
I reacted similarly.
What kind of person would give her such a stupid name?
“Alex doesn’t like her real name, so he calls her Snow Woman. For your own safety, Sieg, you better call her that too. Lady Snow Woman? You can come out behind him. Although Sieg looks despicable, he is the Hero chosen by God.”
The same Snow Woman I knew peeked out from behind the Sword King’s back. And instead of hands, she waved her wings.
“Hello! As Lanuvel said, I am the Snow Woman! My full name is White Chicken. I like the name my previous owner gave me, but Alex doesn’t like it, so please call me Snow Woman. Since I have no hands, he takes care of me.”
The Snow Woman smiled sweetly, flapping her snow-white wings. Sieg, witnessing her beautiful face, looked fascinated.
But it didn’t last long.
“Kh?!”
Alex grabbed him by the throat and shouted.
“Don’t stare at my wife, whom I have taken care of for the past two millenniums, Hero, unless you want me to rip out your shameless eyes.”
The Sword King was a married man in the 5th curriculum.
