Kiraware Yūsha ni Tensei Shitanode Aisare Yūsha o Mezashimasu!

[Hated Hero, Getting Closer to the Truth]

What had happened between Raul and Eureka?

In order to unravel the truth of that matter, we decided to first move to a more discreet location.

Our destination was behind the research building.

Here, no one would hear our conversation.

“Okay, now please tell me, Raul. What happened between you and Eureka?”

“…………” Raul appeared to find it difficult to speak, but still, he firmed his determination and began talking after taking a deep breath. “You are aware that Eureka and I are from the slums, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I already heard of it.”

So, something did happen when they had been in the slums, after all.

“…It was about a year ago that I moved from the slums where I’d used to live to the slums near the royal capital, and around the same time Eureka also came there. Although the circumstances that led us to end up in that place were different, we hit it off right away, partly because we were close in age, then we started living together.”

“Is that so…”

Hmm.

I didn’t see any particular problem there.

If anything, I’d say that they had made a good decision to live together.

A boy and girl, who were close in age and had lost their families, met through a chance encounter.

At first, they were only licking each other wounds, but as they got to know each other better, as they spent their time together, buds of love eventually began to sprout between them—was surely not what had happened.

Raul was the so-called ‘dense protagonist’ in the original novel.

Raul’s harem didn’t come together because he seduced the heroines. They all came to love him because he’d helped them in some way or another, at least that was how most heroines ended up joining his harem in【The Rise of the Weakest Holy Swordsman】.

Raul himself didn’t seem to care much about it… hence why Tayte, who was tied up with Raul in the early, gradually faded away and disappeared from the story.

……Mm?

Could it be that… Eureka was supposed to be a member of Raul’s harem, too?

After being defeated, Barrett disappeared into the slums, and Jarvis turned herself to atone for her sins, but Eureka’s future after then wasn’t depicted. Was this why?

Did the author intend to have Eureka reappear as a member of the harem later on?

Hey, hey… instead of solving my doubts, this was just giving me more questions, wasn’t it?

Well, either way, I had to ask for more information!

“Since you lived together, you were on good terms with Eureka, right?”

“Y-yes, you can say so… We collected edible wild grasses and nuts, sold them on the central street of the royal capital, and lived on the income we got from there. However…” At that point, Raul paused for a moment. But he soon continued, “One day, slave traders came and tried to kidnap Eureka.”

“Slave traders?”

Slave trading was an illegal line of business.

They must be conducting their business in secret.

In most cases, children living in the slums had no relatives. No one would notice even if they disappeared out of nowhere, and even if some people did, few would care enough to actively search for them.

But this episode wasn’t told in the original storyline.

Just the fact that Raul and Eureka used to live together when they were young came as a huge shock for me as a fan of the original novel. I simply couldn’t imagine it considering Eureka’s attitude toward Raul before he got kicked out of the hero party.

“Then… what happened after that?”

“I somehow chased the slave traders away. But at that time someone from Astor Academy was nearby and had been watching everything play out…”

“?! I see… That’s when you were invited to enroll in the academy, right?”

“Yes…”

…I see.

I was starting to see the full picture, now.

“At that time, Raul, you were the only one who got invited, weren’t you?”

“…………”

Raul silently nodded at my question.

Raul had gotten invited to the academy, whereas Eureka had remained in the slums.

That was when a rift started to form between them.