“I mean . . . Kizuna did try her best when negotiating with them,” L’Arc conceded. I took Motoyasu, Ren, and Itsuki into consideration, it seemed to take a certain breed of weirdo to get selected as one of the four holy heroes.

“I heard when Kizuna was talking with them, just like with you, Naofumi, they had some kind of advance knowledge,” L’Arc explained.

“So the same thing here. It was called an ‘update’ or something. I guess that’s what it was,” I extrapolated. I’d thought Kizuna holding the negotiations might have helped things go differently, but it looked like things had turned out the same here as in my world. Capturing or holding heroes against their will could create international problems. The only way was to take it slowly, a little at a time . . . just like I had done.

There was also the issue that the four benevolent animals had indeed appeared in this world and started to cause chaos, but Glass and her allies had defeated them pretty quickly. That meant the four holy heroes in this world hadn’t experienced many setbacks. I almost felt sorry for them.

“Then one day we received a report that the other three heroes, everyone apart from Kizuna, weren’t responding anymore. We conducted an investigation. The vassal weapon holders revealed that they hadn’t considered any of them suitable to be the four holy heroes and defeated them,” Glass said. I had heard an outline from Ethnobalt, but L’Arc and the others were doing a better job of filling in the details. Appalled at the killing of members of the holy heroes, Kizuna had led a gathering of her allies and representatives from each nation. The main issue on the table had been the purging of the vassal weapon holders who had perpetrated the killings. It was a known fact that the four holy heroes were the pillars of the world to which they were summoned. Losing even one of them increased the threat posed by the waves. As the discussions turned to how those responsible had to be punished, someone who Kizuna had considered an ally—but also someone with a few personality issues—attacked L’Arc right there in the conference venue. Personality issues or not, he had also been a pretty good fighter.

After a tussle in close combat, L’Arc had dropped back and tried to unleash some skills just to incapacitate the attacker. Then his scythe had vanished from his hands and transferred over to the traitor. The enemies had then proceeded to show off the holy weapons that they had captured. There had been far more than one traitor too, and faced with overwhelming odds—and with key leaders from each nation taken hostage—the party had been forced to retreat. It was during that retreat that Kizuna had stepped forward in an attempt to buy the time for Glass and the other leaders to escape.

Although she didn’t have the ability to attack people herself, Kizuna did have access to a forbidden weapon, and she had been forced to use that to protect everyone. She had combined her strength with Glass’s. And though the cost would have been high, they had attempted to get through the crisis together.