Parallel Memory

Chapter 772: Edolas Update

The capital of Edolas had never been this loud.

Flags covered the streets.

Banners hung from rooftops, balconies, towers, and even the walls of buildings that had once been considered too old to decorate. Bells rang from the central tower, their sound rolling across the city again and again.

People filled the streets from early morning.

Children ran between the crowds carrying small wooden swords.

Merchants had placed tables outside their shops, giving away food and drinks to anyone wearing the colors of the human domain.

Soldiers stood at intersections, but there was no tension in their posture.

They were smiling.

Some had removed their helmets.

Others had decorated their armor with ribbons.

The war was over.

The devils had been defeated.

And for the first time in years, Edolas was celebrating victory without fearing what might come next.

At the center of the capital stood a massive stage.

A large banner had been placed above it.

One name had been written across the cloth in letters large enough to be seen from nearly every street surrounding the square.

HIRO.

People shouted his name from below.

"Hiro!"

"Hero of the Devil War!"

"SS-Rank Hiro!"

"The Devil King Slayer!"

The chants rolled through the square.

Hiro stood upon the stage.

His expression was calmer than the people expected from someone who had just become the most celebrated warrior in Edolas.

He looked toward the enormous crowd gathered before him.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then the cheering became even louder.

A group of young adventurers stood near the front of the crowd.

One of them pointed toward the stage.

"Look! That’s really him!"

"I know."

"No, I mean really look at him! He’s the one who defeated the Devil King!"

"I heard he reached SS rank during the war."

"Not just reached it. He ascended to SS rank in the middle of the final battle."

Another adventurer shook his head.

"I still can’t believe it."

"You should. Everyone knows the story."

"Tell me again."

The others laughed.

"You’ve heard it ten times."

"I don’t care."

The first adventurer looked toward the stage.

"Mia led the war in the beginning. Everyone knows that. She was the one who organized the forces and pushed the army through the Devil Territory."

"Right."

"She was the reason the human forces managed to expand the front."

"But Hiro was the one who ended it."

The conversation around them continued.

"More than sixty-five percent of the Devil Boundary is under human control now."

"Sixty-five percent?"

"More than that. The official reports say the human domain has expanded over sixty-five percent of the former Devil Boundary."

"That much?"

"That’s what happens when the Devil King falls."

The young adventurer smiled.

"And when Hiro defeats him."

The others nodded.

The name passed from one group to another.

Hiro.

Hiro.

Hiro.

It was everywhere.

A group of elderly men stood beside a food stall, listening to the younger generation talk.

"One battle," one of them said.

"Not one battle," another corrected him. "The entire war."

"Of course. I meant the final battle."

The first man laughed quietly.

"I remember hearing that the Devil King had been considered impossible to defeat."

"He was."

"And yet Hiro did it."

"He did."

The old man looked toward the stage.

"Strange, isn’t it?"

"What is?"

"How quickly things can change."

His friend smiled.

"That’s what victory does."

"No. I mean the world."

He paused.

"Five years ago, nobody would have imagined that the human domain would stretch this far into Devil territory."

"Five years ago, nobody knew Hiro would become the strongest hero of his generation either."

A younger woman standing nearby overheard them.

"Strongest hero?"

The old man looked at her.

"You disagree?"

She immediately shook her head.

"No. I just think the title is too small."

Her friend laughed.

"Too small?"

"He defeated the Devil King after ascending to SS rank. What else would you call him?"

The conversation dissolved into laughter.

The bells rang again.

The crowd erupted.

On the stage, Hiro raised one hand.

The cheering slowly quieted.

A military commander stepped forward.

"Today," he announced, "we celebrate the end of the Devil War!"

The crowd roared.

"For generations, the Devil Boundary stood as a barrier between humanity and the lands beyond!"

Cheers erupted again.

"But that boundary no longer holds the same meaning!"

The commander pointed toward the massive map displayed behind the stage.

The territory belonging to humanity was marked across most of the former borderlands.

More than sixty-five percent of the Devil Boundary had been incorporated into the expanding human domain.

The crowd stared at it with pride.

"The war led by our forces has changed the future of Edolas!"

People cheered.

"Mia Lilith led the armies through the darkest stages of the campaign!"

The crowd applauded.

Some voices shouted her name.

"Mia!"

"Mia Lilith!"

She had become a symbol of the war’s beginning.

The commander continued.

"But when the final battle came..."

The square became quiet.

He turned toward Hiro.

"...one man stepped forward."

The crowd held its breath.

"Hiro."

The silence lasted only a moment.

Then the entire capital erupted.

"Hiro!"

"Hiro!"

"Hiro!"

The commander waited for the noise to settle.

"The Devil King stood before the armies of humanity."

His voice grew heavier.

"Behind him stood the remaining forces of the Devil Domain."

He raised his hand.

"And before him stood Hiro."

The crowd listened.

"The battle that followed became the decisive moment of the war."

A child near the front of the crowd whispered to his mother.

"Did Hiro really fight the Devil King alone?"

The woman smiled.

"That’s what they say."

"Wasn’t Mia there?"

"She was leading the army."

"But Hiro fought him?"

"Yes."

The child stared at the stage with wide eyes.

"And won?"

The mother nodded.

"He won."

The commander continued.

"At the height of that battle, Hiro broke through the limits that had held him back."

The crowd grew silent.

"His rank ascended."

A murmur spread through the square.

"SS rank."

The word seemed to carry its own weight.

People repeated it quietly.

"SS..."

"SS rank..."

The commander raised his voice.

"Hiro became an SS-rank warrior during the war."

The crowd exploded again.

Some soldiers raised their weapons.

Adventurers shouted.

Merchants cheered.

Children jumped onto their parents’ shoulders.

The bells rang.

Hiro simply stood there.

His eyes moved across the crowd.

There were thousands of faces.

People he had never met were celebrating him.

People who had never spoken to him knew his name.

People who had never seen the final battle were telling stories about what he had done.

The commander finally lowered his hand.

"And with that power..."

He paused.

"...Hiro defeated the Devil King."

The capital shook with applause.

For several minutes, nobody could hear anything else.

***********************************

Later that afternoon, the celebrations spread beyond the capital.

The news had already traveled through the human domain.

In a small town near the newly expanded territory, an innkeeper placed a new painting above the entrance.

It showed Hiro standing before the defeated Devil King.

A group of travelers gathered beneath it.

"That’s the official version?"

"Of course."

"It looks different from the stories I’ve heard."

"What stories?"

"That Mia was the one who carried most of the war."

"She did."

"So why is Hiro in the painting?"

"Because he ended it."

The traveler looked confused.

The innkeeper shrugged.

"Both things can be true."

"Mia led the war."

"Yes."

"Hiro won it."

"Yes."

"So they both mattered."

The innkeeper smiled.

"Exactly."

The traveler looked back at the painting.

Hiro stood at its center.

Behind him were human soldiers.

Beyond them was the territory humanity had conquered.

And in the distance stood the broken gates of the Devil Domain.

It was a simple image.

A heroic image.

The kind of image that would be remembered for generations.

*****************************

In another town, children were already playing a game based on the final battle.

"I’ll be Hiro!"

"You can’t always be Hiro!"

"I defeated the Devil King last time!"

"You’re always Hiro!"

"Because Hiro won!"

Another child grabbed a wooden sword.

"Fine! I’ll be the Devil King!"

The others laughed.

One girl raised her wooden staff.

"I’ll be Mia!"

The children arranged themselves in the street.

One pretended to command an army.

"Advance!"

The others charged.

"Humanity will win!"

"Hiro will defeat the Devil King!"

The children screamed with laughter.

An elderly woman watched from her doorway.

She smiled.

For her, the war was already becoming history.

A story that had ended.

A victory that had already been decided.

***************************************

As evening approached, the capital became brighter.

Thousands of lamps were lit.

Fireworks rose above the city.

People gathered around public screens displaying images of the war.

The same story was repeated everywhere.

Mia had led humanity through the war.

Hiro had become an SS-rank warrior.

Hiro had defeated the Devil King.

Humanity had taken control of more than sixty-five percent of the former Devil Boundary.

The war was over.

The Devil King was dead.

The human domain had expanded.

And Hiro had become the hero who stood at the center of it all.

A group of soldiers drank together at a table.

"To Hiro!"

"To Mia!"

"To victory!"

Their cups collided.

One soldier leaned back.

"You know what amazes me?"

"What?"

"That this was always how it was supposed to end."

His companion frowned.

"Of course."

"No, I mean..."

The soldier looked toward the capital lights.

"Hiro defeating the Devil King. Humanity taking the Devil Boundary. Mia leading the campaign."

He smiled.

"It feels like everything finally fell into place."

Nobody questioned the statement.

Why would they?

It was history.

Everyone remembered it.

Everyone had lived through it.

Everyone knew what had happened.

There was no argument.

No uncertainty.

No missing pieces.

No reason to question the past.

The victory had happened.

Hiro had won.

That was simply the truth.

***********************************

Far from the celebrations, however, the night was strangely quiet.

Beyond the outer districts of the capital, a narrow road passed through a forest untouched by the festivities.

The sounds of the city could barely be heard there.

No cheering.

No bells.

No fireworks.

Only the wind moving through the trees.

A lone figure walked along the road.

He stopped.

Behind him, the capital glowed against the night sky.

Hiro’s name could still be heard faintly in the distance.

The figure looked back.

Something about the celebration felt wrong.

Not because Hiro had won.

Not because humanity had expanded.

Not because Mia had led the war.

Those things made sense.

What felt wrong was something much smaller.

A detail.

A feeling.

Something that should have been there.

But wasn’t.

The figure stood silently for several seconds.

Then he continued walking.

Behind him, the capital celebrated a victory everyone remembered.

A victory whose history was already complete.

And somewhere beneath that history, something that had once existed was no longer there.

No one in the capital noticed.

No one questioned it.

No one remembered that anything had ever been different.

The bells continued ringing.

And Hiro’s name continued to fill the night.