Prologue

I usually didn't drink and slept early and woke up early but this past week I had insomnia and severe depression.

I drank too much tonight, in fact I drank too much all this week because of the depression caused by the retirement of my former party members who preferred to leave me to join other heroes.

Their departure was probably due to my incompetence, tomorrow I will convince them to come back to my party and everything will be as before.

That's what I told myself while walking in the corridors of the imperial palace before stopping and turning my head towards the badly closed door on my right which let me see through the small space between the frame and the door of the room in which Lisa was staying a spectacle that left me amazed.

She was kneeling on the floor her long red hair free of the string that usually tied it, without her usual armor almost completely undressed her mouth between the legs of the hero Raven sitting on the bed while making obscene noises.

This image broke my heart slightly but I didn't let my emotions overwhelm me, she was anyway free to do what she wanted even if the previous scene made my heart slightly bitter.

I was walking towards my room when I stopped to see in the garden further, a woman with short purple hair and voluptuous figure and pearly white skin without her usual long skirt that gave her an elegant air worthy of her title of daughter of marquis palms against a bench while behind her, Shin whose pants were lowered was moving his hips while he held firmly her breasts while she moaned in a low voice.

She was the old magician at my party.

"Miranda..."

My already shaken heart couldn't take it anymore, tears were running down my cheeks, Miranda the smiling girl who always gave me treats when I was still a wannabe hero in Lord Meizel's territory, the girl who smiled at me after each of my trainings, the girl I had promised to protect under the oak tree that day and who kissed my cheek smiling at my promise, the girl who made me want to be a hero.

The girl I loved.

I suddenly felt betrayed, I understood then why she and Lisa suddenly left my party a week ago, I felt my whole being plunged into a despair that I had only felt the day my village was destroyed by the monsters.

I suddenly felt the urge to go and interrupt their lovemaking and cut them with my sword, but I held back, wiping the tears from my cheeks and continuing to walk as if I had lost my soul.

It was then that I passed the room of Ana and Selena, the twin priestesses and former members of my group.

From the hallway I could hear barely concealed cries of pleasure echoing but the mental shock I had just experienced made me pay almost no attention to them I just felt the emptiness in my chest grow.

I walked unconsciously with a livid look on my face until I left the guest pavilion under the cold gaze of the guards before leaving the palace completely a few minutes later, finally stopping in a dark street of the imperial city of Kaloran clenching my fists while crying.

The feelings I felt and the pain were unbearable at that moment, I sat on the ground in tears while unsheathing my sword at my waist before using it to draw a hexagram on the ground with cryptic symbols before placing an old skin parchment I had received from the first dungeon I conquered with my party.

I still remember that day as one of the best days of our lives, now that once joyous memory seemed bitter, maybe it was the best day of my life but not those of my former party members.

"If only I had been more competent, maybe they wouldn't have left me".

I smiled sadly as I wiped away my tears while cutting the skin of my left palm with my sword letting my blood drip onto the skin parchment which then started to burn with black flames.

This parchement is the only valuable treasure I received that day, when it came into my possession it became invisible to anyone but me while a mysterious and indescribable voice told me that it was an object to use with less runes engraved on the ground will allow me to make a wish in exchange for my soul.

Of course I never used the evil item unworthy of a hero and I never told anyone about it.

"I will not be able to bear to live thinking back to today, I am an incompetent despite all my efforts, I am a pitiful hero, the world deserves better, in exchange for my soul I wish that a better one take my place."

As soon as I finished speaking these words the parchment burned completely and my vision became blurred I suddenly felt an unbearable heat engulf my whole being before I lost consciousness.