This Hero is Sleeping!

Bald spots shone through the haphazardly yanked-out blonde hair.

Gouged eyes, maggots dancing where sight should have been.

Dried blood stuck under the flared nostrils.

A mouth, curved open in horror.

Scratches covering the cheeks and the chin.

And a neck torn apart like paper. Small threads of dried flesh still dangling on its edges.

The head bore an uncanny resemblance to the ghost he had just seen.

"Hehe… hehehe…" the village head's laugh resounded in Claude's ears.

"God fucking damn it. I didn't fucking sign up for this."

"Eeeek!" The village head screamed and turned back at Claude's lament. His eyes flared up and body trembled. "Y-you! It's you!"

Without a word, Claude scrunched his face up in a tight frown and walked over to the old man. His fists clenched.

A tap sounded as his feet fell on the ground, one after the other.

The old man shrieked. He grabbed the decapitated head in his hands and stepped back. With each step Claude took, the old man's trembling grew.

"Y-you won't… you won't be spared! The beast! T-t-the divine—

Claude twisted his hands.

—"AHH!"

And punched the old man in the face.

The old man flew back and crashed against the window, breaking it into bits.

Without hesitating, Claude walked ahead.

"What is that fucking thing? And what is that head?"

His cold voice pierced through the village head's ears like a hundred sharp needles. The concussed old man barely managed to set himself up.

Claude didn't miss the madder tint in his eyes.

"J-judgement… You… judgment!" The old man spun on his heels. He pulled the head of the woman back and screamed. "REMEL!! BRING THAT BEAST AND KILL THESE RATS!"

Claude rushed up to the old man. His eyes fell outside the window.

Standing below with the same crazed tint in his eyes was the village accountant he had met in the beginning.

The head. The old man was already snapping out the hair off this head, it was all to lure the snake from the underground spot.

The old man tossed the head ahead.

"As if."

Claude casually pulled the old man's collar back and knocked him down. His hands stretched out and grabbed the hair of the decapitated head before it could fall.

Remel, not having thought they would fail, yelped out loud.

"Stay there, bastard. I'll come right now—"

"CLAUDE! Found you, you traitor!!"

A chill ran down Claude's spine.

In that very instant, with the speed of a meteorite out to wipe out an ancient race of lizards, a cannonball of water rushed at Claude's stomach.

The intense mass struck him and sent him flying back into the room before flooding it with water as well. The head that Claude held fell off from his hands and right down the window.

Standing below was an auburn-haired beauty, and flying behind that beauty was a mass of water with dozens of people trapped within it.

The beauty, Elric, laughed as he watched Claude get knocked out. He spread his arms and cackled out loud when something from the sky and into his hands.

Elric grabbed it almost by instinct.

As he peered into it, his eyes fell on the bunch of maggots slithering about the dried-up head of a woman.

"Uwaa! Yikes!" Elric tossed the head into the sky and slithered back, covering his body out of disgust.

The head spun in the air. The disrespect shown to the dead made even the maggots disappointed as they left their abode and fell to the ground.

The spinning head twirled, and fell right into the hands of the bespectacled accountant of the village. Young Remel.

"Ah…" Remel, confused, looked at the beauty in front of him, and then at the wall where Claude had just been pummeled to oblivion. The redhead was gone, and the beauty was too busy washing his hands with the truckload of water he had brought around.

"Beast…" Remel muttered. "Divine beast! Judgment!"

Leaving those words which Elric found to be too damn cryptic and fitting, Remel turned on his heels and ran away.

Unfortunately, Elric was too grossed out to give chase before he finishes thoroughly washing his hands.

Scrub front and back, ten seconds each, his water moved to his will so no problems there.

"Gah, fuck…" Claude held the edge of the window and peered out. His hair dripped with water and his face contorted in pain. "Elric! What in the world was that for?!"

"Oh? You still walk, traitor?"

"When did I betray you?"

"You didn't?"

"I didn't," Claude replied with utmost calmness.

"Oh, ok then. Sorry about that…" Elric lowered his head. It seemed his superb high-iq theory was wrong this time. Then again, maybe the Rothschild paid him once and he was going split the money now. Elric would do the same.

"Elric, dude, where's the damn head?"

"Oh? That thing? You have weird tastes."

Claude took a look at the unconscious villagers floating in Elric's sphere of water. As beautiful as his friend was, he was also an idiot. Those villagers had long since keeled over after drowning alive.

Shaking his head, Claude continued.

"So, basically," he said, the pain stinging his stomach. "The snake seems to be some divine beast, and I believe that divine beast was originally a child, and that head which you just saw belonged to the child's mother."

"Oh, that's horrible. Why would anyone do that?"

"Right?" Claude pursed his lips and nodded. "Well, coming back. It seems that bastard just now took that head away to lure the snake out and try to attack us. For reference, it seems that everyone in this village was involved in making that little girl a snake and killing her parents, who were likely the lords of this village."

Elric crossed his arms and peered up at Claude. Hundreds of thoughts rushed through his mind.

Help. Save. Justice. Retribution.

He could bring it all, but beyond everything.

Only one thing took priority. Their safety.

"Can we kill that snake?"

"Hm. I don't think so. Not without a tough fight. If I had to say, it's about five Gardars strong."

Gardar, the chief of the Orcs that they had fought in the Mystic Forest. On a Gardar scale, the enemy seemed to have a high value of five.

"Then, shouldn't we stop him before he can?" Elric asked.

Claude raised his palm up.

"Exactly."

"Right. Well, then move, Claude!"

Claude jumped off the building, and the two of them set off.

Naturally, they were way too late.