The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1109

The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1109

Chapter 1109
After hearing Illyna’s question, Perserque quickly pieced the situation together.
She had already heard from Davey that Reina was constantly suppressing something inside her. It looked like that ‘something’ had finally broken loose while she was in Alberta.
She figured the cause was probably Davey and Illyna. After all, Illyna had a version of happiness with Davey that Reina herself had never been able to obtain.
Even if Reina didn’t harbor romantic feelings for Davey, it was very possible that she had envied the joyful version of herself that she saw in Illyna. That, or perhaps she’d been overwhelmed by a sense of self-loathing.
Perserque was almost certain that was what triggered the reaction. Illyna must have overheard the two while they were having that moment.
Perserque didn’t know the exact details, but she knew there was definitely no way Davey hadn’t recognized Illyna’s presence. What he hadn’t anticipated was that Illyna would remember what she heard, becoming so shaken by it.
It was a disaster born of carelessness.
“Illyna...”
“Perserque, just tell me the truth.” Illyna downed her wine in one go. “What she said... is it true?”
All sorts of thoughts raced through Perserque’s mind in that brief moment. She wasn’t sure if it was really okay to tell the truth to her there, and didn’t have the confidence that nothing bad would come of it if she did. Unfortunately, the more she hesitated, the more desperation that filled Illyna’s expression.
“So it’s true, isn’t it? That’s why I couldn’t help but feel that she couldn’t just be some nobody whenever I saw her.”
“Illyna...”
“Why didn’t you say anything?! Why was I the only one left in the dark?!” Tears began streaming down her cheeks. She screamed, “You knew everything about her! Who she is, what she means!!! And you still didn’t tell me?!”
Seeing her frustration boiling over, Perserque couldn’t muster a response.
Overwhelmed by the flood of sorrow and betrayal, Illyna finally broke down, throwing herself into Perserque’s arms and crying uncontrollably. “You said I’m me! Then what am I, and who is she supposed to be?!”
Reina had appeared long before Davey and Illyna ever became close. Everyone had known before Illyna did.
Even without Perserque saying anything, Illyna had pieced it all together with only a few clues.
“What am I... to you, Perserque? What am I to Davey? I loved him so much, I really do!”
Listening to her sob at the betrayal, Perserque let out a heavy sigh. At the same time, she was confused.
Davey had once coughed up blood and suffered severe penalties just from slightly hinting that Reina was Illyna de Pallan. Despite Reina becoming a Celestial, that fact hadn’t changed. Davey had always made sure to keep some distance between her and Illyna.
Yet it was all for naught.
“Illyna... has anything felt strange about your body?”
When she shook her head without a word, Perserque fell back into deep thought.
Davey seemed fine, as did Illyna. That must mean the problem was Reina. Still, if she had suffered any kind of side effect, Perserque knew there was no way he would’ve ignored it.
She had no clue what was going on.
Illyna still remembered the fact that Reina was the same kind of existence as herself, and yet she wasn’t suffering from any penalties due to that.
Perserque was sure that Davey hadn’t made the naive mistake of thinking there’d be no problem just because Illyna had simply overheard the complaints Reina had shared with him.
The laws of the world weren’t some childish game, and there was no way he hadn’t already tested something like that.
In fact, he had indeed tested it once in the past. As a result, Illyna had lost all her memories of Reina. Davey, on the other hand, had vomited blood for days and suffered horrifying internal injuries.
In other words, revealing her true identity wasn’t something that could be taken lightly. Even so, no one was suffering any consequences.
Perserque could only come to the conclusion that something had turned out wrong. After Illyna had not only remembered everything but also reached the full truth on her own, there was no point in trying to hide it anymore.
“Illyna, let me correct one thing about what you said.” Perserque gently wiped the tears from her face and spoke softly. “Neither Davey, Aeria, nor I kept the truth from you to deceive you.”
It was to protect her.
“You were simply unable to accept the truth about her, and couldn’t ever remember it, either.”
“Who is she, really?”
After a short pause, Perserque replied, “She’s someone who lived a deeply sorrowful life... the Illyna de Pallan from a parallel world.”
Illyna was speechless.
“She came from a world where Davey didn’t exist. It was a world ravaged by war with the demons and filled with pain. She’s the only one who crossed over to this world.”
On top of that, she had been incapable of continuing to live in her original body. As such, she went through death once and was reconstructed into a new physical form. She was a pitiful woman who had lost the last shred of her identity, her original body, in the process.
Illyna’s eyes widened at those words.
“She is you, just slightly different.”
“So that’s why she can wield the longsword like me.”
Perserque sighed again, then told her everything. She told her how Reina had met Davey, and why she had gone so far as invoking a Saint Miracle to cross over from her world to theirs.
She could no longer hide that truth, the same one they had kept to themselves in order to protect the Illyna in front of her.
She soon told her who Reina was and everything else about her, like what kind of life she had lived; how she came to this world; what had changed; and what choice she had made to keep on living.
* * *
“
Ugh!
”
A fierce blizzard blew through a towering, snow-covered mountain. Its sharp winds carried a bitter cold through the air.
Davey casually planted a flag at a suitable spot, as casual as if on a field trip, and asked, “How is it? Nice view, right? This is the top of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on Earth. In fact, it’s over eight thousand meters above sea level.”
“So this... is Earth?”
“Yup.” Davey chuckled lightly, but Reina’s expression remained troubled as she looked around.
She was wearing thin and flowing clothes, clearly not suited for such cold. Fortunately, the blanket Davey had wrapped around her was a magical artifact, a piece of specialized warming gear designed for environments of extreme cold. Thanks to its effects, Reina didn’t feel any of the icy chill.
“What comes to mind when you see this?” Davey asked.
“I don’t know. Nothing, really.”
There was no deep reason Davey had brought her there in particular. She’d been overwhelmed by intense emotion, and he simply thought she needed to be somewhere cold to cool her head.
“I don’t think your suffering came from not being able to settle down somewhere—or from not having someone to love, for that matter.”
If that were the case, he knew she wouldn’t be in so much pain. However, if she truly was envious of Illyna de Pallan, he knew that’d be a problem.
“I came all this way to protect her, and came here for the peace of this continent.” She slumped to the ground and covered her face with her hands. “And now, after all that... all I can feel is envious of the life she’s living.”
She had likely been hearing periodic news about Illyna during her travels, serving to keep her forever in the back of her mind.
They were indeed the same person. Unfortunately, one had to live her entire life hiding who she was, while the other had found happiness. That same happiness depended on the sacrifice of the former, namely Reina.
She had once believed that just surviving, persisting when she was supposed to die, would be enough for her.
“I’m sorry. I know this is shameless of me.”
Davey pressed her. “What do you want?”
It was a desire that could never be fulfilled. Reina couldn’t live as the Illyna in Heins Territory. She couldn’t have the same happiness that Illyna did.
“All I can offer you is a life where you can be Reina, and be just as happy as Illyna.
Oh,
might I offer you a cup of noodles in this trying time?” Davey pulled a cup of instant noodles from his Pocket Plane, pouring in the boiling water and handing it off to her.
Sniffling, Reina accepted the noodles and started to eat, slurping quietly with relish.
‘So both Illyna and Reina like ramen, eh?’
It made sense, since their soul was the same even if the body wasn’t.
Slurp. Slurp.
The sight of her slurping ramen at the peak of Mount Everest, tears trickling down her face in the midst of a razor-sharp blizzard, made Davey smile.
After finishing the broth to the last drop, Reina let out a hollow laugh. “Sorry. Still... I feel a little bit better now.”
She had felt envy toward Illyna, watching her laugh and live as Illyna de Pallan. It was only natural when Reina was an outsider in the world.
“If there’s anything you want to do, just tell me. I’ll make it happen.”
Reina went quiet for a moment, then said, “I don’t know. I don’t even know what I want anymore...”
“Do you want to go back to your world?”
She flinched at the question.
If she went back, she could live again as Illyna de Pallan. That world no longer faced a looming war, since Davey had already prevented that. Even so, it was probably a place filled with trauma for her regardless.
“If you really want to go back, I’ll wring the method out of Goddess Freyja herself. You may be different from Illyna, but you still mean something to me. If there’s anything I can do to help, I want to do it.”
“
Ah.
” She made a troubled expression.
Davey shook his head. “You don’t want to go back, do you?”
“No...” she muttered, then looked up at him. “I... I...”
She trembled. “I want to stay by your side...”
“Reina.”
“I... I just want to stop. I want to stop everything, and finally live like a normal person.” She sobbed as she clung to his chest. “At first, I didn’t know what it’d mean. I just thought it was nice to watch a peaceful world, and I wanted to help keep that peace going.”
However, over time, the emptiness inside her had grown. She didn’t fully understand why, but Davey strongly suspected it was because he was the one who had created her.
It was like a child clinging to a parent. She didn’t harbor romantic feelings toward him. It was just that, in this entire world, only two people could truly understand her.
Davey and Aeria.
She wasn’t asking for anything complicated. She simply wanted to return to a place where she could be with the people that understood her.
Even long-wandering souls would eventually return home. Yet for Reina, her only home had been the forest of the Western Continent. In that forest, there was no Davey, no Aeria.
It was almost miraculous that she had wandered all that time without saying a word of complaint to anyone.
“I just... want to go home now...”
He figured what she meant by home was not the parallel world, but the Heins Territory he and Aeria were in.
Davey sighed and looked down at the tearful woman holding onto him.
He understood her. Deeply. Unfortunately, he couldn’t just bring her back since it could put both her and Illyna into serious danger.
As he was gently consoling her, the space in front of them tore open.
“Come to Heins Territory. I’ll help you.”
Davey’s eyes widened at the sudden figure. “Hey?!”
The figure spoke again, “Hello, Reina... no, Illyna de Pallan.”
“You’re?!” Even Reina was stunned as she turned to the girl who had just appeared.
“You watched over me from the shadows, didn’t you? Then I guess maybe now it’s my turn to protect you.”
Someone who should never have realized the truth appeared.
Illyna spoke, “Davey, take her in.”
He just stared at her in shock. “How do you...?”
It didn’t make sense to him.
“I know you made a promise to us, but... I don’t want to just leave her like this.” Her voice was somber, almost grieving.
“Are you okay? How did you even...?”
“I heard it,” Illyna informed him.
‘Heard it? You just heard it, and you’re still fine?’
If that were all it took, Davey wouldn’t have gone to such extreme lengths to keep the two of them apart for so long.
He knew better than anyone what kind of terrifying penalties came with knowing the truth. Panicking, he reached out and pulled Illyna into his arms before quickly pouring his mana into her body.
“
Ugh?!
” Her face turned bright red.
Davey scanned her, his expression grave. He checked thoroughly for any internal damage, yet found nothing. “W-What?”
Nothing was wrong.
“What in the world...? What’s going on?”
Something was seriously,
seriously
off.
* * *
After Illyna had suddenly left for Mount Everest, Aeria and Perserque sat quietly, glancing at each other to consult.
“She’s... so pitiful,” Aeria said softly. “But... isn’t Davey’s decision the most important part of this?”
Perserque agreed, “You’re right, I think so too.”
“Even if Davey says it’s okay...”
“Reina isn’t just some stranger, Aeria. She’s no different from Illyna herself. Still...” Perserque shook her head slowly. “I don’t think she holds any romantic feelings for Davey.”
What Reina needed most was not love in the romantic sense, but instead a warm and peaceful place where she could rest. Somewhere to feel safe.
“She needs a home.”
“That’s why you didn’t stop Illyna, isn’t it?”
“Sure. People are free to misunderstand things however they want.” Perserque giggled, and Aeria simply responded with a bitter smile as she signed a few documents in front of her.
With Amy, the acting lord of Heins Territory and Davey’s maid, now busy with her upcoming wedding, Aeria and Perserque had been splitting the administrative work between them.
Even Amy, who once vowed to spend the rest of her life serving Davey out of guilt, had begun reclaiming a life of her own.
“You’re quite mischievous sometimes, you know that?”
“More importantly, we should investigate what happened...” Perserque turned to the window with a worried expression.
Nothing had happened, and the situation was too quiet. It was like the calm before a storm.
Every warning bell in her mind screamed that something had gone wrong, and that they needed to get it under control that instant. Even so, she didn’t try to stop it.
Whether one side was the one to break or the other side was, they’d just have to watch and see.
“Aeria, want to make a bet with me?”
“A bet?”
“Yeah. On what happens when they come back...”

Chapter 1109