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Beast Tamer Who Got Kicked Out From the Hero’s Party Chapter 36 Part 2

CHAPTER 36: AND THUS, THE HERO IS…… PART 2

「……………」

When Arios remained silent, Aggath continued to speak.

「Unlike before, I promise to welcome you aboard as a proper companion. Of course, I also promise to improve your treatment from here on out. Needless to say, if it is a proper reward for your work that you want, I will promise you that, too. How do you like that, Rein?　Not a bad deal, wouldn’t you say?」

「Huh!? Are you seriously suggesting that we should travel together with that scum again!?」

「I think that the recent events speak for themselves more than anything else. We do need Rein’s support if we want our journey to continue without interruption. Can’t you see it?」

「Well, yeah, I guess…… Exploring on our own without a proper recoinessence is really troublesome…… Yes, in that case, I guess that’s the only option that we have left for us. I guess that Rein can rejoin us as a special exception.」

「How about you, Mina?」

「Well, let’s see…… He does seem to have little to no self-awareness about the noble cause of our mission, but I guess that at this point in time some matter of a compromise is needed for us to move forward…… Yes, I don’t mind letting him rejoin us, either.」

「What about you, Arios?」

「……………」

Arios did not respond.

Perhaps interpreting his silence as an affirmation, Aggath proceeded on his own.

「So, there you have it. How about we just let bygones be bygones, wash away those ill-feelings of the past and start fresh with traveling together? I’m sure the those Ultimate Species that you are using are going to be really useful in our quest of taking the Demon Lord down.」

「……………」

In the light of that proposition, I was completely silent.

No, that’s not quite it, really.

To be precise, I was simply too stunned after hearing that proposal to even be able to conjure a single word from my mouth.

First they kick me out of the party on the pretense of me being useless, and then they want to take me back in, only because they came to realize that they are unable to accomplish anything without my help?
.
Are these people actually right to the head? Or are they really insane?

If it was about me, I would never be able to think of something so preposterous, much less to be able to blabber it out loud.

Besides, what’s with that supercilious way of saying that I can come back? It was as if they were allowing me to do that, even though they really did not want to do it.

Yes, I know that those guys are not the most humble of the bunch, but surely there exist better ways and words in which they could say it.

「Nyaaahhh…… Now, this really makes me mad, nya!」

Starting with Kanade, everyone was making angry faces one after another.

And seeing everyone’s faces become like that made me feel strangely calm for some reason.

It was something that was all about me, but I had friends with me who were ready to get angry on my behalf.

Realizing just how wonderful companions they really were, it was something that made me feel really happy.

Now I knew it. As long as they are by my side, that’s all that I need.

With friends and companions like these, I don’t need anything else.

And so, without saying anything, I just turned my back on Aggath.

「Does that mean that you are going to decline our offer?」

「Do you really need to ask me that?　Did you honestly think I’d be happy and overjoyed to go back to your Party just because you said so?」

「Think about it, Rein. Once we manage to defeat the Demon Lord, you will have fame. Social position. Fortune beyond your wildest imagination. Are you seriously going to reject all that?」

「As if I would ever want any of that in the first place.」

Kanade.

Tanya.

Sora and Luna.

I first looked at every single one of my trusty companions, and then I turned around to answer Aggath’s question.

「As long as I have my friends with whom I can trust with my life, that’s all I will ever need. I don’t need anything else.」

***

After Rein and his Ultimate Species companions left the inn, Aggath let out a long and deep sigh.

「My, oh my…… Looks like your attempt at persuading him ended up in a spectacular failure.」

「Oh, he’s pissing me off so much……!! Even though we all told him that we would welcome him back, unworthy as he is, he still turned his back on us and ignored us! Are you fucking serious right now!? I knew it, he’s just some worthless bug! And we don’t need no stupid bugs in our party!」

「So in the end…… He turned out to be just some plain and ordinary nobody, with no sense of duty or mission whatsoever. And I guess that it’s only natural that he could never even hope to understand our noble and lofty ideals.」

The three of them began to badmouth Rein as they pleased without holding back.

A mere kid who can’t see the big picture of their great mission.

A mere garbage bug whose only purpose in life is to get itself squashed.

An ordinary person who can’t understand the meaning of the mission and that it was something that God himself bestowed upon them.

Why did that situation end up the way it did?

Why did he refuse their invitation to come back to the Party?

They did not try to understand that they were actually the cause of Rein’s refusal, and without a shred of awareness of that fact, they just continued to bad-mouth Rein as if he was the only one who was responsible for it.

In the midst of all of this, Arios was the only one who remained silent.

And he continued to be silent, even after Rein and his companions had already left.

「Hey, hey, surely you think so too, right, Arios? We don’t need such a sore loser in our Party, do we?」

Rin spoke to Arios, without any particular intentions, asking for him to just nod his head and confirm her own bias.

And surely, Arios gave a small nod in response to her words.

「…… Yeah. You’re right. Absolutely.」

「I know, right?　We don’t need someone like that! At all!」

「…… Yes, that’s right. We don’t need someone like Rein. Nobody needs someone like Rein.」

「See? I knew that Arios would surely understand where I’m coming from!」

Thinking that she managed to find someone who was thinking exactly in the way she was, Rin was in an extremely good mood.

But as a matter of fact, Arios hadn’t listened to Rin at all.

He didn’t listen to the other three and let his dark thoughts run through his mind completely unchecked.

Arios then gently held his cheek.

It still throbbed where Rein had hit him the other day.

The pain was making him angry and growing even more hateful.

「…… I am done with Rein and everything connected to him. Yes…… he’s not needed. He’s just someone who needs to disappear. Someone who needs to be eliminated.Yes, this is what we must do. This is what we should have done from the very beginning.」

The other three were so engrossed in talking in their own defense that they didn’t notice anything unusual about Arios.

And Arios just smiled in a dark way and spilled out a voice filled with unadulterated hatred.

「I am going to erase him…… Erase him completely……!」