Discussion Sentenced to Be a Hero

Episodes: 12 | Source: Light Novel | Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Synopsis
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In a world where the title of Hero is treated as a punishment rather than an honor, the worst criminals are sentenced to the front lines of an endless war against the Demon Lords. Branded as Heroes, they are forced into military service without even the mercy of death, condemned to be revived and sent back into battle forever.

Among them is Xylo Forbartz, once a respected commander of the Holy Knights. Now the leader of Penal Hero Unit 9004, he commands a squad of convicts considered expendable by the very nation they serve. During one chaotic mission, he encounters Teoritta, a living weapon known as a Goddess, whose presence threatens to shift the balance of both the war and his own fate.

As the unit is sent on increasingly dangerous operations, Xylo must balance leading his unit, surviving the battles he finds himself in, and uncovering the truth behind his own sentencing.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

 

Episode 1 was good. The main character Xylo is an experienced Hero, doomed to fight on the front lines in the war against the Demon Lords. He really seems to hate heroes, as well as the Holy Knights. Even if a hero dies, they end up resurrected but lose a bit of themselves each time. He is teamed up with Dotta who seems like a novice.

The demons or Faeries are basically animals corrupted into monsters and they seem to easily kill the Holy Knights, while the Heroes can deal with them with their abilities. Dotta had carried what seemed like a casket carrying a sleeping or dead Goddess. Xylo wanted to abandon her, but she woke up and stated that Xylo was her chosen one. He refused but the Goddess Teoritta is almost naïve/innocent about things and just pays it no mind.

Xylo told the Holy Knights to retreat while they covered their retreat, and they eventually agreed. When Xylo was scoping out the next area to help, Dotta ran away to thieve again which angered him, but Teoritta stayed with Xylo.

Things went well to start, but when the Demon Lord arrived a lot of the Holy Knights died, and Xylo would also be doomed to die, and relented in accepting Teoritta as his Goddess, granting him a large power boost. Xylo did critically wound the Demon Lord, but the arrival of Dotta with a scorched earth seal is what enabled them to finally kill it. The commander Patausche who seemed to hate Xylo from the start, was angry at the turn of events and tried to sway Teoritta by telling her of Xylo's grave crime of killing his prior Goddess.

Turns out that Xylo was once a commander of the Holy Knights, but some plot had him shipped out doomed to die with his men and Goddess Senerva with no backup and the entire mission buried/not recorded. Due to Senerva overusing her power, the Demon Blight begins corrupting her, turning her into a Demon Lord with the power of a Goddess, so Xylo killed her. The church or whatever faction, of course "doesn't know" any of this as fact. This had Xylo arrested and sentenced as a criminal, which had him turned into the hero he is now and leader of Penal Hero Unit 9004.

 

Episode 2 was good. Seems that Teoritta didn't really care about Xylo having killed his prior Goddess, or more specifically, she presumes that it wasn't that simple. They've already been assigned their next mission, and met up with some other heroes Tatsuya, "His Majesty" Norgalle and Venetim. Tatsuya seems to have died so much he's basically lost his mind and has seemingly served as a Hero the longest. Norgalle sees himself as the King of the Federated Kingdom and his crime was being a terrorist. Their mission is the same as Patausche's to clear out the Zewan Gan Tunnels which has been affected by Demon Blight. Overall, Humanity has lost about 20% of all inhabitable land.

Seems that the town wasn't evacuated. A younger girl asked Xylo if her father would come home as he promised for her birthday, and it seems her look really got to him. As the group headed toward the tunnels, it's apparent the workers all turned into Faeries. When one turns into a Faerie, the only way to "help" them is to kill them. Patausche met up with them and seems to get along a little better now. Although she was mad that Xylo didn't explain he had no real involvement with Teoritta being "taken" but he raised a good point that she wouldn't have believed him.

The group quickly took out the Faeries in the area including the workers. However, some workers remained alive and not infected. Teoritta wants to save them, and even Patausche seems to want to save them, but her hands are basically tied. In the end, Xylo decided to do it on his own, and had the Holy Knights take Teoritta to keep her safe. He asked them to bury him in the tunnel if things went bad.