You have a point, and the fact of being Alda's hero also means that he must meet a certain standard of strength, not everyone can be like Van who turned the extreme farming mode into a semi automatic clicker,
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. I already said he has access to nobility, but pointed out that his fame is pretty recent and that he doesn't stay in one place very long, making it hard to use the resources nobles could provide.
Doesn't really matter how many nobles are trying to curry favor, nobody is going to come up to you, and tell you about the crimes they are complicit in.
True, but Heinz has been shown using his political clout (from being an S-rank) off-screen to find out that an unnamed noble in Orbaume sent mercs after Selen to kill her and gouge her eyes out to put in his sick collection, and even though Lucas Hartner not only made it a huge public announcement that he sent an army to utterly slaughter everyone in two cultivation villages, also announcing that the criminal Kanata knocked down his castle for unknown reasons, Heinz still pointed at Van and (correctly) shouted "you did it!" while in Bellwood's dungeon as the two were having their little "chat." At the time Heinz and Van were both in the Hartner duchy, Van went the extra mile so that Heinz didn't know he was there, so how did Heinz find out that Van was at least somewhat responsible in both events? And why doesn't Heinz use this unseen well of information to investigate if that quest he's getting to hunt down "an evil cult of Lamia" is legitimate or not? It does make the reader wonder...
Out of his way...? When he screamed, flew out of the city, and suddenly there was a dungeon full of monsters hungering for Heinz's flesh, which included a few former villagers, now zombies actually calling Heinz by name?
We have computer, we have internet, we even have google. So, anyone can find almost any information, but just look how many people believes the earth is flat. Look, how many people believes in news articles where article author got info from his ass. Just a month ago I spoke with my neighbor. She said government wants to implant chips to humans with COVID-19 vaccine and it is true because someone from television show said so. She donates to his show every month, but few months ago he invited stupid politic and was talking bullshit so she did not donate to his show that month. In other words, she would worship and praise someone who speaks words she wants to hear, but will condemn him if he said even one word she don't want to hear. To summarize everything, information depends at people who tells you this information. If you ask one person how rose smell he may say you it smells very good, but if you ask person who are allergic to roses how rose smell, he may say it smells like shit. So, who say the truth? Gathering information is not an easy job. You don't understand that information are not equal information. To find information will take a lot of time especially if here are no internet and google. So, if information you want are very important to you, you can invest your time and money to investigate it. But you can't investigate all information you get. Lets say: Policemen gets order from his boss to arrest someone. Should this policemen arrest person whose arrest warrant he got or should he investigate and find out if this warrant was legally issued and a person really did a crime? Who would pay to policemen for this investigation? And how should Heinz investigate this information? Most people will not know anything about Lamias. Other people who don't know anythig about Lamias but are from Alda extremist group will say Lamias eat humans alive. Will you ask Lamia if she eat humans alive? Would she say the truth even if she eats humans alive? Especially if you yourself are from Alda religion who say all Vida races are evil.
Are we sure Nakiri is in the Hartner Duchy? Because I remember Van going through the Sauron Duchy and dealing with Gubamon before he spirited the two cultivation villages, the army sent to exterminate them, and the surviving Titan slaves to Talosheim, after having the Nakiri fiasco happen. Even if I'm wrong and Van went through those villages to the mines first, if relocating two full villages of people across a continent to keep his location secret is not "the extra mile" than what is? Are you suggesting Heinz needs fourth-wall piercing information? He doesn't. He can use his status as an honorary noble (an S-rank adventurer) to question the guild staff and see if the info they're giving him is as accurate as possible, especially info regarding the client(s) that put forward the request. Considering the fact that the info he received is wrong is the reason he "regretfully" attacked Darcia back in Evbejia, if he had truly changed and turned over a new leaf as he loves to claim, he'd at least be considerably more careful about taking requests to kill people, or sentient beings even if he doesn't recognize them as people himself. But let's say his attempts with the guild prove fruitless. He could, like Randolph here in chapter 253, disguise himself and go into a tavern, eyes and ears open, mouth shut, to collect information. He knows what a tavern is as he was consuming a lavish meal in Evbejia after Darcia's death in one. People in taverns tend to get very chatty, especially when they've got a bit of booze in them. Hell, if Heinz went to the local tavern in Evbejia and simply asked around about Darcia, offering to buy Orbie a drink or two, the latter would have happily bragged about how "the bitch turned away his 'love confession' and she was getting what's hers" and we'd be reading a whole different story here. And it isn't that different to consider looking into the client who said "there's an evil cult of lamia (on some very pristine land I want) nearby!" vs. "I'm a noble who likes to collect dhampir eyes! Let's go after this dhampir in the territory. Alda would have no problem with that!" Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if the noble in question approached Heinz and asked for his "expert" help because Heinz has a history of going after Vida's races, no questions asked, and the noble knows the VERY PUBLIC fact that Heinz went after a dark elf woman hoping to get his hands on the dhampir child.
He could do all that, but does he have the time necessary to gather information? Does the guild have a centralized depository of information? How fast can the guild employees get the information that he needs? One more thing to consider is the accuracy of information. Is the information completely without bias? Since most humans are believers of Alda, how can anyone be completely sure that the records are not tainted with bias against the races of Vida?
Considering the records, up until Van was ten or so, state that Ghouls are a race of mutated undead, and Majin are a type of demon. I wouldn't hold out much hope for the information gathered, when even a couple of braincells rubbing together in the cold, should have noticed that undead can't (normally) have children.
To be fair ghouls could only have children inside of devils nests and still had difficulty coming to turm until Van helped them so people may have assumed they couldn't have children.
It's a well known fact about Ghouls, that they have trouble conceiving, and at least one merchant has tried to cash in by making them prostitutes.
Isn't Heinz relying on the guild to research for him exactly why he failed so hard at his mission? He's bright enough to admit the information about ghouls is inconsistent as soon as someone else points it out and may have been suspicious already. The problem is that he trusted what the guild told him. A ghoul killed someone, doesn't matter who or why, we need to slaughter the whole village now. The issue isn't that Heinz didn't consult nobles or that he didn't ask the guild enough questions because the guild and common knowledge are not reliable in the first place. The issue is that he didn't investigate himself or at least rely on someone trustworthy to research for him. But Heinz is a terrible judge of character so who knows, maybe he thought he did. Edgar, you seem very compassionate and wanting to understand what's going on before jumping to conclusions, you handle this. By the way were we talking about Heinz in general terms before this? I thought we were just talking about whether he had connections or not.
I have said it once, i will say it again. This is a story in which the holy warrior is BAD and the demon lord is GOOD. In a lot of stories the HERO and the VILLAIN are opposites of each other. If a hero is an idiot from the countryside trying to save the world and doesnt know shit about the real situations around him/her, then they (including their party) will learn of many things and change their outlook on society and future actions as well. Then, for this situation, is the villain who is noble, imposing, knowledgeble and strong. The villain will already know about the truth of the society and has an evil plan to change it all or destroy it. But despite opposin eachother they have a thing in common, which leads to "We are not so diffrent you and i" moment. Well, in Van's story our "hero" is actually a Demon lord and he built up his strenght and found many companions after the villain Heinz ruined his happy baby life. Van had to travel alot and while traveling he learned new shocking information. How the ghouls are a sentient race and not monsters, how a duke betrayed refugee titans and exploited them for physical labor and many more. Because Van is smart, caring (for he sake of those around him) and wants to change the world his enemy fights for diffrent reasons (stagnation and whatnot). But they both fight for their own people, which is the "We're not so difftent you and i" part of their ¿nemmesis-dom?. Van will increase the scope of what he sees as his people and Heinz will remain the same in his narrow view. Because Van changes and learns, Henz won't. Because Van rules, Heinz sucks
Rather than Heinz being bad and Van being good I would say that Van is helpful when it comes to fixing Lambda's problems and Heinz is not. Because really, the amount of horrible crimes Van has committed is staggering in length while Heinz, for all his flaws, is more screwing up than intentionally doing bad things. My guess is that if you boiled down the author's opinion it'd be something like 'Sometimes you need a hero and sometimes you need a demon king.' Also you should have said Van rules, Heinz drools. Where is your sense of poetry? You missed the chance to rhyme!
I was distracted by the fact that Van is an actuall ruler and he rules . The point i was stumbling over backwards trying to make is that while Van will learn and change, Heinz is set in stone in his convictions and beliefs and has a punchable face It's easier to root against an asshole. If Heinz was actually improving his worldview would his inevitable downfall be satisfying? No. Not at all It's just the way he was written and that is that
Heinz being the typical hero knows that he has done horribly wrong to Van and his loved ones, but being chosen as a hero he believes that there is a greater destiny, he cannot let himself be killed by the grudges of a single person. He believes that he being from the peaceful faction means Alda recognizes what he does, he believes that if he completes "his" trials he will get to meet Alda and directly ask him about Vida's races so that people do not keep misinterpreting and killing them non-stop. Surely Heinz believes Van doing this all is caused by his hatred to him(Van denied already thou) and the reason he doesnt stop is because Alda believers misinterpret his wish and thats why they kill the children of Vida. What Heinz doesnt know is.....They are not wrong, Alda wants all of Vida's races DEAD, no options. He actually was starting to consider being more compasionate towards those that dont have a rank or those whose origins were not from monsters(damphirs came from vampires even if they dont have ranks) so he actually did felt he was sligthy wrong, just took him 100,000 YEARS but we can consider that posibility gone for sure now that Van decided to do someting hahahaha. Once Heinz knows his merciful god plans for genocide we will notice how much of a real hero he is.
If by sparing you mean using as cannon fodder against Vida herself then killing them all after the war is done as "sparing". He still intends to kill all of Vida's children. He'll just wait until they aren't useful to his plans first.
Sparing talks came on a chapter when he was with Nineroad, but that wasnt really recently.........his ways of mercy involved only darkelves, titans, beast-people and merfolk to be recogniced as people I believe, to the others he though about turning them into familiar spirits to allow their existence as long a there were not too many of them.
One of my favorite "interactions" involving Van and Hienz is when Van learned Hienz had turned over a new leaf. Van states that a man who could so easily change his stance like that could just as easily change back. I didn't think it was fair at the time (because of how much Van hates Hienz), but it is actually quite insightful. The decision wasn't over something trivial like a favorite food or color, but whether slaughtering people is bad or not. Analogy-wise, I now view it like the old witch hunts. Hienz used to help burn the witch at the stake, but couldn't stomach it anymore and changed. As long someone convinces him the witches are evil (maybe cursing the children or something ), Hienz will resume the witch hunts again. …Though technically Hienz never stopped. He just limited the number of races he views as eligible for the witch hunts.