A Hero Must Be Sincere

The Royal Capital in the morning.

After hearing the dungeon-raid plan at the Adventurer Guild, I grabbed Liricia’s hand and ran.

My cloak and Liricia’s white nun’s habit whipped violently.

—Because every single party had tried to scout us with overwhelming enthusiasm.

Dodging people and carriages, we ran, turned a few corners, and finally slowed our pace.

On the cobblestone street, Liricia and I walked, slightly out of breath.

In particular, Liricia’s rich silver hair was tousled, falling across her smiling cheeks.

“Phew, that turned into quite an ordeal.”

“Hehe. It’s because you’re such an amazing person, Master!”

“You look happy.”

“Yes! When I think that everyone has finally come to understand how wonderful you are, Master, I can’t help feeling happy too!”

“It’s enough if you’re the only one who recognizes me, Liricia. I only trust you.”

“Thank you so much, Master…!”

Blushing shyly, she let out a spoiled little whimper and clung to me.

Her large breasts were overflowing with joy.

Feeling thoroughly pleased, I turned my eyes to the paper we had received at the reception desk.

“Now then, our mission is… yeah, just as I thought, we’re on luggage duty. Transporting supplies from the Royal Capital to the entrance of the eastern dungeon.”

“There aren’t any thieves or scouts in the party, and we’ve never even dived into a dungeon before, after all.”

“Just as I expected. Looks like we’ll be free to do things our own way.”

“Yes! Let’s do our best for Kou-chan too… but, Master, there was one thing that bothered me.”

Liricia looked up at me, her brows drooping worriedly.

“What is it?”

“Did something happen between you and that hero Marius-san?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Well, ever since he showed up, your expression has grown stiff, Master… and he didn’t really feel very hero-like, either.”

“If you want to call it that, something did happen. I might have been set up by Marius and gotten fired from being a hero because of it.”

“What! Something like that happened!? Then you should file a complaint…”

Liricia’s violet eyes went wide in shock.

But I shook my head. My black hair swayed weakly.

“I can’t. All I have is a suspicion; there’s no proof. It’s practically impossible for a commoner to accuse a hero.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. Heroes answer directly to the king and hold immense investigative authority. If a hero thinks someone looks suspicious, they can search their house without a warrant; if they decide someone is attacking them, they can cut them down on the spot.”

“T-that much power… then if you tried to accuse him…”

“He’d just say I was bearing a grudge over being fired as a hero and kill me. In fact, the more accurate the accusation, the more certain it is he’d kill me to silence me.”

“For someone like that to become a hero…”

Liricia lowered her gaze sadly.

I stroked her silver hair to comfort her.

“So stop worrying about it. Thanks to getting fired, I was able to meet you, Liricia.”

“Yes—meeting you has made me happy as well, Master.”

“I have no intention of being a hero anymore, so if he wants to play hero, he can do whatever he likes. I’ll just live my own life my own way. Together with you, Liricia.”

Honestly, with our living situation still not settled, I really couldn’t care less about Marius.

Uncovering a hero’s wrongdoing without letting them notice would probably take decades.

—Which meant it could just be a lifelong side project from here on out.

If he was the sort of hero who would commit something improper, there was no telling what he might do in the future.

It would be for my sake, of course, but also for the people’s, so I decided I should at least consider quietly investigating Marius’s background.

Liricia pressed herself against me, clinging to my arm.

“I’ll stay with you forever, Master!”

“Then how about we go have an early lunch?”

“Yes!”

With our bodies close together, Liricia and I walked through the streets of the Royal Capital.

And for our early lunch, we ate on the open terrace of a café. Three hundred Gort for the two of us.

Total funds on hand: forty-four large gold coins, thirty gold coins, eleven large silver coins, and twenty-five silver coins.

4,713,500 Gort.

The archive room inside the castle.

The female priestess read through documents, her blue hair swaying. She had her own notebook at hand.

“On this day, we defeated one A-rank Vampire Lord and six B-rank Vampires… but the report says three Vampires!? Here it says two Greed Bears, but the report lists one. It’s underreported…!”

When she had taken part in the hero party, the priestess had written down the days, number of subjugations, expenses, and so on in her notebook.

It had been so she could report to the archbishop later.

She touched a finger to her chin and thought.

—Is this harassment directed at Alec-san? Or is this happening to everyone?

Next, the priestess began checking the subjugation counts for the hero candidates.

Then she found that there was one person whose numbers alone had more than doubled.

It was Marius.

The amount deducted from Alec had been added to him.

The priestess’s eyes widened in shock.

“Reassigning subjugation counts!? They went this far just to frame Alec-san…! I have to report to the archbishop right away—”

She half rose from her chair, then quickly sat back down again.

“No… with only a few switched entries, there’s still the possibility that the person filling out the forms made mistakes, or the reporting party misremembered. Although it only ever happens between Alec-san and Marius, and never the other way around, which is strange… It would probably be better to first gather all the records from the church branches and investigate them.”

And so the priestess began copying down the reports.

“The monsters Marius-san defeated are C-rank, D-rank, A-rank, B-rank, D, C, C, A, B, C, A, D, D, B… Alec-san’s are A-rank, B-rank, B-rank, A, B, B, B, A, B, A, B, B, B… huh?”

The priestess reread the documents.

—Almost nothing but A and B ranks!? There are hardly any C ranks or below.

There were a few, but they were almost all animal-type monsters like wolves, boars, tigers, and bears.

No, wait.

This was stranger than that.

The priestess realized a certain pattern and shot to her feet.

She searched out and opened another set of documents. They were very old.

She skimmed through them, then moved on to the next, and the next, checking newer and newer years in order.

When she had read up through the latest year, her voice trembled in astonishment.

“F-for the last thirty years… there hasn’t been a single S-rank or above… This has to mean, could it be… could it be that this country has done something outrageous!?”

Clutching the documents to her chest, the priestess stood there in a daze.