Marius’s Judgment

Liricia and I had cleared both the eastern-capital dungeon and the one in the southern mountain range.

When we returned to the Adventurers’ Guild, handed over the dungeon core, and gave our report, Guildmaster Rubel himself came over.

All the accessories hanging off his body jingled as he approached.

“To think you’d clear two dungeons in just two days. As expected of you, Alec.”

“Sorry it turned into us swooping in from the side and stealing everyone’s credit, when so many people were working on it together.”

“No, no. Even A-ranker Edgar’s team and Hero Marius’s party failed down there. You actually helped us. With an enemy that strong… if you hadn’t been around, who knows how bad the damage would’ve been…”

“Huh? Even Marius? There wasn’t any enemy down there a hero should be losing to, though…”

“Up to a point, no. But Marius wasn’t a real Hero. The façade finally got ripped away.”

“…I see.”

I honestly had no idea what he was talking about, so that vague answer was all I could manage.

And really, all we did was beat a mithril golem—him laying it on that thick felt strange.

For some reason, Liricia, standing beside me, nodded deeply, her silver hair swaying.

“So it was like that… I did not think he was someone worthy of being a Hero.”

“Yeah. He’s good with people on the surface, but underneath he’s the worst.”

I spoke while picturing Marius’s smirking face.

Rubel put his hands on his hips; his jewelry clinked loudly.

“Anyway, we need to move quickly to deal with the fallout. Come with me, Alec—unless you’ve got something urgent?”

“No, nothing in particular.”

“Then you’re coming.”

Rubel turned and strode off.

I figured going against the Guildmaster wasn’t exactly wise, so I followed after him.

As for the dungeon-completion reward and the proceeds from selling the golem cores and dungeon cores:

21 large gold coins, 8 gold coins, and 7 large silver coins.
A total of 2,187,000 goat.

My Adventurer Rank went up to C.

On hand, I now had: 64 large gold coins, 37 gold coins, 13 large silver coins, and 13 silver coins.

6,784,300 goat in total.

Evening in the royal capital.

The place I was dragged off to was the royal castle.

I’d honestly thought I’d never set foot there again.

We were led out into a courtyard covered in white gravel.

There, Marius was kneeling in seiza, hands tied behind his back.

His beautiful blond hair was dirty, and his handsome face was twisted up.

—Wait, Marius is a noble, isn’t he? Why’s he being treated like a common criminal?

Also present were the female priest and the female mage I’d party-up with a few times, and the elderly court mage-general.

Schwarz, the middle-aged knight commander in white armor, was there too.

All of them were glaring at Marius with hard expressions.

Liricia, Rubel, and I lined up at the edge of the courtyard.

Marius refused to look at me at all. Even now, he was pretending I didn’t exist.

Then, up on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, the aged king appeared.

The minister was standing beside him.

Both wore grim expressions, but while the king radiated anger, the minister looked more panicked than anything.

The knight commander barked out in a booming voice:

“From this moment, we will conduct an inquiry into Hero Marius’s deceit!”

“Deceit…?”

I muttered, and Rubel, standing next to me, answered under his breath.

“He was never a Hero. Marius has no Serâge.”

“What? How? I mean, without it he couldn’t even have been considered as a Hero candidate, right?”

“Just watch.”

Rubel jerked his narrow chin toward the center of the courtyard.

A soldier came forward, carrying the hilt of a sword—its blade snapped off at the base—set on a stand.

The knight commander pointed at it.

“This sword is one of the Holy Swords, Light Calibur! Its appearance was disguised as a mere steel sword! Marius used this Holy Sword to make up for his lack of holy wave-ki, deceiving everyone into believing he possessed it! —Do you have anything to say for yourself, Marius?”

Marius, still bound, bit down on his lip and hung his head.

The knight commander continued.

“On top of that, in order to become the Hero, he trapped and pushed aside Hero Alec!”

“Huh? Trapped me?”

As if to answer my doubt, the female priest stepped forward, her blue hair swaying.

“I found some suspicious points in the castle’s records and cross-checked them with all the Church archives. That’s how we discovered Marius had been taking the monsters defeated by Hero Alec and claiming them as his own achievements—over a thousand of them.”

She glared at Marius with hard, narrow eyes.

He trembled, still facing the ground.

The knight commander went on.

“This is not something one man could have done alone. It was an organized crime. And here is the proof—!”

The female mage swished the wide brim of her pointed hat and stepped forward, with the old man leaning on his staff beside her.

“This jerk’s been splashing around his rich family’s money, bribing people left and right. —Gramps, show ’em.”

“Honestly, this granddaughter of mine works me far too hard… Determining time and coordinates is delicate work, you know. Quite rough on an old man… —Record Recall (Past Vision).”

The court mage-general’s robe fluttered as he raised his long staff, and several semi-transparent windows appeared in the air.

In them, Marius was seen handing money to clerks, lower officials—and the minister.

Up on the balcony, the minister’s face went pale, his beard shaking.

Marius bit his lip so hard it bled.

The king gave the minister a brief sidelong glance, then turned his eyes on Marius.

“Have you anything to say for yourself, Marius?”

Marius’s thin body trembled, then he suddenly jerked his head up.

“What’s so wrong about aiming to be a Hero!? Everyone, everyone praised me as a Hero! —If I just get my sword back, I can serve as a Hero again!”

The priest and mage both grimaced in open disgust.

“To think, instead of apologizing, you double down like that…”

“You seriously think we’re gonna lend our strength to some fake?”

They weren’t adventurers, but if you converted their ability into Adventurer Rank, both would easily be S-rank.

The priest could use even the highest-tier spell, Complete Restoration.

The mage could not only use high-tier magic, but also wield the ultra-rare skill, Dual Chant.

Every time I’d gone monster-hunting with them, I’d been impressed, thinking, “They’re insane…”

Marius whipped his dirty blond hair around and shouted.

“I’m a chosen man! My looks, my brains, my magic, my swordsmanship! I deserve to be the one everyone fawns over more than anyone else!”

“And you don’t think it’s strange to go so far as to fake being a Hero just to get that? There were plenty of other ways to live, you know,” the priest sighed, trying to reason with him.

But Marius only ground his teeth and glared back.

“No matter how hard I try, I can’t change the way I was born! ‘Upstart noble,’ ‘just a commoner who bought his rank with money’—I refuse to put up with being looked down on like that!”

“So that’s why you tried to become a Hero, to get fame… You really only ever think about yourself. How foolish. —What will you do, Your Majesty?”

The priest turned her face to the king.

He nodded.

“Marius, you have shamed the kingdom by falsely claiming the name of Hero. For that crime, you are sentenced to twenty years of forced labor. All those who cooperated with you will be stripped of their positions and fined. The Forlight family’s assets are to be confiscated, and they are to be transferred from their current lands to a frontier domain.”

The frontier was barren and overrun with monsters.

Even nobles could only eke out a miserable living there.

“Y-you can’t!”

Marius lurched to his feet and tried to run toward the balcony where the king stood.

But Rubel, next to me, moved faster than anyone.

His red hair swung as he closed the distance in an instant, his many necklaces and bracelets jangling.

He kicked Marius hard, slamming him down into the white gravel, then looked down at him like he was something filthy stuck to his shoe.