152. The Chivalrous Thief's Exploits(?)
152. The Chivalrous Thief's Exploits(?)
For a righteous thief, for a thief, there was a romance.
The time to move was the deep night when people were scarce.
Like a shadow hiding solely under the veil of night, hiding from people's gazes.
A person of ability who showed what they wished, made them hear what they wanted to hear, and ultimately achieved what they desired.
Sometimes became a star in the night sky,
Sometimes became a rat in the gutter,
Deceiving everyone's eyes, deceiving everyone's ears,
Ultimately, a liar (swindler) who deceived and laughed at the world.
And because it was Merk who had taken this 'thief' as her 'calling'─
"...No."
"Huh?"
─She couldn't help but say.
"This isn't being a righteous thief!!!"
".....???"
The situation went back about 6 hours.
****************
"We're robbing the Athena Guild."
"...Merk, you said you'd never been here."
"Yeah."
There was no reason to hold onto someone who didn't want to come.
[Main God─Hermes :.........]
'She says she doesn't want to.'
What good would it do to force something she didn't want, anyway.
So, as I was about to plan the future tasks with Minerva, Merk approached, muffling her footsteps.
"...Is there a person here who's never been?"
"I was here because I was worried Chrono might think something weird."
"Is that so."
Contrary to her words, her face looked quite curious.
It seemed she was curious what made me say such a thing and decided to hear me out first.
'...Does it really matter?'
Because even if she told someone, it wasn't meaningful content.
"Minerva, given the situation, I'll start with the conclusion."
"....Yes!"
So I turned my head toward Minerva and said.
"I'm thinking of suing the Athena Guild."
".....Yes?"
"Originally, I was planning to take it slow..."
Now that the situation had been created, staying still was the real foolish move.
I explained the upcoming plan to Minerva.
"First... you know what you've done, right?"
"Yes. To that extent, I'll admit my guilt and accept the punishment mysel──"
"──I can't stand to see you like that, so cut it out,"
Minerva.
Do you know the simplest way to make a 'sin' not a sin?
"....Chrono?"
She seemed slightly anxious.
Perhaps she got a hint from the word 'lawsuit' I mentioned earlier.
I answered Minerva confidently.
"Actually, we just have to appeal that we're the victims."
"Chrono....."
That's practically fraud, isn't it.
Minerva looked at me with a cold, unamused expression.
But the amusing thing was, it couldn't exactly be called 'fraud.'
"What?"
"Because the physical evidence, all the proof, still remains, doesn't it? It's not like we're making up things completely."
"That's... true, but....."
What Minerva had shouted went like this:
The Athena Guild buried me, and in the end I was buried.
I'm so ashamed and embarrassed by that fact, please snap out of it and return me to who I was──that's what she'd said,
"But to put it bluntly, they did try to bury me, didn't they?"
"....However, that doesn't make my guilt disappear."
"Then I'll take responsibility for the pet's fault being the owner's fault, or something."
"..........."
Her pupils widened into circles.
I was a bit embarrassed to call her a 'pet' with my own mouth too, but this was the only way to convince Minerva.
"Anyway, I can't stand to see you go to jail. So suing the Athena Guild is what I came up with."
"....But.."
"Normally it would be impossible."
In the first place, this event was a mission that appeared only as a side quest two years later.
Because I advanced the timing far too early, there was no way the event would play out properly──but perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, because Ur set the stage beautifully.
Seeing my name pop up in real-time internet articles and search rankings meant the talking had already been done.
Put another way, the flow of public opinion was blowing in our direction.
"I could sue with just this right now, but... no. This alone is too weak."
At best, if we sued with only this, wouldn't it just end with 'a god appealed'?
With this little, I couldn't protect Minerva from the guild master's clutches.
So what came out was──robbing the Athena Guild.
"It's a shady place, so if we scatter just how shady it is, we'll gain some persuasiveness."
To be precise, that's how it was handled in the in-game event.
"The next part is simple."
You and I infiltrate some random department of the Athena Guild, pretend to be restrained, and Mars raids the place and rescues us.
Thus, the Athena Guild's attempt to bury me becomes not a lie but 'fact,' and the guild master turns into a sociopath who even imprisons his own daughter who appeals for the truth, all for his own power.
And in that state, where the guild's filth becomes a swamp blocking the path, and to finish, the public opinion of the citizens all wish to bury the guild master?
There was no more room to escape.
Even if they ran, at least there would be no place to set foot on this land.
I calmly explained the future plan to everyone, and after hearing the entire plan, Minerva stared at me blankly.
'Why is she looking at me with those eyes───Ah, well, I guess that makes sense.'
I slowly lowered my head toward Minerva and said.
"Sorry. I didn't ask for your opinion."
"Huh, uh?"
"Because I was telling you to tear down the guild you were born into with your own hands..."
".........."
No matter how much she hated it,
No matter how much she despised it,
Nevertheless, the Athena Guild was Minerva's home.
And what I was doing now was akin to demolishing half of Minerva's home.
On top of that, it was telling her to send her own father away with her own hands.
Even if it was for Minerva's sake, even if it was for all of us to return to the Academy, what child would happily follow along in sending their own biological father to the abyss?
Even if she said it was fine with words,
Inside her heart, an unpleasant feeling would keep lingering.
'So...'
Isn't this the best I could do.
I raised my head toward Minerva and said.
"No matter what happens, I'll take responsibility."
"If a time comes later when you regret this... I'll accept it from you then."
"And if a day comes when you feel a guilty conscience, since all this happened because of me Ultimately, go ahead and resent me for everyth──"
"─I won't resent you at all!"
Minerva shouted at me in the middle of my words.
Minerva slowly shook her head. Shaking her head, she reached out her hand toward me.
Taking my hand with both of hers, Minerva whispered toward me.
"How could I... ever resent Chrono, that just couldn't be."
"....That's just a figure of speech. A figure of speech."
"Please don't say things like that even as a figure of speech!"
"Nghhh..."
From my side, it was meant as doing my best in my own way, but it seemed to have sounded a bit different to Minerva.
...Well, this part was something to think about again later anyway.
"First, we have to rob the Athena Guild. And not a regional branch, but the headquarters."
One or two weak points weren't enough.
If we were going to rob, it was right to rob properly, and in the original work, they robbed the guild's headquarters too.
"You have the guild's internal map, right, Minerva?"
"I don't... have it on me, but I can check it through the guild's dedicated server."
"That'll do."
After that, just stop time and break through by force, and it's over.
Just as I was thinking that things were proceeding smoothly and that maybe Merk really wasn't needed──
"Waaait a minute!!! That won't do! Minerva, stop! Stop the internet!"
"Hmm??"
─Merk stopped Minerva.
She hurriedly snatched the phone from Minerva's hand and let out a small sigh as she spoke.
"...Right now, MinaeMinae is supposed to be abducted, right? So if you use the guild server all fine and well...?"
"Ah...!"
The point was that one wrong move could've advertised 'I'm right here.'
Merk, insisting that things truly wouldn't work without her, grabbed both of Minerva's cheeks and stretched them out.
"Normally I wouldn't do such a senseless thing... but since it's related to MinaeMinae."
This made it a situation where the magnanimous Merk had to step up inevitably!
Merk immediately borrowed my laptop and connected it to Minerva's phone.
Soon, various screens began popping up chaotically on the laptop, and she was able to download the structural layout of the Athena Guild Masterquarters.
"Now all that's left is to cross-check the commute records and guard patrol times, the CCTV positions and guard room locations... Ugh, maybe I shouldn't have volunteered for this...?"
The documents kept piling up.
Until infiltrating the Athena Guild, Merk diligently memorized those documents...
"....This is fraud."
"It kinda is."
...Since we infiltrated with time stopped, they became utterly useless.
"This is fraud... I said fraud! I worked my bones off memorizing all that!"
"Isn't it nice to go easy."
Under the gray-tinted space.
I nodded as I looked at the dagger held in Merk's hand.
'It's going just as I thought.'
Squite's ability was to manipulate the time of the target it struck.
So, by deliberately cutting myself with Squite to link my time with Merk's, when I stopped time, both Merk and I could be severed from the world's time.
"Ugh... well, fine. Merk's glorious deeds are still piled up like a mountain left to do!"
No,
Actually, it was already all over.
"See, to go over there, you need a card ke──"
"─This one?"
".........."
I had swiped an employee card key appropriately on the way to the underground.
"This one is locked with an analog method─ta-daa!─....Chrono?"
"What."
I just shot open a door locked with a key,
"This is a special maze... room, apparently..."
"Left three three, right three three."
And I could escape the maze by tracing my memory as well.
Who said NTR game mazes weren't this cheap.
Even when we reached the final server room,
"Hoo... this is where this Merk's hacking skills──"
"─[Fruit of Wisdom]... done."
".........."
Since it was an event I cleared several times, the password remained in my head.
Thanks to that, I could access the server room directly without needing hacking or anything, so...
"Mission complete with this."
The Athena Guild's double-entry ledger: Get.
All that was left was to set off the bomb.
As an aside,
"Merk's... my reason for existing....."
Maybe because things didn't go as she'd planned, she looked half soul-drained.
That's why I told her she didn't have to come along...
'...Still, he'll give something, right?'
When I glanced upward, a message window floated before my eyes.
[Main God─Hermes : What did our kid do wrong for you to crush her spirit, her spirit! She's a child I raised so preciously and beautifully!]
".....???"
What, is he picking a fight?