Hero Kwon Hee-jin
District 3 of the Imperial Capital, the private residence of High Prosecutor Gregory Hyde.
Inside this home, relatively modest by the standards of District 3, Amber Hyde was buried in her books.
Ordinarily, she would have spent her afternoons lounging in high-class salons or enjoying leisurely lunches on open-air cafe terraces with friends. Her monthly allowance was never extravagant, but her father's reputable office had always afforded her that measure of comfort.
Lately, however, she stifled every urge to visit the salons, holing herself up indoors instead.
It was not a matter of money. Entry to salons was gated strictly by social pedigree, while the prices of their tea and refreshments were surprisingly modest. Even with her family now saddled with paying off Eric's settlement, nursing a single cup of tea would hardly break the bank.
She had cut her visits short for one reason alone: someone had recognized her and cornered her.
People had approached her before, of course. To any passing eye, she cut the figure of an intellectual beauty, sitting alone in elegant repose with an open book.
What she had experienced recently, however, was no innocent pass.
"You're Amber Hyde, aren't you? Baron Hyde's niece?"
"Excuse me? Ah... yes, but..."
"Don't worry, I'm not a creep. I run a merchant troupe based in Delirose County, where the Baron's fief is located. My father serves as a retainer to House Delirose. So you see, we're practically family, aren't we?"
"I'm sorry, but I rarely visit my uncle's estate. May I ask what this is about?"
"I hear your father is a High Prosecutor. Introduce me to him."
"..."
"I'm begging you, Lady Amber. Please."
A merchant boss of quasi-noble stock had brazenly demanded a backdoor to her father.
He was hardly the sort of person one ever encountered in a salon. A merchant overseeing provincial distribution out in a count's territory had no earthly reason to visit the Imperial Capital just for a cup of tea. In other words, he had targeted Amber from the very beginning, intending to use her to reach her father.
"If you wish to see my father, you should go through the proper channels at the prosecutorial bureau—"
"He won't grant me an audience."
"..."
"The Baron and I used to be quite close, you see. But the man is four months overdue on his payments for my goods. I've been politely demanding my money back, yet he keeps dodging me with one pathetic excuse after another. It's truly regrettable."
"As I said, our household has very little contact with my uncle's estate."
"Come now, they're brothers! Family is supposed to help each other out in times like this."
The burly man had clung to her relentlessly, even gripping her arm with brute force. He was clearly beyond furious.
Though she managed to escape when the salon staff intervened, the memory alone made her chest tighten with dread. If she had quailed under his pressure and continued the conversation, what impossible demands might he have forced upon her?
When she recounted the encounter to her father, Gregory wore a bitter grimace, murmuring that he had "somehow smoothed it over" while refusing to go into details. But he had made no attempt to hide the fact that his older brother, Baron Hyde, had plunged headlong into the Kodana frenzy and was now wreaking havoc on everyone around him.
I'd better stay away from the salons for a while.
As suffocating as it felt to stay cooped up indoors, it was a thousand times better than having a menacing stranger grab her arm in broad daylight.
Besides, the foul talk circulating among the salon nobles lately made her stomach churn anyway.
"Still no sign of the Hero?"
"They claim they're turning Nazak upside down, but do you honestly think he's still there? The bastard fled long ago."
"Someone needs to cave that son of a bitch's skull in."
"That's far too good for him. Frankly, I despise his party members even more than Kwon Hee-jin himself. Shouldn't we drag their families out and string them up instead?"
Violent curses and bloodlust echoed from every corner. She wanted nothing more than to tune them out, but after years of eavesdropping on aristocratic parlor gossip, her hearing was far too sharp for her own good.
In the end, she had decided that burying her nose in books was the only sensible choice. Fortunately, the introductory texts on administrative cameralism were proving surprisingly digestible. It was only the foundational knowledge required of a low-ranking bureaucrat, after all.
I should really find a job soon...
Her father walked through the front door while she was still turning the page with those thoughts in mind. His expression was grim.
"Dear, Amber."
"Father? What brings you home at this hour?"
Amber knew how swamped he had been lately. Ever since Kodana crashed, chaos had erupted across every corner of the capital like brushfires.
For him to return early in the middle of such bedlam was unheard of.
Gregory remained quiet for several moments before speaking with a heavy voice.
"The Chief Prosecutor told me to pack up and get some rest for the day."
"Why?"
"I witnessed a terrible incident today."
"...?"
Gregory Hyde recounted the morning's horror with a troubled look.
He had been interrogating an Academy employee who had embezzled funds meant for purchasing training potions. Fortunately, the dean had offered to submit a petition for leniency provided the missing money was repaid in full. Gregory had been speaking to him gently, coaxing him to cooperate, when...
"He suddenly threw himself out the window."
"..."
The prosecutorial bureau was only three stories tall. The man had survived the fall, but severe head trauma had left him in a deep coma.
Even in his twenty-plus years as a prosecutor, Gregory had never witnessed a suspect leap to their near-death right in front of him. That was why, despite the mountain of urgent cases, his superior had ordered him home.
"...When they searched his pockets, they found a single Kodana coin."
"Ah."
Amber let out a soft gasp. No further explanation was needed.
Was he that terrified of punishment?
The Empire's penal system was notoriously ruthless. The state had no intention of locking criminals in comfortable cells and feeding them three square meals a day; labor shortages were permanent. Convicts were worked to the bone in penal camps, or formed into Penal Units and marched straight to the margraviates bordering the Demonic Realm.
"It wasn't merely the fear of punishment," Gregory said softly. "With the Kodana crash extinguishing every shred of hope he had, the prospect of facing criminal charges on top of it must have made life look completely unlivable."
"Hope... that might be true."
"If he had believed for even a second that the coin would rebound, he would have gritted his teeth, tucked that Kodana away, and endured the penal camp. That is my reading of it, at least."
Amber nodded, understanding the grim logic.
Yet a strange question nagged at the back of her mind.
Where did all that money go?
She was not foolish enough to believe that someone had secretly walked off with every lira wiped out by the crash. A market collapse was simply what happened when buyers vanished into thin air.
Even so, plenty of people must have cashed out at the top while Kodana surged. If that were true, the number of visible survivors felt suspiciously small. Then again, with the general public out for blood, anyone who had made a fortune was likely lying as low as humanly possible.
"We should count ourselves fortunate that our family got off this lightly," Gregory Hyde murmured, bringing his tea to his lips. His hands trembled slightly, still shaken by the horrific scene he had witnessed.
In a small village three days' journey north of the Imperial Capital, Hero Kwon Hee-jin picked at a shoddy, tasteless meal, his leg bouncing nervously under the table.
"Ah, customer! In my younger days, I used to deliver cheese to a village around here. Didn't have an official name, but there's a massive old black alder tree right in the village center, so folk just called it Duck Village. Anyway, an unbelievable fellow came out of that dirt patch."
"Uh-huh."
The Hero let the innkeeper's chatter wash over him with complete disinterest.
Until recently, Kwon Hee-jin had been holed up in a safehouse provided by the Second Prince in the city of Nazak. But the moment word leaked that an official imperial investigation had been launched, he had bolted north, aided by contacts he had formed while laundering money through nominee accounts.
Look at what I've been reduced to. Tch.
He had slept rough under the stars ever since abandoning Nazak, but tonight he had sought out an inn, craving a real roof over his head. Thanks to a magic tool enchanted with perception-blurring magic, there was little risk of his face being recognized. The problem was that the innkeeper was a relentless chatterbox, and the noise was grating on his raw nerves.
As he tuned out the idle gossip, a stray phrase suddenly snagged his ear.
"The whole neighborhood lost its mind when he made it into the Imperial Guard Knights. And now he's a proper noble! A lord! But would you believe it? Not once has he set foot in his hometown since."
"Did you say... the Imperial Guard Knights?"
"Aye! Though he resigned not long ago. Still, pretty cold-hearted, wouldn't you say? Sure, his parents died long ago, and his siblings scattered to the wind so no one knows if they're alive or dead, so I suppose there's no reason to feel all sentimental about the dirt he was born in. But still!"
"..."
"They say he's swimming in obscene wealth, too. Wouldn't it be proper to throw his home village a bone at a time like this? That's just human decency, eh?"
Filthy rich, formerly of the Imperial Guard Knights. Only one name fit the description.
Eric... that bastard's hometown is around here?
His appetite vanished on the spot.
The realization that Eric was living the high life in the Imperial Capital while he was forced to eat dirt over a trivial misstep and some rotten luck made his blood boil.
"By the by, they say his surname is Wellesley, but I've never heard of an estate by that name. Do you happen to know where that might be, sir...?"
"What estate? Wellesley is part of the crown lands. They just slapped the name on him when granting his title. How do you not know something that basic?"
"..."
"And from the sound of it, you were just a cheese delivery boy who visited once in a blue moon. You're complete strangers, so why do you care so damn much? You're a strange old man."
"Ah, well, just passing the time..."
The innkeeper's face soured. Hero Kwon Hee-jin clicked his tongue, swallowing his bitter disgust.
Doesn't matter. This is only temporary.
His current circumstances were wretched, but the Hero was already burning with the drive to stage a comeback. In truth, he already had a plan.
He wasn't foolish enough to believe they wouldn't dare touch him simply because he held the title of Hero, nor did he intend to spend the rest of his life hiding like a rat. Back in Korea, he could have fled abroad, but in this world, that wasn't an option.
Kwon Hee-jin knew full well that the only way to claw his way back to his rightful place was to rack up new achievements and revive Kodana's price.
No point sitting on his hands. Time to move. Kwon Hee-jin sprang to his feet.
"Here's your money."
"...Right. Thank you."
As an act of magnanimity, he tossed down two gold coins with a face value of 100,000 liras each, but rather than bowing in gratitude, the innkeeper merely gave an indifferent nod.
With mountains of gold stored inside his inventory, Kwon Hee-jin hardly begrudged the coins. The real problem was having a fortune he couldn't openly spend.
Leaving the inn behind, the Hero turned his steps north, toward the Demonic Realm.
He had no intention of marching in alone to duel the Demon King. His goal was to retrieve the party members he had stashed away near the border. After all the sweat and tears he had poured into assembling that harem—far more effort than he had even put into issuing Kodana—he couldn't leave them out in the cold for long.
Hang on, girls. I'm coming.
The Hero quickened his pace into the dark.
Back inside the tavern, the innkeeper finally picked up the gold coins from the table.
He wasn't particularly offended by the guest's rudeness. In his line of work, he dealt with far nastier bastards every day.
He was just bemused that a fellow missing an entire finger had tossed around that kind of outrageous money before vanishing into the night.
His sword looked magnificent, too... Some famous adventurer? Well, at least it's a good story.
The innkeeper chuckled, pleased that he would have something interesting to boast about when his son visited next. His son was a mage stationed just a half-day's ride away at the garrison of the Black Iron Knights' 3rd Echelon, where he was tasked with operating the communication crystal ball.