Chapter 36: Truth and Disappointment
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 36: Truth and Disappointment
Click, clack.
The sound of luxury Masquerada heels left their mark on Lukart once again.
However, the pattern of those prints was jagged and rough.
Though her stride was elegant, Nasian’s walk was fueled by a fierce, suppressed rage.
“Alto Bertrand is a sucker?”
Idiots.
Is this how they treat the nation’s greatest hero?
To treat a man like this simply because of his appearance…
Since when did this country, this world, become so twisted?
Fiction can never defeat reality.
Fiction must build a foundation of probability to seem real, but reality simply happens. Once it occurs, it becomes an undeniable fact that shatters all logic and context.
And the more it does, the more reality proves just how much of a gutter it is—how utterly imperfect.
This appalling reality and the current state of affairs had been festering in the rear lines throughout the ten-year war against the Demons.
The very people that soldiers, including Nasian herself, had fought so desperately to protect had evolved into this.
As a former intelligence officer, she was instinctively excellent at finding deserted, dark, and narrow alleys.
Avoiding the crowds, she stepped into a dead-end where the stench was pungent.
No one was tailing her.
There were women who had targeted Nasian for the luxury goods she wore, but the Bank Manager of Dakuren had lost the thugs with a few light steps.
That annoyance had actually saved the thugs’ lives.
Had they followed her to the end, they would have died by Nasian’s hand.
“Sigh… Haaa.”
Nasian tried to soothe herself with a gesture as if to say ‘let’s stop here,’ but she couldn’t contain the surging fury. She kicked the wall and spat out the words she had been holding back.
“He’s Alto Bertrand!”
“A member of the legendary Bertrand Unit who saw every single front line!”
“Every one of you owes a debt to the Bertrand Unit! They were deployed to every losing battle and turned them into victories! You all owe that man your lives!”
“Even Bantor of the Left Wing, the No. 2 National Merit Recipient, couldn’t match the achievements of Alto Bertrand of the Right Wing!”
“The hero who personally marked and even took down Vulcanus of Mad Laughter… the greatest hero aside from the Four Heroes… and you dare?”
Even Nasian had been saved by Alto once.
When Vulcanus had raided the Intelligence Unit headquarters just to find out where Alto was, Nasian had been moments away from being burned alive along with the building. That was when Alto appeared with Janks to fight back.
‘Altoooon~!!!!!’
‘Don’t call my name so sweetly, you crazy bitch!’
‘I want to kill all of humanity quickly so I can face you one-on-one! We can spend eternity killing each other! These people are just shackles preventing you from showing your true strength!’
‘I’m a hound, you see. I only show my full strength when I have something to protect. And… when I have prey to hunt!’
‘A-hahahahahahaha! Come and stab me, darling!!!!!’
While the battle raged beyond human comprehension, Janks had led everyone to safety.
After driving Vulcanus back, Alto had approached the trembling Nasian and asked:
‘Any casualties?’
‘There are serious injuries, but no deaths yet…’
‘I see.’
A natural use of informal speech met with a natural use of formal respect.
‘I’m glad I could protect you.’
Perhaps that was the hidden warmth of the hunting dog known as the Bloodhound.
“And you made a hero like that take out a loan just so you could spend it all on luxury wallets for other men?!”
The brief reminiscence ended.
Nasian returned to the present, her anger flaring anew.
She had finally squeezed the truth out of the Lukart Bank Manager regarding where Alto’s 40 million Dalk had gone.
‘Who? The Priest? The party’s Priest? The Priest made a man in her party take out a loan for her personal use and spent it all?’
‘It’s true! The Priest and the Ranger are head over heels for Gerend, and the Tank and Mage are dating Claude. Lord Alto was treated like garbage because of his looks and just did all the grunt work. But at some point, the party started badmouthing him, and everyone else joined in. That’s how the whole of Lukart became like this! Unnie, your face is really scary right now, can you please relax…?’
Nasian felt a pang of regret.
Unaware of these circumstances, she had pressured Alto harshly at the Dakuren Bank.
She had thought that if he was the man she remembered, she had to use rough methods to make him see reason.
But as the Final War ended, he had buried the scent of blood and the madness he once carried.
It made sense.
He was a man who wielded his weapon to protect his country and humanity.
There was no way he would bare his teeth at those he was meant to protect.
A hunting dog with its tongue out, smiling.
How had this nation, these people, treated the man who had transformed into a kind and warm neighbor?
And what about that Mirei Party?
There was even someone in that party who should have never, under any circumstances, betrayed him.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit!”
She kicked the wall repeatedly.
Her anger wouldn’t subside, and as her own mistakes mixed in, a sense of self-loathing began to take root.
“Dammit!”
Crack!
The heel of her Masquerada luxury pump, worth over 100 million Dalk, snapped off and remained wedged in the wall.
Nasian discarded the shoes without a second thought and pulled a pair of comfortable shoes from her large bag.
Well, she still had a mission to complete.
But as she prepared to move, the luxury items she had worn as a distraction felt cumbersome.
As she stepped out of the alley, debating what to do, three female thugs were waiting for her.
“Hey, Unnie, you look like you’ve got money.”
“Why don’t we go through you from top to bottom and see what’s worth taking?”
Perfect timing. I found some suitable bitches.
Her stress hadn’t been fully relieved since her heel broke.
Nasian, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses, let out a thin, predatory smile and slowly backed away, sinking into the darkness of the alley again.
“Is she trying to run?”
“It’s a dead end, kuku.”
“She must be panicked. Hey, grab her. Let’s go in and strip her clean.”
The three thugs, too stupid to recognize the gap in their strength, followed her in. They were found much later—a very long time later.
Because they had been exposed to the hot weather and the rainy season, no one realized that the rag-like scraps of cloth covering them had once been luxury goods.
And the skin on one of the thugs’ faces was completely gone, swarming with flies.
Furthermore, every single one of them had been stripped of their outer clothing.
* * *
“Diane! Hurry up and clean the horse dung!”
“Diane! Did you call the farrier?”
“Diane! That carriage driver bitch is doing her business on the floor instead of the restroom again! Kick that crazy bitch out!”
Diane, the Ranger of Mirei’s party, was handling all the low-rank quests just as she had declared to her party.
She didn’t rest for a single moment, performing manual labor that would barely earn 1 million Dalk even if she worked hard all week.
And she was handing all that compensation over to the party.
“Gyahaha! I’ll clean it right away!”
“The farrier is already here making his rounds!”
“That’s not a driver, it’s a homeless person. I was told to only manage the drivers, gyahahahahat!”
As it turned out, there were particularly many quests from the carriage station.
And the station employees were bossing Diane around—a Hero-rank adventurer—without a second thought.
Diane didn’t let it get her down; she moved energetically and completed the quests without a single word of complaint.
However, Nasian could see what others couldn’t.
The way Diane’s eyes darted restlessly and the twitching at the corners of her mouth.
She was in a state of extreme tension and anxiety.
Nasian had already gathered all the necessary information.
The Priest Krima and the Ranger Diane had fallen for Gerend and stabbed Alto in the back.
Krima was the primary instigator; Diane was just a simple-minded follower.
But because she was so simple-minded, she was the one who had shouted at the Adventurer Guild that Alto was a deserter and had been kicked out, causing the rumors to spread.
Sensing something off, Nasian had dug deeper.
She investigated how far things had gone with that pretty-boy Gerend.
Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to find out. She had seen the brown-haired Priest clinging to Gerend.
She didn’t even want to recall the conversation she overheard; it was too disgusting.
However, from that conversation, she learned that Gerend viewed Diane as a mere child, and they hadn’t shared any physical contact beyond pecks on the forehead or cheeks and hugs.
“Ha… Dammit, that one’s got mold on it.”
It wasn’t completely rotten, but it was unpleasant in many ways.
Should she cut out the moldy part or not?
Nasian fell into her second dilemma of the day.
Sitting in the carriage station waiting room, she glared at Diane from a distance through her sharp eyes behind the sunglasses.
“Gyahahahahat! Leave it to me!”
A frivolous laugh.
Shark-like teeth revealed every time she smiled.
“Clean that up, quickly! People will curse up a storm if they step in it!”
“Okay, okay!”
She wore a sleeveless top, unconcerned about showing skin due to her childlike physique.
And on her exposed left arm was a simple patterned tattoo reminiscent of crocodile skin and shark fins, circling her arm.
It was her.
She was the illegitimate child.
Diane bore the tattoo that proved she was of the bloodline of that hero from the Eruhin tribe.
“Is she a write-off…?”
Even Count Dakuus probably hadn’t expected this.
Nasian was certain of it.
She was about to grab a carriage driver and head back to Dakuren.
But then, Diane returned after finishing the floor cleaning.
The staff were too busy to look for her.
In that moment, Diane’s eyes went hollow.
Crouching in a corner of the waiting room, Diane stared blankly ahead.
“Alto…”
A single word escaped her lips, making Nasian pause.
“I want to apologize…”
Nasian watched Diane, who sat still like a broken doll while stroking the misanga on her wrist. Nasian snorted and stood up.
“Over here! Dakuren! Double the pay if we arrive in two days with a high-speed movement buff—no, triple!”
“Oh! Customer! You were here! You called for me, right?”
“You crazy bitch! Your carriage is only B-rank, stay out of this!”
“Unnie, Unnie! Me! I won’t even charge for camping fees!”
In an instant, carriage drivers swarmed around Nasian.
The Dakuren Bank Manager shouted to the drivers:
“There are too many of you! Fine! I’ll take whoever goes to the station counter and brings back a carriage entry/exit receipt first!”
“We need the customer’s name to write the receipt, though?”
“Ha! Do you know who I am? I’m Nasian, the Bank Manager of Dakuren~!!! That’s why I’m paying triple!”
“Whoa! A big spender!”
Diane watched the commotion from right in front of her.
“An entry/exit receipt?”
Even a fool like Diane knew.
Usually, only the driver’s name was put on those receipts out of laziness, not the customer’s.
But if it were Alto, it might be different.
At the very least, wouldn’t it say ‘Male’?
Light returned to her eyes.
Hurriedly checking her surroundings, Diane slipped into the office, avoiding the station staff who were distracted by the commotion Nasian had caused.
Finding the bin where the receipts were piled, Diane scanned them with a speed that belied her usual foolishness. Finally, she found one.
[Lukart > Hus, Male, Driver Arasen / Affiliated with Hus]
The only receipt that indicated a male passenger had departed.
“Hmph.”
Nasian, who had known all of this would happen, turned away coldly with a driver.
“I’ll be watching. To see if you’re recyclable.”
But she would have to earn it through the proper process.
She hoped, even if just a little, that the girl could show a side worthy of being that hero’s daughter.