Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 176
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 176
“A favor?”
Jack repeated the word a little loudly, as if the last thing he’d expected from Hero’s mouth was a request.
In response, Hero gave an awkward laugh and changed the subject.
“Hahaha. Well, an old memory suddenly came to mind.”
“What old memory are you talking about?”
Hero and his ally.
The conversation between the two, whose achievements were such that they could fairly be called the heroes who saved the world, flowed in a remarkably ordinary fashion.
“Back when you picked my pocket…”
“Hahaha. No, when did I ever do such a thing to you, Hero! It’s all in the past… You aren’t telling me that now the war is over, I’ve got to take the punishment I earned back then, are you?”
Listening to the exchange, Lion let out a silent laugh inside.
‘Right. That did happen.’
He’d forgotten, but as he listened the memories came flooding back fresh.
Hero’s comrade. Jack’s first appearance in the story.
It had been such an interesting bit of story that even Lion, who’d skipped through most of the plot, remembered it clearly.
Just as the dialogue suggested, Jack had swiped Hero’s pocket.
What was more, that pocket had contained a fairly important quest item, and the setup of the game’s protagonist, ‘Hero’ of all people, getting his pocket picked had felt amusing too.
‘Of course, it was all buildup to recruiting him as a party member.’
What came afterward played out just as anyone would imagine.
Joining Hero’s party, getting caught up in ever more serious matters, and eventually playing a crucial role in solving the enormous crisis as the Demon Realm and this dimension gradually linked.
‘But judging from the conversation…’
The current moment was probably right after the war had ended.
And he knew it instinctively.
Something important was about to be said.
Lion strained his ears to follow the conversation as closely as he could.
“Starting tomorrow, I’m scheduled to spend a week at the Great Barrier.”
“So that stingy mage and the Saintess have finally finished it, I take it. But why are you telling me this?”
That he had no connection to it whatsoever. That he’d washed his hands of playing hero.
Jack drew a clear line.
“I’m going to quit acting the hero and go back to where I belong.”
He shuddered, saying he had no wish to get tangled in political games or fight for his life.
At those words, Hero didn’t answer for a long moment.
“…Why are you looking at me like that?”
Instead, he fixed Jack with a steady gaze.
It was probably meant as a wordless sort of pressure.
“I really have washed my hands of it.”
“…”
“And especially, I have absolutely no intention of getting involved with you ever again. Besides, well, to put it plainly, haven’t I more than paid you back for picking your pocket… haah.”
He wasn’t listening at all.
Realizing that his impassioned speech wasn’t getting through, Jack let out an extremely deep sigh.
When Jack finally exhausted himself into silence, Hero at last opened his firmly shut mouth.
“It so happens that the warehouse’s security came undone on its own, you see.”
“…”
“And by sheer coincidence, a few objects are scheduled to vanish from that warehouse without anyone even noticing they’re gone.”
“You’re…”
“And wouldn’t it be better for those objects to end up with someone who actually needs them?”
In other words, he was dropping a hint to go and clean out his personal warehouse.
‘…So that’s how the Spirit Sword Fragment…’
made its way into the criminal underworld, and from there into my hands?
He’d just learned how it had traveled through Jack and the Second Prince to eventually reach him.
But, why?
‘Because the war ended?’
Did that mean it was fine because he’d never be in mortal danger again?
That because he was this world’s strongest existence, nothing could threaten his life?
He could concede a hundred steps and accept that line of thought.
With achievements like his, that was confidence, not arrogance.
But even so, wasn’t it strange?
‘He could just hold on to it and use it when someone close to him was in danger.’
The Saintess was the prime example.
It was already known across the empire that the Saintess had died suddenly one day.
A person who bore exceptional holy power and held enormous symbolic significance as the Former Archbishop.
For Hero, whose character was to cherish and fight to save his comrades, wouldn’t it have been better to give the Spirit Sword Fragment to the Saintess?
Or did Hero judge that the Saintess wasn’t the right person for it?
‘Now that I think of it, how the Former Archbishop died is…’
Not clearly known.
There were rumors—that the aftermath of fighting demons had left her with only a short time, that her lifespan had always been brief—but no one really knew.
And—
‘Wait.’
When did Hero go missing, anyway?
Piecing together the clues he’d gathered so far with the content of this conversation, Hero definitely hadn’t died somewhere.
He had vanished without a trace.
In that case…
Lion focused his mind as hard as he could and turned the problem over.
It felt like playing a precarious game of tag with something he could almost catch but not quite.
‘First, what’s certain.’
Was that Hero was acting with a clear intention.
Whether the Saintess had known about that plan was unknown, and his grandfather and Jack hadn’t known either.
He probably hadn’t told them.
‘But those two, they might’ve…’
Privately gathered that information after Hero had gone missing.
‘I don’t know about the Elder Elf.’
The elf nation wasn’t somewhere he could visit right now, so he’d set that aside for the moment.
And second.
Hero had begun planning this from the time the war against the demons was already underway.
Which also meant he had known that the war against the demons wouldn’t be the end of it.
In fact, Hero’s guess had proved correct.
Were there not still demons remaining in this world?
Things like the horrific past of the Marquessate of Bydantis, or the Second Prince’s curse.
And the Demonic Beast Egg had also originally been from the Demon Realm.
Matters he’d once dismissed as needless worry were now showing their heads, one by one.
Just as Lion was about to continue that line of thought.
“You know, you really are absurdly selfish, has anyone ever told you that?”
“Hahaha.”
“Fine. But in exchange, there’s something I need to confirm.”
“Confirm, you say?”
“What you’re planning to do. Is it, this time as well, the right thing?”
“That is…”
Unlike before, Hero’s words trailed off.
But Jack clicked his tongue as if he had expected exactly that.
“Tch, you’re about to say you don’t actually know whether it’s the right thing or not this time, aren’t you.”
Jack grumbled for a moment, then abruptly raised his voice.
“Ah, is this some sin I committed!”
Save every last person, and then you end up like this, trying to accommodate the selfish nonsense spouted by a handful of ingrates.
Utterly too good-hearted!
The sound of his feet striking the ground—thud, thud, thud—was thick with displeasure.
After fuming for a long while, Jack finally accepted the demand.
“Hmph, since your best effort will be the right thing—this once! Just! This last time, I’ll help.”
“Thank you.”
“If you’re grateful, I wish you would please just forget the memory of our first meeting.”
“Hahaha. That, I can’t forget.”
And what followed was again ordinary conversation.
The one slightly unusual thing was that Hero repeated, word for word, what Jack had said earlier when calling the two children over.
Use it if you need it, but if the need is gone, give it to someone who does need it.
“Nagging, honestly. Still treating me like the brat from years ago, I see.”
Jack replied in a thoroughly bored, halfhearted tone, and the conversation soon came to an end.
Hero and Jack seemed to be going their separate ways.
The sounds of their two sets of footsteps receded from each other.
At the distant edge of his musings, a clear voice rang out.
“Well now, that last request turned out awfully long, didn’t it…”
It was the final soliloquy of an old man whose breath was fading.
Jack—now the former head—let out a low, private laugh…
…
…
“…!”
In an instant, his vision flipped.
The pitch darkness that had obscured everything before his eyes lifted, and his body snapped back to reality.
He knew instinctively that the Story Mode had ended at the very moment Former Jack breathed his last.
His body had been on the verge of collapsing, and he barely managed to catch himself on the table and sofa with his arms, sparing himself an unsightly fall.
But how much time had passed?
“Are you all right?”
Lion lifted his head stiffly and looked at the Second Prince.
The man was gazing at him with a rare expression of flusterment, and from the awkwardly extended hand, it was clear he’d been on the verge of catching him.
Judging by that.
‘Not much time has passed.’
Lion shook his head lightly, which was still spinning dizzily, and forced himself to finish taking stock of the situation.
He lifted the hand he’d braced with to check the disguise mask, and only once he’d confirmed it was undisturbed did he allow himself a silent sigh of relief.
He had witnessed and heard quite a long tale, yet in reality barely a few seconds had elapsed.
That, at least, was a stroke of considerable luck.
“I’m fine. I seem to have overexerted myself a little.”
If it had taken even a little longer, something unfortunate might well have occurred.
‘First, let’s get back quickly today.’
His initial objective of lifting the Second Prince’s curse was already accomplished, and what he’d gained beyond that was a staggering trove of information.
If his condition had been good, he would have liked to ask the Second Prince about the former generation or the current Jack, but…
‘I feel like crap.’
His body was in terribly poor shape.
And if he suddenly started talking here, the Second Prince might catch on that something was wrong.
“The gift… I gratefully accept. Well then.”
Lion straightened up.
His stomach churned as if he’d been shaken by the dregs of something foul.
It hadn’t been like this when he first experienced Story Mode, which made it strange.
‘…Wait, could prolonged Story Mode cause side effects?’
That was a plausible notion.
If so, he urgently needed to return to the hotel and rest.
Perhaps Nature could resolve this the way it did motion sickness.
“Wait a moment.”
“Parting is best done quickly. If we can meet again, let’s do so then.”
The Second Prince had called out to stop him, but unfortunately this was not a situation for leisurely conversation.
The unrelenting nausea meant that if he wasn’t careful, he was going to throw up everything right here.
He declined to do that in front of another person.
Lion strode quickly out of the room, clapping a hand over his mouth as he went.
“Urgh.”
In the end, he was sick onto the hotel floor.
‘Ah, I feel terrible about this.’
No matter how luxurious the hotel or how much you paid to get in, cleaning up a stranger’s vomit still seemed like the sort of thing nobody wanted to do…
“…Huh?”
Lion stared at the red liquid staining his hand and the floor.
The moment he recognized the vivid crimson, the metallic tang of blood spread across his tongue.
Had he just thrown up blood?
Him?
‘…The blood is red, so I haven’t taken on the curse.’
Lion maintained his composure as much as he could.
He’d vomited blood, but the amount was very small, and the absence of any black tinge made it clear this wasn’t a curse-related problem.
On the contrary, it resembled the internal injuries that knights or mages sometimes suffered when they overexerted their power.
If that was the case, then absolute rest for a while and brewing a potion for internal injury recovery to take would resolve it.
Rickshel would be worried sick if he found out, so he’d leave the disguise on until he was back in his room and had thoroughly cleaned off all the blood.
‘It’s all right.’
So let’s just get back and rest.
Lion wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and forced his halted feet to move again.
But, as they say, there is no such thing as the perfect crime.
“…”
After Lion had gone, the Second Prince stepped out through the door, which hadn’t quite been closed, and looked at the floor.
There were several things that Lion, who’d vomited blood for the first time in his life, had overlooked—the first being that the Second Prince was a master capable of detecting a person’s presence even outside a closed door.
The second was that
Kyle felt a gratitude toward Lion deeper than Lion himself realized.
Which meant he was not about to let a person who had vomited blood for his sake simply walk away.
Even if it ran somewhat counter to their ‘promise.’
And lastly.
The blood of one who possesses mana or aura divulges that person’s unique information.
Especially in the case of a distinguished magical house like the Asteri family, all the more so.