chapter 4
Chapter 4:
"Well—"
At the question of when she planned to reveal the truth about their relationship, Serin paused briefly before opening her mouth, with no idea that a cruel fate was already on its way.
***
The Hero had vanished.
It was the hottest piece of news drawing the attention of everyone from back-alley small-time thugs to market children.
Order had been restored after a fashion, and the Empire was in the middle of preparing a festival to flaunt its national power. Amid all that, the news that the Hero—hailed as a symbol of that order—had been missing for 2 weeks naturally gave birth to all manner of rumors.
That he had been captured by the Holy Kingdom after passing judgment on Archbishop Henvil. That the Demon Race was actually still invading, and the Hero had gone off alone to hold them back. That he had simply chosen to go into hiding for a brief rest after the grueling journey.
All sorts of rumors swelled and circulated through the marketplace, yet none were ever confirmed as the truth.
And so every organization operating in the Capital City, without exception, turned its ears toward any word of the Hero's whereabouts. In particular, the Scales of Ash—an organization renowned for its black market dealings and information brokering—issued direct orders to the heads of its 5 Capital City branches.
Find the Hero.
No mention was made of a reward, but the 5 branch heads understood immediately. If they seized this opportunity properly, they might secure a position not just within the Capital City, but at the central headquarters itself.
'And the person who's going to make that happen is none other than me—Lucy Hart.'
Branch head of the southern outskirts branch. Self-proclaimed Goddess of the Alley Shadows, Lucy Hart.
'Branch head at 27, and if I make it all the way to headquarters… who knows, maybe I'll end up as the overall boss someday~'
Brimming with grand ambitions, she stood before the mirror mounted on the wall of her office.
Beneath her jet-black bob, a pair of long, narrow eyes. Eyes that might have looked fierce on another face, but thanks to natural beauty so striking it left little room for complaint, they read instead as cold and elegant.
Translucent red lips, and a nose that rose sharply against pale white skin.
A level of beauty that would be hard-pressed to find a rival anywhere in the back alleys.
And not just her face—her figure, too, was more than a black bustier could fully contain. A single long strand of hair sticking up from her sleek head added a touch of cuteness to the allure.
'Hah~ Truly a perfect woman, if not for the background. Then again, maybe the low birth makes it even more charming?'
She smiled and gave a small nod. She always thought her looks were close to perfection, no matter when she looked.
After gazing at the mirror for a good while, she walked over to the chair at her office desk and sat down calmly.
In the current situation, the wisest move to complete the directive ahead of the other branch heads was to set aside her other contracts for the time being.
Lucy swept aside the towering stack of documents to one corner and tapped the desk twice.
"Mirna! Come in here for a second!"
Mirna was the woman in charge of the information division for the outskirts branch—a walking encyclopedia who had memorized not just the surrounding area but the entire map of the Capital City.
She was also the only other woman among Lucy's 5 direct subordinates, and since their personalities got along well, Lucy always kept her close by… but—
'What? Where did she go without saying anything? She'd normally even tell me when she was going to the bathroom.'
"Mirna! Are you not here? Where on earth—"
That was the moment it happened. The office door came flying off its hinges from a powerful impact and sailed through the air.
'Huh?'
The iron door cut through the air and filled Lucy's vision in an instant.
Ah.
'My makeup came out so well today.'
That was the last thought she had in the split second before the iron door hit her square on.
Wham!!
***
Lucy was someone with real ability. Crossing the threshold of mid-level Sword Expert at the young age of 27 was no less than what one would expect from a genius.
Thanks to that, in that brief moment, she wrapped mana around her body and braced against the iron door, dispersing the impact.
'H—holy. That scared me half to death. What in the world?'
That said, she wasn't unscathed. Blood trickled steadily down from above her forehead.
It had all happened so suddenly that her defense hadn't been perfect. Considering she hadn't even had a weapon on hand, getting off with that much was impressive in its own right.
"Who the hell is this?! Are you out of your—"
She was quick to assess situations. The iron door had come flying, a loud crash had followed, and yet not a single one of her subordinates had come running.
The dust was thick enough that she couldn't see the hallway beyond the doorway, but her subordinates had almost certainly been taken down long before this.
'Who is it? Is there really someone strong enough to hold a grudge against the Scales of Ash and act on it?'
Lucy quickly snatched the whip hanging on the wall behind the desk and shot to her feet.
But she never did get to swing that whip and take a proper fighting stance.
"What the…."
As the dust slowly settled, a figure walking through it came into view. He had concealed his body beneath a hooded cloak and hidden his face behind a white mask, but she knew.
'A monster. This is a monster.'
A sinister aura rising from his entire body. Even a rough estimate put his mana pressure at twice what Lucy herself possessed.
Fight and die. Even entertain the thought of fighting and die.
Lucy had always been quick to judge.
"Wh—what brings you here?!" she cried, vaulting over the desk and planting her face flat on the ground in front of the man. The office was underground, and with no other exit besides the doorway where he stood, there was no way to run.
"No contract necessary! Whatever you tell me to do, I'll find a way to make it happen!"
He looked down at her in silence. Beneath that gaze, Lucy felt as though her body might be crushed under its weight.
Thunk—
The man's battered sword drove itself into the floor beside Lucy.
"…Eep."
He bent his knees and crouched down over her trembling form, then tapped the top of her head lightly, twice.
"You can raise your head."
Lucy deliberated. What if he's a raving psychopath? Should she try a surprise attack right now? Or maybe slide between his legs and make a run for it?
Having run through several options in the blink of an eye, Lucy slowly lifted her head. Honestly, she couldn't think of a way to escape those eyes radiating such overwhelming presence.
And the moment she raised her head, her narrow eyes flew wide open in surprise.
"Shh."
He removed his hood and took off his mask, revealing the man's face—and there stood a young man with white hair and golden eyes. The Hero.
***
Vincent. A cart driver who had been with the Hero's party for just under 2 years.
With golden hair and a bronze complexion, he had a rather rough-looking face. Tei had argued he looked like a bit of a delinquent and pushed to find someone else, but he was the man who had joined after the Hero—myself—convinced everyone he would be fine.
When we entered the full-scale Battlefront, the coachman and porters who couldn't handle the brutal conditions had fled, and he was the only one who voluntarily stepped forward and said he would stay.
Of course, I had my own biases about him at first. Blond hair and a tanned complexion—even from my previous life, that wasn't exactly the most trustworthy image.
But as the time we spent together passed 1 year, the thoughts of myself and the other party members gradually began to change.
"Right away! Allow me to handle that!"
"Are you alright? I'll bring the luggage over immediately!"
"I'll take care of all the food preparation today!"
He took on the majority of tasks outside of combat. His diligence—never showing so much as a hint of complaint throughout—earned genuine gratitude from everyone.
And so I acknowledged him, this man called Vincent. The reason I hadn't immediately stepped in when I saw him browsing flowers with Serin was because of that.
'…Setting aside the fact that Serin betrayed me—Vincent has committed no sin.'
There were clear reasons why I had resolved to take revenge on Airen, Serin, and Tei.
The feeling of being betrayed in love, and the fact that on the Battlefront they had looked away from their duties as the Hero's party and turned a blind eye to people dying around them.
But no such sin had been given to Vincent. He hadn't been a member of the Hero's party who was obligated to play an active role.
Simply a relationship built on a contract and money. Yet one that had been genuinely helpful and dependable.
'…What should I do about him?'
I was troubled, turning it over in my unsettled mind, when the thing that moved me to act came in the form of a note. It was a message from the group who had been bringing me information since the time I was chosen as Hero.
They were also the ones who had carried out all the background investigation on Archbishop Henvil.
The contents written in the note were not especially complicated.
That no proper record of the man called Vincent existed. Beyond having not a single verifiable background to establish his identity, the village he had named as his hometown when signing the employment contract 2 years ago—
'It was a village that had ceased to exist over 30 years ago?'
And what was written at the end of that note was even more shocking.
The only confirmed record of a blond man called Vincent was an entry log from 2 years ago, at the Scales of Ash's northern noble district branch in the Capital City.
And—
'The northern branch of the Scales of Ash is suspected of having ties to a dark sorcerer organization.'
Ah.
Having read the note in full, things I had never thought to connect to Vincent came flooding back to mind.
The incident where Demon Race troops suddenly invaded a perfectly peaceful village right when we had been scheduled to visit it.
The incidents where the Demon Race—somehow knowing that children were my weakness—either disguised themselves as children directly or took actual children hostage.
The incident where the enemy came in swift pursuit straight to the cave we had retreated to after a fierce battle.
At the time I had lacked the opportunity to look into them properly and let them slide, but they suddenly flashed through my mind, and I grabbed my stomach and laughed—bwahaha.
'Thank you, Vincent.'
For giving me the certainty that you're someone I need to kill alongside Serin.
I moved immediately to sweep out the Scales of Ash's northern branch, but that proved realistically impossible. The Scales of Ash wasn't exactly an above-board organization, but it was regarded as a necessary evil that still maintained a certain line.
In fact, commoners who had no dealings with them would sometimes say they were a hundred times better than other groups—relatively civil, as far as it went.
'And with noble money laundering and pleasure dealings tangled up in it, there are far too many eyes watching.'
It was a little different from the case of Henvil. Taking down a clearly guilty individual was something I could do freely in my capacity as Hero.
Formally identifying the Scales of Ash as a criminal organization and launching a full-scale purge was an entirely different matter.
On top of that, the Scales of Ash even had fighters at the Sword Master level. I wasn't exactly lacking in confidence when it came to force, but taking on a fully grown Sword Master in a fight was still a burden I wasn't eager to take on.
'I don't like this.'
And if I didn't know which branch, which people, and in what way they were connected to the dark sorcerers, raiding them would be pointless anyway.
Simply causing mayhem wasn't the goal. That wasn't the way I went about achieving revenge.
"So I raided the place."
"Pardon…?"
"I don't particularly like repeating myself."
"O—of course! So what you're saying is—you want to use our branch to dig up information on the northern branch!"
The black-haired woman who had introduced herself as Lucy was trembling all over, yet she seemed to have taken in everything I said and reached a conclusion immediately.
'She's pretty sharp.'
As I sat back in the black leather chair in her office, she naturally settled into a kneeling position in front of me and listened.
For someone who had to be fairly proud for a branch-head-level member of the Scales of Ash, snapping into this kind of attitude so quickly was satisfying enough.
"But… if you already have a separate information network, wouldn't it be better to work with them…."
"They don't answer to me. The Henvil matter was them helping as a favor, nothing more."
"I—I see. But… either way, couldn't you just kill the man called Vincent and Serin and be done with it…?"
"They might cut their losses and go into hiding. After dealing with Vincent, the dark sorcerers working behind the scenes in league with the Demon Race—"
I crossed my legs and spoke calmly.
"Killing every last one of them is what's worth calling revenge."