The Scoundrel of the Hero Family (3)
How many months had passed since he'd declared he would become a scoundrel? Shiron found himself struck by a sudden thought.
The efficiency is dropping lower and lower…
People were adaptable creatures, or so the saying went. And that held true even in a world inside a game.
Hurst, the special-grade chef, had come to believe his cooking skills had improved by leaps and bounds thanks to Shiron. And Echidna, the part-time instructor, whose bitter, resentful muttering used to erupt from time to time, seemed to have grown used to it — the outbursts were growing rarer by the day.
Most important of all, the named NPCs who used to loiter through every alley of the marketplace had vanished without a trace. Shiron had left out just enough bait while prowling around, knowing that pure, indiscriminate beatings would only drive them into hiding — but even that was losing its bite.
In a situation where he couldn't see a Status Window or any system interface, it was a truly frustrating problem.
When things get like this, the answer is to raise the efficiency…
Until now, he'd been cautious about going out, assuming his Reputation value was still fairly high. But enough time had passed since he'd started grinding favorability down that Shiron figured he could afford to operate more boldly.
Broader. More thorough.
Banks, libraries, restaurants, auction houses, amusement parks… Balls hosted by noble houses. Gambling dens and black-market auctions run by the underworld. Those places were guaranteed to be packed with NPCs because of the events that would unfold there later — and they were crawling with enemies he could thrash without a shred of guilt. Perfect venues for scoundrel work.
"Young Master, how do I look? Don't I look like a proper, capable attendant like this?"
"W-wearing pants is a first for me, so it feels a little strange."
The two women standing before Shiron looked faintly bashful. Before setting out for their destination, Encia and Ophelia had swapped their usual maid uniforms for black formal suits so they could serve as escorts — on Shiron's insistence that being guarded by maids simply didn't look cool enough.
"Ahem."
Shiron cleared his throat once, gathering their attention.
"Don't forget to hold back."
He spoke in a deliberately serious tone. For his Reputation to stay low, the NPCs whose favorability had dropped needed to stay alive. He repeated the warning to the two women — whose natures leaned closer to evil than not — and headed for the bank.
"…"
But the bank they arrived at was wrong somehow. When they opened the door and stepped inside, there were no guards — only hulking men who looked more like bandits, drawing their blades to greet him.
"Wh-what the hell?! How did these bastards get in here?!"
"Hey! What about the mana barrier?!"
"I-I don't know! How the hell did they get through?!"
"…How? We just opened the door and walked in."
Encia shrugged with a blunt, unimpressed look. The thugs charged her at once. Anyone could see these men were not bank employees.
"Encia. I think you can kill these ones."
"Yes."
Thud-thud-thud—
The moment Shiron gave the order, the thugs' heads hit the floor. Three corpses crumpled after them. It was a flurry of strikes too fast for Shiron even to follow. Their deaths were a foregone conclusion.
Shiron crossed his arms, watching the carpet darken with blood.
"Tch… This is thoroughly screwed…"
He rubbed his chin and groaned. Armed men standing watch in a bank corridor meant something was already going down beyond that door.
"Young Master? Looks like there are hostages inside. Are you going to save them?"
"…Hold on."
Shiron pressed his fingers hard into his brow and stopped Encia. There was more than one problem here. Even if the people involved were characters in a game, Shiron hesitated to throw his weight around against anyone who wasn't clearly a villain. He was a good person by nature. Leaving innocent civilians to die was not something he wanted.
But if he went in and rescued them like this, every effort he'd made so far would go up in smoke. Even a fool could see that saving the NPCs inside would send their favorability soaring. Watching the Reputation he'd worked so hard to lower climb right back up — and then keep climbing — was not a result he welcomed.
What do I do? It'd be such a waste to ruin the image I've built up.
Shiron chewed his lip, then finally looked at the maids.
"…Even if we save them, we save them in a way that doesn't make anyone like us."
The bank, which had fallen silent at the trio's entrance, grew noisy again.
"…"
Who the hell are these bastards?
Aaron, the leader of the robber gang, stared at the figures who had appeared out of nowhere. The expensive clothes, the way they had subdued his men in an instant — it hammered into his brain that these were no ordinary people.
They broke through a sixth-class barrier?
As a fifth-class mage, Aaron understood exactly what that meant. The scroll broker on the black market had clearly told him it was a sixth-class spell — Isolation Barrier. Isolation Barrier created a space cut off from the outside world. No one could tell what was happening inside, and it even stripped people of the will to approach. To see through it and force your way in, you needed magic skill at least on par with seventh-class — or higher.
Isolation Barrier was rare enough that plenty of mages didn't even know it existed.
Seventh-class? Or beyond that?
Breaking through Isolation Barrier and walking in… Aaron's first instinct was that the other side was no ordinary opponent. And yet he couldn't feel any mana from them that suggested they could cast magic. Walking into the barrier without so much as a single barrier-dispelling formula was a phenomenon his mind simply refused to accept.
That bastard… he scammed me…
A thick vein bulged on Aaron's forehead. He had paid a fortune of thirty thousand shillings for the thing, and his rage swelled beyond control. But it didn't matter. Once this job was done, he could recover ten times, twenty times the loss in profit.
I kill the brat first.
The decision was quick. Aaron quietly began chanting, aiming at the boy who had been glancing around and rubbing his chin.
Lightning Bolt
The chant resonated with his mana and answered the staff in his hand. In a fraction of a second — perhaps less — blue lightning crashed down on the boy. Unfortunately for Aaron, the spell never reached him.
"…Young Master? These guys are attacking us out of nowhere."
The golden-haired woman stretched out a hand and caught the lightning. The air screamed with a crackling hiss, but only the sleeve of her jacket was lightly scorched. The woman who had taken a direct hit from the magic looked completely unfazed.
"…Wh… what."
Aaron's face went ashen. Reacting to a Lightning Bolt without even looking at the staff's direction and stopping it cold was a feat he had never even heard of.
The boy spat on the floor and looked at the woman beside him.
"Ophelia. Bring that bastard in front of me."
"Understood."
At the boy's command, Ophelia started toward Aaron. The atmosphere had shifted completely from their entrance. The fact that Aaron had aimed an attack at Shiron made Ophelia's blood boil.
"D-don't come near me!"
Aaron unleashed magic in a desperate barrage, but Ophelia didn't even bother dodging. She simply seized him by the hair.
"Ah! Aaaagh!"
Aaron thrashed wildly with his hair in her grip, but there was no overcoming Ophelia's monstrous strength.
"I-I'm sorry!"
The pain of his scalp nearly tearing free flooded Aaron's face with tears. Words of apology spilled from his mouth on their own. Ophelia dragged the man who deserved death to Shiron's feet at a pace neither too fast nor too slow.
Thud—
"On your knees, trash."
"Ugh… uh…"
Aaron crawled across the floor with a face contorted by terror. More than the sight of a woman who could take a fifth-class mage's spell head-on without flinching, it was the way she treated him not as a person but as a piece of luggage that crushed his spirit.
Shiron grabbed Aaron by the collar and locked eyes with him. Aaron couldn't hold the gaze. Who was the master and who was the servant had already been decided.
"You. Do you know who I am?"
"…I-I don't, sir."
"Then where did you get the confidence to attack me? I genuinely cannot understand it."
Crack—
Shiron snickered and backhanded Aaron across the face.
Crack— Crack—
Sharp sounds rang out one after another. Shiron kept slapping until the mage hung limp.
"Next."
Everyone froze at how quickly it had all unfolded. The people lying on the cold floor, the thugs still holding hostages — none of them were any different. Cold sweat poured down the thugs as they watched their leader get dragged off without resistance.
"C-come any closer and I'll kill them!"
One of the thugs pressed a knife to a hostage's throat and shouted — but Ophelia caught the blade bare-handed and snapped it. The hostage, left with only a thin scratch on the neck, promptly fainted. The thug scrambled to run. It was useless.
"Aaagh! Gyaaah!"
Weeping and screaming, the thug was forced to his knees in front of Shiron.
"Don't tell me you were actually threatening me? That's hilarious. You thought hostages would work?"
"Uh… ghk…"
The thug couldn't form proper words through the fear and pain.
"You had the nerve to threaten me. So you're going to get hit until you die."
"I-I'm sorry… please, spare— khuk!"
Taking the apology as his cue, Shiron drove his fist into the thug's face until it caved in.
Thud— Thud— Thud— Crunch—
With a sound like a pumpkin splitting open, every person left in the bank dropped their weapons and flattened themselves on the ground. They had correctly understood that not resisting was their only path to survival.