111. Return of the Hero
111. Return of the Hero
When I realized early on in this world that guns were little more than ornaments, the first thing I did was go find a smithy.
- "Heyyy, you only think that 'cause you can't make one, right? If you build it like this and that, it'll outperform a magic crossbow, I'm telling you."
- "That technology already exists."
At first I figured medieval people couldn't make guns, so that was why they didn't use them much compared to crossbows.
But that wasn't it.
He wasn't John Browning, but this world had already produced someone from a magic tower who was no less capable.
An automatic rifle had already been designed not just a hundred years ago, but two hundred years ago, and even deployed in actual combat.
But in a world where even gardeners could casually use magic, rifles were literally white elephants.
Sure, they were easier to handle than a bow, but if the target had even a slightly tough hide—like an oni or a beastman—the rounds couldn't penetrate flesh.
You could get through the hide if you infused mana into them, but then you lost muzzle velocity.
That was because a bullet held far less mana capacity than an arrow, so you had to choose between velocity and power.
There was a reason I didn't just shoot people when I operated as John—I pinned them with joint locks first.
Fire from any real distance, and it was one of two outcomes: they'd dodge it or it wouldn't penetrate.
On top of that, a magic tower came along and built a crossbow you could summon from anywhere, fire repeatedly, with low noise—just pull the trigger and the bolt flew out and found its mark. Guns lost their place entirely.
Still, I couldn't give up.
Part of it was that I wasn't used to crossbows, but gunpowder has something about it that resonates in a man's chest.
So I kept going around to different smithies, pestering them to build me a gun that could surpass a magic crossbow.
And the smithy right in front of me now was the one I'd pestered the most.
"That takes me back..."
The old man had thrown me out of the shop the first time. By the fourth time I came nagging him, he'd graduated to beating me with a switch he'd made himself.
Getting thrashed while looking around the shop was how I learned something: the old-timer had remarkable craftsmanship.
That only made me more certain.
If anyone could build me something like a magic rifle that surpassed a magic crossbow, it was this man.
I kept pestering him after that, and somewhere along the way—after I'd heard about his past—I started being polite when I asked.
So what was the conclusion?
You can see for yourself.
Even the Counterintelligence Department, which looked favorably on John, went, "Guns are a bit..." and took only the joint-lock techniques while replacing the gun with a crossbow.
Anyway, my connection with the old-timer ran deeper than you'd think.
And this man was the Third Vandel?
"Small world..."
Ignoring Pia, who was giving me a strange look for suddenly getting lost in reminiscence, I stepped inside the smithy.
As soon as I entered, an old man whose hair was flecked with gray but whose back was ramrod straight locked eyes with me.
"Old man! It’s been a while."
"What's this. You're still alive."
The old man walked toward me.
"You goddamn whelp. Couldn't even die—had to come back again."
"I’m glad you look healthy too."
The old man barely came up to my chest.
About 160 centimeters, give or take.
But height meant very little for this man.
His sword aura could cut for several kilometers. What did 160 centimeters matter?
If anything, a smaller hitbox was a lot better.
While I was thinking that, the old man's eyes narrowed.
"What kind of insolent thoughts are you chewing on now?"
"I was just reflecting again on how remarkable you are, sir."
"You little punk. If you're going to lie, at least wet your lips first."
Thwack.
He smacked my thigh with an iron rod—where he'd pulled it from, I had no idea.
"Aghk."
It did not seem to contain mana, so why did it hurt so much?
This was why I hated dealing with people who had reached that level.
They could see right through your thoughts as if they'd mastered mind reading, and the hits they gave you hurt like hell.
"Then think properly, brat."
See. Doing it again. Reading my mind just however he pleased.
Old people seriously had no concept of respecting privacy.
Thwack.
"Urghk."
Apparently worried it'd be unfair if only my right thigh hurt, the old man gave my left one a matching hit, then shifted his gaze away from me to look at Pia.
He scrutinized Pia's face for a moment, and then the old man's lips quirked to one side.
"Your Grace, what brings you here with this madman in tow?"
At his words, I whipped my head toward Pia.
The two of them knew each other?
But she shook her head side to side.
Meaning they were meeting for the first time.
As the two of us exchanged glances, the old man spoke brusquely, as if tossing the words out.
"If someone is at a level I can’t see through, they must be a duke or a Dragon King. What else could they be?"
"Wow, confidence."
No, but.
So the old man really did have the standing to talk like that.
Pia nodded in comprehension and dyed her eyes with the crimson mana that was the Puppet Duchess's symbol as she spoke to the old man.
"Godrin. You’re even more impressive than I’d heard."
"To think Your Grace knows this old man’s name... I hardly know what to do with myself. So I’ll ask again: what brings you here? No changing the subject this time."
Before I knew it, the flow of the conversation had shifted entirely over to Pia and Old Man Godrin.
Reading the room, I turned into a sack of barley shoved into a corner and quietly crept aside.
Pia spoke.
"You’re busy, so I’ll be direct. Godrin, have you considered returning to the film industry?"
"I've no idea what you mean. I've never so much as set a toe in the arts, let alone the film world."
"You should have hidden the sword behind you before saying that, Krauser ‘Vandel’ Sirius."
Before Pia's words were even finished, a ferocious aura swept through the shop.
A heavy atmosphere, something like what you'd get if you gave bloodlust physical form, pressed down on my body.
Crackle, crack.
Ting. Ting.
Not just a feeling. It was actually physically pressing down.
I was freaking out at the floor that had just slightly split when Old Man Godrin, in a harsh voice I never could have imagined coming from the gruff old-timer of a moment ago, demanded of Pia.
"You...! Simon sent you...!"
"Who is Simon?"
"Don't play dumb. No one else but him could know about that sword."
"You seem to misunderstand. Just as you looked into Allen, I merely looked into you."
"I treated you with courtesy because you’re a duchess, but if you’re serving that bastard, that changes things."
"You aren't listening to what I'm saying."
"Arm yourself. I'll at least give you that much time."
The old man suddenly convulsed like a soldier whose PTSD had been triggered.
Pia looked down at him with a smile, but red threads already hung from the hand she'd clasped behind her back.
In that hair-trigger atmosphere, I scurried up next to her and whispered.
"If you fought, about what odds would you give yourself to win?"
"Alone, sixty percent. If I fought while protecting Allen, perhaps eighty."
"... Isn't it usually the other way around?"
"Heh. I wonder."
Thwack!
"Aack!"
Even while I'd been having that exchange with Pia, the old man had already jumped up to head-height and struck my head with his scabbard.
With tears welling up at the clear, ringing impact that resonated deep into my brain, I protested to the old man.
"Now what!"
"Because."
"Old-timer, now you're just out of control, seriously!"
"Quiet, you little punk!"
He raised the scabbard, and I reflexively threw up my guard.
The old man took in my reaction, clicked his tongue, and plopped down onto his knees right there.
Then he looked up at Pia and entreated her.
"Allow me to apologize for my rudeness. I got too worked up earlier."
"... Why this, all of a sudden?"
"Looking at this whelp gave me certainty that you have no connection to Simon. That bastard may be a son of a bitch, but his pride is the one thing he values. There's no way he'd send this burn victim as his subordinate."
Was that an insult?
Or a compliment?
The words alone were definitely an insult, but the look he was giving me was lukewarm, so why did it sound like a compliment.
While I was parsing the old man's words, Pia resumed her conversation with him.
"The apology is fine. I also bear responsibility for trying to have a showdown with you, sir. More than that, I'd like to hear an answer to my question."
"You mean about the film world? Given how things have turned out, I suppose there's no point in hiding my identity now. You're right. I am that Krauser Vandel."
"Sir, please don't dodge the question. So—do you have any thoughts of returning to the film world?"
Godrin's lips parted.
If you judged just by the shape of his mouth, he'd been about to form the start of a yes—but he swiftly changed his words.
"I do not. I will never set foot in the film world again."
"Why?"
"If the stable you'd return to no longer exists, what meaning is there in going back?"
"That stable has been repaired."
"I'm aware. But it's not a stable I can return to."
Decoding the old man's words and Pia's: basically, the old-timer seemed to know that the Vandel series had been revived with the Liam Walker series.
But he didn't want to go back to the Vandel series that had been revived that way.
Pia followed up, asking if he was unwilling to return because the Liam Walker series lacked authenticity.
To her question, Godrin replied no.
Then she asked if he was afraid the Liam Walker series would mock the franchise, as in the case of the Imp Representative. He said that wasn't it either.
When she asked if a deep disillusionment with the film world kept him from wanting to go back, he again said no.
Not this, not that.
At this rate, the exchange threatened to go on forever with no end in sight. I decided to ask him directly in Pia's stead.
"Then why don't you want to go back? Don't just keep saying no—explain it once, specifically, in a complete sentence following the five Ws and one H. Like a man."
Hearing my question, the old man rose from his spot.
I reflexively guarded my thighs and head, but no impact came no matter how long I waited.
Old Man Godrin left me just standing there awkwardly, picked up the sword he'd had behind him, and set it down.
A rough iron sword you could find anywhere.
It wasn't enchanted, didn't have any special abilities or distinguishing features—just an ordinary, standard-issue iron sword.
The only distinctive feature was that the handle was slightly warped into the shape of a hand.
The old man caressed the iron sword with sorrowful eyes, then opened his mouth.
"Must you insist on hearing why I won't go back?"
Nod nod.
"Very well."
Reluctantly, he began to speak.
"The reason I cannot return to the series is that I am a sinner."
*
Godrin had loved the Vandel series.
He was grateful to the production team for giving him his first lead role, regardless of his race.
He was grateful to the fans who loved his performance.
He loved the Vandels within the work who continued to remember him even though he hadn't appeared since the third installment.
But Godrin had betrayed them.
By seating an imp named Simon as the representative of this series.
It had begun with good intentions.
When Simon's predecessor pushed the reckless idea of a multiverse, Godrin, unable to stand by, recommended the most outstanding priest he knew for the representative position.
But that was the beginning of the series' dark age.
Simon.
The Simon he had trusted.
Destroyed the series.
In the worst way imaginable.
Hearing Godrin's explanation, Allen looked puzzled.
"Then shouldn't you have acted even more proactively? If you were the one who recommended him, you should have made him step down from that position."
At Allen's words, Godrin shook his head.
"I could not."
"Was it because of personal attachment?"
"You saw what I looked like just moments ago. Do you still think I harbor any attachment to that bastard?"
"Then why did you completely cover your tracks and vanish?"
"Because the more I move directly, the more power that bastard gains."
Pausing, Godrin pointed at himself and asked Allen.
"In your eyes, does my race appear to be human?"
"Uh... human?"
"Thank you for saying so. But I am a goblin."
"...Excuse me?"
Allen looked at Godrin.
Was his skin yellow or green?
Strictly speaking, it was yellowish, but more of a peach-colored human skin tone.
Were his ears pointy?
They were so small he couldn't tell.
Height?
He was 160 centimeters tall.
The old man chuckled and spoke.
"You're quite large for a human yourself. Did you think there were no tall goblins?"
"Aha."
Allen accepted it.
Then he broke again.
'Wait, a goblin?'
While a blue screen flashed in Allen's mind as he recalled the old man's past, the old man resumed explaining his history.
The old man was a goblin.
Thanks to a system called Luchador, he had been treated as Vandel despite his atypical appearance, but even considering that, he knew the world was not kind to goblins.
The world outside the shell of the Third Vandel was still harsh to Godrin.
That was why he had grown close to Simon.
Simon was an imp, but he was someone recognized as an outstanding priest through skill and the quality of his work.
As members of equally discriminated-against races, the two of them becoming close was, in a way, inevitable.
A person’s true nature was only revealed after they gained power.
Once seated as representative, riding on Godrin's influence, Simon thoroughly plastered the series with imps and goblins as if unleashing all his pent-up resentment.
Godrin understood the feelings of a discriminated race.
But this method was not the way he wanted.
At one time, he had attempted to stop Simon's rampage.
But Simon instead tried to persuade Godrin.
- You must stand at the vanguard of this fight for us to win!
Naturally, Godrin refused Simon's proposal.
However, a few days later, when he heard that Simon had launched the Impist movement in earnest, he felt his mind go blank.
After that, Godrin could not return to the series.
Ironically, revealing Godrin’s identity would have vindicated Simon’s slogan: “Minority races can do it too!”
Simon would triumphantly hold Godrin up as a figurehead, tens of thousands of fans would pour their hatred onto Godrin, and his spirit would be ravaged.
As a swordsman who had reached a state where he could read people's hearts, the hatred of the fans who had once loved him would be even more devastating.
Therefore, the only way he could help the original members in this fight was, tragically, to conceal the fact that the Third Vandel was a goblin forever.
Carrying complex feelings in his heart—fear, rage, sorrow, guilt, emotions beyond words—he vanished.
His inner world had been left in tatters, and he could no longer wield the strength of his prime.
He set down the sword he had kept for hundreds of years and chose to live by hammering iron in a smithy.
Then one day, around the time the dead series was being nailed shut, Simon came to his shop.
- Godrin. The series needs you to return if it is to survive.
- Get lost.
At Godrin’s cold refusal, the veins in Simon’s eyes bulged and he began threatening him.
That if Godrin did not accept his proposal, he would unilaterally declare to the world that the Third Vandel was a goblin.
Upon hearing that threat, Godrin drew his sword for the first time in a long while.
The reason he did not behead Simon on the spot was because he rationally understood that this was the heart of the capital, and that if Simon died here, he would become a martyr, rallying the Impists even more fiercely.
So instead of separating his head, he warned Simon by leaving a very shallow line across his neck.
If his identity as the Third Vandel were ever revealed, Simon could claim his ideals had been right.
At the chilling threat, Simon left the shop with his pants wet.
From that day on, Simon wore a scarf around his neck and made every effort to bring the Vandel series to an end as quickly as possible.
Thus, watching the work he loved fall apart before his eyes, Godrin had no choice but to live with the guilt.
"It was I who recommended Simon. And I was the minority race that Simon championed. It was a fight where my mere face appearing on screen would lend strength to Simon's argument."
He had no choice but to suffer in this contradictory reality.
His refusal to appear in the Liam Walker series was for the same reason.
Afraid that showing his face there again would repeat the same disaster.
And afraid that the still-living Impists and Simon would hold him up as a figurehead to trample even the students' dreams.
That was why he had buried the role he loved in his heart and remained silent for all those long years.
============
Finishing his explanation, Godrin shut his mouth, his face downcast.
As if asking whether Allen would still consider bringing someone like him into the film.
Toward the pitiful old man cloaked head to toe in a gloomy atmosphere, Allen finally opened his mouth.
"...And?"
"?"
"What does that have to do with the Liam Walker series?"
"Did I not say? I am a grave sinner..."
"I don't care about any of that. If you want to atone, then just do it through your acting, alright?"
"That’s what I’m telling you, brat. The world isn’t that simple. Don’t you understand? If I go back, Simon will be reinstated."
"That's exactly why I'm telling you—if you come back, it all gets solved!"
"Sigh. You're just as immature now as you were back then. Listen well. Whether a company or a trading firm, nothing runs as ideally as you imagine. The world is not so easy that it can be changed by the passion of a madman like you and one washed-up old man like me."
"It will change."
Bon Voyage Studio was Allen's.
Leon was listed as co-representative, but at least as far as the Vandel series was concerned, Allen's ownership stake was 100 percent.
Which meant he could do as he pleased.
No matter how much Godrin saw Allen as an immature brat, this treatment felt off.
Something in the conversation wasn't meshing right.
So Allen changed the question.
"How much do you know about our studio, by any chance?"
"Our?"
"Bon Voyage Studio."
"I do know that Allen Price, the representative there, recently acquired the company along with the Vandel series."
"On the very, very off-chance, do you know my name?"
"I do not, young whelp."
"...Wow, shit. That's pretty damn hurtful."
"You never told me."
Godrin hadn't been told yet by Allen, but he could roughly grasp it from the implication.
Once he realized the truth, Godrin's heart began to race for the first time in a long while.
Though in his mind, the youth named Allen was still an immature brat who had come to his smithy waving a gun and whining at him to upgrade it to magic-crossbow level, that very fact actually made him trust Allen more.
That pursuit of romantic spirit over practicality convinced him that Allen was an artist before he was a company president.
He would surely be different.
From that Simon bastard, full of twisted convictions.
From those marketing team bastards who babbled about cost reduction and were stingy with events for the fans.
From the incompetent board members who, blinded by short-term profit, had put Simon in that position.
Godrin wanted to act, just once, in that world Allen was trying to create.
But whether it was an old man's spite, or perhaps embarrassment.
He pointlessly pretended not to know who Allen was and treated him brusquely.
"So, what kind of bum are you, anyway?"
Watching Godrin act that way, Allen’s expression hardened and he muttered to himself.
"Still can't figure it out even with hints like this?"
Muttering that, he pulled a candy out of his pocket and waved it in front of Godrin's face.
As Godrin floundered at Allen's inexplicable behavior, Pia, equally bewildered, asked Allen.
"What are you doing?"
"Was wondering if the old man had dementia. Usually, demented old people like candy."
"..."
"Ah. Was it because it isn't red ginseng candy? Is that why there's no response?"
Thwack.
Allen's consciousness split open like the Grand Canyon.