Chapter Nine: Framed Again?
“Oh! There he is!”
We left the weapon shop to find, for whatever reason, Itsuki, Ren, and their parties all running in our direction.
Ren was like me. No, actually he came from some sci-fi version of Japan where people could actually enter virtual worlds online.
And he was summoned to this world as the Sword Hero. Like Motoyasu, he had a handsome face, attractive. There was something almost womanly about him. His black hair had a shiny quality to it, and he was silent—cool.
What did it mean? They were all together here in the town at the same time?
Itsuki, unlike the last time I saw him in shabby dress, was clad in good equipment.
They must have noticed the miserable look on my face. Itsuki stepped forward and called out in a loud voice:
“It was YOU. I fulfilled an official request, and you swept in to steal my reward!”
“What?!”
Why did I have to steal his petty reward?
“Me too. You stole my rewards as well.”
Ren looked like he could kill me with his eyes.
I had an idea of what he was getting at. Who was it that caused all the trouble in the mountain town? Who let everyone get infected by that horrible disease?
“Ren, okay, you’re right about that. But I don’t know what Itsuki is talking about.”
“You’re going to play dumb?!”
“I don’t know what I don’t know.”
“Ok, hold on. We need to talk it out first, if we don’t, what will Naofumi confess to?”
“You’re going to assume I’m guilty before we even talk?”
“Did Master do something?”
“Nothing I can remember.”
I tried to comfort Filo and Raphtalia while glaring at Ren and Itsuki.
“Anyway. Why don’t you at least tell me what you are talking about?”
Itsuki started explaining what exactly his qualm with me was.
“It happened in a northern territory. I’d been charged with investigating the actions of a local despot, and then I was charged with removing him from office—which I did.”
After that, he apparently did what he always did, which was send one of his party members (who was always dressed in gaudy armor) to receive his reward payment from the guild that divided out these requests. But when he went to receive payment he was told that the payment had already been accepted, and the only person Itsuki could think of that would do such a thing was myself.
“Um, excuse me for speaking out of turn, General Commander, but have you ever considered that if a hero goes out of his way to hide is real identity, he might not get recognition for his actions?”
“General Commander?! What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You were walking around with a sword on your belt, pretending to be a generic adventurer. Weren’t you, General?”
Itsuki, perhaps thrown off guard, started yelling at me. His attitude of secrecy towards his quests was clearly becoming a problem.
No one had any way of knowing what the Bow Hero looked like, or what he was doing.
So the people of Melromarc would obviously think that all the good being done in the world was the work of the Sword and Spear Heroes.
He could swear up and down that he was really doing lots of awesome stuff, but that wasn’t going to affect his reputation at all.
Sure, it was a cool idea to sneak around saving people, to be a secret hero, but that wasn’t going to gain him any recognition.
I was still a student, but I knew enough about the world to know that once I went out in the world I was going to be responsible for my own reputation.
As for Itsuki, if he was still dressed as the Bow Hero and someone else was screaming to take responsibility for his actions, then he wouldn’t be able to get anyone to believe him with his normal taciturn demeanor.
But it’s not like a hero who behaved like that would also be the kind of person to chase after money and fame by doing evil things in secret.
I did feel a little self-conscious listening to him speak though, considering that people were calling me the saint of the bird-god.
“When you complete a quest, is it counted as being completed by the Bow Hero? As far as I know, the only quest we can confirm you carried out was what you did up in the town with the taxes. And that’s because I saw you there.”
“But that’s because I am acting in secret.”
“Then let me confirm. There was a bow-carrying adventurer who helped support a resistance effort in the northern country. Was that you?”
“Y...Yes! I fought with the resistance to out the evil king who was ruling as a despot. We ousted him.”
“And do you know what ended up happening in that country after you left?”
“Well the evil king is gone, so I’m sure they are prospering.”
“They are NOT prospering. They are starving, and things are so bad they are sneaking over the border to barter for food.”
“No! That can’t be true! Why?”
“Well, think about it. The king might have been a bad guy, but the whole country was also in the midst of a famine. Just switching out the king isn’t going to make that go away.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with me. Stop changing the subject.”
Ugh… Irresponsible brat… Couldn’t he care, even a little?
“Ok, back to the topic at hand then. You send a party member to go receive your payment? Can your party member explain all this?”
“Y…Yes! Of course! Of course!”
“At the guild, right? And this friend of yours has some way to prove that he is your party member to whoever is in charge or dolling out payment?”
“Yes, well. There is a certificate! A certificate bearing the royal seal!”
Itsuki’s face displayed his confidence. What was he even saying?
“It’s a special certificate, made with special technology! It would be very difficult to fake!”
“That’s all well and fine, but since I don’t have such a certificate, how was I supposed to pick up your payment?”
“Dammit…”
Itsuki swore in annoyance. He knew I was right.
“Then… What about this weapon?”
Now he was really reaching for excuses. I guess he was desperate to make this my fault somehow.
“You can change the shape of your Shield, so you could have made it look like my Legendary Bow and taken my payment without the certificate!”
“You think? Look around you, there must be plenty of people that could pull off a scheme like that.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Filo.”
“What?”
“Turn back into your real form.”
“Okay.”
Filo turned back into her real form. When she did, her clothes disappeared and reformed as a ribbon that wrapped around her neck. I pointed to the ribbon.
“What?!”
“Get it? Transforming equipment exists in this world. There might be tons of different kinds of equipment that can change to look like a bow. And besides, when it comes to heroes, I’m not the only one with a transforming weapon. I’m sure you see where I am going with this…”
“But...”
“Itsuki, give up already. You don’t have enough evidence to accuse Naofumi.”
Itsuki was desperate to pin his troubles on me, but Ren stepped forward and told him to back off.
“Besides, did you even ask what they looked like? This person that pretended to be you?”
“Um... No… but…”
Ren’s questions were pointed enough that Itsuki was losing his confidence.
“You just have to give up. If you want recognition for your actions you’re going to have to be more open about them. Okay, I’m next…”
“I assume you’re talking about the eastern territory epidemic?”
“At least we are on the same page. You stole my reward.”
“Only because I was there. Don’t you know? You killed a dragon, but its corpse started to rot and it spread disease over the whole area.”
“What?!”
Ren was suddenly speechless. He stood in temporary silence.
What was he thinking? I thought he was crueler than this.
“A lot of people ended up dying. They had to start a new graveyard out behind their main hall. If I hadn’t been passing by, they’d all be dead by now.”
“That can’t be true…”
He looked unsteady on his feet and tottered off vaguely to the east.
“Wait, wait! You don’t have enough time to get there. What about the wave?”
“But… If it’s my fault…”
“I took care of the dragon corpse. The sick people are all getting treatment from a local doctor. If you want to call that ‘stealing your reward’ then go ahead.”
All the color had left Ren’s face.
“Are you going to believe him?!”
Itsuki turned and shouted at Ren.
“He doesn’t have a reason to lie. The quest was completed, and so the reward was canceled. That’s not incorrect.”
“When the dragon corpse reanimated and became a Zombie Dragon, I have to say—I was pretty surprised. Raphtalia here ended up cursed after that fight. We were able to get her healed, but it was a hard time going.”
I wasn’t lying. But I didn’t mention that the curse was my fault.
“So that’s what happened. I’m sorry.”
Ren turned to Raphtalia and bowed his head to her.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d thought that Ren was cold and heartless.
Apparently he was weak when he thought about any troubles that he’d directly caused. Honestly, I thought he’d say something like,“It’s their fault for being weak.”
“Why did you leave the dragon corpse there to rot?”
“One of my party members suggested leaving it there so that other adventurers could use it for materials. I thought it sounded like a good idea.”
That reminded me, I’d heard that the village had experienced a short moment of prosperity.
“We decided to leave it up to the villagers and any passing adventurers, but…”
“Well, next time you had better clean up after yourself. Corpses rot. Rotting corpses breed disease. At the very least you need to do something about the organs and meat.
“Yeah…”
His response was disappointing. Even if he was upset, he still hadn’t said anything about the village or what happened there. I guess they didn’t want to admit that there was a darker underbelly to their activities. Well, you reap what you sow, I guess.
“Well, I still don’t believe you.”
Itsuki was more persistent than Ren.
“I’ll find a way to prove that you did it.”
“Go right ahead, I’ll be waiting. But don’t you dare fake it. If you find out who did it, don’t ask them if the Shield Hero had forced their hand. With my reputation, anyone would pin their crimes on me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We were attacked by a group of bandits, but we beat them off. Apparently they were planning on going to town and telling everyone that they were attacked by the Shield Hero.”
“But that’s…”
“Exactly what you are doing, General Commander. You should work on that—learn to see through the lies.”
I don’t know if Itsuki suddenly discovered stores of sympathy for me over my ruined reputation, but he was looking at me with an oddly sympathetic gaze. It drove me nuts.
Why did I have to be the victim of his sympathy?
“I’ll put the case on hold for the time being…”
“I didn’t do it.”
I swear, how many crimes did I have to have pinned on me? Was I supposed to be the fall guy for the entire world?
“But I’ll get you, and I’ll prove it too.”
Full of haughty arrogance, Itsuki turned and left. Ren, a little on edge, followed him.
“Let’s go.”
I should have known that nothing good was waiting for me in this town, considering how it was stuck under the nose of the Trash. We decided to go back to the inn for the night.
“Good evening, Shield Hero.”
I was relaxing in my room when five of the soldiers from before stopped by to say hello. The two I had spoken to directly were representing their group and spoke on its behalf.
“What is it?”
“We thought it would be a good idea to have a meeting concerning the impending arrival of the next wave.”
They sure were a serious group. Whatever—I guess that was good for me.
“Raphtalia has experience with the waves. Filo, you join in on this too.”
“Hmmmm?”
“Everyone keep in mind that I’m not exactly an expert on any of this stuff. But I don’t really have a choice, so when the wave comes you’ll be transported to the site with me. So I’ll try to explain how I plan on fighting and what you can do to assist, all right?”
“Yes! In order to protect the innocent people of the world, we want to work with you.”
I had my doubts about whether or not to take what they said at face value, but I decided to go along with it for now.
“Let’s go over what happened in the last battle. The last time a wave came, the monsters pouring from the rift all went to attack a nearby village. So I had to stand at the front of the line to protect the people there.”
Yes, it had been an intense battle. There was a giant rift through the sky, and hoards of monsters poured from it. Monsters with names that almost invariably began with “inter-dimensional.”
There were some giant monsters mixed in with the hoards, and they all set their sights on Riyute. Everyone was confused and panicking. There were groups of people under immediate threat from the monsters, but I was able to save them with my Air Strike Shield and my Shield Prison skills.
Raphtalia helped me evacuate the villagers, and then we turned our sights on a nearby giant. We defeated it.
Honestly, it was similar to a player versus monster war.
“The highest priority is the safety of bystanders. Do all that you can to ensure their safe evacuation from the area.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Well, considering all the things they have to be repentant about, I’m sure that the other heroes will enlist some knights to help out.
There must have been soldiers besides those who I was directly speaking with who placed some value on the lives of the country’s innocent civilians.
“About that…”
“What?”
“We thought that other soldiers would come forward and ask to join your ranks, but that hasn’t happened yet.”
What was that supposed to mean?
The only idea I had was that maybe these soldiers were low-level, and there was a cutoff point set for participating in the wave battles. Either that or higher-ranked positions attracted the selfish and power-hungry, clearing those ranks of decent people. That was about it. The higher-ranked officials might have all just been terrible managers. I wonder if the other heroes cared about this kind of thing?
“What should I dooooo?”
“We will be evacuating people, so whenever a monster gets close to us you should take them out. Raphtalia, you help with the evacuations, and help these soldiers.”
“Okaaay!”
“Understood.”
“Honestly, unlike the other heroes, I don’t know very much about the waves. So I’m honestly a little worried about all this. I’ll need your help.”
“Yes, Sir!”
Everyone nodded. I guess I could count on them.
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