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Chapter 01: The Greatest Hero Gets the Boot (Part 4)
Garrius arrived at a slum a good distance from the royal palace.
It may have been the day of a kingdom-wide ceremony, but this place remained unchanged. Other than the public drunkards who guzzled alcohol morning to night, there weren"t many people around during the day.
Garrius had traced the sweet odor here. ‘Look-Away Balm" was an item that diverted people"s attention away from the source. So if one were to head opposite the direction where one thought the source lay, it was possible to track down the user.
He spotted a figure curled up in the middle of a back alley.
He couldn"t make out any features given the deep hood and robe it wore, but it was unmistakably the demon from earlier—the a.s.sailant who had attacked Jered in broad daylight before a crowd of onlookers.
“How are your injuries?”
“Eep!”
The robe-clad demon probably hadn"t been expecting anyone would talk to it. Its small body gave a start. Then it let out a moan of anguish over the pain in its chest.
“Urrgh!”
This sequence of actions caused the hood to fall back. The cloth covering the lower half of its face also fell down to reveal its face completely.
It was a cat.
It definitely had the head of a cat. Its fur looked delightfully soft.
So, the demon was a werecat.
Without meaning to, Garrius wriggled his fingers.
He adored animals. Especially the soft and fluffy kind. And anyway, animals didn"t care about Garrius" looks. They would come up to him if he offered them food and would happily succ.u.mb to his pettings.
“Wh—What do you want?”
The youthful voice could be taken as either masculine or feminine. The animal face lent no clue as to gender, either.
Something wriggled beneath the robe.
Garrius, temporarily bewitched by the softness, came back to his senses.
“Oh! Hold on. I didn"t mean to startle you. Please sheathe your weapon for now. I"m not your enemy. Well…I"m not exactly your ally either. But anyway, you have some broken bones, don"t you? You can use this.”
He pulled a small bottle from his pack.
“It"s a potion. It can"t heal the breaks, but it can get rid of most of the pain for you. You didn"t bring any of your own, right? It looked like you were expecting to die.”
It had probably run away on account of failing to finish off Jered. Which meant that it hadn"t given up on killing the fake hero.
“I"m not taking handouts from a human. And anyway, how do I know that"s really a potion?”
“Well, in that case…”
Garrius pulled out another bottle.
“Pick one. I"ll drink whichever you pick. Then you can have the other one, OK?”
The werecat gave him a dubious look but pointed to the first one he had taken out.
Garrius swigged it down.
“Urrrrp. Whew. My exhaustion from shopping is gone. What a waste, though, using a potion on something like that.”
Smiling wryly, he drew close to the werecat with an easy manner and handed over the bottle.
“I"m Garrius. What"s your name?”
“It"s…Lippi.”
“How old are you? I"m twenty-six.”
“I"m…fourteen.”
Lippi downed the potion, seeming to double check the taste while doing so.
“Feeling better?”
“Yeah.”
“Need another one?”
“I"m good.”
“Why did you attack the prince?”
“To…get revenge. For Lord Zhizzl"s death.”
Lippi glared at Garrius.
‘Zhizzl" was the name of that old dragonkind fellow the humans called the demon king. So Lippi hadn"t known he was still alive after all.
So…now what should I do?
He didn"t know if Lippi would believe him if he revealed that the demon king still lived. Nor could he see Lippi taking it well if he admitted he was the real hero.
As he was thinking, Lippi said something odd.
“Are you a friend of the human who helped me out?”
“Helped you?”
“The one who said he had his own grudge against the hero and lent me the knife.”
“I thought you weren"t taking handouts from humans?”
“It—It"s not the same! You have to use what you can get.”
As far as taking things to achieve one"s goals, it was a distinction without difference, but Garrius kept his mouth shut, seeing the value of that proud kitty face.
Besides that, he was surprised.
Some human had set this up. Someone who could hand out royal treasures, no less.
“What did the human who helped you look like? Please tell me all——”
A spike of apprehension jolted down his back. He suddenly shoved Lippi away and took a big leap back himself.
With a thud, the naked steel of a two-handed sword skewered the spot Lippi had occupied a moment earlier. Before Garrius could turn to look the direction it had come from, a large man burst in between them and grabbed the sword by the hilt.
“General Gotte?”
“Huh! When I thought to follow the trail of the ‘Look-Away Balm", I never expected to find you at the other end. It chills me to think you almost got your hands on that, but maybe I should be glad for the effort you"re saving me.”
‘That"? ‘The effort"? Garrius had no idea what Gotte was going on about.
“Nice dodge, by the way. I suppose below average strength wouldn"t affect the experience and instincts you gained in your years on the battlefield.”
Staying wary of Gotte, Garrius glanced to either side. Numerous soldiers crowded the ends of the alley. Some held spears and swords at the ready or had arrows knocked.
“Now then, who should I take care of first? I think I"ll leave the injured demon for later and start with you, Garrius—the dirty traitor who brought a demon into the capital and plotted to murder the prince.”
“Traitor? Hold on a moment. There"s been a mistake. You think I"m the one who brought the demon in and…?”
Garrius had a sinking feeling.
How could Gotte conclude at a glance and without making any investigation that he was allied with the demon—that he was a traitor?
There was the mystery of the demon getting ahold of the Sylphide Dagger.
There was what Gotte meant about being saved effort right after laying eyes on Garrius.
There were the not-implausible rumors involving the queen and the mightiest knight in the realm.
All the separate pieces were falling into place.
“So…that"s how it is. You—Bran Gotte—are the mastermind behind the attack on the prince.”
And Queen Isabella was probably in on it with him.
“I wouldn"t have expected the kingdom"s mightiest general to lose himself in forbidden love. Or is it that you have your eye set on the throne?”
“Come again? What could you possibly mean?”
“Don"t play the fool with me. You"re the one who incited Lippi there to attack the prince, aren"t you? But you couldn"t have gotten your hands on the Sylphide Dagger alone. Which means the queen has to be involved as well.”
“For all that you"re awful with a sword or magic, your mind seems to work fine,” muttered Gotte, the corners of his mouth quirking into a warped smile. “But!” he said, and drew his sword. “Dead men tell no tales. You can curse your terrible luck all you like from the other side of the grave.”
Garrius pulled out the knife he wore at his side.
“Wahaha! You"re going to fight me off with that dull hunk of iron? Me, whose ability is ‘Power Shift"!?”
Gotte"s G.o.d-given gift was ‘Power Shift"—the ability to reinforce the strength of his entire body and to shift the balance of that strength to favor any limb of his choosing.
If he concentrated it in his leg as he planted his foot, he could leap a ten meter wall, and if he concentrated it into one arm, he could crush rock with his fist.
It was the most natural and ideal gift possible for someone who already possessed superhuman strength and fitness.
All Garrius held was the iron knife he had used regularly for the past ten years.
It was a cheap knife he had bought for two silvers, and it possessed no special powers. He had only ever used it for tasks such as as chopping up kindling or gutting wild rabbits, never as a weapon.
Gotte effortlessly swung his long two-handed sword with just one hand.
There was no way the obese, ungainly Garrius should have been able to dodge the blow. Or so Gotte"s low expectations led him to think. However…
Garrius gently touched his knife to the sword blade and, using the barest minimum of effort, diverted its trajectory. Blades still crossed, he slid the knife down the sword and it slipped smoothly between Gotte"s ribs.
———It went right in.———
“Uh…?”
The knife pierced Gotte"s chest with incredible ease.
“B—But how…? Ghrrk!”
Gotte couldn"t understand what had happened.
How could a man of below-average fighting abilities use an ordinary, store-bought knife against one such as himself, bestowed with a combat-oriented gift that complemented his innate abilities perfectly?
“Underestimated me, didn"t you? Or my ‘Item Master" ability, anyway.”
‘Item Master" wasn"t a gift that merely increased the capabilities of a weapon.
In order to draw out the full potential of any item used, its nature was to alter the very being of the user himself.
Even if Garrius held only a cheap knife, ‘Item Master" would teach him the way to move and amount of power necessary to parry a slash. He had only let the gift manipulate him, as if he were a puppet.
And once he had parried the slash, he had simply moved closer and driven the knife in. ‘Item Master" had made that happen with ease, too.
Flicking the gold coin had worked the same way.
Others might not consider it a weapon at all, but getting hit by it would certainly hurt. That made it a fine weapon.
Which way to hold the gold coin, how to flick it and using what timing—if it was all put together just right, the coin could match the speed of a crossbow bolt and hit its target every time.
Of course, there was a limit to the kind of enemies one could take on with a coin.
To fight an enemy of the level of the demon king, one needed weapons and armor of the caliber of the Holy Sword and Armor.
“Thanks to your constant carelessness, this cheap knife was more than enough to fight the likes of you.”
Garrius had caught on quickly to the nature of the ‘Item Master" gift, but he hadn"t told anyone else.
He couldn"t put trust in people who mocked him for his looks, after all.
When Garrius drew the knife out, Gotte crumpled to the ground. He was dead, the spark of life already gone from his eyes.
“That"s what you get for conspiring with the queen to take over the kingdom! A fitting end indeed for one who would give the Sylphide Dagger to a demon and plot to murder the prince!” Garrius made sure to speak very loudly. Anxious that his theatrics were a little too obvious, he said, “Lippi, could I borrow that?”
He rushed over to the bewildered werecat and grabbed the Sylphide Dagger from under its robe.
A wind twined itself around Garrius. With Lippi in his arms, he flew high into the sky.
“Sh—Shoot them down! Don"t let the traitor escape!”
Countless arrows flew after them.
However, the whirling winds swept the arrows aside, and Garrius and Lippi flew away over the walls of the capital.
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