Chapter 169
-Wasn’t it because you performed good deeds to save people, that you became a hero?
Yes. Daphne was right. Heros truly had once been a man who performed good deeds to save people.
The first time he’d ever done something he could call “good” had been sometime in his childhood, so long ago now he could barely remember it, when he’d cared for an injured cat lying collapsed somewhere.
Whatever it had gone through, wherever it had come from. Half its front leg had been bent badly out of shape, and he’d splinted it, applied ointment, fed it, and helped nurse it back to health.
Months passed this way. The cat, its body now recovered, had somehow ended up lingering constantly by Heros’s side, and Heros, while finding it a bother at times, had grown rather fond of the creature.
Then, one day.
-Where’d it go?
Around evening, the little pest that always came sidling up begging for food was nowhere to be seen. Normally, he might have simply shrugged it off, but that day, for some reason, Heros had a bad feeling, so he left the house to search for the cat—and found it lying dead.
As it turned out, some children around Heros’s own age had been poking at the cat with sticks, thinking it a game, teasing it for fun—and since the cat, thanks to (or rather, because of) Heros, had grown fond of people, it hadn’t run away, simply staying put. So the children’s teasing had escalated further and further… and in the end, the cat had died, struck by a stone.
They’d called it an accident.
Just playing around, they said, and it had turned into a mistake. Not intentional, they insisted.
-Now hold on! What’s wrong with you, going after our child like this? It’s not like he killed a person!
Facing the adults who had stepped forward to protect their own children, Heros hadn’t dared to fight back.
Heros, at the time, had been very small and very weak, and hadn’t even known yet that he was the lost child of a Grand Duke’s household… and so he could not protest. He could not protest, and he could not take revenge.
It was then that Heros came to a realization. That weakness was a sin. That if he wasn’t strong, he could lose the ones he loved. And so, and so Heros… had to become strong.
-You got any proof that cat was even yours? Huh? What was its name?
It was only after hearing that sharp voice hurled accusingly at him that Heros realized he had never even given the cat a name.
Right. That’s why you never truly became mine. That’s why I couldn’t protect you.
Quietly burying the cat’s body, Heros muttered to himself. I’m sorry I never gave you a name. Without a name, remembering you means having to search through countless cats, picking out and recalling just one from the crowd. That thought made his heart ache all the more.
And so, from that point on, Heros gave a name to every being he encountered afterward, whether animal or human, without exception.
If they already had a name, he called them by it, and if they had none, he gave them one and called them by that instead. The children who came to receive names in this way were Vipera, Arius, and Daphne.
Coming to bear a name in this way meant, in other words, that they were beings Heros truly, genuinely loved. Heros wanted to protect them. He wanted to carve their names into his heart for the rest of his life, and always ensure their happiness.
But protecting someone—that is, doing good and protecting every being that existed—was something Heros was still too weak for. And so he could not defy the Emperor.
He could have offered any number of excuses—that the Emperor was a dragon, that the Emperor had brainwashed him, that some damnable causal thread bound them together—but Heros offered no excuses. Instead, he singled out just one true reason.
Because Heros was weak.
And so, Heros could only save the barest minimum of people. He could only protect the children he truly, deeply loved. Beyond that, he could not bring himself to even attempt protecting anyone else.
-You’re saying that even knowing the black mages’ rampage came about because of the Emperor?
He knew.
But, so what?
If he stood up to avenge humanity, what would happen to his children? To the beings he loved? To those very children who had only just now come to bear names? What would become of them?
And so Heros had flatly rejected Daphne’s words.
He could not protect everyone.
Good and evil could not be defined by any single standard.
Even as he said such contradictory things.
“…Your Grace?”
Ah.
Heros set down his glass, scattering the chain of thought he’d been following. Then he turned his gaze toward Marquis Finch, who had called out to him.
“It’s been a while, Marquis.”
“Indeed. I understand my daughter visits your household often these days—my apologies for not greeting you sooner.”
He was referring to Brysa, no doubt. The girl who’d been practically inseparable from Arius lately.
Heros let out a short laugh.
“It’s hardly an adult’s place to comment on children’s affairs. And haven’t you been keeping quite a busy schedule yourself lately?”
“So you’re aware.”
The Marquis smiled and nodded.
Business at his trading house had picked up considerably of late, ever since the wraiths had been wiped out, opening the way for more extensive trade with neighboring nations.
Heros recalled that he had invested in the Marquis’s trading house, and that the return on that investment had grown substantial enough that Pauline was currently overjoyed about it.
“Health always comes first. If you collapse, Pauline will be beside herself, so pace yourself.”
“Ha ha! To think I’d live to hear Your Grace worry about me! My thanks. I’ll be sure to take that to heart.”
Heros let out a light laugh and raised his glass, and the Marquis raised his in turn.
Somehow the atmosphere feels warmer than before, the Marquis thought, watching Heros.
And so he decided to broach the matter he’d been hesitating over, going ahead and bringing it up.
“In that case…”
He said, glancing warily at their surroundings.
“I imagine Your Grace is already aware of what His Imperial Majesty is currently preparing…”
“Marquis.”
But Heros shook his head firmly.
“I know nothing.”
“Your Grace.”
“I could find out anytime I wished to, but, well. Sometimes it’s better not to know certain things. At least, that’s how I see it.”
“But…”
“It is His Majesty’s own affair.”
Heros said, his sharp blue eyes turning cold.
“We have no grounds to raise objections.”
“…”
The Marquis kept biting and releasing his lower lip. It’s the Emperor’s own affair, so we should stay quiet, lowly subjects like us shouldn’t defy him… he understood all of this well enough, and yet the Marquis simply couldn’t bring himself to accept it.
Especially not lately. He found himself increasingly compelled to raise objections against the Emperor’s words.
“Your Grace.”
And so the Marquis, refusing to back down, added further.
“Even if His Majesty intends to drive young children into the battlefield, will you still turn a blind eye to it, telling yourself it’s fine regardless?”
Heros drew in a deep breath. Then, as if his eyes ached, he pressed at the bridge of his nose, his expression twisting with a frown.
“Marquis.”
Placing a hand on Marquis Finch’s shoulder, Heros said briefly.
“Some things are better left unknown.”
“…”
“That’s the only way to protect what matters.”
That final line carried something of a bitter, self-mocking undertone.
If he couldn’t protect everyone,
then he would protect, at the very least, the ones he loved.
* * *
“…Wow.”
Shio’s mouth fell open in astonishment.
“So, this is…”
“That’s right.”
Daphne grinned and spread both arms wide.
“This is the very place we’re about to rob clean!”
Then, stomping her foot down with a thud!
“The gold bastard’s lair!”
Bwahaha!
Daphne’s magnificent laughter rang out, filling the imperial treasury—that is, the Emperor’s very lair.
