Chapter 15 (1/2)

Erika was awed by his look of strong determination. She didn’t know what Zen’s real intentions were when he spoke out those words.

Without any basis and just by her intuition, Erika felt that if she refused his offer, then sooner or later, she would deeply regret it. She was spurred on by an uneasiness similar to a compelling feeling.

「Understood. Which way should we proceed in?」

「This way」

To lead her to that place, Zen turned on his heels and with firm footsteps, he stopped in front of a certain room.

Zen chose it as a fitting place for talking about the truth. That was–

「Here!」

Harold’s room.

「……….Eh?」

At the development which was outside her expectations, she involuntarily leaked out a stupid voice. Erika was so confused that she didn’t even have the composure to be embarrassed about it.

From the flow of the talk, she thought that he would reveal some kind of circumstances regarding the murder of the servant that Harold was hiding, that is to say, Harold’s secret.

What did it mean by doing that it in the room of the person who had wanted to expressly hide it. Maybe, she had fatally misunderstood something in her conversation with Zen.

But where in the world, what kind of misunderstanding was it?- Erika’s mind was in complete chaos.

「Now now, go on」

「Eh? Ah, hey……..」

While she wasn’t on guard due to her confusion, Zen pushed Erika’s small back and stepped inside the room. He didn’t hesitate at all since he had already confirmed that Harold wasn’t present.

Zen looked around the room restlessly, and when his eyes fell on the closet, he opened it and pushed Erika, who couldn’t keep up with the situation, inside it.

「Sorry! Please wait here for some time!」

Closing the closet, Zen tried to run out of the room.

「Eeh………..?」

Once again, a voice which couldn’t be though of as her’s leaked out from Erika. She was a guest of the owner, and that too when she was a person who had the position of the fiancee, locking her up in this kind of place had already surpassed the level of being disrespectful. If it were some other person, they would even go as far as killing him.

Fortunately, Erika wouldn’t choose to express her anger in such a severe manner, but still normally thinking, she couldn’t not offer some complaints about this kind of treatment. But this wasn’t the time for that. Before anything else, she must give the highest priority to getting out of this room.

From Erika’s viewpoint, although it was completely against her will, she was still an intruder. If this was exposed, she didn’t know what Harold would spout out.

Thinking of following after Zen, the moment she put her hand on the closet door, cruelly, a ‘gacha’ sound reached Erika’s ears.

「Owaa!」

Subsequently, Zen’s surprised shout reached her. With a timing when he was just about to open the door, since the owner of the room returned, it wasn’t unreasonable for him to be surprised.

Hearing his shout, Harold frowned.

「Don’t give out an annoying voice. Or rather, what are you doing in my room?」

「Uh, umm ～……….. Actually, I needed to inform you about something, Harold-sama, but even though I knocked on the door, since there was no reply I peeked inside the room」

「If there’s no answer, leave obediently. How much of an idiot are you」

Erika peeped through the gap between the blinds furnished inside the closet and observed the situation. She had completely lost the chance to escape.

If she came out here and explained, she could still make some excuse. But what would happen to Zen?

Harold was a person who would kill someone just because he didn’t like them. Even though it could be said that Zen reaped what he sowed, she wanted to avoid getting him killed.

But it wasn’t known whether Harold would listen to Erika’s pleas to spare his life. Judging from his behavior, she thought that the possibility was low.

(What should I do……..?)

While Erika was trying to make a decision, the situation was rapidly growing worse.

「So, about the thing I wanted to tell!」

Zen forcefully returned back to the topic. To that, sighing as though he was exasperated, Harold sat down on the sofa.

And against Erika’s expectations, Harold urged Zen to continue speaking.

「What is it? Keep it short」

「Ee, it’s extremely difficult to say this, but that rumor has spread quite far…….」

Zen was being ambiguous with his words by calling it that rumor, but to the people present, it was obvious as to what it was.

「Just now, when I had gone to buy goods from the town, in the shop where I stopped by, the shopkeeper and the customers altogether were persistently questioning me」

「………..」

Harold crossed his arms and with his eyes closed, he just kept listening to Zen.

Even Erika, who was inside the closet, didn’t understand what he wanted to say, so she  listened closely.

「Although it hasn’t been revealed, and precisely because of that, Harold-sama’s reputation will fall to the ground, and I feel that it’ll be bad is we don’t take any measures……….」

「And here I was thinking of what you might say, worthless. Hasn’t such a thing already fallen down and completely smeared with mud」

「But………..」

「But, What? Do you want to announce that “Clara and Colette have run away to the Brosch village and are still living”?」

「No way! Even if I die, I won’t speak of that truth」

(–Eh?)

Listening to their exchange, Erika’s mind became completely white.

What did Harold say? The servant and her daughter, Clara and Colette are still alive?

What did Zen say? That is the truth?

The shock she received exceeded last night’s acknowledgement of the murder. Erika, whose thoughts and body were frozen over, could do nothing but listen to the 2 of them talking.

「Then don’t think of meaningless things. If by chance my parents find out that they are still alive, I’ll be under suspicion. To thoroughly eliminate that possibility, it’s already a determined matter」

「Although I know that, at least how about telling Erika-sama the truth? Due to believing in that rumor, it seems as though she’s very depressed」

「Absolutely not」

A clear refusal.

If the temperature of his voice could be measured, without a doubt, it would be below freezing point. Zen and Erika’s muscles froze in an instant.

「……….Why?」

Zen couldn’t help but ask.

Why did Harold reject Erika to that extent. That was because, for Harold, in this world of 『Brave Hearts』, in a way he thought that the one he must be the most cautious about was Erika.

The main feature of the character called Erika was kindness. But before that “the way of living” was included.

In the original work, Harold thought that he was a special existence and he was lump of consciousness that believed himself to be the chosen one by thinking that no matter what was done to other people, it would be allowed. That was why he could unconcernedly kill a servant, discriminate and oppress the powerless populace, and could even make a town into a complete sea of fire as a sacrifice for the monsters just so that he could continue to live.

He had all these atrocious deeds piled up, and yet Erika, even while hating Harold, without giving up, continued to suffer by staying as his fiancee.

The reason for that was because she was felt a sense of obligation since the Stokes family had provided financial aid. Normally thinking about it, due to the connection with the Stokes, their family would get scorned at and there was even the danger of the Stokes pulling their legs, but as expected, that was just to enliven Erika’s event, for the convenience of the game’s scenario.

And so, there was a fear that the kindness due to the setting would stick through with the idiocy and bare its fangs against Harold from here on.

Firstly, as the main premise, Harold’s objective was to survive without dying. The things he thought that were necessary for this was avoiding death flags and clearing the original work’s scenario.

There was no need to explain the former. Then the reason for the latter was, if for example, in the case the last boss wasn’t defeated, then almost all the people of the continent including Harold would die.

Although it wasn’t confirmed, by guessing from the information inside the game, that possibility was exceedingly high. At any rate, if the rampage of the last boss isn’t stopped, then the only continent in the world would sink- was how it went.

In other words, even if he avoided the death flags, if the last boss wasn’t defeated because of deviating too much from the original work, there would be no meaning in it.

There was a need for the protagonists to clear the scenario by any means possible, and inside the protagonist party, Erika held an important position of being the healer. With her presence or absence, the quest’s difficulty level would change. Since their survival rate would be greatly influenced, even for Harold’s sake, it was absolutely necessary for Erika to become friends with the protagonist and if that didn’t happen it would be troubling.