Chapter 75 (1/2)

Chapter 75

(Harold POV)

『Brave Hearts』was an authentic, Oudou* RPG. The protagonist, Liner, grew up as a close witness to the strength of his parents who were quite skilled thanks to their past as adventurers. From his childhood, Liner kept training himself, yearning to become stronger than his mother and father, and before he knew it, he reached a point where he was dreaming of becoming the leader of the saint knight order.

Anyone would acknowledge the leader of the knight order as a mighty hero and it was no exaggeration to say that most children aspired to become like him.

On his 17th birthday, Liner was supposed to take over a certain sword that his parents had obtained in their adventurer days and head to the royal capital so as to enter the knight order.

However, a certain evening soon before his 17th birthday, some thieves broke into Liner’s house and stole the sword. Thus, after shaking himself off his parents’ restraint, Liner went out of the village to get the sword back from the thieves, with his childhood friend, Colette, accompanying him.

That was the introduction of the game, and this was the trigger that got Liner involved with an atrocious plan that was going to shake the whole world, therefore making him do all he could to get in said plan’s way.

Incidentally, sending the thieves away and fighting them was a part of the game’s combat tutorial. At that point, the player could experience a real battle with magic mixed in. It was an event that could not be avoided when playing the game.

Well, in this world, there was an extremely high chance to eventually experience such a battle at later times, but that didn’t change the fact that this event was the first major turning point for the story’s development. A turning point that would have been impossible if not for those thieves coming to steal the sword,

and Harold was convinced that the whole operation had been carried out by the people under Harrison, the Minister for Defense. Those people had no name in the game, and even their lines of dialog were poorly prepared. They had no particular background to investigate or anything of the sort either. They were plot devices that merely played the parts they were given.

However, that was just in the game’s story.

From Harold’s analogical reasoning based on his dialog with Justus, the young man and woman were almost surely the ones who were supposed to trespass into Liner’s residence and steal his sword. The problem was that Harold was ordered to join them and manage them, and that, in the game, the thieves were actually… a trio.

Having finished listening to Justus’ lecture, Harold questioned him so as to clear his own doubts.

【”I get what they are. However, why do I have to go with them? It would be fine if you just prepared some other doll, right?”]

【”I’ve considered doing that but, to reach this point in the research, I had to expend more of the stellar tribe’s members’ bodies from my stock than I expected, so I’d rather keep some spares.”]

Those people of the stellar tribe had been captured by Justus in the middle of the confusion of the battle that he had caused between the knight order, the imperial army and the stellar tribe; and he had just declared that they were “spares”. For him, they were not even human beings.

That realization was frightening, but this time’s matter was actually also due to Harold intervening in that battle and therefore obstructing Justus’ plans. If Justus had been able to capture the stellar tribe members like he did in the original story, this issue would not have occurred, and in the first place, if Harold hadn’t intervened in the battle, he would not have fallen to the position of Justus’ subordinate.

In short, this was merely the result of the seed Harold had sown himself.

Harold was going to be working on two fronts, both as Harold Stokes and as the ringleader character responsible for the theft.

Although he could somehow deal with the former role by maneuvering himself through it, the latter would make him a complete antagonist. So it would likely be a troublesome matter if his identity were to be discovered on the job.

Justus, unconcerned about Harold’s dilemma, swimmingly pursued the conversation.

【”And so, from now on, the three of you are going to be under the commands of a man called Harrison. Are you acquainted with him?”]

【”I’m not. If I’m not mistaken, he’s the military’s defense minister, right?”]

【”That’s right. It really was’t easy to make an inflexible and stubborn person like that succeed, but I was finally able to get him to a position where he could be of some use to me.”]

【”You’ve been keeping your eyes on him for quite a while, huh.”]

In the game’s story, Harrison was a foolish man who was too fixated on his pride, and in the end, he was pathetically killed by a subordinate who was supposed to be under his control…. thinking of that, Harold realized that the role of killing Harrison had fallen onto him.

Harrison treated the automaton dolls just like tools. He forced impossible demands on them and mercilessly slayed them with his sword when they were unable to succeed, and in his final moments, his life was going to be snatched away by one of those dolls that was supposed to not have any emotions. That was the conclusion awaiting him.

【”His thoughts are biased and he’s too narrow-minded, but nobody’s as easy to handle as he is. So at least, he’ll make for a fine throw-away pawn.”]

【”Your hobbies are as bad as ever.”]

【”That sarcastic mouth of yours won’t do. I’ve explained to Harrison that the dolls don’t have a language feature, so be careful not to talk to him. And while you’re at it, cover yourself with a robe so that he can’t see your face.”]

Harold’s face and name were pretty well known, so these types of measures were certainly indispensable.

If he were honest, he wasn’t all that up for the mission, but he could expect his returns to match the risks. To begin with, having been given an order, Harold had no right to refuse. If he did refuse, he’d probably end up directly on the road to being culled or to becoming some experiment’s test subject. Either way, he’d have low chances of survival.

Therefore, it was more constructive for him to put his head to work and figure out a way to accomplish his duty while doing his best to avoid making things worse. Due to his experiences so far, Harold had reached a point where he had resigned himself to having troublesome matters coming his way out of nowhere.

He told himself that was just how things went with this body and decided it was best to just let it be.

【”As for you two, you’re forbidden to act without my permission or Harold’s.”]

At Justus’ words, the young man and woman moved their heads vertically and nodded. From that, it looked like they were going to follow the command perfectly well, but there was still a part of said command that Harold could not possibly ignore.

【”Hold on. I can order them, too?”]

【”Of course. There will undoubtedly be many situations that will require a judgement to be made on site. They’re officially Harrison’s henchmen, but if they listened to his orders only with no exception, then there would be no end to it.”]

Justus certainly had a point, and if Harold was indeed able to get them to move at his own will to some extent, then when a critical situation came, he would have a wider range of actions to help him deal with it. That was pretty reassuring.

【”What’s the order of priority on the commanding rights?”]

【”It goes I, you, and then Harrison. But even though it’ll be up to you whether to follow Harrison’s instructions or not, you should stay as loyal to him as possible.”]