漫画大王

Chapter 178

“So, how about we try creating an operational magic weapon?”

“Th-That sounds way too difficult for our level...”

“Even so, let’s give it a go. I’ll ask the Temple for the materials, and if they don’t have them, I’ll find a way to get them!”

“R-Really...? I feel so bad for you...”

It seemed like their thoughts were unraveling without much order.

Ellen sat on the sofa, hugging her knees.

I got it now. She was a cute drunk.

Ellen looked at me, her chin resting between her knees.

“I’m hungry.”

“Have some of this,” I said, pointing out the snacks on the table.

“... I don’t want this.”

Cheese and chocolate didn’t seem to satisfy her.

She clearly wanted something else—her expression said as much.

“Hmm... I don’t think we have any ready-made snacks available,” said Riana. She seemed to be thinking about what else she could prepare, but nothing was coming to mind.

Heinrich kept drinking silently.

‘Oh no, that guy... This doesn’t look good.’

While Heinrich was a concern, Ellen was more important.

She was staring at me as if she was not going to breathe until she got what she wanted.

“This is really turning into a creative nuisance,” I muttered under my breath.

In the end, I glanced over at Riana.

“Do you have any cooking ingredients here?”

“We probably do...?”

Riana didn’t sound convinced.

“What are you planning to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know, I’m just going to make something.”

“You’re drunk, you know?”

“I’m fine. I’m not that drunk!” I said.

As I tried to get up from the sofa, though, my ankle twisted under me.

Riana, probably thinking I was drunk, was ready to follow me out of the room. “Hey, hey. Wait up, I’m coming with you.”

“I’m not drunk, okay?”

“... Do you even know where the kitchen is?”

I stopped in my tracks. “Hmm.”

This was a mansion, after all. I would need someone to show me the way to the kitchen. I’d just end up wandering around otherwise.

Was I really drunk?

***

The pantry of the kitchen that Riana led me to was filled with food. I grabbed things at random, not really knowing what I needed.

Riana watched me with a worried expression.

“Do you even know how to cook?”

“I can’t promise it’ll satisfy the tastes of a duchess, but I can make something edible for that bug upstairs.”

“You always speak in a way that riles me up, don’t you?”

I wasn’t aiming to make hors d’oeuvres to pair with wine; I was just making food to fill the stomach of a hungry drunk.

“Be careful with that knife.”

“Yeah.”

I chopped the sausages into bite-sized pieces and roughly chopped some onions, bell peppers, and mushrooms. I threw them all into a frying pan to sauté and added some ketchup, sugar, pepper, and salt.

It didn’t take long at all.

Riana tilted her head, puzzled, as she considered the hastily-prepared meal.

“What is this?”

“It’s sausages mixed with some vegetables, tossed in ketchup, sugar, and pepper.”

“... I was asking for the name of the dish, not how it was made.”

‘Would you even understand if I told you the name of the dish is “ssoya”? Just eat it without questioning me!’

Of course, since Ellen was the one eating, I prepared a massive amount. There was also a baguette, so I sliced it and piled it onto a plate.

Riana, looking skeptical, tried a bite.

She tilted her head. “It’s nothing incredible, but... it’s surprisingly decent.”

“That’s the same reaction that the thick-skull had last time.”

Both of them were so used to fancy foods that they weren’t able to say out loud that they enjoyed it, but at least they didn’t spit it out. Riana folded her arms and looked at me.

“You know, the more I look at you, the stranger you seem.”

“I get that a lot.”

Thinking about it, I realized most people said that to me.

***

When I returned with the massive plate of sliced baguette and sautéed sausage with vegetables, everyone’s eyes widened.

As expected, Ellen silently started to spear the sausage and vegetables with a fork and ate them with the bread. Even Riana, despite her skepticism, picked at it little by little once it was right in front of her.

Adelia tried some, and her eyes widened.

“Reinhart, you’re... surprisingly good at a lot of things,” Adelia said.

“Uh, thanks.”

Adelia, possibly slightly tipsy, had a rosy flush to her cheeks.

“At first, I just thought you were... really scary... But now, I don’t think so...”

The girl who couldn’t meet my eyes when she was sober was speaking rather normally now that she had some alcohol in her system. Riana also nodded silently.

“That’s true. You did seem different during the last group mission.”

During the group mission, everyone had been ready to give up, but Ellen and I were the first to take action. Although Vertus was the one who actually took charge, I had given plenty of hints along the way.

“Y-Yeah... that time... he... he was pretty...cool... right?” asked Adelia, looking at Harriet.

“Uh... Hm? Um, I-I mean, d-don’t ask me...” Harriet stammered back, shaking her head and looking flustered.

Honestly, I could feel that my classmates’ opinions of me had shifted significantly since that event.

Riana threw a sidelong glance at me, and a subtle smile spread across her lips. “If only he could fix that damned crooked attitude of his...”

Slam!

“Ah shit.”

A soft curse broke the atmosphere.

The mood instantly turned icy, as if cold water had been splashed over us.

Heinrich von Schwartz, his eyes glazed over, had slammed his glass down roughly. “Reinhart this, Reinhart that. What’s so great about that guy?” he muttered to himself.

‘This guy... He’s definitely drunk.’

“Some lowly commoner with a filthy temper who throws punches everywhere and doesn’t know his place. What’s so great about that bastard who dares to hit and insult royalty and nobility that he wouldn’t normally even dare to look at?!”

Adelia flinched at his sudden outburst. Ellen stared at him intently, and Riana furrowed her brow, while Harriet seemed flustered.

‘Wow, this jerk.’

I had already sensed that Heinrich had accumulated a grudge against me, but for it to explode in this situation...

“Hey, shut up,” I said to him curtly. “If you keep on babbling, you’ll regret it tomorrow.”

Honestly, if I wanted Heinrich to get what he deserved, remaining silent would have been the best course of action. He was destroying his image on his own, and leaving him to continue down this path would be the best way to make sure the next day would be the most miserable one for him.

Telling him to shut up was all the mercy I could offer him. This was my limit.

It was obvious that his feelings had been twisted up in various ways during this trip. That’s why I didn’t show much reaction to his nonsense.

But it seemed like my words only further provoked his temper.

“What makes you think you can talk down to me, a royal of Kernstadt, you filthy commoner? Do you still think you’re at the Temple? Just because you’re at the Temple, do you think you’re equal to high nobility or royalty? Do you think you’re on par with the prince and princess just because you’re in the same class as them, you pathetic little—”

“Hey, stop it.”

Riana de Granz put her hand on Heinrich’s knee, and he flinched heavily.

“Why are you acting like this all of a sudden? If you’re drunk, just go to sleep.”

Riana’s words probably struck a nerve. Telling a drunk person that they’re drunk is like pressing a self-destruct button. It would be even worse if it came from someone they liked.

“Hey, who do you think you are?” Heinrich growled, glaring at me as he spoke.

He looked at the others. “This guy is nothing. He bragged to everyone about going to the Dark Land, acting all high and mighty, but once he got there, he chickened out and did nothing but wander around safe zones. What kind of adventure is that? It’s a picnic. How is it any different from just hanging out here?”

It was clear that there was a lot of resentment built up inside him.

I felt tired, but not angry. Dealing with him was exhausting, and getting seriously angry at a drunk idiot felt like a waste.

In situations like this, he just came off as pathetic. I’d had enough.

Besides, I didn’t have any strong feelings toward Heinrich von Schwartz one way or the other.

Was there really any need to deal with someone behaving so obnoxiously?

If I stayed quiet, he’d just be ruining his own reputation on his own.

“Whatever you say, man. Everyone knows the truth,” I finally said, barely even looking at him.

Letting him dig his own grave was the best course of action.

I decided to leave him be. If I punched him, it would actually be doing him a favor. No matter how justified I might be for doing so, hitting him would only redirect everyone’s anger towards me.

So I stayed put.

That was the worst thing I could do to Heinrich.

“Hey. I told you to stop...”

He ignored Riana’s attempt to calm him down, and pointed an accusing finger at me. “Hold on a second. You’re nothing but a thug who picks on weaker kids at the Temple. Did you get so scared in a real place that you couldn’t do anything? Coward.

“What, are you gonna hit me? Like you always do? The coward who was useless in the Dark Land can only throw punches here, right? Go on, hit me. Do you think it will be as easy as before—”

“Hey.”

It wasn’t Riana or me who interrupted him.

“If you keep talking,” said Ellen, holding a whiskey bottle and glaring at Heinrich coldly, “I’ll kill you.”

She looked ready to bash his head in with the bottle right then and there.

***

Ellen’s sudden and chilling words made the already tense atmosphere even more so.

I quickly snatched the whiskey bottle out of her hand.

“Hey, calm down. What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

Ellen stared down the now-frozen Heinrich with a murderous gaze. “Don’t speak about things you don’t have the slightest clue about.”

“What? What don’t I understand...?”

“Don’t speak carelessly when you don’t even know anything.”

It seemed like Ellen had lost her composure, just like Heinrich had lost his senses. The tension had destabilized her, and hearing Heinrich insulting me as a coward had triggered her anger.

Going to the Dark Land wasn’t something we were proud of, but we were not cowards. However, it wasn’t something worth getting riled up over just because of a mere provocation.

Heinrich, who had been frightened initially, seemed to calm down a bit when I intervened. Then, out of embarrassment, his face turned red, and his attitude suddenly changed.

Heinrich looked at Ellen as though he had just remembered and laughed. “Oh, right. You went to the Dark Land too, didn’t you?”

It was clearly a mocking laugh.

“So, did you also chicken out when you got there? What, do you feel embarrassed and ashamed when someone points that out?”

“Just stop it! Why are you acting like this?”

“Wh-What’s wrong, Heinrich?”

Even Harriet and Adelia urged Heinrich to stop, but he didn’t seem willing to listen.

Riana de Granz sighed, and her expression turned ice-cold.

“Wow, you’re annoying.”

Bzzzzt!

“Ugh!”

Electricity shot out from Riana’s body and struck Heinrich. She had finally lost her patience and taken direct action.

Riana looked at the now unconscious Heinrich, who had collapsed from a single electric shock, as if he were some kind of insect. “If I had known he was this kind of guy, I wouldn’t have invited him along.”

Now that his sudden outburst had been subdued by a single electric shock, Riana took a calm sip of her whiskey. “Don’t worry. He’s not dead.”

The casualness of her remark was the scariest part.

In any case, Heinrich had let his jealousy or sense of rivalry towards me drive him to do unnecessary and foolish things, earning the full ire of Riana de Granz.

Maybe I should have just knocked some sense into him from the start. Not that I had any reason to do such a favor for someone who was being deliberately obnoxious.

I seemed to have mellowed out quite a bit. In the old days, I would’ve drop-kicked him on the spot. Of course, back then, my standing had been precarious, and I couldn’t stand to be ignored. Now, I didn’t have to worry about such things anymore.

Plus, I didn’t want to get seriously angry over some nonsense spouted by a drunk. Leaving a drunken fool alone was the best punishment, so I had just watched.

‘Well, this certainly took a turn,’ I thought, looking at the unconscious form of Heinrich von Schwartz.

Harriet and Adelia, who had tried to stop Heinrich, seemed relieved but also a bit stunned. Ellen’s rage had dissipated, and the anger on her face had been replaced by a more contemplative look as she watched the scene play out.

And there was Riana, nonchalantly sipping her drink as if nothing much had happened. That was perhaps the most unsettling of all.

In the end, I decided not to do anything as a way to subtly retaliate. Part of it was because I didn’t want to ruin my good mood from drinking after such a long time.

We brought the unconscious Heinrich into one of the rooms and laid him on a bed. Despite the unexpected commotion, it seemed like Riana had no intention of ending the gathering.

Ellen’s expression was still displeased. She was clearly still irked by Heinrich’s remarks.

“By the way, you two,” Riana said, alternating her gaze between Ellen and me. “I never really believed that nothing happened in the Dark Land from the beginning...”

Riana seemed to be referencing Ellen’s earlier outburst: “Don’t talk about things you don’t have a clue about.”

She never actually believed us when we’d said nothing happened.

Riana, still looking at us, took another sip of her whiskey. “If it’s something you don\'t want to talk about, even with someone like him calling you cowards, then I can kinda guess what might have happened.”

Riana understood that there was a reason why we couldn’t talk about it.

She refilled Ellen’s glass with wine and mine with whiskey. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. But I believe that, whatever you did, it must have been for a good reason.”

“...”

Riana was willing to believe that there were unavoidable circumstances that led us to do whatever it was within the Dark Land.

“But just know that it’s natural for us to be curious about what happened,” Riana continued with a smile as she raised her glass. “Because after all, we’re friends. That’s what I think.”

Friends.

Riana de Granz considered Ellen and I her friends. Hearing this from her caught me a bit off-guard, and I found myself momentarily stunned.

We hadn’t known each other for long, nor had we shared that many conversations. But then again, people didn’t have to spend ages together to become friends.

A slightly tipsy Riana was more open and talkative than usual, which was why she expressed this thought aloud. ‘Because we are friends, it’s natural to be curious about such things.’

It was the complete opposite of Heinrich, who had gone on a drunken rant about social hierarchies and acted as if we were still at the Temple.

He believed that social hierarchies couldn’t be transcended, while Riana believed they could and thought of us as friends.

Ellen seemed slightly surprised by Riana’s words as well. She stared at Riana quietly for a moment before turning her gaze to me, and I understood what her look meant.

‘Is it okay to tell them?’

She seemed to be weighing whether or not to share. We had refrained from speaking about it because we feared the others would look at us with fear or disdain if we did.

But to keep hiding it after Riana’s declaration of friendship would be disrespectful—not just to Riana, but to Harriet and Adelia as well.

Ellen seemed to want to stop hiding it from the people who could understand. I met her gaze and gave a small nod.

Ellen took a few deep breaths; it seemed like the alcohol had worn off completely.

“We killed people.”

Ellen spoke calmly, but there was a slight tremor in her voice. Aside from Riana, Adelia and Harriet visibly caught their breath in shock.

“In total, there were twenty-six of them.”

Unlike me, Ellen remembered the exact number of those who had died.

***

Ellen continued her explanation calmly, and slowly, as if all the alcohol had left her system. Everyone listened in silence as she recounted our journey through the Dark Land.

She explained how we’d started from Egxian and headed toward Saints Point, where we sussed out bandits attempting to rob us and preemptively attacked them.

How, at Saints Point, we joined forces with a mage, and how we’d also clashed with a B-rank adventurer named Hugson.

We told them that we chose to check out Altz Point on our own instead of signing on for the escort mission, and had headed south. That led to the massacre at Klitz Point and the annihilation of the bandit gang.

We continued with our return to Saints Point and the discovery that Hugson was an accomplice of the gang and apprehended him... And how we took on a special request from an investigator from the Adventurer’s Guild headquarters, which led us back to Altz Point.

Eventually, we reached the story of what had happened at Klitz Point—how we found out that the bodies had disappeared, and how they had become zombies and attacked us.

Everyone sat in stunned silence as Ellen told the harrowing tale of how our journey in the Dark Land unfolded.

Ellen then described the cursed sword incident at Altz Point.

She spoke about the grotesque happenings caused by that cursed sword and the ensuing battle against the zombies under its control.

However, she left out the part about the mysterious mage, Relia, and her true identity.

Finally, Ellen shared how she had awakened Mana Enhancement in those fights, and how we eventually recovered the cursed sword and handed it over to the Temple.

The three listening to our story sat in stunned silence.

“Many people lost their lives, and we had to kill people ourselves. It’s not a tale anyone would want to hear,” Ellen said as she looked at Harriet, who seemed dazed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you.”

She apologized to Harriet for not saying anything. Harriet bit her lip, then shook her head vigorously.

“No... No, it’s okay. I understand why you couldn’t tell me. It must have been hard... I’m sorry for not understanding and making assumptions...”

Now that she’d heard the full story, Harriet completely understood why we hadn’t spoken about it before and made her own apology to Ellen.

The last lingering awkwardness between them finally vanished.

“You two must have had a hard time. You both did well,” Riana said.

Her words were brief, but they were full of understanding. Not just understanding, but a sense of admiration as well.

“Honestly, just listening to it is scary... Really, really scary. But both of you were amazing. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything. I-I think... you guys did well! You did what had to be done! And the fact that you didn’t run away but chose to fight... that’s incredible... So, don’t feel so down. Okay?”

Adelia, despite the fear still evident in her voice, forced out words of encouragement, trying to affirm what Ellen and I had done. Despite the trembling in her voice, her words conveyed sincere admiration.

Harriet looked back and forth between Ellen and me. “You two saved so many people.”

We’d feared that those who heard our story might be afraid of us or avoid us.

“So... while it’s not something to brag about everywhere, I think you should be proud of yourselves. I hope this doesn’t torment you,” Harriet continued.

All of it turned out to just be our misunderstanding.

“... Thank you,” Ellen said quietly, sipping her wine with a faint smile.

It felt as though the shadow of negative emotions that had lingered over Ellen’s face since the Dark Land had finally lifted.