Chapter 153. The Madness of Salvation
“...Erol. Let’s drop the formal speech between us.”
I casually brought it up while riding on Erol’s enormous ship.
It seemed like we would be traveling together for a while, so I wanted things to be as comfortable as possible.
Erol had been staring blankly out at the sea.
When he heard me, he seemed to realize a little late that I was talking to him and widened his eyes in surprise.
Then he smiled slightly.
Seriously.
This guy’s entire life looked like a photo shoot.
“Why all of a sudden?”
“Am I the older one? Anyway, take care of me.”
“Haha. But since I’m your senior brother, shouldn’t you be the one speaking politely to me?”
“Senior brother?”
Erol reached into his clothes and pulled out a book about the size of Jayeon.
Was his clothing connected to some kind of four-dimensional storage space or something?
Written along the edge of the book was the same thing I had seen on the grimoire the summoned old man had given Pie....
Come to think of it...
I vaguely remembered him calling Erol and Kaiem our kids too!
“...Wait, what?”
“You’re that summoned old man’s disciple?”
“Yes.”
“Though rather than master and disciple, it’s closer to a father-and-child relationship.”
“He found Kaiem and me after we had been abandoned and raised us.”
“Huh....”
“But I’m not that old man’s disciple.”
“Do you want me to call you Senior Brother?”
“What, are you into martial arts novels?”
“...Haha.”
Erol laughed awkwardly.
“Then let’s just speak comfortably with each other.”
I had received a lot from that old man, so if Erol had insisted on being called Senior Brother, I wouldn’t have had any reason to refuse.
But if he himself said not to bother...
Then from now on, I’d treat him casually.
Still...
If this guy was that old man’s disciple...
Or child?
Whatever.
Did that mean he could also do that insane image-training thing?
If I stuck close to him, I might unexpectedly learn something useful.
“...Then did that old man tell you anything about me?”
“He said...”
Erol hesitated, clearly uncomfortable speaking casually to me.
“‘Good heavens, can two people really look this similar? That mage bastard really pulled a proper prank this time.’”
He paused between his words awkwardly.
Anything was hard the first time.
Hang in there, Salvation.
And if you happen to casually explain how that image-training technique works while we’re at it, I’d be grateful.
“Similar? To who?”
“The Great Hero of Hope.”
That name again.
No matter where I went, it kept appearing.
At this rate, tomorrow I’d probably hear a rumor that he was drinking at the tavern across the street.
If I thought about it seriously...
Maybe the Chairman had tried to create another Great Hero of Hope and failed.
Or perhaps...
I was still in the middle of being created into one.
But right now, Chang was Hope, wasn’t he?
Maybe there could be several people called Hope....
Probably.
Then why was I the only Madness?
There were plenty of players far crazier than me....
“Ohhh.”
I touched my face.
“So this is what a Great Hero face looks like.”
“Do Great Heroes get selected based on looks too?”
“Haha! Maybe!”
“Most Great Heroes I know are handsome or beautiful.”
“Think I have a chance?”
“Maybe?”
Look at this bastard.
A moment ago, he was struggling just to speak casually to me...
And now he was making jokes like this.
Wait.
Was that even a joke?
He smiled all the time, so I genuinely couldn’t tell.
“What does it feel like being a Great Hero when you’re that strong?”
“Great Heroes are powerful, but their strength isn’t absolute.”
Erol glanced at me.
“Look at me.”
“If the Alliance tells me to do something, I still end up doing it.”
“...So coming here was part of negotiations between the Empire and the Alliance?”
“...Right.”
He sighed deeply at his own circumstances and stared silently at the sea with melancholy eyes.
Was this what the depressed Great Hero of Hope had looked like when the summoned old man met him?
...
If I told this guy to run away with me right now, we could probably start filming some kind of youth romance drama.
If I were a female character, I would’ve gone for it immediately.
Let’s run away from this suffocating world together!
Something like that.
Damn.
I was thinking with game logic again.
That feeling of—
Can I do this too?
What about that?
Whatever, just try it!
It was seriously dangerous.
Perfect for destroying human relationships.
...
Wait.
This was a game.
Huh?
Wasn’t it?
It was still a game, right?
How many times was I going to confuse myself like this before I stopped thinking that way?
“So what were the terms of the negotiation?”
“In exchange for receiving the Root Insight captured and the clues about the Fanatics....”
Erol’s expression turned serious.
“Insight truly is incredible.”
“To think he had already reached the realm of the Old Sword....”
“What’s that?”
“The Old Sword.”
“Normally, when power dwells inside a sword or weapon, it becomes surrounded by blue light.”
Shing.
Erol pulled a sword from inside his clothes.
The moment he applied a little strength, blue energy began gathering around the blade.
In a fantasy world, this was so common that it didn’t feel special.
I had even seen something similar from Aien.
“But if the swordsmanship...”
“No, if the wielder’s skill surpasses the peak....”
“The color begins turning red.”
“I’d like to show you, but I can’t.”
Erol laughed.
“I’m terrible with weapons.”
“Grandpa Aro’s sword looked almost rusty.”
“What was that?”
“The final stage of the Old Sword is when the entire weapon turns completely black.”
“Insight has reached the stage immediately before that.”
Hmm.
I see.
Well, this was a world where a balance-breaking power like Mind Power existed.
Naturally, they would’ve prepared something comparable.
I just hadn’t expected them to give it to Grandpa Aro after he had already reached the peak of Mind Power and become a Great Hero.
“What a monster.”
“Why do you think they call him the strongest Great Hero?”
“Even before receiving the title of Great Hero, his name alone was already famous.”
“Even I heard about him while living in the mountains.”
“You’re the youngest Great Hero yourself.”
“You have plenty of chances to surpass him, don’t you?”
“Haha.”
Erol smiled.
“I hope so.”
His clearly defined features openly showed an expression saying—
Haa... Will that day really come?
If you’re going to make your feelings that obvious on your face, just say them out loud.
Was this kind of like telling the president of a small domestic company—
“Hey! Your company is doing pretty well too!”
“Maybe you can become the richest person in the world someday!”
“In about a hundred years!”
“Mm! Good luck!”
...
Maybe what I said had been a little irresponsible.
From my perspective, both of them were people I couldn’t even approach.
“What are you getting so gloomy for?”
“Has Salvation already given up?”
“Hmm.”
Erol tilted his head.
“I’m not even sure whether I’m living a life that deserves the name Salvation right now.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
Hmm.
For me, that word was basically a forbidden-level provocation, so I deliberately threw it at him through clenched teeth.
But it didn’t seem to affect him much.
Salvation.
His very name meant saving someone.
Maybe being trapped inside the Alliance, where everything moved according to profit and interests, made him shrink inward.
Perhaps he was the result of someone with a shonen protagonist’s ideals—
Save whoever can be saved without worrying about interests.
Only to discover that reality wasn’t nearly so simple.
And yet he still had to act like the Great Hero the Alliance wanted.
“Then just live in a way that suits that name.”
“Haha.”
“It really isn’t that easy....”
“If I simply live however I want, how would that be different from evil?”
“Ah~”
“Annoyingly pure justice.”
“You can’t cross the line, something like that?”
“If you want to protect justice, you shouldn’t stay in the middle!”
“Huh?”
Erol turned toward me.
“What? You have some kind of philosophy about justice too?”
What do you mean by that?
Of course I didn’t have any special philosophy of justice.
I was an ordinary citizen who could ignore injustice even after seeing it...
And even if I recognized righteousness, I wasn’t the type to act on it.
But!
I was someone who had once lectured Hayangi, Madness herself, about the nature of Madness.
There was nothing I couldn’t say!
“It’s that thing.”
“Opposites eventually meet.”
“Doesn’t that phrase mean you shouldn’t go too far?”
“So isn’t what I’m doing—staying in the middle—exactly right?”
“No.”
“If you want to walk the path of good, you shouldn’t stay at the middle.”
“You need to go farther toward good.”
“Let’s say perfect good is 100.”
“Perfect evil is -100.”
“The middle is 0.”
“Then you should be hanging around somewhere near 80.”
“...That sounds harder than staying neutral.”
“Where in the world is anything easy?”
I had lived long enough to learn that much.
