Oho? This time, he didn’t say that Father’s reward was consolation money for him to leave the country. I supposed that Trash understood that if he went ahead with that, Ren would give him a hard time about it.
Which meant that we had to do something to make Itsuki start to mistrust Melromarc. It seemed impossible at this point.
Regardless, we had to do something.
And with that, we left Melromarc castle.
“Hey, get out of the way! Move it!”
“I’m sorry—but wait, just a moment—”
Ren appeared to be on his way over to us when one of his companions had gotten in the way. Father noticed it and quickly started to walk over to meet Ren.
“Hey, Ren,” Father said.
“Naofumi,” Ren said. “I was trying to talk to you, but this idiot keeps getting in my way.”
The companion had followed Ren over and finally backed down.
Judging from the last go-around, I knew it would be pretty risky to start a conversation in the middle of the street here.
“If you want to talk, may I suggest going to someplace quieter?” I interrupted. “Away from your companions?”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s go somewhere else. You all, go wait for me at the pub,” he said to his companions.
“B-but, Sir Ren! Wait . . .”
Trembling, the companion who got in the way still didn’t leave. Ren let out a deep sigh.
“What is it already? Something that you have to tell me about? Well, I’ve got to tell something to the other heroes here. If I told them right in front of everyone, we wouldn’t get very far, would we?”
It seemed like a single adventurer wouldn’t be enough to slow Ren down.
“If you insist on following me everywhere I go, I’ll dismiss you,” Ren said.
“B-but, Sir Ren! Don’t do that to us!”
Reluctantly, Ren’s companions went away. Ren was prone to assertive action from time to time, after all.
“I can explain everything,” I said.
“Please do, Motoyasu.”
“At once, Father!” I declared. I gestured to Yuki, Kou, and Sakura to come over and I whispered to them.
“Make sure that no one is hiding nearby to overhear us,” I said. “If someone is, give me a cue.”
“At once,” Yuki said.
“So like hide-and-seek!” Kou said.
“Let’s go and take a look,” Sakura said.
Filolials had an excellent ability to detect hidden people and objects. It didn’t mean that it was completely impossible to hide in their presence, but if someone were detected hiding, all I needed to do was find them myself with a spell and eliminate them.
So we took Ren into a back-alley to continue our conversation. This alley seemed like it would work just fine.
I lowered my voice so no one could hear me and chanted a fire spell: “Liberation Fireflash!”
It was the same spell I had used back when we were in the mole village, which revealed the presence of anyone hiding nearby. The spell depended on how skillfully hidden the people were, so if anyone had sloppily hidden themselves, the spell would set them on fire instantly.
“This is better,” I announced. “So, Ren, what can we do for you?”
Ren cleared his throat. “Just based on everything that happened up until now, it’s all too obvious that there’s something up with this country. The blatant discrimination I saw against the Shield Hero made me want to ask you guys about it.”
“Sure,” Father said and glanced at me.
Ren appeared to be confident that Melromarc was a bad actor. So it was about time to tell him a few things.
“Well, it seems that in Melromarc the Shield Hero is actually the antithesis of their religion,” Father explained. “But if they officially do anything against me, the other countries in the region will get mad at them. So behind the scenes, they’re making up crimes that I committed to give them an excuse to try to assassinate me. At least, that’s what we’ve come to think.”
Ren nodded several times. “That definitely seems to fit with everything we’ve seen so far.”
If you thought about everything that happened objectively, it would be hard to doubt Father’s conclusion.
“And the whole rape thing is just another one of their accusations?” Ren asked.
“Yep,” Father said. “I didn’t do anything to Myne. And while some of the people on my team are technically slaves, I’m definitely not forcing them to fight. Given the circumstances, I had no choice but to buy companions as slaves.”
“That’s right!” Keel interjected. “Big Bro hasn’t forced me into anything I didn’t want to do!”
“Got it,” Ren said. “So why don’t you just leave Melromarc?”
“Well . . .” Father trailed off.
I wasn’t confident that Ren would believe us. The whole time loop thing. About how if we went to Siltvelt, Melromarc would eventually declare war on them. That the heroes would end up fighting all sorts of pointless wars. It was a lot to ask someone to believe.
“It’s complicated,” Father responded. “I want to try to change Melromarc from the inside. That’s why I’m sticking to peddling for now.”
It was the best response we had, and it wasn’t a lie either. No one in the universe could come up with on-the-spot answers like Father, I say!
“It sounds like a pretty annoying way to go about things to me,” Ren commented.
He wasn’t wrong about that. Every step of the way had been annoying.
When I thought about what Trash and the Crimson Swine had done, it was all I could do to repress my rage. And Itsuki had become nearly as bad! Thinking about how Father had defeated him brought a smile to my lips.
“Wait! Look!” At that moment, fire from Liberation Fireflash blazed up behind us. Had Melromarc sent an assassin already?
“What’s wrong?” Ren said. “There are all sorts of random fights in alleyways like this.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Ren didn’t appear to even remotely realize that someone had been secretly approaching us.
“Look, I’m going to have to pass on getting involved in these ridiculous power struggles,” he continued. “I’m going to take a guild job and get out of here and go to Zeltoble.”
“I understand,” I said. “I think that we should be able to resolve things in Melromarc pretty soon, so why don’t you meet back up with us here then later?”
“Maybe. Do you know when?”
Ugh. I didn’t want to have to explain things in detail.
Since Ren tended to be a contrarian person, I wondered whether he would end up going to Faubrey instead of Zeltoble if I told him that he definitely should not go to Faubrey. But Zeltoble wasn’t bad either in terms of a place for Ren to wait while we took care of things.
“I’m not exactly sure,” I admitted. “From what I’ve heard, when Trash’s power reaches a precarious state, there could be a regime change. If that ends up happening, do you think you would come back here so we could work together?”
“It’s certainly not a bad idea,” Ren said, nodding. “In Zeltoble, I’ll probably hear rumors about what happens over here anyway, so I can just pay attention to those and respond on the fly.”
I supposed that trying to cooperate too much with Ren was ultimately pointless.
Ren looked at Father. “And nice job beating Itsuki. How’d you pull it off?”
“About that,” Father said, “I was meaning to tell you, Ren. There are a lot of different power-up methods for our weapons. What I did for the fight was use one of those methods.” And Father went on to teach Ren about the power-up method he had used. But it was a waste of time. Ren was too confident in his own knowledge of the game, and Father’s wisdom went in one ear and out the other.
“The system isn’t really that complicated,” Ren said. “You just fought harder.”
Ren kind of tried the power-up methods. But since he didn’t really believe they existed, they wouldn’t work for him.
“It’s not that I think you’re lying to me,” Ren went on. “I guess they just work for your weapon but not mine. Just like each of us came from different worlds, the games we played were different too, and that affects the way our weapons work.”
Ren nodded as if that settled things. Well, in that case, I couldn’t expect Ren to get much stronger than he was now.
“I can’t implement them with my weapons, and you were just stronger according to your level,” Ren continued. “I guess that’s pretty much how the system works. All right, you two, stick together.”
“Well, that’s not quite . . .” Father tried to cut in, but Ren steamrolled over him.
“I have no idea why you would bother trying to change this country from the inside, but I’m sure you can do it.” Ren nodded. “See ya later.”
As noncommittal as ever, Ren waved and went running off.
I supposed it was pretty difficult to comprehend the strength of the Shield Hero. It sounded like as soon as Ren finished his guild jobs, he planned to leave Melromarc. Melromarc certainly wouldn’t let Father leave, but maybe Ren would be able to get out without an issue. It felt a little bit dangerous to me, but even though he had expressed his doubts about Melromarc, I suspected that they would still let him do what he wanted. But if they went after Ren’s life as well, maybe he would come back to us for protection.
At this point, Ren was strong enough that the average soldier or adventurer wouldn’t pose him any danger. Enemies that could use ritual magic were another story, but those enemies would almost certainly go after Father before Ren.
Without a doubt, sooner or later Melromarc would pretend that Father had captured the second princess and attack the heroes and try to deal with Ren then. But we still had plenty of time until that happened.