The beautiful woman who stole my heart in an instant showed no reaction to my sincere confession.
With eyelashes so long they seemed like they could accumulate snow if it fell, she merely blinked her eyes as if to assert that she wasn’t a doll.
Even that appearance was beautiful!
Hecate. She was like a masterpiece sculpted by some artist who poured their entire life into it, brought to life by a god’s breath.
Even if she, Hecate, rejected my confession right now, it would be fine.
Because my fate had already been decided the moment I stood before her.
I was already her, Hecate’s, slave.
An instant that felt like eternity.
At the end of the wait, Hecate spoke.
“Would you like to see this? Kingdom Destroyer Sir Paramir?”
“This is…….”
“It’s the bounty on your head.”
Instead of responding to my confession, which came after serious and careful deliberation, she held out a wanted poster.
The yellowish paper looked like it had been issued quite some time ago.
That’s strange. It couldn’t have been that long. It hadn’t even been a month since I destroyed the Kingdom of Bers. Had it been left in a damp place or something?
Let me see.
One, ten, hundred, thousand……. In pirate comics, ten million units might be considered small fry, but on the Armenial Continent, it was different.
And on this yellow paper, there was a symbol specifically indicating “platinum coins.”
That alone made it an amount incomparable to riffraff.
I counted the amount again, wondering if I’d seen it wrong.
I couldn’t believe it.
But no matter how many times I counted, the number didn’t change.
One, ten, hundred, thousand…. The bounty on my head was a whopping one thousand platinum coins.
“Platinum coins? And one thousand of them?”
“Yes. There’s a bounty of one thousand platinum coins on your head, Sir. The Human Empire and its allies—essentially, you’ll be denied entry anywhere on the continent. Knights and mages will pursue you.”
“Good heavens.”
Now I understood why seven bounty hunters had come looking for me in a nameless rural village tavern in just a few days.
The depiction of me on the wanted poster expressed information about me in a surprisingly inaccurate way. In other words, the drawing made me look uglier than I really am.
The bounty on my head. A terrifying amount of one thousand platinum coins.
It was an amount ordinary people couldn’t even imagine. It would be more than enough to instantly paralyze many people’s reason.
Money.
Had there ever been a substance in human history that made people as mad and foolish as this?
Although they all died by my hand, I could somewhat understand the feelings of the bounty hunters who rushed at me.
Hadn’t I myself been tempted by the reward for dealing with the wyvern flock?
“It seems the Human Empire is overestimating me too much.”
“For someone who single-handedly destroyed a kingdom, who wouldn’t give such an evaluation? Our racial alliance also holds Sir Paramir in high regard.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You do now, don’t you?”
“Oh dear.”
I like her even more.
Racial alliance?
The places I’d wandered for the past year were the territories of the Human Empire and its allies, so I didn’t know much about them.
Information based on people’s common sense and stereotypes.
And those rumors intentionally manipulated and leaked by the higher-ups—that was all I knew about the racial alliance.
‘They say giants, monsters, and creatures that are hard to see as intelligent beings live there.’
Looking at the beauty before me, Hecate, it seemed such rumors were nothing more than exaggerations. Indeed, one must see the world with their own eyes.
Regardless.
Unlike my thoughts circling the outskirts, Hecate’s expression was utterly serious.
No, from the beginning, this beautiful, sacred, and lovely lady, like a statue crafted from night, maintained an expressionless face.
So haughty!
Hecate said.
“Sir Paramir. The Kingdom of Bers you destroyed is an ally of the Human Empire. Since an individual toppled one axis of the alliance, it’s sufficient for the Human Empire to place such a bounty. Congratulations. You’ve become the third-highest bounty criminal on the Armenial Continent.”
“Third? You mean there are two more people with bounties higher than one thousand platinum coins?”
“Is that important?”
“Actually, it’s not. Whether it’s one thousand or ten thousand. What’s important is your answer, Lady Hecate. Will you accept my feelings? If you permit me, you’ll possess a man worth more than one thousand platinum coins.”
“I refuse.”
“Oh dear.”
So blunt.
That’s why I like her more!
Without any lingering attachment, I threw the gold ring I’d taken out for her far away. It felt cheap anyway.
Hecate’s gaze was still directed at me, but it wasn’t driven by personal desire.
Above all, her emotionless expression was like an impregnable fortress.
Still, it’s not all bad.
I hadn’t expected her to accept my confession on the first meeting anyway.
The longer we spend time together, the more she’ll fall for my charms.
“Kingdom Destroyer Paramir. I’ve come to you representing the will of the racial alliance Heldrasil. Would you meet with our leader, Hader?”
“Hader?”
“Yes. Surely you don’t claim not to know him?”
“Hmm!”
I don’t know him.
Who is he? This Hader person?
Of course, I’d heard of him through rumors here and there.
But rumors are just rumors; how could I know someone I’d never met face-to-face or conversed with?
A man with a bounty of ten thousand platinum coins, no less than the amount on my wanted poster (which depicts me a bit uglier than reality, making me quite suspicious of the artist’s skill).
The Human Empire’s number one public enemy.
The ruler of all sorts of horrific and bizarre races and monsters.
The absurd… outlandish rumor that he can turn opponents into black soil just by looking at them with open eyes.
That was the Hader I knew.
It was all exaggerated content I couldn’t trust, overheard from drunks in taverns.
Turning people into black soil just by looking. Not even a character imagined by a middle school boy.
Suppressing the urge to chuckle with superhuman patience, I spoke in a serious tone.
“I don’t know him in detail. Just what I heard a moment ago.”
“That’s sufficient. Kingdom Destroyer Paramir, your name is now known to the Human Empire and its allies. Not in a good way, but a bad one. Now you’ll be hated by the forces that rule half of the Armenial Continent. In that case, wouldn’t it be better to come to our Heldrasil? I think you won’t need to ponder it for long.”
“Oh.”
So that’s why you came?
‘The only other man in this world with a higher bounty than me… I’m curious.’
Ten thousand platinum coins.
Curiosity arose about the man with such a bounty on his head.
I extended my hand to Hecate, who stood still like a doll, waiting.
“I understand what you’re saying. The racial alliance. I thought I’d visit someday, and it seems today is that day.”
“A wise choice.”
Hecate cautiously extended her hand and accepted my handshake.
On our first meeting, she invited me to her home (well, not exactly), and even shook hands?
Doesn’t that mean I’ve seen all there is to see?
“…That’s unpleasant.”
“Eh!”
After the handshake, Hecate brushed her hand on her skirt hem.
Somehow, it felt like my heart was crumbling…….
The west.
The racial alliance.
A meeting with the man Hader, who has a bounty of ten thousand platinum coins—enough to build three or four kingdoms.
Fine. All fine.
It’s fine, but this is the central region of the Armenial Continent.
A land close to the center, not biased toward east, west, south, or north. Strictly speaking, it’s not the exact center, but anyway.
Roughly in such a location, how are we supposed to easily go to the place where the leaders of the western racial alliance are gathered?
Lady Hecate can fly through the sky as I saw in our first meeting, but I can’t.
In the game, “Paramir’s” class was knight, and knights have high anti-magic stats, so magical aptitude converges to zero.
For that reason, I have near-complete immunity to others’ magic or curses, but at the same time, I have the minor issue of not being able to use magic myself.
But Lady Hecate had a means to blow away my worries like a typhoon.
“There’s a way.”
“As expected.”
The mana I felt from Lady Hecate was extraordinary.
She might be max level, or perhaps beyond……. That’s what my “sense” told me roughly.
Mages always have a few trump cards, so if it came to a fight between me and her, the outcome would be uncertain.
‘Beautiful, noble, and strong. Not just a simple beauty.’
It was an aura I’d never felt from the mages or witches who’d opposed me for various reasons, aiming for my neck.
It’s fine for me because I have near-perfect anti-magic stats, but for ordinary people, strong hearts daring to defy this indifferent and haughty beauty’s temper would be exceedingly rare.
Swish…. Lady Hecate took out a small stone from her bosom.
It was a stone engraved with runes, and the moment I saw it, I understood what it was.
“A return stone.”
“You know it?”
“A little.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
Well, of course.
In the game, with such a vast map, you couldn’t make the character walk everywhere every time, so return stones were essential consumables.
Every village had at least one merchant NPC selling return stones.
But whether in the game or in this world that’s become reality, return stones are very special and owned by few—truly precious items.
That’s only natural.
If return stones were distributed to everyone, what would happen to reality?
Even with my poor imagination, I can think of all sorts of side effects and horrific examples where the world would plunge into chaos instantly. This is one item that absolutely shouldn’t be mass-produced.
The return stone I know is nothing more than the “teleportation device” used in the game.
“Step back.”
At Hecate’s words, I put distance between us.
I didn’t have a return stone in my inventory.
After possession, when I checked, the inventory was empty.
If there had been even a rusted, chipped iron sword, I wouldn’t have struggled so much at the beginning……. It’s regrettable, but what can I do.
Still, I took comfort in the fact that I had an inventory.
“Oh!”
When she placed the return stone on the ground and chanted an unintelligible spell, a blue dimensional gate appeared before us.
It was the dimensional portal I’d only seen on the monitor! Seeing it in person for the first time got me excited.
At my appearance, Hecate looked at me with her still indifferent, queen-like, haughty expression.
It felt like being a caged animal under observation. Ooh, ooh-ooh! Like I’ve become a monkey or something.
I acted ignorant about the return stone. After all, I didn’t know if it worked the same as in the game. Now that it’s “reality,” being ignorant is the truth.
“We just enter here?”
Lady Hecate nodded.
I boldly stepped toward the blue-glowing dimensional gate.
I was excited about what lay beyond.
The racial alliance. At least in the game I played, it was a place not revealed to users.
‘Opening a new area. I can’t resist this.’
Plus, I could avoid the annoying bounty hunters who attacked day and night.
My heart pounded at the fact that I could see and experience a secretive new area that hadn’t been revealed before, with my own eyes—not through a monitor.
I’m totally thrilled!