Ugly Guy, Hardcore Fighter-Chapter 85: The Hero Who Appears Again and Again (Patreon)

-Thank you DCRangeRange, Dean Dexter and CannedbreadFollow me on Patreon via Linktree https://linktr.ee/Mnotia-

To find the fake Ardeen, you just had to look for incidents.

I realized that on my sixth day in Selenoa.

The morning newspaper said that a Horned Runner pulling a cart had escaped in the southern district.

No damage yet. The guard corps was searching. Residents were told to secure their doors and windows—

“Let’s go.”

Seiji-san was already standing before he’d even finished reading the article.

“Seiji-san. Did the fake Ardeen detector react?”

“No. It’s an incident! We have to get there as soon as possible. I’m not interested in fakes.”

I mean, that’s obviously where his interest is, but whatever.

Seika-san hugged the newspaper, and we ran to the southern district.

What had escaped was a 〈Horned Runner〉 domesticated to pull carts.

It was a size larger than a horse, with thick hide like a rhinoceros and a single horn on its snout.

With its cart harness still dangling from it, it was charging through a narrow street. Buckets in front of shops went flying, and fruit baskets rolled across the stone paving.

A child was in its path.

“I’ll stop it!”

Seiji-san stepped forward.

A red shadow flew in from the right.

“This is what people call me. The Wandering Hero, Ardeen!”

Fake Ardeen scooped the child up with one arm.

He pressed the Horned Runner’s forehead back with his opposite fist. His soles scraped the stone paving, and he stopped on the third step.

Three steps.

Last time, it had also been three steps.

“Evil has no name to declare. But if I must give one, it is the indomitable crimson lotus soul—Ardeen!”

His opponent was just a Horned Runner that had run away.

Not evil.

Fake Ardeen dodged the thrashing horn and drove in his red fist just once.

The Horned Runner fell, but it was still breathing. There were no wounds.

It was magnificent.

Even his holding back was perfect.

He returned the child to the mother.

Left hand to his chest. He tilted his face about fifteen degrees. Smiled.

“Gratia goes not to me, but to those who love you. Farewell. We’ll meet again beneath voices crying for help.”

He turned starting with his right foot and swept his coat around.

Even his stride was the same.

“Wait, please!”

Seiji-san chased after him.

Fake Ardeen didn’t look back.

When he turned the corner, he vanished again.

“…Huh?”

“Did something happen?”

Seika-san asked.

“Is this an NPC?”

When I muttered that, Seika-san tilted her head.

“N-P-C?”

“Like a villager from old RPGs who only ever says the same scripted lines.”

“Isn’t he just treasuring the same signature lines?”

Seiji-san said as he came back.

“Heroes have their own forms, after all.”

“The way he stopped it just now was the same as with the cart. Child in his left arm. Stop with his right hand. Step back three paces. Left hand to his chest. The line. Leave starting with his right foot.”

“You’re quite observant.”

“You weren’t watching?”

“I was checking on the Horned Runner’s safety.”

Probably a lie.

I think he was frustrated at losing in coolness, so he wasn’t watching the fine details.

See, his clenched fist is trembling slightly.

“But are there really people in this world who can only do the same thing?”

Seika-san looked down the alley where fake Ardeen had disappeared.

“Everyone we’ve met has worried, gotten angry, and laughed.”

“That’s why it’s weird.”

Even if his appearance is like a game character, people are people.

Ask the same question and you won’t get the same answer. They regret what they said yesterday by today, and if they’re in a bad mood, even their greeting changes.

Being perfectly identical is what’s unnatural.

Two Gratia Records Officers entered the crowd.

Blue armbands. Questions to the mother. The name 〈Hero Ardeen〉 written at the top of the record sheet. The stamp pressed at the end: 〈Post to Gratia Bulletin Board tomorrow morning〉. Up to that point, it was the same as the previous incident.

It was a different incident, yet only the hero and the officials moved with the same pattern.

From the citizens’ bracelets, Gratia light flowed toward the direction where fake Ardeen had disappeared.

It’s visible.

The results are fast.

He directly saves lives.

Many people are watching.

Everyone knows who did it.

And then—it becomes an official report.

“Six. That’s all of them.”

When I said that, Kato-kun nodded.

Just then, the newspaper trembled in Seika-san’s arms.

The newspaper’s breaking-news column turned white, and black text assembled there.

『Wandering Hero Ardeen Rescues Boy from Rampaging Horned Runner』

“If a job’s only purpose is to obtain Gratia, there’s nothing better than this.”

Kato-kun said while looking at the newspaper article.

“Are you saying he even designed the incident?”

Seiji-san’s voice lowered.

“I don’t know yet. But it’s too perfect for coincidence.”

We examined the Horned Runner’s harness, but couldn’t tell whether it had snapped or been removed.

The guard corps handled it as the cargo owner’s poor management.

Fake Ardeen saved a person.

He didn’t kill the Horned Runner either.

Looking only at the results, no one could be blamed.

The next morning.

We’d been gathered around the newspaper at the branch office since before six.

The newspaper rewrites its articles whenever something happens.

But the first update in the morning was different.

6:15 a.m.

At this time, the articles up to the previous day would vanish once, and that day’s front page would be largely rebuilt.

After observing for several days, we’d noticed the rule.

Seiji-san set down a clock.

Kato-kun prepared paper and a pen.

Ria got bored in three minutes and was tilting her chair backward.

“What’re we waiting for?”

“The state before it becomes an article.”

“It’s blank, right?”

“We’re checking whether it’s really blank.”

6:14.

Fake Ardeen’s article faded.

6:15.

The page turned white.

The next instant, four letters appeared in the center.

H E L P

“Huh?”

Seika-san gasped.

The letters didn’t remain even a second.

The black lines shattered, spread, and rearranged into a new headline.

『Today, a Public Trial in the Gratia Assembly Hall—The King of Compassion Delivers Verdict to Defendant in Gratia Forgery Case』

No one moved.

The newspaper couldn’t speak.

It wouldn’t answer our questions with words, either.

That newspaper, before the usual article assembled, showed words that weren’t an article for the first time.

“That just now wasn’t a mistake, right?”

“It was four letters.”

Kato-kun wrote them large on the paper.

“H, E, L, P.”

Seika-san tightened her arms around the newspaper.

“Is this child asking for help?”

“Or maybe someone sent a message through this newspaper.”

Seiji-san read the new article.

“Either way, I don’t think it’s unrelated to today’s trial.”

The page said anyone could attend the trial.

The defendant was a man who forged Gratia records and fraudulently obtained distribution goods.

Abel himself would deliver the verdict.

“Let’s go.”

It was a request left by The Strongest Newspaper before it became the usual article.

Even if the reward was 0, there was no reason to refuse.

-Thank you DCRangeRange, Dean Dexter and CannedbreadFollow me on Patreon via Linktree https://linktr.ee/Mnotia-