Arc | Chapter. 26: Deception (Patreon)

Chapter. 26: Deception

From the looks of it, I would be traveling along with Ceylon for quite a lot longer. I expected the farewell to come soon, but things didn't happen that way. Instead, I had taken it upon myself to save Ceylon’s family. Was it a mistake? I didn’t know.

Things seemed a lot more complicated than what I had initially anticipated. For starters, it did seem that as a hero I had absolutely nothing to do, however it also seemed that being a hero came with the annoyances of automatically being involved with the other heroes.

Whether I helped Ceylon or not, it was now clear to me that other heroes would seek me out and get me to join their group, like that desperate friend that wanted you to join their multi-level marketing business scheme. So, needless to say that regardless of whether I helped Ceylon or not, I’d get involved in stuff I didn’t want to be in.

Though as I stared at the blue sky that now had clouds of ash, I couldn’t help but wonder.

Had starting that fight been a mistake…?

It had been a selfish thing, however I didn’t think the effects would be so disastrous. Shaking my head, a sigh left me. At least, Ceylon seemed to be happy based on her small smile, she hadn’t spoken much but I could just tell.

As for how I would deal with the heroes, that I didn’t know. If they came my way, I’d beat their asses, but I knew it wasn’t that simple; I’d most likely have to kill them, which was a… weird thought to actually entertain.

I didn’t really feel remorse for killing people, but that was because those that I had killed were akin to monsters, thoughtless hate-driven killers. So I guess in my mind they weren’t really people.

Shaking my head, I finally simply focused on walking, we hadn’t been walking for that long; the events were all recent in everyone’s mind so I guess everyone was still processing things.

Which also gave me the chance to examine the necklace, whose metal now looked frosted over from my body temperature. It was a band of metal with a trinket that appeared to be an inverted triangle with inscriptions in it, and the System…

[ Necklace of Obfuscation. Tier: S ]

Well, it told me what it was, but when placing mana into the item something interesting happened. A system window appeared, an interface where I could select the Tier appeared and another one for class.

Tier was simple enough, it was just a scroll down thing with letters, ranging from F all the way to S. I chose D Tier this time around, perhaps I’d change it back to C Tier after some point, but I was much more interested in the class section that had absolutely nothing, tapping on it was⁠—

It gave me an actual keyboard to type in it? It was… bizarre, but I decided to give it a try and, after a moment, I had my class and Tier:

[Person. Tier: D]

I could’ve typed something more childish, an insult maybe, but I had at least some level of restraint. Shaking my head I decided to just type something else, while I wanted to type something like ‘artist’ I didn’t think it was a class.

[Ice Mage. Tier: D]

And now, I was an Ice Mage apparently, that so happened to use physical attacks over ice based ones. Something that I noted was that Ceylon barely paid any mind to what I was doing, however Rory on the other hand, did, but didn’t seem surprised or confused about the necklace’s interface.

So, I supposed it was fair to say any system related things were only for the individual to see.

“Arc,” Rory finally called to me. “What… who are you?”

I blinked as we stopped walking to initiate a conversation. “What do you mean?”

She sighed. “Please don’t think I’m stupid, do you think I can’t see how even your clothes healed from your potion?” She gestured with some tiredness. “Not only that, but the Tremor Bear hit you and you didn’t take any damage whatsoever. This time you showed up injured, but the only thing that could’ve injured you were the S Tier attacks going off in the forest.”

She shook her head as she took a breath, perhaps one to gather some courage as she met my gaze.

“You are not a C Tier individual, or a B Tier individual, or even an adventurer for that matter. So, who are you, are you one of the fabled heroes?”

I frowned. “What makes you say that?”

“Arc please, the Hermit was calling you miss and you even threatened to beat him up which seemed to terrify him,” she said exasperatedly. “Aren’t you underestimating my intelligence just a bit…?”

Her gaze made me sigh slightly. “Alright, so you want to know who I am?”

Rory nodded slowly. “I feel like it is owed to me, especially after whatever happened in the cave.”

“What would you even do with that information though?” I asked somewhat confused, but also conflicted as I turned to look at the road ahead.

“I don’t know, find closure I guess?” Rory shrugged. “What else can I do, spread it?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “No one likes their information spread, specially when it can bring harm to them. For example, if you were an exiled princess and people found out then they’d want to kill you.”

“And are you an exiled princess…?” She asked strangely.

I turned back to her, meeting her gaze before shaking my head. “Are you not understanding what I’m trying to say?”

“I am, but what makes you think I will spread it, I haven’t even told you a single thing about any person I’ve met.” She protested. “Even if I met a hero I wouldn’t be spreading their information, do you think I’m five or something?”

A snort left her as she crossed her arms.

“I don’t have a deathwish.”

“Even if you don’t, a secret is best kept when it’s never told.” I shook my head. “There is no way I can trust you. End of discussion.”

Rory paused for a moment, her face changing as her lips lightly quivered, her gaze softening for a moment before she let out a breath.

“Tell me and I will never leave your side,” she said resolutely. “If it’s that important to you, then I wish to hear it even at the cost of my freedom.”

I blinked. My thoughts processing what she just said. Ceylon too seemed to pause in horror, as finally I said the only thing that came to mind.

“Are you stupid?”

Rory frowned. “Well, I just want to hear your information, seriously I even had to protect Ceylon from the explosions or whatever happened. You have to give me something.”

A tired sigh left me. “You really want to know huh?”

“Of course!” she chirped.

“Alright,” I took a breath as Ceylon paused. “I am a⁠—” and I flicked my fingers. Rory was frozen, and after a moment I flicked again. “And that is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

Rory blinked, confused by the sudden timeskip as a sigh left me. If I was honest, it was probably a terrible thing to do, but I couldn’t allow the information to spread. Hell, if I had known everything I might’ve not even told Ceylon. A sigh left me.

“So that’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”

She blinked once more. “Huh…?”

“What?” I frowned. “Did you not hear?”

“I think… not?”  She tilted her head. “Do you think you could… say it again?”

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not something I even like whispering to myself.”

“That’s…” Rory blinked. “Alright, I guess…” And a sigh left her as she immediately began to walk away. “Thank you Arc.”

Her reaction made me feel a bit bad, and Ceylon too pulled my sleeve. To be honest, it was a bit immature to deceive her like that. No, it was just wrongful, but what could I really do…?

I couldn’t expose myself, not… to many people. If I allowed Rory to know I was a hero, then the number of people that knew went up, if anything I only wanted those that were closest to me to know that. The people that I was absolutely certain would never betray me. And that feeling didn’t extend to Rory.

But even then, I felt like she had to know something, perhaps to absolve myself of guilt.

“Rory,” I called.

She paused and turned to me with a weird expression. “Yes, Arc?”

“I think there is something you should know.”

“What is it?” She blinked.

“I am⁠ an⁠—”

And at that moment a trumpet shook the air.  We all paused as a voice reverberated throughout the air. All while I sensed dozens of presences in the distance.

“In the name of the Elite Dark Knights of the Kingdom halt!”

I paused, everyone did as we watched dozens of black knights arrive by horse. Immediately we were encircled as spears were pointed at us. The situation immediately became tense as three pairs of what seemed to be chains were thrown at us.

“Put them on,” someone commanded.

Ceylon and Rory quickly listened as they grabbed what I identified to be handcuffs, while I simply took a closer look at them.

[Mana Suppression Cuffs. Tier. A]

If I had learned anything from Tiers is that they weren’t going to work on me, but I still did as instructed. It’s not like I wanted to blow things out of proportion, especially when I didn’t know what was going on.

After that was done, the knights seemed to calm and finally a man approached us. Of course, wearing a black armor and no identifiable thing, but he seemed to recognize me.

“My name is Blake, I’m the Commander in charge.” He nodded. “We meet again Arc.”

I nodded. “Indeed, can I use the Medal of Bravery to get out of this?”

“Unfortunately, no.” He shook his head. “We just have some questions regarding the occurrences in Mount Arlais.”

I closed my eyes. “I saw nothing.”

“While I believe you, I also do things according to procedure.” He said, shaking his head. And from the air, a staff appeared within his hands. “This is a [Staff of Divination] he spoke simply. It tells me whether you lie or not.”

I blinked as the staff lightly shone in a blue light that enveloped me.

“Now, if you lie to us then we shall use memory crystals to extract the truth of the event we wish to see,” he explained simply.

I blinked. My heart skipped a beat as I realized I had a lot to lose from things going wrong. But at the same time, I couldn’t exactly lie. But as Ceylon and Rory too got worried, I didn’t have time to process anything, as the man asked.

“Were you in the vicinity when Mount Arlais exploded?”

I blinked looking at the ground.

If I answered the truth I’d probably get into a lot of trouble, perhaps this was just a harmless question but with enough of them, they’d eventually want to know if I saw what the dragon did, if I did this or that, and by the end of it, everything would be exposed.

And if I lied…

I raised my head looking at all the knights around me.

I’d have no choice but to probably silence all witnesses…

* * * * *

Ceylon was panicking, her mind was racing. It didn’t make sense to her that the Elite Dark Knights were here, they were supposed to be an independent unit from all the government in Draliz, and yet here they were. Investigating Arc’s fight against the dragon.

Not only that but there was no option, at least not in the sense of lying. There were at least fifty armored Dark Knights, all of them C Tier; of course Arc could wipe them in an eye, but that wasn’t the thing that worried Ceylon, the thing that worried her was after.

If she got rid of them investigations would be launched, regardless of whether Arc’s hero identity was exposed she’d be unable to live a normal life. She’d become a fugitive.

At that moment, Ceylon prayed that Arc would tell the truth, for her future, for the possibility of finding a workaround. But at the same time, Ceylon felt angry. Angry at her inability to help, at what was happening; it certainly wasn’t her fault, but she had to be able to help Arc, after all, Arc was her savior, and even when the journey had ended Arc had stuck up for her.

Arc had promised to save her family.

But now… Ceylon couldn’t do anything for her. And all Ceylon could do was wince as the spears of the knights were pointed once more.

A chilly gust of wind passed, as Ceylon wished she could do more, as she prayed that things would go alright, before finally the knight raised his voice.

“Answer⁠—”

Arc met his gaze coldly as the man froze, the tension went through the roof as she finally spoke up.

“No Commander, I wasn’t present in the vicinity of the explosion, I was in the epicenter of it.”