Chapter 8
It was an obvious lie.
Despite how obviously untrue it was, Kagami gave the Hero’s party a confident look, as if he’d just won the argument.
“Heh... Ahahaha!”
Kururu found his sheer desperation a little amusing.
So much so that she stopped caring whether the girl was a demon or not.
“All right. Let’s say that’s what those horns are. There may be some reason for them, so I won’t press the matter any further.”
At Kururu’s words, Kagami smiled inwardly. He shouted, “This is the power of my persuasion!” in his heart, as a bizarre festival full of Kagamis kicked off in his mind, complete with a “Wasshoi! Wasshoi!” chant.
“But the holy sword is another matter!”
Rex’s shout yanked Kagami right back to reality.
Though Rex had let Kururu’s arbitrary claim slide, he still had to accomplish the very reason they’d come to this dungeon. The villager’s strange behavior bothered him, but the holy sword took priority.
“You there—what was this ‘little sister’ of yours doing in this room?”
Rex hurled a question at the girl that she had no way of answering.
There was no way she could tell them why she’d come to this room. She had come here with the intention of destroying the holy sword.
Even so, the girl had no answer for where the holy sword was hidden, either.
By the time she reached this room, the holy sword was already gone.
She’d been searching the pedestal, certain it had to be somewhere, when the Hero’s party appeared. That was all there was to it.
“My little sister just happened to wander in here, that’s all.”
“This isn’t the sort of place you can just happen to reach! And even if she did, there’s no way the holy sword could have disappeared at the same time by coincidence!”
“But it did. Besides, what does it matter if the holy sword’s gone?”
“I... I’m the Hero! I was chosen by the king! I’m the only one qualified to wield the holy sword!”
“Huh... Sorry. That sword stuck in here? I happened to find it when I came here a long time ago... and took it home.”
Rex was shouting “I’m the Hero!” so desperately that Kagami blurted out what he’d meant to keep quiet. At his casual announcement, everyone present except Kagami froze.
They had so much they wanted to say, but no words came. Even the demon girl was speechless at a remark no ordinary villager should ever have made.
“You... took the legendary holy sword passed down through the royal family home?”
Rex managed to squeeze out the words, trembling all over.
“Huh?! The royal family...? That belonged to the king? Oh, crap! I took it home and sold it to a merchant right away! It’s probably in some shop somewhere by now, going for a fortune.”
“Y-you... sold it?”
Hearing those mind-numbing words, Rex gaped, forgetting to close his mouth.
Meanwhile, Kagami remembered that the sword he’d found here had fetched a rather high price. “I see... So that’s why it belonged to the royal family,” he concluded to himself.
“D-don’t lie! The ancient Sage’s magic was supposed to be imbued in that holy sword so that only someone with the Role of Hero could wield it! There’s no way you could have carried it away!”
“Oh... So that’s why it was so heavy. I think it weighed about 800 kilos. But I could carry it just fine. I pulled it right out of the pedestal, too.”
The frozen air grew even colder at his utterly unreal words. Each of them tried to tell themselves that no one could possibly describe an 800-kilo sword as merely heavy, rather than impossible to lift.
“That kind of nonsense... It can’t be true! You’re a Villager... There’s no way you could carry it!”
“It was definitely heavy, and if I were going to use it, a normal sword might’ve been better. But it was probably just too heavy to handle. I could still pull it out and carry it, couldn’t I? If I wanted to, I could probably even rip the whole pedestal out of the ground.”
“What ridiculous nonsense...”
“No, really. Look, look.”
Seeing that Rex wouldn’t believe a word he said, Kagami apparently decided it would be quicker to show him. He bent his knees slightly, gripped the edge of the pedestal firmly with both hands, then tensed his whole body and tried to lift it.
“There’s no way he can lift it.” Tina, Parnah, Kururu, and the demon girl all thought the same thing at once.
But remembering how Kagami had just jammed a Blue Devil horn into the pedestal, Rex began to wonder if it might not be impossible after all. Cold sweat trickled down his forehead.
“That... can’t be...”
A few seconds later, a crack appeared in the ground, which had been glowing with white light.
The crack spread outward with a creaking, groaning sound, sending a faint tremor through the ground. The next moment, a tremendous crash rang out, and Kagami lifted the pedestal containing the holy sword as if embodying the earth’s fury.
It happened in an instant, barely a moment after the crack appeared.
Dust swirled through the air, and a dull sound rang out, as if the ground had been forcibly gouged away.
Clods of earth trickled down right in front of Rex. Just above them, Kagami turned a cheerful smile toward him.
“See?”
With that, Kagami slammed the pedestal he’d lifted onto the ground with one hand. Rex stared at the sight, frozen with his mouth hanging open.
A mere Villager—the weakest Role of all—had casually performed a feat that seemed more suited to a monster.
The young man before them had done something that would have been absolutely impossible for anyone with any Role other than Villager.
The truth sent a wave of fear through Rex, beyond mere astonishment. He’d always believed no one had trained harder than him, was more versed in battle, or had reached this level at such a young age.
There was always someone stronger. The realization hit Rex with brutal clarity, and defeat took root in his heart before they’d even fought. The Villager before him seemed like the very embodiment of a monster.
“W-what’s your Level?”
That was all Rex could just barely manage to ask.
“999.”
Without any attempt to build suspense, Kagami answered and displayed a Status Window in front of them, showing his Role and Level.
It clearly read 【Role: Villager】 and 【Level: 999】, and Rex realized just how much of a frog in a well he had been.