MTLNOVEL Chapter 2 - I'm Really Screwed
The first attempt failed.
Serena felt the holy sword, which wasn’t her own, suddenly becoming heavier. She wished it would quickly leave her hands and go to its rightful owner, but the other party wasn’t willing to accept it.
“Fa-Faust? Faust~~? Will you come out again? Will you talk to me for a bit~?”
A forced, coquettish voice.
It was a voice dripping with unnecessary aegyo and servility, especially considering it was being directed at the man she had been laughing at and calling “dung beetle” along with the hero Lucy von Letlerea just yesterday.
It can’t be helped.
Now Faust is the hero.
“Faust~? This is the king’s order, you know~? Faust? Can we talk? Hmm?”
“Ah, you’re being so fucking noisy.”
“Fa-Faust.”
“It’s disgusting, so can you drop that fake smile? Why don’t you treat me rudely like usual?”
“…What do you mean, fake smile? I’m sincerely…”
“Sincerely trying to switch to a new lifeline, right?”
“………”
When someone sees through your true intentions, all you can do is remain silent.
With a deep wound to her pride.
“A-Anyway, I told you it’s the king’s order, didn’t I? How many times do I have to say it? Just come with me to the palace! You don’t want to get on the king’s bad side, do you? You too, right?”
“Ah, now your true nature comes out. Yes, that’s more like the Serena I know.”
“Ha~ Fine. You don’t like how my attitude suddenly changed, right? I couldn’t help it. It was all to please the former hero, Lucy. Can’t you forgive me just this once?”
“Nope.”
A response without a moment’s hesitation.
Up to this point, Serena was temporarily feeling more strongly about not wanting to swallow her pride in front of someone she usually ignored, rather than the sense of being screwed.
While rationally understanding that the other person was now going to be the new hero, her emotions couldn’t accept it, so to speak, which is why she dared to take such an arrogant attitude.
“Wow, you’re really petty. For a man.”
“What? Petty?”
Faust, who had been talking through the crack in the door with only his eyes visible, symbolizing his closed heart, now opened the front door wide and came out. With a very angry face.
“Don’t you think about what you guys did to me? If it was just simple teasing and ostracizing, that would be one thing, but you guys only hindered me from doing anything, didn’t you? Who was it that interfered when I was reading books, saying I was trying to increase my magical power to steal the hero’s position? Do you think I enjoyed cleaning horse dung? I did that to earn money because you guys wouldn’t let me do anything else.”
“That’s why I’m telling you, it was all because the hero ordered it!”
“Oh, so it’s all someone else’s fault? Then how about this?”
When Faust was first summoned to the Kingdom of Aurelia and told he wasn’t chosen as the hero, he wasn’t particularly disappointed. To begin with, he was a person full of curiosity and thirst for knowledge, so he thought that exploring and experiencing this vast world was meaningful enough.
It was only natural that he showed interest in the academy, which could be called a treasure trove of learning.
However, his wish to study quietly at the academy was not fulfilled either.
Less than half a year after enrolling, he was expelled due to an unfortunate incident of alleged thesis plagiarism.
Just one day before Faust was to present his thesis, Lucy von Letlerea, that is, Kwak Dong-su, coincidentally submitted a thesis with almost the same content, and Faust, who was late in presenting, was accused of plagiarism. However, Faust knew that he was the one who wrote that thesis. It wasn’t that he had plagiarized Kwak Dong-su, but someone had leaked his thesis and framed Faust as a shameless thief.
And Faust strongly suspected that the culprit was Serena.
The reason was that the topic of the thesis was about the hero’s party, and Faust had only informed the party members, who were the subjects of his research, about the existence of the thesis.
The culprit was definitely one of the party members, and among them, Serena was the most likely. After all, Serena had been obsessed with impressing Kwak Dong-su and had been bullying Faust.
There was a very high possibility that she had stolen the thesis to give it to the hero.
“It was you, wasn’t it? Serena?”
“What? N-No, it wasn’t! Don’t accuse an innocent person.”
“………”
“Anyway! How many times do I have to tell you this is not my request, but the king’s order? Just come to the palace for now! You don’t want to get on the king’s bad side, do you? You too, right?”
“I don’t care.”
“What?”
“I’m going back home. I don’t feel any desire to become a hero and save you guys.”
“Huh? Going back…? Where?”
“To my hometown, of course.”
“…You’re not going to the palace?”
“I said I’m not going. Now get lost.”
“No… wait…”
The door closed again, and Serena stood there blankly for a long time.
Faust is going back? To his home?
What happens then?
Currently, the only person qualified to be the hero is Faust.
If he disappears, does that mean there’s no hero?
The existence of a hero, regardless of their actual fighting power, gives people hope. The very fact that a hero is fighting somewhere gives courage that we’re not helplessly losing to the Demon King’s army.
Conversely, if there’s no hero, the expectation that we might be able to kill the Demon King someday also disappears, and the world would fall into a pit of despair.
‘No matter what, if he’s being this stubborn, what am I supposed to do?’
Serena returned to her own home with the holy sword. She didn’t dare to set foot in the palace after failing her mission. She wanted to calmly consider how to deal with this while getting some advice from her mother.
“Oh my, Serena? Welcome home. I heard the news. You protected the holy sword, didn’t you? They say even the king was pleased. Ah… I’m so relieved. Mom is so proud of you…”
Duchess Etlerea.
Her mother, who was once called that, was now struggling to live wearing clothes that looked like rags forcibly woven from cloth picked up from a garbage dump.
Cracked walls, a floor crawling with centipedes and bugs, poverty where potatoes and cabbage were the only food – this was the reality her family was facing now.
In fact, their situation has improved somewhat now. Right after her brother defected to the Demon King’s army, people’s anger was so intense that they couldn’t stay anywhere.
The house where the family used to live together had already been burned down, leaving no trace, and even when they found an abandoned house to hide in, they were often chased out from there too. Even when they set up a home in a cave just to shelter from the rain, they were discovered by passersby and had to leave after being pelted with stones.
In other words, they were not accepted anywhere.
For them, just being able to sleep peacefully in even the most shabby house was a blessing.
It should be considered remarkable that the family of a traitor has survived this long when annihilation would have been the natural course. In fact, her mother had attempted suicide several times and even suffered from aphasia, unable to speak due to the extreme shock. It would be stranger to maintain one’s sanity when a life that once lacked nothing as a duchess was thoroughly destroyed by her beloved son.
Things had gotten much better since Serena joined the hero’s party, and her mother had started to open up her heart little by little.
Although she still only talks to her daughter, conversations with Serena were her only hobby.
The duchess particularly loved stories about Serena raising her grades, and when it came to the part about the king mentioning a noble title, she was delighted, looking up at her daughter as if she were some kind of savior.
“Is that so, Serena! A noble title… Ah! His Majesty the King is giving our daughter a noble title! Ah… Finally! We’re finally returning to nobility! It can’t be a duke, right? Right? They won’t suddenly promote you to a duke. But that’s okay. A viscount or… even a baron. As long as we return to nobility!”
Thinking that the hell that seemed like it would last forever might finally end, her mother was already excited as if she were contemplating which dress to wear to a social party. Seeing this, Serena’s mood improved and she carelessly confessed her mistake as if it were a trivial matter.
“Oh, but… I kind of had a falling out with the new hero.”
“…What?”
“Well, you see. Actually~”
Serena told everything that had happened with Faust. She casually mentioned, as if it were a minor annoyance, how she had taken the lead in bullying Faust, whom Lucy von Letlerea disliked, and was now in a predicament because of it.
However, her mother’s reaction was more intense than Serena had expected.
“Are you crazy?!?!”
Her mother lashed out at Serena, emitting a black aura as if her hateful eldest son had returned before her eyes.
“Go apologize to the hero right now! Kneel down, wag your tail like a dog, do whatever it takes to get his forgiveness! Do you understand?!”
“I-I did apologize. But he didn’t accept it.”
“Go right now! Apologize until the hero accepts it!!!!”
Serena was frightened by her mother’s attitude, who was screaming so much that one might worry her voice would go hoarse.
“We’ve just started to be recognized as not being traitors, but if rumors spread that we’re hated by the hero… we’re finished!!! Are you really crazy, Serena?!!! Are you so desperate to exterminate our family? Are you trying to drive your mother to death like your brother did?!”
“I-I didn’t mean to do that. Faust…”
“Call him Lord Faust!!”
Serena shut her mouth tightly.
Suddenly, she thought that the situation might be more serious than she had imagined.
“Lord Faust!! He holds our family’s life and death in his hands! Do you understand?! With just one word from him! Your mother could die!!”
“…Gulp.”
“Go and apologize! Do whatever he tells you to do!! Don’t come back home until you’ve been forgiven by Lord Faust!!!”
Thinking about it carefully, her mother’s opinion was correct. The current peace was maintained solely by the hero’s trust and friendship.
The hero who had made Serena his confidant was dead, and soon the news that Faust had become the new hero would spread throughout the country.
But if rumors spread that Faust disliked the family of a traitor, it was clear that the criticism that had been dormant until now would raise its head again and engulf Serena’s family.
…Her mother didn’t have the strength left to endure that hell once more. Of course, neither did Serena.
“I’m… really screwed, aren’t I?”
Finally realizing that this was not the time to stand on pride, Serena went back to Faust’s house, but this time he wouldn’t come out no matter how much she knocked.
In the end, Serena knelt in front of the door and waited all night.