Chapter 140
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Since departing from the castle, there is one thing that Hero Ryūgūin Ouji has been doing without fail. That is maintaining contact with Princess Puffy.
From the beginning of his journey, Ryūgūin has felt the need to stay in constant communication with Princess Puffy.
He struggles with how to do this and sends a letter to Princess Puffy. The content is along the lines of 「Isn’t there some way for us to talk directly?」 However, Princess Puffy, in her state of complete sensory dreaming, is overjoyed, shedding floods of tears, and without hesitation sends Ryūgūin what must have been a rather valuable item – the Contact Pearl.
From then on, although he wonders why he, the one and only person in this world, has to take precious time out of his schedule, Ryūgūin Ouji thinks to himself, 「Well, I guess this is the duty of a popular man,」 while flaring his nostrils. He makes sure to contact Princess Puffy at least once every three days, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
For Ryūgūin, the phrase 「time is money」 is truly meant for him. In his mind, his own time is equivalent to gold bullion. For him, being tied down to just one woman and having to spend his precious time on her is extremely stressful.
Even so, Ryūgūin has always been able to hide his true feelings from many useful people back in Japan before his transfer.
He convinces himself, 「This is like regular maintenance for an ATM,」 and carries out conversations with Princess Puffy using the Contact Pearl without showing any complaints or dissatisfaction. He completes the conversations with Princess Puffy without displaying his irritation, making full use of what he recognizes as one of his strong points – his hot guy voice.
Then one day, misfortune strikes Ryūgūin.
Something unbelievable happens to him as he continues to endure the excessive labor of having to contact a specific woman for a few minutes every few days.
The cause of this misfortune is a young man from his hometown, Yamada.
To be honest, for Ryūgūin, Yamada was not a decent guy to begin with.
Although they are the same age and from the same hometown, Yamada is unremarkable and not very intelligent. His athletic ability is also average, and Ryūgūin doesn’t sense any particular talent in him.
Moreover, Yamada is a typical harmful youth, lacking any sense of style and possessing the nagging nature of a parent or teacher.
Every time they meet, Ryūgūin finds it extremely irritating to hear Yamada say things like 「You should train」 or 「You’d better study.」
If someone thinks it’s necessary, they should just do it themselves.
Ryūgūin doesn’t need it, so he doesn’t do it. It’s as simple as that, but stupid, foolish, and ignorant people don’t understand this.
Even the Greek philosopher Socrates said that one should know the 「knowledge of ignorance.」
Yamada needs to realize his own ignorance.
「You’re just a cog in the machine.
I’m the one who uses it.」
Ryūgūin finds it incomprehensible why Yamada can’t understand something so simple.
However, if Yamada had remained just a foolish person who didn’t cause trouble, the broad-minded and thoughtful Ryūgūin Ouji would have tolerated his existence and turned a blind eye. But Yamada committed an unforgivable act that goes against human morality.
Surprisingly, in the Blade Dungeon, the inconsiderate and thoughtless Yamada, not content with just betraying them and fleeing shamelessly, went so far as to cut off the head of Ryūgūin Ouji, the absolute and only hero.
Moreover, he committed the additional sin of using Ryūgūin’s life, which was hanging by a thread after having his head cut off, as a hostage to place an unbearably heavy vow on the party members.
Due to this vow, Ryūgūin, the hero destined to save the world, feels even more stress.
However, Ryūgūin doesn’t believe in the existence of gods.
He had heard that Vow Magic was a type of magic that involved gods, but he suspected that if some power worked according to rules, there must be some kind of system in place.
Although it was a baseless speculation, coincidentally, his guess came close to the truth in some aspects.
Even though he didn’t know if his speculation was correct or not, Ryūgūin followed his own assumptions and decided to give some instructions to the three trophies to prevent the Vow from activating.
First is Angelica, the mage.
She was a fairly good trophy and accessory to have by his side, but the occasional glimpse of her intellectual woman-like behavior was a major deduction point. Trophies don’t need knowledge. They should just pretend not to know even if they do, and smile silently behind the hero. But this seemed difficult for her, which only amazed Ryūgūin.
To prevent the Vow from activating, he ordered her to do an appropriate amount of 「magic research.」
Next is the sword saint, the Little Gorilla.
Her face is good, but she lacks growth, and above all, Ryūgūin doesn’t like that she makes a living through violence. Moreover, she’s ridiculously strong and swings around an absurdly heavy sword, which doesn’t show any sign of intelligence. Her appearance looks like nothing but a small gorilla.
Therefore, he has no lingering attachment to her and orders her to do 「sword training」 on her own whenever she has the chance.
Lastly, the Saint.
As a desperate measure, Ryūgūin orders the Saint to perform a certain amount of 「service activities.」
Ryūgūin plans to maneuver in a way that prevents the Vow Magic from activating by making the Saint engage in charitable activities.
Dealing with the Saint’s vow is particularly challenging. It requires a tightrope walk of trial and error to figure out how to prevent it from activating.
Using his innate cunning and high self-preservation skills, he manages to devise a plan to accomplish this.
What Ryūgūin dislikes most is that the Saint becomes absent during her service activities.
There are times when she’s away from his side for one or two whole days, causing Ryūgūin to frequently grind his teeth in inconvenience and discomfort.
This is what touches the reverse scale of Ryūgūin, the heroic Hero, if not a dragon.
Among the four top-tier trophies, the Saint is Ryūgūin’s favorite. A holy existence chosen by God, the Saint is the golden crown most suitable to be by the hero’s side. Despite this, she leaves his side while performing service activities.
The Saint’s occasional absence is quite regrettable for him, but through the manifestation of his rare intellect, he reaches the conclusion that during the Saint’s absence, he can simply have another beautiful woman take care of his personal needs.
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Thus, a period of the Saint’s absence is created for the hero. As a result, opportunities arise for Ryūgūin to go out drinking and playing without the Saint.
Whether it’s a twist of fate – no, a malicious trap of destiny – Ryūgūin encounters him – Annabel Machiavelli – while happily bar-hopping with a cheerleader in tow.
This encounter becomes the root cause that plunges the seriously ill Melissa Machiavelli and her parent, Annabel Machiavelli, into misfortune.
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