Chapter 309: Episode 309_Betrayal Is an Art (4)
4.
This was bound to happen soday.
Not when you considered that this ga wasn’t so half-assed project a bored developer had slapped together, but another fully realized world created over years by cutting-edge artificial intelligence. Each NPC lived and breathed, thought and acted, learning and changing as ti passed.
In a world inhabited by such people, there was no way a temporary sche cooked up by a semi-unemployed twenty-six-year-old would work forever. Han Simin himself knew that very well.
Which was why he had put it off for as long as he could.
But he had hit his limit.
He might have been able to drag it out a little longer, but his own decision to broadcast from the Demon World—which he’d never expected to blow up like this—had drastically accelerated the tiline, and he had no choice but to deal with the consequences.
If he just sat still, he would eventually be crushed.
He had branded his enemies heretics and driven the Imperial Army to attack the kingdoms, but the users who didn’t fear death and the kingdoms using them to vent their resentnt were more than ready to use the question of the Heavenly King’s identity as a pretext to draw their swords against the Empire.
Han Simin didn’t care whether the kingdoms joined forces to attack the Empire or if Kenji ended up ruling the continent. He was absolutely certain that if he simply kept doing his thing, the continent would end up his anyway.
What worried him was what would happen during the process of verifying the truth—the very justification the kingdoms and Kenji would use.
It would co out that Han Simin had lied, and the Empire would be branded as his accomplice. With that, it would lose the prestige it had built over centuries. Rebellions would break out across the continent, and the revelation that they had colluded with demons would eventually cause even the Great Temple to turn its back on them.
It was inevitable.
In that process, Han Simin would lose the territory he had built and the Emperor’s trust.
It wasn’t as if he’d be left with nothing, contemplating a jump off a bridge if he lost it all—he had started with nothing and already made enough in reality to never have to work again. Still, people don’t easily accept losing what they have struggled to build.
He had to protect it.
That was why he moved.
It was why he had promised Kenji his trust, only to promptly stab him in the back.
He could have used this situation in other ways. Han Simin had risked his neck to steal the Dragon Hatchling’s Heart, and now that he had it, there were countless ways he could use a Dragon Heart he had gotten for free.
But he prioritized the current story over all of that.
’The story can’t be allowed to get sidetracked.’
His philosophy was firm.
If you compared Han Simin’s life to a novel, he had started out as an Enhancer, but sowhere in the middle, the “Enhancent” part had vanished. He had plunged into a trash-fire life of running scams, taming creatures, and doing all sorts of crazy things in pursuit of money. He knew that, but it didn’t change the absolute truth of his life, and this was for the sake of that truth.
The story could not be allowed to wander.
Even if he could profit more by doing so, in a world called Fantastic World, where thirty million users played, he wanted to leave a clean, solid record in the portfolio of “Han Simin,” a na everyone knew, without any blemishes.
“Your Majesty is probably thinking I might be lying, aren’t you? That’s why I ca prepared. I won’t just talk. I will prove it to you directly.”
The Emperor did not reply.
“I’ll give this to the Heavenly King, loosen his restraints a bit, and have him prove it himself. How about that?”
Silence filled the room.
This was as far as his betrayal was planned.
He had told Kenji where the Holy Dragon Hatchling was and what conditions were needed to raid it. Then, as a bit of extra “service,” he had hinted at how they could use that to rescue the Heavenly King.
He had simply skimd that final hint off the top for himself.
Originally, Kenji was supposed to take the Holy Dragon Hatchling’s Heart and slip past the priests he had already bribed. Then, he would have infiltrated the Great Temple’s underground prison, given the Heart to the Heavenly King, and loosened his restraints just enough for him to demonstrate his divine power. That would have completed the quest and led smoothly into the Main Quest.
Now that Han Simin had stabbed him in the back, the one to consu the Hatchling’s Heart would not be the Heavenly King, but the Demon King, Epia.
It was inevitable.
This held true even if the Emperor was more inclined to trust the words of Kenji and the other adventurers.
“Do as you say.”
At least until it was proven otherwise, he had no choice but to believe. He had to, considering everything that had led to this point.
The Emperor had delegated full authority to the Imperial Princess; the Princess believed Epia to be the Heavenly King; and the one they had mistaken for the Demon King—the real Heavenly King—had been thrown into the underground prison.
Rejecting Han Simin’s proposal now would an challenging his core claim that Epia was the Heavenly King. Doing so would imply that the Princess was entertaining doubts, that the one she had acknowledged as the Heavenly King might actually be the Demon King. That line of thought would lead directly to internal division.
Would they admit that they had imprisoned the Heavenly King as a Demon King, while seating the Demon King in the Heavenly King’s place and letting her reside in the holiest sanctuary of the Great Temple?
Division or not, the conversation would never even get that far. The notion was absurd on its face.
The Emperor aside, the Great Temple would never acknowledge such a thing.
And that was precisely why this was possible.
Because Simin had moved first.
If Kenji had arrived with the Hatchling, presented its Heart, and claid the opposite, the Emperor might have denied everything and followed Kenji’s lead instead. After all, those words would have co from soone who had joined the ranks of true heroes—one of the rare few whose nas were etched into the continent’s history, who had accomplished a dragon raid, a feat even the Five Heroes had only managed by combining their strength.
In any case, the result itself did not matter.
The Emperor nodded, and a satisfied Han Simin pocketed the Heart.
He had tossed a remark to Kardian in jest, telling her to work hard, but if he had truly failed to secure the Hatchling’s Heart, he had been prepared to use the heart from Kardian’s original body, which he held as collateral. The contract would have been broken, of course, but so what? Was a pointless life that revived even after death really worth cherishing?
If his entire sche was exposed right now, the Princess—and perhaps, being generous, the Emperor—might choose to understand, but every other NPC on the continent would co charging to kill him.
He shook his head as he stepped out of the Emperor’s office.
’Now the real show begins.’
This was the final stage, where he would place the last dot on his grand picture.
He had blindsided them once; now it was ti to do it again.
*
When Kenji arrived, an enormous roar of cheers erupted.
A Dragon Raid!
How could those words not set a person’s heart racing?
Only a few hundred years ago, dragons had been mysterious beings to humans. They were subli, objects of reverence, almost like gods to be relied upon. It was why people had called them divine beasts. If not quite gods, they were at least regarded as pets raised by the gods. There were even people who, while praying to the gods, would roam about gathering food that dragons might like, promising to offer it as a gift if they ever t one.
But that perception was shattered a few hundred years ago when a single traitorous dragon laid waste to the human world.
Specifically, Kardian.
Thanks to her, humans had begun to see dragons as objects of fear. They breathed fire, trampled people, killed them, and devoured them.
Of course, not all dragons were like that. So had been tad by the Five Heroes, and others had stood with humanity, trying to block the demons and their traitorous kin.
However, people tend to dwell on bad mories. If a group had always done good, people would think well of them. But the mont a few from that group caused them harm, they would co to believe that the entire group harbored the sa evil instinct as a latent trait.
Thus, dragons had beco objects of terror. It was the sort of thing people would drunkenly declare over drinks—that if they ever got the chance, they should be ripped out by the roots.
And Kenji’s party had killed such a dragon.
It was only a hatchling, but there was no room for pity.
Kenji was praised and cheered, walking a road of applause all the way to the Imperial Castle.
This was the life of a successful man.
Even after he entered the castle, he was greeted by ranks of knights standing in formation. This was not blind adulation, but respect. As n who knew how to wield a sword, they understood the imnse courage it took to stand against a dragon, and they were expressing their admiration.
And at the end of that path, the Emperor was waiting.
In person.
For the Emperor himself to co out and wait was an honor reserved for the greatest heroes of the continent.
As soon as he was within the Emperor’s sight, Kenji dropped to one knee and bowed his head.
No words were necessary.
The massive corpse of the Hatchling had been brought in behind him.
“You have done well,” the Emperor stated, his tone flat.
Considering the situation and the cheers of the crowd, his voice was so calm it almost sounded perfunctory. Yet no one thought of it that way. The Emperor did not offer praise so easily.
Kenji bowed his head once more. Then he opened his mouth.
There was sothing he had to say to the Emperor. He just had to speak—politely, but confidently. As a Dragon Slayer, he had earned the right to say at least this much.
Even if the Emperor grew angry and cut him down on suspicion of treason, that would be an acceptable outco. If even the Emperor reacted that way, Kenji could spread the rumor that he had gone mad and begin his next move in earnest.
Either way, from the mont he succeeded in the raid, events were bound to flow in his favor. He would succeed in delivering the Heart to the Heavenly King imprisoned in the Great Temple’s underground prison.
He was certain of it—right up until the mont his words were unexpectedly cut off.
“I hear you are the leader of that cult that has been spreading dissent lately, babbling about the Heavenly King’s authenticity.”
Kenji stiffened.
A heavy voice slipped in, neatly severing his train of thought.
Naturally, Kenji could not say what he had been about to. This was not so neighborhood elder; this was the Emperor. Interrupting the Emperor? Even if he were a hero who had brought back not a dragon but the dragon’s great-uncle, he would still be beheaded.
“Treason can never be forgiven, but I have felt the need to verify the truth of the matter.”
Kenji’s eyes widened.
This was a situation he had never anticipated.
Kenji, who had been scrambling to think of a response, unconsciously lifted his head.
’What?’
This, too, was an answer he had never expected. He had been about to open his mouth precisely to elicit this kind of reaction.
The Emperor smiled at his puzzled expression. It was a smile one rarely saw—benevolent, yet carrying the force of a tyrant’s storm. It was the smile he showed his allies, the smile he showed a hero who, though an adventurer, had proven he possessed more than enough quality to thrive on this continent.
“I cherish the strong. You may be an adventurer entangled with a cult, but I will grant you a chance to prove these are unjust accusations.”
Kenji held his breath.
“This is a reward for your efforts.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty!”
He had no idea what was going on or why the Emperor was suddenly acting this way, but he offered his thanks all the sa. Whatever it was, it was clearly sothing good.
However, the words that followed planted the first seed of doubt in Kenji’s mind.
“It is a reward for showing your resolve by sending the Hatchling’s Heart ahead of ti as proof.”
Kenji was bewildered.
’I did? When?’
“Bring the Heavenly King here.”
Kenji gasped.
Kenji’s mind went blank.
*
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