With the miners returning first, I wandered in the Trikala mountain.
I defeated Orikuto jr, but one big problem remains.
A problem that only I notice, that I realized.
That is, who has defeated the Orikuto jr thus far, or something like that.
The person who was knocking Orikuto jr down, and spreading rumors that it was my achievement.
It’s not Midea. She is fascinated by me, and is trying to spread the name of me = Nanas.
Hermes doing it, I can’t say such a thing.
Someone other than Midea.
“The new head of Canoe looks stupidly worthy.”
I turn to the voice.
In the slope of the mountain, there’s a man looking down at me from a place higher than me.
He was sneering with his nose, and has a scornful laughing face.
“You are…… Taratos”
“You know about me after all huh.”
Taratos glared at me, oozing hatred within his sneer.
Taratos.
He’s one of the people who has proposed to my sister before, and the man who I found out that he was “repeatedly married and divorced”.
“Were you the one who spread the rumors?”
“Indeed, I think you’ll come out on your own if I do this.”
“Did you defeat the Orikuto?”
“That’s correct”
“Why were you doing such a thing”
“Why?”
Ha, it felt like Taratos laughed with his nose.
“It’s delicious, the current Canoe family. For me, that is. With this face and this skill, there is no woman who will not fall in love with me. If you didn’t get in the way, I would’ve suit her to my fancy, and got married and had the Canoe family at my hand.”
“You hate me for being a hindrance to that, then?”
“Yes, if I erase you here, there will be no one in the way. Afterwards, slowly alter it as if your investigation was a codswallop.”
I guess so.
As I was sighing, Taratos pulled out his sword.
The sound of sheath slipping out can be heard beautifully. The person himself was just saying “this skill”.
No wonder he defeated the Orikuto.
“Resign and die here. You don’t have any more hope.”
“Don’t have hope?”
“Fuh, pull out your sword.”
There’s the triumphant face of Taratos.
I pulled out my sword as I was told.
“On the immortal Orikuto jr, I cursed it every time I defeated it.”
“A curse that will destroy the weapon of the next opponent it will fight huh”
“Exactly. Now you’re unarmed with this. If you don’t resist, I can let you die without feeling any pain.”
As his standing position is also from above, the words that he threw at me are also quite a standpoint from the top.
I understood it to some extent from the investigation, but when I actually meet him, I am surprised that he is more than the investigation.
He’s a refreshing scum that I’ve seen for the first time in a while.
“In any case, I grasped your power in your battle against the Orikuto, it was your blunder that you came out with that much power. Die!”
Taratos leaped a little, and slashed at me.
He brandished his sword overhead like splitting me into two, and took a slash that tears the air and strikes me.
“……He?”
I, pinched it with my two fingers and stopped it. Stopping a sword stroke between one’s bare hands, it’s the finger version of it.
When I twisted my wrist as it was, bakin, it made a beautiful sound and the tip broke.
“Kuh!”
Taratos reacted, jumping back with the broken sword in his arms.
I throw the broken point.
The blade cuts through the air and flies.
It strikes against the broken sword of Taratos, kikikikikiin! And multiple impact sounds reverberated.
By the time Taratos landed, more than three-quarters of his remaining sword had broken with cracks, leaving only the handle which he was holding.
“Tha,that’s stupid! You were this strong. Are you saying that you weren’t serious at the time of Orikuto?”
“No, that’s your mistake.”
“What was that!?”
“Just now I still, haven’t showed my seriousness.”
“Mo,mons ――”
Taratos turned around and tried to run away, but he couldn’t escape.
I picked up a pebble of appropriate size from the ground, flicked and fire it with my finger, and hit it against him.
With his momentum of breaking into a run and the momentum which the pebbles hit him from the back, Taratos flew forward, fainting and plunging into the ground from his face.
I slowly approach him, turn his body over and his face up.
I wonder how should I deceive him,
On this kind of waste, it was ridiculous to get serious, and also get my hands dirty.
Let’s do something to him appropriately …….
I thought for a little while, and came up with a good idea.
I hold my hand over Taratos’ forehead.
One of the punishments is that, to stuck a tattoo of the crime committed on the sinner’s face.
In the same manner, I put a tattoo on Taratos’ forehead.
―― I’m a marriage swindler.
Alright.
He seems to be proud of his face, but he won’t fool women anymore with this.
☆
“Hey hey, Hermes-chan, is that rumor true?”
“If it’s the Orikuto jr, it’s me, though?”
While watching the first quarter moon and drinking a delicious sake with Orthia, she asked me the same thing as before, so I answered normally.
“It’s not on that way”
“Yeah? Then what is it?”
“That Taratos person, has been punished, and it was rumored that Hermes-chan did it while he went to get rid of Orikuto.”
“Ah……”
It was such a rumor huh.
Well, I was on Trikala Mountain that night, and immediately following that, if the tattooed Taratos came into contact to the public’s gaze, there would be such an association huh.
Well, there is something else.
Anyone who knows how he was with my sister can understand, that the fact that I engraved that tattoo, could be taken that he has a bad reputation.
Yup, then.
“Well, I did it”
“I see, I see. Everyone was rumoring about it, you know. That it was refreshing to see someone who finally did what they couldn’t put their hands before.”
“They couldn’t put their hands on him?”
“Yep, there are two reasons for it. One reason is that the women who have been used by him and had been abandoned for good will not say bad things to him.”
“A high-level swindler huh.”
I was half impressed, and half astounded.
“The other one, is because he was so strong that no one could get their hands on him.”
“He was so strong?”
“Yup! It’s enough for him to be one of the top five of this generation.”
“……Are you kidding me?”
That guy was that strong.
I, didn’t know it and admitted to Orthia that I did it.
“Furthermore”
“There’s still more!?”
“The excellent sword Xyphos which that man took from deceiving a daughter of an aristocrat is powerful. That object is a metal rod to an ogre*.” (TN: It means ‘making something strong even stronger’)
“Haa? Was that such a good sword? I broke it without knowing it.”
“Eeeeeehh!?”
Orthia screamed out loud.
Darn it, I thought.
“Is it true that you broke the famous sword Xiphos!?”
“N,no, that’s ……”
“So it was true”
“No, you’re wrong, I haven’t done such a thing.”
“Hermes-chan, your nose is twitching when you lie.”
“――tsu!”
I suddenly grasped my nose pah―― it was my blunder.
Whether it’s true or false for Orthia, it’s like I admit it with this behavior.
I contemplate, and as I dejectedly hang my head, I request Orthia.
“It’s my request for a lifetime, please don’t tell this story to others.”
“I understand, this story will only be here.”
“…… That’s absolutely a lie.”
I can understand it.
There is no way that a woman’s “story is only here” will became a story that’s only in this place.
I will be relieved since we had a long relationship if she just said “I understand” normally, but on the contrary, I’m in despair when she told me “the story will only be here”.
I stopped talking at once, but it was useless.
The rumor that I was the one who defeated Taratos spread that it was the truth, and in addition, there is also the option that I broke the famous sword Xyphos.