I Picked Up the Hero Who Banished Me - Chapter 66



65 – [A Brief Rest – 05]

“It’s spacious.”

Books lined every wall, neatly organized.

Figures, she’s got to be a neat freak.

Maybe she got a little pissed that her place wasn’t spotless after being away so long.

“So, what is it?”

“This.”

On the desk lay a piece of paper with the simple words, ‘Hoping you find it properly’, but the meaning was heavy.

I frowned, took the paper from Olivia, and read the message again.

Hoping you find it properly.

Is she asking us to find something?

“You know, I think this is probably for Royce.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s probably like a riddle, something they want you to figure out. I can’t do anything that delicate. But Raina knows you’re here with me.”

“So, you think if Lord Royce were here, he might be able to find it?”

I didn’t realize they rated me that highly.

Raina and I didn’t exactly have what you’d call trust, it was more like we were victims of the eccentric Olivia Reinhardt back then.

There was a kind of internal familiarity, and it wasn’t like we were in some awkward silence, but to say we were close would be… a stretch.

“Was this paper on this desk?”

“Yeah.”

My hand naturally went to the drawer and when I opened it, there was a piece of paper with writing scribbled all over it. She must have been in a hurry, or maybe she just didn’t have the headspace.

I slowly picked up the paper, and there was a sequence on it.

“What is this? 4-1, 4-24, 4-32… What’s it mean?”

“Is it a code?”

“No, well, technically it is a code, but it’s not that difficult.”

“You’ve already figured it out?”

Livia looked a little surprised, but this wasn’t a riddle or anything, anyone who came into this room and found this piece of paper could easily figure it out.

I pointed my finger at the bookshelf.

“The bookshelf? Ah, I see.”

“Even the bookshelf has numbers on it?”

They probably categorized the books based on genre or something.

The thoroughness of it all, the series were organized and the colors even matched, for the most part. I think I’d heard he was borderline obsessive, but at this point, it just felt like full-blown OCD.

I slowly approached and pulled out the first book on bookshelf number 4, the twenty-fourth book, and the thirty-second.

Then, a whooshing sound echoed.

“Magic, huh?”

Slowly, the bookshelf slid forward, transforming into a door.

“A secret door, wow.”

“You often yearn for such things as children. A secret room of your own, and all that.”

“Did you yearn for one too, Lord Royce?”

“Who hasn’t had a childhood?”

“It’s just… Lord Royce, you feel like you were born as Lord Royce.”

Is that a compliment?

Or an insult?

Such a strange thing to say.

“Let’s go in.”

Stepping inside, even the secret room was clean.

Isn’t it usually a rule that secret rooms are a bit dark and dusty?

No romance.

Anyway.

Another piece of paper lay there.

“A letter this time, maybe?”

“No, it’s still a sequence of numbers, like before. But there’s one more now.”

“Let’s see… 1-14-3-24, 4-23-988-33… Suddenly the numbers jump way up, 988?”

“…Maybe it’s a page number.”

“Ah, page 988?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. That’s pretty long. Let’s each grab the book corresponding to the numbers.”

“Understood.”

We scattered and brought back the books with the matching numbers.

If they hid it this thoroughly, there was a high chance there was information hidden within.

But of course, nobody knew what that information might be.

We had to try anyway.

“I found them.”

“Shall we open to the pages?”

“If the third number is the page, then what’s the fourth one?”

“Probably… the sentence number, starting from the first sentence… that’s how we should see it.”

“I see.”

“Could you start calling them out in order? I’ll write them down.”

“Alright.”

Livia and Silphy took turns reading out the letters on the pages, according to the numbers, and the sentence began to form.

It was unavoidable that it took some time since we had to look it up one by one.

“Okay, the last one was what I just said.”

“If you say this entire sentence all together.”

A.l.e.x. .i.s. .i.n. .E.r.k.i.a.

“Alex is in Erkiya?”

Erkiya was the city of water, and the place where the Human Alliance’s meeting was going to be held in a few months.

I’d certainly heard the story from Titania, but I didn’t have any solid proof, so I was at a point where I was debating whether to make it my destination.

“So, if you interpret this literally, it means Alex is coming to Erkiya?”

“If Raina wasn’t lying, then yes.”

“She wouldn’t have… lied.”

Livia spoke, her tone tinged with a hint of sadness.

“But even if Raina didn’t, would Alex have told the truth? The possibility of it being misinformation…”

“No, it’s low.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“If the last attack was truly Alex’s doing, then Alex would have wanted to kill Livia. There was a curse, plus he sent two officers of the Demon Lord’s army after the wyvern forces.”

They even suddenly used some unknown power called the power of the Death God and gained tremendous strength.

“And above all, Raina has a Geass. It’s highly likely she told the truth.”

“Hmm, I wish she’d written down some more detailed information.”

“She was under a Geass… Actually, even this indirect act must have been incredibly painful for her. She could barely hold on, the pain must have been constant. And it doesn’t end there.”

“It doesn’t end there?”

“Geass is like a rule of the world… …Besides, when we checked Raina’s dead body, the Geass she had was one that they wouldn’t even use on slaves. There’s a limit to how inhumane you can be.”

Even slaves were supposed to have basic food, shelter, and you couldn’t mistreat them in front of people, not when slavery was in place.

But the fact he placed such a powerful geas on her neck—one he wouldn’t even use on a slave—tells you everything about how Alex treated Reina.

“Therefore.”

“Therefore?”

“Therefore, leaving behind even such indirect evidence must’ve been agony. And if someone were to find that evidence and uncover the truth…”

“No way.”

“Reina’s geas would’ve killed her. That’s why they call geases absurd things, the shackles of gods. This one was even top-tier, like I said, they don’t use this kind of intensity on slaves.”

At this level, even if she wanted to break the conditions Alex set, the excruciating pain would make it impossible to even speak, let alone write.

The only reason this workaround was possible was probably because she’d found a way to skirt the conditions set by Alex, narrowly avoiding them.

“In other words, I believe this information was something Reina made in preparation for her death.”

“Her death?”

“Geases don’t work on the dead, after all.”

Or maybe she was prepared to die to get this information out somehow.

Like inviting us to her place and deliberately showing it to us.

If she used that kind of method, she could show the information without dying, but reaching the truth through it would inevitably lead to her death.

Reina did her best to die, at least somewhat justly.

Her hands, already stained with evil, couldn’t be completely cleansed no matter how hard she tried, but her final action must’ve greatly impacted Livia.

I remembered Livia, her expression while cursing Reina a complicated mess, something I couldn’t even put into words.

“She released the information from a point she believed barely crossed the line, right?”

“Even with such a complex and inefficient method, the geas is inescapable… Even this way, she couldn’t write down something like ‘Alex Reynolds is a Death Cultist’ or ‘Alex Reynolds is in league with monsters’?”

“Because she was aware of it.”

It was questionable if I even knew it in that much detail from the start.

Even if I did, wouldn’t I have realized it *after* creating this information?

“……”

Livia made a subtle face, then sighed.

“Our next destination is decided then.”

“The water city, Erquia.”

“After the forest, it’s water huh, it’s not like this is some nature-appreciation trip…….”

If possible, I wanted to get the elixir before that and fix Livia’s body, but it wasn’t something that was easy to obtain.

The people who could create it were also extremely limited, so that made it even harder.

Erquia was reachable within 3 months if we went quickly. The problem wasn’t that, but rather, whether it was right to take Livia there in this condition.

I had a feeling that I had to obtain the elixir, even if it meant pushing ourselves.

But rather than trusting that gut feeling, it seemed important to get there quickly and assess the situation and atmosphere.

“Since we’ve figured it out, let’s organize and go rest soon, especially Royce, you need to rest.”

“My spirit’s regenerative power means I don’t have any major issues… Well, since there’s nothing else to do, I’ll follow your words.”

“Should I nurse you?”

“Looking at your current condition, *you* are the one who needs nursing.”

“I’m always being nursed by Royce, and I shouldn’t be thinking this, but…”

“What is it?”

“I’m getting this subtle feeling that once I recover, you won’t nurse me anymore.”

“You’re having some really inappropriate thoughts.”

I just wish she hadn’t been so blunt with me.

“Huh?”

“What’s wrong? Sylphy?”

“No, someone’s entered the forest.”

“…….”

“…….”

Livia and I both widened our eyes at the same time.

“How do you know that?”

“Huh? Now that you mention it, how *did* I know? It’s kind of… just there…”

Now that I think about it, they said the person who becomes king of the elves can receive the forest’s blessing, which enhances their perception.

Unless they’re blatantly trying to hide, or the World Tree’s condition was bad like it was until recently, they’d be able to sense it pretty easily.

Which means, in other words…

“Uh, um…….”

Just as Sylphy began to question the sensation she’d felt a moment ago, Livia grabbed her shoulders and said,

“You’re definitely going to be Titania… no, you *have* to be Oberon.”

“No! No way! I haven’t even taken the throne yet, it’s a problem if I’m awakening these abilities now!”

Wasn’t it the Starbow made from the World Tree that decided who the Elven King would be?

Hmm.

It felt like the World Tree had already stamped her ‘You’re the next king.’