Chapter 217: Rumors and Gossip
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
As the countless hordes of demon armies walked by, the earth would become scorched plains, and the air would be filled with the scent of sulfur. Rubble and dead bodies would become the mainstay of the world.
If there was one racial prejudice throughout all the lands that could be viewed as natural and correct, the only one, perhaps, that could fit the bill would be the prejudice against demons.
As the representatives of Chaos, they indeed never did anything good. They would receive joy from killing other lives, with death and pitiful screams being the marching music for their armies. Souls were their food and replenishment, and even the existence of the undead, which brought death everywhere, was the creation of an ancient demon.
Add on the fact that they always played the bad guy in every Holy War, and even if it was a bit overboard to call them the root of all evil, it wouldn’t seem strange to consider the demons as the final antagonists.
In front of my eyes was such a large demon army. Their camp was filled with an aura of twistedness, and the earth itself seemed to be raging helplessly as the natural laws of the Earth Elemental Plane were being rewritten.
“Take a look! This is my army, isn’t it amazing?”
Looking at how proud this idiot girl was of herself, I was angry in so many ways. She was obviously just pretending to be a fool.
The only part worthy of being happy about was that there was no twisted sensation from her that indicated she had been invaded by Chaos. That meant that either she was able to perfectly conceal her own abnormal changes and twistedness, or she had completely taken control of Chaos and hadn’t had any changes to either her physical body or her soul.
Considering her bloodline’s connection, the latter seemed more likely, but even so, I was furious.
“You—you really dared such a thing! And you already know what the end result of dealing with demons is. I know more than a dozen whose bodies and souls have been devoured by demons, more than enough for a book titled ‘Collection of Fools Deceived by Demons,’ and you still dared to…”
Reyne didn’t reply, and maintained her faint smile as she looked at me. Her look was one of “I’ve done it already, so what can you do?” At this moment, I knew that not only did she already know the consequences, but she intended to bear them.
“Forget it! I’m not going to care anymore, just do whatever you want.”
In the end, I could only angrily toss out this sentence, just like a parent who had been infuriated by a naughty kid. My sentence sounded quite serious, but it was actually a demonstration of my helplessness that couldn’t be expressed in any other way.
“There’s not much time left, and I don’t want to only watch from the sidelines…”
Reyne’s reply gave me a sudden jolt in my heart. It seemed that I had only been giving my junior the best path I believed for her, but I had been ignoring her own feelings.
The proper path was indeed wide and safe, but it was also difficult to walk down and progress would be slow. For her to be able to gain true top-level combat strength that could influence the entire situation while taking the proper path probably wouldn’t be possible even by the end of this Holy War.
In the end, perhaps she was just like me from that year. Despite being the prince of a country with his citizens’ trust, in front of the unchangeable situation and the unbeatable enemy, I could only watch as the knights and citizens were sacrificed and nothing could be done.
Perhaps in Reyne’s eyes that was also the same fate that would befall her. In order to control her own fate, she made a choice to seek strength at any cost. Judging from her calm smile, she had already made up her mind to accept any potential consequences, including becoming my enemy.
“As a princess and the royal successor of East Mist, I can’t give over my country’s fate to anyone else. Even if its fate is to only be destroyed in the end, then, at the very least, I shall give everything I have in order to twist this damned fate.”
Beneath this seemingly silly smile was resolution matching that of her ancestors. Perhaps, from the very start, I had underestimated this little girl.
“Go self-reflect properly for me!”
Alright, I didn’t know what else I should say to her. I tossed her this sentence, which seemed forceful on the surface but was actually meaningless, as I turned around and left—or perhaps I should use the word escaped.
After I calmed down, I hesitated for a moment, before speaking in a low voice.
“Elisa, you understand a lot about demons…”
Yet the typical instant response didn’t come. It seemed that even the silver ring had lost its power to contact Elisa due to the connection between the Earth Elemental Plane and the other dimensions being cut off. Now, I didn’t have a chance to gain more information on this topic.
“…It seems I need to have a really good chat with Karwenz, soon.”
Perhaps some things were simply unavoidable.
[Congratulations to Host for improving your reputation in the Mage Country. You’re now Respected (infamy known to all). Please continue working hard!]
A sudden system message interrupted my thoughts. Although this doubtlessly indicated that I was making progress in my Epic Quest, when I took a look at my system menu, that [67%, -33423] incredible debt was impossible for me to bear looking at.
“I owe even more now.”
As for that (infamy known to all) in parentheses after my reputation level of Respected? It’s actually quite easy to understand. My system had rather normal-sounding reputation levels of Neutral, Acquaintance, Friendly, Respected, Venerated, and Idolized. However, since I wanted to grind my reputation level quickly, I had taken a certain shortcut. Although this allowed my reputation level grew at a much faster pace, my earlier level of Friendly had a (villainous name known far and wide) added behind it, and now my Respected level had (infamy known to all) tacked on, which was something I felt rather helpless about.
Shortcut? You see, this was what happened…
“Look, that’s the Roland bastard who toyed with our angelic Amelia’s feelings! Apparently, he was a mega-level scumbag back in the day!”
“Don’t point at him! Be careful of getting pregnant. It’s said that he’s a huge pervert who can cause a woman to get pregnant just by looking at her.”
“He’s already a grandpa that’s several hundred years old, and he still likes to dress so young. His intentions are inscrutable. I heard that recently, he fooled another ten young women.”
“I heard that back in the day, he was dating two idol-level beautiful teachers simultaneously, and he even had an additional two girlfriends on the side. Later, he was discovered, and someone wanted to kill him, which was why he didn’t even have time to get his graduation diploma and was forced to escape.”
As I was walking everywhere, I heard nothing but rumors. This made me want to go into a frenzy, but I absolutely couldn’t. It was like hell.
The reason? All the rumors and gossip were actually spread by me. In a way, it was also what I needed.
“This is no good! My reputation has been stuck at Friendly, 212/20000, for quite a while now. It seems I have no other method but to use this.”
Right before a major battle, my ace card was currently under confiscation due to a lack of money. If I was the first person in history who lost a battle due to insufficient Fate Points, which were required to purchase back my debt, then that would be too humiliating.
This strange reputation quest that my system had given me even required that I had to get to Venerated in order to proceed with my quest. No matter how many good deeds I performed, I was still stuck at a little past Friendly, still far away from Respected. This was without even mentioning the Venerated reputation rank, which I could only look at.
This wasn’t the first time that the system had given me a reputation quest. Before, the Roland Sacred Sword had a special effect, which helped its holder to greatly increase the reputation of the People of the Mist. I had investigated the strange way that my system defined reputation before. It turned out that the system wasn’t all-powerful. This so-called reputation in the end was about how many people knew about you and how deep their impressions were of you. As for how many people specifically counted for one point, that was something I wasn’t able to calculate.
To make an analogy, the former reputation increasing effect of the Roland Sacred Sword, basically meant that all the People of the Mist would have high expectations for the sword holder. They would voluntarily tell others about his identity and learn more about his deeds, and this so-called reputation would naturally keep increasing.
“As long as I know the rules, then I also know how to cheat…”
And so, after much deep contemplation, I thought of my previous world and how never-ending scandals about celebrities were always the news that people paid attention to the most. This allowed me to come up with my devious shortcut.
“…Good deeds are never spread, while bad deeds will travel thousands of kilometers on their own. In the end, this reputation just requires me to be famous. For someone who’s known to be excellent, at most maybe some parents would say ‘you should try to be more like XXX’ and it wouldn’t even spread to the next street over. But if it’s some bad deed or scandal, it would probably travel three thousand kilometers in a single night without me even needing to spread it.”
“Any societies consisting of intelligent creatures are naturally highly interested in negative gossip, especially if it’s a scandal regarding several famous people at once. Who cares about my face? I stopped caring about saving face three hundred plus years ago!”
Alright, the truth was that all I had to do was toss out two slightly perverted stories, and then arrange an acolyte to ask me questions about these stories in a public place with many people around. I merely smiled and shook my head without forcefully denying it, which successfully created the gossip about my scandal.
My original story was only about the past when I had an unsuccessful romantic relationship with Amelia, but based on what I’m hearing now, the rumors had completely gone out of control after they started spreading.
“Do you really believe that he can make a woman pregnant just by looking at her? Can you still really call yourself a mage! That’s completely illogical by the laws of magic!”
“No, no, just think about it. He’s a senior student from archmage Kaid’s generation, and he must be an incredible archmage as well. I heard that he successfully put a piece of his own soul into his own mana, and all he needs to do is stare at you to cast a mental magic that attacks your will. And that scary soul piece of his will directly use your physical body to create a new baby shard, which is what it means by ‘he’ll make you pregnant just by looking at you.’”
“In that case, wouldn’t even men—ahhh! I just met him yesterday and even smiled at him! He looked me in the eye, could it be that I…”
“Junior, I recommend that you go get a checkup in the infirmary. There’s already a line several-hundred long, and I have the paperwork indicating that I’m in the first-hundred part of the line. I can sell it to you for cheap.”
To be honest, it was far out of my expectations for the rumors to spread to such a degree.
“The hell with getting pregnant just by looking at you! The hell with mental magic! The hell with a man getting pregnant! You guys actually believe such non-magical rumors and dare to call yourselves mages? Also, that one over there who’s taking this chance to strike it rich, I’m going to remember you! Brat, don’t let me find a chance! If I actually do get the chance, heh heh, just wait to see how I’m going to deal with you!”
The part that I was most aggrieved about was that I single-handedly created this situation. I couldn’t even defend myself, as I needed these rumors to spread even wider. I even needed to inflame the rumors further, such as flirting in public with some beautiful ladies… Cough, this part wasn’t because of my personal desires! Definitely not!
I did, indeed, bring it upon myself, but how could I stand to suffer alone by myself…?
“Look, that’s the one who traffics underage girls, the white-robed perverted monster Kaid! I heard he’s committed countless crimes, and only his high status is keeping it all hushed up.”
“How is that possible, Teacher Kaid is well-loved and respected by everyone. This must be a baseless rumor.”
“No, no, see how he’s a good friend of that pervert king? It’s said that they often discuss how to commit crimes together, and when an acolyte directly asked that Roland about it, Roland didn’t even deny it!”
And, so, Kaid’s clean reputation for the past hundreds of years was ruined. Well, he wasn’t squeaky clean to begin with, and now that people had these rumors to go off of, old Kaid’s reputation instantly became rather strange as well.
Oh, it’s bad of me to do that to an old friend of mine? This was just a little return present. Did Kaid really think that I wouldn’t find out he was the one who added the ‘making people pregnant by looking at them’ part to the rumor!? He even twisted it by adding some crap about mental magic as well!
Alright, let’s not mention old Kaid anymore while he’s trying to salvage his reputation everywhere, but he’s always met by female screams and shrieks and slaps. Although this self-ruining of my own reputation was a devious shortcut that definitely hurt my ego significantly, there were also apparent benefits.
“I got to Respected in just two days. It’s scary how fast my Reputation is growing now. I bet just about every faction in the Earth Elemental Plane knows about me.”
Although I was making good progress on my Epic Quest, which was obviously a good thing, I was all up in tears. Why? Because I went to a noodle restaurant last night for a bowl of noodles, and even a seventy-year-old lady was so scared that she maniacally ran out of the store at the sight of me. I merely nodded at a young acolyte on the road, and that guy actually let out a death howl and then laid on the road and pretended to be dead.
Can you believe it? That acolyte was even of the brawny-muscular-huge-guy type. I was rendered speechless on the spot.
“Thanks to all these rumors, my reputation’s becoming stranger and stranger. Who cares? What’s reputation anyways? Can I eat it? Regardless, I’ve always been single even when I had a good reputation, and also single when I had a bad reputation, so isn’t it all the same?”
Fine then, if it was really all the same, why were there still tears in my eyes…
Although the negative rumors increased my Reputation at an astonishing speed, there was still a bottleneck. Since there was a limited number of people in Karo City, my Reputation stopped increasing once my Respected (infamy known to all) reached about half-step to Venerated, which was rather frustrating.
“It seems that I still need a huge scoop. Oh right, Amelia and the others are supposed to come here in two days to meet up. Perhaps… Let’s go with that, then. I hope Elisa won’t beat me to death when I return…”
As a veteran teacher of Cloud Tower, this wasn’t the first time Amelia had been to Karo. In fact, she even stayed here for three years and made countless hidden preparations. If it wasn’t for that, she wouldn’t have been able to create her “plant garden” so successfully.
In order to scam and obtain more research funds, and also so that her private research wouldn’t be exposed, she made quite a good effort at appearing proper on the surface. She always had a good reputation, and apart from a few ancients from the same generation that knew her for who she truly was, most mages treated her as a trustworthy elder. And thanks to her gentle appearance (fake) and ladylike behavior (fake), not to mention rumors that she had royal blood (true), and add on that she treated everyone the same (they were all experimental subjects to her), all of this further increased her popularity.
In order to maintain her own good reputation, before she entered Karo City, she hid all those unpleasant things of hers outside the city, and even especially changed her clothes, took a shower, and spent a lot of time in front of the mirror in order to conceal her maniacal aura. A perfect “angelic Amelia” appeared once again as she held a parasol and walked daintily into town.
However, she immediately discovered that something was wrong about the situation. Everyone was looking at her strangely. In the past, there was respect, veneration, adulation, and, of course, love, but now, they were looking at her with sympathy, as if something pitiful had happened to her.
“Keep at it! Work hard! Everyone will still admire you like in the past!”
“Let the past be the past! Us members of the Angel Support Club will forever support you!”
The cheers of encouragement she could vaguely hear from behind her were even more incomprehensible.
However, she soon understood what it was all about.
When she turned around a street corner, she arrived at Karo’s most flourishing and busiest intersection, a road that led directly to the city center. However, the crowds of people typically here were nowhere to be seen, and luxurious fresh flowers were strewn about all over the street. There were even flags and balloons by the roadside, and in the middle of the flowers was a familiar, half-kneeling figure wearing white formal attire.
“My beloved Amelia, please forgive my past transgression. My darling Amelia, let us get back together again!”
Amelia was stunned for a moment before she squeezed a few words out between her teeth.
“Roland! You bastard!”