The Devil Does Not Need to Be Defeated

After it was all over, everyone cleaned up the battleground and accounted for the casualties.

"This time, out of our original 117 people, we\'ve lost 44."

"Of these 44, 39 of them were knights. The final five were adventurers."

"Putting aside the knights for now. For the adventurers, four of them were members of Alrith\'s party, with the last one being one of Leon\'s."

"Unfortunately, Markray died. Even though we haven\'t found his body, it\'s likely that his remains were destroyed rather than him being lucky enough to escape."

Baydr was solemnly chairing this meeting in the middle of the camp.

With him were the entirety of Vivian\'s party, several of Alrith\'s party, as well as Leon and Eudrice.

And of course, Shien was there too.

However, for some strange reason, Shien felt like the rest of them were keeping a certain distance from him.

Shien kind of wanted to bring this up, but he never had a chance to. In the end, all he could do was grumble to himself a bit and keep to to the side and wait quietly as the current discussion progressed.

In reaction to Balon\'s words, putting aside everyone else, Leon and Eudrice were depressed at the news.

"Markray…"

"That guy had actually already…"

Leon and Eudrice looked rather terrible.

But the rest seem to be cheered up by this.

That\'s because Leon and Eudrice\'s predicament was solely due to them having underestimated the quest this time.

Including Markray and his father, Leon\'s party and the related people all thought that this quest would be scary, but contain no real dangers. All they need to do was to transport Jillian to the capital, and they\'d be able to safely gain the rewards.

Thus, by their thoughts, this quest had nothing but pluses. Fairly low risk for enormous rewards.

Who would have thought that due to the Old Demon Faction\'s assault, not only were there party casualties, even Markray would end up lost?

This made Leon and Eudrice rather depressed.

Especially Leon. He originally wanted to use Markray\'s connections to get in on this quest and get major rewards from it. He even wanted to use Markray as a connection to make contact with Markray\'s older sister as a way forward to his unspeakable goals.

But now, Markray died. Not only did Leon not get any spoils at all, he might even be made to take responsibility by the Foleti family. He\'ll probably be having quite some troubles in the future.

Of course, Balon was in trouble too.

He had a part in planning the quest this time. Now that it failed and he took so many losses, Balon likely won\'t be able to escape the responsibilities for this either.

At the very least, the other nobles of the territory who knows about this will definitely use this against him.

In order to avoid letting the credit be stolen by the other towns, Balon refused to ask for outside aid and forcibly planned out the following courses of action. Originally, his goal was to use actual merits to quiet talk of him being unsuited for the position of knight captain, but now, the results will instead be more ammunition for other people. There\'s no way that it wouldn\'t be used against him.

Likely, after finding out about this matter, the nobility of the Murrow Marquis territory will be making noises once again about how Balon lacked the ability to carry out the responsibilities as a Knight Captain, right?

This was a major damper on Balon\'s mood. His expressions matched Leon and Eudrice in how bad it looked.

Soon, Balon, Leon, and Edrice all started to gaze at Shien.

Shien detected the glances of the three of them and gave a smile in return.

"Do you perhaps have a question for me?"

Shien asked kindly.

"N-Nothing…"

When they saw Shien\'d kindly smile, Balon, Leon, and Eudrice practically turned green.

Obviously, all three of them were reminded of how Baydr and Jillian ended up, and they had become completely terrified of the Shien as the culprit behind those events.

That said though, there were good reasons for the three of them glancing at Shien.

"The three of you probably wanted to say something like: If I didn\'t bring up the plan to take down the entire Old Demon Faction, then you wouldn\'t have taken such losses, right?"

Shien revealed Balon and company\'s thoughts with a half grin. The three of them said nothing in response.

In other words, the three of them were indeed thinking that.

However…

"If you guys want to say that, then I have something to say too you know?"

Shien suddenly spoke up.

"If not for the fact that I subjugated Jillian in the first place, you wouldn\'t even have had such a chance to grab at the credit in the first place. In that case, shouldn\'t you also be complaining at me and telling me that I shouldn\'t have subjugated Jillian? After all, if not for that, you guys wouldn\'t have been overtaken by greed and planned out such actions in the first place."

Those words made Balon and them fall silent.

The meaning behind Shien\'s words were obvious. He wanted to tell Balon and the rest that the real cause of all this was their greed.

All Shien did originally was take down Jillian due to his bad mood. Afterward, he never even considered anything along the line of taking credit for it. In the end, it was Balon and company who dragged him into this whole debacle.

"There were originally many ways of safely dealing with this matter, but you weren\'t willing to use any of them. You only wanted to get your hands on the rewards without taking any risks. Really, it\'s like wanting to commit robberies without becoming wanted. There\'s no way such things are possible."

Shien spoke without holding back at all.

"From the start, all you thought about was yourselves. The consequences for such things will correspondingly fall on you to accept. You\'re already adults. You shouldn\'t need me to teach you about this level of reasoning, right?"

Those words were seriously painful.

Especially for Balon. As a noble, it really did look bad on him to be lectured like that by an adventurer. Especially one younger than him at that.

However, Balon doesn\'t want to slight Shien either. Add to that the fact that they were indeed trying to steal Shien\'s credit. Given all that, he really didn\'t have any room to complain about Shien\'s actions.

"Then, at least tell us one thing."

Balon collected himself and gazed at Shien.

"Just who are you? Are you really just a new adventurer?"

Balon finally asked that question.

Everyone\'s eyes were instantly gathered upon Shien.

This included the entirety of Vivian\'s party as well.

Shien on the other hand was very calm.

"I really am a new adventurer. No lie."

Shien spoke definitively.

This was indeed the truth.

Never mind the amount of time he had been an adventurer. Even if you counted it from the moment Shien arrived in this world, it still didn\'t even amount to a full month yet.

Thus, Shien really is a newbie. This was unquestionable.

"Then your level…"

Balon frowned.

In response, Shien immediately prepared to use every single one of his blame shifting skills that he thought up ahead of time.

However, at this moment, Vivian spoke up.

"Sometimes, showing a portion of your true abilities when appropriate is also one of the requirements for surviving in this world, Shien."

Vivian made such a statement and gazed at Shien.

Shien stopped the excuse that he was about to throw out. He looked at the gaze that Vivian was looking at him with, hesitated, and fell silent.

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