Argentir Gardarik Hervor.
People described him as a lucky one who luckily reserved the throne.
That short phrase was the description that most clearly expressed Argentir's position and reputation.
Argentir was the second son of the Hervor royal family. Originally, he was in a position where it would have been impossible to become the crown prince over the firstborn son.
If the hero's mark hadn't descended upon Heid, the firstborn son of the royal family and next king, he wouldn't have become the crown prince as the second son.
However, Prince Heid suddenly awakened the hero's mark one day, and not long after, he was stripped of his right to succeed the throne.
This was due to the customary law that a hero of royal birth cannot ascend to the throne.
The king's job is to sit on the throne and rule the country, while the hero's job is to go to the battlefield and fight against foreign enemies.
It wouldn't be easy to perform these two very different tasks simultaneously, so the intention was to hand over the throne to someone else and focus only on the hero's duties?
It's a custom that seems unnecessary in today's world where the meaning of heroes has faded a lot, but it was said to have been an essential procedure in the past.
At that time, heroes often died while breaking through deep dungeons.
Heroes could die like that. Although it would inevitably lead to considerable national power loss in the short term, a new hero would appear someday.
But what if that hero was the king of their own country?
Then the story changes a bit. If a king in his prime suddenly dies in a dungeon, who would take care of the country's affairs?
In a situation where they need to resolve the chaos created by the void of the hero as a military force as quickly as possible, the leader who should be responsible for and lead this is the very hero who died.
How could the country function properly like that? It wouldn't be strange if the royal family or even the country itself collapsed with one misstep.
For these reasons, the four human kingdoms strictly separated the throne and the hero's position through customary law.
So that even if one side suddenly dies, the other side can resolve the resulting chaos.
Anyway, that was the reason why Argentir was being called a lucky guy.
Thanks to the goddess bestowing the hero's mark on his brother, he got his hands on the throne, a position he couldn't have even dreamed of originally.
"Crown Prince Argentir... I've heard of him too. Though I've never met him in person."
"Oh? What have you heard?"
"Well..."
Friede put her index finger on her cheek as if recalling old memories and tilted her head as she opened her mouth.
"He's not incompetent, but he's not particularly capable either? They say he's that kind of ordinary, unremarkable person."
An ordinary person who wouldn't become a tyrant or a hidden king, but doesn't seem likely to become a wise ruler either.
A second-in-command who could be said to have no outstanding points compared to Heid, who is talented in various fields.
It was an answer exactly as his widely known reputation.
"However, they say he has a bit of a naive and weak side in terms of personality... I'm not sure if that's a flaw or not."
Friede recounted various anecdotes about Argentir.
Like how in his childhood, during a national tour, he hugged orphans at an orphanage he visited and cried profusely, or how in his teens, he fell for a scammer who approached him saying there was a good investment opportunity and lost a huge amount of his personal fortune.
Even recently, it's said that he's pouring massive support into orphanages all across the country, exhausting his personal assets...?
To summarize briefly, it meant he was a kind-hearted person who doesn't know how to doubt people.
How kind must he be to continue believing in people to the end, even after being openly scammed?
Of course, they were indeed scammers, and as a price for their boldly running a scam on a prince, they were all beheaded by the kingdom's knights.
Even so, it was too late by that point, and they say Argentir's lost personal fortune couldn't be recovered.
"If he were a priest, it wouldn't be a flaw. But he's not a priest, he's the heir to the throne who will have to take responsibility for a country someday."
"Is that so...?"
An infinitely pure and kind personality.
If he were a priest, it would be a personality worthy of praise as an exemplar of the clergy, but the problem was that he wasn't a priest but a crown prince.
One who ascends to the throne often encounters moments when they must make cold and ruthless decisions for the national interest.
If the king of a country is a weak-minded, gullible optimist, how could state affairs run properly?
That's why Argentir's personality reputation wasn't very good.
Anyone could see he would likely become a kind king, but there's a huge gap between being a kind king and a capable king.
"Still, if he's such a kind person, he could be of great help to us, right?"
"Hmm... Well, I don't think that's the case..."
I awkwardly turned my gaze away while fiddling with my hair.
Friede seemed to have high expectations based on Argentir's reputation, but I couldn't sympathize with those expectations.
If Argentir was really as kind-hearted as the rumors say, he might actively help us as Friede expected, but...
'That can't be.'
The Argentir I knew... that is, the Argentir who appeared in the novel wasn't such a naive character.
Should I tell her this or not?
It was a bit of a dilemma. If I explained the truth I knew, it would be like pouring cold water on Friede, who was full of expectation and hope.
No, but I should tell her. As long as she's with me to help me, Friede has the right to know the truth.
My lying to her was limited only to cases where I couldn't handle the aftermath if the truth was revealed.
I didn't want to hide the truth or lie about something that wasn't such a situation.
I still have some conscience, you know. A conscience as worn out as the joints of an eighty-year-old grandfather, but still.
"Um, Friede. The thing is, actually, Argentir..."
In the end, after some deliberation, I laid out all the information about Argentir to Friede without hiding anything.
Adding the explanation that I had learned this by chance during a confidential mission during my time as a kingdom knight.
I couldn't answer that I had read it in a novel if asked how I knew this fact.
Even though I decided to tell the truth because lying pricked my conscience, I still had to mix lies into it. It was quite ironic.
And so, several tens of minutes passed.
Five minutes for the explanation about the truth of Argentir. About forty minutes spent persuading Friede, who tried to turn back immediately after hearing it.
...Maybe I shouldn't have said anything.
It was such a long and difficult time that I slightly regretted revealing the truth.
* * *
After that day, we headed towards Hervor by land.
It was a bit of a detour, but it was safer that way. If we had retraced our steps exactly, we might have encountered those following my trail or the Abyss Priests.
Of course, now I have the Eternal Maiden's helmet, so even if we encountered them, there's a high chance they wouldn't discover my identity, but...
Still, there's no need to deliberately invite danger, right?
Just as the so-called 90% repair chance blacksmith in a certain game was actually a scammer who failed six out of ten repairs, nothing can be absolute in any matter.
As long as we don't know how the Abyss Priests might act, choosing a dangerous route was nothing more than reckless overconfidence.
Therefore, instead of going back the way we came, we moved by land via the main road, and incidentally tested the performance of the helmet I had obtained.
As a result of the verification, the helmet's performance perfectly met my expectations.
How good was the performance for me to say that?
Well, even though I was walking around wearing armor with my cleavage completely exposed, all the passersby couldn't properly recognize me.
To the extent that there were even people worrying about Friede, saying isn't it dangerous for a young girl to travel the main road 'alone'? Even with me standing right next to her.
It was literally like becoming an invisible person.
People couldn't even recognize my existence at all until I spoke to someone or touched them. It wasn't to this extent in the original work.
Perhaps because I obtained the helmet much earlier than in the original?
I couldn't know the exact reason, but anyway, it was a good thing. Thanks to this, I could enter and exit the cities along our route without any hindrance.
It meant I had returned from the life of a barbarian, constantly camping and satisfying hunger with dry rations, to a civilized life with soft beds and delicious food waiting.
"Ahhhhh..."
Going from sleeping on a cave floor with just a cloak spread out to entrusting my body to a mattress in a decent inn, a moan soaked in satisfaction flowed out as my mouth opened wide without me realizing it.
Long live Eisenstein, long live Brunhilde's ancestors!
What's with that vicious magic organization that conducted human experiments? Eisenstein is a god, a savior, a hero. A hero on the level of Dr. Carrier who invented air conditioning.
If you want to refute this, try living a wild life away from civilization for months and then come back. If you can still refute after that, I'll acknowledge it.
A place to sleep with a roof. A hot water bath that completely relieves fatigue. Laundered clothes. A soft bed. Steaming hot stew and pork roast overflowing with meat juices.
The Eternal Maiden's helmet bestowed all these benefits upon me. No, should I say it returned the lost civilization to me?
The performance was so satisfactory that I even felt sorry for teasing the grandmother trapped in the amethyst too harshly.