21-40 · 038
Chapter 36: Karmic Retribution
Side: Koji Goda
“Guh, aghhh…! Let go! I’m a hero! Do you bastards have any idea what you’re doing!?”
I thrashed desperately, my face pressed against the asphalt. But the strength coming from that slender woman’s arm was like a vise, unyielding. My joints creaked, and tears spilled from the searing pain.
“I told you not to move. I really will break it, you know?”
“Shut up! Hey, gas mask! Tell Master_Eye for me! I gave him everything… Huh?”
With my face pinned to the ground, the edge of my vision caught the gas-mask man’s feet and hands. He was looking down at me, rolling up his tactical suit sleeve as if a little warm.
And then.
Between the suit sleeve and his black glove, I saw it.
Wrapped around his right wrist was a clumsy, patchwork wristband, homemade from cheap fire-resistant cloth. And at its edge, a distinct crescent-shaped burn mark.
“…Huh?”
My heart gave a nasty thump. I knew that clumsy wristband. A year ago, when that useless pack mule was carrying my gear in the Middle Layer Area, he’d gotten that burn shielding my armor from Fire Slime mucus. To hide it, he’d sewn together scraps of cloth he’d picked up from the garbage dump—that pathetic homemade wristband.
“How long are you going to keep wearing that garbage cloth! It looks so cheap, walk behind me!”
I’d laughed at him back then. So why was that unique piece of trash—one of a kind—wrapped around the arm of this man claiming to be Master_Eye’s agent?
“S-Soma…? No way… that’s… a lie?”
The name slipped out before I could stop it. The gas-mask man’s shoulders twitched.
No. That couldn’t be. He was incompetent, a worthless fighter I’d expelled, trash. His skill was just ‘True Appraisal,’ something for digging through junk.
“…Ah.”
Cleaning… skill? …Polishing junk?
My heated body cooled rapidly, and my fevered mind grew unnervingly clear.
“This sword, and this shield—these were all repaired and purified by a singularly talented craftsman.”
Seira’s words at the press conference flashed back in my mind. A talented craftsman who fixes junk. The eccentric who bought the garbage I sold for 10,000 yen.
“Ah… aaah…?”
The puzzle pieces fell into place, forming the true picture. It wasn’t something as trivial as the gas-mask agent being Toru Soma.
Toru Soma himself was Master_Eye.
The “incompetent” pack mule I had cursed and discarded was a billionaire genius craftsman revered around the world. The stone I sold as “10,000-yen junk” was the final piece that unlocked his talent. And now, this man was looking down on me?
“No… that’s a lie! You’re saying you’re Soma!? That incompetent being Master_Eye… that’s impossible! It can’t be!”
I was screaming before I knew it. I couldn’t stop. This was a joke. Impossible. The man I thought was beneath me had risen far beyond reach. Worse, he now held my fate in his hands. I couldn’t let that happen. Even if it dragged us both down, I’d kill him—
“That’s enough, Koji Goda!”
Several guild investigation vehicles and police cars, sirens wailing, burst into the alley. Heavily armed guild officers leaped out and snapped cold magic-sealing handcuffs onto my wrists as I lay prostrate on the asphalt, sealing my ability to use magic.
“You’re under arrest for causing a dungeon collapse and assaulting a high-rank explorer!”
“Let go! I’m the hero! I sold him that stone! I’m a hero! You should be thanking me! I have to kill that lowlife who stole my glory!”
As they took me by the arms and dragged me toward the transport vehicle, I screamed and wept at the gas-mask man. But he—Soma—didn’t utter a word. He just looked down at my pitiful figure through that cold lens.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Jinguji-sama… and you as well. Would you be able to accompany us later for a statement?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
The guild officer bowed deeply, and Soma nodded quietly. The moment I saw that, something taut inside me snapped with an audible click.
No one would believe my words. A god who saved the world versus a criminal who nearly destroyed it. The weight of our words was as far apart as heaven and earth.
“Ha, hahaha… hah…”
Finally realizing the enormity of what I had thrown away and the weight of the crime I had committed, nothing but hollow, broken laughter escaped my lips.
Just before I was thrown into the cold iron cage of the transport vehicle, the gas-mask man, illuminated by the morning sun, looked impossibly vast—like a ‘true hero’ I could never reach.