...The Ash Noble murder case, which had claimed several hundred lives, came to a somewhat anticlimactic end.
Someone [By Chance] witnessed the Ash Noble committing a murder and attempting to use magic to escape, and began pursuing him.
After a relentless chase, they drove him into the Dungeon, and through the combined efforts of two Hestia Familia members and one Hephaestus Familia member, they barely managed to subdue him.
His weapon and a god's authentication confirmed that the Ash Noble had been killed. The Ganesha Familia, Loki Familia, Freya Familia, and the Guild, all of whom had been pursuing him, awarded the three adventurers a bounty of thirty million valis each, for a total of ninety million valis. The Soma Familia, which had personally posted an additional reward, also paid another ten million valis, though they looked deeply reluctant to part with it.
...That was only part of the truth known to the public.
The fact that the Ash Noble was actually a hybrid species of monster and human, and that he had a vividly colored magic stone embedded in his chest that was presumed to be connected to Enyo and Evilus.
The fact that Zeke Albin had almost single-handedly defeated the Ash Noble, who had gained power somewhere between Level 3 and Level 4 by consuming magic stones.
All of those truths were concealed under the Guild and Loki Familia's gag order.
Finn Deimne had questioned how Zeke, a mere Level 1, could not only stand toe-to-toe with a Level 3 Ash Noble but eventually overwhelm and toy with him, after seeing the scars carved into the Dungeon. But... that issue was resolved very simply.
"Ah... Smith told me not to mention this, but you'll keep it a secret, right?"
"?"
"This is a [Noble Phantasm] Smith made for me."
"...Ah, um. In that case, I suppose it makes sense. I might be able to understand that."
After all, Talos [Giant Automaton of Lemnos] was the sort of man who, from Level 1 onward, made weapons for Orario's strongest adventurers; forged a spear that could smash through more than ten Dungeon walls with a simple throw; created a weapon capable of splitting a steel ingot in two with barely enough strength to hold chopsticks; and made grotesque weapons that pulverized anything they struck by using resonance and waves.
If it was Smith, it was understandable even if the weapon allowed a Level 1 to wield the strength of a Level 3.
Without Smith himself realizing it, ten years of surviving in Orario had cemented an image of him among the city's adventurers as an utterly eccentric blacksmith. The man in question, however, had no idea whatsoever.
In any case, if they had revealed the whole truth, they would have received not merely ninety million valis, but perhaps several hundred million. However, revealing Evilus's return, the existence of another mastermind behind them, and the shocking truth of a human-monster hybrid would bring enormous chaos to Orario. Thus, the Guild and the Loki Familia, which had been investigating the matter separately, asked the three of them to remain silent about the hybrid.
After that incident, Zeke Albin needed about a month to recuperate. Human emotions are immortal values that remain with a person for life, sharing their memories, recollections, and past.
To burn away the most intense and enduring of those emotions—anger and the desire for revenge—until they were completely gone was an act that burdened the soul itself.
To put it somewhat dramatically, it was little different from burning the karma of the soul accumulated in his Falna—his Excelia itself—to fight.
Thinking of it that way, his incomprehensible strength—even the power of Level 4—made sense. He had forcibly dragged out the soul's karma, accumulated through divine power, and used it as fuel. Naturally, it would have displayed an efficiency utterly incomparable to something as simple as a Mind boost.
As the tremendous vengeance and rage that had occupied one axis of his soul burned away and vanished, Zeke felt neither the emptiness nor the exhilaration that should inevitably come after completing one's revenge.
When he remembered that the first family he had loved was gone, he still felt grief so sharp it seemed to tear his heart apart. But when he thought of the Ash Noble, he felt nothing anymore. As though thinking of someone entirely unrelated to him, not even the smallest ripple of emotion stirred in his heart.
That was why Hestia cut back even on the time she spent with Bell for a month in order to help care for Zeke's mental state. There might not be anything visibly wrong with him now, but no one knew what might happen when one axis of his soul and heart had disappeared...
Fortunately, Zeke returned without any major issues to his usual self: somewhat frivolous when he could be, serious when necessary, the same golden-haired sunshine boy (lol).
However, they made him swear never again to offer up his emotions as a price, or to do anything similar.
They had stabilized his soul after it was thrown into instability by burning itself once already, but no one knew what might happen if it happened again. In the worst case, the fire of his soul could go out, leaving him a vegetable for the rest of his life.
Separately from that, Bell and Welf were staring at the bounty money now allotted to them, deep in thought.
Honestly, they had not done much. It was Zeke who had tracked the bastard down, driven him into a corner, and fought until the end to win.
All they had done was intervene and hold him off twice along the way.
Some might say that simply standing beside him was enough—that they had done their part.
Some might happily accept the unexpected windfall and quietly pocket the money.
Others might say that surviving two fights against a Level 3 monster was more than enough to deserve payment.
But these two were not the sort of fools who would be swayed by such convenient reasoning.
So they decided to give all of their reward money to Zeke.
They did not deserve the money, so it was only right to give it to the person who did.
That was simply how those two idiots thought.
Of course...
"What the hell are you idiots talking about?"
Flick.
"Ow!"
"Ouch!"
"Did you seriously think I'd be happy to just swallow the money if you shoved it at me like that?"
"No, it's not like that..."
"..."
"Welf, how exactly am I supposed to interpret that silence?"
Flick!
"Ow!"
"Sheesh, you idiots... If you two hadn't bought time for me at the beginning and held out in the middle, we'd all be dead. Considering that, it's only right that you take your share too."
"No, but you were the one who tracked him down and drove him in there..."
"Enough. You've already taken what belongs to you, so don't try to do more."
"...Then two-two-six. We don't want to make you uncomfortable either, so we won't refuse it entirely. But like you said, it doesn't sit right with us to receive the same share as you just because we fought him twice in the middle."
"...Good grief."
"You remember what you said about supporters last time, right?"
"Fine, fine."
And so the three split the total bounty of one hundred million valis—equivalent to one billion won—into twenty million, twenty million, and sixty million valis.
Welf was one thing, but in Bell's case, Zeke had already paid off his debt to Smith and then generously donated twenty million valis of the roughly forty-five million he had left to the Familia's common funds. That was enough to make Zeke's blood pressure soar and personally teach him the dangers of hypertension.
.
.
.
.
.
Then Smith met Zeke again.
"So, was it useful?"
"Yeah, it was incredible. How did you manage to make a weapon that suited me so perfectly?"
"It's a weapon I couldn't have made in the first place if you hadn't asked me to make it."
"...?"
"There are things like that."
"Anyway, here's the valis from my bounty. Fifteen million valis, plus another five million of my own money. I put in twenty million in total."
"Fine. As long as you used it well, that's enough. Were there any side effects or anything strange?"
"Hmm, when I used Hellhound magic stones, the blade felt kind of warm."
"Hm... As expected, the influence of its legend remains strong... Do fire-aspected monster magic stones have a special effect?"
"Anyway..."
Thud.
Zeke abruptly dropped to his knees and bowed his head. As though he had roughly expected this, Smith simply closed his eyes and waited quietly.
"Thank you. There's no need to dress it up with any more flowery words, is there?"
"..."
"Thank you for accommodating a request that was no different from my own selfish insistence."
"Though now, the vengeance that was its origin has all disappeared... thanks to you, I was able to bring comfort to my family."
"...If you're grateful, then go to Welf's shop instead of ours from now on. The things here are still too much for you. As for Krikara, I only made it to suit you because you begged me so much..."
"Yeah, yeah."
And so, the endless revenge tragedy of an adventurer and a supporter burned away completely.
It was the cold ending of a hot revenge tragedy that could happen anywhere, at any time.