Listening to their exchange, Erika’s mind became completely white.
What did Harold say? The servant and her daughter, Clara and Colette are still alive?
What did Zen say? That is the truth?
The shock she received exceeded last night’s acknowledgement of the murder. Erika, whose thoughts and body were frozen over, could do nothing but listen to the 2 of them talking.
「Then don’t think of meaningless things. If by chance my parents find out that they are still alive, I’ll be under suspicion. To thoroughly eliminate that possibility, it’s already a determined matter」
「Although I know that, at least how about telling Erika-sama the truth? Due to believing in that rumor, it seems as though she’s very depressed」
「Absolutely not」
A clear refusal.
If the temperature of his voice could be measured, without a doubt, it would be below freezing point. Zen and Erika’s muscles froze in an instant.
「……….Why?」
Zen couldn’t help but ask.
Why did Harold reject Erika to that extent. That was because, for Harold, in this world of 『Brave Hearts』, in a way he thought that the one he must be the most cautious about was Erika.
The main feature of the character called Erika was kindness. But before that “the way of living” was included.
In the original work, Harold thought that he was a special existence and he was lump of consciousness that believed himself to be the chosen one by thinking that no matter what was done to other people, it would be allowed. That was why he could unconcernedly kill a servant, discriminate and oppress the powerless populace, and could even make a town into a complete sea of fire as a sacrifice for the monsters just so that he could continue to live.
He had all these atrocious deeds piled up, and yet Erika, even while hating Harold, without giving up, continued to suffer by staying as his fiancee.
The reason for that was because she was felt a sense of obligation since the Stokes family had provided financial aid. Normally thinking about it, due to the connection with the Stokes, their family would get scorned at and there was even the danger of the Stokes pulling their legs, but as expected, that was just to enliven Erika’s event, for the convenience of the game’s scenario.
And so, there was a fear that the kindness due to the setting would stick through with the idiocy and bare its fangs against Harold from here on.
Firstly, as the main premise, Harold’s objective was to survive without dying. The things he thought that were necessary for this was avoiding death flags and clearing the original work’s scenario.
There was no need to explain the former. Then the reason for the latter was, if for example, in the case the last boss wasn’t defeated, then almost all the people of the continent including Harold would die.
Although it wasn’t confirmed, by guessing from the information inside the game, that possibility was exceedingly high. At any rate, if the rampage of the last boss isn’t stopped, then the only continent in the world would sink- was how it went.
In other words, even if he avoided the death flags, if the last boss wasn’t defeated because of deviating too much from the original work, there would be no meaning in it.
There was a need for the protagonists to clear the scenario by any means possible, and inside the protagonist party, Erika held an important position of being the healer. With her presence or absence, the quest’s difficulty level would change. Since their survival rate would be greatly influenced, even for Harold’s sake, it was absolutely necessary for Erika to become friends with the protagonist and if that didn’t happen it would be troubling.
Moreover, he had a faint hope that if the scenario was cleared like the original work, he might be able to return to his original world. Or rather, he couldn’t think of anything other than that with regards to returning back to the original world.
Returning back to the topic, what would happen if Erika, who couldn’t abandon Harold until the last moment, learnt common sense and general conscience, and on top of that saw Harold extending a hand to the Sumeragi when they were in a predicament.
It was a hypothesis he didn’t want to imagine. She might actively push for the engagement. Well, that would still be fine.
But if because of that, she didn’t join with the protagonist, what would happen. That was the situation that Harold was afraid of.
That was why, other than not walking the evil path for avoiding death flags, Harold judged that the the risks would be lower if he got hated by Erika thoroughly in everything other than that part. It would even be fine to declare- Let her affection points eat shit.
How easy it would be if he could explain it like that, but the drawback would be that they would suspect the condition of his head. He decided to just make up some appropriate reason and stop Zen’s questioning.
Breaking the long silence, Harold started talking.
「………She was crying」
「Eh?」
「I don’t know if it was because of the tr