“Your newspaper’s got a lot of uses...”

The corner of Muen’s mouth twitched as he gave the little brat a strange look.

The kid looked maybe ten or so. He was wearing a ragged gray vest and shirt, a little different from what he had worn the last time they met, but on his scrawny frame it all hung far too loose. They were probably some castoff clothes an adult no longer wanted.

His face was covered in obvious freckles, and when he grinned, the missing chunk of his front tooth showed clearly too, but none of those small flaws could hide the slyness in his eyes that didn’t match his age.

“Of course it does. All the bums on the street use the same model of newspaper as mine. It’s got a great reputation, a great reputation...”

The little brat patted his chest with a proud expression. Muen had no idea whether that was just an act to sell papers, or whether these newspapers really were that popular among the homeless.

Having crawled and scraped too early through the foul dye vat called society, this little brat had already learned how to size people up and tailor his pitch accordingly.

But Muen had no time to sort that out. He only looked at the boy, his thoughts complicated.

After all, not long ago, he had seen this little brat’s corpse with his own eyes. That charred body, like the other pitiful children, had been buried in the flames of a fire that seemed ready to burn down the entire city.

And yet in the blink of an eye, the world had changed, the fire had vanished without a trace, and here he was in front of Muen again, completely unharmed.

The absurdity and strangeness of it all was enough to make Muen wonder if he had somehow run into time reversal.

Like in certain games, where after you die, you can start over from the beginning.

...Clearly, that wasn’t it.

Because the lingering pain still left in Muen’s body at this moment, along with the tattered trench coat on his back, were both proving to him that not long ago, he had come within a hair’s breadth of dying at the Witch of Repentance’s hands.

Countless books, innumerable predecessors’ experiences, and all the mainstream information told Muen the same thing: the gulf of the Crowned could not be crossed. It was an enormous leap far beyond the levels below it, an elevation of life itself.

Before, he had thought that in this sort of “invincible chosen-one power fantasy,” there might be exceptions to even that.

But obviously, that tiny sort of exception—one almost equivalent to a miracle—was not something he could reach right now.

He was still too weak.

He still had to become stronger...

After settling his mood, Muen wiped a hand over his face, stood up, pressed his palm against the wall beside him, and looked out toward the distant city blocks.

Saint Blancfazesiya, this ancient city of art, was still as quiet and peaceful as ever.

Everything just now had felt like a dream.

A nightmare.

“Heh. Earlier I thought this peace felt like a dream, and now I think that earlier disaster felt like a dream. I came here to look for the truth, but now... which is the dream, which is reality, which is true, and which is false—even I can’t tell anymore.”

Muen let out a self-mocking laugh.

After brushing so close to death just now, not only had none of his questions been answered, they had only piled up more and more.

What exactly was that Saint Blancfazesiya that had stepped into destruction? Was it real? And if that was real, then what was this city now?

If the real Saint Blancfazesiya was walking into destruction in the flames, while this false royal capital still sat in peace and prosperity... could the Salvation Society really disguise all of that so flawlessly?

And there was the burning city, the descending calamity, the Crowned who had personally made a move, the cathedral amid the disaster...

And on top of all that, how exactly had he survived the Witch of Repentance? One mystery after another, and none of them had any answer.

Perhaps...

Muen closed his eyes, called for the Black Book, and flipped through the record from just now.

[Mu’en Campbell suffered a sure-kill strike from the Witch of Repentance.]

[Mu’en Campbell returned from Saint Blancfazesiya to Saint Blancfazesiya.]

...There were only those two brief lines on the page. No detailed record at all of what had happened in that instant.

“So it really wasn’t going to be that simple?”

Muen sighed.

If even this—his greatest source of support—offered no opening, then what was he supposed to do next...

“Big brother, hey, big brother...”

Muen opened his eyes and found that the little brat was still hanging around.

“So are you buying a newspaper or not? Miss this chance and there won’t be another one!”

“Why are you so determined to sell me a newspaper?”

“Because...”

The little brat looked Muen up and down carefully, then said in all seriousness,

“Big brother always gives off this familiar rich-suck... no, rich-guy aura. I don’t know why... Have we met before?”

You were definitely about to say sucker, weren’t you?

“Maybe you met me when I was more handsome.”

Still in disguise, Muen kept a straight face and thought for a moment before saying, “Fine. Give me one. At a time like this, there’s no such thing as too much information.”

“Coming right up!”

The little brat instantly beamed. He opened up his clothes and carefully pulled out the newspapers he had protected well even in the rain.

Because they were wrapped so tightly, the kid moved a little slowly. To keep the customer from getting impatient and leaving, he smoothly started spoiling part of the newspaper’s contents for Muen.

“Today’s paper has some really huge news in it!”

“Huge news?”

Muen perked up. “What huge news? Did that king of yours stir up some major trouble again?”

“It’s not about His Majesty the King.”

The little brat shook his head. “This time, the front page is about some outrageously evil bad guy!”

“A bad guy?”

Muen frowned. “What kind of bad guy could be a hotter story than your king causing trouble? Did that bad guy mess with the king or something?”

Don’t tell me they were talking about the Salvation Society.

But the Salvation Society wasn’t stupid enough to show its face in a newspaper.

“How could that be? His Majesty is amazing. How could he possibly be harmed by some mere bad guy? But even so, that bad guy is still a really big deal.”

The little brat’s expression gradually turned grave. Putting on the tone of someone telling a ghost story, he said dramatically,

“They say he’s the Empire’s greatest villain, the true culprit behind this war, a lustful fiend who stretched his demonic claws toward countless innocent young girls, and an utterly wicked sinner whose crimes are enough to invite divine punishment. Even the Goddess would be disgusted by his filthy soul!”

“That exaggerated?”

Muen was startled. The image the Church promoted of the Goddess was one of mercy and compassion. If even the Goddess would be revolted by that person’s crimes... Muen thought carefully about who in the Empire could possibly inspire that much fury, and also be important enough to make the Kingdom’s front-page headlines...

There seemed to be only one answer.

Pink Bear!

It had to be that disgraceful idiot!

After hiding it for so long, had he finally exposed his变态 tendencies?

Serves him right!

“That’s right! That person is a full-blown murderer! A warmonger! A sex fiend! A scumbag! A shameless lecher who used a face that’s only somewhat decent to seduce countless respectable women and keep over a hundred women on the hook at once—some of them even including the Empress of the Empire herself!!”

“He is—”

The little brat got more and more worked up as he spoke. By the end, he had completely forgotten the customer in front of him and simply flung the newspaper open, revealing the extremely conspicuous photograph of the “bad guy” on the page.

“Mu’en Campbell!”

“???”

Muen stared in complete bafflement and took a long moment to process it.

“Who?”

“Mu’en Campbell!”

Pointing at the handsome blond man in the photograph—captured from such a flattering angle that if you ignored the long string of earth-shattering titles under it, his looks alone would absolutely be enough to make a crowd of naive girls swoon—the little brat said indignantly,

“That bastard who’s good for absolutely nothing except his face!”

“...”

Hold it in.

He had to hold it in.

This was the enemy slandering him.

If he got angry now, he’d just be walking right into their trap.

After everything he had gone through, what kind of prejudice had he not already experienced?

Prosperity.

Democracy.

Equality.

Freedom.

Liya is extra-large.

Anna and An are large.

Celicia is medium.

Ariel... Ariel... Ariel is adorable-sized...

...

Muen took several deep breaths in a row and finally suppressed the anger in his chest. Only then did he put on a perfectly calm smile and pick up the newspaper.

It really was a detailed report about him. From his birth, to certain deeds that had already been exposed to the public, even including the gossip-worthy story about him stepping on an entire battleship formation.

To a certain extent, it was “nothing left out,” and it painted Mu’en Campbell perfectly as a useless playboy.

But after the incident with the Kingdom’s Seventeenth Prince’s death, that image had undergone a complete transformation.

From that point on, Mu’en Campbell was no longer just a playboy. He was also a villain who did every kind of evil, a brute, a schemer secretly brewing sinister plans, and, through beauty and seduction, someone trying to bewitch the Emperor of the Empire so he could seize control of the Empire and spread destruction and war across the entire continent—a supervillain.

In short, Mu’en Campbell was the true criminal behind this war. His crimes were supposedly even greater than those of the Empress of the Empire, and the Kingdom had launched this war on its own initiative partly to seek justice for its prince’s death, and partly—“to a great extent”—to crush this evil seed in the cradle.

In short, they were the army of justice, the powerful guarantors of peace across the continent. Their proactive deployment of ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ troops was reasonable, lawful, and perfectly justified, and the Kingdom’s people should enthusiastically express their support...

“Damn it.”

Muen cursed under his breath.

He’d been turned into a target.

How had that Seventeenth Prince died? Didn’t the Kingdom know better than anyone?

Of course the Kingdom knew. This had all been their plan to begin with.

It was just that while a dead prince could stir up public rage, he couldn’t become the target for the public to vent that rage on.

And as for that target... making the Emperor of the Empire the target was too undignified.

But if they just grabbed some random nobody, that person wouldn’t be important enough.

So after picking and choosing, who was more suitable than the duke’s son who had, in outsiders’ eyes, personally killed the Kingdom’s Seventeenth Prince, and who also happened to be the future husband of the Emperor of the Empire?

Wasn’t that just perfect?

Yeah, this blame was neither too big nor too small. It fit Young Master Campbell like it had been tailor-made for him... now hurry up and carry it!

“You mother—”

Muen pressed a hand to his forehead and let out a helpless, half-laughing lament. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

“My reputation was only just starting to recover!”

He had thought that now that Pink Bear was no longer sabotaging him from the shadows, his excellent qualities—devotion, sincerity, truth, goodness, and beauty included—might gradually become known to the public.

Who would have thought that compared to that bastard Pink Bear, the Kingdom would turn out to be his biggest anti-fan?

Just wait till I hit you all with a lawyer’s warning letter, you damned little slanderous bastards!