The Impostors Deceive

Zamago Forest, where the cries of eerie, mysterious monsters echo.

In front of the log bridge spanning the ravine at the forest's entrance, four men and women were staring into the woods.

“Hey, Patchino...... Are we really going......?”

A short man with a mean look in his eyes and messy hair called out to the man who was just about to set foot on the log bridge.

“Huh!? What are you scared of now, Modokin! Demon realm, my foot; with my skills, it's nothing to fear!”

Raising his voice like that, irritated at his companion's total cold feet, was the leader, Patchino.

By the look of him, he was in his mid-twenties.

He was a fairly strong magic swordsman, fairly tall, with a fairly well-built body, and a fairly handsome face.

His fairly beautiful blond hair shone fairly brightly in the pouring sunlight.

“Make up your mind, Modokin. Being careful's a good thing in a scout, I do think so, though.”

The one speaking in a voice rough from drink was Niese, the party's only woman.

She was dressed in the vestments of the Church of the Holy Goddess, but she was no longer a priest.

Because she had been excommunicated for misconduct.

Since she had some knowledge of magic and the skill to create simple potions, she filled the role of mage and apothecary within the party.

“......Uooh......”

And then there's the big man groaning in the back for some reason, I don't really get it, and that's Darmacy.

I don't really get it, but once a fight starts, he probably uses that gifted body of his to go wild, I'd think. I don't really get it, though.

Patchino, Modokin, Niese, and Darmacy.

They were a party of rank-7 adventurers, and their name was “Brown Dragon's Heel.”

They were a foursome with a fair amount of fighting power, and you could even say they were among the more capable adventurer parties.

They were first-rate adventurers, at least to the point that if they had taken requests and worked seriously, they could have saved up plenty for the future.

If they had worked seriously.

But they were not serious.

They lived for the moment, spent many days drinking from midday on, and didn't save a dime.

And their morals were low.

They wanted to have a good time and make things easy for themselves, even if it meant being a bit sneaky.

So they thought...... no, thinking it is fine in itself, but they were people with low enough morals to actually carry out what they thought.

What they did.

It was “hero fraud.”

◇ ◇ ◇

“Hero fraud.”

It is a criminal act that occurs almost without fail whenever the battle between a hero and the Demon Lord begins.

By convention, it is called “fraud,” but all sorts of criminal acts carried out while claiming to be a hero are considered hero fraud.

For example, the act of claiming ‘I am the hero’ and using the threat of force to shake down money and goods.

This could be called a typical case of hero fraud.

It is a despicable crime where victims often suffer in silence, thinking, ‘Since it is the hero's doing, I must endure it.’

Patchino and the rest of “Brown Dragon's Heel” were engaging in such hero fraud.

However, what they did was quite mild compared to the other hero fraudsters out there.

After all, for the most part they were simply working as ordinary adventurers.

Whenever they found a settlement troubled by monsters or thieves, they would help the people without going through the guild.

Then, after revealing that they were actually the hero's party, they would squeeze out more than the going rate, using the favor they had done and the hero's title.

This was what they did.

As mentioned above, Patchino had a fairly good face and a fairly smooth tongue.

Niese smelled of liquor up close, but from a distance she looked like a pure, priestly woman, and Darmacy looked like a dependable warrior.

Modokin was grubby, but he filled the slot of a hero having a companion like that, too.

The innocent villagers were completely deceived by them, and in the end, they would offer quite a lot of reward out of goodwill.

Praying, ‘Please, use this in the fight against the Demon Lord.’

In many villages, they received these illicit rewards without even being suspected of being fakes.

Such were the hero frauds they had been pulling, and when they noticed it was working better than expected, they gradually started getting carried away.

At first, they mainly chose naive rural villages as targets, but they gradually moved to larger villages along the highway, and then to even larger towns.

And their final target was the town of Nebo.

There, too, they defeated the mysterious river monster that had been troubling the town, lied about being heroes, and squeezed out money and goods.

Up to that point, everything was fine. Up to that point.

But here, they did something they didn't usually do.

The town of Nebo is famous for its rare Ahate River Shrimp.

Furthermore, because of its location right in the middle of the Saikanan Highway, plenty of delicious liquor is transported there from the west and east.

So, they decided to stay in the town of Nebo for a short while.

To eat and drink for free, using the hero's title to get rare shrimp and delicious liquor.

......That decision was a mistake.

They should have departed the town of Nebo immediately, as usual.

After all, while they lied about who they were and did as they pleased, to the town of Nebo...... came the real hero.

The red-haired boy, the real hero, denounced “Brown Dragon's Heel” in accordance with his own justice.

At first, “Brown Dragon's Heel” argued back, saying things like ‘Show us the evidence’ or ‘There's no way a brat like this is the hero,’ but the moment the boy hero let a little of the Divine Aura dwelling in him loose, they understood.

Ah, this is bad.

He's the real thing......, they realized.

After that, in desperation they demanded a duel and attacked the hero's party, but the gap in raw strength was there from the start, and “Brown Dragon's Heel” were thoroughly drunk besides; they never stood a chance against the real hero, were beaten black and blue, and ended up in the hands of the town guards of Nebo.

There, they were questioned about their other crimes, and every bit of hero fraud they had committed came to light.

While they weren't imprisoned for a long period, all the money they had deposited was confiscated as compensation for the victims, and they were forced to continue paying the remaining compensation through the Adventurers' Guild.

On top of that, the merchants staying in the town of Nebo spread their bad name to the surrounding towns and villages in no time, and wherever they went, people gave them cold looks.

Doing their best to avoid those looks, they fled east, ever east along the Saikanan Highway.

They needed money.

Even when they completed guild requests, a percentage of the pay was deducted as compensation for the victims.

Due to their bad reputation, they could no longer negotiate directly with clients as they once had.

They were completely destitute.

In the midst of this, clutching the money for liquor they had somehow managed to scrape together, they came to a seedy tavern, where they heard it.

A rumor about a dragon.

In the demon realm to the east, the Ranrananga Mountains, on the ridges of Mount Nanga at their westernmost end, lived green dragons.

That was why people stayed away from Zamago Forest at the foot of the mountain.

Because it was the green dragons' territory.

That's why it was never developed. Pokkeroce still names that land as the place of exile for its outdated sentence of banishment. A country ought to deal with a dragon or two. Foolish. Pathetic......

The horribly drunk merchant, the source of the rumor, was rambling on like that, but the second half of his grumbling went right past the ears of “Brown Dragon's Heel.”

What mattered to them was the fact that there were green dragons on Mount Nanga.

Dragons were a treasure trove of materials.

If they could hunt one, they'd be rich overnight.

They had to hunt one.

In a drunken haze, they decided on their course of action.

They were so cornered that they were unable to calmly consider whether they could actually do it.

We can do it.

Because we're heroes, after all......

No longer able to fool others, at last they began to fool themselves.

It is true that Zamago Forest was (past tense) the green dragons' territory.

That is why people stayed away from it, and because of that, the monsters kept multiplying.

But because of the ravine, it seems the monsters never overflowed out of the forest.

By the way, as for how many green dragons were on Mount Nanga, the Adventurers' Guild didn't have an accurate grasp.

It seems they thought there were a few at most.

Green dragons are hot-blooded, and fights break out before their numbers grow very large, so the flock usually splits.

In reality, they had gained a leader in Samezan and grown into quite a large flock, but if the Adventurers' Guild had grasped that fact, even Earthcell would not have been sent to Zamago Forest.