Editing Skill Tree Goddess:Volume1 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 6===

Gilbezos Override and Brave Liar faced each other.

Finally.

He had finally made it this far.

“An ambush? No, did you guide me here?”

“The National Survival War.”

“…”

“You fought in the war when the Demon Lord’s aide was killed, right? I saw that in the blackmail material collected by that nasty priest. And everyone who fought in that war was plagued by doubt and fear. They had seen how the monsters experienced the same emotions we do, so they wondered if those monsters really were villains deserving of death. …If that mood permeated the entire battlefield, then you must have wondered the same thing.”

The collared jelly girl by his side was an odd thing. If he truly detested monsters, he wouldn’t keep one around even as a slave. The fact that he kept her by his side at all times was a sign of how important she was to him.

So it was the opposite.

“It’s wrong to call you the Hero who turned on humanity,” declared the short boy. “It’s better to say you’re the Hero who ''grew to understand the monsters too well and could no longer fight them''. That’s who Brave Liar is.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because you cheated and took the easy way out when it came to that jelly girl too,” said the goddess.

“I know your violence toward her doesn’t come from hate.”

The air strained with danger.

“She has an unusual disposition. She’s happiest when some scumbag is hitting her and she grows emotionally unstable when she goes too long without that sort of treatment. Maybe you don’t actually want to do it, but sometimes you have no choice but to give her a ''tranquilizer''.”

When he thought about it, the thick collar around the jelly girl’s neck didn’t really make sense. As a jelly monster whose slime body could change form at will, that did nothing to bind her. That meant the slime girl was wearing the collar by choice.

And while she called him “master”…could it have a different meaning here?



''“He has done nothing wrong. In fact, I asked him to do it. Because I have trouble feeling needed if I’m not being harmed.”



That hidden room in the temple hadn’t had any record of Brave Liar himself. Perhaps he wasn’t the kind of person who felt the need for confession.

However, that didn’t mean there hadn’t been anything at all about him.

A great many people had fought in the National Survival War, so a lot would have seen Brave Liar up close at the time.

…And confession wasn’t just for talking about yourself. Hiding something you unintentionally saw also counted as a sin, so the acts of other people would also be confessed at the temple.

“Ultimately, you really were a Hero to the end.”

He had simply changed which side he was protecting and which side he was directing his sword at. He was wielding his weapon and ultimate skills to protect the weak, not for personal gain.

The traitorous Hero, Brave Liar, fought to protect the monsters who could only tremble in fear as they were attacked without question.

“The National Survival War, huh?” said Brave Liar. “Cut that Hero crap. You say there was doubt and fear among the humans there? Don’t make me laugh. They may have said all that, but they just went on killing. That was a war of goddamn murderers who refused to stop killing. Maybe this is like visiting their graves… This time it reminded me of old times and I reacted too strongly.”

“I see. So you played a part in history. Then did you see these ruins when they were still intact?”

“This castle was ruled by the Succubus Queen – Empusa Venolia of the Three Aides. Her Sexy Panties Succubus Ninja Arts was one hell of a dangerous special attack that hits your entire party with eight to ten status effects at once.”

…Um, was the veteran Hero really saying this right now?

Although his tone of voice suggested he was thinking about an old friend, not a hated enemy.

“Anyway, knowing why you do what you do meant I could predict where you would be. Or let me provide some bait I knew you would go for. I mean, this corrupt priest tore apart the bonds between an SS-rank dragon and the human Saint so he could profit. You wanted his life so badly, didn’t you?”

“You mean you knew?”

“Yeah, and I used him as bait. I rolled the priest up, stuffed him in a bag, and carried him down to the surface.”

Gilbezos answered with no hesitation or guilt.

He knew how dangerous his situation was. He was in a similar position.

He had abandoned guild jobs more than once. He had helped the high elves escape and he had restored the bonds between dragon mother and Saint daughter. Now that he had done it himself, he knew helping out nonhumans wasn’t all that difficult. So that wasn’t where the line between good and evil lay.

“But that priest aside…”

“Right. Brave Liar, protector of monsters, had no reason to attack that king.”

“This entire huge kingdom feasts on monsters. Whether they call it defense, hunting, materials collection, skill farming, or level grinding, the kingdom’s economy is built on it. And that piece of shit is the architect of it all! He was the one collecting all the money!!!”

So that was it.

…That selfless king had sold his castle piece by piece to feed the hungry he had never met and hidden what he was doing instead of boasting, so it seemed unlikely he would approve of anything as foolish and evil as enslaving high elves and setting up an isolated girl as a Saint to profit off of her life. But Brave Liar only saw him as the very center of the great contraption taking so many lives.

The Hero was a special job meant to defeat the Demon Lord to bring peace to the world.

Killing the guy at the top would change everything.

That was the basic idea. So if the Hero drew a line between human and monster and switched which side he considered good and evil, it was obvious who Brave Liar would choose as his first target.

He had defeated who he saw as the Demon Lord. And had it changed the world?

“Surely you understand,” asked Brave Liar.

“Understand what?”

“That goddess there. If she’s the real deal, then you too are guarded by a nonhuman being. I approve. You make use of what you can and repay them by opening your heart to them. Trust is born from little things like that. You don’t waste time on worrying who’s human, who’s a monster, or who’s a goddess. And am I supposed to sit idly by while some shitheads call it ‘cheating’ or ‘unfair’ and try to take it all away?”

“You have a point. I don’t like the idea of a future where all the high elves are enslaved and I’d prefer it if the mommy dragon and the Saint could keep their happy smiles forever.”

“In that case, we’ve got nothing to fight about. You’re already on my side.”

Gilbezos Overridge sighed.

And he spoke.



“Not so fast. Get away from me, you creepy justice freak.”



The air froze.

That was fine. Gilbezos refused to hang his head in silence with this guy.

…''This is how you’re supposed to use your rights, goddess.

“It’s true I saved the high elves. And I fought alongside the mommy dragon. But I never said that had somehow convinced me it’s okay to slaughter humans you don’t like en masse. We took different paths to reach this point. You were playing easy mode where you could just swing your weapon around and kill whoever you liked. I was playing on ultra hard mode where you have to settle it without killing anyone, not even your enemy. Those two difficulty levels are nothing alike. All you did was rush toward the ending. You made tons of mistakes and lost so many points. Your score was pathetically low and you didn’t even follow any personal rules in your playthrough, so don’t you dare act like we’re the same.”

“Damn you…”

“I’m not just saying this. I really haven’t killed this priest no matter how much he pisses me off. My way couldn’t be more different from your way with all its careless mistakes.”

This had nothing to do with skills.

His LAW, level, job, and other practical stats were unchanged.

But this was undeniably a strength Gilbezos had and Brave Liar did not.

“You listen to the nonhuman? You’ve poured all of your strength into protecting them? Get off your high horse, Brave Liar. All you’ve done is make the monsters’ situation worse. By choosing to kill, you’ve settled on the absurd conclusion that ''the only way to ensure peace for the monsters is to take humans lives''!! Can’t you see that you’ve become more violent than the monsters!!?”

“Nonsense. You’re not even worth laughing at. What, you’re mad I’ve decided to think for myself? When did a single human ever even try to listen to what we had to say!? You think I should hold peaceful talks, decide on new rules, and arrive at a compromise that brings about a new understanding between us? I’m sick of hearing that. Don’t act like you have any idea what’s ''really, truly'' happened, you damn brat!!!”

This was never going to end with them getting along.

It had all been set up so they could settle things once and for all.

…''No shirking responsibility, Brave Liar. I’m not going to forget you killed the king.

Gilbezos Overridge briefly pictured the deceased king in his mind.

Then he forcefully drew the sword at his hip.

It was time to keep his promise.