Became the Patron of Villains Chapter 320 : Ryanga (2)

After receiving awkward commendations such as, ‘We never doubted you! You’re the savior of our village!’ Alon proceeded toward the southern gates, where the dense Ronovelli jungle began.

Upon his arrival, the explorers stationed there immediately began showering him with praise.

A local guide even stepped forward, offering to escort him to the main expedition camp without charging a single coin.

It was at this moment that a faint realization began to dawn on him regarding the source of this sudden popularity.

“You are truly magnificent, Marquis. I am simply in awe of how you organized those mercenaries and knights to purge the shadows looming over the Allied Kingdom.”

“...Is that what people are saying?”

“Indeed! Thanks to your efforts, Marquis, our daily lives have become much easier!”

“I’m glad to hear that...”

Alon offered a strained chuckle as he replied to the genuinely starstruck explorer.

Evan, who was walking alongside him, lowered his voice to speak.

“Is that... actually the truth?”

“Is it really necessary for me to answer that?”

“Well, I figured I should ask, just to be certain.”

“You were the one responsible for sending out the official notice...”

“Oh.”

A soft realization escaped Evan’s lips.

Penia, following closely behind, kept her brow furrowed in concentration as she pieced the puzzle together before finally speaking up.

“So the situation is like this, isn't it? The Marquis issued an official notice purely to recruit subjects without much forethought, but the public interpreted it in their own way, and it snowballed into this massive misunderstanding?”

“Precisely.”

“...Are you serious?”

“There isn't a single error in your assessment.”

“And it resulted in all of this?”

“I have no idea how such a rumor managed to spread in the first place...”

As Alon muttered to himself in disbelief, Penia cast a side-glance at their guide.

Despite working for no pay, the explorer wore a beaming smile, appearing genuinely thrilled just to be of service to Marquis Palatio.

She wondered for a brief second if it was actually possible for someone to be this delighted while working for free.

“Well, isn’t this ultimately a positive outcome? Even if the details are distorted, a favorable reputation is better than a notorious one, isn't it?”

Alon nodded in agreement with her logic.

She was right, of course.

A hero’s reputation wouldn't damage his standing.

However—

“The Allied Kingdom still has a future with someone like the Marquis looking out for us. Hahahaha!”

He felt a sharp prick of guilt.

His conscience was starting to ache.

Despite his internal conflict—

He had no intention of revealing the mundane truth to the explorer who was chatting away so happily.

He had already endured the applause and cheers back in Caselot; if he confessed now, the shift from adoration to the cold realization of a mistake was an experience he wished to avoid.

Consequently, Alon chose silence over correction.

Because of that choice, they reached the explorer camp by late evening without any issues.

And then—

“Marquis Palatio has arrived!”

“What brings the Marquis to this place?”

“No way—!”

Even at the camp, the cries of ‘Village Hero!’ followed him, making it impossible for Alon to hold his head up high.

The following day, a peculiar thought occupied Alon’s mind.

He took a deep breath of the stiflingly humid air.

Blackie shook himself vigorously, clearly annoyed by the moisture clinging to his coat.

In contrast, Basiliora seemed revitalized, looking around with a relaxed expression as if he were enjoying being back in his native environment.

“Marquis.”

“What is it?”

“Now that we’ve traveled this far, I just realized... did we overlook something?”

“Overlook something?”

“Yes.”

“And what might that be?”

“Blue Ghost. Weren't we supposed to bring him along?”

“Oh.”

A soft gasp escaped Alon as the memory of the person he had entirely forgotten surfaced.

“He completely slipped my mind.”

“Well, he seemed quite content when we last saw him, so perhaps it’s for the best.”

“That's true.”

Alon recalled the look of pure bliss on Blue Ghost’s face during their last encounter.

Penia, who had been listening in silence, suddenly interjected.

“If we don't have Blue Ghost, how are we supposed to locate Ryanga?”

“Huh, she has a point.”

Evan was quick to agree.

But Alon—

“Don't let that trouble you.”

—responded with total indifference.

Although his recollection was slightly hazy, he still knew the location of the Queen of the Hundred Ghosts.

With that confidence—

“Let’s move out. It’s a long journey, so we need to increase our pace.”

They finished their preparations immediately.

Then, they set off toward the heart of the forest where Ryanga was waiting.

***

In his rush through the woods, Alon had failed to consider two vital details.

The first was that the residence of Ryanga—the Queen of the Hundred Ghosts—was much further away than he anticipated.

However, that was a minor inconvenience.

Since he knew the destination, they would arrive eventually as long as they stayed on course.

The second detail presented the actual challenge.

It concerned the specific path Alon needed to take to reach Ryanga…

The forest was crawling with an immense number of mutants.

Naturally, at his current level, mutants were no longer a significant threat to Alon.

He possessed more than enough power to wipe out most swarms with ease.

The issue, however, was one of stamina.

Alon could defeat the mutants, certainly.

Even if they attacked in massive waves, he could annihilate them as long as he didn't alert every creature in the vicinity.

The problem was that he couldn't maintain that level of output indefinitely.

And this forest was teeming with them.

To put it in gaming terms, a mutant encounter triggered every five steps.

This led Alon to briefly regret not offering a "tribute" as required by the game system when he met the first mutant in the woods.

That was until a shadowy figure suddenly leaped out and crushed the skull of the mutant charging at him.

A girl sporting a long white ponytail and a goblin mask obliterated the creature before vanishing instantly.

A few minutes later—

When the next mutant appeared, the girl returned, smashed its head, and disappeared once more.

This pattern repeated half a dozen times.

Alon, of course, was well aware of his mysterious protector’s identity.

“...Marquis.”

“What?”

“That was Ryanga, wasn't it?”

“It appears so.”

“You mean the girl who helped you once before?”

“Yeah.”

Penia had also easily deduced that it was Ryanga.

It would have been more surprising if she hadn't noticed.

This wasn't some fictional world where logic didn't apply.

It was impossible not to recognize someone just because they threw on a basic mask that lacked any magical concealment.

So—

After she struck down yet another mutant—

“Ryanga.”

Alon called out her name just as she prepared to vanish again.

“H-hyaggh—”

Ryanga let out a bizarre yelp.

As if she never dreamed she would be caught, her body went rigid, which gave Alon a very strange sensation.

“...I-I’m not Ryanga, you know?”

Hearing her deny it without even attempting to change her voice, the entire group shared the same thought.

Nevertheless, she seemed committed to her charade.

“Ahem, ahem. If you keep going through this forest toward that hill over there, you might just run into someone with lovely white hair~?”

She spoke with blatant lack of shame before disappearing again.

“What was that supposed to be...?”

“We should probably just go along with it.”

Following Penia’s advice, Alon nodded and continued his trek.

***

Marti.

He was currently serving as a soldier within the Divine Land established by Marquis Palatio.

In reality, however, he was an operative from Caliban’s intelligence wing, tasked with spying on the Marquis after reports surfaced about the formation of the Divine Land.

He wasn't performing any sabotage.

His mission was strictly intelligence gathering.

Simply infiltrating the Marquis’s Divine Land was considered a mission of the highest risk.

The reason his superiors had risked planting him there was—

The possibility that Marquis Palatio was planning something monumental.

The Marquis certainly possessed the capability to do so.

Thus, Marti operated with extreme discretion.

Initially, Marti wondered if his superiors had been overly paranoid.

While the training sessions led by Deus were intense—

Beyond that, nothing particularly suspicious had occurred.

It was true that the knights, once carefree, began wearing grim expressions after private consultations with Deus—

But that was the extent of it.

Even when the Marquis assembled a force under the guise of welcoming new subjects, Marti didn't think much of it.

The knights and mercenaries had arrived because of twisted rumors—

And they soon discovered the Marquis hadn't actually made any such claims.

But everything changed when Karla—the saint serving the Marquis—arrived at the Divine Land.

Marti began to sense an underlying shift.

The soldiers who had gathered by mistake and should have left were instead beginning to put down roots, largely due to the saint’s influence.

With that, the Divine Land began to truly expand.

That wasn't all.

The public was already buzzing with these warped, positive rumors.

When the Divine Land’s forces neutralized the local bandit groups—

The Marquis’s name was praised in every corner of the land.

Marti began to suspect that this entire sequence of events had been carefully staged.

Rumors almost never spread with such consistent positivity naturally.

Even when someone does something noble, gossip usually finds a way to tarnish the truth.

But this situation?

It felt as though a hidden hand was meticulously steering the narrative across the Allied Kingdom.

And if someone was indeed pulling the strings—

It could only be Marquis Palatio.

Marti found the motive baffling.

The Marquis already possessed wealth and power.

Public adoration is nice, but why spend a fortune to manufacture it?

It didn't make sense.

He was still just a Marquis of the Asteria Kingdom.

Popular support in a foreign land should have been useless to him.

As Marti searched for the Marquis’s true goal—

A terrifying hypothesis began to take root in his mind.

A truly chilling theory.

But once he considered it, every one of the Marquis’s actions fell into place.

Why he built this massive Divine Land and raised an army.

Why he used false rumors to draw them in.

Why he used the saint to bind them to him.

Why he invested so much in controlling public perception.

“Marquis Palatio intends to ascend to godhood himself…!”

He reached a conclusion he was certain was the truth, and a cold shiver ran down his spine.

He had always known the Marquis was suspicious, but he never imagined the man’s ambition was this boundless.

Marti clutched his communication orb, waiting for the cover of night to transmit the “truth” he had discovered.

At that very moment—

“Why have my ears been itching so much lately?”

“Perhaps someone is speaking ill of you, Marquis?”

“I don't think I’ve lived a life that warrants that much spite, though.”

Alon grumbled as he rubbed his ear, continuing his walk through the deep forest.