Chapter 45 – The Scumbag’s Second Act

【Siegfried PoV】

The stone door ground shut, sealing my fate.

I was alone. The cavern was silent, the only light a faint, green glow from the weird fungus on the ceiling. The air tasted of dust and my own, monumental stupidity. I had saved him. I, Siegfried, the master manipulator, the king of the long con, had just performed an act of genuine, selfless heroism. It was the most humiliating moment of my entire life.

My legs gave out from under me.

I collapsed against the cold stone wall, the impact jarring my already throbbing shoulder. The dire wolf’s teeth had torn straight through the plate armor. The pain was a dull, stupid reminder that the fight had been real. Everything that just happened was real. My mind replayed the last few seconds before the portal. His look of pure, selfish rage. The fury in his eyes when I stole his moment of sacrifice.

He wasn’t trying to be a hero.

He was trying to get rid of me. He was trying to be left alone in this dungeon to do… something. Something that required solitude. And I, in a fit of misguided nobility, had ruined it. He wasn’t testing me. He was using me. And I had just played my part perfectly, right down to the dramatic, self-sacrificing exit.

I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to physically push back the wave of cringe that threatened to consume me.

What had I said?

“I will not fail you again, Ryuuji! I will prove myself worthy of being your rival!”

I actually said that. Out loud. To a monster who probably saw me as a mildly interesting piece of furniture. The shame was a physical force. It felt like my own gilded armor was collapsing inward, crushing me. I was a fool. A complete and total fool who had fundamentally misunderstood the game.

My life was a lie built on a foundation of perfect smiles.

I pushed myself to my feet and began to pace the small cavern. My footsteps echoed, each one a dull thud in the oppressive silence. The silence was a mirror. It gave me nothing to look at but myself. All the ugly, rotten parts I had spent years covering up with polished steel and false humility.

I remembered my first “heroic” deed.

It was a staged griffin attack on a merchant caravan near the capital. I had paid the beastmaster myself, a hefty sum in advance. The griffin played its part perfectly, swooping down, looking menacing, and then fleeing the moment I drew my “blessed” sword. The rewards from the merchant guild were ten times what I had spent. But the real prize was the adoration. The cheers of the crowd. The whispers of my name. It was a drug, and I became an addict overnight.

It was the best investment I had ever made.

From there, the lies just got easier. I tricked the Archbishop of Eldoria with a sob story about a fictional sick sister to get my sword blessed for real. I took credit for defeating a bandit clan that had already been wiped out by a sudden plague. I even pushed another adventurer, a rival who was getting a little too popular, into a pit trap during a “friendly” competition. He had a wife and two kids. I never bothered to check if he survived.

I just collected the prize money and moved on to the next town.

I wasn’t just a fraud. I was a scumbag. A genuine, grade-A villain hiding in plain sight. I had built a career on the suffering and gullibility of others. I had mastered the game of heroism without ever possessing a single heroic quality. My soul was a toxic waste dump of greed and vanity.

And Ryuuji… that kid saw it.

He saw it from the very first second he laid eyes on me. His “bad feeling” wasn’t a guess. It wasn’t anxiety. It was a diagnosis. He looked at my perfect, polished exterior and saw the rot underneath. He saw the years of lies, the selfishness, the hollow core of my entire existence.

He saw me for what I truly was.

He wasn’t a monster because he was powerful.

I stopped pacing and stared at the sealed stone door. It was my tomb. It was the physical manifestation of the wall I had built around myself my entire life. That kid, Ryuuji, had walked right through it without even trying. I replayed every interaction, every “accident,” every pathetic whimper. The scream that was a sonic stun. The rock that was a precision-guided missile. The clumsy stumble into the teleportation trap.

It was all a lie. A flawless performance designed to make me underestimate him.

But why? Why go to all that trouble? He wasn’t trying to kill me. If he wanted me dead, I would be a pile of dust right now. He wasn’t trying to expose me. He had plenty of chances to do that in town. He was… teaching me.

He was showing me what a real hero was.

Not through grand speeches or noble proclamations. He was doing it through quiet, terrifyingly competent action. He showed me a power so immense it had to be hidden, a mind so sharp it had to be disguised as foolishness. He had the power of a god but pretended to be weak. I had the strength of a man but pretended to be a hero. He hid his power to lift others up. I faked my heroism to push others down.

The shame was a physical weight, heavier than my armor ever was. It settled deep in my bones.

Why would he bother?

Why would a being of his caliber waste his time on a worthless, greedy fraud like me? What was his endgame? I remembered what I’d said to him in the jail. “Your stupid, smiling face. Your fake humility. You’re a fraud.” He wasn’t the fraud. I was. And he had just spent the last week holding up a mirror and forcing me to see it. He saw the darkness inside me, and he was trying to drag it into the light.

A low growl echoed from the dark tunnel leading out of the cavern.

A pair of glowing red eyes materialized in the darkness. Then another pair. And another. The dungeon wasn’t done with me yet. It was sending its janitors to clean up the trash.

I stood up straight, my back aching, my shoulder on fire.

I picked up my sword. The familiar weight of the leather-wrapped hilt felt different now. It wasn’t a prop anymore. It wasn’t a tool for generating fame and fortune. It was a responsibility. A heavy, terrifying responsibility.

I’m probably going to die here.

Alone. Forgotten. A pathetic footnote in someone else’s epic story. The fate I deserved. But if I don’t. If by some miracle, I get out of this dungeon alive… I’m done playing games. I’m done with the lies. That kid, Ryuuji, is trying to save this world. He’s doing it while dragging a party of well-meaning idiots and a psycho-fangirl behind him.

He needs help.

He needs a real hero at his side. Not a fake one. He needs someone who understands the darkness, someone who has lived in it. Someone who can see the snakes in the grass because he used to be one of them.

“Alright, Ryuuji. You wanted a rival.”

I raised my sword, the faint green light of the cavern glinting off the polished steel. The pack of red-eyed creatures began to charge, their claws scraping against the stone floor.

“You got one.”

For the first time in my life, I ran toward the danger not for glory, but because it was the right thing to do.