In a grand, luxurious manor, more than a dozen nobles invited by its owner gathered in the hall, curiously examining the treasure their host was showing off.
"Look, this is the Magic Automaton I recently acquired. It can clean and maintain the manor without sleeping or eating. All it needs is a recharge of magical energy, and it even understands my commands. There's never been a magical creation like this before. Well? Impressive, isn't it?" The manor's owner picked up the teacup of water the Magic Automaton offered him and introduced it with a smug expression.
A fat noble stroked his chin and exclaimed in amazement, "Oh! I never imagined such a marvelous magical creation existed. If the price is reasonable, I'd like to buy one too. The servants at home are so clumsy that they're a nuisance no matter how I look at them."
Several other nobles pinched the automaton's skin hard. Some even tried to remove its limbs and head to see what was unusual about it.
Seeing these bastards trying to damage his automaton, the manor's owner cried out in fury. He rushed over and shoved away the scoundrels still tugging at its limbs. "Hey, hey, hey! You lot, stop that right now! This treasure cost me three hundred gold coins. If you break it, you're buying me a new automaton!"
"Three hundred gold coins? For a magical automaton that only cleans? You really spared no expense!" A noble immediately clicked his tongue in wonder, looking at the manor's owner as though he were a spendthrift.
In the Kingdom of Melromarc, three hundred gold coins could cover an ordinary person's food and lodging for a lifetime. Even for a noble, it was a considerable fortune, enough to hire more than a dozen servants and stewards.
"Surely this isn't the only one. Where did you get it?"
"I bought it through connections in the Capital. Apparently, a mage serving as one of the Fifth Hero's companions created it, and they're being sold throughout the country. These things alone earn him hundreds of thousands of gold coins every month. Such staggering profits really make you envious." At this point, the manor's owner sighed with feeling.
"Hundreds of thousands of gold coins-"
"In just one month!!!"
Wealth had always stirred people's hearts. Several nobles immediately exclaimed, their faces filled with greed and shock. They had never imagined that this seemingly insignificant magical creation could generate such an enormous fortune. It was truly astonishing-and enough to make anyone jealous.
Hundreds of thousands of gold coins a month! That was almost half my entire fortune. If I could seize the blueprints for this Magic Automaton, wouldn't that vast wealth be mine...?
Some of those present began entertaining schemes. If they could obtain the Magic Automaton's blueprints or lure its creator into their service, wouldn't money come pouring in?
Yet the illustrious reputation of the Fifth Hero, Ye Uchiha, kept them from acting. The consequences of offending him would be unimaginably severe.
"If we could steal the blueprints from the Fifth Hero..." someone murmured, voicing the thought everyone dared entertain but not act upon. Every face in the room changed, and they stared at the man who had made that outrageous suggestion as though he were mad.
"Are you insane? He's someone who dares defy even His Majesty the King! Besides, he was the main force behind putting down this latest 'Waves of Calamity.' Who knows how powerful he is now? If we anger him, he'll bring disaster down on us!"
Heroes? Put plainly, they were chosen by destiny. An abyss that mortals could never cross was no more than a shallow puddle to them. Even after advancing through the Dragon Hourglass, ordinary people could only reach level 100. No matter how hard they worked, they could never break that limit and surpass themselves.
Heroes were different. Through certain specific methods, they could easily overcome limits that mortals could never cross. Their power and rate of growth were unimaginable, allowing them to surpass seasoned veterans in a short time, with virtually no bottlenecks or restrictions.
The man was not annoyed in the slightest. He said leisurely, "As long as we aren't discovered-and we won't be doing it ourselves-who could know we were behind it?"
"You mean..." Faced with such enormous wealth, everyone present, including the manor's owner, felt their hearts race. They pricked up their ears to hear what he would say next.
The man gave a mysterious smile. "There should be quite a few bandit groups near Lute Village, shouldn't there? If bandits attacked Lute Village and left nothing but ruins after burning, killing, and looting, who could guess who had done it?"
"You want to... frame them?" Someone immediately caught on, but then frowned and asked, "But I heard the Fifth Hero is the lord of Lute Village. Even the knights serving us might not be a match for him. After all, he practically ended the Waves single-handedly."
"I've been making inquiries over the past few days. The Fifth Hero is currently handling business in the Capital, not in Lute Village. This is our chance. If we seize this opportunity and find a way to get the blueprints or capture the mage who created the automatons, all the profits from those automatons will be ours!"
Although the idea sounded good, someone still raised an objection. "That's all well and good, but the risk is too great. Even if we learn how to manufacture these Magic Automatons, won't putting them on the market expose us as the culprits?"
"Does he have any evidence? We paid a mysterious merchant a fortune for those automaton blueprints. As long as we keep our mouths shut, who could know?"
After all, the Kingdom of Melromarc required solid evidence. Without actual proof, who would believe him?
Furthermore, if he wanted to attack them within the Kingdom of Melromarc, he would face the combined retaliation of every faction in the kingdom. Even a hero would have to back down!
"This plan is worth a try. Let's arrange who will disguise themselves as bandits and prepare to strike tonight. The sooner, the better. As long as we leave nothing they can use against us, even the Fifth Hero can't do anything to us..."
Someone immediately worked out how to carry out the plan. At this point, sinister, greedy smiles appeared on the nobles' faces, as though they could already see heaps of winged gold coins flying toward them.
Meanwhile, the noble who had first proposed the idea deliberately stood at the back to make himself less conspicuous. A barely perceptible sneer appeared on his face as his cold gaze swept over everyone present. Hidden beneath his robes, his hand tightly gripped a silver emblem composed of a spear, a sword, and a bow.
That false hero who was so close to the Shield Demon had actually had the gall to become a territorial lord. An evil heretic, utterly unforgivable...
Let these parasites of the kingdom probe that heretical hero's true strength, in the name of God!
Before you continue