“Is it dangerous?” Chastille was left with an uneasy expression upon seeing Zagan’s reaction.
“Well, yes, but also no. Hm, how do I put it...”
Zagan wanted her to just figure it out, but it was unreasonable to demand an Angelic Knight figure out things that were common sense in the world of sorcery.
“I think it’s better if you don’t know, honestly.”
“I want to know more about sorcerers... Is that so bad?” Chastille, who showed no signs of figuring it out, looked at him with an expectant gaze. It seemed there was no backing out of telling her. And so, Zagan let out a sigh and answered her reluctantly.
“Well, things like kissing... or sexual intercourse... or the like...”
Precisely because it was so primitive, it was a simple method. There was sorcery that could forcefully suck away the mana of those who stepped within one’s domain, but it wasn’t something just anybody could do. And having finally caught on to what he was saying, Chastille blinked back at him in a daze, as her expectant expression turned bright red.
“S-S-S-S-S-S-Sorry! I shouldn’t have asked!”
“...It’s fine, I don’t really mind or anything,” Zagan said as he awkwardly averted his gaze. Seeing that he’d created a strange atmosphere, he hurried to change the subject.
“Anyway, even if you’re in the Unification Faction, is it really alright for Angelic Knights to so openly aid a sorcerer?”
The people of this church were obviously wary of Zagan.
Well, I guess it’s because I look kind of evil, huh...? Zagan was aware of that fact, so he wasn’t going to start complaining about it.
“Even I won’t hesitate to kill a sorcerer who assaults the people. The Unification Faction and Anti-Unification Faction aren’t split along those lines. Our difference is more about considering what’s in a person’s heart,” Chastille replied as she once more stared back in wonder, then shook her head with a strained smile.
“Meaning?”
“It’s hard to put it in words, but I think it’s basically having or not having faith in the possibility of a person being good at heart.”
“Hmm, that’s quite philosophical.”
“Not really,” Chastille said as she combed back her bangs with calm mannerisms, then continued, “To me, whether or not someone is a sorcerer, I believe people have the chance to change. Faults are not something to be punished, but something one should work to redeem. Many sorcerers may stain their hands with sin, but as long as they repent, I believe it is possible to reconcile and cooperate with them.”
“It’s not like I don’t understand what you’re saying, but don’t you think it’s impossible?”
“It’s true that it’ll be difficult when the status quo is Angelic Knights mercilessly branding sorcerers as their mortal enemies, but unification should be possible if we figure out exactly how much each of us can concede.”
“I see. In short, you mean to segregate one from the other. However, even if you do that, idiots who’ll cross the boundary will exist on both sides, you know?”
“You’re right, but isn’t that the same as saying crime will never go away? As long as we both decide on the rules and clearly delineate who passes down judgment, it should be something we can deal with. At the very least, the church has never made an effort to do so in the past. In that case, I do believe there is value in giving it a try.”
Her response left Zagan astonished.
That damn Raphael. He sure has an eye for people, doesn’t he? Chastille’s statement just now wasn’t just a tall claim. She properly accepted the current status quo, presented a possibility to reform it, and figured out a means to implement it. There likely wasn’t another person within the church who was a more ideal symbol of unification.
“That’s why I’ll save a sorcerer if they need to be saved, and I’ll stop one that violates our laws. That’s how I’m thinking about acting, but... do I come off weird?”
She got timid right at the end, but that was, in fact, really just like her. And so, Zagan shot a strained a smile back at her.
“Who knows? Still, if you weren’t like that, then we wouldn’t be having a conversation here, would we? Just let those guys say whatever they want about whether or not it’s correct.”
“You never let others influence you, huh? I’m honestly envious of that part of you,” Chastille said. She managed to calm down quite a bit while they were talking, and was now smiling naturally.
It should be fine to cut to the chase now, right? Zagan looked up at the clock as if concerned about the time, and then pulled out a piece of paper from his breast pocket.
“We’ve gone off topic a bit here. I know you’re busy, but there’s something I’d like to ask of you.”
“A request for me? How rare.”
“Have you seen this before? It was written in one of the diaries from the hidden elven village,” Zagan said as he showed Chastille the crests for the Thirteenth. And in response, after staring at it for a while, Chastille shook her head.
“It looks a lot like the crests on Sacred Swords, but I don’t recall seeing anything identical to that.”
“I bet you haven’t. This is a design that shouldn’t exist among the twelve Sacred Swords.”
“That is to say, there are other Sacred Swords?” Chastille grasped the meaning of those words, and her expression stiffened up as she replied to him. Figuring it out just from what he said showed that she was currently in work mode.
“Maybe. That’s why I want you to dig around within the church to find out the truth.”
“I wonder if that will be possible... It’s not like I have a full grasp of the church, either. I think it’ll be hard even if I rely on my comrades,” Chastille said, unable to immediately accept his request. By comrades, she likely meant the other members of the Unification Faction.
“Would Raphael not be more knowledgeable of such matters?”
“About that... According to him, it might be a part of the dark side of the church or something.”
“By dark side... you mean those rumors about an agency within the church that assassinates people?” Chastille blinked in disbelief as if doubting her ears when she said that. Her response made it clear that Chastille had at least heard of it.
“Seems so. He was also looking into that dark side or whatever. While he was still alive, I mean,” Zagan added. Even if it was Chastille’s office, there was no way of knowing if there was anyone listening in on them. That was why Zagan emphasized Raphael’s current state as seen by the public eye.
“Was Lord Clavwell... working with them?” Chastille asked as she bitterly bit down on her lip.
“I’m honestly not sure. Raphael didn’t seem to have evidence, but that man supposedly assassinated multiple generations of Archangels. There’s a pretty high probability that he was involved with them.”
Poison that could even kill an Archangel clad in Anointed Armor was not something easily obtained, even if one were a cardinal. Chastille looked troubled about this for a moment, but immediately nodded.
“Got it. I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll look through Clavwell’s records.”
“I’ll leave it to you... But, well, there’s the chimera out there too. Keep it within reason.”
“Okay... Wait, huh?” Chastille cocked her head to the side after nodding at his words.
“Um, are you... looking out for me?”
“Why even ask? Didn’t I stick a ‘babysitter’ to you because I would be troubled if you died?”
“No, not that... Um, when you were talking about the chimera just now...”
Thinking back on it, Zagan felt like his normal self would have just cut straight to the chase.
Well, it’d also be a pain if she let things slip because she’s too shaken up... Blabbing on and on about the dark side and such things would be like asking to be assassinated.
“Thank you. I’ll look into that crests as much as I can,” Chastille said,
finally looking relieved. And, after saying that, she suddenly noticed something.
“Ah, hold on, do you know how this is pronounced? The names of Sacred Swords are written in Celestian, right?”
“Oops, I almost forgot,” Zagan said as he inadvertently clasped his hands together before continuing with, “Azazel. That seems to be the name of the Thirteenth.”
That name had an oddly ominous ring to it, considering it was the name of a Sacred Sword.
◇
“Haaah... Haaah... Fuck, what shitty luck!”
“Ain’t it the opposite? We’re goddamn lucky he let us go. Normally, we’d just be fucking dead.”
“We lost our first good prize in a while, though...”
After distancing themselves from the shopping district, the slave trader canus were cursing and swearing at each other in the suburbs of Kianoides. It was already dark out, and spurred on by the fear of whether the dreadful Archdemon known as Zagan was chasing them or not, they had been running about the entire time.
However, after doing that for a few hours, they were out of stamina. Once they stopped moving their feet, their lips loosened up, and next they began the unsightly act of trying to shirk responsibility for what happened onto each other.
“That’s why I said we shoulda sold them yesterday!”
“You say that now, but you didn’t really do anything ’bout that, right!?”
All they were doing was despicably trying to push the blame onto someone else. However, one of the canus felt a sense of unease separate from their misfortune.
“Hey, why was it that we tried to catch that girl and sell her yesterday, anyway?”
These canus dealt in the slave trade. They didn’t buy slaves, they looked for good materials to abduct and sell. Naturally, they couldn’t complain at all if they were mercilessly killed after being tracked down. Precisely because that was the case, it was absolutely necessary to keep their risks to a bare minimum. So why was it that just this one time, they were carelessly out in the open with their prey?
“I mean, she was valuable, yeah? We wanted to sell her for as much as we could... right?”
“But, did we even do anything to help up the price? What were we even planning in the first place?”
Unlike proper slave merchants, these canus were the type to sell their goods for dirt cheap on the black market. In that case, there was no point in keeping their goods in perfect condition. They should have been fully aware of that, so why didn’t they sell off the girls right away? None of them were able to answer that question, and the canus all felt a sense of eeriness lingering in the air due to that revelation.
“D-Does that even freaking matter!? She got away, so why worry now!? More importantly, we’ve at least got the coin that she was carrying, right?”
“Y-Yeah, you’re right...”
Working in the slave business came hand in hand with unpleasant events. It was normal in such cases to just drown away one’s worries in alcohol. However, just as they were about to head off to find a tavern...
“Hm? Hey, ain’t that the one from earlier...?”
For some reason, the vulpin girl that got away from them earlier was right ahead of them. She looked to be walking unsteadily with wobbly steps, which confused them greatly. Still, after taking a glance at each other, the canus men smiled filthily.
“Hey there, little lady. It’s awfully dangerous to be walking out here all on your own.”
“Uh... Huh...?”
The young girl looked up at the canus men with a vacant expression that made them doubt she could even hear them. No matter how they looked at it, it didn’t seem like she understood what was going on.
“Hey, did something happen to her?”
“Ain’t Zagan a sorcerer? There’s no way he left a tasty looking girl he picked up alone, right?”
In other words, even though she had been rescued from the foul clutches of the slavers, she had been forced to go through something even more terrifying.
“Heehee, so she came back to us knowing she’d be happier here, huh? It’s rich coming from me, but this is the first time I’ve seen such an unlucky girl.”
The girl didn’t seem to hear the conversation happening in front of her, and simply stood stock-still. Seeing her vacant gaze, the lower halves of the canus reacted.
“Hey. Why don’t we just have a lil’ taste?”
“That’s not a bad idea. The shops are all closed already, anyway. Let’s just use her to cheer ourselves up some.”
The men forcefully tore apart the girl’s clothes with vulgar smiles on their faces. And when her shapely breasts were exposed, they began licking their lips. Right then, as one of the men reached out to her... his arm vanished from the elbow down.
“Huh...?”
Blood spurted out like a geyser from the stump of his arm. This man probably didn’t even understand that it was torn off by a power that far surpassed human intellect. He stood there, dumbfounded for just one instant, as the pain immediately rushed to his brain.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! M-MY ARRRRRRM!”
All the others could see was a man writhing in pain on the ground, a pitch black sludge-like thing boiling over from the girl’s chest, and that man’s arm sinking away into said sludge. There was none among them who could understand in that instant that this was something far beyond their means.
“Y-You bitch!”
One of the canus pulled out a knife in anger, but before he could even brandish it, the sludge stretched out like a tentacle. And in the next instant, his dog-like head burst open like a fruit. However, what was strange was that there was no blood flowing down from that severed neck. The first canus, who had his arm torn off, had blood flowing out like waterfall. However, all that could be seen from this one was a completely pitch black cross section that was akin to a dark void in the air.
Before long, a nightmarish scene played out. The body of the canus without a head was crushed as if being sucked inside itself. And what burst out in the aftermath was not blood, but the sludge which destroyed his head. Even without knowledge in sorcery, it was readily apparent that it had eaten the canus.
“Holy shit, r-run a—”
One of the canus turned tail to run, but his ankle was mowed down by a tentacle like a scythe cutting through wheat, making him slam face first into the pavement.
“Gargh! H-Help... HEEEEEELGHRP!”
Sludge poured out of the screaming canus’ face. He was being eaten from the inside out. His agonizing cry of death was deafening, but it vanished in seconds. By that time, his body had dissolved entirely.
The other men tried to run away as well, but their show of resistance was futile. In no time at all, everyone aside from the first man who had his arm ripped off melted away into sludge. The man was unable to mutter so much as a word as he trembled in place, clattering in fear, and the girl’s eyeballs tumbled about as they focused in on him. In that moment, for the very first time, an actually expressive look graced her face, and she looked at the canus in surprise.
“Oh, what’s this? Interesting, you managed to survive... I see. You’re so weak that your arm got torn off before getting eaten. Aren’t you lucky to be so weak? Ahahahaa.”
The girl’s laugh made it hard to determine their true gender. She then began walking around the canus in good humor without trying to hide her exposed breasts. This clearly wasn’t the voice of the young girl that they tried to capture earlier.
“Wh-What the hell...”
The man wasn’t expecting an actual answer. However, the girl looked at him with madness in her eyes as she laughed.
“Whoops, sorry about that. Did I forget to introduce myself? I’m not sure whether you guys know me or not, but I’m Bifrons. A colleague of the one who oversees this town, Zagan.”
The girl span on the spot as she practically sang out her introduction.
“I went just a teensy bit overboard when I was playing with my cute little doll, you see, so she ended up esca
ping into Zagan’s territory. Still, losing my precious little doll to Zagan would be a shame, right? That’s why I’m in the middle of setting up a little prank to keep them apart!”
The little girl, who named herself Bifrons, began laughing maniacally once more.
“Zagan’s quite scary, but luckily, he’s got many weak points. This girl’s body is just one such thing. I also want to show Zagan that he’s not the only one who got their hands on a Sacred Sword... Fufufu, this’ll be a wonderful party!”
As the girl laughed maniacally yet again, she squatted down in front of the man. The canus had already lost consciousness from the blood loss, so his death was surely only a matter of time.
“I missed the chance to say this earlier, but you have my thanks. Because of you guys, I managed to get Azazel in contact with Zagan. Ufufu, the little girl that he got along with will become an avenger filled to the brim with hatred and animosity. Ahhh, what a tragedy! Haaah... How fun... Uh, can you hear me?”
Seeing that the man’s eyes were already rolled back, the little girl puffed out her cheeks.
“Oh, come on. I went out of my way to reveal all my plans to you, and this is how you repay me...? Nephteros would always listen to me right to the end, you know? But maybe I doted on her just a little too much. I don’t have any patience, you see? Ahaha.”
After laughing a while longer, the girl opened her mouth in satisfaction. And then, a pitch black sludge poured out from there like drool.
“Well, bye now. Though you’re just a corpse, be happy you get to become an offering to the Demon Lord!”
After the girl said that, the last remaining canus was swallowed by the sludge.
“...Huh?”
The vulpin girl’s triangular ears quivered about as she raised her head.
“Huh...? What...? Where...? Why am I...?”
And while letting out a bewildered voice, she noticed that her chest felt strangely cold.
“Eeek! Wh-What’s going on!? My clothes are torn!?”
Seeing that her own clothes were in shreds, a horrible image came to mind, but there was nothing around her. She also didn’t feel anything like the aftermath of being assaulted.
An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride: Volume 5 Page 9