Revelation
Revelation
Unlike the half-scratched lottery ticket that was Sen and the trolls, the winning ticket—Gaendal and his friends—had just returned from a commission and looked quite bedraggled.
Yekaterina, who had approached with a hearty laugh, scratched her cheek as if belatedly self-conscious about it, and Rellie walked up glaring at Yekaterina with axe-sharp eyes.
"This is lucky. I was just thinking we might run into you here."
"Oh? You came looking for us? You got some good work lined up?"
"Surprisingly, yes. Would you care to join us? If you haven't eaten yet, it's my treat."
"Heh heh heh. The day's been nothing but foul luck, but seems something good's come along at the end after all!"
While Mr. Gin, bursting into a hearty laugh behind the beaming Yekaterina, got the innkeeper's permission and started pushing tables together, Gaendal came over this time, offered a light greeting, and struck up a conversation.
"Your party's pretty big this time, though. Must be one hell of a big job, eh?"
"There were some needlessly complicated and drawn-out circumstances behind that. First... this is Sen, Merdela, Kals, and Baije. They're red-rank adventurers operating out of the southern gate city of Englem. And this is Gaendal, Gin, Yekaterina, and Rellie. Highly skilled adventurers... are you all still blue-rank by any chance? I have a feeling you've already ranked up."
I ignored the indignant bastards shooting me looks that said 'He remembered all our names and origins?' and asked. Sure enough, Mr. Gaendal flashed a deep smile and pulled out a red adventurer's badge.
"Right you are. Just a few days ago."
Looked like I was the only one not getting promoted. Not that it mattered.
"Wh-what, are you the Weapon Master Gaendal?"
But starting with Kals, who'd been keeping his mouth shut and shrinking back like a crumpled bug, unexpected reactions burst out. And it wasn't just him—the others were starting to murmur and admire him like passing extras too, weren't they?
"Star's Prodigy Rellie?"
"No way, the Giant Gin?"
"Siege Ram Yekaterina...?"
What the hell. Why are your eyes bugging out like that.
The cringing bastards from before were gone, replaced entirely by people with starry eyes like civilians meeting an idol, and it felt utterly alien. It pissed me off so much to see that, I barely suppressed the urge to sequentially crack all four of their skulls with my knuckles as I continued my conversation with Gaendal.
"You guys are really famous, huh? Or not? Were you always this famous?"
"What are you talking about? You're no slouch yourself."
"Me? You mean that Light Sword or Mad Dog business?"
"Lately I've heard more people calling you something else."
Laughing heartily, Gaendal made a throat-slitting gesture with the edge of his hand.
"The Guillotine Eldmia Ega."
Well, god-da~mn.
It seemed I'd been branded a living, breathing execution device.
◈
After I subdued the bastards—who looked ready to start asking for autographs if left alone—with a glare, and after the whole process of Rellie stopping Yekaterina from rushing off to wash up and making her sit at the table, we ended up continuing our meal and conversation in an amiable atmosphere.
Though there was nearly another commotion in the middle of introducing Seneran, fortunately the discussion proceeded quickly and led to a boisterous acceptance as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Cultists, huh. How do you keep stumbling into adventures when you do not even do adventurer work?"
The first remark Gaendal made after hearing my whole explanation resonated with more people than I expected. For once, I was the innocent party unfairly entangled because of Merdela, but since I was playing nice to save those guys' faces, it was hard for me to voice that fact out loud.
I'd told the story after cutting out everything about the saintess entirely, but since the stereotypes and perception ingrained about cultists were so bad, nobody questioned me going to wipe them out on a commission from the Holy Light Cross Order.
"It's clearly something huge in scale, but I don't know why it doesn't feel urgent at all."
Only Rellie was incredulous at her own feelings.
"Mr. Ega. Tell me honestly. You could've handled this commission even alone, couldn't you?"
"Well, I wonder? A head-on fight would've been tough, but since I have my big sis, if I'd repeated night ambushes and surprise attacks... somehow?"
"...I feel like my standard for gauging the weight of a job has been getting all messed up lately."
Yekaterina patted the shoulder of Rellie, who was shaking her head, and laughed heartily.
"Anyway, that's amazing. They're just called cultists, but that means there's a high possibility they're demon worshippers, right? Walking around personally and digging up a case that'd normally only be experienced by purple-rank adventurers... I'm almost jealous."
"Though the person involved didn't want it. More importantly, earlier Gin said your luck had been foul. What happened?"
"Don't even get me started. A commission came in from a territory down below to investigate how the lord's entire family vanished overnight. Turned out there were circumstances and they'd only slipped away in secret for a while. What a joke."
"...Oh."
That story... no matter how I looked at it, that was the Bellesica incident...? As I rolled my eyes around with an ambiguous reaction, my gaze met Sen's—he had a strange expression too.
"Seems the lord was so well-loved that the villagers pitched in money without anyone having to say who'd go first and posted the commission. There were even testimonies about unidentified suspicious figures showing up now and then, so we thought we'd hit the jackpot if things went well... well, we just ended up wasting time."
"Still, if this job Eldmia brought works out, we'll more than make up for this loss, so that's a relief. Maybe because winter's starting to creep in, the commissions we're getting are all pretty mediocre. Could be about time we got out of the capital."
"I heard Ogwen's got a few new dungeons lately. Might be good to check it out too."
When the weather's good, commissions from provinces a bit farther away can get handed off to adventurers from other regions depending on the situation, but in winter, when travel hardships start blooming in earnest, they usually handle things among themselves. Wasn't the reason that the number of adventurers freezing to death skyrockets?
I'd figured it was just dumbasses mocking nature's power, charging in on reckless bravado and getting themselves killed, but I remembered it because it was so damn fascinating that enough idiots did it to warrant an actual rule.
"If that's the case, it's perfect timing. I took this commission from the Holy Light Cross Order's Ogwen branch. How about we go together this time, while we're at it?"
When I'd sold the idea, I'd definitely said the place was booming with wagons lined up to and from the dungeons, so there'd be plenty of adventurer work. The matter seemed to require a fairly serious deliberation, because color returned to Gaendal's face when he heard me out.
"Is that true? That's a good sign."
"Right? Come to think of it, whenever the five of us gather, it really is always good luck. You got something on you, Mr. Ega?"
It was ironic, the person in question being an icon of decapitation who never ran out of incidents and accidents, yet being treated like a lucky charm here. Still, good was good, so I just laughed along with them.
"In that case... guess I'd better move a bit busily today. Still, I got my equipment repaired after the last commission, so I just need to buy consumables."
"Grab some tinder and oil... better buy extra firewood too."
"And buy a new blanket since Rellie burned the last one."
"Augh... thinking about it again still stings, really."
Amid the warm atmosphere, I was watching the Gaendal party—a reliable dream team who knew how to prepare for tomorrow even now—with a reassuring feeling when Seneran, who'd kept silent until now, poked me and spoke up.
"Hey, those cultists. They claimed to be the Demon God Church?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Then there's a high chance the real Demon God Church might intervene. You okay with that?"
The real Demon God Church intervening? I didn't understand what she meant so I turned my gaze to Asilie, but she just shook her head as if she'd never heard Seneran's story before either.
"To those guys, these are heretics. Wherever they are, they won't be satisfied until they send people and smash them to bits."
Turned out the reason was more straightforward than I thought.
"Even so, it's happening outside the Demonfolk Territory. Would they really go that far? I doubt rumors would even spread that far."
"They don't need rumors when it comes to heresy."
"Huh? Why is that?"
"The Demon God tells them."
If anyone else had said it, I probably wouldn't have found it particularly credible, but when Seneran, a madwoman who'd lived ready to stake her life on Magic Power research, spoke of Demonfolk, it carried a different weight. Since she hadn't exactly spoken quietly, everyone listened intently as Seneran continued.
"The Demon God Church is the strictest religion on the continent when it comes to heresy. Maybe it's because they're in a position so easy to persecute from the very start, starting with their race, but on that one point they have zero compromise. The fact that these cultists have been active up to now means they haven't had any contact with the Demon God Church yet, and to my ears, that sounds synonymous with 'We're about to run head-on into the Demon God Church.' You okay with that?"
Can you beat the Demonfolk?
It was an extremely sensible worry, an entirely natural question.
But me, Gaendal, Gin, Yekaterina, and Rellie could only smile leisurely at Seneran's question.
"Doesn't look like much of a problem."