Commendation
Commendation
So this was what Seneran had warned me about.
I couldn't tell exactly what the saintess was getting at with her question, but she'd likely asked because she'd spotted signs of Magic Power in me. What bothered me right now, though, wasn't that—it was her gaze and demeanor, brimming with a calm that was completely at odds with the hesitant way she'd been acting moments before.
Her eyes had changed. Not figuratively—physically.
Her overall expression stayed the same, but those eyes of hers, which had been close to a light brown, now held a faint silvery gleam. I couldn't distinguish any difference through Magic Sight, but the moment that change happened, a subtle sensation—almost like a breeze—washed over my whole body, very similar to what I'd felt when I heard the World Tree's voice. It was clearly tied to Divine Power.
But she still showed no hostility, so I looked her straight in the eye and asked back.
"Is that Divine Power?"
"Yes. I have employed a Holy Art to discern falsehood."
"Is that all you used?"
"...Ah, I also applied a Holy Art to help me, um, calm down a little."
That explained it. Maybe asking about it embarrassed her a bit, because even in this situation, the way she briefly dropped her gaze was a little funny.
I'd heard that the wizards' lie detector, the Crystal of Truth, wasn't perfectly accurate. I wondered how hers measured up. She wasn't acting high-handed at all, just maintaining that calm attitude. I stared at her for a moment, then shrugged and answered her question.
"I don't know."
It could have sounded like the most absurd answer in the world, but the saintess didn't retort in a flustered tone or press me on it. She just tilted her head. That alone was proof that Holy Art of hers really worked. Because I truly didn't know. If even the Demon God Church's own Saintess couldn't be sure, what the hell was I supposed to know?
"Are you not going to ask why I'm asking this?"
"I figured it would be better to give a clear answer first. So I answered. Now I'll ask. Why exactly are you here in secret asking such a bizarre question?"
The suspicion that I might be some 'Die, demon god's advance scout!' hadn't cleared yet, so I kept my guard up and subtly adjusted my stance, ready to draw my sword at any moment.
I'd fought demon worshippers who called themselves pseudo-holy knights, but I'd never faced a real holy knight before, so Divine Power was still an unknown territory to me. More importantly, my opponent was Saintess Teneasi, who possessed such formidable Divine Power that her order had put her forward as the Hero's companion. Whether that was innate talent or acquired, I couldn't tell. But her acting a bit airheaded was no reason for me to let my guard down.
If, by any chance, she showed hostility and started some stupid shit, lopping something off would be the safest bet. Straining relations between Siegfried and the Empire was a problem for later.
"...Do you know, Eldmia, what the ability you displayed back then was, specifically?"
Thankfully, Teneasi didn't show any hostility. Unless she was some kind of psychopath who could kill without a shred of ill intent, it was clear she had no intention of attacking.
"It's Magic Power."
"...Hmm, it's a little different."
"Different?"
Teneasi was the one speaking with a slightly nonplussed look on her face, but the one feeling nonplussed was me. Taking in my reaction, Teneasi carefully let her hand fall away from her staff, pointed at her own eyes, and went on.
"There are things you naturally begin to see once you devote yourself to the clergy. Ah, I don't mean everyone does—I mean the more your Divine Power grows, the more you come to see."
She'd only managed to start speaking calmly. Her oddly timid manner of speech hadn't changed at all, so I found myself frowning slightly and pushing her towards the conclusion. At that, Teneasi flinched again and hurriedly got to the point.
"Wh-What I mean is, aside from sensing aura or Mana, you also become able to catch glimpses of other divine presences. That was true back then too, and now... I'm sensing two different types of divine presence."
"...Huh."
To that extent? It was so absurd I found myself just obediently pulling the World Tree's seed out of my chest pocket and showing her. Teneasi's eyes went wide as she nodded, as if to say, "That's the one."
"Can you also tell which god's divinity it is?"
"Ah, n-no. I can just... tell they're different. A sense that the colors are different, maybe? As long as it's not the Evil God's divinity, I can only catch on that it's a little different..."
So she couldn't tell it was specifically a seed of the World Tree. I looked at Teneasi, who'd popped up out of nowhere just to drop a fresh load of trouble in my lap, and tucked the seed back away. Then I aimed a question at her, since she was still pursing her lips and couldn't seem to start speaking.
"Let's say, hypothetically, that I am a champion or apostle of the Demon God. What exactly were you planning to do then?"
"...I was going to ask if you intended to harm Zeke."
She'd come all this way just to ask a question? It was so ridiculous that an exasperated laugh slipped out of me. Sure—sensing divinity from a human who could use Magic Power would make it pretty easy to think of Demon God Epaga. Epaga was the god of the Demonfolk, so suspicions like that were plenty plausible.
But if that was what she was worried about, shouldn't she have avoided coming here alone? Her naive judgment naturally made me curious.
"Even putting aside the fact that we've been getting along pretty well—what if I did have those intentions?"
But when I heard Teneasi's answer to my follow-up question, curiosity and everything else flew out the window. Goosebumps shot down my spine.
"I intended for us to die together."
An immediate answer, without an instant's hesitation.
If there'd been even a hint of madness in her eyes, I could've just written her off as your standard deranged, broken-down saintess and been thoroughly sick of the whole thing. But Teneasi was impossibly calm. That meant her answer wasn't empty bravado—it was a conviction backed by something she believed powerful enough to make mutual destruction feasible.
This crazy bitch was absolutely fucking insane!
"Fucking hell, what the hell were you thinking?!"
Naturally, any thought of filtering my words for courtesy or whatever didn't cross my mind. The most I managed was to keep speaking politely.
Was she carrying a Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch or something? No matter what Teneasi might think, the first thing I did was strap on the gauntlet I'd hung from my belt.
This wasn't the time to fuss over details when a fanatic who might be a suicide bomber was right in front of me. I had no idea how useful the gauntlet's protective ability would be, but my mind was already fixed on cutting her throat and activating the barrier the instant I sensed anything suspicious. Even seeing me in that state, Teneasi maintained her calm and completely let go of her staff as she spoke.
"Eldmia, you are enormously strong. Even Zeke still cannot defeat you, so I thought that if this discussion came up when we next met, and you suddenly decided to kill Zeke because of it, there would be no way to stop you."
She might've been standing there seemingly defenseless, but this woman was already beyond trust, so my tension shot up to its max. Even that gesture looked like nothing but another scheme.
"For fuck's sake. Normally in a case like that, the sensible thing would be to bring other people and surround the place first, wouldn't it?"
"Well... you've entered a traitor's mansion all alone, and you returned safely after fighting an orc army even when you'd fallen right into the middle of the western region. Any reasonable number of people would be meaningless... and if I gathered people here only to find you harbored no ill will at all, as you are now, I'd be burdening other people with a pointless misunderstanding of you, and that would be deeply discourteous..."
Fuck. It was infuriating how all of it was annoyingly, perfectly logical.
Her attitude was serene, and she was signaling that she no longer had any such intention—but from my perspective, all I could see was a human being who'd been one step away from screaming "Deluxe Bomber!" and exploding at any second from the moment she knocked on my door, and who'd instead decided to worry about and fuss over all these bizarre considerations.
And what pissed me off most of all was that someone who'd chosen such an extreme option had done so with cold, rational judgment.
"So you came here with some unidentified, explosive Holy Art prepared? And you maintained such a calm attitude while you were at it? Saintess, do you perhaps suffer from some emotional deficiency, or did a harsh childhood leave you with no respect for life?"
The reason Teneasi's neck was still squarely attached to her body right now wasn't because she was a saintess. It wasn't because she was Siegfried's lover. And it definitely wasn't because she'd stood before me fully resolved to die.
It was only because separating her head from her torso might make the bomb go off that I was letting her be, for fuck's sake!
You really couldn't judge people by their appearance. Fucking hell, of all things to experience in another world, I'd never expected to find myself at risk of suicide bombings. Even with all the respect and courtesy I'd partly thrown out the window, Teneasi didn't show any particular reaction to my response. Instead, she displayed the batshit behavior of laughing sheepishly in this situation.
"That's not it, but still, it's better than Zeke being in danger."
"...For future reference, don't go around telling people that's not it. Because no matter how I look at it, my guess seems spot on."
She bowed her head and apologized—"I'm sorry"—as casually as someone apologizing for bumping into a stranger on the street. I had to clench my teeth and forcibly choke back the urge to smack Teneasi in the back of the skull and knock her unconscious, just to be safe.
"Wait. So you're saying the only thing that matters is whether I might harm the Hero, and nothing else matters at all?"
"Yes? Ah, yes. It doesn't matter."
"...Doesn't matter? If you're a champion of Demon God Epaga, you could be helping the Demon King for all we know."
"Um... I hadn't thought that far, in such extremes... besides, you wouldn't help him, would you?"
Teneasi looked genuinely, deeply perplexed, practically radiating the thought, "Why in the world would you have that impression...?"
Instead of drawing my sword, I had to squeeze my brain dry trying to understand this dense-as-a-brick human being, and I felt nothing but despair and fury.