A Nightmare Spilling from the West
A Nightmare Spilling from the West
I offered some half-hearted consolation along the lines of "a member of the Demonfolk that's gone into a rampage is always a pain to deal with, so it would've been the same no matter who was there," and after walking a bit, we arrived at a hastily built stone prison.
No, it seemed more accurate to call it a colossal shackle or seal rather than a prison. Some kind of massive magic circle had been drawn on the ground, and on top of it, rocks intertwined with chunks of metal that looked like they'd been obsessively worked over with magic were binding the entire body of the bowing Water Buffalo Horn like manacles.
The moment I saw it, I thought, even if he was missing an arm and hadn't received proper treatment, is it really possible to restrain a guy like that with this sort of thing? But the key was the magic circle laid out on the floor. I'd never actually used a magic circle to cast a spell myself, so my memory was hazy, but I had definitely learned about it from the teacher.
I remembered it as a magic circle developed for the purpose of a kind of debuff trap, one that continuously disrupted the Magic Power of a target placed on it.
It had been concluded that it required advance preparation, took a long time to activate, and the wider the range, the weaker the effect, so there was no way to use it in actual combat for the time being... I never imagined it could have such a useful application.
"I am Sir Eldmia Ega, granted permission by the Alt Brigade Commander to interrogate the prisoner in the name of Margrave of Levien. Would you step aside?"
While I was lost in such musings, Sir Renisa spoke to the guards standing watch in front of Water Buffalo Horn, and perhaps because word had already been passed along, they opened the way without hesitation. Sir Renisa moved aside with them, then gestured politely and continued.
"I was told it was a private matter."
At the gesture telling me to take some distance and talk, then come out, I gave a slight nod of thanks and approached Water Buffalo Horn at the center of the magic circle. Then, the guy who had been silently staring at the floor until now subtly shifted his gaze and opened his mouth.
"You would be affected by it too, yet you're fearless."
"This thing? It's a target-designated magic circle."
Why would anyone do the inefficient thing of dispersing power over an area when restraining a division-commander-level target? I answered dismissively and kicked lightly at the floor, and his eyebrows twisted oddly.
"...How learned. You blew away our weapons without even touching them—are you a magic knight?"
"The guy I was up against didn't seem like a pushover, so I lived hard. Naturally, I picked up this and that skill along the way."
Water Buffalo Horn's face as he looked at me was full of fatigue. I figured my own face probably looked pretty tired too, since I was barely at a functional level myself, but it was nothing compared to a guy who'd lost an arm and been stabbed multiple times.
But that was all. There was no anger, no resentment, no mockery.
The guy just looked endlessly tired.
"There's one thing I want to ask."
With that fatigue weighing him down, he opened his mouth again, and what came out made me let out a snort of my own accord. A guy who, in all likelihood, had nothing left but to spill everything he could under torture and then die, was asking a question.
"Wouldn't you say you're in no position to be asking questions?"
"In exchange."
Even at my sneer, the guy continued without any concern for my reaction.
"In exchange, I will answer three of your questions without fail."
And he had absolutely caught my interest. Because in the end, my objective was to get answers out of him.
It wasn't hard to guess why he was so sure I had questions to ask and was making such an offer. Just looking at the reactions I'd shown during yesterday's battle and the fact that I'd come all this way on foot, it wouldn't be difficult for him to deduce that I had something I wanted to find out from him.
On the other hand, I had no idea what he wanted to ask me. It wasn't a bad offer by any means, but precisely because of that, it was suspicious.
"For a guy who tried to kill me, you're in a strangely cooperative mood?"
"It's not particularly cooperative. Once as a courtesy toward the one who defeated me, and once out of a sense of responsibility for the misfortune you suffered, as someone in the position of a commander in the Demon King's Army. Naturally, the remaining once is in exchange for the assumption that you will answer my question."
"So you're saying I can just ask you two things and leave?"
"Yes. Even if you do so, I will answer wholeheartedly."
...This guy, who just yesterday was spouting bullshit about dying for the people who were killed, was acting like this, and it felt strange. So when I asked him outright, even the answer that came back was strange.
"As a commander of the army and a member of the Demonfolk, while I have killed innocents, there is a difference between winning the war and punishing those who serve the Demonfolk, and eliminating the sole survivor with my own hands. No matter how guilty I might feel toward you and those who died, I would choose the latter without hesitation, and that's exactly what I did. But now, I've failed and lost. Right now, I am acting not as a commander, but as a single warrior."
He seemed to think he was being serious, but from my perspective, it was a line of thinking that didn't sit right. Was he the type who could neatly compartmentalize public and private matters?
"Even if it means betraying the Demon King's Army as a result?"
"I won't betray it. I'm a commander who moves with his body anyway, so I know nothing, and even if I did, I wouldn't speak of it. The only reason I made this offer to you is because I knew you personally had something you wanted to dig out of me. Or would you rather throw away an opportunity you've seized for the kingdom's sake?"
"You've been talking as if I caught you all by myself since earlier."
"It's because of you that I ended up here, and because you held out, the Kingdom's forces were able to pin me down, so I don't think that's incorrect."
It was a calmness that didn't sit well with me. But as he said, it was true that I had no intention of throwing away an opportunity given to me for the kingdom's sake, so I decided to stop asking pointless questions.
"You ask first."
"Are you the champion of the Demon God?"
"I don't know."
At that cool, businesslike exchange, his expression became even stranger. It seemed he was suspicious of whether my answer was sincere.
But I hadn't lied.
"...That was quick."
"I've agonized over it plenty of times. Just think of it as bad luck. I don't know either. But it's true that I received Epaga's help."
I had never been given such a title in any concrete sense, nor had it ever been mentioned. Even the Saintess had merely reacted by saying she would roughly treat me as such an existence, so even if Epaga had ordained me as her champion, I still didn't know.
"...I see."
A subtle emotion flickered across Water Buffalo Horn's fatigue-ridden face, but I couldn't grasp what it was. It looked like regret from one angle, and sadness from another, but it lasted only an instant, and he composed his expression before I could properly read it.
"That is sufficient. What do you wish to ask?"
There was no guarantee he would definitely know the answer, and not even any certainty that he would only tell the truth, yet I couldn't help the slight trembling at my fingertips. I suppressed the unsettled emotions with a deep breath and began asking the question I had carefully chosen.
"Do you know why you attacked our village?"
"I don't know the specifics. It was an operation carried out under extreme secrecy even within the Demon King's Army. All that is known is that there was an ancient Demon God temple built there, and a unit was dispatched to retrieve the relics within."
"Isn't knowing that much knowing it pretty specifically?"
"I still cannot determine whether it is true or false. It's merely the most widely spread rumor, so the probability that it's true is overwhelmingly high, that's all. But in all the rumors... the massacre remains the same."
What the relics were, how an army could have secretly infiltrated the kingdom—none of that was known. Having finished his answer, Water Buffalo Horn calmly awaited my next question, but I needed a little time to steady my emotions.
The fact that there was a Demon God temple was something I already knew through the teacher, but that that might have been the cause of the deaths of the villagers and both my parents... was a bit of a shock.
This life might be even more tangled up than I thought.
"...Then you don't know who orchestrated it either."
"I cannot know the instigator. But top-secret missions of that level are led by the Special Operations Command."
"Special Operations Command? Where is that? The capital?"
"Is that the third question?"
At Water Buffalo Horn's question, I paused for a moment but quickly understood. Right, since he answered that the planner would be in the Special Operations Command to my question 'who orchestrated it,' that would count as the second question.
"Yeah. Last question."
Since the high probability was that the Demonfolk member who could be called my objective was in this Special Operations Command or whatever it was called, there was no need to hesitate. Water Buffalo Horn nodded at my confirmation and opened his mouth.
"The Special Operations Command operates on the front lines. So long as the war does not end, it will not move to the rear."
I felt a little gloomy, but since my objective had become clearer, it was a huge achievement.
As I thought that and turned to return to my quarters, my heart still somewhat troubled despite pulling myself together, Water Buffalo Horn, who had shut his mouth as if he'd said all he had to say, belatedly spoke up.
"You called her Lady Epaga."
I thought about just ignoring it and leaving, but considering that he had faithfully kept his own word and maintained a useful dialogue, I stopped my steps for now and answered.
"I did."
"Why do you use an honorific? Do you not resent her? She is a god of the Demonfolk."
"Because I received far more care and favor than you could imagine."
At my unembellished answer, his expression twisted with confusion.
"And what does it matter that she's a god of the Demonfolk? I bear no ill will toward Demonfolk, or toward Epaga."
"...You bear no malice toward the Demonfolk?"
"The only ones I show malice toward are the bastards who mess with me."
Water Buffalo Horn wore an expression as if he genuinely couldn't believe it, but I had no reason to explain at length, so I turned away again and wrapped up the conversation with a suitable answer.
Now I needed to rest even a little more and recover quickly in preparation for a war that wasn't over yet, so having finished my business, I hurried back to my quarters as fast as I could.