Holy Relic
Holy Relic
The reason I had often been asked whether I was the Demon God's champion, yet never asked if I was the Hero chosen by the Demon God, wasn't because the two were synonymous or because I belonged to the Human Race.
It was because they were on entirely different levels.
In this world, a champion chose which god their pitiful creation-self would serve, while a Hero was chosen by the god—the god picked the pitiful creation.
Of course, champions and Great Warriors also heard the call of the gods. But that was merely the gods responding and granting a sliver of divine protection after they had voluntarily piled up great deeds in service to the gods. They weren't even given any specific orders.
But a Hero was different. As anyone could see from Siegfried, they were granted blessings and abilities that were never ordinary, and bestowed with the mission to guide believers—and further, to deliver an entire race.
In that sense, what Seneran had told me was damn serious.
"How likely is it that the gods would simply leave that unattended?"
"The opinion of the excommunicated clergy was that the likelihood of leaving it unattended converges infinitely toward zero. But they also said the possibility of unintentionally being unable to stop it isn't zero."
I didn't need to ask why. The gods intervening in this world in the first place wasn't as easy as it sounded.
Take me, for example—hadn't my consciousness been blown away just from hearing a bit of the World Tree's voice?
And that was only a pretense of conversation, not a direct exercise of divinity. If a god were to manifest and exert power directly? Since that kind of history wasn't entirely absent, I, who had diligently read my books, knew all too well what could happen.
That a continent below the western region had been blown away and swallowed by the sea through a single miracle—unleashed by Rubisca of the Scales herself to personally pass judgment on a monumental cultist who had followed the Evil God, stirred up chaos, and ultimately dared to insult the gods—that wasn't legend but history.
The records were so ancient that many had been lost, making it impossible to know the specific process, but no one dismissed as absurd myth the greatest reason Bolta Bay had become a maritime kingdom. Assuming that kind of outcome was inevitable whenever the gods intervened directly, there was plenty of room, as Seneran said, for circumstances to have made it impossible to stop in time.
"So I'm going to go with you and check it out."
"The conversation just jumped ahead completely. What do you mean, 'so'? Where exactly is there room for me to get involved in this?"
Instead of answering, Seneran stared blankly at me and bumped her two fists together, top and bottom. I watched, wondering what the hell she was doing, as she moved her fists this way and that as if performing pantomime.
It took me a little while to understand that the motion was depicting me drawing my sword and splitting the apple.
"The Demon God Temple near your hometown. A member of the Human Race who possesses both Magic Power and divinity. The likelihood that all of this is closely connected is far higher than the likelihood that none of it has anything to do with each other."
"The people of my village couldn't use Magic Power. And they didn't worship the Demon God either."
They were typical Itisel people. Even my own parents. But Seneran merely nodded as if she already knew.
"That's exactly why you're even more important. Special talents usually have no reason behind them, but when divinity is entangled, there is a reason. Even more so if that power took root in someone with no faith."
So we had no choice but to go confirm it.
As she said this and took a sip of her coffee, Seneran's eyes sparkled with anticipation.
◈
Since we couldn't fly by wyvern all the way to where the Demon God shrine was, we decided to borrow the horses Seneran had temporarily rented along with some laborers.
There was no need for urgent riding or combat anyway, so I mounted the same horse as Asilie and followed behind Seneran, who led the way. Laika, who had wanted to ride comfortably in my arms like on the wyvern, made a slightly disappointed sound, but it was only for a moment.
As we passed the unfamiliar guards with appropriate greetings, left Ogwen behind, and headed toward my hometown along familiar roads, I wasn't feeling the simple emotion of going home—something more complicated stirred inside me.
After hearing Water Buffalo Horn's story and Seneran's hypothesis backing it up, I couldn't shake the thought that the disaster that had ultimately struck my village might have been because of me.
It was already obvious that the being involved in my reincarnation was Epaga. Whether things had gotten tangled up while trying to summon a Hero like Siegfried, or whether she had taken pity on me, dying at exactly that moment, and shown me mercy—I couldn't know which, but it didn't change the fact that I was alive and breathing thanks to her.
But what if, in that process, the sacred relic that was said to be in the Demon God shrine had revealed its presence? What if some unidentified member of the Demon King's Army had pinpointed the shrine's location from that and sent troops? What if the time it took for all that to happen was exactly eight years? Then wasn't all this trouble ultimately a tragedy born from my past life?
"Eldi?"
I must have been too deep in stray thoughts, because only when Asilie, seated and nestled in my arms, gently squeezed my hand did I notice that I had been following Seneran while veering off to the side.
"Sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment."
I smiled sheepishly and corrected our course, but Asilie's gaze as she looked up at me lingered. Meeting her eyes for just a moment, her expression—worried, as if she had already guessed from that brief eye contact what I had been brooding about—made me let out a deep sigh.
"You have some idea what it's about?"
It was a sharp question. If it had been Seneran, I would have played dumb, but since it was Asilie, I nodded. But instead of offering half-hearted comfort or prying further, Asilie simply leaned lightly back against me.
That alone was enough to put the brakes on my spiraling thoughts and ease my mind a little.
Even with the passage of time, the road to my hometown hadn't really changed. Just a little ways from Ogwen—where things shifted practically every other day—the landscape began to greet me with the same bleak, unchanging desolation, as if time itself had stopped. And the closer we got to my ruined hometown, the more even human footfalls ceased, intensifying that stillness.
But what I felt from that sight was relief and comfort. As if the past was guarding my long-cherished longing, keeping it from fading, my heart settled on its own.
The ruins and the hill, slowly revealing themselves beyond the winding path, were meant to add to that sentiment...
"...What the hell is that?"
...I thought it would land the final sucker punch.
Campfire smoke was rising from the ruins that should have held nothing at all.
"Ah, damn. They're here again."
Unlike me, whose thoughts had ground to a halt, Seneran grumbled as if she knew exactly what it was. So they were people connected to her, though not on particularly friendly terms.
The group—at least twenty of them—hadn't set up camp in any proper sense. They had merely taken the most basic measures against the cold, lighting fires in about three spots and huddling around them.
"...!"
Even at that distance, the other side spotted us quickly and began showing a reaction. But contrary to my expectation that they were simply going to ready themselves for conversation with Seneran, each of them grabbed a weapon, making me furrow my brow.
"Are they friends of yours? If so, I'd appreciate it if you told them to take their hands off their weapons, quickly."
"Uuugh, they're less friends and more beggars who've deluded themselves into thinking they smelled money. I spent quite a lot on hush money this time when I hired people for secrecy."
To sum it up, Seneran was apparently a fairly big-spending client in the smuggling circles, and these bastards, having seen only the size of the hush money she'd paid out, assumed she'd gotten her hands on a huge score and came sniffing around hoping for some crumbs, even though they hadn't been invited.
"This one's my problem for now, so I'll handle it on my end."
Though she looked a bit tired, Seneran spoke with conviction, so I stopped the motion of reaching for my needles and nodded in agreement.
"I'd rather not spill blood in my hometown over nothing either, so I hope this wraps up quick and clean."
It wasn't even my land, so I had absolutely no intention of throwing a fit over someone lighting a fire and camping for a bit. But as Seneran had mentioned, the messy situation meant these bastards could turn into thieves at any moment, and I really didn't like them settling in here.
I dismounted Asilie first and asked her to guard our rear with Laika, then rode forward with Seneran. As we approached, one hulking figure—his face barely visible beneath a bushy beard—stepped ahead of the others and raised his voice.
"Golden young miss! We hadn't even finished our talk and you just up and left like that—what were we supposed to do? Do you have any idea how much it cost us to tail you here?"
He spoke while bursting into cheeky laughter, but what he was getting at was painfully obvious. Seneran, sounding utterly fed up, snorted and shouted back.
"Money's the issue? Since when did tunnel code turn flimsy as straw? I'm pretty sure I told you I didn't need you."
"Ey, that was only because you took off before we could properly show you how useful we are, miss. If we just talk a little more, your mind might—"
"Haa... I'm Seneran. The Golden Mage, Seneran. You don't know what that means?"
Seneran's voice, which had always shown me nothing but a goofy demeanor, was now laced with a venom I'd never seen before. But perhaps because her appearance made it hard to project intimidation, her words seemed to provoke anger rather than shrink her opponent.
"If I've judged something to have no value, then whatever it is, it has no value whatsoever to me right now. Even if you blabber on for a month, that fact won't change. So take your underlings and get the hell out. Right now. Unless you want to close up shop, forget everything according to code."
"...Miss, aren't you going a little too far? I get that you're standing your ground since we followed you uninvited, but we're not exactly in the cheeriest of situations ourselves, you know?"
As if the bearded man's words were a signal, the clatter of weapons rang out as the bastards behind him adjusted their grips. I looked at Seneran, wondering how she'd respond...
"Kid..."
With fatigue-laden, half-lidded eyes glaring at the bearded man, Seneran opened her mouth and, with a deep sigh, extended her right hand forward.
"Did I look like someone you could just rob blind if you ran into me outside the tunnels?"
It was obviously the prelude to casting magic, so I activated Magic Sight to spectate—and my eyes caught Seneran's casually tossed words acting as an incantation to manifest a spell.
While I was reeling from the fact that she had used completely unrelated words as an incantation—nearly as shocking as chantless casting itself—the spell activated in an instant and engulfed the bearded man and his group. The bastards, unable to offer even the slightest resistance, froze solid up to their waists.