Retribution
Retribution
Staring up at the darkened ceiling of the ruins, Deoni Bire drew a deep breath.
The scent of blood that filled the ruins chose that moment to violate her sense of smell, but Deoni paid it not the slightest heed. She was a heresy inquisitor before she was a saintess, and blood was familiar to one who had raised weapons against the enemies of the order. The reason she let out a sigh was because she had grown mentally exhausted.
Watching the inquisitors' torture proceedings from behind didn't even rank among the difficult parts. What pressed down upon her was the torrent of apostasy testimony that poured forth as a result.
Much time passed, and in proportion to it, pain, despair, blood, and screams flowed as well. The torture ended, but the shock did not easily fade.
As the inquisitor who had finished the final session washed his hands and approached, turning his back on the product of the inquisitors' collective work, Deoni too had no choice in that moment but to avert her eyes from the suffocating pressure gripping her chest and fix her gaze first upon their 'finished product.'
She couldn't help but think that they had done a remarkable job of turning a person into 'something that used to be a person,' even without proper tools. At the precarious boundary where life barely clung on with minimal use of Holy Arts, the end result of the sustained torture was a level of devastation that words like 'gruesome' could not fully capture.
The inquisitors who carried this out without revealing any malice whatsoever were remarkable, and the mage who somehow endured all that torture, striving to withhold information, was remarkable as well.
Had the direction of his faith not been led astray, he would have made a fine devotee. Though it was already far too late.
The last inquisitor, who had settled into place among the inquisitors at Deoni's side, accepted a drink of water from a colleague, took a sip, and then flatly spoke his assessment.
"I judge that there is no falsehood in the information extracted through torture."
It had been a torture conducted over no less than six sessions.
The fact that they continued the torture even after the third session, when the testimony had become so certain that doubting its credibility was meaningless, was merely insurance against the remotest of possibilities.
It was not always thus, but the story that came from the mage's mouth was so shocking that no one considered this excessive. The other inquisitors nodded as if they sympathized with his words, and Deoni too gave a small nod, chewing over the information obtained through torture once more before she began to speak.
"I judge that there is a possibility that the entirety of the Demon King's Army high command has fallen into apostasy. I would know what my brothers think."
"The Demon King's Army Special Operations Command's paranoid conduct in the name of secrecy has already reached a level of notoriety beyond mere rumor. We cannot dismiss the possibility that this is merely the work of the Special Operations Command, rather than reckoning the entire high command as the enemy."
"But has it not already reached the point of weaponization and mass production? I have doubts as to whether we can truly deem this to be the unilateral action of the Special Operations Command alone."
"It is already a well-known fact that the authority of the Special Operations Command is exceedingly high. If the rumor that over eighty percent of clandestine operations conducted abroad are the work of the Special Operations Command is not merely baseless, then their influence within the Demon King's Army may be far greater than we anticipate."
It was a grave matter that made it difficult to speak carelessly, yet none of the inquisitors hesitated. That unwavering demeanor came to Deoni as a comfort, but that did not lessen the severity of the situation.
All that remained was to filter out the clearest facts and conjectures and deliver them to Hero Eldmia. Yet, considering Hero Eldmia's long-cherished desire, this part became a greater obstacle than she had anticipated.
"The leader of the Special Operations Command, Ammakgong, would undoubtedly be connected."
It was an established fact that the kill list of the man who had inflicted damage upon the Demon King's Army to achieve a long-held desire he'd harbored since the age of only eight, who had spread his name across the continent, and who exacted retribution upon any who touched him—that list contained the group that formed a major pillar of the Demon King's Army and the head of that group.
That alone would greatly shake the Demon King's Army, but what if other high-ranking nobles or powerful figures became entangled as well? It was clear that powerful figures who would not easily die even in a prolonged war would fall one after another.
Because the opponent was a Hero, no one in this place doubted that. The problem was that it would not only be them who died, but also the innocent who had merely taken up arms to fulfill their duty.
The Order did not join the war—it sought merely to expel the apostates. It did not wish for a future where ignorant devotees and blameless souls were slaughtered indiscriminately before the rage of the Human Race, swollen by the arrogance of apostates.
If this incident led to the Demon King's Army being wiped out in droves, this war would be recorded as an unprecedented catastrophic defeat in history and could lead to a massacre. Because even if that was not the Hero's intention, the minds of the Human Race would surely be different.
"What of the other high-ranking nobles or the Demon King?"
Therefore, before bringing the matter up to the Hero, she had to be cautious, and cautious again.
Normally, there would have been trust that the Hero chosen by the Goddess could not possibly turn his back on the Demonfolk, but what the apostates had attempted this time was so gravely beyond the pale that even entertaining such complacent thoughts felt like blasphemy. She dared not do so.
Priest Mender, who had maintained his silence and organized his thoughts until now, quietly raised his hand at the final question Deoni posed, received the right to speak, and opened his mouth.
"The Demon King of this generation is an exceptionally outstanding existence in many respects. Though his personal martial might is said to be formidable, what he is truly praised for is his unfathomably sharp foresight, to the point that there is talk of him possessing a future eye, and the intellect that supports it."
Already highly regarded within the Demon King's Army as being worthy of being called a Hero or the second coming of Epaga, the Demon King was famous for issuing incomprehensible orders and obtaining results.
Rumor had it that it was thanks to him that the Demon King's Army, despite the resistance of Itisel that far exceeded expectations, was still able to maintain a slight advantage and stalemate the front lines. Thus, the expressions of everyone who understood the meaning in Priest Mender's words grew a shade more grave.
It meant the possibility that the Demon King had been standing by, unaware of this matter, was absolutely nonexistent.
"Considering the matter... this may, in the end, be a predetermined outcome."
Deoni rose from her seat, delivering an answer that did not merely signify that the Demon King knew of the apostasy, but pierced through all the agonies they had been entertaining until now.
It was an act of sacrilege, overflowing with the intent to profane divinity itself and to encroach upon the Divine Domain. From the perspective of the Demonfolk as a whole, it might even be preferable for this to lead to the Hero of the Demon God killing the Demon King.
"Secure the perimeter and make preparations to depart immediately according to the situation. I shall go inform the Hero."
With steps that felt as heavy as her resolve, Deoni left the altar steeped in the stench of blood behind, heading toward Eldmia's hut as they had previously agreed.
The forest path had always been quite a distance, but today it felt particularly remote. Even though it was not a deed she had committed, even though she was in a position utterly unconnected to it, Deoni could not hide her complicated feelings as she ruminated on the information she had learned.
Eldmia was the karma that this generation's Demon King's Army had brought forth.
When he had said his village was erased, she had simply thought it was to eliminate witnesses or to obstruct pursuit. But according to what she had heard from the mage, the killing of all the villagers was a premeditated crime, committed because they had foreseen the movements of the Demon God.
The Demon King's Army had known that the Demon God would choose a Hero, and that the Demon God would bestow power upon a member of the Human Race.
She could hardly comprehend how such a notion was possible, but because of it, they had annihilated an entire village adjacent to the temple, and even swept up a passing slave merchant group in the process.
What was incomprehensible was that the slave merchant group, who could only have been there by chance, was also their target. Unlike the village, where everyone had to be killed, there they were said to have extracted a single Demonfolk member who was being sold as a slave.
Though they had rebelled against such a preposterous-sounding story and interrogated him intensively, even the mage did not know how that had been possible.
Unless one could see the future, how was that possible...
"...The future?"
A powerful doubt nearly halted her steps, but she barely managed to keep walking.
No one had seen it directly, but the Demon King's future eye was so famous in the Demonfolk Territory that it was a rumor grown stale. Until now, she had dismissed it as simply a nickname born of his exceptional intelligence and ability to read the battlefield, but when she substituted the mage's testimony and the circumstances, it felt entirely different.
But Deoni soon shook her head, denying her own hypothesis. If that were the case, the war would have ended immediately. It was more realistic to assume that he possessed an intelligence network so reliable it was as if he could see the future.
As she walked along, reproaching herself for having been momentarily beguiled by wayward thoughts, she found herself at the hut before she knew it.
The wyvern, having noticed Deoni's movement, raised its head slightly from its own home—more magnificent than the hut—and glanced at her, but soon buried its head back under its wing as if it were nothing of consequence. The smoke rising from the chimney and the voices heard intermittently seemed unmistakably like those of an ordinary household.
If the Demon King's Army had not coveted the relic, would the Hero be enjoying that ordinary life with his family, instead of with a wyvern?
"...Hoo."
Feeling her stomach churn at the sins of her kin, Deoni reached the door, took a deep breath, and knocked.
Whatever the outcome of the conversation to follow, the saintess must follow the Hero.
No, she would follow him.