Mage Milia (13)
Even though I'd been smacked across the back of the head and knocked flat, I could at least tell that I'd managed to talk Milia around to some degree.
After all, the girl who'd been acting like a maniac was actually willing to hold a conversation with me now.
Never mind that her method of "conversing" involved whacking me over the head, knocking me out cold, and forcibly sitting me down in a field of cold snow.
Was she planning to give me a lecture?
Milia?
In a certain sense, I had to admit it was a pretty hilarious sight.
So I decided to try persuading her, boldly and to her face.
"Th-that said, I do have things I need to do. Yes, so……"
"Jim, you're the one who said it. Whether you quit or not is Esmeralda's call. So you can't just up and leave. Your own business isn't the only thing that matters, you know?"
"You're one to……"
You're one to talk? Weren't you the one trying to melt me alive with tentacles not ten minutes ago?
Weren't you the one who acted more willfully than anyone here, and now you dare lecture me about it?
But no. I am still terrified of the tentacles, so I will sit here quietly.
Sophistry? Fine, let it be sophistry. Who says we've ever conversed through the logic of words? We've always followed the logic of force. And I'm talking about the Hero Party, not the demons. We're more barbaric than the demons.
"Jim, if you really want to quit, you'll have to persuade Esmeralda."
"……The Hero doesn't listen to people as a general rule, you know."
"Then did it seem like I would listen to you?"
"Uh……"
When she put it that way, I had no rebuttal.
If my powers of persuasion could have gotten me out of this party, I'd have been long gone already.
Why on earth did I think, at this late stage, that talking Milia around was even possible?
Expecting normal thought processes from these selfish, conscienceless party members was the real mistake from the start.
This party, at its core, thinks of nothing but itself.
The closest thing to consideration for others we have is the Saintess, and even the Saintess refused to let me leave the party.
Probably because I wasn't entangled with just one of them, but with all of them.
What a pity.
No, wait. The pitiful one here is me, isn't it.
"Still, Jim, you had a point. At least it seems the memories we share aren't tied to your body alone."
"……I hardly know where to put myself, knowing you understand at least that much."
"Hey, Jim. That book I lent you a while back—how was it?"
"Huh?"
The book she lent me—did she mean The Female Knight and the Tentacle Dungeon?
She was asking about that now? In this situation? What on earth was I supposed to say?
Could I just answer honestly?
"Uh…… it was pretty hot?"
"That book taught me what love that transcends species feels like."
"……"
Where? What? How?
Are we sure we read the same book?
Because unless I'm misremembering, that one ended with the knight held fast by the tentacles, her body and mind soaked, stained, and fused until she became one with them. A bad ending, last I checked?
"So I really love that book. I hope you love it too, Jim."
"……Well, in a different sense than you, I did enjoy it."
It was a book that proved immensely helpful during the lyrical hours of the night, after all.
Combine that book's imaginative power with the footage I'd recorded of Esmeralda's and Irina's escapades……
Mm. Day or night, it had been extremely useful during my private time.
"Yep, that's enough for now. So sleep tight, Jim."
"Yes? Wait, yes? Ah—……"
Along with a bright smile from Milia, rare as a solar eclipse, the world before my eyes flickered and went dark.
Milia was making her way back to the Magic Tower, Jim and Irina both hoisted meekly in her tentacles.
The moment Irina came to, she would no doubt faint all over again.
Love really is difficult.
She didn't like the idea of Jim running off, but she had decided to scrap, once and for all, the plan of killing him and turning him into an undead to seal off that escape route at its source.
After all, that fleeing figure of his, and the judgment behind it—weren't those part of the Jim she'd fallen for?
Milia had come to like Jim because he kept talking to her, over and over.
She liked how he kept challenging her wall of silence and waiting for her, even when she shut him out and couldn't find a single word to say.
But if she killed Jim and made him undead…… every one of those lovable traits would vanish without a trace. That much was certain.
"Jim, I'll work hard."
And so she resolved to commit herself to the second plan—the one she'd abandoned long ago, deeming it far too difficult.
The tentacle magic she had created.
It was a spell born from a book she'd read and been deeply moved by.
"To keep you with me……"
In the beginning, she hadn't gone to such extreme measures.
She'd assumed that if a child came between them, Jim—burdened with a certain sense of responsibility—would give up on running away.
Had Jim ever found out, he'd have thrown both hands up in celebration.
But Milia only knew Jim in fragments.
Yes, she knew he was a demon.
What she didn't know was that he was a half-demon.
And so, filtered through her own common sense—founded on the fact that no hybrid of demon and human had ever existed—
the plan to ambush Jim and bear his child had been scrapped.
That had made her sad. And afraid.
Milia was as clumsy with human relationships as anyone could be, and she believed that persuading Jim with words would be just as hard.
She could not convince Jim. All she could do was hold him here by force, as she was now.
But even if she pinned him down this way, how long could it last? She had duties at the Magic Tower; she couldn't stay at Jim's side forever.
And so she had chosen "becoming one."
"Someday…… someday soon, let's become one. Jim."
In the book she'd read, two beings of different races reached an ending where they became one. The female knight, her body and mind dissolved into the tentacles' mucus, finally merging with them utterly.
And so, taking her cue from that ending, she had resolved to melt Jim down and remodel him—so that even as a demon, he could have a child with a human.
Melt away his flesh and bone with the tentacles, and seat his brain into a new body. That would do it.
"Mm…… that's the plan."
Of course, this was, in the end, no different from the plan to turn Jim into an undead.
And it wasn't finished yet, either.
That was why she'd considered the undead route—but if she did that, Jim's personality would be erased entirely.
Yes—both plans, as they stood, were impossible.
But she knew now. Hadn't Jim taught her?
"Melt it down while keeping your personality intact, so you can become one."
Nothing is impossible.
It has merely gone unverified.
"I'll do my best until that day comes."
A small stone that Jim had once idly tossed was now hurtling back toward him, grown into a meteor.
Lilith had stumbled.
As a result, Jim crossed paths with Legion Commander Five at a point where no such encounter had been scheduled.
She had arrived at the site where Lieutenant Colonel Extra had been slain.
Given that she'd assumed Five would seek out the place where Extra died, one could say their paths had crossed in the worst possible way.
"This is……"
She had failed to stop Five's rampage, but the trip had yielded something.
There had been circumstances she'd doubted from the start, and now she could confirm them. The first Field Officer Grade casualty inflicted by the Hero Party.
And not merely a death—an unprecedented one, where the officer had simply lain down and died for the enemy.
It was all neatly packaged as "for Jim's sake," but something about it stank.
A Field Officer Grade officer could have extracted himself from that situation without much difficulty, if saving only his own skin.
And so Lilith had doubted—and the answer to that doubt could be found simply by examining the scene.
"As I thought…… he was alive."
Yes. He had faked his death.
The reports said he'd been skewered by the Holy Sword and killed instantly, yet not a single corpse remained at this site.
Granted, wild scavengers roamed these lands, so a missing body alone proved nothing.
But no matter where she dug, she could find no remains belonging to Lieutenant Colonel Extra.
No—of the remains she had found here, only about three were even demonic in origin. And even those looked nothing like regular army bones.
The equipment was worn and outdated. Considering how recently the army had rotated out its standard kit, these were most likely the belongings of deserters from years past.
In other words: Lieutenant Colonel Extra, and every member of the operations team under his command.
"They slipped the Demon King Army's eyes and escaped?"
It meant they had walked out carrying every scrap of information accessible to Field Officer Grade personnel within the corps, unrestricted and unredacted.
"Damn it all!"
Legion Commander Five, forced into retreat after being caught off guard by a single unexpected strike from the Hero, Esmeralda, was grinding her teeth.
Beaten by an opponent far weaker than herself. True, her wounds from the battle against the ancient dragon Agni had yet to fully heal—but she'd been caught while off her guard, and there was no humiliation more pathetic than that.
She had no intention of letting this go as magnanimously as Eleven had.
She would return, treat her wounds, and then take the field herself.
The front line she was assigned to?
She had already brought down an ancient dragon, hadn't she?
The front would barely notice her absence.
Yes. This disgraceful stain had to be erased. She would kill the Hero, and she would eliminate the demon spy, Jim.
"Legion Commander Five."
She was blazing across the snowfield, drunk on vengeance, when it happened.
Only then—only then—did Five, lost in her thoughts, realize that she had been surrounded.
"Now what do you lot want?"
Not Magic Tower forces.
The Tower could never have cornered her this quietly.
This was the domain of technique, not magic. That was why Five had failed to sense them until they were upon her.
"That crest……"
They wore robes thrown over their heads. Hoods that concealed even their faces.
The distinguishing mark: an eye emblazoned at the center of each robe, ringed by a pattern of stylized numerals, like slitted eyelids.
"The Eye of Truth?"
The Empire's academic organization, boasting a scale to rival the Magic Tower and the Heavenly God Order. But unlike those two, the Eye of Truth had never been worth watching.
It was, quite literally, a scholarly society.
A group that went about lecturing here and there on mathematics, philosophy, and each other's discoveries—that was all.
But one look at the power radiating from these figures was enough to tell Five that the intelligence bureau's assessment had been dead wrong.
Humans, elves, dwarves, even demons—a dazzling variety of races, and every last one a warrior of the first rank.
And most important of all—
"You people…… what in the world do you have to do with the Dragonkin?"
Every single one of them breathed the aura of the Dragonkin—the ancient and long-standing nemesis of the demon race.
"Who's to say? Even if you knew, it wouldn't mean a thing now, would it?"
"……You?!"
Five froze at the familiar voice. A man reported dead.
A name she hadn't spared a single thought for—shoved into some corner of her mind and forgotten.
"That's rather cold of you. You're the one who gave me my name, after all."
3rd Battalion Commander, 12th Regiment, 5th Corps of the Demon King Army.
Lieutenant Colonel, Extra.
"I was told, quite clearly, that you were dead……"
"If they'd tried to recover my corpse, they'd have caught on right away. Anyway, this Demon King Army of ours. No loyalty at all. None whatsoever."
With Lieutenant Colonel Extra's cold smile, the Eye of Truth operatives gathered around them began drawing their weapons, one by one.
"Well, either way—we've come in the dragon's name to avenge Agni."
So saying, Extra rested the sword he'd swung at Five across his shoulder and grinned.
The draconic aura Five had sensed—it had come from weapons forged of Dragonkin bone.
"Ah, right. Even if I was just a spy, killing you—a superior of many years—it doesn't grieve me much. You weren't exactly a good boss, were you?"