The Dragonkin and the Demons (3)
The birthday party at the Magic Tower was over.
Well, considering something rather unpleasant had happened, keeping the party going any longer would probably have felt a bit off anyway.
Glisha, the Tower Master, was nowhere to be seen, claiming she had to repair the damage scattered here and there and verify that the tower's barriers and alarm systems were still intact.
The compensation, however, was more than certain.
Everyone had been showered with gifts — gold coins and magical artifacts galore.
"...So that's what happened. Do you think the Commander might still be angry with me? I-It's not an excuse or anything, but it really was self-defense, you see?"
Slipping away from the Magic Tower to somewhere a little more secluded, I placed my usual call to the Demon King's Army.
It had been a while, since lately I'd only been moving through locations too heavily guarded for transmissions.
The Heavenly God Order, the Magic Tower — every last one of them had security tighter than a vault.
Not that any of that mattered right now. What mattered was my military career.
Yes, I'd fought back to keep from dying, but I'd still provoked a senior officer of the army. For all I knew, I could be purged on the spot.
If that happened, I wouldn't get anywhere near meeting the Demon King unless I was beaten to the brink of death in the Hero Party first.
So I prayed, with everything I had, that this would be settled with a mild disciplinary measure at worst.
—I see. So something like that happened with Commander Five... Thank you for the information, Captain Jim. As it happens, there were quite a few things I wanted to ask you about, so I'm grateful you brought it up yourself.
"Oh no, it's only my duty, after all. Ahahahaha!"
Lieutenant General Lilith really was so kind.
Was it because I was in the Hero Party?
After dealing with nothing but absolute lunatics day in and day out, Lieutenant General Lilith practically looked like an angel. No, wait — would calling her that be an insult, for a demon?
As a half-blood I didn't much care, but it might be offensive to full demons.
—Commander Five has neither answered communications nor returned to base since then. In all likelihood, she's dead.
"Dead? But..."
—Yes, judging by your account, Captain Jim, a third party's involvement seems probable. Most likely the dragonkin. A group of humans or other races would have had no need to conceal that fact.
"I see."
Can I be happy about this?
No, I can't, can I? If my superior died and I looked delighted, even Lieutenant General Lilith would probably start treating me like garbage.
Still, happy was happy.
Even if I returned to the army, there was no longer any threat of being murdered by the Commander.
I wouldn't need to transfer to another unit either, so as long as I made it back, a rapid promotion was practically guaranteed.
—Which means there will be no disciplinary action for you either, Captain Jim. There's no one left to press the charge, after all.
"Ahem. Cough. I see."
Don't be happy about it.
Don't be happy about it.
Don't be happy about it.
I should be grieving right now, like a child who's lost their parents.
I must not, under any circumstances, let my joy show.
—Well, that's what I learned from your report, Captain Jim, but...
"..."
—Hehe. I doubt there's anything to worry about. I think I'll forget about half of what I heard in today's report.
"Lieutenant General Lilith..."
I might have just fallen in love. When I go back to the Demon King's Army, I'm going to propose to her.
No need to worry about rejection — a kind woman like her would surely say yes!
The moment Esmeralda learned that Milia had caught on about Jim, she came clean about her own acting as well.
She hadn't given a second thought to a demon spy's brat, so why should it matter that she, the Hero, had been hiding a bit of her true personality?
Just as expected, Milia simply nodded as if it were none of her concern.
And so, the number of living surveillance systems watching Jim had grown to three.
The three of them were now observing the demon spy Jim as he filed his report.
"What are you thinking about right now? Your expression is somewhere between unpleasant and disturbing."
"...He says that when he returns, he's going to propose to a demon named Lieutenant General Lilith."
“How convenient. We can identify the name of the target to kill that much sooner.”
At Irina's matter-of-fact death threat, Esmeralda subtly edged away to the left.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
But as she shifted left, she caught sight of Milia on that side, gnawing her fingernails to shreds.
Reading the state of Milia's mind, Esmeralda recoiled in horror and backed away.
It was a multi-layered mental landscape — the kind she only ever showed in extreme, life-or-death moments of combat.
Meaning that, to her, this situation was every bit as extreme as a battlefield.
Unwilling to go left or right, Esmeralda stumbled backward.
Weighing the murderous auras of the two women, she made her decision.
I need to go get Tina.
Astonishingly, not one of the three felt even a sliver of guilt about spying on Jim's private life.
"Let's go pick up Tina!"
"Hero."
"Yes, Irina?"
"Didn't Tina say her work would take a while longer, and that we should move on ahead without her?"
"She did."
They were going to get Tina anyway.
Given that Irina had been picked up, and Milia too, it was honestly the natural order of things —
if only Tina, upon hearing the news, hadn't told them the ruins exploration wasn't finished yet and to go on ahead.
And so their plan had been to head for the front lines of the Demon Realm, their original destination, and set up a base camp in advance.
But watching her party over these past days, Esmeralda had come to a realization.
Either I die of stress, or I die of stress after strangling one of them. One of the two.
There was Irina, waiting for any chance to pounce on Jim.
And there was Milia, watching Irina with eyes cold as ice.
Jim, caught in the middle, apparently could read the room after all — he kept his distance from the two of them while clinging to Esmeralda instead.
For Esmeralda, sandwiched between the two, it was pure torture.
But she couldn't just keep pretending not to notice — Jim's plight was too pitiful.
So she'd taken him under her wing through gritted teeth, only for the situation to worsen: now he'd gone and developed a crush on some demon he'd never even met face to face, a woman named Lilith.
Well, fine. She could understand it.
It happened. Where was the harm in that?
The only problem was that every single other person had found out about it.
Damn it. Not that I can just stand by and watch him funnel information out, either.
Her surveillance of Jim wasn't the issue. Checking what a spy brat was up to was simply the duty of a group's representative, before it was anything a Hero Party should do.
Granted, it would have been much nicer if she were the only one who knew — but shaking off two women backed by the formidable influences of the Magic Tower and the Heavenly God Order was simply impossible.
Irina had demanded, none too subtly, that Esmeralda report Jim's every move and every passing thought to her.
Not that Esmeralda had any obligation to oblige.
Damn it all. If it weren't for the potions...
She had merely bowed before the power of wealth, that was all.
And once Irina made her demand, it was only natural for Milia, who'd been watching her do it, to make the same one.
This one had wooed Esmeralda with promises of all manner of magical artifacts.
They call it a bribe, but it's the kind of gift you can't afford to refuse.
Esmeralda stroked the Demon Sword hanging at her hip — a piece Glisha had crafted — and let out a long sigh.
It was not, absolutely not, that she'd coveted a powerful sword imbued with the frost attribute. It was simply that, had she refused the deal so graciously offered, her own position would have grown precarious.
"I've been thinking it over, and I believe it's only fair that we go collect Tina as well, when we've gone for everyone else."
"Even though she said she was fine on her own?"
"Still, wouldn't she feel left out?"
"How considerate of you, Hero. You must be the one who'd feel left out."
"..."
At the subtle barb in Irina's words, Esmeralda's eyes narrowed to slits.
She was implying, ever so delicately, that Esmeralda was petty enough to feel hurt over such things.
The sight of Irina's sweetly smiling face made Esmeralda want to smack her today of all days — there was no doubt about it, she was being provoked.
"...In any case, that's settled. We're going to meet Tina."
"I-if we go, won't we just end up waiting around? If, if it were me, I'd actually find it more of a burden."
Milia raised her hand ever so slightly and offered a perfectly reasonable objection.
It was a near certainty.
At least, for Milia it was.
"Milia, are we a burden to you?"
"N-no, that's..."
"Then what's the problem?"
"Um..."
"No problem at all, then?"
"...Yeah."
Esmeralda promptly put into practice what she'd just learned from Irina.
Forcing the issue was so much easier.
Milia lost her mind now and then, sure, but at her core she was still timid — and that hadn't changed.
Right. Push hard enough, and Milia could do nothing at all.
"Then it's decided by unanimous vote. A democratic and perfectly admirable process."
"Did you just praise democracy? Does that mean you consider the Empire's current system unjust, and a revolution necessary?"
"Haha, honestly, Irina."
With her usual airheaded smile, Esmeralda added in a low voice, pitched just quietly enough that only Irina could hear.
"Keep cornering me like that, and you might end up dead."
"My, how violent."
Irina was biding her time, waiting for any opportunity to bury Esmeralda socially.
It wasn't assassination — but if Esmeralda was buried politically like this, she'd inevitably end up on a leash.
For Esmeralda, who had survived by walking the narrow middle path, the news was nothing short of a bolt from the blue.
And Irina knew that perfectly well, which was exactly why she trafficked in lies and agitation like this.
Once Esmeralda was leashed, slipping Jim away from her would only become easier.
Esmeralda had no choice but to steel her heart against the dagger that Irina sharpened a little more each day.
"Anyway! We're going to get Tina, so everyone understands, right?!"
In the end, ever the loyal citizen of the Empire, Esmeralda abandoned the democratic process on the spot and ruled by royal decree.
In the Hero Party, she was the king.
The Empire's foremost academic organization.
The Eye of Truth.
Tina, an archaeologist of that institution and the anointed successor to its leadership, was leaning at an angle against a mound of collapsed stone, surveying the excavation site where work was underway.
Scholars like herself were combing the area, piecing together interpretations — but as of yet, they hadn't even managed to locate the ruins' entrance.
Tina yawned lazily, then started to move.
"Here!"
Thunk.
The moment Tina drove a small needle into the crevice of a boulder lying nearby, the ground began to tremble.
GRUUUUMBLE!
Gradually, the entrance to the ruins revealed itself.
"H-how did you do that so easily?!"
"Genius truly is a cut above, isn't it?"
Every scholar of the Eye of Truth stared at her in open disbelief.
Tina just grinned.
"I've got good instincts, that's all~ Puhuhuhu."
That uncanny sense of hers — arriving at answers without any analysis or deliberation at all.
On the surface, it looked remarkably similar to the senses of a dragon: wielding authority as effortlessly as breathing.