Aftermath
"S-Sophieee!!" Grig screamed his daughter's name the instant his eyes flew open, his head whipping toward the bed. But where he had expected to find her corpse, there was nothing. Only the dark stains of blood that had spilled during the surgery remained, soaking into the sheets.
"Aah... Aaaaaah..." The empty bed tore a wail from deep in Grig's throat. If her body had been left behind, he could have at least prepared a proper farewell. Now even that small mercy had been stolen from him. Just as the bishops would rape the corpses of virgins before carrying them away, the Demon Archduke had surely violated his daughter and dragged her off to some hellish place.
-Bang!
The door burst open. In stepped a person of such breathtaking beauty that Grig had never seen anyone like them before. Yet the aura surrounding this beauty felt strangely neutral. It was difficult to tell whether this was a man beautiful enough to pass for a woman, or simply a woman who had cut her hair short.
"Feeling better?" The deep, resonant baritone left no doubt. This was a man. He swept the scattered objects on the table into a sack as he continued speaking.
"The demonic energy in your body has been purified. Luckily your daughter possesses a special ability, so we were able to wipe it away cleanly."
"...!!" Grig shot upright the moment he processed the words. Ed had clearly said your daughter erased the demonic energy. That could only mean she was still alive.
"M-My daughter is alive? Where is she?!" Grig staggered forward and grabbed at the young man's sleeve. Ed kept stuffing items into the sack without looking up and answered with two short words.
"Outside."
Grig bolted from the house. His eyes frantically searched the surroundings until he finally spotted her.
"...!! Sophie!!" His daughter was kneeling among his fallen subordinates, pouring holy power into their wounds. He ran to her and crushed her against his chest. Sophie threw her arms around her father with equal desperation, clinging as though she would never let go.
"I'm so glad you're safe... Thank the heavens you're safe..." Grig wept openly, tears streaming down his face. Sophie buried herself deeper into his embrace, her own quiet sobs conveying everything words could not.
"But Sophie... didn't the Demon Archduke kidnap you?" Once the relief of seeing her alive had settled, confusion rushed in. He had been certain the archduke had torn her open and defiled her. How could she look so healthy? How was she standing here at all?
Sophie quietly explained everything that had happened since that nightmare began.
"Lord Edga Fix saved me."
"...Edga Fix?" The name was known to every soul in the empire. He was the first commoner in history to rise to the rank of count. To ordinary people he was a living legend, the very symbol of impossible success. Grig knew the name well.
"...I see. Then where is Lord Edga Fix now? I must thank him with my own mouth." The man who had rescued his daughter from a Demon Archduke deserved eternal gratitude. Grig asked for directions.
His daughter's answer was unexpected. "The Count... I believe he just stepped inside our house. Didn't you see him?"
"...?" The beautiful youth from earlier? Grig asked if his suspicion was correct. Sophie nodded.
"Yes. He's incredibly handsome, isn't he? Even I was shocked."
"......" Grig stared at his own house with a blank face. The rumors had always described Count Edga Fix as a charismatic, middle-aged man with a magnificent beard. The reality was nothing like the stories. The youth who looked barely past his twentieth year was the legendary Edga Fix.
-Creak.
The door opened again. Ed stepped out, a heavy sack clutched in one hand, bulging with every demonic cult artifact he had stripped from the house. Grig rushed over and dropped to his knees.
"I heard you saved my daughter's life! Thank you! I will never forget this debt for as long as I live!"
A benefactor who had pulled his child from the claws of a Demon Archduke. Ed merely handed over the sack with an indifferent expression.
"Burn all of it."
"...Pardon?"
"Burn every last piece. Not only these—destroy anything and everything connected to the Demon Cult."
"......" Grig accepted the sack with a stunned face. Inside lay every holy relic of the cult he had once worshipped as a god.
"...Yes. Of course they must be burned. I should never have fallen for any of this."
Grig smiled bitterly and tightened his grip on the sack. From the very beginning he should never have followed a mad religion that violated the corpses of virgins. He had nearly lost his only child because of it.
He's giving up awfully fast, isn't he?
Ed found the reaction surprising. People who had tasted demonic energy rarely abandoned it so easily. The power carried a vicious addiction. Even those who escaped the cult often crawled back, unable to overcome the withdrawal and the intoxicating rush of pleasure that came with it.
Looks like I actually found a keeper here.
Yet Grig displayed none of the usual lingering hunger for demonic energy. That could only mean Sophie's holy power was extraordinary. It had erased not only the corruption but the addiction itself.
"B-But... how did you possibly defeat the Demon Archduke...? The scriptures say he possesses power that could bring about the end of the world..."
Grig finally voiced the question that had been burning inside him. He had heard the rumors of Ed's strength, but facing a Demon Archduke was on another level entirely. How could someone so young possibly stand against such a monster?
"Ah. The Demon Archduke?" Ed flashed a chilling smile. He reached into his inventory and began summoning the segmented parts of the suit.
"Is this the form you were talking about?"
Each piece flew to Ed and locked into place with mechanical precision. Grig's mouth fell open as he watched the nightmare armor take shape before his eyes. Horror slowly flooded his face as recognition hit.
He spun around and screamed.
The maniacal laughter, the chainsaw tearing through his men, the monstrous figure drenched in blood—it was burned into Grig's mind as pure trauma. He never wanted to see that form again.
"Hmm. Guess I should clear up the misunderstanding first."
Ed's brutal appearance had only emerged while dealing with those corrupted by demonic energy. Now that Grig had returned to his senses as a complete human being, it was time to resolve the accumulated fear. Ed fired a web-shooter, binding the man in place, then turned to the girl.
"Sophie, explain it to your father. Tell him exactly why I came here."
Three hours later, after learning the full truth, Grig gathered every villager who had regained consciousness. He led them to the widest field, declaring he had a critical announcement.
"What in the world happened...?" His subordinates were drowning in confusion. When they had woken, the demonic energy was gone and the monster that had been butchering them had vanished. They remembered their limbs being torn off, their own screams still echoing in their ears. None of it made sense. And why had their captain simply ordered them to assemble without a single word of explanation?
"As of today, we are withdrawing from the Salvation Cult."
That single sentence hit like a bomb the moment everyone had gathered. The villagers erupted.
"Captain!"
"What are you saying?!"
"Have you lost your mind?!"
Protests exploded from every direction. Leaving the Salvation Cult meant surrendering to the nobles. Their captain had been the one who united them all with cries of reclaiming their rightful power against aristocratic oppression. Why would he suddenly reverse course?
"A new lord is coming to this land."
The murmuring died down for a brief moment at Grig's next words, but the calm was fleeting. What did a new lord matter to them?
"And that new lord's name is Edga Fix. A man who rose from commoner to noble."
Now the atmosphere shifted. If the new lord was none other than Count Edga Fix—the first commoner ever elevated to nobility—then the story changed completely.
"Captain." A sharp-eyed young man stepped forward. He glared at Grig. "Are you really telling us to abandon the Salvation Cult simply because the new lord happens to be a former commoner? After everything the nobles have done to us?"
His pointed question ignited the crowd again. People shouted their agreement. Nobles could never be trusted. They needed their own strength to protect themselves.
"That slaughterer who wiped out the village earlier."
Grig's calm continuation silenced every voice at once. The mere mention of the chainsaw-wielding butcher who had massacred the village in under ten minutes froze them all where they stood.
"That slaughterer... was Lord Edga Fix."