Traces and Tracking
"The scent of demonic blood is foul, no matter how many times I smell it," I said, slowly scanning the room.
This room, which had served as the dressing room for the theater troupe's actors, was left in utter ruin from the aftermath of a battle. Severed demonic limbs lay scattered across the floor, and deep, menacing sword gouges scarred the walls.
"You said he was a theater actor who had recently been making a name for himself? This is a first," I remarked, examining the face of the demon lying in a corner, its limbs completely severed.
Why would those who usually lurk in the shadows do this...? The question was not easily answered. I could understand them hiding in a theater, but actively performing as an actor and putting themselves in the spotlight was a different story entirely. Were they targeting the nobles who came to watch the plays—specifically high-ranking officials?
"What do you think, Ines?" I asked Ines, the Captain of the Silver Wing Knights, who was observing the scene beside me. She looked around the room before turning her gaze to me.
"Hmm... Though the room is a mess, the battle seems to have ended much faster than one would expect. Both sides possessed formidable speed... but it appears the nameless swordsman was far swifter."
"I see. And... they didn't take the horn." Replying to Ines's analysis, I approached the thoroughly butchered corpse of the demon, bending my knees to inspect the horn on its forehead. The horn was a dark, crimson-black.
Though it wasn't a demon of the Black Horn rank, defeating it alone would still require considerable martial prowess. A faint trace of magi leaked from its cracked horn. How many humans must have died at the hands of this filthy demon? I snapped my fingers, purifying the lingering demonic energy in the room, and stood back up.
The fact that they didn't take the horn... does it mean they don't belong to any nation or organization? A demon's horn was, fundamentally, a proof of subjugation.
"Is there anything we can glean from the sword marks? A specific school of swordsmanship, perhaps...?" I asked, stepping closer to Ines, who was staring intently at the gouges on the wall.
"I am trying to picture how the battle unfolded... At first, I thought it might be sword qi, but I do not believe so. Sword qi does not leave such jagged, rough marks. It tends to be much cleaner. This suggests the sword itself physically gouged the wall... from all the way over there." Ines pointed toward the entrance, quite a distance away from the wall.
How could a sword reach so far without sword qi? It sounded impossible, but Ines was not lying. She was entirely confident in her deduction. Lacking profound knowledge of swordsmanship myself, I had to trust the judgment of a member of the Knights of the Round Table—a Round.
The Knights of the Round Table, also known as the Rounds, referred to the ten strongest knights on the continent. The Round Table originally had twelve seats, but one remained vacant after the death of a former member, and another was reserved for the Sword Saint. Although the Sword Saint had flatly refused to join, they stubbornly kept his seat open.
"It seems to be a style of swordsmanship I have never encountered before, Saintess. I apologize for my lack of usefulness," Ines said, bowing her head as she finished her inspection.
"...Raise your head, Ines. Whoever they are, it is enough if we can discern their intentions. This mysterious individual managed to find and secretly eliminate a demon that even we failed to notice." I paced the room, observing the surroundings. The severed body parts... Had they been cut off out of necessity during the fight? Did the killer derive pleasure from slaughtering demons? Or did they simply wish to inflict agonizing pain? As I pondered over the gruesome sight, a commotion erupted outside. Soon, a knight rushed into the dressing room, shouting breathlessly.
"Saintess! Those Golden Lion bastards have arrived...!"
The Golden Lion Knights. Belonging to the Terasia Kingdom, they were an order tasked with hunting down demons hiding in human lands, much like us. There was an unwritten rule that dealing with demons transcended nations, races, and jurisdictions. Why had they shown up here so late?
"Out of my way!" Soon after, a blonde man clad in golden plate armor representing the Golden Lions strode into the room, flanked by his subordinates.
"...Sir Terlos, it has been a while." Terlos Okentia. He was the Captain of the Golden Lion Knights.
"I thought I saw a lot of winged pests on my way here... I didn't expect the Saintess herself to grace us with her presence."
"You are in the presence of the Saintess. Watch your tongue, Terlos," Ines snapped, her voice sharp as a blade. At her warning, Terlos raised his palms in mock surrender. "My, my."
"It is fine, Ines. So... what brings you here, Sir Terlos?" My cold voice echoed through the room. Terlos glanced at the subordinate beside him before speaking.
"As it turns out, the demon here was actually dealt with by one of my subordinates."
"And yet, its horn remains firmly attached to its forehead?" Ines immediately countered his absurd claim.
"Ah, well... it seems he forgot to harvest the horn in his haste. Haha!" Terlos laughed awkwardly, patting his subordinate's shoulder.
"...It was my first solo subjugation... My apologies. Hehe..." The subordinate scratched his cheek, offering a greasy, insincere smile.
"Pfft... Sir Terlos. Did you prepare a play just because this happens to be a theater? What a ridiculous performance. Perhaps you should have rehearsed a bit more..." As I burst into laughter, Terlos's eyes flickered with panic. They were lying. I could clearly sense the unpleasant aura of deceit. The power granted to me by the Lord did not make mistakes.
"...Ines."
Shring! At my quiet call, Ines's figure vanished in an instant, reappearing right in front of Terlos's subordinate with her sword pressed against his throat.
"How dare you utter falsehoods in the presence of the Saintess, the Apostle of the Lord." Ines's chilling voice rang out. The subordinate trembled violently, paralyzed with fear.
"W-What do you think you're doing, Ines!" Terlos reached for his hilt, but his foolish attempt was cut short by my voice.
"If you draw your sword, I will not stand idly by. Surely you realize, Sir Terlos, that the moral high ground belongs entirely to us."
Struck where it hurt, Terlos froze, unable to utter a single word. I stared at him and continued.
"When a new Saintess arises, you should at least make an effort to learn what her abilities are. You may leave, Sir Terlos. I shall overlook this insolence just this once."
Thud! Unable to withstand Ines's murderous intent any longer, Terlos's subordinate collapsed backward onto the floor. To think a pathetic coward like him claimed to have slain a demon alone... What a joke. I had heard from Ines that Terlos, the Captain of the Golden Lion Knights, was far more foolish than he appeared, but I hadn't expected him to be this brainless.
"...We're leaving," Terlos spat, kicking his fallen subordinate before storming out of the room. The subordinate scrambled to his feet and scurried after him.
"The Kingdom's dogs are always so slow to gather intelligence... To think they didn't even know what your ability was..."
"It is fine. Didn't you say yourself, Ines, that Terlos is nothing more than a puppet?"
"Yes. Though he was not present today, the Vice-Captain of the Golden Lions is the one truly pulling the strings. It is safe to assume he is the real leader of the order."
"I suppose Terlos's stupidity makes him easy to manipulate."
"...He is certainly up to something. Perhaps this entire farce was orchestrated by him, though I cannot fathom what his intentions might be."
"Hmm..." I hummed thoughtfully at Ines's explanation. The Vice-Captain of the Golden Lion Knights. I had never crossed paths with him, even during the regular joint reports on demon subjugation. I felt I would only understand his character once I met him in person, but he rarely showed his face.
Just then, Ines let out a soft gasp and stepped closer to me. "Speaking of intelligence, that reminds me. We received a report about an acupuncturist hailed as a 'blind saint' in a small village not too far from this city."
"That sounds like the blind acupuncturist Antony mentioned. Did he stop by that village?"
"Yes. According to the reports, he has been traveling around the villages, treating the sick. And..."
"And?"
"An informant in this city reported spotting a man with his eyes covered by a stark white bandage last night. It was a passing glance, so they couldn't be entirely certain. However, whether this is related to the incident... the location where he was spotted was not near the theater."
"Hmm... Could they be the same person?"
"A blind man with bandaged eyes... If the information is accurate, the likelihood of them being the same person is high. But... it is difficult to picture a blind acupuncturist wielding a sword and hunting down hidden demons."
"Fufu... I agree. This is turning out to be quite intriguing." I smiled at Ines's competence, then turned my gaze back to the brutally butchered remains of what used to be a demon. No matter how I looked at it, these marks seemed to carry a deep, emotional weight... Did the killer harbor a personal grudge against this demon? For now, it wouldn't hurt to visit the village where he was last seen.
A saint... First Antony's daughter, Emilia, and now this. What kind of person was he to elicit such praise from everyone he met? If the person who slaughtered the demon and the one who cured Antony's daughter were indeed the same, he possessed both peerless martial skill and a noble character. If he truly belonged to no faction, he was a talent I absolutely had to recruit into our order.
I sought out the Black Hand near the academy to dig up information on Krektar. True to their reputation as an information guild, they kept the locations of their branches strictly hidden, but I already had a connection within their ranks. Pulling my robe low over my face, I entered the branch and stepped into her office.
"Hehe, Eisel. You're here?" The woman slumped over her desk didn't even look up, yet she recognized me instantly. It was only natural, considering even the slightest whisper of my approach would reach her ears as the branch manager.
"Do you have any idea how hurt I was that you haven't visited lately?" Despite it being a while since we last met, she welcomed me with her usual sly, playful tone. But with each regression, the need to rely on an information guild dwindled, so I couldn't help it.
"Oswald. Tell me if he has a safehouse, and if so, where it is." Ignoring her pouty complaints, I sat in the chair across from her desk and cut straight to the chase.
"Oswald... You mean the theater actor who's been getting popular lately?"
"...Yes." I ground my teeth as I answered. Oswald. But to me, the name Krektar was far more familiar. He was one of those disgusting demons who came to kill me on the exact same day in every life—the monsters who slaughtered my family, my clan, and turned me into an experimental subject.
The eradication of the Ludwig clan had occurred when I was still a mere child, long before I could even form a proper bond with my family. The regressions I suffered through were also a sort of 'curse' born from being used as their test subject. Fortunately, they remained oblivious to the fact that I was a regressor.
Among them, Krektar was particularly bizarre. I had never dreamed that a demon hiding in human territory would spend his time acting in plays. Since I had zero interest in theater, I might have remained ignorant of this fact forever—had I not run into him in front of a theater by chance while wandering the city with Zeto in my previous life.
Back then, I had killed him alongside Zeto. Because we eliminated him instantly, I hadn't had the chance to extract any information from him. We were together back then... The memory of fighting alongside Zeto resurfaced, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. I quickly cleared my head. This time, I planned to kill him alone. With my current strength, subduing and torturing him by myself seemed entirely feasible.
Just then, the branch manager uttered something completely unexpected. "I doubt you'd go watch a play... so are you perhaps interested in demons?" She pushed herself up from her desk and stretched as she asked.
Even for the Black Hand, they shouldn't have known that Oswald was the demon Krektar... Why had the word 'demon' slipped from her lips? Her next words, spoken in a low murmur, provided the answer.
"Oswald was found brutally butchered. With a horn protruding from his forehead, no less. I heard he was chopped into several pieces... Ugh. It was so gruesome I stopped reading the report halfway through."
Someone had killed Krektar before me.