The Black Gentleman
The darkness lifted, and a radiance that slowly descended tickled my eyes. Yeah, it was morning.
"What a disgustingly generous day..."
The light pouring down from a sky without a single cloud to filter it stung my eyes like fire.
"Hmm, so you've woken up. The sun is already high in the sky, yet you only rise now. You're no different from a beast."
High in the sky, my ass. It's barely morning.
"Wow, you sure know how to talk pretty to your partner first thing in the morning."
I got up from the makeshift tent's bed and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator to chug it down. The fridge was a modern convenience, apparently implemented in this game using cold magic or something.
'This is just the developers being too lazy to research proper historical accuracy and slapping magic on it instead, right?'
After staring at the unresponsive sky for a moment, I finished off the last of the water, picked up the Blood Ghoul, and threw open the tent flap.
"Ah, Seb. Laplace is currently about twenty kilometers away. I was just about to wake you, but it seems you got up on your own."
The average human walking speed is four kilometers per hour. He moves at roughly twice that—eight kilometers per hour. If we just sit here and wait, we've got about two and a half hours left.
Of course, we have no intention of sitting around doing nothing.
"Well, Chloe said she's already taken care of everything necessary. Shall we get moving?"
The battlefield we'd chosen to minimize damage to the surrounding area was another ten kilometers northwest. It was selected to make the most of Chloe's efficient firearm use and my ability to wield the Blood Demon's powers.
"About the blood packs you mentioned..."
Honestly, the Blood Ghoul wasn't suited for one-on-one combat. It was a power that manipulated existing blood, but in a duel, blood doesn't exactly come gushing out everywhere. The Blood Demon himself had reached the level of creating blood directly through Blood Creation, but I hadn't. And I didn't need to.
"Ah, here it is."
I looked into the basket Chloe handed me, filled with blood packs.
"How cowardly! If you wish to face This Seat, you should learn Blood Creation properly and fight with honor! Begone!!"
Begone? Where did he even learn that?
Of course, if I wanted to handle the Blood Ghoul more skillfully, learning Blood Creation wouldn't be a bad idea. But right now, time was short, so stocking up on strategically versatile blood packs was the better choice.
"...To think you can handle something like this. What a sinister ability."
Chloe shivered as she spoke, yet her hands moved busily as she dismantled the makeshift tent with practiced ease. It clearly wasn't her first time.
"Let me help..."
Feeling awkward just standing there while she worked so hard, I offered, but—
"It's fine. I prefer doing it alone."
Shot down in one sentence.
Right. Her Highness is the best...
"Well then, shall we depart?"
After completely dismantling the tent and gathering the pieces, Chloe began stuffing them into her bag.
...How the hell does all that fit in there?
Once the last remnants of the tent were dealt with, the only things left on the vast plain were two people and a single glove.
Ugh, it's freezing.
"How unfortunate. It would have been safer with more combatants."
The Blood Demon grumbled, but all I could do was force a bitter smile. He heard the whole briefing, so did he seriously doze off during the strategy explanation?
"I already told you we couldn't bring more combatants. The protective suits are limited, remember?"
To withstand the poisonous fog Laplace spreads through the air—fog that burns skin on contact—protective suits were essential. Originally, I'd planned to steal one the same way I acquired the Blood Ghoul...
"Ah, right. We didn't have enough suits, so it couldn't be helped. But the two of us should be sufficient, so don't worry."
Her Highness apparently had two incredibly high-performance protective suits. They were the suits worn by the Technology Demon King, recovered after his death—two of them.
The design was a bit...
'It looks just like Iron Man...'
I stared uneasily at the suit that looked like it could fire lasers from its palms. In the center of the chest was a sparkling blue button. I pressed it.
The suit disassembled into parts that flew onto my body and attached themselves.
'No way, this is straight-up plagiarism!'
Just in case, I tried mimicking a shooting motion with my palm, but fortunately—or unfortunately—no laser came out.
"Huh... huh?"
Suddenly, the suit clinging to my body began writhing violently, as if transforming.
"Hehe, looks like it fits well."
Chloe let out a soft laugh as she watched the suit, which had shifted from its Iron Man-like form into something resembling a transparent membrane.
"Even after hearing the explanation, it's still amazing. How does something like this even exist?"
I'd used the standard protective suit provided in Starlight when going after Laplace as Chloe, but seeing this in reality was downright creepy. It moved like some kind of alien organism!
"It was left behind by the dead Demon King. He may have been a villain, but he had plenty of fascinating things."
Even so, a transparent suit that flies on by itself and attaches, plus guns—this was way beyond over-the-top technology, wasn't it?
"For example, there's also this."
Her Highness rummaged through her bag and pulled out a pair of silver, sparkling shoes.
What the hell was in that bag? Was it really Doraemon's multidimensional pocket?
"Here, try them on!"
She looked at me with sparkling eyes, like an older sister giving her little brother a birthday present.
Ah, fine. I was going to wear them anyway...
Huh?
"My feet feel incredibly... light."
Just like when I'd received leg treatment from Hibrael, my feet felt so light they might float away.
"Haha, do you like them?"
Seeing my shocked reaction, Chloe beamed with delight.
"Whoa... These are seriously the best? I feel like I could actually fly!"
"Ahem!"
After a few compliments, Her Highness puffed out her chest with her shoulders raised high. Was this what having a real older sister would feel like? If so, then sisters really were like angels.
"How does something like this even exist..."
My running speed had increased dramatically too. Seriously, if she had these, she should've mentioned them earlier. These didn't even exist in the game!
"Oi, stop yapping and let's move already. Time doesn't stop just because you two are fooling around."
After briefly considering offering the Blood Demon up as a sacrifice for his annoyingly correct remark—
"Well then, shall we go?"
We began walking.
Very, very quickly.
"By the way, I have a question."
After walking for who knows how long, the Blood Demon broke the silence he'd created with his own presence.
What now? What nonsense was he going to spout this time?
"That Laplace fellow or whatever his name is—what did you say his ability was again? At my age, I keep forgetting things."
...He just hadn't been listening properly.
"Did you even pay attention during the meeting? We've gone over this story hundreds of times. If your memory is this bad, maybe you should just check into a nursing home."
Chloe, who had been sulking ever since the Blood Demon pointed out her mistake, shot back coldly.
Why... why are you like this, sis? You're scaring me.
"Haha... Look at this insolent brat. In my prime, a cheeky little whelp like you wouldn't have been worth a single punch..."
No, why are you like this? If you're really as old as you claim, couldn't you just let it slide gracefully?
"Blood Demon, please calm down. Laplace's ability itself is quite simple. I can explain it briefly while we walk, so please settle down, Chloe."
"...Tch."
Chloe looked like she wanted to say more, but backed off at my intervention. This wasn't some elementary school fight I needed to break up. I sighed and opened my mouth.
"He spreads poisonous fog mixed with pathogens and manipulates it freely."
I'd mentioned before that all the pathogens he created could be cured with Elixir. The same applied to the poison he made. The Elixir he created was essentially an antidote.
And Laplace, who had perfectly adapted the Elixir into his own body...
"No matter what happens inside it, he takes no damage."
Even so, he still wore that plague doctor mask shaped like a bird's beak—his signature look—despite it having no effect.
Of course, his abilities didn't end there.
"His green, rippling poisonous fog is manageable. The protective suits can handle it. The real problem is..."
The limited field of view, the countless hidden weapons soaked in poison flying through it, and—
'That cane-shaped rapier he thrusts while hidden in the fog.'
Even setting aside the poison coating it, getting hit even once would inevitably put a hole in the protective suit. Then the poisonous fog would make direct contact with skin, stacking continuous damage until you eventually dropped dead.
"His only weakness is his lack of decisiveness in killing people outright, so if we kill him first and take the Elixir..."
The Elixir wasn't for us to drink. It had to go to the young lady. Therefore—
"In other words, we mustn't get hit at all. Understood."
Exactly. It meant we had to pull off a real-life no-hit play, something we'd only done in the game.
What about sharing the Elixir? Impossible. To cure Mana Retardation, the entire Elixir had to be used on that one person.
"...Wait, did we miscalculate?"
Before we knew it, we'd arrived at the location where we were supposed to encounter Laplace, but instead of the expected green aura, there was only an empty grassland.
We hadn't gotten the date wrong. Chloe had personally confirmed Laplace's position and movement route three days ago, and even this morning.
So there was only one remaining possibility.
"Chloe! Duck!"
He had spotted us first.
-Bang!
At that moment, two hidden weapons flew toward our heads from behind with a sharp whistling sound.
"Huu. Th-thank you."
After regaining my senses and looking in the direction the weapons had come from, I saw a single figure.
"My, my... There were some persistent little rats following me."
The man spun his cane in his hand and tipped his bowler hat with a casual smile, sending chills down my spine.
"Since this is our first meeting, how about a proper greeting?"
Between the gaps in his coat, I could see skin dyed purple, and a crow mask covered his entire face.
"Pleased to meet you, Plague Demon King of the Spreading Pestilence, also known as the Black Gentleman."
His voice was grating, filled with static-like noise, and the madman shamelessly referred to himself with that cringeworthy title.
"My name is Laplace."
The Elixir refrigerator stood before us, just as expected.