Best Comrade
While Siu desperately tried to restrain Sia — who was throwing an all-out tantrum about charging straight over to Lionel's side — Tiss hung up the call and clutched her head.
We're screwed.
Now that she'd already done it, she would have to wrap things up with Katie first, then explain herself properly.
"Comrade-Comrade Tiss! What are you hesitating for? First time eating your own kind? If it's hard to swallow, want Katie to roll it into a dumpling for you?"
"No… don't do that. That's not it."
Her own kind, huh.
She had eaten plenty of humans and plenty of monsters. When she'd punched through villains' chests and converted their hearts into Essence, she hadn't felt much of anything. But having this tiny, adorable creature sitting on her palm, volunteering to be eaten — that felt strange in a way she hadn't expected.
"Let's become one!"
Tiss… she's saying weird stuff.
Don't take every word the clone says so seriously.
Tiss did her best to ignore Katie's clone, sitting demurely on her palm and waving to be eaten, and asked Katie herself.
"Just one question. Even if it's a clone, it's still you. You're okay with that?"
"Doesn't matter! The Legion is one and all. As long as even one of us lives, we can rise again!"
"If you put it that way… I'll gratefully accept."
Y-you're going to eat it?
Of course I have to eat it.
This feels… different from usual.
She had to eat it. For Shan's clone ability to awaken, and to persuade Katie — there was no other way.
She wasn't going to ingest it orally, the way Katie had suggested. After double-checking that Lionel was still inside the mansion, she brought the clone to Shan the same way she always absorbed Essence.
Kyaa!
Since the clone itself was volunteering to be eaten, converting it into Essence went without any discomfort. The little body was absorbed, seeping into the right side of her chest where Shan resided.
"Oh, so you're Shan? First time seeing you in person!"
Aaaahhh!!! It came in this way!
"Eat me!"
U-uwaaah…!
Sorry about this. Absorb it for me, Shan.
Along with the memory-information Katie possessed, the clone's ability was absorbed into her.
Loneliness.
That was the first emotion that struck her after reading the memories.
Katie, born during the Great Locust Plague, had never once had a comrade she could trust. Her siblings — fellow descendants of Abaddon, sharing the same blood — were all either enemies or beings looking to use her. Other mindless monsters were nothing more than predator and prey.
She had luck, and she had skill, so whenever someone reached out first, she grabbed hold — and was betrayed, over and over. She ate the traitors and grew larger still.
Katie grew strong. But the true nature of that strength revealed itself soon enough. She was strong, but she was a fool. She concluded she could never become a true comrade who understood others, or was understood in return.
So what should she do? Use them. Everyone who approached her thought the same way.
"I'm lonely."
She tried saying it out loud, but there was no one beside her to hear.
She might have been similar to Shan in some ways, but unlike Shan — a homebody content with a solitary life — Katie longed for human warmth.
"Want a comrade. But no real comrade."
She'd never been properly taught, so she didn't even know the words. But to soothe the loneliness lodged in a corner of her chest, Katie began combining and piecing together the Essence she had absorbed.
"I multiply. I become many."
What Katie chose was self-replication. Even in the moment she was betrayed, killed, and absorbed, one of Katie's clones was always hidden somewhere. Anyone who betrayed her after she had offered her trust first was always avenged.
Until the truth of her self-replication came to light, the alias they called her by was the Immortal Beast. Even when the Management Bureau joined the hunt and more than ninety percent of Abaddon's Spawn were slaughtered, Katie survived.
By the time she became the ruler of a territory, the only monsters left were ones who volunteered as subordinates — not comrades. The loneliness she had set aside to survive bound her even more viciously.
She wanted to be a comrade, but the weak never wanted to be comrades with her. If she became the strongest comrade of all, she wouldn't be sad even if she was betrayed. If she became the strongest comrade of all, she wouldn't have to kill and eat them just to survive, even if they turned on her.
That was the moment Katie's purpose was decided.
Time passed.
Someone appeared before Katie, their form mosaicked out of existence.
"Who are you?"
For the first time, Katie gained a comrade. That comrade taught Katie a fast, dangerous method to stand above all her siblings.
The information of that being had been blurred by a contract, but it didn't matter. The circumstances before and after, and the result they produced — in Katie's memories the being itself had been blurred out, but there was more than enough to go on. Speech patterns, behavior, mannerisms. The identity was obvious.
Beelzebuth. It was her.
S-she is pretty pitiful, I'll give her that.
Even Shan, who didn't think well of Katie, had tears welling slightly in her eyes.
Thank goodness the contents of the contract were readable. Through that contract, Beelzebuth had used the Dragon Heart as bait to make Katie assault the Academy. And if it had been any other relic, that would have been one thing — but the Dragon Heart would almost certainly get Katie killed.
The Dragon Heart was a treasure the former Hero party had obtained from the Dragon of the Snowy Mountain. It was an object the Management Bureau regarded as critically important. If anyone actually laid a hand on it, it wouldn't just be Area 3 that moved — the entire Bureau would mobilize.
Huh? If they treasure it that much, why keep it at the Academy?
Because the members of that generation's Hero party staked their lives on a contract with the dragon of the Snowy Mountain.
Once the great work of slaying the Calamity was finished, the dragon would not allow its heart to be used for any profane purpose. Instead, it would be left at the Academy as a token of the pact, for all to see.
What's that got to do with the Management Bureau?
Because the Bureau Director was one of them.
And that was exactly what made it so dangerous. He wouldn't be moving to honor the pact. He would be moving, by any means necessary, to recover a Dragon Heart freed from its binding oath.
Katie had no way of knowing any of that, which was why she had signed Beelzebuth's contract in the first place.
The support Beelzebuth was supposedly giving Katie looked generous on the surface, but if you actually ran the numbers, New Order wasn't losing a thing. They used the Gregory Cult to smuggle Katie into the country in secret, and the only subordinates they were actually spending were fanatics. Their main fighting asset, Cheon Geomhwa, was an executive from another company, blackmailed with Roseria's safety as a hostage. As for the sheer numbers, those were just small-time villain outfits — a third faction that had shoved its way in hoping a few scraps might fall their way.
S-she's cunning.
A scheme that wants to stay in the shadows. Very Beelzebuth.
Tiss had no intention of playing along with someone who was openly angling to walk away with all the spoils.
For Katie's sake… and to wipe that smirk off Beelzebuth's face, we have to stop the raid. I-is there a way?
It's a tightly woven board. But there's a way.
Katie was a fool, but she had a cunning streak of her own. There was a line she would not cross — a line that kept Beelzebuth from openly pocketing the gains. If they used that line, they only needed to make her fulfill the contract. Nothing more.
"Katie, where's your territory?"
"Left it in someone's care! Made a contract. They said they'd take full responsibility and look after it until Katie returns."
They would look after it, all right. It would be their land the moment Katie died.
The territory of an Abaddon's Spawn meant far more than a place to live. For a monster, it was a nest and a forward base — not a life of wandering and hunting, but a place to continuously harvest Essence and nutrients, and to expand one's power. And sitting even further out than Area 7, it would be the perfect location for New Order to handle all the business they couldn't conduct under their own name.
"I've got a question."
"Ask whatever you wish!"
"The reason you want the Dragon Heart — is it to get a best comrade?"
"That's right!"
"Then, conversely — if you got a best comrade, you wouldn't go after the Dragon Heart?"
She laid her tail across Katie's lap. Katie, as naturally as breathing, started kneading it, sinking into thought. When Tiss gave it a little sway and tried to slip it free, Katie wrapped her whole body around it and refused to let go.
O-oh. Tiss is using a honey trap.
Ahem.
She couldn't exactly deny it, so she offered no comment.
"Katie wants a best comrade. But nobody wants to be a real best comrade with Katie."
The dejected look on Katie's face said everything about how many times she had already failed.
"Then how about I become Katie's best comrade?"
"Comrade-Comrade Tiss?"
"Yeah. Me… and Shan. Both of us."
"Comrade-Comrade Shan too?"
Katie's eyes began to waver. So did Shan's.
Shan, why are YOU flustered?
Uh… besides you, Tiss… this is the f-first time I've made a new friend. Thinking about it like that is just… embarrassing.
Shan was simply shy.
"Comrade Shan and Comrade Tiss… that's twice as good as that other comrade's offer."
Katie held up one finger on her left hand and two on her right, calculating which choice was better.
"B-but… Katie already made a contract. Katie must go that day. No choice."
Her heart seemed to have come over to their side, but because of the promise she'd already made, Katie hesitated to stand with them.
"Don't worry. I've got a way."
"Comrade-Comrade Tiss has a way?"
"Yeah. A way to keep the contract and still become best comrades with me and Shan."
"Ooooh!!! Then that's good. Katie wants a family of best comrades!"
Katie even clapped, delighted.
"In exchange, I need to tell you what kind of situation I'm in right now — and there are things you'll have to be careful about if we become best comrades."
Things like not eating humans. Not revealing her identity. For now, she also explained that she had to maintain her mimicked appearance, play at being human, and stand on humanity's side.
"Don't worry. Katie has never eaten a human."
"…What?"
"Katie likes plants. Katie does eat meat, but only once in a while. Katie eats her own kind, but never humans. Katie knows very well that if you eat a human, the other humans come after you."
Katie planted her hands on her hips, looking thoroughly proud of herself.
"So even when Katie was hungry, Katie never ate a human. Tiss is the same, right?"
"That's… well."
"Oh. That's the face of someone who's tried it. Tiss isn't a picky eater! Amazing."
Wait. Hold on.
Why was she more law-abiding than they were?
I-it feels like we're the bad guys here…
Shan, please don't you start too.
It had been an unavoidable choice, made to survive. That was what she wanted to believe.
"It's fine! Best comrades don't sweat the small stuff. Katie will absolutely keep Best Comrade Tiss's secret about her tastes."
Katie patted Tiss on the shoulder and looked at her with a knowing, generous gaze, as if she were magnanimously overlooking a secret. Apparently, in Katie's mind, they were already best comrades.
"Katie, I'll explain whenever we've got time. It might be a little complicated, but there's a clean way to close out the contract."
"Understood. Katie will listen. Katie's head is not very good. If you speak slowly, Katie will understand slowly."
"Got it."
Until Lionel came back with lunch, Tiss slowly walked Katie through the plan she had in mind.
"Katie almost forgot!"
In the middle of the simple lunch Lionel had laid out, Katie suddenly clapped her hands and called out, as if she'd nearly let something slip.
"Best Comrade Tiss, Katie remembered something to say!"
"Yeah, Katie? What is it?"
"Best Comrade Tiss, that's not it! That's not it!"
"…Huh?"
Katie shook her head hard, her face scrunched up in a pout, clearly dissatisfied about something.
"Best Comrade Tiss is right. But Tiss is younger than Katie! Katie is older than Tiss! So…"
Ah.
Katie had been groaning, fishing for a word she couldn't quite find — then it came to her, and she shouted it out.
Katie shrugged her shoulders and lifted her chin, trying to look even a little bit taller than Tiss.
"Best Comrade Tiss will call Katie 'Katie Unnie'!"
"What?"
"Not 'what'! Katie Unnie!"
"Getting along well, I see."
Heh heh. Lionel watched the two of them with a look of warm, unmistakable fondness.
That day, Katie gained two best comrades — and Tiss found herself with six thousand new older sisters.