8. Curse Plague (9)
8. Curse Plague (9)
Her first impression in the game hadn't been favorable.
She'd shown up with an absurdly oversized floral ornament perched on her head and all but told the heroes to get lost—she and her people would handle Wonderstein and the Voodoo Cult themselves. Every inch the spoiled brat with a terminal case of princess syndrome.
So when word came that her crusade had walked straight into a Voodoo trap and collapsed, the incompetence felt almost fitting.
Except her true character turned out to be the polar opposite.
By virtue of having "spent years hunting the Black Magician," she served as the conduit for all the backstory that players never got in TT1 or TT2. A huge chunk of the Tril Trillo worldbuilding poured out through her.
And she wasn't just an exposition machine.
Among the human characters in TTT, she was the closest thing to the strongest.
Her combat staging alone put her on a different plane from everyone else. Pillars of light searing down from the sky to scour the battlefield, a boulder the size of a house reduced to dust with a single palm strike—those displays of power came only in a handful of event scenes, but they left an impression.
The series' final boss, Wonderstein, barely revived, couldn't fully subdue her and had to flee after binding her in chains. That says it all.
Yet for all that overwhelming strength, the game also gave her enough vulnerability to feel human: grieving fallen comrades lost in her long pursuit of the Black Magician, or getting cornered by one of the Three Witches because a hostage was in play.
By the life she'd lived, she was effectively a mentor figure to the heroes—the veteran who had walked their path before them.
Her sacrifice and the transition into TT3's final stage became one of the most achingly heroic moments in all of Tril Trillo, the kind that hits players square in the chest.
None of that had happened yet, of course.
The events of TT3 were set another six or seven years in the future.
What she went through between now and then, I didn't know in detail. I had only a handful of secondhand stories rattling around in my memory.
The fact that she'd lost so many allies chasing the Black Magician was one of them.
After hearing the "origin of the Black Magician" at the opening ceremony, I'd been reassured. The world at large had only the vaguest grasp of Wonderstein's existence. As long as I kept my head down, getting hauled off on suspicion of being the Black Magician seemed unlikely.
I certainly hadn't expected to run into her here, of all places.
"What scheme brought you into this place?!"
The pink-haired woman strode forward, fists clenched tight. Her eyes burned as she fixed them on me.
No access to my BioMancer abilities—and now I had to face the Saintess, of all people.
I couldn't come up with a countermove. I was standing there frozen in a rigid smile when Sir Ivanenko stepped between us.
"N-now, hold a moment. This man is..."
She'd been closing in as if she meant to attack me on the spot, but after hearing a few words from Sir Ivanenko, her expression shifted to shock.
"Ah! So that is it? I—I apologize!"
She relaxed her fists and bent forward in a bow.
Her explanation, once I heard it, was that she'd come at me because of the monk's habit I was wearing. A man who was unmistakably a Madosa dressed up as a clergyman—she'd assumed he had to be up to something sinister.
Ivanenko laid out for her in detail what I'd been doing. She turned back to me with an expression of deep admiration.
"To think I so thoroughly misjudged a man of such merit... I beg your pardon once more!"
She declared it in a voice brimming with gusto and ducked her head. The sheer lung power could've given Rooster Minova a run for his money.
"The Troupe Leader here willingly set aside a packed competition schedule to lend his aid."
"Competition...? Ah! You mean he's a Circus Grand Prix participant?"
Her eyes went round as she stared at me. Her cheeks flushed pink, matching her hair. She flailed her arms in circles as she cried out.
"Incredible! I have never once seen a circus in my entire life!"
I knew the reason, but I played along and asked why. She scratched the back of her head sheepishly.
"Hehe, it's because I trained in a place cut off from the secular world! Have you heard of Troms Monastery in Tamchaka?"
Troms Monastery was one of the stages that appeared in the late game of TT3. I nodded, remembering her there—gazing at the monks turned into monsters, her face full of anguish.
"I have. It's where they train to eradicate demonic forces, correct? I understand many exorcists hail from there."
Exorcists were those who contended with Abyssal demons and Madosa who'd turned to crime. Troms Monastery was, in effect, a military academy for combat clergy. Saint Valentina had entered as a child and lived there for nearly twenty years, by her own account.
She added that she'd had no idea her little country hometown nestled in the mountains was this famous until she'd gone out into the world.
"I only just left recently! The elders had always insisted I couldn't be permitted out until I had perfect control of my power... hehe, but a place appeared that was in need of my strength, so I was allowed to leave!"
That part made me tense up. I knew exactly where she'd gone after leaving the monastery.
The Black Magician Pursuit Squad.
Just how much had they uncovered about me?
Given that they didn't even know Wonderstein's face, it seemed like not much...
I probed, carefully.
"If I may ask..."
"Have you heard of the Black Magician?"
Wugh.
I nearly bit my tongue off.
She just came right out and said it. Weren't they supposed to be operating in secrecy?
I arranged my features into a mask of calm and smiled gently.
"It's a name no man in the circus trade could fail to know."
"Ah, of course... the Circus Grand Prix... I'd heard he gained his notoriety because of that... heard many people died... a tragedy... As for us, we are hunting that wicked fiend!"
A massive Sacred Stake materialized and vanished behind her as she suddenly raised her voice. From the size of it, the thing qualified as a javelin, not a mere stake.
She caught where my eyes had gone and waved her hands dismissively. "No! No! Our monastery doesn't indiscriminately strike down anyone who merely worships a Demon God! The pursuit squad I'm part of is the same! Our captain is a Madosa himself!"
A Madosa leading the squad? I'd never have imagined the Papal Inquisition would include a Madosa in its ranks.
Though it explained why the Saintess, in the game, had never shown the same hostility toward allied Madosa as the rest of the Papal forces. Had this been the reason?
I ventured forward, as delicately as I could, to fish for information on this captain.
"This Madosa of yours..."
"Our captain is an Apostle of the Demon God Kairal! Truly an extraordinary person! Just last time, he..."
She rattled on about this captain of hers for quite some time. Thanks to that, I even learned his preferred assortment of bibimbap toppings.
"Ah, I see..."
Plenty of people I'd met so far had diverged from their in-game personalities. But none felt as jarringly different as Saint Valentina.
The resolute, melancholy veteran who'd been like a senior to the heroes—in her younger days, she'd been this much of a ditz and a blabbermouth.
Not that I was complaining. I got a full download on the Black Magician Pursuit Squad without lifting a finger. I committed each name and detail she rattled off to memory.
And then, the most critical question: how much did they actually know about the Black Magician?
But before I could even open my mouth, Maya stepped forward and asked for me.
"Have you managed to learn anything about the Black Magician?"
Her eyes were cold and still. For some reason, I sensed hatred simmering underneath.
I didn't even have time to wonder about it before Valentina pounced on her.
"Ooh! Who is this little one? Is she a doll? She's adorable!"
Valentina seized Maya and crushed her to her chest, nuzzling her.
"Mmph—g-get off. Let go, mmph."
Maya squirmed, trying to push her away, but her opponent had too much height and build to dislodge.
Valentina grabbed at her white hair and cheeks, shaking them with abandon.
"Hehe, would you look at this! Skin and hair as white as snow... truly a pretty little thing! Ahh!"
A flash of light sliced past Valentina's hand. She recoiled with a yelp, stumbling backward. Trembling, she pointed at her assailant.
"A-a cat! It appeared out of nowhere!"
She thrust her clenched fists forward and dropped back into a fighting stance. In front of her stood a blue-furred cat with red and white stripes, hackles raised.
I knew instantly where it had come from. The beast was the same one Maya had summoned at the Illusion Demonstration—a pet she'd raised as a child.
Maya let out a sharp breath and glared at Valentina.
"Who are you calling 'little one'? You dim-witted woman."
The cat bared its teeth on cue. No sound, but the hostility was unmistakable.
Valentina eyed the scratches on her hand, her face crumpling.
"Ooh, that is a demon cat for certain! This little one summoned it!"
"Calm yourself... it's an illusion created by Miss Maya. She reinforced the claws with telekinesis. And Miss Maya, was that level of aggression truly necessary?"
I managed to defuse the two of them. Valentina seized both of my hands.
"It is a sure thing—not all Madosa are wicked! Our captain proves it, and Troupe Leader Wonderstein proves it! One ought not... to judge a person by appearance alone."
She cast a disgruntled sidelong look at Maya, who exhaled a long, incredulous sigh.
"But Troupe Leader, you are a person who may be judged by appearance and still come out well, hehe! What I said earlier about you being handsome—I meant every word!"
With that declaration, Valentina covered her face with the hem of her robe, let out a peculiar giggle, and scurried off into the distance.
I stared after her, dumbfounded. Maya sniffed in disdain, plainly unimpressed by the woman's careening rambunctiousness.
"Sir Mage? Sister? Preparations are complete."
Sir Ivanenko opened the church door and came in.
While we'd been talking with Valentina, he'd sorted the villagers by urgency and established the treatment order.
Which meant I'd had enough time to finish subordinating the Devolut from the first thirty patients.
I poured everything into it—the massive influx of Devolut coming in and the stockpile I'd accumulated over the last three weeks.
First, I raised all three Basic Abilities by one tier each to increase the load my body could withstand. Everything else went into maximum Devolut capacity. I wanted to minimize, as much as possible, the amount I'd have to discard due to capacity shortfall when purifying Devolut from 170 people.
Name: Frank Wonderstein
Age: 27
Occupation: BioMancer
-Devolut: (0/1966)
-Muscle Strength: 5.0 (Gorilla with a gym membership)
-Tissue Hardness: 5.0 (Tough chuck steak)
-Cell Regeneration: 5.0 (Lizard tail with ointment)
Trait
: [The Smiling Man]
"Now, let us do our utmost, Troupe Leader!"
Valentina had materialized beside me again, palm extended. I met it with my own, cautiously. She beamed.
The chapel doors opened and the patients filed in. With this, the quest looked to be smooth sailing.