Chapter 94
Chapter 94
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 93
Chapter Title: Setting Sun
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"It's a demon's corpse."
I was certain as the demon's aura, already wafting faintly from outside, spread even more intensely once the coffin lid was opened.
Someone had simply dressed the corpse of a demon that had already burned to death in a nun's habit.
They had even severed the horns and tail—traces that could identify it as a demon—and scorched the body so thoroughly not just to obscure the face, but to hide the distinctive skin color unique to demons.
Because the demon's corpse had been buried underground, the aura had permeated strongly around the convent.
It seemed to be a demon with enough power that even after death, it continued radiating its aura outward.
"Pardon?"
The convent head let out a cracked voice in bewilderment at my words. She was flustered by the sudden revelation, something she could never have imagined.
"Th-then... the one I buried was... a demon? But why would a demon be dead here?"
A summoned demon lying dead alongside the two nuns who had summoned it.
And dressed in a nun's habit, no less.
This could only be seen as a blatant scheme designed to sow chaos in the Elia Convent.
I wasn't a detective, but it was time to piece together the situation.
"It was a case full of mysteries."
The exterior was thick with demonic aura, yet the interior was perfectly serene, devoid of any trace.
We couldn't determine why nuns, who served the gods, would summon a demon.
Even if it was to assassinate the saintess, it was odd that a demon of this caliber would respond to a summoning without any sacrifice.
Moreover.
I wondered if there had even been a need for the demon to hide.
The nuns could only handle mana and possessed no special powers, and Stella had lost her holy power anyway.
Right there was the problem.
In conversing with Stella, I had felt something truly profound.
Her nobility held a beauty so blinding it could make one's eyes go dark.
My heart raced as I enjoyed my time with her, but my mind remained astonishingly cool and analytical.
Being in that room only amplified the questions surging within me.
First.
How had a saintess stripped of her holy power repelled a black necromancer?
Clearly, the black necromancer had tried to pass through the door before the lock was opened but couldn't enter.
Second.
How had a saintess without holy power discerned my true nature?
Some special, unique power?
Could a retired saintess see through that much?
Unfortunately, that lacked persuasiveness.
And the final third one.
It was truly ridiculous.
Why hadn't I noticed something so obvious? In any situation but this chaotic one, anyone would have spotted the flaw.
As I slowly turned my gaze to the convent, the others followed suit, turning their heads with me.
We were all at the topmost floor of the Elia Convent, before a tall window.
There stood Stella, a bandage over her eyes.
A faint smile still played on her lips.
"Huh?"
Only then did the convent head sense something amiss, looking back and forth between Stella and me.
In truth, she had already had a chance to notice the inconsistency yesterday, but she had been too distracted by me to catch it.
With an expression that screamed impossibility, I asked in a somber tone, heavy with accusation.
"How exactly can you be visible at the window, Stella?"
She had no legs.
More precisely, her legs were shriveled like the roots of a tree deprived of water, making it impossible for her to stand before the window.
She couldn't even sit in a chair.
Because there was no chair in that room.
That was why I had conversed with her at length while standing.
Going back.
All the way to the very beginning.
Pindenai and Iluania had pointed at the window and said.
'There was some bitch there.'
'Yes. I definitely saw her too.'
Someone was there.
Why had I overlooked something so simple?
Pondering it, it was probably because her comfort had been too warm. Because she was so captivating that rational thought couldn't proceed properly.
"Demons scorn even human kings, but among their own kind, they maintain a strict hierarchy."
Words the black necromancer had told me.
"There is only one case where no sacrifice is needed to summon a demon: when a higher-ranking demon than the summoned one calls it forth."
It wasn't summoned by a human.
One of their own kind—a stronger being—had summoned it, so it responded without demanding any sacrifice.
Moreover.
"Higher demons can emit their aura, suppress it, or conceal it entirely."
Another thing the black necromancer had said.
Until now, we had thought the demonic aura permeating the exterior couldn't enter the convent.
We had it backward.
The aura had spread so thickly outside due to the summoned demon's corpse.
Inside the convent, the lurking demon had simply concealed its aura perfectly.
"A woman trusted so deeply by the nuns that they joined her in summoning a demon."
She had probably lured them with something like a path to becoming a saintess.
"A year ago, when I visited the Elia Convent."
I looked up at her right before the window.
Stella, still wearing that smile, stared down at me motionlessly.
"You were already a demon by then."
Creak.
The window opened.
Then Stella hurled herself out the window like a woman committing suicide.
"Kyaaah!"
"Stella!"
The nuns' screams echoed from behind, followed indifferently by the thud of her fall.
The nuns averted their eyes, claiming they couldn't bear to look, or shrieked.
In contrast, Pindenai grabbed her axe and rushed forward to shield me.
"I thought it was some big deal, but it was just a self-staged drama?"
Pindenai grinned, but she startled at the aura suddenly emanating from Stella, extending her hand to protect me.
"Punishment for digging up the nuns' graves like this? Master, this could really kill us all."
"So keep your wits about you."
Crack, crack.
With the sound of bones realigning, Stella slowly rose.
Her shriveled legs had turned black and regained their original form.
"I was truly curious."
Stella's voice remained as warm as ever, making the situation even harder to accept.
A softness that didn't match the atmosphere. A voice that made reality feel like a dream.
Stella unwound the bandage with her remaining right hand.
Her right eye was badly mangled, but her left eye gleamed with a golden vertical pupil—the eye of a true demon.
"So that's what you look like."
Stella met my gaze head-on and gave a slight smile. But this time, it wasn't just her gentle voice.
A demonic voice, brimming with crushing pressure that split the heart, overlapped with it.
[Be careful. In my opinion... she's a monster in the class of an archdemon.]
The black necromancer trembled but began preparing to resist at my side. Yet this was the first time I'd seen her so lacking in confidence.
She hadn't shown this sense of impending defeat even against the griffin's evil ghost.
[How about fetching the Holy Grail instead? It's hidden in the carriage...]
"That could be one option."
Crack! Crack, crack!
At that moment, something began pouring from Stella's left hand. Thick black blood gushed out like a burst dam, pooling on the ground.
Splash!
A massive hand with a horn burst from her left hand.
"The last demon who stole my memories."
Stella's skin turned black, starting from the border of her left pupil.
With the demonic voice overlapping repeatedly, Stella continued.
"Belica. One of the ten archdemons."
Thud!
Her enormous left hand slammed the ground, splattering the pooled blood everywhere. It soon morphed into beasts.
It was a truly grotesque sight.
Incomplete beasts, without proper limbs, howled as they charged toward us.
"Fuck, she's kindly spilling the beans!"
Pindenai urgently drew up her mana and went all-out from the start.
She swung her axe to fend off the charging beasts protecting me, while the black necromancer countered with spells.
But I didn't retreat, standing firm as I stared at Stella.
"There are still questions left."
I'd said it countless times, but this case was truly convoluted.
Riddled with mysteries.
And if you added a 'why' to them...
The case grew even more complex.
But that's how you approach the truth.
Only by unraveling these thorny puzzles could I pierce the essence of this detective story unfolding against the backdrop of the Elia Convent.
"Why."
So once more, I awakened my mana.
My mana, which rouses the dead, spread like a shout awakening slumbering souls in this late night.
"Why did you orchestrate this incident?"
I had to know.
I wanted to know.
Even though the answer was already within me.
I wanted to hear it from her lips.
Perhaps sensing that desire.
Stella smiled faintly.
"A saintess is the kingdom's sun."
Her voice was still as noble as an opera singer's.
But to me, it was simply...
"Necromancer. Can you become the moon that tends to its shadowed side?"
Nothing but a scream.
"Can you comfort me?"