Guess How Many Hits You'll Take (2)
Guess How Many Hits You'll Take (2)
"So..."
Olivia stroked her chin as she spoke.
"The princess sent you? Then she drew this portrait too, I take it?"
Calliope meekly nodded. After being knocked out once, she seemed to have learned her place.
"How strange. I've never met the princess, so how on earth did she draw me so perfectly?"
That was what Calliope wanted to ask.
No matter how hard she searched her memory, there was no record of Aria ever meeting the demon before her.
Normally, even the face of a close friend fails you when you try to draw it, yet Aria had produced this demon's face in a single stroke.
Of course, Olivia's face was hardly ordinary. If anything, it was the sort that seared itself into your mind at first glance.
But still, could someone draw a person they had never seen?
It was utterly impossible no matter how you thought about it, and now that impossible thing had become reality—enough to drive a person mad.
— Couldn't Her Highness have dreamed it? That she met this woman in a dream. And Her Highness was such a tremendous genius that she remembered it perfectly and drew it.
Now that nonsense didn't sound like nonsense anymore.
I no longer knew what was what either.
A sigh escaped her.
"What message did she give you when she sent you?"
"She said nothing in particular. Merely that we were to report if we found her."
"And did you report?"
"..."
Calliope clamped her mouth shut.
She looked like an idiot who lived without thinking, but her questions were maddeningly sharp. It felt as if a professional interrogator was working her over.
Seeing Calliope still reluctant to open her mouth even after taking that beating, Olivia grinned.
"You didn't report, so that's why you came all the way here. Isn't that right?"
"..."
"Answer."
"...That is correct."
Olivia felt relief in her heart.
‘That's a relief, at least.’
Princess Aria didn't know. Setting everything else aside, learning that fact was the biggest gain.
No matter how brilliant Aria was, she couldn't deduce that the Night Crows' disappearance was connected to Olivia without any information.
‘Even if she assumed I was a regressor, accounting for every possibility.’
It was so long ago that her memory wasn't exact, but around this point Olivia's level had been in the single digits.
Even Olivia, with a level that pathetic, wouldn't be able to gain the upper hand against the Night Crows—her head would have burst in a single blow.
Aria must have thought the same.
‘That's why she sent the Night Crows.’
In order to kill her perfectly the moment they found her.
If she had only wanted to locate her, she could simply have hired friendly nobles or information brokers. But Aria hadn't. To block even the slightest chance Olivia might slip away, she had dispatched the two strongest figures in the Imperial Princess's Palace.
But too bad.
‘I'm a possessor.’
Heh heh heh.
"Just a few more questions. How many people know the two of you came to the north?"
"...Only the two of us."
"No way, seriously. A captain like you moved with that little forethought?"
"..."
"Really?"
"Y-yes!"
Smack!
"Aaaargh!"
Calliope clutched her head and collapsed to the floor.
"This bastard thinks I'm an easy mark."
Calliope was fundamentally a careful person.
She must have prepared safeguards.
Perhaps she had leaked information to an acquaintance or carved a mark only the Night Crows could recognize.
‘I won't rest until I wipe out all of those too.’
There were thirteen years left until the Demon God's descent. In that time, if she wanted to raise the White Tower's three and one Ice Chicken to the level of the continent's top ten, even grinding her soul to dust wouldn't be enough.
She had no time to grapple with bastards like these.
Olivia raised her staff and pointed it at Seth.
"Do you know anything?"
"I have some guesses."
"Like what?"
Seth glanced furtively at Calliope. Calliope's face was resigned. She knew too. They had come too far to keep their mouths shut now.
"May I speak?"
"...Do as you please."
Hell, go ahead and spill the location of His Majesty's underwear while you're at it!
Calliope had adopted a come-what-may mindset. If they were going to talk anyway, it was better to talk and take a few fewer hits.
Seth spread his fingers.
"Four things, to begin with."
"There are four?"
"Our captain has a somewhat obsessive streak, you see. Please be understanding of that."
Olivia folded her arms.
"Go on."
"Before that."
Seth cut in.
"Promise me one thing."
"What? To spare your life?"
Seth shook his head.
"I do not even expect that. Simply kill us in one blow, without pain."
"Fine by me."
"Words are not enough. Swear by the true name of the demon you serve. That if we speak the truth, you will kill us without pain."
"Why should I do that?"
"Do you know the greatest flaw of torture?"
Olivia twitched an eyebrow as if to say, Let's hear it.
"You cannot tell whether what you hear is the truth, or a lie to escape the situation."
"So?"
"If you swear, I will swear as well. To speak only the truth."
Olivia's eyes widened as if taken aback.
Seth did indeed have a clever side for something like this.
He prevented the other party from playing tricks while simultaneously negotiating a painless repose with a condition that cost them nothing.
It certainly wasn't something an ordinary criminal would think of.
‘The Emperor was right to take him into the Night Crows.’
Who would ever imagine that a man with those bleary, vacant eyes could use his head so well?
Nine out of ten would have been fooled by that ignorant-looking face, for sure.
The proof was that even the captain, Calliope, was wearing a startled expression.
But...
‘You picked the wrong opponent, pal.’
Olivia nodded.
"Fine. I'll swear."
"Good."
"I, the Witch Olivia, do swear..."
Wooong!
Magical power radiated from Olivia. A magic circle that bloomed from her heart was proof that she was making an oath.
The oath of a mage and the oath of a witch were not greatly different. Only, if a mage broke their oath they merely lost their mana, but a witch lost her life and had her soul taken by the demon.
With her life on the line, no matter how bold one was, there was no room for pranks...
"...Uh, that whatsit. What was it...? Whatsit... Anyway, I swear."
Seth's face twisted.
What kind of witch swore an oath like that!
"Do it properly!"
"I did?"
"That's utterly absurd..."
"I'm not dead, am I? So I did it properly."
Seth blinked vacantly.
Uh...
She was right.
Witches died if they broke their oaths. They died even if they swore in jest. They died if they named a different demon, too.
That was an unchanging truth and common knowledge.
‘Then that 'whatsit' is their true name?’
Was this why demons grew weak when their true names were heard? Because it sapped their strength? With all that 'whatsit, thingummy'?
His head spun.
"That's settled, right?"
"Uh... Hmm..."
"I asked if it's settled."
"...It is settled."
What could he do?
She was alive and well, so he had no choice but to believe it.
Seth spread four fingers.
"First is the mark. We have a special mark that only we can recognize. Honestly, there's no need to worry about this one. Unless we walked barefoot all the way to the North, we had no time to carve a mark while we were busy catching wyverns to ride."
"All right, next."
Seth folded his fingers one by one.
"Next is..."
As Seth laid out his information, Olivia cross-checked it in real time against what she knew to confirm whether his words were true.
‘It all checks out.’
That each imperial family member had two Night Crows attached to them, that the reporting system was thorough, that they carved marks in every major city.
Of course, not a single bit of it was of any practical use.
Because they had come north in such a frantic rush, they'd had no time to station informants at waypoints or carve marks.
After speaking for five straight minutes, Seth let out a breath as if relieved.
"...That is all."
"Right, right."
Olivia nodded.
"That really is everything now, right?"
"It is."
"Every word of it is true, right?"
"..."
After hesitating a moment, Seth nodded.
‘So he planned this from the start.’
Calliope, who had grasped Seth's intention, smiled bitterly from behind him.
Even if that witch possessed the ability to discern falsehoods, it would be of no use whatsoever in this situation.
Because Seth had not lied in the first place.
He simply hadn't told the whole truth.
Calliope had prepared five safeguards in total. Seth had quietly omitted one.
The most important one, at that.
A scroll containing message magic.
A device that, if its circuit was not renewed each week, would deem something amiss with Calliope's safety and transmit a message to every member of the Night Crows.
— North. The White Tower.
‘When I had to renew it every week, I thought I'd go insane from the bother.’
Who knew it would prove so useful?
Even if she herself died here, the remaining members would avenge her.
Calliope was at last able to find peace of mind.
That was the moment.
"Just in case, let me ask."
"Ask whatever you wish."
"...Say, a scroll that, for instance, broadcasts a message to all members if it isn't renewed every week."
"..."
"That sort of thing. You don't have one, right?"
Spotting the magical power flickering over Olivia's staff, Seth's pupils shook as if an earthquake had struck.
"I'll ask one last time. You don't, right?"
"Uh, uh, we don't..."
"For the record, you two swore. To speak only the truth."
Olivia seized Calliope and Seth by the hair and yanked them toward her.
"Also for the record, I have a lot of potions. About ten years' worth. So? Want to try holding out? Feeling confident?"
Olivia's eyes gleamed white-hot.
"Where did you hide it? You sons of bitches?"