William's Rebellion (5)
Celia and I made it all the way to the Papal Headquarters.
Getting there hadn’t been hard. Aside from the ones I’d already taken care of, there weren’t even any patrols left in the city streets. The Holy Knights’ main force was probably locked in battle with Kise’s mage division right about now.
“Hmm. Still, the defenses are pretty airtight,” I muttered.
Maybe they’d prepared for exactly this. Even with their main strength out of the picture, a considerable number of William’s Holy Knights were still guarding the Papal Headquarters.
Well then. This was where the teddy bears came in.
“Are you truly all right going alone? What if Clanis is—”
Clanis? That bitch of a dog I could handle by myself.
“That’s exactly why I’m going alone. Better than moving around in a pack for no reason.”
That idiot was underestimating me, after all.
“Then… shall I proceed as usual?”
“Yeah. Show them what a teddy-bear puppeteer can do.”
“Ugh. Fine. Understood.”
Celia’s job was to go wild outside the Papal Headquarters with her teddy bears. Mine was to slip inside in the meantime.
William had prepared more carefully than expected—he’d sealed off every approach, so the only way in was a frontal confrontation. He wasn’t leaving the slightest room for escape.
Celia began moving her teddy bears in earnest. First up was a pink one, stepping forward.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a teddy bear.”
“A teddy bear’s moving? That’s weird as hell.”
Yeah. Even I had to admit it looked strange. No joke—Celia’s teddy bears were cute enough you could sell them as toys.
“Right? Wait—is that thing running on some kind of magic tool?”
“Someone probably bought it as a present for their little girl.”
“There’s another one over there.”
“Huh?”
Before anyone noticed, another teddy bear had appeared. This one was brown.
“No, seriously—there are more and more of them. What is that?”
“Now they’re fighting each other?”
A whole crowd of teddy bears had shown up, and right in the middle the pink one and the brown one were tangled up, thrashing at each other. The Holy Knights watched the bizarre spectacle like it was free entertainment. Of course, some of them never fully dropped their guard.
“I’m putting my money on the pink one.”
“Brown for me.”
There were always idiots like that.
Pink and brown traded blows, cute as could be if you only looked at the surface. While the Holy Knights’ attention stayed fixed on those two, even more teddy bears appeared—far more than before. An unmistakable number. Anyone with eyes could tell there was intent behind it.
“All right. Go! Teddy Bear March!”
While the knights were still distracted by the pink-and-brown scuffle, Celia ordered the full parade. The teddy bears advanced in perfect military formation. The Holy Knights finally scrambled forward to stop them—too late.
“What the fuck—why are there so many?!”
The bears punched straight through the line. Naturally, the knights who’d been busy gawking tried to stop them one by one, grabbing at each teddy. In that gap, I walked into the Papal Headquarters.
“Who the hell are you, bitch?”
“Wow. He really was thorough.”
I hadn’t expected him to fill the inside with Mains. Looks like even William valued his own hide enough to go that far. Staging a whole coup and still hoping to live through it? What a model specimen of a man. What a complete idiot.
“You’re pretty cute, actually.”
“Heh heh heh. Don’t know who you are, but looks like we’ve got ourselves a nice little tonic.”
The Mains ran their mouths with pure garbage. A tonic? Did they even know who they were talking to?
“Ugh, give me a break. Is that really the best your brains can manage?”
Well. That was exactly why they were nothing more and nothing less than Mains.
“What did you say?”
“Looks like this bitch doesn’t even know where she walked into.”
“This is the Papal Headquarters, and I came to cut William’s head off. If you don’t want to die, shut up and hand him over.”
That alone should be plenty of provocation. Most Mains were aggressive types who took the bait easily.
“You dare, you little—?”
God, what a pain.
“Just die already. All of you. I don’t even want to waste words.”
“You—!”
Crunch!
The Mains’ necks crumpled. Yes. That feeling. Crushing a Main’s throat was genuinely fun. Unlike humans, you could feel the squash properly.
I left one of them alive and killed the rest.
“W-what—what the hell are you?”
“I already told you. Just die.”
Simple as that. Once you’re dead, it’s over.
“That’s impossible. We’re Mains—how could you drop us in one hit?”
“Not the time to be surprised, is it? From this moment on, your fate is to die.”
“Ghk—”
The Main started to run. Stupid of him. A little distance didn’t put him outside my range. I clenched my fist toward him.
Crunch!
I crushed the fleeing Main’s ankle.
“Gyaaaaaaah!”
He collapsed right where he stood.
“It’s not like there’s no way for you to live, if you want to.”
“W-who would ever—to someone like you—!”
Funny how hard he was shaking for someone saying that. Ordinary Mains never submitted to a human—not even when the human was stronger. The way this one kept his eyes lowered while feeling the gulf in power told me he had already surrendered, whether he admitted it or not. Given what I was—neither fully human nor fully demon—it was the appropriate reaction.
I walked up to the Main still scrambling backward, drew my sword, and lifted his chin with the tip.
“Be honest. You’re one of Clanis’s subordinates, aren’t you? Not that bastard’s. Right?”
“!! How do you—?!”
One look was enough to tell these were Mains Clanis had made. Only she produced Mains this crude and low-grade. Of course, even like this they were stronger than ordinary ones. Everything that eccentric bitch created tended to be a bomb waiting to go off. If I hadn’t been here, Celia’s teddy bears would have taken some real damage.
“So this is good for both of us. Your master was going to throw you away the second that guy stopped being useful anyway. I’ve come this far—anyone with a brain can figure out you’ve already failed.”
He nodded quietly.
“Then guide me. If that bastard runs it’ll be a pain, and if you’re walking ahead of me he won’t get the chance.”
The way William had stacked every safeguard for himself made it obvious: the second these Mains got cleaned out, he would bolt. If he put everything into escaping it would become annoying. This Papal Headquarters had secret passages even I didn’t know about, and he would definitely use them.
“I absolutely cannot—”
Look at this bastard digging his heels in. No choice, then.
“You ‘cannot’? Do you even understand whose words you’re defying right now? Either Clanis ordered you to help him… or you just can’t stand bowing to me and you’re thrashing around trying to lift your head.”
Crack.
I shattered one of his ribs. Real horror flooded his eyes. He hadn’t expected that level of precise control.
“Ghk—khhhhhh—”
“You think I’ll just kill you? I’ll keep you alive and work you until living itself becomes the worse option. I’ll say this once: every last one who resisted me—human or demon—ended up wishing they had simply died. There was this evil woman who kidnapped pretty young boys to feed her lust. I cut off her arms and legs and tossed her into a wild goblin nest.”
“Are you even human?”
“Wouldn’t make a difference if I were a man. Actually—never mind. Talking more is a waste. You’ll be useful for that.”
“Hah—don’t—!”
Now he was properly terrified. If only he’d started like this from the beginning.
“So when I ask nicely—guide me.”
“I-I understand! I get it!”
See? Should have done that sooner.
For the record, men had their own market too. After I twisted them so they couldn’t use their limbs, I sold them to lonely noble widows whose husbands had died. Turns out the world was full of noble ladies with truly strange tastes. Really.
“If you’re going to do all this, couldn’t you just go alone?”
“The door to the Pope’s office is locked. Some kind of sacred power—there’s a holy relic in there. From my current position, barging in carelessly could be dangerous. This body has already absorbed a fragment of the Demon King. The door only opens if he allows it, and I can’t just smash it either. Catching him means doing it this way.”
“But you’re human—”
“Do I look human to you?”
I clenched his skull hard.
“Gyaaaaah! F-fine! I’ll do it!”
He went as far as the door to the Pope’s office and forced the words out through trembling lips.
“A-are you inside, sir?”
“Ah. I was just wondering myself. Sounded noisy out there.”
Sharp bastard. He was reading the angles right now—checking what had blown up outside, ready to run if things had gone wrong. The only reason he hadn’t fled yet was to hear what report this Main was about to deliver. Or maybe he still had some other card he trusted.
“There was a small disturbance, sir. Actually, that’s why I came to report. We’ve received word that the Saint and the Pope have been found.”
“Mm. Good. Come in.”
The office door began to open.
“All right. You’re free to go.”
“Then… you’ll spare—”
Crunch.
“Ah, sorry. Killed you.”
If you made yourself a nuisance, you died. Besides, this one used to be one of William’s close aides. His real master had been Clanis all along; she’d just told him to follow William for a while. All the more reason to kill him. I was going to wipe out every last one of Clanis’s underlings.
“What was that noise outside? Wait—why are you here?”
“Hmm? Who knows? I just killed them all on my way in.”
Killing things is easy, you know?
“You killed all of them?”
“Yes. You’re a holy man, aren’t you? Aren’t Mains not supposed to be inside the Papal Headquarters?”
I laughed in William’s face—like I’d already known everything, like I was telling him not to bother with late excuses.
“So you already knew. Don’t tell me you killed every last one of those Mains—”
“Will you surrender quietly, or—”
“Don’t make me laugh. You think I’d lose to you?”
It was always the same. One look at this body and they convinced themselves they were stronger. I could almost understand it from a Holy Kingdom dog—he was a foreigner, after all. Not that that meant I planned to go easy on a candidate for a beating.
“Oh? Nowhere left to run, is there? Ah, no—you made it this far, so maybe you’ve got some other trick?”
A man thrashing this hard to stay alive would already have taken the Main transformation. Clanis wouldn’t just let the pawn she’d backed die for nothing. She’d have powered him up so she could squeeze every last drop of use out of him.
“Fine. Then what are you going to do?”
“Stop posing like an idiot and just bring it out already. It’s Main transformation, obviously. If it was Clanis, she would have already set things up so you could use it in here.”
“You know about Clanis?”
Judging by the reaction, at least the situation wasn’t one where Clanis was completely on top.