Demon Hunting (2)
The letter Yuel Razian had sent was simple.
I heard you obtained two stars.
Congratulations.
I heard you are heading for the Outer Land. Before that, how about a demon hunt with me?
That was not a summary of three lines. That was the entire letter. The rest? Pure blank space. There had once been a famous mathematician who left behind the words, “I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain.” Had that mathematician ever seen one of Yuel’s letters, he would almost certainly have produced an entire paper on the spot.
There was that much white space.
Three short sentences on a large sheet of paper—that was all.
Perhaps it could be called fortunate. When the page was turned over, a map had been drawn on the reverse. Various symbols marked the map, and beneath them a postscript had been added.
It would be a bother, so I will not write at length.
Show this letter at a nearby church and they will guide you. I will be waiting.
Najin did exactly as it said.
Letter in hand, he made his way to the single church in the adventurers’ city. The moment the nun saw the letter he carried, her eyes flew wide enough to tear.
“J-just a moment—please wait here!”
She vanished somewhere, and before long a priest came running back with her to examine the letter. The old man, just like the nun, went round-eyed and immediately placed a call somewhere. The exact same scene repeated several times.
After that… well. Najin learned for the first time today that the clergy, who always seemed so leisurely and composed, could move that fast.
In a matter of mere hours a carriage stood before him. The robes of the priests who stepped down from it were embroidered in blood-red thread—inquisitors of the Holy Blood Church.
“Are you Najin?”
A few questions. Once they had verified the letter, the priests immediately bowed their heads toward him—an attitude reserved for a superior.
“We shall escort you. Will you depart at once?”
Najin climbed into the carriage they had brought.
They were offering a ride; there was no reason to refuse. The moment he boarded, the inquisitors watched him with tense, careful eyes.
“Ah, Sir Najin?”
“Yes?”
At some point the honorific had become “Sir Najin.”
“When and how did you receive this letter…?”
“This morning. By ordinary post.”
At that answer the inquisitors’ faces went paper-white. Najin would learn later that Yuel’s letter had not passed through the Holy Blood Church at all. It had been dropped straight into his mailbox.
And from the Church’s perspective, that was an extremely awkward situation.
Ordinarily, when a figure of the Executioner’s stature moved, the Church was kept in the middle of every step. The same held true for any contact she made. The Executioner, together with the High Priest, represented the Church itself.
A single small gesture of hers, a casual word, could be taken as the opinion of the entire order. That was why the Church’s Executioner, the Star Incarnation, the Lighthouse Keepers, and others like them were expected to be exceedingly careful in speech and conduct…
Yuel Razian was not careful.
Nor did she care what anyone else said about it.
Her stance remained fixed: Why should I concern myself with that? If it is not illegal, I see no reason to observe it. The invitation she had thrown at Najin this time, too, had been her unilateral decision, made without a single word of consultation with the Church.
But so what if it was unilateral?
The Church’s Executioner had decided it would be so.
Who would dare raise an objection?
In the end, the only course left to the Holy Blood Church was to accommodate Najin. That was precisely why the inquisitors treated him with such deference.
“We will ensure a comfortable journey.”
“Ah? Oh—thank you.”
“There is no need for thanks. You are the Executioner’s guest, are you not? It is only natural. Truly natural.”
The youth before them was an honored guest of the Church, personally invited by its Executioner. Whether Yuel had intended it or not, the letter could not be read any other way. Of course Najin had no way of knowing that.
Demon hunting, huh. Interesting.
—Right? I wonder what kind of demon it is.
While the inquisitors who had been drafted into the hunt on the spur of the moment sat rigid with tension, Najin’s expression remained utterly calm.
A good opportunity.
Because he truly did regard Yuel’s proposal as a good opportunity.
A chance to loosen a body that had grown stiff before he left for the deep Outer Land. And an unmatched chance to confirm the changes that had taken place in him after he obtained the stars.
While the carriage carried them, Najin spoke with Merlin. He had a few questions.
Why does the Holy Blood Church hunt demons?
—Because their chief god hates demons.
Is there anyone who likes demons?
—Mm. It’s less simple dislike and more… loathing? Hatred? Contempt? Anyway, she’s a woman who wants to grind the entire species called “demon” off the face of the earth.
Merlin rubbed her chin as she spoke.
—These days she’s called something tame like “Martyr of the Bramble,” but back in my era they called her “the one who foams at the mouth the moment she sees a demon.” Other names were “the one who bathes in demon blood and flesh,” “Demon Slayer,” “Evil Beheaded,” that sort of thing.
They were rather extreme epithets.
As Najin blinked, Merlin continued.
—If Arthur and I went around purging demons because they were harmful to humanity, she just killed demons because she hated them. And she had her reasons.
Reasons?
—Yeah. She used to be a princess of some little country called Lapheli or something like that. Demons wiped her nation out completely. Most of the people turned into demon contractors, and the rest became demon worshippers.
Now that he thought about it, he had seen it in a history book.
Lapheli—a nation destroyed by demons roughly a thousand years ago. The classic example always trotted out when one needed to explain the danger of demons and why black mages who tried to summon them had to be hunted down and broken.
Enough reason to hate them.
—Right? But the interesting part comes next.
Next?
—Yeah. What do you think she did after that?
Najin tilted his head. Merlin grinned.
—She killed them all.
For a moment the word “What?” nearly burst out of his mouth as actual sound; he barely swallowed it. Merlin, finding the reaction amusing, pressed on.
—About thirty thousand, was it? She slaughtered every last one of those thirty thousand demon contractors. Alone. She even hunted down the ones who had fled abroad after contracting with demons and killed them too. Over ten years, without missing a single one.
Not one left alive. All of them.
By the time that blood-soaked history ended, the woman had become a constellation, Merlin said. The reason the history books never recorded Lapheli as a demon-worshipping nation—even though it had fallen into demon hands—was precisely that.
—Because she washed it clean with demon blood. Because a star was born atop the corpses of countless demons and demon-worshippers. Lapheli became a holy ground.
A holy ground—the place where a star was born—and at the same time the sacred land of the Holy Blood Church.
—Was it when we were beating down the Demon King with Arthur? In the middle of the fight I looked to the side and some kid I’d never seen before was stabbing the Demon King in the gut. I asked, “Who are you?” and she answered, “Demons. Kill.” So I said, “Ah, a comrade, then,” and we fought together.
Only later did she realize that kid was her.
Recalling the time, Merlin spoke with a look of disbelief.
—A completely unhinged child in every way. A mass murderer. A pitiful kid who knows nothing except killing demons.
How did someone like that become the chief god of the Holy Blood Church?
—Because the doctrine she put forward was simple. Ask the one sitting in front of you. It probably hasn’t changed much from a thousand years ago.
Najin put the question to the inquisitor seated across from him.
“May I ask about the doctrine of the Holy Blood Church?”
“Ah, of course.”
The inquisitor beamed as he answered.
“Kill the demons. Burn everything connected to demons. Tear the root of the species called demon from this world. Whatever your station, whatever deeds you have committed, our Lord cares not. There is only one thing She desires of you.”
He struck his own chest with a fist—thump.
“As long as your heart beats, cut down and kill the demons.”
That is all, the inquisitor finished.
A faint madness glimmered in his eyes.
—See? She probably never even meant to found a religion. She just wanted to kill demons, and since she couldn’t kill them all alone she made followers. And before anyone noticed, a religion had formed.
Hatred of demons.
There was no simpler or more intense faith than that. Merlin muttered as much, her expression complicated.
—Then and now, there are plenty of people who lost something precious to demons. That’s why that child is still the chief god of a massive organization like the Holy Blood Church.
Martyr of the Bramble.
That was her well-known constellation name. But those who had lived in the same era as her, Merlin said, called the woman she had become by a different name.
—The flame that has burned for a thousand years.
And the flame that would keep burning from now on.
A fire of hatred that would never die out until the entire race of demons had been burned from this world. Merlin’s expression as she explained it looked strangely detached.
—Well. It’s not someone else’s story.
She smiled.
—I don’t think I’ll be able to close my eyes either until I’ve torn out the throat of that bitch, the Witch of the Abyss.
After several days of travel the carriage stopped at a city that straddled the boundary line of the Outer Land.
Baldernos—city of a forgotten nation.
Originally it had merely stood near the Outer Land’s boundary. But some three hundred years earlier the boundary had expanded, swallowing roughly seventy percent of Baldernos into the Outer Land. In the process every single resident of the city had vanished as if they had evaporated.
Of course only the people had vanished; the buildings remained perfectly intact… yet no one could live in a city more than half-consumed by the Outer Land. In the end Baldernos had become a ghost city.
And to black mages, “a ghost city where no one lives” tended to be interpreted as an ideal place of residence. All the more so when it lay adjacent to the Outer Land, making summons far easier. A number of conditions had aligned, and Baldernos was regarded among black mages as a geomantic treasure of treasures.
The Holy Blood Church was hardly unaware of that fact.
The Church regularly monitored Baldernos’s movements. In the course of that watch they had discovered traces of black mages—and even traces of a demon summoning. That was no small problem. And large problems naturally called for large force.
The Church’s strategic asset: Yuel Razian.
Her departure for Baldernos had been only a short time ago.
That was the background of the present operation.
“So that’s how it stands.”
“Yes. Allow me to explain the operation.”
Najin nodded as he listened.
“Originally the only personnel dispatched here was the Executioner herself. This purge was to be carried out by the Executioner alone, but circumstances have changed.”
The inquisitor who had arrived at the operations site began the briefing. He pointed to the symbols drawn on the map as he spoke.
“Lady Yuel will enter from the rear gate of Baldernos, on the far side, deeper into the Outer Land. And Sir Najin will enter through the front gate ahead of us.”
According to his explanation it went like this:
Yuel would advance from the rear gate toward the front. Najin would advance from the front gate toward the rear, clearing every black mage in sight. If they proceeded that way, they would meet somewhere near the Outer Land boundary line.
The explanation is simple enough…
Najin lifted his head.
He looked at the city divided by the boundary line that separated Outer Land from Continent—an opaque membrane. Beyond the membrane everything was blurred and hard to make out, yet the portion of the city visible right now was already considerable in size.
It wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded.
Thinking as much, Najin loosened his body.
“When you have finished your preparations for entry, please inform us. At that time we will signal Lady Yuel—”
“Done. Ready.”
“Pardon?”
An inquisitor who had been fussing over holy water and silver weapons coated with divinity turned to stare at Najin. Najin merely rolled his shoulders lightly; he did not appear to have made any preparations at all.
“Ah, Sir Najin? Forgive my presumption, but Baldernos is a city swallowed by the Outer Land. Entering it is no different from entering the Outer Land itself, and inside the Outer Land the erosion of the body proceeds at a terrible rate. Without sufficient preparation—”
“That’s our problem. He doesn’t need it.”
One of the inquisitors cut his subordinate off.
He indicated Najin with a glance. Najin answered the look by spreading his hand flat. Two stars rose above his palm and shone.
“Ah.”
The inquisitor let out a short breath of awe.
Then he dropped to one knee and bowed his head. He was not bowing to Najin. He was offering a prayer to his chief god, who would be watching from the sky above.
A glitter of light.
As if answering his prayer, the constellation of eight stars hanging in the heavens above shone. The Martyr of the Bramble had answered the prayer.
“Sir Najin?”
“Yes?”
“I recommend you cover your ears.”
Najin blinked.
When he looked around, every inquisitor who had gathered was already crouched with their ears plugged. Still puzzled, Najin did the same.
He understood the reason soon enough.
Moments earlier the inquisitor had prayed to his god to announce the start of the operation. That fact had been relayed through the god to her great champion, Yuel.
Operation commence.
Receiving the signal, Yuel Razian moved.
Far away, beyond the boundary line that divided Outer Land from Continent, at the entrance on the exact opposite side of the vast city. A whole city’s worth of distance lay between Najin and Yuel—
Yet Najin knew. He knew that Yuel had moved.
It was not because his senses were especially keen.
It was simply that the movement itself was too vast.
Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
A spine-chilling sword-cry rang out. A sound that resembled the scream of a human writhing in agony. It leapt the Outer Land boundary, crossed the entire city, ignored thousands of meters of distance, and struck Najin’s eardrums.
The sound came first; the phenomenon followed.
The enormous membrane dividing Outer Land from Continent convulsed. Beyond the trembling boundary, through the blurred film, it was not difficult to guess what was happening.
The city was being deconstructed.
By a single human and a single sword.