The Demon's Curse (4)
"You're coming with us?"
"Cough... Yeah..."
Asel's condition hadn't particularly improved, but he'd packed his things anyway, insisting he would come all the way to the Capital, and stepped right outside. I couldn't understand why someone in his state was being so stubborn instead of resting.
Even if the entrance exam had improved his fellow party members' personalities, this wasn't the Spear Saint I knew. There had to be a reason.
"What's the reason?"
"...Cough."
Asel hesitated for a moment, then finally came out with why he wanted to tag along.
"Last time, when we took down that Greater Demon... there was a guy I thought I'd run through with my spear..."
"And?"
"Besia saved him."
A weight he had never let out of his heart. Surprisingly, the Spear Saint had been carrying that incident with him ever since. To set up her finishing blow, one of the examinees had clung to the Greater Demon — and Asel had put a spear through him. Without Besia's healing, that examinee would have died.
"...So I want to help."
It was a decent enough reason that even the two girls who had been against it — worried he might infect me — nodded along.
"Asel, you're more decent than I thought."
"Right? Completely different from what I expected."
"...That's a compliment, right?"
It probably was. It just didn't sound like one.
But even knowing Asel's intentions, I couldn't exactly drag a sick person along. Fran was still worried about the flu spreading.
"Do you have any idea how frail Argal is? If he catches the flu without Besia around, he could drop dead on the spot."
"It's not that bad..."
"She's right. Argal's so weak he can't even lift the things Fran can."
...Girls? At this point you're just making fun of me, aren't you?
I used to think the two of them were always at each other's throats, but given enough time they had started working together like a well-oiled machine. Asel looked at me with a stare that had gone distinctly cold.
"Cough... Seriously?"
"As long as he doesn't give me the flu, it's fine."
I decided to let the Spear Saint come along. One look at those feverish, venomous eyes of his told me that if I tried to stop him any further, my lack of muscle would become a running joke for the rest of my life. Was there any need to turn away someone who wanted to help? And we wouldn't be fighting in a day or two. By the time his illness cleared up, he would be a solid addition to our fighting strength.
So I made a suggestion.
"If we take two carriages, it should be fine."
"Isn't that a bit of a waste of money?"
"It's not like we're the ones providing the carriages."
To the maids running this enormous mansion, two carriages would look like pocket change. Sure enough, a maid who looked thoroughly well-off nodded and spoke up.
"Two carriages, is it?"
"If you would."
"We'll have them ready shortly."
The maids disappeared somewhere and, in no time at all, came back with two carriages and even a pair of drivers, all assembled as if it were nothing. And that wasn't the end of it. The maid started running through a whole menu of additional options.
"And your destination?"
"...We're heading for the Capital."
"That will take about two days. You won't need a particularly heavy escort. Would you like any maids to accompany you?"
At that, Caron quietly raised her hand. She still seemed to want to serve me. But Caron, you needed to go back to the estate now.
"Caron, you should head back."
"Pardon? But Young Master!"
"You've stayed long enough. You can leave the rest to the maids here."
"Ugh..."
She looked utterly heartbroken, but it couldn't be helped. She had lingered here far too long as it was. She really did have to go back.
I met the mansion maid's eyes again and went over what we would need.
"Two should be enough."
"Isn't that too few? We were given strict orders by the Young Master to attend to you thoroughly. If our guests have an uncomfortable journey, the responsibility falls heavily on us."
"We're not going on a pleasure trip. Just enough people to help with camp preparations will do."
Besides, no matter how short the road, the moment you started preparing in earnest, the carriages and supplies you needed multiplied exponentially. Even if I was living large on someone else's fortune, there was such a thing as a reasonable limit. We weren't going on vacation. As long as it wasn't too uncomfortable, that was enough.
"We can leave right away... wait, no."
"Please pack some porridge for Argal. And medicine too, so he doesn't get sick..."
"Don't you have a bed that's just the right size for two people to lie down in? The kind that's perfect for sleeping all pressed up against each other."
...It seemed I was the only one actually ready to go. The other two girls each started adding options of their own. Fran focused entirely on things that would keep me from getting sick. And Laeli — what exactly was she asking for?
It was Fran who put a stop to that filthy request.
"Laeli! You already did everything you wanted while Argal was unconscious, didn't you? How much greedier can you get?"
"I-I'm Argal's marriage prospect, you know? We're going to the Capital together. This much is fine."
"You're a marriage prospect, not a fiancée. You haven't even gotten engaged yet, have you?"
Well, that was true. Laeli and I were in talks for a marriage arrangement, but we hadn't actually promised each other anything. We weren't even engaged, so there was no guarantee we were anything that special... Wait. What had she done while I was unconscious?
"All preparations are complete. You may depart whenever you wish."
"...Let's go, then."
I would set that aside for now. With Caron, Fran, and even Besia watching, she couldn't have done anything too strange. Now we really needed to get moving. The Bishop was on death's door. We didn't have time to spare.
As previously discussed, Asel boarded a separate carriage, and the three of us settled into one together. Caron saw me off with glistening eyes, waving a handkerchief.
"Young Master! I'll see you at the estate!"
"Yeah."
It was a journey that followed on the heels of the briefest of rests. The Bishop collapsing. Besia being taken. I couldn't help thinking a massive conspiracy was involved.
...I found myself wondering whether, this time too, it would all end with me dying alone.
"Tower Lord. The mission was carried out successfully."
"Is that so? Well done."
Tiagris, Lord of the Black Magic Tower. A woman whose deep black hair was strikingly alluring, she was receiving the report not from the Black Magic Tower itself, but out in the field.
Time had passed since the Black Magic Tower fell. The collapse of the tower she had poured her sweat into raising still brought tears of blood whenever she thought of it — but lately, her mood had been good.
"The Royal Family certainly has nerve."
Even she had never imagined that the Demon King's army and the Royal Family were dealing with each other. She had only learned of it when she saw a high-ranking demon who had come, at the Royal Family's request, to restore Ambrosia. Until then, she had thought the Demon King's army was a story from a faraway world.
And while helping with the reconstruction, that high-ranking demon had made a single request. The favor the Demon King's army asked of Tiagris, Lord of the Black Magic Tower, was a simple one.
Plant a demon's curse in the Bishop, and drive him toward death.
For a Tower Lord, that was hardly a difficult task. All she had to do was offer a sacrifice to a demon and lay the curse herself. But as the work progressed, she had grown greedier. She didn't simply want the Bishop dead and a reward in hand. She wanted Besia to fall into utter ruin.
Once the Demon King's army understood what she wanted, they paid the price of the deal in a different currency. They helped make sure Besia would crumble.
"To think the Demon King's army had a spy planted inside the Church."
There had been an accomplice on the inside. And not just anyone — someone in a very high place. That accomplice's power alone had been enough to throw Priestess Besia into a cell and manufacture the pretext for a heresy trial. All Tiagris had to do was sit back and watch the results.
The Lord of the Black Magic Tower smiled, thoroughly satisfied. From here on, the only thing left for her to do was rebuild the Black Magic Tower. She had already taken everything she could from the Demon King's army and the Royal Family.
"Aaaagh!"
"Help me, please, someone help me!"
"Give me back my child!"
Innocent commoners were being dragged out by the black mages. The most important thing was replenishing the slaves. With the Royal Family's tacit permission, they had been aggressively stripping the nearby villages. That had left the security around the Capital unstable, and bandit gangs that had never existed before had sprung up — but what did that have to do with her?
Until she had more slaves, more resources, and faster, until the fallen Black Magic Tower stood again, she would not sleep.
"Go, Lich."
"As my lord commands."
She had taken a black mage who had met his death in this affair and made him into a Lich. Losing so many elders had been a heavy blow, but she didn't care. She would just turn them all into liches and work them until their bones crumbled to dust.
"And Gaudium. Burn every living thing in the vicinity."
"As you will."
Gaudium was among them as well. A being who had died once now crawled and shambled, bound together by Magi. More villages. More victims. The land itself began to burn all the hotter. Their horrific sins would come to blanket everyone on this earth.
It wasn't a long road. I had assumed we would reach the Capital without any real trouble.
That was before a bandit gang surrounded the carriages.
"...Are we sure this is the road to the Capital?"
"Bandits this close to the Capital? What the hell is the Golden Knight Order doing?"
I was just as baffled. The area around the Capital was supposed to have a decent degree of control and public order. Knight orders patrolled the vicinity constantly, which meant bandit gangs were almost inevitably wiped out.
"Hand over your money and your goods! Refuse and you're dead!"
"...What do we do?"
"What else? We wipe them out."
Laeli's blade hissed from its sheath. Her skill alone wouldn't be enough to drive off the entire gang — but Fran was here too.
"Fine. Let's wipe them all out! Argal, you stay put."
"Call me if it starts looking ugly."
I was confident I could play the same kind of living artillery Fran did, anyway. When I poured mana into the necklace, a massive surge of power amplified through it. Fran had grown enormously in the process of taking down that Greater Demon, but Laeli hadn't had anything like that, so I was worried on several fronts.
And then, against all expectation—
A wet thrust. A bandit choked on a scream. Another spray of blood, another shriek. A single slash, and a head left its shoulders.
"P-please, spare me!"
One stroke of her sword sent a bandit's head flying. It was a feat even an ordinary knight would have struggled with unless they used mana. Superhuman strength bordering on the mystical.
...Why does she seem even stronger than before?
Did she just get stronger by breathing? Had she been born with some kind of authority like that?
It didn't take her long to carve through most of the gang. Fran was so startled she just stood there watching. In the end, it was the bandits who bowed their heads before Laeli's display.
They dropped to their knees.
"P-please spare us!"
"What should we do, Argal?"
Watching her ask so casually, I couldn't help but put the question to her directly.
"...Laeli, did you eat something weird?"
"Hm? Why?"
She tilted her head, as if she couldn't understand why Fran and I were looking at her like that. Fran ran a quick analysis and came to a conclusion.
"She could probably just win a one-on-one against a lesser demon at this point. Laeli?"
"Isn't it a little unfair to compare these small fry to a demon?"
"Even small fry are trouble when there's enough of them."
I climbed down from the carriage, still turning over the force Laeli had just shown. That was one thing. The problem in front of us still had to be dealt with.
I approached the bandits, and the moment they saw me they slammed their heads to the ground. One of them cried out.
"Please, have mercy, my lord!"
"I'll hear your reasons."
Every noble handled bandits differently. Some cut off both hands. Some simply took the head. Some showed mercy. And I could examine the Magi on them with my own two eyes.
Magi was born from death. If these bandits had killed a great many people, Magi would have clung to them even though they weren't black mages. And these bandits were steeped in it.
Even so, I decided to hear them out. Because this wasn't the Magi that arose naturally from death or suffering.
It was Magi produced by a black mage's power.
...Near the Capital. Something strange was happening.