A Break for the Cat (2)
"Eisen! Iris!"
After calming Ellie down from her wailing and sobbing fit, I stepped alone into the quiet forest to find the two children who had vanished.
Since I had, as before, sprinkled my blood throughout every corner of the church building, I wasn't too worried about Ellie — but what I'd dismissed as nothing serious turned out to be an utterly grave matter once I heard the full story.
"Eisen! Iris!"
Eisen and Iris hadn't entered the forest of their own accord.
According to Ellie, a woman none of us had ever seen before had suddenly appeared at our church, lured away Iris — who had always had a particular weakness for books — and led her into the woods. Eisen happened to witness the scene and secretly followed the two of them, but neither had returned even after nightfall.
It was such a textbook case of abduction that it almost made me laugh, and yet the fact that it had all happened while I was asleep left me sour and strangely unsettled.
— Thud, thud.
Just who was this kidnapper who had lured Iris into the forest? Someone had come all the way out to this remote woodland, where people rarely ever set foot, and of all things, abducted the two children under my care.
If the culprit turned out to be some lowlife bandit, I wasn't going to let them off gently.
"Eisen! Iri—"
"Over here."
As I wandered through the hushed forest, a strange woman's voice drifted softly from somewhere nearby.
"You're quite late."
It felt as though she already knew me. When I instinctively turned my head toward the source of the voice, there she stood, rooted in place — a woman dressed in something distinctly out of the ordinary.
"Who are you?"
"How peculiar. I never expected an actual nun to show up."
"Are you the kidnapper who took Eisen and Iris?"
"If you mean the little brats, then yes. I lured them into the forest. Well — I only meant to take one of them."
Her face looked barely older than her early twenties. Yet the aura she gave off was unsettling in a way that no ordinary human's could ever be.
"Are you the only adult at that church?"
"Yes. I look after the children by myself."
"Strange. From what I could sense, there was clearly something more there."
The woman showed no intention of revealing who or what she was. She simply tossed out one cryptic, meaningless question after another, endlessly probing at me.
"Where are Eisen and Iris right now?"
Unable to wait any longer, I cautiously brought up the children first, and the woman immediately put on an ambiguous expression before speaking at her leisure.
"There's no need to rush. They're still safe."
"Still?"
"Yes. You see, I'm far more interested in something hidden inside that church than in those little brats."
"I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you saying I'm hiding something?"
"Ever since that church became the center of things, all the monsters in the area have started vanishing one by one. For someone like me, who manages this place, that's a very awkward situation."
"...You manage this place?"
"Until a month ago that church was nothing but an eyesore, and I step away for a little while, and suddenly someone's living in it — worse, it's giving off the strangest energy."
The more she spoke, the more her words shifted from unsettling to outright unpleasant. That she supposedly governed this forest, that she could sense a strange aura from the church — she rattled off a whole list of things no ordinary person would ever dream of saying.
"Though I never imagined that strange energy would turn out to be a nun this annoying to look at."
"...Just what are you?"
"That's my question for you. On the outside you're clearly demonkind, but on the inside you're practically identical to a human."
"As you can see, I am a human and a nun. I don't know why you're so suspicious of me, but if I'm what you're after, then please let the children go now."
At my flat reply, the woman slowly furrowed one brow. Then she let out a laugh of pure incredulity and, without the slightest hesitation, pulled Eisen and Iris out from the dense thicket where she'd hidden them.
"......"
"Mmph...!"
Iris, inexplicably sleeping peacefully, and Eisen, bound head to toe by something unidentifiable, thrashing desperately against his restraints. With even his mouth gagged, all that escaped him were frantic, unintelligible whimpers.
"Fine, I'll release them."
Unexpectedly, the woman untied Eisen and Iris without protest. Even at a glance it was obvious some hidden scheme still lurked behind her compliance, but seeing the two of them without a single wound, I let out a quiet breath of relief.
"Le-Levi...!!"
The moment his body was free, Eisen scooped the still-sleeping Iris up into his arms and rushed straight over to me. His face was a mess of cold sweat and tears.
As if remembering what had happened two weeks ago, he trembled all over like a leaf, shaking with fear.
"I'm sorry... I never meant for this to happen... I only went to bring Iris back..."
"It's all right, Eisen. I'm here now, so you don't have to be so frightened."
"But... but she's not human... she's..."
He was rambling, swallowed whole by a terror he couldn't control. I gently placed my hand on his head.
Eisen stopped mid-sentence and began staring up at me with wide, flustered eyes. I met his gaze with a faint smile and spoke calmly.
"What Eisen needs to do right now is take the sleeping Iris and get back to the church safely. A brave Eisen should be able to manage that much easily, right?"
"Le-Levi...?"
"Don't worry about me — just look after Iris and Ellie in my place. Everything will be fine."
I didn't need to hear him finish to know what Eisen wanted to say. It was that the woman standing before us wasn't human. And since she wore the appearance of a perfectly ordinary person, I suspected her true identity wasn't a monster, but a demon.
"Don't— don't do this... Levi, this is someone you can't handle..."
"Like I said, the one you should be worrying about right now isn't me. It's Iris and Ellie."
"How am I supposed not worry about you in a situation like this...? I know this happened because of me, but still..."
"Keep being stubborn and I'm going to get angry."
Eisen was still trembling violently. Knowing what the woman truly was, the idea of fleeing and leaving me behind was evidently something he simply couldn't stomach.
But from my standpoint, having Eisen linger here any longer was the far greater inconvenience.
"I... I really..."
— Shhk!!
The moment Eisen finally managed to tear himself away, something shot toward me from behind and grazed my left cheek.
"How long are you going to keep this up?"
Dark crimson blood began to seep slowly from the split wound. At the sight of it, Eisen's face hardened even further.
"It seems that lady's patience has finally run out. Eisen, hurry — go."
"Urk... Le-Levi..."
After a long moment of hovering in place, Eisen finally bit down hard on his lower lip and, with no other choice, turned his back on me.
"I'll go get someone to help you—!! So you have to stay alive—!! You promise?!!"
Leaving only those words ringing in the air, he vanished swiftly from my sight. I wanted to tell him it wouldn't be necessary, but given the circumstances, the words wouldn't come easily.
"Can we finally have our conversation now?"
"...I'm sorry for keeping you waiting. For a demon, you're remarkably patient."
"I was thinking it might be fun to play hide-and-seek with the little brats sometime, is all."
"Ah, so that's why you let Eisen and Iris go?"
"Yes, exactly."
Even while doubting my true nature, she spoke with leisurely confidence — on the assumption that she would obviously win. Truly, arrogance that pierced the very heavens; she was every bit worthy of the name demon.
"Now then, I'd like you to start explaining what you actually are."
"As I said before — the church's nun."
"You can't brush this off with that. There's more than one suspicious thing about you. I've never once met anyone who radiates energy as strange as yours."
"I'm a special person who has received the grace of Goddess Paelia, you see."
"...I take it you have no intention of just telling me. Then let me change the question. One last one."
With those words, a multitude of tentacles began sprouting grotesquely from the woman's back.
Since coming to this world, I had only ever faced monsters, so the sight was genuinely shocking — and yet, at the same time, the knowledge that something stronger than a monster existed stirred no small amount of excitement in me.
"So which is it? A demon wearing a human's mask, or a human wearing a demon's?"
"Neither."
I answered the question without a flicker of hesitation, and for some reason, the woman's expression only twisted further.
"I go out of my way to show you mercy, and this is how you dare spit in my face?"
The grotesque tentacles behind her writhed and coiled, taking up a threatening posture. It was a thoroughly aggressive display, but I didn't so much as blink. Keeping my expression perfectly serene, I opened my mouth quietly.
"Your phrasing is a little off, I think. The one showing mercy here isn't you."
"...What?"
"If I heard you correctly, you said you manage this forest—"
Paying no particular mind to the woman who continued glaring at me with furious eyes, I wiped the dark blood trickling down my left cheek roughly with my thumb and finished what I'd been saying.
"I have no idea who you are or where you're from, but it's rather rude of you to say such a thing out of nowhere."
The blood I'd wiped away with my thumb soon reshaped itself into the form of a long, sharp spear.
It was crude beyond measure, its tip savagely warped — as though it had been forged that way from the very start, with none of the refinement of artistry to be found anywhere in it.
It was a chilling weapon that felt as if it existed for one purpose alone: to pierce and to cut. In other words, a perfectly splendid instrument of conversation, tailor-made for a moment exactly like this one.
"This place is already my territory."