To a Distant Land (6)
I raised the lantern and examined the scene more carefully. Once the floating debris had time to settle, the nest's shape came into clearer view.
It was violet, shot through with protruding crimson veins, and rather smooth in form.
Like an egg sliced cleanly in half, only thicker, the veins standing out more sharply.
It wasn't the grotesque flaunting of gore-slick organs, but it still wasn't a pleasant sight.
My right arm prickled as I cut down the remaining weeds around it again.
If I wanted a closer look at the nest, the rest of the grass had to go. Besides, I had no idea what effect the medicine might have on the thing itself.
Yet right after I planted the pill, the grass withered while the nest showed no reaction at all. Poking it with my sword changed nothing either.
I even gathered the courage to lay a hand on it. Only a lukewarm, faintly unpleasant warmth met my palm. The texture felt like layers of tree trunk pressed together and hardened solid.
I stared at it for a long moment, then made my decision.
So what I thought was a side quest was actually the main quest for this whole area, huh?
Yeah, no wonder a quest got shoved onto me without me even accepting it. As long as games exist that start with delivering a necklace and somehow end with saving the world, it's not that surprising.
Crack!
Either way, samples mattered.
I carefully tore off a small piece of the nest against possible need. Taking the whole thing might complicate later examination, so I planned to submit only a fragment.
Of course the entire nest might turn out necessary… who knew. The mages might need to see it in its original state.
Better to make two trips than regret it later. With that thought I gripped the fragment in my hand.
The quest window had pointed me in the right direction here. A faint twinge of regret brushed through my mind at that moment.
"Oh! You've come up!"
"S-sorry! I completely forgot to give you the stone!"
Had they at least made it properly up to the lake surface?
Somehow a cluster of mages who looked ready to dunk one of their own came into view. I had no idea what the stone business was about.
"Check this."
I ignored their nonsense and tossed the nest fragment I had cut free. The flustered mages caught it and sprouted question marks all over their heads.
Splash.
Aigoo, climbing the railing over and over was getting exhausting.
I used pure arm strength to vault onto the bridge in one clean motion so my form would look decent, then shook out my hair. Sand and leaves were stuck in it; it felt disgustingly stiff.
I want a bath. I know it'll come clean, but I want to wash my clothes too. I want to scrub them properly with fabric softener so a nice scent lingers.
A brief craving for cleanliness rose in me.
"…Adventurer, where exactly did you obtain this object?"
In the meantime the mages faced me with grave expressions. My eyes, still raking through my hair with my fingers, narrowed into slits.
"You're not asking because you lack a head, I trust."
"……!!"
They must have been hoping for some denial of reality, but yes—this had come straight from the lakebed.
I walked over to the remaining stretch of railing and dropped onto it. Not because I was tired, but because I already knew I would have to go back down.
Whether they wanted a guide or the whole nest ripped free, there was no way they were finishing this without my strength.
"R-report at once!"
I still didn't understand why the mages had grown so grim. What on earth was that thing—
"A demon nest has appeared!"
Oh.
"This is an unexpected problem."
White Wind, who had stormed outside at once, muttered under her breath. The playful smile was gone; her face looked bleached beyond mere coldness, like one of the marionettes she used in the reception room.
"Raise the barrier."
"Yes."
At White Wind's command the mages began casting. The barrier that covered the Magic Tower and part of the lake was enormous, yet with so many mages working it did not take long.
"Has the Hero returned to the temple?"
"Fortunately or unfortunately. She would understand this better than I. I wonder if we can snatch it without her knowing."
White Wind said this as she approached me.
"I'm truly sorry, but could you take me back to where that was found? For the record, I don't swim well, so we'll need to rope ourselves together."
It was the request I had expected. My body, after its brief rest, rose smoothly and moved toward the water.
"I don't wanna get we~t."
"G-Great Sage!"
"We'll go in your place!"
"No. I'll go. What do any of you know? Call the one who's at the temple instead. Without the temple people noticing—and make absolutely certain the Hero does not follow. Understood?"
White Wind stripped off most of what she was wearing and tossed the clothes aside. I had expected her to conjure air bubbles or something; apparently even mages had no clever trick for this.
Splash!
In moments both White Wind and I sank beneath the lake.
"Trouble, trouble."
For the record, even if she could not encase her whole body in air, she could still form bubbles over nose and mouth to serve in place of a machine.
After studying the nest for some time, White Wind created an air bubble at her own lips and spoke through it.
The unexpected kindness was that she did the same for me. Still, I had little to say.
"That stagnant magic power turning into Demon Energy and even birthing a demon is truly troublesome."
"…What did you just say?"
Correction. A topic that actually gives me something to say has appeared.
"Why the sudden surprise? You're the living proof of this very thing."
Me? Why am I the living proof?
I furrowed my brow in confusion, then the realization hit.
The present crisis seemed to stem from magic power transforming into Demon Energy… and I was the textbook example of the reverse. A man who converted Demon Energy into magic power as casually as breathing.
Which meant……?
"If Demon Energy can become magic power, there's no reason the reverse can't happen. We've known it was possible, yet we've simply pretended the possibility didn't exist."
Oh my god. So that's what this was.
"More than that, I have no idea what comes next. Beyond the fact that magic power can become Demon Energy, once word spreads that it even spawned a demon, some mages will certainly cross the line. If that happens, can the Magic Tower still coexist with the temple?"
While she spoke, White Wind swept back the hair drifting around her face underwater. It did little good.
"…Well, asking you about this problem is meaningless. You're not a mage, and if not for that parasite nesting in your body you would never have been involved with our side at all."
Her complaints followed the same pattern. As White Wind said, I… knew far less about these matters than she imagined—far less.
So even when the urge to ask rose, I could find no questions to ask. I kept my mouth shut and simply held the atmosphere.
"First let's deal with this. Since it's sitting on the main building's roof… once we reinforce the wall over there we can tear the whole thing free."
But that was that, and this was this.
We could not ignore the crisis already upon us while fretting over the future. We sorted what we could do and did it at once.
After making certain no water would leak into the building while we cut the nest free, we began the actual work of tearing it out.
Perhaps because the matter was so urgent, every bit of labor finished within an hour. I had to shuttle between lake and shore twice more in the process, but that was hardly important.
"White Wind, I've heard the rough outline. What in the world is this……."
Around then the Archmage arrived in a rush. Having hurried down from that high peak in the dead of night, her clothes were a mess from the ordeal.
"…This."
The Archmage's gaze, after she pushed through the high-ranking mages, landed on the nest. She recognized it instantly; her face hardened.
"You came alone, surprisingly?"
"Ah, when I said it concerned research, the temple was reasonably understanding. But that isn't what matters."
"No. It does matter. What do you think they would do if the temple learned of this? You knew that yourself, which is why you abandoned the research you devoted your entire life to."
"……."
Oh, abandoned lifelong research? So the Archmage has a past of her own as well……?
I tried to recall the mage personal storyline. The mage-side personal stories… for all their depth, they held nothing especially unique. The class branch simply split according to whether thirst for knowledge or morality won out.
"…We'll leave that talk for later. This is not a place with only the two of us."
"True. What matters now is not what happens after the incident, but how we end the incident itself."
My eyes spun at the foreshadowing exploding left and right.
A quest I thought was nothing turns out to be tied to the world's hidden lore and a character's secret past aaa. Gyaaaat.
"First we must learn what hatched from the nest. Then we kill it or capture it. Only then can we decide whether to conceal it or report it."
And that hunter role will fall to me, of course.
Even while my head spun I accurately predicted the coming quest contents.
Ordinary gamer instinct. Years of game experience were not so shallow that losing a single window left me unable to read the board.
"Judging by the residual Demon Energy, it hasn't been long since it hatched. But you know me—I'm a specialist in technique development, useless in actual combat. And the ones among our people who can handle tracking magic are all combat specialists……"
"…Yes. I'll take this on."
"Good. I'm counting on you."
So the companion for this quest will be the Archmage.
Since the Inquisitor must not learn of it, she is naturally excluded. Mobilizing everyone else while leaving only her out would look ridiculous, so Dev and Berserk probably stay behind too.
Berserk already goes off on his own the moment he joins, but just the Archmage and me. That's a new combination.
Maybe they're finally giving the Archmage screentime since she had none in the earlier quests.
"Demon Knight, I ask your help as well. I'll prepare an additional contract."
Well, whoever came along made no difference to me. I signed the contract for four hundred thousand gal and set out at once for easier tracking.
Neither I nor the Archmage were in peak condition, but there was no choice. Delay any longer and every trace of Demon Energy would vanish; how could we rest?
"This direction leads toward the Great Forest……"
More importantly, do I really have to dive again? Just as with White Wind, I roped myself to the Archmage and swept beneath the lake, following the demon's trail.
The fluorescent tracking magic shone after a long absence.
"There was a cave this way. In that case it may truly… have crossed into the Great Forest. I only hope it did not enter the territory of the forest dwellers."
In the end we found a cave I had missed while clearing the grass. Stones had been arranged as if to hide the opening, so I had never noticed the path.
"This way?"
"Did putting out one light leave you blind?"
"What can I do when age makes the eyes grow dim."
"…Tsk."
"Thank you for the light."
Wearing specially made underwater breathing tools that allowed conversation, we moved inside.
The Archmage was larger than I and could not swim, which made things somewhat laborious, yet it was still better than the open water.
Out there I had been forced to pull her entirely; inside the cave we could at least grip the uneven walls and advance.
"The water is quite cold. I should have brought more stones."
After we had traveled quite a distance that way, the Archmage finally complained of the chill. Having removed her temperature-regulating robe and neglected waterproof magic, the cold seemed to hit her hard.
"Weak."
Is it even cold? I only feel lukewarm.
Or maybe I've simply been soaking in the lake too long? Though I never felt it was cold from the start.
Either way, she was precious personnel. If she fell ill it would be a disaster. I held out a hot-pack stone to the Archmage.
A mage like her was far more likely to catch a cold than a warrior like me. She was older, and she always supported us from behind.
Lately the nagging had grown excessive, but I knew even that sprang from worry.
Even if I sometimes felt fed up, I was not blind to the goodwill. Handing over a mere stone was the least I could do.
"Aren't you cold?"
"If we lose the demon, you'll be the one who grows cold."
Ah, just take it, elder.
I said whatever came to mind and swam farther in. The passage that had been narrowing steadily began to widen again after we passed the tightest point. It was rising as well.
Splash.
At last a place where air met the water appeared.
I was glad I had come wearing boots this time. I forced myself to ignore the water sloshing inside my shoes and surveyed the cave.
A faint breeze touched my face—proof of a connection to the outside.
"It connects to the outside."
Behind me the Archmage climbed up with heavy, splashing steps. Even with the hot pack wrapped around her, her body still trembled slightly from the cold.
"Wait a moment—give me time to wring out the water."
Of course. Of course.
While the Archmage wrung her clothes and fur, I examined the traces more carefully.
The fluorescent marks left by the magic stretched on without break. They looked exactly like… something dragging a heavy sack, or a snake slithering past.
"…A snake?"
It could not be a sack, so it had to be the latter. Judging by the width, it was enormous……. Wow. I roughly understood why the snakes had swarmed earlier. Ahaha.
"Hm? Ah. I see. That also explains how it could leave the water. The demon appears to have taken the form of a snake."
No, actually it's not funny. It's far too big!! Width about the size of my waist—does that make any sense!?
Not a king water-snake—this is a waaaaang water-snake!
Barely managing to hide my revulsion, I untied the rope at my waist, pulled a coat from my inventory, and put it on. Time to begin the real chase.