Everything According to the Natural Order (2)
I paused, puzzled by the sudden warmth across the back of my hand. The heat was a little too distinct to dismiss as imagination. Or was it?
Of all places, it had come from the back of a hand sealed inside a gauntlet, which made checking impossible.
I ran my fingers over the iron plates fixed to the gauntlet, then forced my attention back to what stood in front of me. If I couldn't confirm it now, the efficient move was to handle what I could first.
"You said it was likely either a worshiper of Envy, or Envy itself."
"Yes. Only that Great Demon takes the snake and the whale as its symbols, so the identification is almost certainly correct. Whether it is the Great Demon in person or one of its worshipers, I cannot yet say."
I wasn't so sure. Considering how the thing had slipped past both the Hero's senses and my own before vanishing, the odds favored a Great Demon. Far Enoch had already taught us that Great Demons could deceive our perception.
Or something of comparable rank—one of those oddly underweighted 72 Demon Knights, perhaps?
"Then the animal crisis in Camborer…?"
"That I do not know. According to the records, the Great Demon of Envy has no power to command animals. And frankly, I struggle to believe a Great Demon would walk here in person. The possibility is not zero, so we must keep it in mind, but…"
"I see."
The Inquisitor sank into thought with a face utterly unlike her usual self—the face of the heretic-hunter I had only seen in our earliest days together.
The fact that the demon—or its worshiper—had entered the temple, and that it had come within arm's reach of her without her noticing, had clearly enraged her to the core.
Her face, lightly tanned from the journey, drained to a bloodless, unsettling pallor.
"Your Grace, does the Adventurers' Guild know anything either?"
"As this is a city-wide crisis, we have been exchanging information in real time, but they have uncovered nothing either. At least, nothing that has reached us so far."
Not knowing the cause did not mean they were helpless. The bishop added that they were sending adventurers out to extinguish the most immediate fires.
In other words, the standard course of action would be hunting the beasts.
"Until there is proof a demon is involved in that incident, I will remain here and search for that damned apostate."
But was the Inquisitor someone who would sit still while a demon invaded a temple?
"I will join you."
And that was my concept as well.
"I will not rest until I have severed that filthy vermin's limbs and torn out its tongue by the root."
I ground my teeth until they audibly scraped and abandoned the current quest.
Of course. A mere beast could never rank above a demon. Not unless a demon or a demon worshiper had been tangled up in the animal crisis from the start.
"My, my. Looks like they've made up their minds to find us."
Pandemonium unfolded the note a crow had brought and read its contents.
Before him, the believer who had just delivered the intelligence bowed low.
"Are you sure that isn't Wrath? The temper is identical."
"Are your eye sockets broken? If that thing truly were Wrath, it wouldn't be stomping around like that—it would have erased the entire city by now."
"Ah. Fair point. With a proper vessel, Gretchen could reduce a city to dry kindling without effort."
The information was enough. Pandemonium waved the believer off with a careless flick of the hand. The other withdrew from the cave in tearful gratitude.
All that remained in the cave were Pandemonium and Moby Dick—Leviathan—lying there to heal its wounds.
And, if one counted further, the countless minerals carpeting the floor.
"Though without a proper vessel all this time, Gretchen has looked like nothing more than a mangy dog."
"Hmph."
"Come to think of it, that one must be irritated too. Finally finds a vessel that can hold on, and still can't seize full control. Though by that measure, we are no better—how many schemes has that creature ruined for us?"
Pandemonium watched the still-coughing figure and burned the note. Clink. The ashes did not fall as ash. They fell as glittering ore.
A jewel of the purest, most beautiful crimson.
"Ha. Irritated? This is a welcome opportunity. Kill the vessel and be done with it."
"Killing the vessel does not kill that one. You know that."
"…That—!"
"Or were you thinking of going after the flesh itself?"
Like the mountain of minerals heaped throughout the cave.
"Don't. He is not leaving that creature alone for no reason."
Pandemonium picked up the jewel and checked its color and the way light bent through it.
The true crimson of a burning flame. The finest piece he had made so far.
"If you go after the flesh, fail to kill it, and only break the seal… you know what happens. The King will not spare you."
"Damn it!"
"Why not capture the vessel whole and try raising it instead? That vessel handles Wrath's power remarkably well. It can't compare to Gretchen, of course, but even a rotting croaker is still a croaker—it should reach the level of most higher demons."
But the moment he recalled a certain flame from the past, this redness became worthless.
Pandemonium crushed the jewel, and every gem scattered across the floor with it.
No red stone ever truly satisfied him.
"Raise it? Spare me the nonsense. If you're going to make proposals like that, take them to Sara."
"So prickly. And after I went to the trouble of preparing you a hideout."
"Hmph. Anyone listening would think you gave it for free. I traded this for my tongue, didn't I?"
"Well. That much is true."
"I am not like the rest of you. I will not let it go the way Duke did simply because it was inconvenient, and I will not grasp for it only to lose it the way you did."
Is that so. Pandemonium regarded his formal colleague in silence.
"I will kill that thing. Without fail."
And at the end of that silence, Leviathan reached a conclusion.
"Yes. And if possible… I will see it die by the hand of a human—the very humans it has always held in contempt."
Envy, in the end, was still Envy.
"Conveniently, there is a suitable human already at its side."
Blinded by inferiority, trying to grind something that shone so brilliantly down into the mire.
"Well. Do as you like. I still need to take the measure of things a little longer."
Still, the spectacle was entertaining enough that Pandemonium decided simply to watch. Even if the other failed, he still had plenty of pieces left to play.
Deathbringer stepped into the forest that lay between White Cat Ridge and the city.
"Looks like the young lord has no intention of joining the beast hunts today either."
The objective was the extermination of the wild beasts.
"Young hunter! Hurry up!"
"Yes, ma'am."
Of course, this was not a task he had volunteered for.
If he'd had a real choice, would he ever have picked this job? He could track animals well enough, but he lacked the power to bring them down.
It was simply that—once the Inquisitor and the Demon Knight had firmly declared they would hunt for the demon—there had been little room left for the Archmage and him to maneuver.
Especially with Berserk, who attracted disaster wherever she went, roaming outside alone. She had decided investigation was boring and, within a single day, turned her eyes to the hunts instead.
In the end, someone had to cover Berserk, and among those remaining, the more suitable choice needed no discussion. It was him.
"…Must be nice, being able to charge a man-eater without a second thought."
And even if they tried to pull him off this duty on the grounds that he specialized in searching for people, the city already had more than enough replacements—an information guild existed here, and both the temple and the Adventurers' Guild would step in.
Yes. That many people could take his place.
Unlike the Hero, or a knight of comparable rank, or Berserk—who, even when she caused trouble, got a minder assigned rather than being thrown out.
"Hm? What did you say?"
…Unlike them, who even when a beast appeared stood as the hunters rather than the hunted.
"Nothing important."
Deathbringer mocked himself over his second day of trailing after Berserk's heels.
The feeling was too light to call self-loathing, a little too heavy for mere self-reproach.
Something like… he did not think of himself as weak, and yet the moment he stood among people like them, he became infinitely small and cold.
And because that was not even untrue, the emptiness only deepened.
"Your face looks bad. Is it really nothing?"
But the feelings he carried were not something he could dare to show.
The world they lived in, the way they lived—were different.
"I said it's nothing."
There was no way people like them could understand someone who had always had to crawl along the floor and hide in the shadows just to stay alive.
"Understood."
Maybe he shouldn't have come along. When the Archmage had said he could remain in the city, would it have been better to listen instead of stubbornly insisting this role suited him more, that it was more efficient?
Watching Berserk turn and press on again, Deathbringer tasted regret for the first time in a while.
No—it was not the first time in a while. He often, very often, turned over the past and found it ugly.
Failing to save the friend who had been as good as family. Failing to die with you in that place. Leaving you behind and surviving—and remaining alive still. Claiming he would become the agent of all people, and then accomplishing so little.
…Following them on a single impulse, and now doing nothing of any real weight.
Truthfully, work like this could be done by anyone. It did not need to be him.
"…Damn it. I don't even know what I'm doing."
He needed to keep following Berserk, but a sudden wave of powerlessness rolled over him. The exhaustion cut deeper because the doubt had been carried for so long.
"I meant to offer my blood at the last…"
"This is none of your concern."
"You don't need to be so wary. I only want to help. Honestly, it's irritating, isn't it? That vacant priest—that hopelessly frustrating child—being more useful than you."
And lately, on top of all that…
"Haah…"
In the end, Deathbringer sank down where he stood. The forest fog was thick enough that if he did not hurry he might lose her, but that thought remained only a thought.
What filled his mind instead was a person he did not want to see fall from a cliff—and whom, through his own incompetence, he could not reach out and save.
His longing. His mirror. His future.
"What am I even supposed to accomplish out here…"
It was proof that he could take revenge, but he could never be the kind of person who saved anything.
"Maybe I should leave."
After long deliberation, Deathbringer offered himself another option. If there was nothing he could do, simply walking away might not be so bad.
"Staying here is just a waste of time…"
Everything he accomplished in this party was something someone else could do. Meanwhile he still had a task only he could perform—revenge.
So if he left this party in someone else's hands and walked away—if he did that—
"Young hunter!"
The moment the thought formed, a booming voice split the forest. Through a shaft of sunlight piercing the fog, her platinum hair shone with particular clarity.
"Catch!"
"Huh?"
And with it, a handful of wild raspberries thrust toward him.
"Does the young hunter not like sweet things?"
"No—I mean, I do, but—"
Still, out of nowhere?
"Then there is no problem. Take them!"
He was bewildered, but he lacked the strength to refuse raspberries shoved at him so unilaterally. In the end, Deathbringer's palms filled with fruit.
A few had been crushed on the way and were already bleeding juice.
"…Where did you even find these?"
"Berserk has her ways!"
He was still dazed, but he had already accepted them. There was no reason not to eat.
With a complicated expression, Deathbringer popped a raspberry into his mouth. The ripe fruit was sweet and bright on the tongue.
"Feeling stronger?"
"Yeah, well…"
It had been so absurd that every thought draining the strength from him had simply blown away.
Whether that counted as feeling stronger was debatable, but once the thing that had been sapping him was gone, it was not entirely wrong either.
Going from zero to one was still +1. Going from −1 to zero was also +1, wasn't it?
"Then good. Let's go!"
Deathbringer stared blankly at Berserk as she clapped him on the back hard enough to sting, then finally huffed out a laugh.
The Demon Knight would hate it, but having someone this simple in the party might not be so bad after all. Even if she was difficult to control.
"Ah. Right."
"What now? Did you forget to cut the ears off the game?"
"No. Young hunter."
"Yes?"
"Do not leave Berserk's side if you can help it."
"…? That's stating the obvious. The mage lord already told me the same thing. Not to leave you alone."
Given that the temple intruder had approached him once already, there was every chance it would try again—another reason he could not separate from her.
Of course, by that logic, simply going out as a pair was already dangerous enough…
But the opponent could enter and leave a temple without anyone noticing. Factor that in, and hiding anywhere carried the same risk. At their first meeting, if the other had decided to kill him, he would have died without even managing resistance.
Hadn't the Archmage known that from the start, and ordered him to follow Berserk for that very reason? His combat power was so far below that resistance was meaningless, and the contract side of things ultimately depended on his own will—so concealment would do no good either.
For all those reasons, he absolutely could not leave Berserk's side.
The moment of powerlessness just now, when he had briefly been alone? That had been unavoidable. No count.
As for leaving the party—well, his value had come from being a member of it, so once he was out, they would have no particular reason to touch him. That had been the calculation.
"Is that so? Then good!"
And this one was spouting nonsense too.
Deathbringer scratched his head and followed after Berserk.
Only—yes.
Because of the difference of a full head in height, he failed to notice. Berserk's amber eyes flicked briefly toward the sky behind them, and her grip tightened on her halberd as if bracing for something.
Woooooo.
The whale that had been hiding among the clouds rose once more into the sky above.