Everything According to the Natural Order (3)
Where the hell had that damned demon scurried off to?
Temple personnel, anyone who had come and gone from the temple, and every other lead we could dig up—we had combed through them all for three straight days, yet not a single scrap of useful information turned up.
Even with the physical description Deathbringer had added for us, it was hardly a common appearance, yet not one witness report surfaced.
"Rat bastard…"
What made it worse was that we could not even tell whether the thing was still hiding somewhere in the city while we failed to find it, or whether it had already fled to another city altogether. Honestly, it did not even need to reach another city; simply stepping outside this one would put it beyond the range of our search.
Perhaps that was why the feeling that we had only wasted time refused to fade. It was not quite the full-blown rage that matched my concept, but the hollow frustration of coming up empty still simmered.
"Despicable demons… Their skill at slinking into the shadows to hide from the light is truly first-rate."
I was not the only one whose temper was fraying. The Inquisitor was every bit as poisoned with fury. That morning she had blanketed the entire city in Holy Power; no further explanation was needed.
"Have you turned up anything on your end?"
"Not a thing, boss."
The short tempers, however, were limited to us. Berserk and Dev had finished today's hunting and were now wolfing down their food.
"Young hunter, eat this."
Those two had grown surprisingly close. I watched Berserk push food—especially anything with fruit in it—toward Dev. It was a heartwarming scene, until you noticed Dev's smiling face steadily turning paler by the second. Then it was less heartwarming and more… something else.
"Th-thank you kindly."
He could not refuse the goodwill, yet his stomach was already full. The awkward limbo was written all over him. Honestly, it was a little funny.
"Really, nothing at all?"
"Even if you ask like that, what would someone like me know? All I smelled was beast stench."
It might look comical from the outside, but from Dev's perspective it had to be pure torment. The petulant edge in his voice made that plain enough.
"If you're that curious, why don't you come along yourself next time?"
Dev muttered as he shoved a piece of fruit into his mouth. The salad Berserk had pushed on him still sat unfinished; he seemed ready to abandon it without regret.
"Hmm…"
Still, there was a barb hidden in those words. I sipped my share of the soup and weighed whether to keep hunting the demon tomorrow or follow Dev's suggestion and go after the beasts instead.
No matter how I turned it over, the latter seemed wiser. I was no tracking specialist, yet we had already sunk three full days into this. If nothing had surfaced after all that, maybe it was time to cut our losses and look for the root of the beast problem instead. Wiping out every carnivore in the area would technically solve things, but that was far too shortsighted.
"Mm! Mm-mm-mmph!"
Just then Berserk, who had crammed a hefty chunk of meat into her mouth, made a noise. Her cheeks were so stuffed that the words refused to come out right away.
"…Berserk, please swallow your food before speaking."
"Gah!"
Watching that much food vanish with a single swig of liquor was mildly impressive, I had to admit.
"Berserk saw something weird in the forest!"
"Pardon?"
"Didn't see it with both eyes… mmm…"
She crossed her arms, tilted her head, then lit up with an idea—figuratively speaking, of course.
"Felt like some annoying bastard was watching me and the young hunter."
"An annoying bastard…?"
"Could it have been a demon?!"
"Don't know! Just a gut feeling!"
"Ah. A gut feeling."
At Berserk's shout the Inquisitor's expression turned complicated, her trust clearly evaporating the moment the word "feeling" appeared. Dev, on the other hand, lost interest in the feeling itself and instead looked puzzled that he had not noticed anything. Since a gaze was abstract by nature, he seemed willing to believe it.
For the record, I was of roughly the same mind as Dev. After all, the gut feelings of characters like Berserk traditionally hit with near-prophetic accuracy. Whether it was a demon or the source of the beast troubles, something was definitely out there in the forest.
"You're certain."
"Demon Knight?"
"Berserk does not lie!"
Fine. That settled it. I took proper hold of the two-hander I had left leaning against the table. The sun was still setting; we had plenty of daylight left.
"I will comb every inch of that forest if I must, and seize its tail."
Even if we did not have plenty of time, it would not have mattered. My concept never waited patiently.
"……"
"Ahaha! The night forest truly has such fine atmosphere!"
"That fine atmosphere is getting completely ruined by you, you know…"
"There aren't many adventurers in the night forest, are there?"
"Of course not. Ordinary adventurers aren't strong enough to kill wild beasts bare-handed in the dark the way you people do."
As expected, the moment I rose, Berserk abandoned the liquor and meat she had been enjoying so much and followed. When Berserk joined, the Inquisitor set her jaw with grim resolve and declared she would not stand by while there was even a chance a demon was involved, and trailed after us as well.
As for Dev, the second the Inquisitor joined he clawed at his own head and announced he was coming too. Of course his true motive was not eagerness; he simply could not leave the three of us—the sudden-departure trio—unsupervised. And the Archmage, the one person who might have reined us in, was nowhere nearby.
"Haa. Why do I even…"
Meat Dumpling was suffering as always.
"You really couldn't have gone and informed the mage first…?"
True enough. But wasn't it the Archmage's own fault for leaving his post when he knew the three of us together were a brake-less combination? Or had he deliberately stepped away, trusting that Dev would insert himself between us and serve as the voice of reason?
"I left a note."
"Who said you didn't?"
"Then what's the problem?"
"Ugh…"
Either way it only meant more stress for Dev, so I offered him silent condolences and prodded Berserk onward.
"Where did you feel the gaze?"
Even if I was playing the stubborn fool, I did not actually want to thrash blindly through the forest without any clue—especially a forest thick with fog.
"Farther in than here? Or from the very start?"
Ah… now that was vague.
From the start, or from deep inside. Had something been watching us from the depths? And the closer we drew, the stronger the gaze had grown?
Hmm. Did that mean we needed to push farther? Yet this forest connected to the Great Forest; it was enormous.
"Direction."
"Mmm. Not sure. No matter which way I looked, it felt like the gaze was following."
"And now?"
"Gone."
Uuuugh.
Did we really have to tear the entire place apart without even a bearing? That could not be right. There had to be at least one clue.
"If you're unhappy, go back."
"Are you insane? Leave you lot behind? Besides, we've already come too far to turn around now."
Suddenly I recalled Dev's earlier testimony—that he had felt as though a whale were floating in the sky. He had offered the excuse that he might have mistaken a cloud, just to cover himself, but… I was almost certain it had been no mistake.
And a gaze that seemed to follow no matter which direction you looked usually meant—
"That gaze. Was it from above?"
Above? That had to mean the sky, no matter how you sliced it.
At my question Berserk blinked. A moment later her eyes, gleaming platinum under the moonlight, curved into crescents.
"Yeah. It was from above."
My gaze rose of its own accord to the heavens. Not a single cloud marred the sky; stars and moon filled it completely.
My blade pointed upward.
BOOM!
[That crazy bastard.]
Leviathan watched a darkness even deeper than night itself lance upward into the heavens. The sight was so unnerving that even Pandemonium, standing beside him, hung open-mouthed in a daze.
[…Say that again. You're sure that isn't Wrath? Setting aside that violent temper for a moment—how is a mere vessel handling Wrath's power that smoothly and that strongly?]
[I-I'm certain the vessel still held the reins…]
If Wrath had reclaimed control, they were in serious trouble. And if the human vessel still held control yet could manage that much power, that was its own brand of serious trouble. Pandemonium and Leviathan both found themselves caught in the same conflicted dread.
[No. That's definitely the vessel. If it were him, he wouldn't waste power like that—he'd just burn this entire area to ash.]
[Hah. Well, that's good news at least.]
[…It's nothing more than indiscriminate spraying of Demon Energy.]
[Sure. On the surface, yes. The problem is that a human is casually doing something that requires us to enter the King's Domain.]
[……]
[Gretchen's always been like that. It's not even the main body, and it's not the King's Domain, so the power should be cut to a quarter. On top of that, a vessel is the one wielding it, so it shouldn't be able to draw out everything—and yet look at that result. Even with origins like that, there was a reason it was chosen as the second Wrath.]
At Pandemonium's words Leviathan bit down hard on his lip. The serpent familiar flicked its tongue as if trying to soothe him, yet the horror refused to lessen even a fraction.
Behind the pale face boiled a stew of relief—thank the heavens I moved the main body out of the sky—and a seething inferiority—why do I feel fear toward something that can't even beat a mere vessel?
[For now, let's clear out. I have zero desire to face that insane vessel head-on, especially when he's got a Hero with him. And I don't want the landlord who only just compromised over the stay to start getting suspicious.]
[…I'll borrow.]
[Hm?]
[…I'll borrow your ears. And I'll leave buying the Nightmare Fragment from Sloth to you as well.]
[…Oh my. Do you even know what the price for that is before you offer?]
[Hah. I know perfectly well that nothing is dumber than dealing with you.]
[And you're still going to?]
[…Yeah.]
Leviathan deliberately refused to examine too closely whether the choice was wise.
[If it lets me make that bastard suffer, this much is nothing.]
Jealousy and envy were the emotions farthest from wisdom.
BOOM!
I finally lowered my sword after the last strike, one packed with every last drop of mana I could scrape together. Naturally, none of the attacks I had fired in every direction had caught anything. Whether the sky was truly empty or my technique simply lacked the range, I could not say.
"If you are short on mana, shall I continue in your place?"
"…Don't you go joining in on that lunatic stunt too, you damn greenhorn."
"Why is this a lunatic stunt?! You will not insult what the Demon Knight has done!"
"Then is firing that—that—that thing straight into the sky normal?!"
"Ha! If the enemy is in the sky, of course it is!"
Why were the two of them fighting over something I had done?
I watched the two dumplings bicker and let out a shallow sigh. Then I surveyed the trees annihilated by the act just now—the surroundings reduced to an empty clearing roughly five pyeong wide. Even the fog had been blasted away by the pressure; the view was wide open.
Honestly. I had tried to practice narrowing the range while extending the reach while I was at it, and it still ended up like this. Looks like mastery of the skill was still a long way off.
"Ohh! I saw it last time too, but it's still amazing. How do you compress mana that much?"
Berserk, by contrast, was simply impressed by my crude display.
"I want to use it too! I want to!"
Her straightforward nature clearly liked the straightforward, massively destructive attack I had just unleashed.
"Mm, like this? Like this?"
If she tried to copy it in one go, I was going to feel a little wronged. I watched Berserk desperately trying to compress mana. A tiny spark of light formed in her palm while her face showed she was pouring every last scrap of strength she possessed into it.
Puff!
"Pwah!"
Yet no matter how hard she tried, some things simply could not be done. I knew it instinctively: Berserk could not use this technique.
"Mana won't work…"
Her mana was far, far too insufficient—not even meeting the minimum threshold.
"Uuu."
Even though the unfinished orb of mana had burst, Berserk acted as if she had taken no damage at all. Indeed, her pale palm showed not the slightest wound. Whether her hide was simply that thick or the mana had been that meager, I could not tell.
"How do I get as much mana as you?"
Beats me. For me, mana and stamina simply stacked up neatly every time I leveled. I had no idea how to increase them through training. If there were a method, I would love to use it myself—free stat gains were not something anyone could ignore.
"I have heard that mana capacity is decided almost entirely by birth…"
"Ehh. Is that so?"
"Yes. Training can accumulate some, but I understand there is no meaningful change."
…Is that how it works?
Then what about the fact that my mana nearly doubled when I removed the seal? I had a vague inkling, but… eugh. I hoped that was not the case, so for now I would pretend I had not noticed. Just chalk it up to this character being born with a lot.
"That's a shame."
Meanwhile, upon hearing it was decided at birth, Berserk pouted. I had half expected a tantrum, but fortunately she seemed capable of accepting the impossible as impossible.
"So what now? Doesn't look like anything's in the sky…"
Dev, on the other hand, was fretting over what came next, mana or no mana. It was the important question. We had launched the attack on the hunch that something might be in the sky based on the clues, only to conclude that nothing was there—or at least nothing had been hit by my attacks. That left two choices.
"Perhaps we should head ba—"
Admit defeat and go back…
"I will not leave a demon and walk away."
…Or throw common sense to the dogs and keep scouring the forest.
For the record, my concept chose the latter every single time. At this point it felt like the demon bastard was whispering "chicken?" at me, so there was no way I could retreat.
"Wahahaha! Let's go!"
"Yes! Let us continue the search!"
"Uwaaaagh."
Uwahaha. Let's gooo.