Spouting Excuses (4)
"The pact will continue."
"…That's good news, I take it?"
Pandemonium smiled at the figure standing before him. His mind was a snarl of every curse and scrap of humiliation imaginable, but not a flicker of it touched his face.
"I'll even overlook your fighting the Hero and his lot. So long as no harm comes to Ednium."
Show weakness here, and he would be eaten. Swallowed whole—like whoever's remains were still stuck between those teeth.
"…What business would I have fighting them?"
Shit, shit, shit!
Pandemonium recited every vulgarity he knew under his breath. Sympathy for the dead Leviathan? Hardly. Why mourn a fool who had gotten himself killed by overreaching? There had never been any bond between them in the first place.
"Is that so?"
What did infuriate him was the mess that idiot Leviathan had left behind by dying. Fine—let the humans strut about having slain a Great Demon; their soaring reputations were neither here nor there. But that damned tiger snatching the spoils of war? That was enough to make his blood boil.
Damn you, Leviathan! If you were going to die, die cleanly—why hand your name and soul over to that reeking beast? And now that bastard was only stronger for it!
"What a pity……."
And even then, the wretched tiger knew no satisfaction. Having swallowed Leviathan's name and soul and inherited every scrap of that power, it had turned its appetite on Pandemonium himself.
"…Haha. Well then, I'll be on my way? Nothing left for me here."
Under ordinary circumstances the display would have been gratifying. With his own life on the line, however, the calculus changed. Pandemonium kept a stream of rich curses locked behind his teeth and fluttered out a laugh. Thankfully, the damned tiger did not press the issue further.
"We're leaving."
"Yes."
Pandemonium hurried into the carriage his contractor was driving. Presently a rare chimera—a horse grafted with wings—lifted the carriage into the air.
"Are you certain we can leave that thing alone?"
Only once some distance had opened between them and the cave that housed the wretched beast did the contractor venture the question. Pandemonium's brow creased faintly.
"For now it doesn't matter. Digesting a Great Demon's power will take time."
Gorging raw on the power of a single Great Demon was one thing; the side effects were another. After all, a Great Demon was composed of Demon Energy—of defilement itself. Those beasts were the natural opposite of such corruption. Their purifying power and comparable rank had spared them outright corruption, but that did not mean they were whole within. And they would remain so until they finished digesting a Great Demon's power and made it their own.
"So prepare. We strike before the creature finishes assimilating that power and enters a stable range."
"Kill it?"
"No. Destabilizing the balance will be enough. The moment its power to purify Demon Energy falters, the defilement will devour it and it will fall."
And so Pandemonium resolved to throw the appropriate tantrum. If you were greedy enough for a Great Demon's power to gobble it down whole, you ought to pay a fitting price. The faintly mercantile cast of the thought was a bonus.
"For contingencies, avoid an all-out war—leave no pretext that can be used against us if Biryuho survives. Ah, and whatever the outcome of this affair, Envy's contractors will lose their power entirely, so prepare to seize their territories as well."
"Of course. And the Hero's party?"
"Those……."
Pandemonium considered the question. Would the Hero intervene? And if they did, would it profit him?
"Spread rumors so they can't."
If the Hero stepped in, every last remnant of Leviathan would be purified. Letting that colossal power vanish into thin air would be far too wasteful.
"Deepen the people's anxiety—tell them that if Biryuho dies, the entire East will truly wither. So that if the day ever comes when the Heroes must act, the people will curse them for it."
In other words, if they insisted on throwing away that precious power, they would have to pay a price to match.
"Understood. Still—a pity. It would be ideal if you could claim it yourself, my lord."
"……?"
"Forgive me. I spoke out of turn."
"…No. You spoke well."
And yet—perhaps, rather than all this mischief, it would be better for him to pay a proper price first and simply spirit the power away.
"Abandon Envy's territories. Gather money instead. As fast as you can, and as much as you can!"
Word had spread that a being presumed to be Biryuho had eaten a Great Demon's corpse. The moment the story got out, public opinion split clean down the middle.
"Kill it" versus "And if the East collapses because of that, then what?" Those two camps, and nothing else.
Me? I wasn't sure. Judging by the way things looked, it was pretty much locked in as a raid boss—but if we just shut up and pushed, the aftermath of killing it was the real problem. Personally I didn't think taking Biryuho down would doom the East… but these people were another story.
So what choice did I have? Every lord who ruled a city in the East was going to convene—time was short, so it would be a mage-mediated video conference, but still—and I would have to wait for that. I'd made a few preparations of my own, just in case.
For the record, even the concept couldn't do anything about this waiting. However foul the concept's temper might be, it wasn't about to act recklessly with hundreds of thousands of lives on the line.
"Young Hunter still sleeping."
"His body likely hasn't fully recovered yet. He's entered a stable phase again, so he should wake within a few days."
And in the middle of all this, this guy… Deathbringer was still sprawled out cold. He had come to once in the middle of it, managed to say "Th…" before coughing up blood and collapsing again. After that his internal injuries had flared, and he hadn't woken for a full week.
Ten days, all told. At this point my chest was starting to tighten a little.
"Truly?"
"Most likely… yes."
Honestly. Why wouldn't he get up? Because I'd been out for two weeks, so he figured he'd do two weeks too? Some kind of reciprocal empathy exercise?
If that were really his thinking, he was a rotten little bastard, I decided, and tore into a piece of rye bread. My right hand, wrapped in a handkerchief for hygiene, held the loaf while my left tore pieces free. The left hand was bare. The bandages on my left arm only ran to the wrist, so once the glove was off it was skin. I'd washed, of course. Of course I had. On the off chance of cerebral edema, who was to say I was safe from viral or bacterial infection? I'd scrubbed more carefully, more thoroughly, than usual. I was absolutely not going to catch anything.
"So are we killing Biryuho or not?"
"That is still……."
Two loaves of rye, a bowl of soup, a plate of salad, and a few pieces of roasted vegetables—and that was this meal finished. I pushed the last scrap of bread into my mouth.
Creak!
At the same moment the door opened. I'd heard the approaching footsteps and deliberately sped up at the end so the timing would land. Nice.
"Archmage?"
"Preparations for the conference are nearly complete."
Given how important the meeting was, they wouldn't be using mere communication orbs—they'd set up a reception hall and project the lords' figures into it, or so I'd been told. So the setup was almost ready.
I wiped my mouth with the handkerchief, washed it down with a glass of water, and waited for the rest.
"Then……."
"Should we find ourselves set against Biryuho, we are the ones most likely to face it. We will attend in that capacity. Prepare yourselves and come."
But would the outcome of this conference actually be good? From the perspective of cities that hadn't been harmed, all of this would feel like someone else's problem. And people never truly empathize with any misfortune that has not yet touched them.
I had a bad feeling about the result. My face tightened faintly. Maybe it would be better not to go at all. I had something prepared, yes—but it still hadn't reached my hands. If I attended without it and the concept was forced into a sudden rampage……
"E-excuse me!"
Just as my thoughts reached that point, someone came running with a bounce in their step. As far as I knew, it was the ordinary priest assigned to Dev—ordinary meaning no Holy Power.
"You are……."
But why was that person sprinting over in such a panic? Had something gone wrong…?
"He's awake!"
The happiest news I'd heard in days arrived completely out of the blue. The only problem was that the party and I had to head to the castle right away.
"Ah, Archmage."
"…It will not begin immediately. A brief visit to see his face should be fine."
Fortunately the mage was a reasonably flexible man.
"Let's go!"
"Yes!!"
The moment permission dropped, the Inquisitor and Berserk went clattering off toward Dev's room. The Archmage chuckled and followed them at a more sedate pace.
"Aren't you coming?"
I trailed after them almost by accident.
"…Did you find gold in here or something? Rushing in like that."
"You idiot—it's because you finally woke up!"
"Uwahaha! You slept way too long!"
"It's not that big a deal……."
I'd followed on foot, of course, so by the time I neared the room the three of them were already talking inside. Whatever words they'd chosen, anyone listening could tell their voices were fond. The Archmage, just about to step through the door, smiled faintly.
"Ten whole days of sleep and you call that 'not that big a deal'!"
"Young Hunter, build up your stamina. From now on, get up early."
"What, like I can just decide that? And this wasn't a stamina problem."
Ah—for the record, instead of going in I leaned my back against the corridor wall. No particular reason. I'd saved him because I'd grown attached, and I was keeping him alive while pretending otherwise… that much of a smokescreen had been accepted, but anything more felt like it would be character collapse. The Archmage alone was proof enough. Just before entering the room, she had looked at me standing still in the corridor with eyes that said she understood.
In that person's head, I was currently enduring the collapse of a worldview I had maintained for a long time. I had steered things that way from the start, after all. So stopping here was just right. I would have liked to bounce him around and celebrate, but character building only stays standing if you stack the stones one by one.
"Eat more, too. Your face is half what it was."
"You're the ones who eat too much……."
"Regardless of how much we eat, you need to eat more."
"Even you, Sir?"
"Hmm. Perhaps we should have a meal brought in?"
"Not you too, Mage. Am I really that bad?"
And then… well. I had somehow managed to smooth things over and let it all fizzle out, but precisely because of that, Dev seemed to be watching me more carefully than ever. For the record, I was going off how things had gone when we set out to subjugate the demon, so I might be wrong. Still—I was probably right. From Dev's point of view, he had a prior record of attacking me first, and the thought that I might try to kill him at any moment would be hard to shake……
So if I joined in, I'd only wreck that warm, familiar atmosphere. Better to stay outside after all.
"Well, I have lost a little weight."
In the meantime, Dev must have felt his own face, because he came out with something that idiotic. It was a lot, not a little—but no one bothered to correct him.
"…Huh. Wait."
"What is it?"
"What's wrong with my chin?"
"Is something the matter?"
"……?"
"No—my beard is go—!"
"Hm?"
So after prodding his cheeks he'd worked his way down to his jaw. I recalled the moment a few days earlier when the priest looking after Dev had shaved the whole thing off. From the priest's perspective, it had simply grown out while he slept and needed a trim. An unnecessary kindness, as far as Dev was concerned.
"My beard……!!"
"You can just grow it again."
"Ahahahaha. So that's what this was about?"
"I worked so hard to grow it……!"
"Just keep it shaved, Young Hunter. It never suited you anyway."
"I didn't grow it because it suited me!?"
For the record, I'd only discovered the shaving once it was already half done…… Stopping them would have been character collapse, and leaving a half-shaved beard would have looked even weirder, so I'd just let it go. A mohawk haircut was one thing; a mohawk beard was just wrong.
"My apologies. I failed to notice even that."
"It's fine. Water under the bridge……."
Still, he wasn't the type to sulk over a beard for long.
"So… is it dead?"
Deathbringer changed the subject. The subject was omitted, but I had a fair idea whose death he was asking about.
"As you saw yourself—if you mean the Great Demon Moby Dick, yes, it died like that. Some rather troublesome business arose afterward, however."
"It's really dead?"
"Indeed."
"Truly, dead?"
But the repeated questions this time carried a peculiar weight. If he'd simply been unable to believe it, his tone should have been dazed. Dev's words were extremely stiff instead—as though a quiz-show producer were giving him one more chance with, "Is that really your final answer?"
"You're—blood…!"
"Hunter, are you hurting again?"
And the fact that he had coughed up blood again, despite being nearly recovered……
"…I will check once more."
In the end, it meant Dev had given us a hint at the cost of his own condition. A hint about the possibility that Moby Dick had survived. Failing to pick that up would mean I deserved to go die somewhere.
"For now we must attend the conference regarding Biryuho. Rest further in the meantime."
"Huh? Wait. Wouldn't it be better if I just came along?"
"Do you realize you only woke after ten days when you say that? Do not learn only the worst habits from the Demon Knight."
More to the point—was that last line really necessary, Mage? That hit bone. That was a four-week recovery injury right there!