Facing the Fruits of Choice (7)

Bringing the map back and marking the route on it had been a stroke of pure genius.

With the Archmage’s Haste supporting me—my first time ever receiving a buff skill!—I limped out of the underpass at a surprisingly brisk pace.

It would have been a real pain if demons had shown up, but whether they simply hadn’t respawned yet or something else was going on, not a single mob was in sight.

Unlike earlier, when I had been forced to wander every which way just to pin down the destination itself, now all I had to do was head straight for a fixed point. With a map in hand, that meant I could take the shortest possible route.

Thanks to that I emerged outside earlier than expected, and as a result I spotted smoke rising from one direction.

Smoke that thick was something I had only ever seen when a building was on fire. Yet a blaze breaking out at exactly this moment felt a little too convenient.

More importantly, an ordinary fire would never mix red and green like that. That was definitely a quest clue.

“That is….”

“Ah, Magus!”

“And the gentleman beside him….”

Even if I wanted to head there right away, we first had to get off the riverbank.

I limped toward the slope. Around the same time, the people who had formed a defensive line up on the bank spotted us and came down.

“We’re grateful for the help. But tend to him before you worry about me.”

“Unnecessary.”

My HP was almost full again.

For some reason the recovery rate had slowed dramatically once it passed seventy percent… but seventy percent was still plenty.

The real problem was the action penalty from injuries and fatigue.

“Your wounds…!”

“Let me support you!”

“I said it was unnecessary.”

In truth I needed it desperately, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but the concept had to be maintained.

If they got the idea that a demon had already ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠taken me over, I wouldn’t even be able to resist.

So, swallowing tears on the inside, I stubbornly walked on alone. Unclotted blood left a trail with every step.

“Stop being so stubborn. With your guts chewed half away, just making it this far was already more than enough.”

“Pardon?!”

But the Archmage—bless him—went and spilled the beans. A Shagi adventurer in the form of a bear scooped me up without ceremony.

“……! Do not lay a hand on my body……!”

“Look, we know you’re strong, but try saving a little of that life of yours.”

Ordinarily I would have dodged in a flash, yet in this condition even resistance was hard. The Archmage had clearly known that when he ordered the others to grab me.

“That’s none of your—”

“There’s still fighting left, y’know.”

“……!”

Can’t you see the Archmage clutching the back of his neck behind you? Then again, without eyes in the back of your head of course you can’t.

And of course he had no idea that saying something like that would only make me abandon any thought of rest and charge straight ahead. That was the concept, after all.

So now I wouldn’t get to rest either. Aaaaargh.

I glared at the Shagi whose one eye was wrapped in bandages, then hissed out a long breath.

Still, it was comfortable. Being slung over those broad shoulders like a sack of rice kept me from looking completely pathetic.

“Cough.”

“……!”

The fact that a little blood came up—probably a wound reopening—was a problem. My HP started dropping again.

“Are you even an adventurer?! How can you haul someone like that so carelessly?!”

A healer who came rushing from beyond the defensive line—red-cross insignia, so probably—scolded the adventurer carrying me.

By the time we had climbed the bank I had already received all the help I needed, so the scolding was fairly pointless.

“We’ll treat you right aw—”

“That smoke.”

The moment I was set down I barely managed to keep from collapsing forward. Truthfully it was less my own effort than the Shagi adventurer shifting from carrying me to supporting me, but still.

“What is it?”

“We don’t know either.”

“I don’t see the Inquisitor. Did she go that way, by any chance?”

“Ah, yes, Magus. She said it looked suspicious and headed over there. She’s probably with the people who left ahead of us. We stayed behind just in case.”

I spat out the last clot of blood that had welled up. The clot, along with bits of organ, splattered across the ground.

“Wait, that’s far too much blood…! We have to get him to a hospital—”

Hospital, my foot. Using the sword I had been gripping for dear life as a cane, I forced myself upright.

Honestly, was I even playing a game anymore, or was this some kind of training regimen? I was exhausted beyond belief, but I couldn’t stop here.

The concept was one thing, but when I thought about it, there was no way the quest would progress properly with the player missing…!

Of course some games let NPCs carry on in the player’s place… but whenever NPCs do the work for you, the quality of the finished product always drops. That’s an ironclad rule across every game.

“I shall go. You rest here.”

“Even a Sage doesn’t always speak sense, I see.”

“What do you think you can accomplish in that condition?!”

Wrong. My HP is still near seventy percent. If I have to fight, I can fight. The fog in my head is something I’ve gotten used to by now. Probably?

“There is nothing I cannot do.”

The quest window only popped up because I decided I had to do it myself. So of course I had to go.

“Hey.”

Suddenly a voice cut in and a dull pain bloomed at the back of my neck.

“These types never listen to reason… right…?”

It didn’t really hurt, but it left a thoroughly unpleasant feeling.

I slowly lifted my head, which had jerked forward a little, and turned it.

“Uh….”

Did you just hit me?

“…….”

“…….”

I glared at the Cueoty adventurer—same race as Dev. I hadn’t even been immersing myself that hard, yet the veins in my neck stood out on their own. The one who met my gaze looked awkward and flicked his eyes to the side.

“That fellow has the right of it.”

And instead of taking my side, the Archmage decided to open his mouth with that. His next move was almost identical to what the Cueoty adventurer had just done.

Clatter-clatter!

“Get some rest.”

…Have you already forgotten the rough treatment I got when I was bound in chains earlier?! Don’t you dare Bind me again!!

“You dare hinder me……!”

“It is for your own good.”

If you’re going to do it, at least knock me out properly, you damned NPC…!

“That is not for you to decide!”

I had already mastered the trick of wrapping skills around my bare body. Crunch. Feeling the ticklish right arm grow strangely freer, I finally shattered the Binding.

“……! You, just now—!”

At the same time a fresh wave of rage hit me. Do you think I’m doing this because I want to? Do you think I went in alone because I felt like going alone?!

No, it isn’t even just the concept anymore. This game-like thing, this thing built in this godforsaken way—I can’t take any more of it either…!

Clatter!

Maybe because it’s AI. It doesn’t seem to learn.

I split the chains surging up from the ground with my right hand as if flinging them away. Black afterimages lingered in the air for an instant before vanishing.

Should I kill him?

I was seriously pissed off.

KRAAAANG!

I drove the longsword I was holding into the ground. If I kept holding it I was pretty sure I’d throw it even if I didn’t swing it.

And getting hit by a two-kilogram iron bar would definitely leave a bruise.

“Magus! Test me no further……! Beyond this I cannot guarantee control over myself……!”

Leaving the concept aside, this was genuine.

If he was going to do something, he should have just driven a solid punch into my solar plexus like Kimchi Dumpling would. Using Binding on someone who had already been chained around the neck was simply too much. Expecting that kind of delicacy from an NPC was already an excessive demand, but still!

“……!”

Damn it. This felt truly foul. Of course the root of the irritation was the bone-deep fatigue rather than the Binding itself, but that didn’t change how I felt right now.

It was a complete mess. I needed to shake off the exhaustion before I could think straight, yet I was in no position to do so.

“…Stand aside.”

There was no solution here. Finish the quest fast and sleep—that was the only way.

I roughly ignored the faces frozen in terror as they edged away, and headed toward the smoke.

How long would it take just to get there? The road ahead stretched on forever.

Deathbringer crouched before a pile of corpses. In front of where he squatted lay a person with a knife buried in their throat.

“…Demon worshipers aren’t much after all.”

Who would have guessed that the suspicious bunch he had tailed would turn out to be demon worshipers?

And reaching their hideout disguised as a merchant house after following them—that had been pure luck layered on luck.

Witnessing the ritual they were performing, deciding he couldn’t just leave it and setting the place on fire first, the fire touching the magic circle and the sacrifices and completely ruining the ritual—all of it had been the same.

On top of that, they hadn’t even summoned a demon separately!

Thanks to that he had been able to slit throats and drive blades into hearts one by one. Had there been ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a demon it might have been different, but killing people was his specialty; it hadn’t been difficult in the slightest.

“I never thought I’d have anything to do with this side of things.”

He scratched his head while looking at the one he had killed.

Perhaps because he had never faced them head-on until now—Somon’s underpass only counted as rear-line mage support, so it didn’t count—he had vaguely assumed he wouldn’t be able to handle them.

Yet once it turned out that wasn’t the case, the whole thing felt strangely fascinating.

“Even after contracting with a demon, a person is still just a person, huh…….”

Of course it wasn’t solely because his skill was outstanding. That much he could say with certainty. A great deal of coincidence and luck had gone into this result.

But just because luck had played a part, did that make what he had accomplished disappear?

At the very least he had learned from this that, if things went well, he could kill even a demon contractor. Vague impossibility had taken shape as concrete possibility.

And those two things stood a fair distance apart.

He could do it if he tried. It wasn’t pure obstruction; with a little effort and caution he could pull it off the way he just had.

“More importantly, what am I supposed to do about this?”

The problem was the cleanup.

He scratched his cheek while looking at the blazing corpse pile, the ruined magic circle, and the people who had met their end at his hand.

“If I give a signal, someone will come on their own.”

All he needed was to draw people’s attention. Among them would be someone belonging to the lord or the Church, and they would come here to investigate the cause. Cleanup would then be automatically booked.

So Deathbringer hopped lightly out of the building. Then he crouched on the rooftop behind the sign that read Gridana Trading Company.

In his hand was a small amount of dye powder he had obtained long ago and carried around. Tossed into a bonfire, it changed the color of the smoke.

Pssshhh.

Expensive as it was, the effect was excellent; the smoke from the massive signal bonfire quickly took on color.

Just in case he had mixed two colors, so someone was bound to come.

“Good.”

Now all that remained was to hide himself. Even if he hadn’t done anything wrong, that was still the case.

There was no guarantee the people who answered this signal would be his allies.

“…Whoa, they figured it out and came straight over.”

Like those faintly suspicious types who were already racing this way.

“What now.”

On the surface they looked like ordinary civilians, yet to the eyes of a working thief certain flaws stood out.

Shoes too clean for the ragged clothes, garments stained with grime that didn’t match as if borrowed from several people, pale skin that had never been sunburned.

Even the information he had confirmed while hiding at a distance was this much; up close it would be worse. No matter how he looked at it, they were shady.

“We’ve been made.”

“Damn it, just a little longer and we would’ve been fine…….”

And when they casually made related remarks without a shred of tension, it was even more so.

Deathbringer discarded the excitement and confidence that had come from what he had just accomplished, and tried to think as calmly as possible.

Keeping them alive would make it easier to follow the trail than killing them. But once he followed, what exactly could he do?

The slaughter just now had only been possible because every variable had lined up.

He needed more reliable force. Something like that unlucky priest or the Demon Knight—power that could ignore whatever the demon followers prepared and simply wipe them out.

“Shit, it was the perfect chance to send the Hero after them.”

“It’s already over. Besides, the underpass side looks like it’s already been wiped out completely.”

The problem was that he only had one body, so he couldn’t chase them and deliver the news at the same time.

“Let’s head back. What we need to do right now is get out of the city.”

“Yeah.”

Ah, he really hadn’t wanted to use this method.

Enduring a faint sense of disgust, he quietly bit into his own shadow. Ssshk. Something tore.

“Bail before they get here!”

As the figures rapidly retreated, a new shadow joined their shadows.

“Guide me.”

Shadow Mark. A technique only a tiny fraction of the Information Guild’s members could learn.

By tearing off one’s own shadow and attaching it to the enemy, one could learn their location—the finest tracking art there was.

“Then to the temple side…….”

Ah. He had forgotten.

“Those damn bastards would never listen to a word I say.”

Even when he had gone just to see the horses, they had told him to get lost because they couldn’t tell he was the owner. That was why he had been forced to sit on the wall and watch the horses in secret.

Would those same priests believe this story? No. Absolutely not! There was no way those guys would.

“The Adventurers’ Guild is the answer, then.”

There had only been a bunch of limp-looking guys, but maybe they would do.

Still better than him chasing alone. Since they knew his face, at least words would get through.

“Ugh.”

How did I end up tangled in something like this.

Deathbringer let out a long, frustrated sigh and simply moved his legs. The matter was urgent, so personal feelings had to be set aside while he ran.

“You!”

“What. It’s the softie.”

Running into an unexpected connection after that was, in its own way, probably fate.

“Perfect timing. Hey, you stick-up-the-ass type. I found some guys who look like demon contractors. Mind coming along?”

“…You’re certain of that?”

“Damn it, then don’t come.”

“No—I’ll go! Lead the way!”

The fact that things were already on edge from the very start was definitely not just his imagination.

“I say, what happened here?”

“Huh? Who the hell are y—”

“Ah, aren’t you the Magus who accompanied the priest?! And… so you survived as well? You made it out of the underpass?”

“He is thoroughly exhausted, so it would be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠best not to speak to him. More importantly, could you step aside for a moment?”

“Ah. Yes, yes. Please take a good look.”

“…….”

“The priest mentioned traces of a ritual… does the Magus see anything different?”

“…This is.”

“Is there a problem?”

“It seems the Inquisitor was here. Do you know where she went?”

“Pardon? The priest, you mean? She took some of the investigation team and headed to the western streets. We remained here to protect the evidence.”

“The western streets. Understood. Demon Knight! We leave at once!”

“W-what is it?”

“We must catch the demon followers before they escape the city or switch to another ritual!”