372. Specter
372. Specter
- 1 -
The autumn sky was high and blue.
Beneath it, the breeze brushing against the bare branches had turned quite biting.
A chill that numbed the skin swept across the land.
Fainsrun, once the western border fortress of Hilsa.
Now merely an ordinary trade city on the highway leading toward Seyur, the eastern border fortress of Hysen.
Clop-clop-clop...
Accompanied by creaking sounds, a single carriage moved along slowly.
But the rider driving the carriage, the knights escorting it, and the horses pulling it were far from ordinary.
They were figures cloaked in black robes.
Their mere presence seemed to absorb the light and sound around them—a presence like darkness moving of its own accord, devoid of light.
"Huu..."
Inside the carriage, a woman lounged against the velvet seat.
Her attire was precarious, as if half-removed.
Over the stark white skin bared where the garments fell, brilliant silver hair cascaded down.
The woman's eyes, when they opened, were a strange ash-gray that seemed to have absorbed all light.
A peaceful landscape swept past the window.
Gazing at it, she whispered softly.
"It's been so long. Truly beautiful. This world."
The fruits that had bloomed over the two hundred years she'd been sealed.
They were indeed beautiful.
"... Enough to make me want to crush everything."
In her smile, drawn long at the corners of her lips, a suffocating destructive impulse coiled.
It was her instinct.
A demon who collected everything of value in this world and felt the ultimate pleasure in breaking them one by one.
A monster who had come to possess the names of 'Binding' and 'Paimon'.
For that was who she was.
- ...
The knight standing beside her, looking as solid as a boulder, silently nodded his head.
It was not disloyalty or arrogance.
Among the seven demons inside and outside this carriage—ancient presences released from their seals by the foolish descendants of the Holy Kingdom—the hierarchy had already been clearly established.
They had been sensing each other's presence within the sealing stones for hundreds of years.
Even among them, the woman before his eyes, even in that distant darkness, had completely overwhelmed the other six with her presence alone, and more.
"Ah, now that I think of it..."
A world wrought by the struggles of ephemeral lives.
As she watched over that world, the witch recalled something and let out a sneer—a laugh bordering on mockery.
"Grand Duke, Grand Duke... what a truly ridiculous title. Don't you agree?"
- ... Indeed.
"Marquis, Count, and I hear even that arrogant Demon Realm uses the worthless titles of those insignificant humans."
She shook her head from side to side as if lamenting how pathetic it was.
"Simply referring to us by our own noble demon names would suffice! ... Being so complacent for so long, even our very spirits have become worm-eaten. ... And yet."
But the sneer soon subsided.
She extended her slender hand into the air and moved her fingers as if caressing an invisible spiderweb.
"... I cannot help but acknowledge the master of this presence."
Her keen senses detected an elaborate and vast magical power enveloping this entire land like a giant net.
It was not mere detection magic.
An absolute domain that permeated the land itself, perceiving and controlling everything.
It was proof of an arrogance that regarded everything on the surface as one's own garden, and the overwhelming power to realize it.
From the moment she entered Hilsa, she had felt this power, and now, as she was about to enter Hysen, a growing certainty that she was drawing closer to its center took hold.
"Just what kind of person is it? One who has cultivated such a vast land as their own demon realm. And...."
The demon's gaze turned outside the window once more.
Merchants' wagons moving along the highway, farmers harvesting the last crops in the fields, human and demon children laughing and chattering together in front of a general store.
It was an utterly peaceful landscape, and therefore to her, a sight that felt infinitely grotesque and unnatural.
Not the logic of power, but order and coexistence.
"...The one who has 'bound' all of this in their grasp."
A dark haze of power shimmered faintly over her face.
"I am endlessly curious."
Her figure, smiling with the corners of her eyes curving, was a beautiful sight by human standards.
But her 'beauty' brought a dizzying fear to those who beheld it.
As if witnessing a gatekeeper leading one to hell.
'I want to make this land mine.'
The Holy Kingdom's request was to annihilate a portion of all magic-bearing beings living on this land.
But that was not the priority for her.
For what constituted her being was this intense desire to plunder.
- 2 -
At that same time.
The Holy See, Archbishop Council Chamber.
A massive table, and the figures of Cassiodorus, Clotilda, and Cornelius seated around Anselm were visible.
The atmosphere between them was heavier than ever, far beyond anything in recent memory.
"Will they truly... will 'those things' keep their promise with us?"
The first to break the silence was Archbishop Clotilda of the Southern Diocese.
At forty-seven, the face of this unnervingly youthful woman was covered in a sheen of cold sweat that dulled her beauty.
"D-do not worry. It will certainly go as Brother Anselm and Brother Sebastian envisioned!"
Archbishop Cornelius of Finance quickly affirmed, but he too could not hide his unease.
The twitching of his plump cheeks made it clear he already regarded the loss of relics and the holy power expended on releasing these 'ancient calamities' as a staggering deficit in and of itself.
Anselm wanted to curse their patheticness, but he spoke with a still gentle expression.
As if soothing a child.
"The binding of the contract that the previous saints carved directly into their souls at the risk of their own lives is perfect. They have no choice but to fulfill the contract. Until they destroy our enemy, the Grakheisen alliance."
"And after that...!"
It was Cassiodorus who interjected.
He raised his voice, then flinched, startled by his own volume, and lowered it again.
"What will we do after the alliance is destroyed? Do you believe those ancient monsters will simply release their hostility toward us? Have you forgotten their first words? They called us 'abominable hypocrites.' Us."
"The die has already been cast long ago, brother."
Anselm furrowed his brow.
He was irritated.
Cassiodorus was usually an excellent politician, but whenever a crisis approached, he became the one who worried more than anyone.
Yet, with patience, he continued calmly.
"What use is regret now? We have already crossed an irreversible river. We must now focus on using their power to achieve our objective."
Anselm half-raised a finger and rapped the table with a 'Tak!' sound.
Seeing the archbishops tense and straighten their bodies at the sudden noise, he spoke as if appeasing them.
"We can think about what comes after then; it won't be too late. If we cannot control them, we need only make another contract, even if we must offer a greater sacrifice. Are there not plenty of 'heretics' to use as sacrifices?"
Resolute yet ruthless words delivered in a gentle voice.
All the archbishops shut their mouths.
But the anxiety and fear rising in their eyes remained.
They knew well that if word of this choice got out, their regime would be ruined.
- 3 -
Clarent Citadel, my office.
The hour when the deepest darkness before dawn cloaked the world.
Outside the window was still the domain of pitch-black night.
Wooong...
Dressed in thin nightclothes, I stood before a giant magical map floating in the middle of the room.
On the map displaying the entire territory, the magical array could be seen stretching out across the whole land like veins of blue-silver light.
Even now, it was transporting 'mana' to the five cores of the five nations, and from there back to my dungeon.
Hysen, Kiza, Hilsa, Orbis, Leophere.
All of the power of the dead that had been 'wasted' toward the heavens from these five nations.
Even at this very moment.
I was gradually growing stronger.
Using that power, my dungeon was strengthening and expanding my forces, while the souls I collected were assembled in more comfortable spaces to rest.
Until they went naturally to 'where they should go.'
The important thing was...
'The key point is that this "place they should go" isn't that heaven the humans know of.'
The Eclipse Plan.
A plan to blind the adventurers and avoid the human surveillance network.
To claim even the souls of humans living on my land, which had been stolen by heaven.
And furthermore, to spread my eyes in all directions.
This plan had begun after I observed the phenomenon of souls who believed in God ascending to heaven.
During that process, I had expected I might also be able to ascend one step further.
But once I actually analyzed the captured souls from a higher perspective, I came to know much more.
For example...
'Unless it is a case of belonging by one's own will, a soul in a pure state can never be captured...'
"You've stayed up through another night, Master."
I must have been concentrating too deeply, seeing as I hadn't noticed her presence.
Dalkak.
Evangeline, who had approached unnoticed, placed a teacup beside me.
The fragrance of freshly brewed black tea gently wrapped the cold dawn air.
"They are enemies."
She had seen that my gaze was fixed on a single point on the map and immediately grasped the situation.
"They managed to crawl all the way here, whoever they are."
The easternmost edge of my mana network.
On the highway connecting Fainsrun and Seyur, an impure 'stain' that had not been there before was spreading.
Seven points.
One lord-level, and six high-rank.
The bastards were not simply hiding.
They were fully aware of my 'domain.'
Even as they rode its flow, they were skillfully disguising their own presence.
'Not bad.'
Of course, they could not erase that fundamental sense of foreignness.
"... A type of mana I've never seen before."
Their presence felt like droplets of oil dropped into clear water.
Watching Evangeline's golden hair cascade softly as she tilted her head to the side, I lifted the teacup.
Her voice, continuing its analysis, seeped into my ears.
"It's a pattern that feels quite different from modern demons or monsters. Could it be... one of those 'sleeping ones' Gertrude spoke of?"
"Hmm... I'm not sure. But, it's highly likely it's not."
I took a sip of tea.
The sensation of warm black tea sliding down my throat in the cold dawn air.
My head gradually cleared.
"Do you think it's the card of the Holy Kingdom that Esther mentioned?"
"Yes."
"... Indeed. She did reveal that those presences would be monsters."
As I nodded, she agreed with a serious expression.
But there was no anxiety or fear on that face.
"Whoever they are, they cannot surpass the two of us now."
She pointed to the two other crystal balls placed beside me.
In her eyes was absolute trust in me, and in her comrades.
I agreed with her words and laughed quietly.
"Yes. I suppose so. They are the perfect opponents to test against."
I too looked into the crystal balls.
One was the viewpoint of a figure dashing between the forest trees like a silver flash, and the other was the viewpoint of one soaring above the clouds as a golden lightning bolt.
'As it happens, the two of them needed experience using their full power.'
Shue and Saya.
The Blood Demon and the Lord of the Heavenly Fox.
My two sharpest swords at present were already flying toward their target.