Theft
Theft
A full month had already passed since Im Ha-neul left.
Berserk A had triggered once, and fortunately I'd gotten through it without much trouble using three bottles of Holy Water. Having to use three Holy Waters stung a little, though...
Other than that, nothing else had happened to me, luckily. It seemed Ha-neul had kept her word and told no one. I didn't know much about international politics, but a month should have been more than enough time to dispatch a subjugation force and pursuit squads.
Thanks to that, I could finally relax. I had no need to leave this comfortable cave.
If there was one slightly regrettable thing... it was that the spell she'd cast wasn't very efficient.
Illusion Sight, was it? I thought that was the name.
Unfortunately, I didn't know much about magic. Since I was stuck in the forest all day, I rarely had any reason to see fancy magic-users.
If only I'd known a little, I could have prepared better for Ha-neul too... It was a bit of a shame, but well, things had ended well, so I decided to let it go.
Anyway, Illusion Sight was a pretty troublesome skill.
Its duration couldn't exceed half a day, and even that required the caster to stay close by.
The upside was that I could still recharge my Demon Mark while Illusion Sight was active. After all, it only affected vision.
The condition that the Demon Mark had to be exposed to sunlight and air still applied.
Stupid mark. Can't even control a variable this minor. Utterly disqualified as a programmer.
At any rate, because of that, I decided to just make use of her whenever it was time to sunbathe.
I'd sit her near me, keep Illusion Magic active, and sunbathe.
That way, even if people suspected something was going on between us, there was no chance of a third party spotting the mark.
At times like that, out of consideration for her, I'd at least wear a tank top. I only needed to expose my collarbone anyway.
Honestly, I wouldn't have minded going shirtless, but she'd absolutely flip, so I had no choice but to restrain myself. A boy wasn't supposed to show his body so casually, apparently.
...Moments like that reminded me just how much the world had changed.
"...Ugh."
Of course, even now, in just a tank top, she was still embarrassed all the same.
She couldn't look me in the eye, and her face was flushed. She seemed to have a particularly weak immunity to 'men.'
Whenever that happened, I was tempted to tease her a little, but I'd been holding back for now.
She was carrying a nuclear warhead, after all—information about my mark.
At any rate, that meant I had one more visitor coming to my forest now.
Though, probably because of her editing work, she couldn't come all that often.
Naturally, Yoo Chae-rin had also been visiting regularly over the past month. She was more than welcome to. Every time she came, she'd bring at least one piece of information.
She'd been faithfully keeping the promise we made the other day.
Of course, since not everything in the world can be special every day, it wasn't always quality intel.
Most of what she brought was trivial stuff: where some Otherworlder had fought an NPC, where some treasure had been discovered, that sort of thing.
None of it had much to do with me, but it was still good for passing a boring day, so I listened with interest.
But among it all, the information I heard today was on the rather significant side.
"Yor, listen to this!"
She made a big fuss as she spoke to me.
"You know that demon who descended a little while ago? The one called Andromalius."
"Right."
"They say the arm they got from that thing was stolen!"
"?"
*
It was a given that successfully completing a raid would yield items.
Because if it didn't, the players would throw a fit.
Naturally, the same held true for [Demon's Saga], and the subjugated Andromalius had in fact dropped one item on the way out.
Namely, Andromalius's left arm, entwined with serpents.
Even though the creature's flesh had spontaneously combusted and vanished the moment it perished.
Strangely enough, only its left arm had remained at the scene.
That didn't mean it became a player's property, however.
The sole item from the completed raid was handed directly over to the Empire.
After all, the one who'd sliced the thing off was the Fifth Knight Commander, and they couldn't just entrust a demon's belonging to anyone else.
The demon's arm was to be transported straight to the Church and sealed away for a long time.
Since such an ominous object as a demon's arm couldn't be put to use, the plan was to ensure no one ever could.
But regrettably, that plan was doomed to fall apart at the very last step.
Because en route to the Church, a group of masked assailants ambushed the carriage.
Naturally, it was a carriage guarded by dozens of knights. Some of the escorts were even Otherworlders who'd stepped in for regular soldiers.
Even without a transcendent on the level of a Knight Commander, this was a force that bandits wouldn't dare to glance at.
And yet it was ambushed.
Taking advantage of the carriage's overnight camp, the masked assailants had tried to steal the strongbox inside.
Of course, as was standard for knights accustomed to such operations, they had posted sentries at the front.
"Huh? Who goe—"
The problem, however, was that the assailants' skills were exceptionally high.
Shkkt—!
With a chilling sound, two knights' heads flew into the air.
Two masked assailants had each thrust out a single stroke, sending the sentries' heads flying.
Both of the beheaded men were knights, but the assailants' swords had been faster than their reflexes.
Still, fortunately, they had managed to raise an alarm.
Thud—
The sound of the corpses hitting the ground echoed in all directions. And in the dead of night, that sound alone was enough.
"Who goes there!"
At one knight's shout, everyone who'd been sleeping in their tents woke up.
Seeing that, the assailants exchanged words.
"Ah, see, I told you to handle it quietly."
"Our apologies... even we could do nothing about the sound of them hitting the ground."
There were six masked assailants in total.
Five carrying swords, and one holding nothing.
Judging by the feel of it, that unarmed assailant seemed to be the highest-ranked.
However, since they were all masked, their faces couldn't be identified.
Soon, the unarmed assailant gave the order.
"This won't do. Let's bolt."
With that, the assailants made off with the item, and a sudden midnight chase unfolded.
From the knights' perspective, the theft of the item was a matter of professional life and death, so they had no choice but to be desperate.
Thanks to that, they even managed to capture one of the assailants along the way.
But no matter how hard they pursued, it was slightly insufficient to retrieve the stolen goods.
Because the masked strangers' feet were simply far too fast.
Even so, one knight, with desperate steps, managed to reach the leader at the very front.
"Hyahp!"
The knight who'd caught up let out a battle cry and swung her sword. But the blade never reached its target.
Because magic had manifested from the unarmed assailant's hand.
Crackle—crackle—
As if evoking fireworks, brilliant and violent flames blossomed.
It looked just like watching a firework right before it burst.
And then she set off the firework toward her opponent.
"Gyaaak!"
That was the end.
Hundreds of sparks leaped up from the opponent's body, and soon the knight's life was snuffed out.
Watching the knight collapse, charred black, the assailant said,
"Oh my, my apologies. This object is, to our Cult, nothing short of a sacred relic."
Whether it was because the spectacle was too intense, the pursuers' footsteps halted for a moment.
With that sight as the last, the masked assailants leisurely fled.
*
"No, see, this was posted on the boards a few days ago. At first it was just text, so I figured someone was writing fiction, you know?"
But a few days later, word had spread around here, she said.
Rumors that Andromalius's left arm had been stolen.
"Wow, hearing that, I realized it was a story spilled by an Otherworlder who'd participated in that quest. I wish they'd at least taken a photo. Instead, they only posted text."
"Hmm..."
I nodded. It seemed something else I wasn't aware of was about to unfold.
What was the assailants' reason for stealing it? First off, it didn't seem like they were doing it just to sell it off. According to what Chae-rin said, strange words like 'Cult' and 'sacred relic' had come up.
And if they could one-shot a knight like that to begin with, they were no ordinary skilled fighters.
Naturally, even this had little to do with me, so I didn't give it deep thought.
Then, one question suddenly flashed through my mind.
Come to think of it, didn't she say they'd captured one of the assailants? They could just get the information out of that one.
What exactly were those masked assailants?
So I asked her about the status of the captured assailant, and—
"Ah, that."
—soon received this answer.
"They say she escaped."
*
"Dammit, grab her!"
"Don't let her get away!"
Ha-neul had helped.
Thanks to the jailer idiot blatantly keeping the key in his back pocket, stealing it had been easy.
Stupid bastard. He probably never imagined someone's arm could stretch that long.
"Huff... huff..."
Thanks to that, she had easily snatched the key, slit the jailer's throat, and escaped.
That would land her a wanted order in the Empire, but since she'd been on the verge of harsh interrogation anyway, it hardly mattered.
'A pursuit squad will be attached...'
After escaping the prison, watching the people who'd fallen into orderly chaos, she thought.
'For the time being, I'll have to stay hidden.'
Now that her face had been exposed, she'd clearly have to evade eyes everywhere she went.
The Imperial bastards who wanted information from her would be searching with fire in their eyes as well.
At the very least, she needed a hideout to lie low in until she had a means of contacting the Cult.
After fleeing for a while, she discovered a certain forest.
A danger zone called the 'Forbidden Forest,' teeming with dangerous monsters.
Honestly, it was risky, but... with her level of skill, she could evade capture there until she made contact with the Cult.
Crackle—!
With that thought, she fled into the forest.