Erupting Volcano
I never liked stopping by the Hero's House.
Who in the world would want to be somewhere their every thought lay bare for the reading? My imagination was too poor for clever examples, but if I had to force one, it felt like streaking naked down a busy street.
Because of that, I never went to see Latera unless the situation had truly reached its absolute limit.
And right now seemed to be exactly that moment.
"You said the woman you want to kill is casting mind control whenever she feels like it?"
"Yeah."
"Hmm... a witch or a mage, then."
I nodded toward Latera, and she stepped right up to my face.
"First I reapplied the Blessing of Wrath, and to help you figure out what kind of magic she's using, I put on the Blessing of Spell Comprehension. I left the Blessing of Fortitude as is, for the mind-control countermeasure."
Latera wore a sorrowful expression as she stroked my chest.
If not for the fact that she was stroking my chest, her face was so crumpled she might have been a mother sending her son off to war.
Even someone as indifferent as me to other people's feelings could easily tell why she looked so downcast.
Latera could read my thoughts. She had probably felt the rage I was carrying, the fear... and any number of other emotions besides.
"Isn't there a stronger blessing than those? Like a Blessing of Invincibility, or a Blessing of Instant Death."
"There's no way something like that exists..."
The joke landed well enough that Latera let out a small snort of laughter.
"When it comes to blessings that maximize physical ability, the Blessing of Wrath has the highest expected value. It gives the user power equal to the size of their rage, after all."
"Right. I got too greedy."
"More importantly, Hero."
Latera clasped my hand tightly.
"You're really close to the demerit limit. Just a little more and you genuinely won't be able to enter this place. You haven't forgotten the promise you made with me, have you?"
"...Of course not."
I knew that full well, which was why I was being as careful as I could.
The fact that I hadn't already swung the Holy Sword at Elysee's neck was proof of that.
If I killed her without solid evidence, I was certain to earn the hatred not only of the manor servants but of Siriel as well.
I stroked the back of Latera's hand and smiled.
"You said people have come here before. Can't I just get in the same way those guys did?"
Latera took one look at my bright grin and started pressing hard on her temples.
"Come to the Holy Land. Climb the highest tower. You'll know it at a glance."
"...Got it."
I nodded slowly and closed my eyes.
It was a bright spring day.
Shiron watched quietly as Siriel and Lucia sparred.
The training grounds where the two of them dueled had become a seething cauldron of chaos from the sword winds and blade energy.
Lucia was growing stronger than expected, and Siriel had achieved results that far outstripped his estimates. Whether they were stimulating each other's growth, or whether the elixirs he had fed them earlier were simply that potent, Shiron—being a complete layman—had no way of knowing. The reason hardly mattered.
What mattered was the result right in front of him: the cards he could play growing sharper by the day.
"Haa..."
Yet for some reason, sigh after sigh kept slipping from Shiron's lips.
Ordinarily he would have watched them thrashing and growing with a thoroughly satisfied smile. Living under the same roof as an enemy, though, he couldn't afford to let his guard down.
He had been wary of Elysee for quite some time now. He had visited the auction house as winter was ending; two months had passed since then, and the weather was fully spring.
By now she ought to have made her move, yet Elysee continued to play the part of the pitiful slave with perfect fidelity.
If she wasn't going to do anything, why bother infiltrating?
According to the reports from Encia and Ophelia, Elysee had shown no unusual behavior. She hadn't touched anything in the manor, nor had she drained the servants' vital energy like some low-grade incubus. Even under constant provocation she never fought back against Shiron.
Someone skilled enough to force the will of Siriel—whose mental fortitude far exceeded an ordinary person's—and yet she kept responding with reactions so lukewarm they bordered on gentle. That only made him more suspicious.
"Young Master."
Ophelia, attending him at his side, brought her lips to his ear.
"That woman is requesting a private audience with you. What shall we do?"
"A private audience?"
Shiron turned his head and looked in the direction Ophelia was indicating. There stood Elysee, who had approached without anyone noticing.
"Good day to you."
As always, Elysee faced Shiron with a faint smile on her face. Shiron recalled the sheer volume of nosebleeds he had suffered and twisted his mouth into a smirk.
"A private audience? So you want to talk, just the two of us?"
"That is correct."
Shiron stroked his chin while studying Elysee, then crooked one corner of his mouth into a sneer.
"Why should I?"
"..."
"How am I supposed to know what you'll do to me? The two of us alone and you quietly slit my throat, right?"
"I would never do such a thing. I don't even have the ability."
Don't have the ability, she said... That was rich. Shiron wiped the smile from his face and glared.
"Don't have it? Of course you do. Because of you I nearly died of blood loss. The nosebleeds alone would fill a bucket by now."
"...Please. Can't we just talk for a moment, the two of us? Only a short while. I want to clear up a misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding?"
"Yes. A misunderstanding."
Elysee—
Seira forced a smile onto her face while enduring a pounding headache.
I never imagined dealing with this irritating brat while sober would be this agonizing.
Seira ranted inwardly at full volume and drew up the mana from her dantian.
What she intended to cast was spatial transfer magic.
It required an enormous amount of mana and time to deploy, but Seira no longer hesitated.
Right now her head was filled with the single thought of dropping Shiron into some remote wasteland and making him beg for forgiveness.
You only swagger like that because you've got those sturdy bodyguards glued to your side. But that won't last much longer, little boy.
The demons who stuck to the brat like glue and guarded him... both were certainly high-ranking demons, but they weren't opponents she couldn't handle. Seira had fought high-ranking demons hundreds of times in the past, and she knew exactly how to deal with them.
At last Seira's formula was complete.
Just as a deep smile spread across Seira's face—
"Hey. Instead of that, how about we do this."
"...Pardon?"
"The way you're coming at me head-on like this, it looks like you're pretty confident in your skills. Why don't we just go all out and trade blows?"
"What are you—"
Seira could not understand what kind of insane nonsense this brat was spouting. Trade blows... with whom?
"With me?"
The expression of Seira, who had been diligently acting the part of the obedient slave, cracked. She no longer even used polite speech.
"You and I, trading blows?"
"What, you scared?"
Shiron grinned broadly the moment her act broke. He confirmed that Siriel's and Lucia's gazes had turned their way.
"Then you've got no complaints."
"No. You refuse being alone with me and then suddenly this? And you want to fight me? Are you mocking me?"
"I'm not mocking you."
Shiron gestured to Ophelia. Ophelia nodded.
And then the scenery around them flipped.
"This place...?"
Seira was flustered.
Instead of a neatly tended garden, gray fortress walls filled her vision, and the bright spring weather had vanished, replaced by dry winter air that scraped her skin.
This was Dawn Castle, the place where Shiron had stayed until recently.
"If we're going to trade blows directly, I get to choose the venue, don't I?"
Ophelia's ability, Phase Escape. It had truly been the last of last resorts, but he had used it at last. This was no time to refuse making soy sauce for fear of maggots.
I have to strike first.
Through the Blessing of Spell Comprehension, the magic he had seen was unmistakably long-range teleportation. He had no idea where she intended to send him, but long-range teleportation ranked among the more dangerous magics he had considered.
Of course, being dumped into boiling lava or sealed inside underground bedrock would be dangerous too—
but the sheer feat of deploying a teleport that normally required a host of mages and vast mana, all by herself, snapped Shiron fully alert.
Is that bastard an Apostle?
The thought crossed his mind for a moment, but even if it were, it was impossible.
Anyone who inherited the blood of the Prien line instinctively sensed the presence of an Apostle.
Then what the hell is she?
Not an Apostle, yet possessing magic of that caliber—did she think she was some Tower Master's grandfather or an ancient dragon?
Shiron narrowed his eyes and stared at Elysee.
Even now she was still hiding her identity.
But it didn't matter.
Soon she would get beaten half to death and be forced to spit it out whether she wanted to or not.
"...Hah."
Seira tried to maintain her composure, but she simply couldn't. Changing locations was one thing; the brat had vanished in the blink of an eye.
I got played.
Seira ground her molars and clenched her fists tight.
Then she lifted her head toward the massive presence steadily approaching this place.
From far off, a one-horned woman was coming this way.
It was a face Seira knew well.
The castle keeper of Dawn Castle, the One-horned Yuma.
"Hello, Yuma. It's been a truly long time."
"...Do you know me?"
"As expected, you don't remember."
"You are... just as the Young Master said, a dangerous person."
Yuma's face twisted as she spoke to Seira. Seira had never dreamed she would meet a centuries-old connection in a manner like this.
"The Young Master has ordered me to subdue you."
Before she knew it, demons had surrounded Seira on every side.