A Noxious Stench (3)
Who in their right mind would scatter gold coins into empty air?
And yet the person doing exactly that mad thing stood right before Seira's eyes.
"Mm..."
Seira let out a small groan from behind Shiron.
Even Seira, who had watched Shiron pull every bizarre stunt imaginable over the past five years, could not help but question what he was doing now.
She understood him straining every nerve to get whatever he wanted. She understood him deciding to thrash someone the moment they got under his skin.
But this—
What was unfolding now was far too removed from the Shiron she knew. The Shiron she knew never handed out wealth, or anything else, to other people.
With a face full of worry, Seira jabbed a finger into his shoulder.
"Kid."
"What."
Shiron answered without even turning his head. He kept that benevolent expression fixed in place while he continued flinging gold coins.
"You said you'd make the target come to you on their own."
"That's right."
"So? Any results?"
"Not yet."
"...Can I say just one thing?"
"No. Don't."
"The way I see it, some monstrous creature the Demon God personally empowered isn't going to lose its mind over a handful of gold coins and come running this way."
Seira spoke even knowing it would irritate him. It wasn't that she was dismissing his judgment—it was genuine concern, advice offered because she truly worried.
Tens of minutes of Shiron scattering gold. The coins he had already thrown numbered in the hundreds.
The debt he had racked up just for this already exceeded fifty million shillings. He had told her again and again that he could pay back any amount, no matter how large—but fifty million shillings was a sum that rivaled a small nation's entire annual defense budget.
You think I want to say this? The worry forces the harsh words out whether I like it or not.
Seira heaved a long sigh and thought of her comrades from five hundred years ago. Their first meeting had hardly been pleasant, yet she was now fully conscious that she and Shiron were in the same boat.
If something went wrong for him, she would be in serious trouble too. So she believed she had every right to stand at his side and offer counsel, if only to keep him from heading down the wrong path.
"How about this instead—hire a thieves' guild or some detectives? With the gold you've already thrown away, you could easily snag ten competent ones."
"...It isn't as if I never considered that."
He answered quietly, as if conceding the point, but his eyes stayed fixed ahead.
"But that method takes far too long. Managing a large group of people is no small chore, and there's no guarantee those people could even find an Apostle who's deliberately gone to ground."
Shiron scanned the faces of the crowd surging forward to snatch up the coins. Young and old, women and men—every last one of them wore an expression steeped in greed.
Bloodshot eyes chasing gold flung into the air. It almost made him wonder whether the mob might turn on him next. But that was exactly what he intended.
He stoked their avarice and deliberately drove them toward ugliness. The gold, his words, his every gesture—everything funneled the situation into chaos.
And then—
Right on cue, Shiron spotted the ones whose eyes were not sold to wealth.
There they are.
Five or six of them, maybe. Figures who only pretended to chase the gold stood out at once.
It wasn't that they made no show of thrashing about in the crowd for coins—but Shiron easily caught the emptiness in their eyes, void of both greed and curiosity.
They never stared at the airborne gold with bloodshot hunger, and even when a coin landed in their hands, their mouths never twisted into vulgar little smiles.
Shiron recalled one particular detail about Camilla Rodos.
The thralls Camilla kept lost their humanity.
They felt no pain, so wounds did not make them flinch; they possessed no human desires, so charm magic could not touch them.
The way they failed to blend into the chaos—like oil floating on water—confirmed for him that these were Camilla's thralls.
So that's what passes for cleverness with her?
Shiron scoffed at Camilla's meager little scheme, though for her it had been the best move available.
As long as she remained in this red-light district, she would have heard the rumor spreading like wildfire, and she would have had to issue some order—any order—so that her people did not create a jarring absence by doing nothing at all.
Not sending anyone would have drawn just as much attention.
Camilla had thrown the dice. Ironically, her choice only tightened the noose around her own neck. The thought crossed his mind that fleeing might have been wiser—
But she couldn't. Abandoning a nest you've lived in for centuries isn't easy.
Shiron smiled in satisfaction and committed their faces to memory.
The buildings of the red-light district were well soundproofed thanks to their particular trade, yet Andrei's heightened hearing still caught every noise that never stopped coming from the floor above.
A woman's shrill scream.
Glass shattering.
Wooden furniture twisting and breaking apart.
As a resident of the lower floors, he might well have gone up to complain—but Andrei could not. The very top floor of the building was where his mistress, Camilla, resided...
And yet, as a thrall, he could not simply ignore it either. Andrei forced his unresponsive body upright and climbed the stairs leading upstairs.
When he opened the tightly shut wooden door, the wrecked room and the woman standing in its center came into view.
"My lady. Are you all right?"
"Do I—do I look all right to you?!"
Camilla flailed her arms in a full-blown hysterical fit. Yet for all that thrashing, nothing stood in the path of her swinging limbs. She had already smashed everything smashable; nothing that could still be called furniture remained.
Andrei exhaled a weary breath and held both hands out toward her.
"Please calm yourself first. At this rate, nothing will go right."
"C-c-c-calm? Calm, my ass!"
Terror finally stole even her ability to speak properly. The stench of death that had been circling the streets was no longer merely drawing nearer—it had set foot inside the very building where Camilla lived.
And then—
Camilla felt the vague shape of her fear snap into sharp, unmistakable focus.
Prien... Prien! He's finally come to kill me!
Camilla clawed frantically at her face and scalp.
She had nested in Nightrail for centuries, yet she still could not shake the terror carved into her bones.
The order that hunted the thralls of gods.
She had believed she had hidden herself with perfect care—yet her trail had been too long, and they had caught her at last.
"I-I-I'm going to die."
In the end Camilla began nervously chewing her own nails. Crunch— crunch— A nauseating sound filled the room.
And it was not only the sound that was nauseating. Unable to form proper words, she could not stop at merely gnawing her nails.
Tick— drip—
The tips of her fingers split open; blood painted her hands and mouth red.
Thanks to her potent regeneration the flesh sealed over almost at once, but Camilla's healing reached only her body. The once-lavish decorations on her nails had long since been chewed to tatters, and her lips and the floor remained stained with blood.
My lady...
He could not bear to watch that wretched sight any longer. Andrei bowed once and left the room. He had served Camilla for a very long time, yet even he had never seen her this frayed.
Just what kind of person is this...
Andrei followed the vague presence he could sense and made his way downstairs. He could have hurried, but he deliberately did not.
While Andrei had gone upstairs, a commotion had broken out on the lower floor. It lasted only a moment. The uninvited guest never climbed any higher, remaining the entire time on the first floor.
Incomprehensible behavior.
Andrei opened the door to the first-floor lobby.
A shattered statue, torn curtains, and corpses sprawled across the floor met his eyes.
The place no longer resembled anything he knew.
The sole thing left standing amid the ruin was a sofa of red leather. Upon it, a young man in priestly robes was reading a thick book.
It was a sort of strategy guide he had been compiling for the past five years. Until a few years ago a simple notebook had filled that role, but once he set out to record every element of the game, a single notebook became impossible.
Shiron closed the book he had been reading and tucked it into his coat.
"Is Camilla upstairs?"
"..."
Andrei could not answer.
He simply stared at the young man with a dazed expression.
It was not that his body had locked up from facing the person his mistress, Camilla Rodos, so feared.
Why... someone like this...
To Andrei's eyes, a powerful sense of wrongness radiated from the youth before him.
Judging by how cleanly he had dealt with the first-floor forces, the young man clearly possessed a certain level of skill—yet Andrei felt none of the oppressive presence that belonged to his mistress Camilla.
Is he hiding his true strength?
Andrei kept his guard up and drew the sword at his hip. This was an enemy who had driven his lady into premature terror.
As a thrall, eliminating his master's foe was a fate already sealed. Even if he lost his life here, Andrei had to resist with everything he had.
Seeing Andrei draw, Shiron slipped a hand into his coat. What he drew, however, was not a Holy Sword.
A black iron blade. Its heavy form cut through the night air.
An ordinary heavy sword—yet a faint trace of divinity clings to it.
Andrei coolly appraised the weapon Shiron had drawn. Then he swept his gaze quickly around the room, checking whether the youth was bait.
A young holy knight who couldn't contain his blood and came alone, then.
The estimate was roughly set. What followed happened in an instant.
Crack— A blood-red bolt of lightning seemed to fall.
Andrei's slash. The blade that came down from above held no technique whatsoever, yet it carried a desperate will bent solely on killing.
But the blood-fiend swordsman's blade failed to split a human skull. CLAAANG! The delayed roar of impact rang out. Andrei's eyes narrowed.
"Ha. Haha."
Laughter escaped him unbidden. The youth had not dodged the slash—he had blocked it. Blocked the strike of a blood-fiend swordsman whose raw strength was dozens of times a human's.
Screeech— And now they were locked in a pure contest of power.
"So you were hiding your strength."
"...What?"
"No need to look so startled. Yes—with skill like this, barging alone into a monster's jaws is possible."
Why is he suddenly... monologuing by himself?
Shiron tilted his head at the strange atmosphere. Reading that face as panic, Andrei let out a short snort of laughter.
He had known the moment their blades crossed.
A hundred years and then some of holding a sword—his instincts were telling him exactly what sort of man stood opposite him.
"Victory is mine."
"What are you talking about?"
"This should make for decent amusement until my mistress arrives."
At that completely unprompted declaration, Shiron's face hardened.