The Little Ones
A fierce storm had swept through the Awakener community — Player Talk.
The Pure White Knight, Serengeti!
She was already an extraordinarily famous NPC among the players. The sole daughter of Marquis Weiser — a rock-solid background — and a knight of overwhelming growth potential. Beautiful, incorruptible, and so thoroughly wrapped in the common folk's reputation for absolute loyalty that by the time she came of age, a war that was not quite a war had broken out.
A war to hire her — or to marry her.
The tale of how the master of the Aslan Merchant Guild, one of the continent's three great trading houses, had proposed a deal worth two entire cities just to claim Serengeti was already the stuff of legend.
But Serengeti had chosen the Knight King Wilhelm. Without a moment's hesitation, she had named him her lord. And from that day forward, she had never once wavered in her fidelity.
Wilhelm was dead.
That much was certain. Everyone had seen his relics broken down and listed in the Golden Rule Shop.
But if he had killed the Demon King, Wilhelm should still be alive. And yet of Wilhelm and all his close aides, only Serengeti had returned — and only now, long after the Great Expedition had ended.
A cascade of contradictions. People could not help but be thrown into confusion.
...This was a strange Abyss.
The moment I entered, a message window had informed me that the master of the Abyss — the Skin Hybrid of God — had taken an interest in me. And yet no follow-up action of any kind had come.
If an intruder had walked in, the proper response was to confront them. But nothing appeared.
Not so much as a single ant.
In a Hybrid Zone, one would at least expect to see hybrids. Did it want something specific from me?
That was not the only strange thing.
There is no Abyssal poison...
The Abyss contaminated any intruder merely by setting foot inside it. Linger too long and the self crumbled, the body was crushed, and one either became a hybrid or died. But the place I had stepped into now was far too peaceful — nothing but an endless path stretching on like an open sea.
"Why were you with the Eight Houses Knights?"
I asked after walking for some time. Isabella answered.
"The young lady of the Dercian family came looking for me."
"I already know that much. And that you left with her for the Dercian household afterward."
The young lady of Dercian I had met at the Imperial auction — the girl who had become the family's heiress in place of Isabella, who had been afflicted with the Divine Illness. The reason she had sought Isabella out was entirely because of me. Originally she had been meant to find me, but she had run into Isabella instead.
"Yes. She told me she had only ever been my stand-in. She also explained the Divine Illness in great detail."
"The Divine Illness..."
"A 'god's disease' that afflicts a tiny fraction of Pangenia's inhabitants. Like sleepwalking, it allows someone else to seize control of the body at will. Just as it was with me, Isaac, and Valte."
She had fully grasped it, then. Precisely speaking, it was a player who took control — but still.
Isabella continued.
"Furthermore, in the Empire, stand-ins are appointed for those struck by the Divine Illness. The stand-in lives their entire life never knowing they are a replacement."
"And what happens to the one who actually has the Divine Illness?"
"They are erased from the records forever. Even if they return, they are treated as nothing more than someone who happens to look alike."
Complete obliteration. This was the first I had heard of it.
I was told that every officer of the Death God Religion was afflicted with the Divine Illness...
Did that mean they had not used stand-ins? Then again, contracts with an Orthodox were said to be possible only for those who had the Divine Illness. Looking at them, there did seem to be exceptions.
In any case.
"Then going back would have been useless, wouldn't it?"
Isabella, having returned to the Dercian household, had abruptly become an apprentice of the Eight Houses Knights. Even Raiga, the knight commander, had believed her to be a child of the Dercian family.
"The young lady of Dercian... is dead."
"...?"
...What?
Had I misheard?
For a moment I was left speechless. Wasn't she the woman who had clung so desperately to life? The young lady who had dropped to her knees before me and cried out her submission just to survive. And that woman had suddenly died?
When I cast her a look of pure bewilderment, Isabella's expression hardened like stone.
"The Dercian family. They killed the young lady who had begun digging into their shame, and locked me in an underground prison. That place — those people — are not normal."
It was the face of someone who had seen something she should never have seen. For the Queen of the Desert to look like this... If Isabella, who had endured every kind of ordeal, was this horrified, then whatever one imagined, the reality was worse.
"What did you see down there?"
Isabella swallowed hard, then spoke slowly.
"Human experimentation. The production of stand-ins. Brainwashing... I pretended to be brainwashed and impersonated the young lady of Dercian, and through Knight Commander Raiga I was able to get outside, but..."
Insane.
If this was true, these people were monsters of a different order. The Dercian family was the wealthiest house in the Empire. And they had been committing unspeakable atrocities in secret underground. The Empire could not possibly be ignorant of it — which meant they were openly covering it up.
And so Isabella had pretended her brainwashing was complete, played the part of the dead Dercian heiress, caught Raiga's eye, and become an apprentice of the Eight Houses Knights.
"But in that underground prison, I overheard a strange conversation about the Death God Religion. That the Golden Mask, one of their officers, is in fact Wilhelm's 'stand-in'..."
It only got more absurd. What was this now?
The Golden Mask was Wilhelm's stand-in? Not that the Golden Mask had the Divine Illness, but that he had stood in for a Wilhelm who did?
No — before that. Wilhelm was born in the Empire? And of the Emperor's bloodline, no less?
Isabella looked me squarely in the eye and spoke, word by careful word.
"That the true, legitimate heir to the Emperor's blood is not the Golden Mask, but Wilhelm."
"..."
I was left without words.
Of course, there was no guarantee this was the truth. The far greater likelihood was that it was nothing but idle nonsense drifting on the wind. And yet it was not a matter that could be lightly dismissed either.
To know for certain...
I'll have to tear that mask off.
What lay beyond the mask. If the Golden Mask's face resembled Wilhelm's, the matter would become far clearer. That mask that never came off — it seemed I would need to force it off, one way or another.
The conversation continued after that — mostly about the things Isabella had seen while following Raiga and the Eight Houses Knights. About Raiga hunting Fragments, and about the Blessing.
"When a Fragment of Ruin manifests outwardly, it causes an 'anomaly.' Raiga called it a 'bug.' He said that to stand against that 'bug,' one needs a 'Blessing.'"
"A Blessing?"
Back when people argued over who was stronger — Wilhelm or Knight Commander Raiga — Isabella had clearly mentioned the Blessing then.
"Yes. However, only Raiga knows how to obtain a Blessing. Only a 'disciple' he has acknowledged can come to possess one."
"So that's why you stayed on as an apprentice knight?"
"...Yes."
Isabella conceded. She had probably remained because she believed it would be of use to me.
A disciple, though.
Raiga had been wandering the entire nation in search of a successor to inherit the power of the Eight Houses. This time he had even organized a tournament to gather the talented in one place.
I'll have to enter.
...It seemed I would need to participate in the tournament after all. Obtaining that Blessing was far more important than any reward. Aside from the goat mask, nothing of mine had been exposed yet. As long as I was not found out, it might be possible.
"Lord Randolph."
"Hm?"
"If it would not be too presumptuous... may I ask about the 'insurance'?"
"Are you worried about Serengeti?"
"...Yes."
Isabella and Serengeti got along better than one might have expected. Their personalities were polar opposites, and yet that very difference seemed to fill in what the other lacked. And no matter how strong Serengeti was, King Fredrick was a genuine monster in his own right. Worry was only natural.
I shrugged.
"I sent my children."
"Your children...?"
Isabella's eyes went round as full moons — the look of someone wondering where on earth I had been hiding kids. I had never once spoken of children before, so her bewilderment was understandable.
I answered as if it were nothing.
"They call me Father."
They were not children of my blood. And yet the mere thought of those two brought a smile unbidden to my lips.
"Lucaria. What should we do?"
"Father... said to intervene only when he's in danger..."
"Not Father — Lord Chief God! Have you already forgotten?"
"B-but..."
The two children — Isera and Lucaria — were deep in argument amid the press of the crowd. When Lucaria looked ready to cry, Isera clicked her tongue.
"Queen Hana warned us, remember? The titles we speak are important. Lucaria, are you just going to keep acting spoiled in front of the Lord Chief God forever?"
The two children had been born in the hatchery from the hearts of the Dragon Gods Isera and Lucaria — loyal Overlords who followed Queen Hana and Randolph. Transcendent beings of their species, inheriting both the hearts and the very rank of Dragon Gods!
"O-okay..."
"Good. Then you know what we have to do from here on, right?"
"What do we have to do?"
At Lucaria's question, Isera clutched her forehead. She had already explained it more than ten times. Lucaria had a habit of remembering only what she wanted to remember.
"...Look. If that woman is in danger, we step in. You brainwash every human here, and I'll go out pretending to be 'Serengeti.'"
"I don't think brainwashing will work on that demon, though..."
Isera crossed her arms and considered. There was indeed one demon here more powerful than anyone else present. When her eyes met that demon's a moment later, Isera tilted her head and spoke.
"Hmm. Then should we take care of that demon first?"