No Time for the Dead
Western District Subjugation – 3
“Encountered demonic constructs. Zero casualties. 147 standard puppets crafted from human bodies. 53 bearing the Blessing of the Arrow Veil. 23 bearing the Blessing of Steel. Total of 223 eliminated.”
“Contacted identical demonic constructs. One injured. 108 standard entities. 61 bearing the Blessing of the Arrow Veil. 22 bearing the Blessing of Steel. Total of 191 neutralized.”
“113 standard entities. 27 bearing the Blessing of the Arrow Veil. 37 bearing the Blessing of Steel. Total of 177 eliminated. Two injured.”
“123 standard puppets. 43 bearing the Blessing of the Arrow Veil. 52 bearing the Blessing of Steel. Total of 218 eliminated. However, two deaths… Inspector Mustang, the commanding officer, has been killed in action…”
Ellyna Bastard listened in silence as the operational status of every search team was relayed. It wasn’t just in their sector that the monsters had poured out. The same overwhelming numbers had flooded the other areas too, and some were even worse in composition. As a result, every team except A1—the one she commanded—had sustained casualties. There was even a unit that had lost its commanding officer. If they kept pushing forward like this, it was only a matter of time before some team was completely wiped out. Perhaps all of them would meet that fate.
Yet the supreme commander of the operation, fully aware of the likely outcome, had no choice but to issue a merciless order.
Inspector Ellyna stared quietly at the droplets of water forming on the sewer ceiling before falling to the ground. She closed her eyes for a moment, then spoke in a firm, resolute tone.
She drew in a short breath and added,
Keep advancing until you breathe your last. To protect Westania, Central City, and the families you hold dear. Die willingly. That was all a hunting dog could do.
“You’re asking if we could fight like Inspector Ellyna? Are you serious?”
“No way. Absolutely not. Try copying her and you’ll die instantly.”
“That woman’s not even human, I swear. There’s no other explanation. She’s insanely strong, right?”
“……Oh, really?”
After wrapping up the sudden battle, Ellyse was finally granted a brief moment of rest. The communications officer role she had originally been assigned had been taken over by Team Leader Ellyna Bastard, along with the radio, leaving her with nothing to do but rest. She sat with the rest of the team, excluding Ellyna.
This gave Ellyse Bertman the chance to ask the questions about Ellyna she had been holding back, and finally learn the faces and names of her new teammates.
“If I hadn’t seen it verified through a Relic, I’d still be doubting it. Honestly, if a woman with a personality like a demon was actually human, the world would have ended long ago.”
The man grumbling about their superior with a sour expression—despite normally having the warm, friendly face of a neighborhood butcher—was Inspector Thomas Mardens. He was also the one who had been cursed out by Inspector Ellyna during the operation briefing, accused of having no brain.
“She may outrank me, but I joined the Special Affairs Division first. Seniority should be respected! How am I supposed to respect someone who keeps embarrassing me in front of others?”
“……Ahaha.”
What had started as a joke gradually grew heated, revealing just how genuinely frustrated Thomas was with Inspector Ellyna. Even Ellyse could see where he was coming from. Her superior, Ellyna Bastard, was always smiling, but she was equally mischievous and far more impulsive than anyone could predict.
Still, having received so much help from her, and with both of them being superiors, Ellyse’s only option was to smile awkwardly.
“I can understand wanting to complain about her lack of consideration for others’ circumstances, Thomas. But perhaps you should first reflect on the fact that you’re currently badmouthing a commanding officer in front of a rookie during an active mission.”
In contrast, the one speaking with consistent calm was Inspector Butler Kimbrey. He had joined the Special Affairs Division around the same time as Thomas and, from earlier conversation, was a newlywed who had married his childhood friend last year. He had also mentioned worrying about his wife, whose belly was quite swollen…
“So I have to survive no matter what. For my wife and our child, I’ll make it back alive even if hundreds of monsters come at me.”
“……Haha, I’ll cheer for you.”
Watching Inspector Kimbrey speak with such fierce determination, Ellyse felt a different kind of unease than she had with Thomas.
……Isn’t it a classic trope in epics that people who say things like that always end up dead?
Ah, no way. That only happens in fiction. This is reality—what could possibly go wrong?
Ellyse tried to comfort herself with that thought, but she couldn’t completely shake the ominous feeling. She stared at Butler with a suspicious look before quickly turning her head away.
“Hm? What’s with that look?”
The youngest-looking member of the team compared to the other inspectors was Lieutenant Aidan Servion. In truth, he had only joined two classes ahead of Ellyse, so their ages differed by just a single year. Perhaps that was why she sensed something similar to her best friend Ashily Dolores in him—an impression of immaturity.
No, Lieutenant Servion at least earned his position through skill, so he must be a hundred times better than that idiot Ashily.
Ellyse nodded to herself, wondering if that foolish girl even appreciated how hard she worked. No, of course not. Her thoughts continued along those lines.
Quite some time seemed to have passed in that state.
“She’s back.”
At Inspector Thomas’s subdued voice, Ellyse opened her eyes and saw Inspector Ellyna walking toward them from ahead. She was smiling brightly, as if something good had happened, which made everyone’s hearts swell with hopeful anticipation.
When Ellyna Bastard finally reached them, she looked around at the group staring at her with eager eyes and let out a bright “Hehe.” Then, in a light tone, she said,
At that damned single sentence, everyone let out a sigh and rose to their feet. And so the hunt to find the demon resumed.
A1—the search team inside the underground sewer—walked a long distance, and then walked even farther.
“A1, encountered one standard puppet.”
But they no longer ran into the overwhelming numbers they had faced at the beginning. The monsters appeared only occasionally, one or two at a time, as if testing them. From the communications of the other search teams, it seemed everyone was in a similar situation.
“……They’re stalling for time so we can’t tell where the real one is,” Butler said in a heavy tone. Ellyse nodded, then paused. Noticing her reaction, Butler offered an explanation.
The demon was currently avoiding the moonlit hours when its magical power was strongest, dragging things out until morning when its power would weaken enough to avoid detection.
“We might all get slaughtered, but even a Great Demon can’t fight the entire nation.”
That was why it was hiding its true form like a shy maiden. Inspector Ellyna added that remark as well.
Only then did Ellyse finally make an expression of understanding—Ah, so that’s it. Everyone else was speaking as if it were obvious; it would have been too embarrassing to keep looking lost.
……Well, it wasn’t that she hadn’t understood at all. The cunning, vicious nature of demons and their extreme self-preservation were famous stories. While she might not fully grasp the extent of that cunning and viciousness, even a rookie inspector knew that a demon would hate any exchange rate where wiping out all the search teams still resulted in it getting hurt.
That extreme obsession with self-preservation was a racial trait of the demon species.
Soon enough, she would come to realize that she had been given the chance to glimpse even a fragment of a demon’s cunning and viciousness.
Beeeeeeeeeeep──……
Ellyse looked down at the portable magic detector screaming violently in her hand. Then she looked up at the scenery ahead.
After a long search, what they encountered was the end of the sewer passage and, before it, a crimson, hazy mist-like substance. For a moment she thought it was the smog that filled the city these days. But that thought lasted only a second before Ellyse caught the scent of blood reaching her nose even through her gas mask.
……A blood mist. There was no way something like that could occur naturally in this environment.
“It’s a portal.”
It was the pinnacle of Mystery that only high-ranking demons—if not a Great Demon—could attempt. Taking even one step inside would transport them to a completely different location from their current position. And with high probability, that place would be where their target demon was waiting.
There was no way the demon would have prepared such a valuable and convenient means of transportation for those chasing it.
“Report the communication status.”
At Inspector Ellyna’s low command, Ellyse hurriedly activated the radio.
Crackle—crackle—……
But what came through was not the crisp report of the communications officer, only static. After confirming that, Lieutenant Ellyse was about to respond when she stared in blank shock at the portal in front of her, which was rapidly scattering and disappearing.
“As expected, it seems communication is impossible,” Ellyna Bastard said, gazing at the fading portal. “Gentlemen, we have been given one choice.”
To cross the portal, or not to cross it.
“Normally that would be the case, but since we are currently in the middle of a military operation, the option for all team members to refuse crossing the portal does not exist. On the contrary, to increase the success rate of the mission, as many of us as possible must go through. Therefore, only one person will remain behind to deliver a follow-up report.”
At those words, Thomas—whose face had turned bright red—and Butler, wearing a bitter expression, both turned to look at Lieutenant Ellyse. She was wondering what their reactions meant when her superior called out,
“Communications Officer Ellyse.”
“Yes!” she answered hurriedly.
Ellyna pointed at her and said,
“……Yes?”
“……Um, but singling me out like this isn’t fair—”
“What? Exactly which part is unfair?”
Ellyse blinked. Ellyna Bastard grinned and patted her on the shoulder. Then she declared with certainty,
At last, Ellyse Bertman understood the meaning behind those words. She looked around at the teammates surrounding her. Thomas, face flushed crimson, glaring at her. Butler, pulling out a pendant to gaze at a photo of his wife. Aidan, whose teeth had begun to chatter. And Ellyna Bastard, standing with a dependable expression.
They were all going to their deaths in her place.
Lieutenant Ellyse finally understood what it meant to protect someone. And she learned what it meant to know that someone might die.