132. Necromancer
132. Necromancer
"Heuheu... it was just a joke, but you're no fun...."
"It wasn't fun, so just look at the item."
I pulled out the Cursed Weapon I had hung at my waist.
Not content with keeping it merely sheathed, I had sealed it with cord wrapped tightly over the seams. I undid those seals one by one and drew the blade.
The moment it was finally freed, the Cursed Weapon scattered dense curses in all directions and let out a shout.
[To be trapped in that damn seal for days and days... I can never forgive this!!!!!]
"Uwaat?? What is this??"
Amy shrank back at the sight of a curse of such tremendous power, but Kirke did not.
"Oh... Ooooh, this is...!!"
Her cheeks flushed, and she gazed at the Cursed Weapon, fidgeting as if she had just glimpsed her first love.
As a necromancer, Kirke recognized the weapon's true worth at a glance.
"Where in the world did you find a treasure like this, huh??"
And with that, she snatched the Cursed Weapon from my hand.
The moment it was transferred into Kirke's grasp, the curses the Cursed Weapon had been spewing subsided rapidly.
It seemed to understand exactly where it was being sold off to.
[Uwaaaahk?! She's a necromancer!! I-I was wrong, so please don't hand me over to that bitch!!]
The Cursed Weapon screamed belatedly, but it was already too late.
"Well, you belong to this person now."
"Heuheheheh, if it doesn't have a name yet, shall I give it one...? Since it looks so adorable, how about Barbie?"
Already, the... no, Barbie's curses had fallen under Kirke's control.
Barbie was a weapon containing a powerful curse, but Kirke controlled it as if it were nothing.
"How about it? An incredible treasure, right?"
"Heuheu, what should I do with this... I'm so excited... If you brought this knowing what it's worth... it must be quite a big favor you're asking..?"
Kirke narrowed her eyes as she giggled and caressed the Cursed Weapon.
She seemed curious about just how huge a task I meant to request, seeing as I was willing to offer something like this.
Since it really was an enormous favor I was asking, I spoke confidently.
"I'd like you to find the hideouts of the Demon Church scattered across the continent... specifically, the locations where the Demon Archbishops are hiding."
"Heheh, you're asking for something really tough... Searching the whole continent is hard... but I'll help as far as my abilities allow. The demons are our enemies too...."
"A necromancer can do something like that??"
"Of course... tracking the traces of demons is one of the things necromancers do best, you know..?"
Demons take souls as payment when they form contracts.
The reason they take souls in exchange is that demons greatly enjoy devouring them.
Even though they might not even realize it themselves, even without actively emitting demonic energy, they naturally and ravenously gobble up the small souls drifting around them.
A place where a demon or a demon-touched resides inevitably develops a void of that spiritual power.
The stronger that power, the larger the void that is created.
The tiny voids of ordinary demons would be easy to miss, but the mere presence of a Demon Archbishop-level demon-touched would leave behind a massive void.
However vast the void may be, an ordinary person could never even notice it.
The only ones who can detect this void are necromancers.
The Church knows of this method but cannot use it.
They do not actively oppress the already small number of necromancers, but the doctrines of the Church and the necromancers are mutually contradictory.
How could the Church, whose doctrine promises a happy afterlife for good deeds, possibly work alongside a necromancer who raises the dead?
"But... wait a moment."
I had been about to continue the conversation when Amy suddenly stopped.
"Why?"
"You said we were looking for the Demon Church's bases... right??"
"Yeah, we're finding the bases. But locating the ones with the Demon Archbishops is easier."
"You said we were raiding them... so does that mean we're going to attack a Demon Archbishop's nest??"
"That's how it'll turn out, isn't it?"
Now that I thought about it, it seemed I hadn't actually told her we would be fighting a Demon Archbishop.
Amy realized she would suddenly be fighting a Demon Archbishop and started trembling, so I stroked her back to calm her down.
"A-are you confident...?"
"To some extent?"
Having already taken down one of Belphegor's Demon Archbishops, it seemed quite manageable.
If I played my cards right, it would work out.
"Heuheu... you've really grown... Showing up after so long and saying you'll smash a Demon Archbishop... Your body hasn't grown, but your capacity has become formidable."
"Did you really have to tack on that last part?"
When I got angry and threatened her, Kirke smoothly changed the subject.
"The important thing right now is finding those bastards' locations, isn't it. You don't have... zero clues, right? If it were like finding a needle in a desert, I couldn't do it. You have to narrow down the suspicious regions to some extent for me to find them."
"I'm aware. First, focus your search around these two regions."
"Heuheu, as expected of a descendant of giants, you're easy to talk to."
No matter how skilled a necromancer Kirke was, scouring the entire continent without any clues was impossible.
The scope had to be narrowed down to a certain degree, so I stuck two pins into the leather map in the corner of her room.
They were the regions where I suspected the Demon Archbishops were staying.
My reasons for suspicion were nothing special.
'Because these two places, based on the timeline at the start of the original story 'Academy's Devil Slayer,' had the highest probability of those bastards lying low.'
Most of the useful information from the original story had been smashed long ago, but I still ended up relying on it.
I really hoped I was right this time.
Otherwise, it would be troublesome.
I would be reduced to a miserable wretch who talked big but couldn't even manage a proper search.
It was obvious that if I talked big to the Saintess and failed to pull it off, she would just console me.
"What... should I do?"
Watching Kirke and I move things along smoothly, Amy asked timidly.
She seemed to be wondering why she even had to come along when things were proceeding so well.
"You have a more important job, Amy. Based on the information I've found, this woman here will narrow the range considerably. Then, I'll need your help pinpointing the exact location from there once more."
"Couldn't you have just asked the Inquisitors for that?"
"If Church people start poking around, they'll relocate immediately. But you can figure it out just by looking at the traces, right?"
"Alright, I'll give it a try."
Amy clenched her fist tightly as I clearly stated what kind of help I wanted from her.
"Heuheu... shall we get started then...?"
With those words signaling the start of the work, she placed the map with the pins stuck in it on the floor and began preparing her necromancy.
She opened a few bottles and chanted an unknown spell. A black shadow that could have been mistaken for demonic energy crept up and covered the map.
A moment later, the shadow that had been mercilessly roiling over the map stopped.
"...It's that place."
Kirke, her eyes half-lidded, pointed at the region where the pin was stuck.
The map had been entirely black, but there was a hole punched in exactly one spot on each.
"Thankfully, the locations were correct. I'll deal with these two first, and come back later if I find a lead on the others."
"Thankfully??"
"I was a little nervous."
Amy was startled that I had said "thankfully," as if I hadn't been entirely sure.
"Heuheu, taking this on all of a sudden... are you thinking of rooting out demons from this continent entirely?"
"Easier said than done. Well, I don't know when it'll be, but let's meet again next time."
I made sure to memorize the locations marked on the map.
I folded space once more and took a step, and space stretched out.
——————————————
After Atlas left, Kirke puffed on her long pipe alone and recalled the words he had spoken.
'That old man died. Had the nerve to drop dead all on his own, didn't he?'
The news that Titan Chronos, the former head of the Titan family, had died suddenly. At the moment she had heard it, she had simply thought, 'I see,' but as she looked back and thought it over, something seemed strange.
"Dead...? That's strange... there's no way that could be...?"
Kirke, thinking the statement was strange no matter how she mulled it over, took down a square wooden box from a shelf.
When she opened the lid of the box, its sides disassembled like a puzzle and transformed into a hexagonal board.
The board was covered in various geometric patterns, and Kirke swept her hand over those patterns with one hand while clutching fragments that looked like animal bone shards in the other.
"If that bastard... is really dead...."
A will-o'-the-wisp-like blue light flickered in Kirke's eyes, and the bone shards she held in one hand leaped up onto the board.
"Appear at the boundary of life and death, descendant of Titan... Let us have the heart-to-heart talk we failed to finish for decades, you old fool...."
The will-o'-the-wisp flared up along the geometric patterns drawn on the board.
She was using 'Necromantic Summoning,' one of the most powerful trump cards of a necromancer, which could call upon the dead and converse with them.
"Haak?!"
Kirke's back arched like a bow.
Cold sweat beaded on her forehead, and her body convulsed.
If she had succeeded, there wouldn't have been a backlash like this.
The Necromantic Summoning had failed.
Since Kirke was a skilled necromancer, she would not have made a mistake in the procedure of Necromantic Summoning, meaning the reasons for the failure could be narrowed down to two main possibilities.
Either the target was not actually 'deceased'... or, due to some kind of incident, not even the soul of the deceased remained....
"Heuheu... whatever it is... it's interesting."
A laugh escaped Kirke's lips before she knew it.
Either way, it seemed like things were about to get very entertaining.