140. I Shouldn't Have Gone
140. I Shouldn't Have Gone
A chilly night breeze brushed against her cheeks.
After the Church's people entered the Academy, Amy had experienced a great deal of confusion as well.
It was true that the Academy's church, where most of the work consisted of holding Sunday worship services, had not been built to counter demons and therefore had many vulnerabilities.
So Amy frequently patrolled the Academy, tracked the traces of demons, and several times hunted down demons that had crossed over from Hell.
That was a secret Amy had never told anyone.
It was so natural to her that she had never once thought she needed to tell anyone about it.
'If the Holy Knights take over patrols, our workload will decrease too.'
-I suppose so.
Companion was not hostile toward the Church's people.
After all, the very first thing Amy had wanted to do as soon as her skills reached a certain level was to make contact with Saint Macinto.
That was because there were almost no other groups that shared the common goal of opposing demons.
'If you say you hunt demons professionally, you get treated like a lunatic, after all...'
It had been hundreds of years since the demon worshippers' faction was defeated and went into hiding, and people had forgotten about the existence of demons and lived on.
The Church always warned people to be wary of demons, but since no one had ever actually seen one, how could they believe?
They were an enormously threatening existence, but because they were beings from another dimension, it was difficult for people to even confirm their presence with their own eyes, and without forming a contract with a human, it was difficult for them to stay here for long.
Outwardly, demons looked little different from humans, so even if a demon-possessed person walked right past them, ordinary people would not recognize it as a demon.
After being thoroughly crushed by the Church once, they had hidden themselves so completely that they succeeded in making most people forget even their very existence.
Since damage from magical beasts or bandit gangs far exceeded the damage caused by demons, most nations tended to push all countermeasures against demons to the back burner.
The Academy was no exception.
What posed a problem at the Academy were external forces targeting the students.
Due to the island's nature of being cut off from the mainland, pirates had fired cannons at it, and there had also been those who attacked from the sky on wyverns.
All of it was done to target the students attending the Academy.
By now, many countermeasures had been put in place for such problems, but there were far too fewer measures against demons.
'That code of conduct thing... will it actually help?'
-It'll be utterly useless. What matters more than something like that is the fact that Holy Knight squads are now roaming all over the Academy, and the number of Inquisitors stationed at the Academy has increased.
If it's them, they'll be able to identify the ordinary cultists we haven't been able to ferret out until now.
The fact that there were still many collaborators inside the Academy was something both Atlas and Amy acknowledged.
"That's that, and... I should finish the work I was doing."
-To your left.
-Tang!!
In accordance with Companion's words, Amy's pistol spat fire.
An expensive blessed silver bullet tore through the empty air.
Wasting such a costly bullet on thin air—it was the kind of act one could hardly believe Amy would commit.
[Kuaaaak?!!]
The bullet, fired with ferocious momentum, lodged itself in the empty air, and a tearing scream rang out.
A demon in human form with bluish skin collapsed, spewing black demonic energy from its shoulder.
The silver bullet had not been wasted.
What had been shot and collapsed was a demon from Hell that had been drawn in by the impure emotions accumulated at the Academy.
Judging by its position, it was presumed to have crawled out of Hell around evening and hidden itself upon spotting the Holy Knights.
It had luckily evaded the Holy Knights' eyes, but it got caught by Amy.
In this manner, demons crossed over from Hell without anyone knowing.
They were all merely hiding where no one could see them—the number of demons present on the continent was far greater than one might think.
"Honestly... running around is pointless. I can see everything."
[I hid properly... how did you notice...?]
The blue demon already had another hole punched through its abdomen in addition to the one in its shoulder.
It was the wound from the bullet Amy had fired the moment she discovered it near the Academy.
The moment it was wounded, the demon had concealed itself and fled, but coincidentally, Amy was extremely adept at tracking wounded demons.
If it was a demon that had yet to find a contractor, it could not even take on physical form, so it was easiest to dispose of it quickly.
[W-wait!! You're that demon hunter...! If you j-just spare me here... I'll tell you where the other demons hiding in the Academy are...
Isn't that what you need?? With just my one head, you can wipe out the demons hiding in this Academy...!!]
The blue demon, backpedaling as it watched Amy approach, made an interesting proposal.
It said it would tell her the locations of the demons hiding in the Academy.
A little laughter escaped her.
"You know that?"
[Yeah! I'm the liaison, you see! So...]
When Amy laughed, the demon grew hopeful and began chattering excitedly.
It ran its mouth off, boasting about what status it held among the demons of Hell and babbling about the demons presumed to have infiltrated the Academy, as if desperate to show her just how great a demon it was.
But Amy's finger still did not leave the trigger.
-Tatang!!
"Still, no."
[W...why...]
As if the demon's words were not worth listening to, Amy decisively shot it.
Even one-handed, the two precisely fired silver bullets lodged themselves in the demon's forehead and heart, and demonic energy spewed from the wounds.
The expression on Amy's face as she held the gun was utterly cold and composed.
Not a trace of her usual grinning demeanor could be seen.
"Like I thought, demons lie."
The demon collapsed, transformed into a lump of demonic energy, and vanished.
When demon-possessed humans died, they left their physical bodies behind, but ordinary demons, when killed in this world, simply lost their form and scattered away.
"A liaison, my ass. You're nothing."
Judging by the traces, it had been no time at all since it crossed over from Hell—what kind of liaison could a low-ranking demon possibly be? She was so dumbfounded that she was at a loss for words.
Demons were all liars, every last one of them.
No matter how much they had crawled on the ground like worms in Hell, the moment they came to the world where humans lived, they all became full of themselves.
Because if they were only careful about three things, they were invincible in this world.
-Let's call it a day here.
"You'd think there aren't any demons, but they always crawl out one or two at a time."
-It can't be helped. A method to be completely liberated from the threat of demons does not exist.
She lamented, but she already knew that was the case.
She decided to head back around now.
"I'll take the shortcut..."
She decided to cross through the hill on the way back to the dormitory, just as she did when going to class.
Since she had dashed around quickly during her search, on the way back she was strolling leisurely—when she sensed someone's presence somewhere.
'At this hour...?'
-.... No, let's just go back.
Thinking it was suspicious and planning to avoid it, Companion stopped her.
'What are you suddenly talking about? Who would be wandering around outside at this time of night... it's suspicious.'
-I'm saying this sincerely for your sake. Just pretend you didn't see anything and go back. That would be better. You need to prepare for the skill assessment now, so you should also gradually increase your sleep time.
Amy felt an even stronger urge to go in and see who it was.
Just what was in there that made Companion speak so insistently?
-Amy...!! You're going to regret it!!
'What's in there that's got you so worked up?'
Tell her not to do something and she wanted to do it even more, as they say.
Normally, stepping through the underbrush should have produced rustling sounds, but Amy, who had mastered infiltration techniques, was capable of advancing through the grass without making a single sound and killing her presence entirely.
With each step forward, Companion's warning echoed in her mind, but satisfying this curiosity took priority over that.
"Ah..."
A voice reached her ears.
A voice brimming with heat.
It was a voice Amy had definitely heard many times before somewhere.
'What... is this? No way?'
It was too late to turn back now.
"Ah... Atlas...."
Beneath the beautiful night sky, on a mat spread over the grass, a man and woman were passionately entangled.
And those two were people Amy was very familiar with.
'Ugh... uwaaaaah...??? I should've just turned back...!!!'
-I told you you'd regret it...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"The Hunting Festival ended kind of half-heartedly, but still, it's a relief... Amy, are you listening?"
"Uh... huh?? Yes, I'm listening."
Rio scolded Amy, but Amy couldn't offer any rebuttal.
She talked about how even though no winner emerged after the Hunting Festival, everyone who participated received compensation from the Academy, so tuition was taken care of—and how thanks to the Bishop, the recommendation admit students were at least being a little more cautious now and everyone was happy about it. But Amy could not focus at all.
"You've been spacing out all day today. Are you okay?"
"Yes... yes, I'm fine..."
The day after seeing something she never needed to see, Amy was completely unable to concentrate.
Liber's voice, still brimming with heat, lingered in her ears.
Whenever she closed her eyes, the image of the two of them entwined surfaced in her mind.
'Ah... aaaaaah!! I was insane—I should've just turned back...!!'
She didn't know how Companion had noticed it, but right now, she deeply regretted not listening to him.
She had run into the two of them that morning as well.
On Liber's collarbone, which Atlas had kissed the night before, a bandage had been stuck.
'So when she said a bug bit her... that's what it was...??'
She had suspected as much.
Just from the atmosphere alone, she could tell that at some point the two of them had grown extremely close.
But knowing something through suspicion and seeing it with your own eyes were vastly different things.
She now faced a great deal of worry over how she ought to treat the two of them going forward.