#071 Ignorance
#071 Ignorance
The appearance of the missing livestock. We immediately ran to the place where the livestock had been found, and there we discovered the livestock left in a severe state.
"...This is bad."
There was no head.
The neck had been cleanly severed, leaving only the torso, and inside the torso's belly there was nothing at all.
At a glance, it looked no different from a human butchering a beast for convenient eating, but this was the opposite.
Like when eating a fish, you eat only the flesh and discard the innards, the head, and the bones.
This was no different from taking only the innards and discarding the rest of the useless parts into human territory.
"Hmm...."
I pushed through the crowd, approached, wrapped mana around my hand, and checked the condition of the corpse.
"Thorough to a fault."
"What do you mean by that..."
"They made it so it can't even be recycled. There's no need to look inside. Village chief, I'm going to burn this."
"...Yes. Please do."
The village chief and the villagers already knew the condition of the livestock.
Since the people who had suffered the livestock damage accepted it calmly, Lucius and Rosemas were also calm, but their expressions were full of questions.
"Do you need an explanation?"
"Just briefly...?"
"This thing is poisoned. There are venomous insects inside the flesh."
"......!!"
Lucius and Rosemas turned pale.
"If it's a situation where there's nothing left to eat at the level of famine or war, or if someone shows up who eats even this because it's a waste, they'll suffer badly."
"Isn't poison usually destroyed by heating?"
"What if it isn't that kind of poison?"
"...Does that kind of poison exist?"
"It does."
The Demon King Army tried to attack humanity in truly diverse ways.
"Do you know how the Great Demon King B... first attacked humans?"
"The first time?"
"Yes. It was written in the Adventurers' Guild archives too, though it was written very briefly."
Everyone listened attentively to me.
Something crawled out from the burning goat corpse, but before those things could emerge into the world, my flames burned them black.
"When the Great Demon King first attacked humanity, they say he spread poison against humans. Sprinkling poison on wheat grains, pouring poison into agricultural waterways, or if not that, adding poison powder to mass-produced military soup."
At first, he tried to wage chemical warfare.
"By the time they tried to detoxify it with Divine Power, it was already too late. But soon people noticed the Demon King Army's actions and began to be careful. For one thing, as long as they avoided raw food and suspicious provisions like this, they could withstand the poison to some degree."
Later, after crossing over to the Demon Realm, I learned about it while researching poison with Beelzebub.
What I learned was that it caused something called 'food poisoning.'
"Originally, you only had to be careful about poisonous plants or poisonous mushrooms, right? But this poisons even things that have nothing to do with poison."
"...Master, what you're saying is, then these actions are...."
"The Demon King Army."
In an instant, the atmosphere sank.
"...remnants, or the work of terrorists trying to attack an unspecified number of people based on that. Or if not that, just a lunatic who wants to watch the world burn."
"Which do you think it is, Master?"
"Obviously, I'd say Acedia."
There were some puzzling points, but stuffing venomous insects into animal carcasses and dumping them was not something any ordinary scumbag would do.
This was a signature tactic of Belphegor's Demon King Army.
'Because it's an act that divides humans.'
"Village chief. You need to explain this in detail. Otherwise...."
"What do you think you're doing!!"
A shout came from afar.
I knew this was bound to happen, but I calmly greeted another guest approaching us.
"Everyone gathered in one place burning a goat — are you performing dark magic or something?"
A black-haired man who looked like a knight shouted with veins bulging in his neck.
The villagers panicked and waved their hands all at once, and I had to calm them down before the confusion worsened.
"May the Azure Moon Goddess guide you. I am an adventurer visiting this village, called Witch Bel."
"Uh, uhm...?"
Invoking the Azure Moon Goddess and bowing courteously?
The knight swept his gaze over me with a flustered face, then soon dismounted from his horse and greeted me with an elegant posture.
"Pleased to meet you, Lady Bel. I am the wandering knight 'Rapid Fallinlove.'"
"...Pleased to meet you, Sir Fallinlove."
The word 'Lady' was somewhat shocking, but I couldn't let myself get flustered here.
The other party called himself a wandering knight, but no matter how I looked at him, he seemed like a knight of this territory.
'He's hidden the crest on the horse's saddle, at least.'
A wandering knight?
Nonsense.
This man and that knight over there dressed entirely in black were both knights of the County of Odron.
They must have gone out incognito while posing as wandering knights.
"We were in the middle of taking initial measures after hearing about a strange phenomenon in this village."
"A strange phenomenon?"
"Yes. According to what was filed with the Adventurers' Guild, missing livestock return as corpses that have been 'cursed.'"
"...Cursed?"
Rapid's expression instantly turned serious.
It was plainly the face of someone who had just come out on patrol and seemed about to get dragged into an extremely troublesome and difficult matter.
"Yes. In the Adventurers' Guild, there is a book called 'The World's Most Vile and Wicked Demon King Army Tactics and Strategies, Volume 9,' and something similar was written in it. Though it's less a curse and more the use of venomous insects...."
SWISH!
Suddenly.
The knight in black armor swung his sword toward me.
Lucius immediately leaped out beside me to protect me, but....
Thwack!
"I appreciate the help, but please give some warning."
Rosemas's arrow pierced a venomous insect flying in from behind me.
The thing that had burst out of the burning goat corpse had lunged at me, and the black knight had been about to cut it down with his sword.
"Lucius. This person wasn't trying to attack me. Don't misunderstand."
"Ah. I apologize, Knight."
"......."
The black knight silently retrieved the sword that had grazed past the back of my neck.
The gleam of eyes faintly visible beneath the helmet seemed to glare at me, or perhaps seemed to be angry at Lucius.
'That's understandable.'
She had tried to save me as quickly as possible, but it had looked as if she were attacking.
She had every reason to be annoyed at Lucius.
"Witch, shall I completely destroy that thing?"
Rosemas aimed her bow at the goat corpse.
She was poised to shoot down every venomous insect with wind arrows the moment it emerged.
"...First, how about we deal with the cursed goat, and then discuss the phenomenon afterward? We too have only been in this village for a day and were in the middle of gathering information."
"Hmm.... Understood, Lady. Well...."
In that moment, I noticed Rapid glancing at the black knight.
I had guessed from skill and instinct that the black knight was the higher-ranking person, but it seemed that the decision-making authority in all situations lay with the black knight.
"...Let's go to the village chief's residence."
"......?"
A woman's voice.
It was surprising enough to hear a woman's voice from inside the black knight's helmet, but the fact that it was a voice I seemed to have heard somewhere left me slightly flustered.
"!!"
"Lucius, what's wrong?"
"M-Master. That's...."
Lucius, who had been flustered for a while as he sheathed his sword, looked back and forth between me and the black knight, then squeezed his eyes shut once and shook his head.
"...It's nothing."
"Really? I thought something was bothering you."
"What's bothering me is...."
Lucius glanced at the black knight several times as he continued speaking.
"...I don't know who that black knight is, but it seemed like she was trying to attack you, Master."
"She wasn't?"
"W-Well, the thing is...."
Lucius's voice sank low.
"...The moment I mistakenly stepped in to protect you, the moment our swords clashed, it seemed like that intent was imbued in the tip of her sword."
The person who had extended her sword to help me tried to harm me after Lucius blocked her?
"...That's hard to believe. Still, fine, I'll be careful. Since it's you saying it."
"Thank you, Master."
While walking to the village chief's house, Lucius openly displayed hostility toward the black knight.
* * *
A short while later.
Black Lotus, who had temporarily taken an empty room at the inn—
Clang!
No, Droniel Odron roughly hurled her helmet and mask onto the bed.
"......That damn bitch."
Droniel recalled the witch who had stood there composedly.
"She's already got Lucius wrapped around her finger...!"
Droniel knew what the witch had experienced in the Hero Village.
Because she had been present at the scene where the Holy Sword was awakened, she had some idea of what kind of being the witch was.
So she had tried to help.
Because she was a hero working for humanity, after all.
But....
"Lucius...!"
Lucius had thrown himself to protect the witch like an automaton.
He had drawn his sword and clearly displayed hostility toward her, and Droniel truly did not like that.
It was a misunderstanding, but Lucius had displayed hostility.
And aside from that, she truly did not like how the witch had looked utterly transcendent, as if she herself were safe from any threat whatsoever.
The faith, the certainty, as if she believed that no matter when or where she fell into danger, Lucius would come running to save her.
Seeing that, Droniel could not help but be angry.
No.
What made her angriest was....
"Lucius...!"
That her childhood friend, with whom she had spent over ten years in the village, could not even remember her voice after so little time had passed.
She had never shown her face, but the fact that the quick-witted Lucius, distracted by the witch and the elf, did not recognize her made her angriest of all.
"...Huff, huff. Fine.... Let's see you try, then."
Droniel pressed the mask back on.
"Let's see who wins. Yes. I'll show you. The completely changed me... Droniel Odron."
* * *
"Arthur."
Rosemas approached Lucius, who was alone getting some air.
"Um... wasn't she someone you know?"
"Pardon?"
"That black knight from earlier. It seemed like you said something right after hearing her voice...."
"...You heard that?"
"Ah, n-no! I-I didn't mean to hear it, it's just that elf ears...."
"...Rosemas."
Lucius grabbed Rosemas by the shoulders.
"Please treat her as a stranger."
"...She's someone you know, but is that okay?"
"She's from the same village. She knows what this is."
Lucius pointed with his eyes at his ring.
"I don't know why she's dressed like that, but if she hid her identity herself, there's probably another reason."
"...I see. Understood, Arthur."
"Please, Rosemas."
Lucius met Rosemas's gaze with an extremely serious face.
"If Master finds out that that woman is someone I know... she'll definitely try to put her in this party—"
"That woman? Ooh, Rosemas knows nothing."
"......."
"What's the matter, Witch?"
"No. Just... I got a chill down my spine."
What is it.
Is it a draft?