312

Chapter 312: Tell Them (6)

Daniel chewed his lip as he stood before the Hero, who had returned and begun fulfilling her duty despite surely having spent most of her Divine Power fighting the Great Demon.

Of course, it was not because she made him uncomfortable or because he felt inferior. If anything, a Hero who overcame a crisis through self-sacrificing devotion was someone to admire or thank, not a target for jealousy or envy.

“The Lord’s side is asking whether we can expand the purification zone. How should we answer?”

“I am fine, but… what about the Temple? Do you have enough power?”

“Thanks to the Representative dealing with the most urgent areas first….”

What made him uneasy was something else. For example, the place the Hero must have visited before coming here, or the person with whom she had dealt there.

“Priest, please let me go. My family—my children are still out there…!”

“You cannot. If you leave this place…!”

“Let go! Please let me go, Priest!!”

“Someone help with this person…!”

“Please, calm yourself for a moment.”

Daniel did not want to become someone who failed to perform his duty because he was preoccupied with a person he did not love—someone he was closer to hating. And so, following the task entrusted to him, he subdued the rampaging resident.

Naturally, he did not treat the person harshly. Someone who had merely become agitated after being separated from family in an emergency was very different from an ordinary criminal.

“I will find your family. So please do not worry and wait here. If you go outside, you will instead place your family in greater danger, Brother.”

“Priest….”

By displaying his Inquisitor’s insignia, Daniel secured the resident’s trust, then used a calm voice to lower the man’s agitation.

“Would you tell me where your family lives, or where they are likely to be?”

“We—we run a shop in the commercial district… so they’re probably there….”

“Understood. I will personally go to that area.”

Moreover, the experience he had accumulated during his tenure as an Inquisitor—a period neither long nor short—allowed him to conduct the kind of conversation he needed, one that looked skillful to others.

The resident, who had been uncertain because of Daniel’s youthful face, finally yielded.

“Please. I beg you, Priest….”

“Yes. I will be sure to bring them here. So please wait here without worrying.”

If he said this and failed to save the family, all their resentment would turn upon him… but that was akin to the fate of every Inquisitor.

After offering the resident one last reassurance, Daniel returned to where he had been. It was a rest area made so soldiers and priests could at least catch their breath before venturing beyond the purified zone.

“Good work. Rest for a moment. And you lot! Depart immediately!”

“Captain! There’s a dispute on Fifth Street!”

“Goddamn it…! Who still has strength left?”

Of course, it was not a place where one could do nothing but rest. It served both as the staging ground for rotating personnel and as a waiting area from which anyone needed to respond to a sudden variable was indiscriminately pulled.

Inquisitors, priests, soldiers, volunteers, and even mages and knights. Regardless of background or profession, whatever personnel seemed necessary at the moment were called out.

“We came prepared to die fighting demons, yet the things we actually have to fight are residents and the plague. It feels very strange.”

Then a knight who had just returned sat beside him. Daniel was not sitting in a chair, but in any case, it was the place beside him.

“…That cannot be helped.”

Daniel glanced at the knight with the solemn and gloomy expression particular to Inquisitors. The volunteer knight from Manhapelt was fairly advanced in age and brought Daniel’s deceased father to mind for no reason.

Attributing the nausea in his stomach to the smoke, Daniel heavily closed his eyes.

“Fighting a demon includes not only facing the demon itself, but also struggling against what it leaves behind.”

“Indeed. That is true as well.”

Then he opened his eyes again and checked his equipment. If only to keep his promise to the resident, he had to prepare to depart.

But he had spoken with the resident immediately after returning from a completed assignment, and he was in poor condition. He had nearly exhausted the water provided to him, and inhaling smoke while burning corpses had made him nauseated. Exhaustion and hunger went without saying.

“…You still appear young, yet you seem accustomed to situations like this, Inquisitor.”

But when one worked as an Inquisitor, situations like this were far from uncommon. Enduring other people’s emotions while one’s own body was in the worst possible condition, forcing oneself to move for their sake, even an Inquisitor pursuing a demon after losing family—

“If it appears so, I am glad. It means I am performing my duty properly.”

Or being robbed even of the opportunity to take revenge on the one believed to be responsible—these were all things an Inquisitor had to endure.

“Oh dear. I did not mean it as an insult. I apologize.”

“I did not take it as an insult, but I accept your apology.”

But very occasionally—more precisely, at this very moment—

Daniel thought that fact was truly difficult to bear. All the more so because before he was an Inquisitor, he was a person, a weak human unable to become God’s perfect servant.

“…I will be going now.”

“May God watch over you.”

It hurt. It truly hurt.

He had been unable to influence his enemy’s death in any way. Worse, it had never been clear in the first place whether that being truly was his enemy.

If only the other party had been a complete demon and an unmistakable murderer, Daniel could at least have rejoiced that there would be no more victims.

“Where should I go next?”

Daniel recalled the silent bulk of the monster and the praise for someone that had rung from the city wall. He chewed over those shouts, which made him feel more suffocated and stoked his resentment further.

His enemy—the one who was probably his enemy—was so damnably heroic that Daniel could not even resent him in peace.

“Um, are you certain you are all right? If I recall correctly, you returned only a short time ago….”

“It does not matter.”

If, then, he could feel neither the release of resentment nor any relief, he would instead work so brutally that he could no longer think. He lacked the confidence to overcome this pain, so he would at least look away from it and postpone facing it.

Daniel ultimately made that decision. The command-rank soldier coordinating the personnel looked bewildered, but Daniel lacked the capacity to consider him. After insisting several times, he obtained what he wanted.

“H-huh?!”

“L-look at that!”

Yet even at the end of that self-abuse and overwork, there was no salvation of the kind he wanted.

“…He was alive.”

No. That was not right. Daniel simply had not wanted it, but from another perspective, perhaps it was salvation.

“He was alive.”

Before the surging Demonic Energy, before the news that the person he had thought of again and again had survived, Daniel smiled as though crying. An emotion no one could share and words could not explain churned inside his chest, horribly thick and clinging.

“He was alive….”

Too mixed with hatred to be called relief, too negative to be called joy, and too mixed with elation to be called sorrow, the emotion fell along the corners of his eyes and his cheeks.

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There was something unreal about the sight of Ratel’s gaping mouth swallowing the Behemoth.

I approached while watching the boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant gradually shrink. The white hill that had swollen to an immense size rapidly contracted into a round form resembling a glutinous rice cake.

“It really disappeared….”

For the record, Deathbringer was behind me. He had returned from delivering my message to the city and had been forced to come back if only to tell me their response.

I had warned him it was dangerous and told him to keep his distance, so there was a gap of nearly thirty meters between us.

‘Now I can use it whenever I’m in trouble.’

In any case, all I had to do now was retrieve Ratel, rejoin Deathbringer, and return to the city. After confirming that Deathbringer remained still, I extended an arm toward the rice-cake-shaped Ratel.

[…I am certain you are the only person who collects the corpses he kills as though they were potions.]

Wrath sounded appalled.

‘Surely not.’

But that felt unfair. Any Korean who called himself a gamer—or beyond that, anyone who knew how to pursue efficiency—would mostly act like me, wouldn’t they?

Of course, even I would have felt revulsion if this had been a human corpse. But it was the corpse of a demon.

Was it because demons were so different from humans, or because they were harmful in every possible way? Whatever the reason, treating a demon’s corpse as an item or material did not particularly prick my conscience. Using it this way did not feel especially strange.

That was even more true when I considered the might of the foes I had confronted until now.

Honestly, I was not the strange one. The difficulty of these damned demons was what was strange. Shouldn’t I be allowed at least this much of a trick?

‘You demons would use a loophole like this too.’

And anyway, even someone who was neither a gamer nor Korean could have thought of a trick like this, couldn’t they?

[Sorry, but no.]

‘…Why?’

No, seriously, why? If there were a means to recover Mana, it would give them an advantage in battle, yet they did not use it? Was it because they cherished members of their own kind?

[…The damned king did regulate it, but there are also very few demons capable of contacting the ancient magic. Fewer still can draw upon it whenever they wish.]

‘Then why can you?’

[I merely made use of the contract’s unique properties. Ordinarily, I would not have been able to use it this frequently. Even if I could, I would not have done so.]

While I remained silent for a moment, trying to understand what that meant, Wrath, who had been floating in the air, abruptly straightened up. I could feel the mood change against my skin.

[Which brings me to this, Gretchen. Why don’t you reduce your abuse of the ancient magic? This is sincere advice.]

I took care with my gaze so I would not look strange to Deathbringer. The glutinous-rice-cake Ratel in my hand changed into the familiar shape of a zweihander in accordance with the Demonic Energy I poured into it.

Wrath’s gaze beyond the transforming Ratel was clear.

[Ancient magic is a power beyond the concepts of beings like humans or demons. And convenience without a price does not exist in this world. Still less does the absolute force governing the universe allow itself to be helplessly exploited by a mere human.]

「Don’t listen. That thing just wants to make the nine years you’ll spend here more uncomfort—」

[Moreover, though you suffer no immediate harm, is it truly good for a mere human to confront such an immense concept so often? It may not compare to direct exposure, but forming a contract means that the powers of the two sides mix. Will that truly bring only positive effects?]

Faust tried to interrupt midway, but Wrath did not stop. That voice usually held at least a hint of laughter, but now it was utterly flat and rigid.

「Th-that isn’t true! I certainly feel an immense power when I make a contract, but it has never harmed me or…!」

[As you also know… there are as many tales as stars in the sky about humans who relied upon powers such as gods or the will of the universe and fell to ruin. And when many similar tales exist, there is always a reason.]

「Th-that thing is exaggerating! There is absolutely, absolutely no…!」

[So, my dear Gretchen, I hope you will take care not to let one more such tale come into being. I have no desire to be crushed to death beneath that immense power.]

Perhaps deciding that he could never win through words, Faust popped into existence and wildly waved his arms atop my hand. But I had already heard everything the other party said.

「It really, really is all right…!」

‘Y-yeah. All right. I understand, so calm down….’

While calming Faust, I pretended to look at Ratel and shifted my gaze toward Wrath. That bastard certainly knew how to talk. After hearing those words, my feelings had become somewhat complicated.

「…You don’t believe that thing, do you?」

‘…Who knows.’

「I—I’m truly all right…!!」

‘I know. I’m only thinking it over.’

I did not want to fall for the bastard’s schemes. But the subject Wrath had raised carried too much weight for me to dismiss lightly.

After all, even abusing medicine damaged the body, and misusing money and power could destroy a life. What, then, of a force governing the world?

I distrusted Wrath only because that bastard so often toyed with truth and lies. This was clearly a subject that deserved caution. I did not want to become one of those common human figures in mythology.

That did not mean I would become an idiot who hoarded his cards at a decisive moment because he feared something uncertain.

‘More importantly, your life must be exhausting.’

[…That came out of nowhere.]

‘Because you have a history of lying as naturally as breathing, everyone suspects you even when you speak with good intentions. Just as I do now.’

How does this creature even live? I clicked my tongue at the being who personally demonstrated the danger of the boy who cried wolf. The lesson of what not to do came as an added bonus. I would never live that way.

[What are you talking about…?]

Naturally, Wrath was dumbfounded. But just as they could not understand my life, neither could I understand theirs. That was all.

I shook my head slightly and looked toward Faust.

‘Don’t live like that.’

「…What?」

‘You don’t need to be honest at every moment, but don’t live by speaking nothing but lies at every moment either. In the end, that becomes poison to you as well.’

And Wrath was the archetypal example of ‘something that becomes poison to oneself.’ After making sure Faust understood that, I slowly turned around. If I stood still any longer, Deathbringer would begin to wonder. In truth, enough time had passed for him to be suspicious already.

“Let’s return.”

“Yes, sir.”

Still, I did not intend to hide the fact that I could see Wrath. I could explain on our way back.

With Wrath and Faust hanging behind me, both looking dissatisfied, I mounted the horse Deathbringer had brought. I had no idea whom I would encounter in the city.