Prologue: Lusei Remembers

The girl had been looking forward to today more than anyone.

She ran full tilt along the cobblestone road, shifting her wings in excitement. She rushed past vermilion-colored pillars, eager to see her mother, whom she dearly loved.

In her excitement, she went slower than she thought, her mind racing faster than her body. Perception and reality could differ like that—though, as a young girl, she obviously didn’t understand that much.

She stumbled and tripped time and time again, focused entirely on her frantic rush forward. But she paid it no heed, continuing her way to her mother.

Today, the girl would become an older sister.

Her mother had gone into labor the previous night, and the whole household had been running around frantically since.

About a month ago, a family servant who took care of her had told her, “You’re going to have a sibling soon. You’ll be a big sister.”

The moment she’d heard that, the girl—Lusei—had scrambled onto her bed and started jumping for joy.

Ever since then, she’d been waiting for today to come.

There were so many stories she couldn’t wait to tell her new sibling, so many songs and poems she couldn’t wait to show them, so many beloved spots she couldn’t wait to take them to.

She didn’t know yet whether her new sibling would be a brother or a sister, but she’d done her best to study and prepare despite her young age, memorizing as much as she could, all for today.

Lusei was usually such a shy, reserved girl. It was rare for her to be so proactive. Those around the girl had simply watched her go about her mission, warm smiles on their faces.

Reufayl were quick to mature mentally. Their minds developed quicker than their bodies.

By age three, a reufayl child was as smart as a ten-year-old human. That was partly why Lusei had put together all of these plans to prepare for the day her new sibling would come into the world.

But ultimately, she was still a child, so she hadn’t noticed the large flaw in her plans. Even if she told a newborn baby all these stories she’d prepared, the baby would have no idea what she was saying. Reufayl didn’t take long to learn language, but they weren’t that quick. It was going to be a pointless endeavor.

All the same, Lusei felt like she had to do something for her new sibling. It was her own form of kindness.

* * *

After tripping three more times in a corridor and bumping into someone along the way, Lusei eventually made it to her mother’s room.

She paused outside to catch her breath, then gingerly opened the door. It was heavy for a little girl like her.

“Father! Mother!” she called out, her voice much more energetic than usual.

But when she entered the room, she immediately noticed something was off about her parents.

Her father, Raphon Imara, had a terrifying look on his face. She’d never seen him like this before. Everyone else seemed somehow cold as well.

“Wh-What’s happening? Explain it to me!”

“I don’t know. But it’s almost like she—”

“No. Meia is royalty. She needs permission to go out... There’s no way she could’ve snuck in a human.”

“Could she have bribed a retainer to— No. I can’t imagine how. Especially since her money’s handled by the family’s treasurers and her lady-in-waiting. And she has guards with her when she goes out. Which must mean...”

“It’s a changeling. A faerie’s prank...”

Lusei didn’t understand. It was all too complicated for her. She had peeked into the room from the doorway, eager to see her newborn sibling, but it didn’t take long for realization to dawn on her. To figure out why the adults looked so stern.

“Where... Where are her wings?”

Lusei’s newborn sibling—her sister, apparently—didn’t have the wings that every reufayl was born with.

Lusei had wings. As did her father, and her mother. This didn’t make any sense.

She understood now why the adults were so bewildered.

* * *

That same day, rumors about the Imara family began to spread in broad daylight, some outright slanderous. Lusei’s mother’s family—the royal family—got caught up in it too, and eventually, all the blame was pinned on Lusei’s mother, Meia.

A year later, Meia was sentenced to exile. But before the day of her exile came, she vanished one day without warning.

Nobody had heard from her since.

* * *

A... A dream. Just a dream. But why now...

It was a nostalgic dream for Lusei, but a sad one too.

Ever since that day, her father Raphon had immersed himself in his work. It had been a similar story for Lusei, who’d devoted herself to strict training and studies as the family heir.

The days passed one after another, and before she realized it, she’d almost forgotten about her mother.

Until today.

It’s a bit late. All of that has nothing to do with me anymore. But...

A rumor had spread through the royal household that Meia—who’d been born a princess of the royal family and married into the Imara household—had been unfaithful, conceiving a child with a human man.

It was clear, however, that the rumor was nothing but baseless conjecture. There was no real proof.

As part of the royal family, Meia hadn’t been permitted to go out without guards; she was always surrounded by other reufayl. Not to mention, spies had their eye on her around the clock. Infidelity was simply inconceivable.

If she had wanted to cheat, every person around her would have had to have been in cahoots, which seemed clearly impossible.

But apparently, broader society disagreed. Ultimately, with the family unable to clear the fog of suspicion, Meia had been exiled.

Where is my mother now? No. I don’t have the right to know...

Lusei’s nickname, the Shadowsky General, wasn’t for nothing. Nowadays, she possessed the authority to mobilize intelligence services, if she wanted to.

If she did, she probably would have been able to find her mother by now. And yet, she hadn’t.

Because she was scared of learning the truth.

And given the real possibility that her mother was no longer of this world, she just couldn’t bring herself to take the leap.

Even thinking about it left her with a heavy heart.

“General Lusei. We’ve received an urgent message from the capita— Ah. Sorry. I didn’t know you were on break.”

“It’s fine. I was just taking a short nap.”

“No, no; I know how busy you’ve been lately. I’d be more surprised if you weren’t exhausted.”

“The ride’s not exactly comfortable enough for a decent sleep. So—what’s the urgent message you mentioned?”

“Here... Something to do with monsters, apparently. The details are inside.”

Lusei took the scroll from her subordinate and opened it.

“A... A calamity-tier monster has emerged from the Scar of the Dark God? If it’s moving this fast, it must be... Hmm. Well, it seems the Scar’s given us another hassle.”

The Scar of the Dark God was a geographical feature formed in ancient times. A single attack from the Dark God had cleaved a gorge through a mountain range, forming a canyon that served as an eternal reminder of the Dark God’s strength.

“So it’s that thing? How should we respond?”

“Just put the troops on alert for now. Those ‘followers of the gods’ or whatever they call themselves will probably take it out for us.”

“Won’t they be annihilated? I don’t think their ‘Shtomar Keep’ will do them much good...”

“You know, even though they’re our enemies, I pity them. Even I wouldn’t want to fight that thing...”

“For sure.”

This sounded like an emergency, but Lusei didn’t seem too bothered by it.

It was little wonder, really. The reufayl were constantly manning defensive positions along the Scar of the Dark God to fight the calamity-tier monsters that emerged from the canyon. They weren’t the sort to be shaken by something like this.

Especially seeing as they were the strongest race in the world.

“Our guest is still the top priority for now. Anyway, my break’s over. I’ll take over guarding the heroes’ carriage for a while.”

“Of course. I’ll bring the front line the order to put the troops on alert.”

With that, Lusei’s subordinate headed off to make another report.

As Lusei had said, their priority was ensuring their guest from the Magic Kingdom of Solistia made it safely to the capital.

The two nations were hoping to grow closer from here on out, after all.

Chapter 1: The Old Guy Arrives in Asuura, Capital of Artom

Dark clouds filled the sky.

As lightning flashed, thunder crashed, and heavy rain poured down, it surveyed the ground from up in the air.

It was an enormous lump of writhing flesh, shaped like a hideous, humanoid head made from entrails. This was the sinister life-form that would later be known as the Dark God.

Directly beneath, an army of steel numbering in the tens of thousands stood against the entity. The army began firing intense flashes of light at its fleshy foe.

Their forces included six-legged steel walking tanks and fighter aircraft that ripped through the sky. These forces were the pinnacle of magical engineering—yet they were utterly inconsequential in the face of the Dark God.

An impenetrable, invisible wall stopped every one of their missiles and cannonballs.

The lump of flesh gathered mana in a hole that looked like some massive mouth, then fired a beam of scorching light. Immediately, the ground troops in its path went up in flames, and that was the end of them.

It was completely one-sided. It was no longer even a fight—just a slaughter.

The floating lump of flesh mercilessly wiped out the troops on the ground, like an elephant stepping on ants. This was humanity’s worst nightmare.

Flames swept over the earth, forming a firestorm that engulfed the soldiers on the ground. The fighter jets, out of ammunition, resorted to ramming the abomination in suicide attacks, exploding on impact. But despite their desperate efforts, the Dark God continued to float completely unharmed, as if it were mocking the soldiers who dared to defy its onslaught.

Hopeless grieving, resolute sacrifice; both were equally meaningless here. The soldiers were throwing their lives away in vain.

As if avenging the fallen soldiers, an orbital strike satellite fired powerful arrows of light at the Dark God one after another. Each tore through the battlefield on impact, their explosions and shock waves on par with those created by nuclear warheads.

But even the most powerful weapons could not damage the Dark God.

That grotesque head emerged from the explosions unscathed, driving the remaining soldiers to despair.

Light converged in the Dark God’s “mouth,” and another beam shot straight through the battlefield, rending the earth. An entire city, home to tens of thousands, was erased in an instant. The heat melted rock and dirt into lava, which flowed across the area like a tidal wave.

And the Dark God’s mighty attack hadn’t just destroyed an entire city. It had continued beyond, boring through the mountain range that lay behind.

Again, the monster struck. This attack split as it traveled, each prong surging toward military sites around the world. Before long, each target went up in a huge explosion and vanished. Each annihilation was recorded by military satellites and relayed to the central system of various cities. From these records, they knew each military site attacked had held a hero summoning sigil—sigils that, had they survived, would have drained enough mana from the land to desertify the continent.

Just like that, the battle at the third defensive front was over in a mere three hours, resulting in the loss of the allied force of many different races.

This was part of the ancient advanced civilization’s final stand against the Dark God, an event that would later be called the Dark God War.

The records included no evidence of summoned heroes from another world sealing away the Dark God. In contrast, there was clear confirmation that abnormally evolved creatures began appearing around the world following the war, restricting the space in which humanity could survive.

Civilization declined rapidly, and eventually, humanity was forced to scrape by in limited areas—bringing us to the present day.

* * *

“Th-There’s no way anyone could beat that thing, right?!” the heroes cried out as they watched the projected footage.

“Ah—yeah, you think so too?” Zelos replied, holding the crystal ball that projected the footage. “I have to say I’m with you there. It’s a little out of hand...”

Since they’d just been sitting inside a carriage with time to kill, Zelos had decided to watch the battle footage he’d found in Isa Lante with the heroes. After the system had mysteriously designated him a city administrator, he’d been able to take the footage—which depicted an ancient battle with the Dark God—out of the city with him.

Although they sat around the carriage as if it were a movie night, their little viewing made it clear that the Dark God was far beyond anything humans could handle. These heroes, of course, had originally been summoned to defeat the Dark God, or so they’d been told. But the footage made it abundantly clear they didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.

“This ain’t just a matter of ‘levels,’ is it...”

“No kidding... If Metis tried forcing us to fight this thing, we’d have a much easier time trying to revolt instead.”

“I... I just want to run away. I’m so glad we got captured, Jun...”

“Couldn’t have said it any better, Yukari. There’s no way we can beat that. It’s just insane...”

Now that they’d seen footage of the Dark God in action, the heroes were intimately aware of how absurdly powerful an enemy they’d been close to having to fight. Even with all the fantasy staples of sacred swords and ultimate spells, they couldn’t imagine coming out on top against this thing.

The Dark God was such a dominating presence that things like level differences and weapon quality seemed utterly meaningless.

“I... I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go home...”

“Yukari... We all feel the same way.”

“Tashiro’s right. None of us wanna fight against that crazy thing. Me included.”

“Uh, Kannagi—weren’t you the one going on about how you’re gonna defeat the Dark God?”

“Yeah, that’s...not happening. It’s pretty much a colossal living weapon. No, worse... It’s like the weapon to end all weapons, gone out of control.”

These heroes—Satoru Kannagi, Kota Sakamoto, Yukari Yamazaki, and Jun Tashiro—just wanted to escape from being heroes at all, at this point. Honestly, watching footage like this would probably have made anyone want to flee.

The priests had said the heroes could defeat the Dark God easily with swords and magic, but it was clear that wasn’t the case. Given the Dark God had wiped out an advanced civilization’s strongest weapons in a single attack, it was obviously beyond mortal comprehension.

“Did the Faith mention anything about sacred swords or relics or the like?” Zelos asked. “The legends of the ancient heroes say the Dark God’s power was sealed away using seven sacred weapons, right?”

“What? We’ve... We’ve never heard that before. They showed us a sacred sword, but it was all beat-up; it didn’t look like it was hiding some kind of incredible power inside.”

The Dark God hadn’t fallen even when hit by a particle-beam weapon that far surpassed wide-area annihilation magic. In fact, it didn’t seem to have been harmed at all.

If swords, magic, and prayers were strong enough to take down the Dark God, the Faith of the Four Gods should’ve conquered the world long ago.

“I wonder if that means the heroes’ weapons aren’t meant to defeat the Dark God, but just seal it away?” one of the heroes asked.

“I can’t say for sure,” Zelos replied, “but you’re probably right. At the very least, even someone at the Divine Crafter level—someone at the peak of their trade—wouldn’t be able to make a weapon that could take out an enemy like that.”

“Divine Crafter” was a blanket term referring to crafters who had raised a crafting job skill to the Divine rank—which included Zelos, of course. But even with such impressive craftsmanship, Zelos couldn’t imagine making a weapon that could take down the Dark God. Sure, he and his party had defeated the Dark God in Swords & Sorceries, but he figured they’d probably only been able to do that because the Dark God had been operating under different laws of nature there, preventing it from unleashing its full power.

Otherwise, there was no way a party of five would’ve been able to defeat it, Great Sages or not.

“The Dark God’s not just gonna suddenly pop up somewhere, is it? Apparently, it’s already revived...”

“Who knows? We can’t say for sure. I did hear the base of some mountain got blown up recently...”

Zelos kept silent.

The heroes were talking about the little incident caused by Zelos’s Gluttonous Void gravity magic. But he couldn’t exactly say, “Oh, yeah, whoopsie daisy, that was me!”

And at the same time, the Dark God was in the process of growing anew in a culture tank in his house. It made the topic rather awkward for him.

“The Dark God, huh...?” murmured Lusei, who’d boarded the carriage too to help keep an eye on the heroes. “If something like that does appear, we won’t be able to stop it, I can say that much.”

The mere thought of the Dark God—an entity that had pushed her entire race to the brink of extinction—filled her expression with dread.

“The ancient civilization had such advanced magic—or maybe I should call it magiscience or something—that even their most advanced weapons did nothing against it,” Zelos said. “So maybe we could assume that sealing it away was their only choice.”

“By the way,” Lusei interjected, “is that girl okay? She’s been silent this whole time...”

Zelos and the heroes looked at Yoshino Himejima, whose earlier fire had been all but reduced to ash.

“Well,” Zelos said, “It’s a good thing her childhood friend—her first love—is alive after all this time. But it has to be a real mental blow to learn he’s been all lovey-dovey with the princess of an enemy nation, especially when that princess looks like a little ki—I mean, looks very youthful. Seems like she never knew he was into that sort of thing...”

“Uh... Were you just about to say ‘little kid’?”

Yoshino had lived with the flame of revenge burning in her heart all this time, only for this terrible revelation to snuff it out in an instant. You couldn’t blame her. It’d probably take a while for her to get back on her feet.

She had returned to her senses temporarily, but as time had passed, she’d gotten depressed about it again, and now she was back to looking like a certain burned-out boxer at the end of his final match. Except she wasn’t looking like that after a satisfying fight; it was because she’d fallen into deep despair.

“Did I say something I shouldn’t have?” Lusei asked. “It’s all true, though, so I’m not sure what else I could’ve said...”

“It must be bittersweet, that’s all,” Zelos said. “The truth can be hard to accept sometimes. Especially when it’s about something she’s been agonizing over for so long...”

Reality was crueler—and crazier—than Yoshino had expected.

“Damn it, Kazama...” one of the heroes said. “If you were alive, then why didn’t you try to contact us? And, I mean... So he’s a lolicon, huh?”

“I feel the same, but I doubt he could’ve contacted us. Anyway, this means Himejima’s available now... Yes!”

“Mmm... You’re...Kannagi, was it? See, polygamy’s perfectly fine in this world. There’s still a chance she could be Kazama’s second wife, you know?”

“Wh— WHAT?!”

Yes, this world had a little thing called love syndrome, which made it pretty common for people to have several wives or husbands. Even harems were possible in the right circumstances.

Satoru Kannagi and Kota Sakamoto, who’d never heard this before, clenched their fists in excitement. Even in such dire circumstances, they still dreamed big. Both were teenage boys who thought with their dicks. Their hopes of getting intimate with Yoshino Himejima, however, had disappeared in a flash.

As a sidenote, monogamy was the norm in Metis. People there were forced to pay huge amounts of money as compensation when an onset of love syndrome drove them to defy that norm. Strangely, that money didn’t go to the partner concerned, but rather to the church...

That was apparently done under the pretense that the person had gone against the teachings of the gods—but ultimately, it just meant the Faith collected vast sums of money from anyone who experienced a natural phenomenon. Which, of course, had led to growing dissatisfaction.

“Y-You’re still the only one for me, Yukari.”

“I love you too, Jun!”

“Go die in a fire, you lovebirds!” responded three jealous guys—Satoru, Kota, and Zelos—who couldn’t bear the sight of the happy couple. It was an ugly look.

Their lonely hearts had made them bitter.

“We should be arriving at Asuura soon,” Lusei interrupted. “The heroes will undergo questioning. Now, we have no grudge against you, but I imagine you have your own feelings, no? We don’t intend to take your heads, but mind yourselves. We come from different cultures, after all. I don’t want to see swords drawn over nothing.”

“We know. Metis tricked us, anyway. We’ll need a bit of time to decide what we’re going to do next.”

“Good. We don’t intend to treat you badly. We’ll try to accommodate your requests, within reason.”

The Artom Empire was a hospitable country.

The heroes were relieved to hear of the country’s humane approach, similar to what they were familiar with back in Japan.

“My job’s done as soon as we get to the palace,” Zelos said. “I guess I’ll do some sightseeing or something and head back home.”

Surprisingly, the first one to respond was the burned-out Yoshino: “H-Huh?! You’re leaving already?!”

“I’m only here to escort Earl Ilhans. I was told I’d be free to do whatever I wanted once we reached the capital. I was thinking about taking back a souvenir or two if I found anything interesting.”

“I’m sorry to say, but Artom doesn’t have anything that’d make for a good souvenir. People have their hands full just surviving. For now, at least. Hopefully, we’ll be much more prosperous in the future.”

“Ah. It’s a mountainous country, so I’d hoped there might be something... Not the case, eh?”

“About all we can offer is something like cheese or yogurt. We have some good meat too. Plus, we’ve started making something called ‘ice cream’ lately. Oh, and...soft caramels, was it?”

“What are you, a tourist farm?! Oh, you may have one more thing, now that I think of it—you might have a hot spring opening up. It got dug out by a washing machine. The views could be better, mind you...”

“What do you mean, a washing machine?!” the heroes shouted.

Unaware of the story of how Zelos’s prototype washing machine had excavated a hot spring, the heroes were simply dumbfounded. They had no idea what his words could even mean. A natural response, to be fair.

But before they could get an answer, the dumbfounded heroes and their carriage arrived at the city tucked away in the mountains.

* * *

Asuura, the capital of the Artom Empire, was a strange-looking city that resembled a blend of Western and Eastern architectural styles.

If you had to say, it was probably closest to Chinese architecture, but no one culture from Earth quite fit the bill.

Atop towering castle walls sat vaguely East Asian buildings, beautifully crafted from red brick.

As the carriage passed through the city gate, it entered a plaza enclosed by walls with another gate ahead. With this design, if the city were breached, its defenders could counterattack the invaders from all angles at once.

The easiest comparison might be to the kind of pseudo-Chinese settings that were common in anime. The soldiers, meanwhile, wore Western-style armor, but with designs that incorporated an East Asian sort of flair. It was almost like video game armor.

“This is Chinese architecture, right? The brickwork’s a little different, though... Hey, Kannagi, what do you think?” Kota said.

“You know your stuff, huh? All I know is Kyoto. I wonder if the streets here are on a grid pattern? Like a Go board?”

“Now that you mention it,” Zelos said, “I’ve seen people selling board games like Go and shogi. Did one of you heroes start selling them or something? Some of them seemed pretty expensive.”

“No. We don’t know anything about it.”

“Some of us did actually wonder whether we could get rich by selling chess or something, but...the problem is, people were already doing it.”

“I see, I see. So maybe the previous batch of heroes, then? Or one before them.”

It seemed like every generation of heroes had the same thought.

Speaking of the heroes, two of them—Jun Tashiro and Yukari Yamazaki—were still off in their own little world, flirting away.

“See those clothes, Yukari? I bet you’d look great in them!”

“Really? But they look so embarrassing~!”

“It’s fine! Just think of them like a cheongsam or something!”

“But people would be able to see my legs! And maybe even my underwear...”

“Oh, yeah. We can’t let other people see that, can we? I only want you showing that to me.”

“Aww, you perv... ♡”

And so on, and so forth.

“Y’know, those two are really pissing me off...” Satoru muttered.

“I was about to say the same thing, Kannagi,” Kota replied. “See any good places nearby to dispose of a couple of bodies?”

“Ehe heh heh... Yamazaki sure looks happy,” Yoshino said. “Wish I could share some of my misery with her...”

The naive couple fanned the anger burning in the hearts of the heartbroken and the lifelong loners alike.

The couple didn’t have any ill will, but they were still doing a splendid job of stoking jealousy and darkness alike.

Zelos was no exception. Watching them was starting to get on his nerves.

“Hmm... This place at least seems more well-off than the nearby Kingdom of Isalas I’ve heard about. While I’m here, I figure I should try some strange local food. Any recommendations, Lusei?”

“How about fried pupae? We deep-fry silkworm pupae after we harvest their silk. You can also get killer bee or giant ant larvae—simmer them for long enough, and they make a great soup.”

“Ah... Yeah, I’ve heard of stuff like that before. Deep-frying larvae until they puff up.”

Swords & Sorceries had included strange foods too, but Zelos remembered them being surprisingly tasty.

Fried larvae were golden brown like deep-fried bread; they hardly looked like bugs at all, which made them easier to eat. If you didn’t know better, you might think they were some kind of fried pastry with vegetable soup inside.

Mmm... Yeah, I do remember something like that—which reinforces my idea that this world was the basis for Swords & Sorceries. There weren’t any heroes in that, though... Wait. Huh?

At that point, Zelos realized something strange about what he’d heard from the heroes.

“You guys mentioned Kazama was a mage, right? How’d he learn his magic? I can’t exactly imagine Metis buying him spell scrolls, given they hate magic so much...”

“Huh? Don’t mages learn magic automatically as they level up?” Yoshino said.

“What? No, this isn’t a game. Things don’t work like that. I’ll spare you the full explanation, but essentially, mages buy spell scrolls and learn their magic from those. In which case... Did he get his hands on some spell scrolls somehow? I’m impressed, Kazama. What are you, the protagonist of a fantasy novel?”

Mages could learn magic by buying spell scrolls. And since spell scrolls were prohibited in Metis, Takumi Kazama shouldn’t have been able to learn new spells.

That meant he’d probably discovered spell scrolls hidden somewhere and used them to grow stronger in secret. As Zelos had quipped, it really was like something a protagonist would get up to.

“By the way... You’re a higher level than us, right, Zelos? What dungeon did you level up in? If you know a good method for leveling up, I’d love to hear it.”

“Ah... See, I came to this world under different conditions. I was already at a high level when I got here! As for dungeons... Well, I could probably clear most of them solo, if I had to guess. Don’t think I could beat the Dark God, though.”

That sparked a unanimous thought among the five heroes: Why are we even here?

Sure, heroes could acquire some amazing abilities, but they still arrived at Level 1. And however high they raised their overall level, they didn’t stand a chance at beating a reincarnator if their common skills were at low levels. Plus, despite being called heroes, they still needed a fair amount of training to increase those skill levels.

At the end of the day, while the heroes were Level 500, their skill levels were low, so they didn’t get the corresponding bonuses. In turn, their strength was only so-so.

If they ever did max out their common skills, though, they’d be able to exhibit a superhuman level of power in this world.

“It’s hard for you to raise your skill levels, isn’t it?” Zelos mused. “If you’re talking combat jobs, then at least you’ve got some options, but with crafting jobs, the only way to raise your levels is to fail over and over again—which also requires money. Anyway, I get it now... Your common skill levels are low, so you don’t get any great bonuses from them. And that’s why you’re all still weak, huh? Take you for example, Kannagi—you’re a swordsman, but you didn’t put up much of a fight, did you?”

“You’re absolutely right... As soon as we started getting kinda strong, they pushed all of these odd jobs onto us, and we didn’t have time to go into dungeons anymore. And those of us who were summoned as crafters to begin with were forced to learn how to fight.”

“Maybe they never even wanted you to raise your skill levels in the first place? They wouldn’t want their pawns to be stronger than they are.”

Zelos figured that the Faith had intended to crush the heroes sooner or later from the very beginning.

C’mon, you really should’ve realized some of this earlier. Why even agree to take on a suspicious job like “hero”? And especially if you started as a crafter, it should’ve been obvious you’d always be better suited to crafting than fighting, however hard you tried.

When heroes raised their common skills, they’d get about twice as much of a bonus from the skill levels as the average person from this world—but that still wouldn’t be enough to match up to the reincarnators. There was just that much of a gap between the two groups.

The reufayl, meanwhile, were the ones born in this world who could exceed Level 1,000. This was because, back in the era of mythology, they were the first race to have been created, and they’d been tasked with managing the world in lieu of the God of Creation.

Or at least, that was the story; by this point, it was such ancient history that there was no way of confirming it. But there were apparently reufayl above Level 900, at least, so it made sense to assume they had the Limit Breaker skill.

Of course, that was all assuming that things worked the same here as they did in Swords & Sorceries.

“Zelos, I’d like to start heading to the palace about now...” Lusei said. “But I imagine you’re tired after traveling so long, yes? I’ll arrange a room for you as soon as we arrive.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about that. My job was escorting the earl to the palace, so I’ll leave the rest to you guys. I was going to do a bit of sightseeing and then head home.”

“What are you saying? We’d like you to come to the palace too. We’ll want to get your account of the ambush by the heroes. It’ll help us decide what to do with them.”

“You’re kidding... Why does this keep happening?!”

This new mess he’d gotten caught up in meant he wouldn’t be going home quite yet.

* * *

The Crimson Cabal was a shadowy group of priests formed over many years. It consisted of a bunch of zealots possessed by the grandiose idea that they were the disciples of the Four Gods, though they weren’t a formal faction within the Faith.

It was a wretched, awful group that looked down on other races with scorn and haughty arrogance.

Members of the Cabal were dispatched to churches and temples throughout the land. They blended in among regular priests as they completed their dirty work.

Cabal members were most commonly part of the Inquisition, where their official goal was to shepherd heretics back to the righteous path. In reality, though, they dealt with anyone the church wanted gone.

They cracked down on priests who went against doctrine, which usually entailed framing anyone whose presence inconvenienced the Faith and giving them a death sentence under the guise of “justice.” They were essentially hit men.

They were also given divine pardons for whatever they did, so they were free to sin and commit any crimes they pleased in exchange for carrying out the Faith’s dirty work. Long story short, there were no decent people in the Crimson Cabal.

And a number of these zealots were at Shtomar Keep.

“You’re telling me the enemy captured the heroes?”

“Yes... We also failed to assassinate Himejima. And we confirmed the presence of a mage we believe is a reincarnator.”

“What?”

The Faith viewed gods outside of the Four as evil—no different from the Dark God—and regarded reincarnators as the vanguard of those evil deities. The presence of a reincarnator was a sign of calamity.

“We only spotted him from a distance, but he intervened in a fight between Himejima and the Black-Winged Demon. He managed to stop them too, so we believe he’s stronger than both. He was part of the escort squad from Solistia.”

“Solistia, you say... What an infuriating development. So, tell me—how would you describe this supposed reincarnator?”

“He looks like a mage, but I believe he’s capable of melee combat as well. He did, after all, leap into a sword fight involving a hero, and manage to mediate it without even taking a scratch. He’s a dangerous man. And... He possesses a matchlock of his own.”

“What?!”

Technically, Zelos’s new weapon was not a matchlock but a “dragon buster”—not that these two were aware of that distinction. Any knowledge relating to magic was heresy to them.

The “Black-Winged Demon” was Lusei. The Faith of the Four Gods saw both winged races and beastfolk as demonic.

“So... You’re telling me Solistia has matchlocks?”

“I believe it’s likely... And theirs seem far more advanced than ours. In the time it took us to fire a single shot, that man had fired numerous.”

“Good grace! This is cause for concern... How are we supposed to overwhelm the small nations’ militaries if they have those?! Especially if they’re forming ties with the land of the demons...”

“Worse still, a single shot from his weapon formed a crater on impact. They have an overwhelming advantage in firepower.”

“Guh... Information will be crucial to properly recreate the technology the heroes informed us of. But now, it sounds like we’re at a disadvantage on the information front. Does magic technology truly have such an advantage over the technology of humans? This is maddening...”

“This is where those heretic mages shine, after all. It’s only natural we’d be at a disadvantage. Which is precisely what makes them such a nuisance to deal with...”

All of a sudden, gunshots rang out.

CHK! RA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA!

“Wh-What’s going on?!”

Over the sound of gunshots, they could hear the Order of Paladins rushing around the place. There was obviously some sort of emergency.

Hoping to get a grasp of the situation, the priest and the paladin dashed out of the room. Outside, they saw a swarm of black monsters covering the keep’s walls.

The monsters assailed the paladins in swarms, devouring them alive. The defenders tried to fight back with matchlocks, but the creatures’ hard exoskeletons deflected the bullets, leaving them entirely undamaged.

“Don’t tell me these are...”

“The same things that appeared when we attacked the Artom Empire...”

These monstrous, giant insects could scale walls effortlessly and use their sharp, shiny jaws to rummage through carrion.

They were Mother Nature’s ultimate janitors, and they moved in swarms.

And the clincher was...

VVVVVVVVVVVV...

The low-pitched buzz of wings echoed throughout the keep.

A particularly huge insect, more than thirty meters long, came into view.

Even though it simply hovered in the air, the shock waves of its beating wings destroyed the walls of Shtomar Keep.

As the stones shattered apart, an army of black insects emerged.

“A... A great givleon?! And it’s a... A Hell’s Legion!”

A Hell’s Legion was a swarm of similar monsters led by a gigantic specimen in its final stage of evolution—in this case, a great givleon.

It was a calamity as destructive as a monster stampede. And it had just hit Shtomar Keep.

The givleons were only scouring the land for food—but to humans, they were a terrifying threat. And they’d perceived this enormous keep as a feeding ground.

On this day in history, Shtomar Keep was destroyed by a Hell’s Legion.

Every last paladin stationed there was devoured—and then the Hell’s Legion, led by a great givleon, went back to searching for more prey.

The swarm moved on, tens of thousands of monsters hungry for more...

Chapter 2: The Old Guy Goes to the Castle for Some Reason

Fotrahn, capital of the Magic Kingdom of Solistia, was a fortified city with a circular wall and powerful magical defenses.

In the middle of the city sat Fotrahn Castle, which had recently been rebuilt. It was a famous tourist attraction, its white walls and masterful architecture having earned it the nickname “Whitewing Castle.”

But it wasn’t just a beautiful sightseeing destination—it was also the royal family’s residence. Additionally, as the center of the nation’s government, it served as the backdrop to day-to-day government affairs and bothersome political squabbles alike.

In a room in that castle, the nation’s king, Arhant lud Clausoras Solistia, was meeting with a group of ministers and prominent nobles.

“To think that an ancient city has survived to this day...”

“And now, I imagine it will become an important transportation hub. However, Your Majesty... It could also prove a bit of a thorn in our side, no?”

“Indeed. I expect Metis will try to censure us for it somehow. ‘This city is holy ground under protection of the Gods,’ they’ll say. ‘By rights, it should be ours.’”

“I can see them saying those exact words, especially given news about the Grand Temple of Malthander’s destruction. They could use this as an excuse to relocate their holy city.”

“At the same time, we can hardly agree to hand a precious magic sanctuary over to them. Remember, each time we’ve discovered healing magic in some ruin, they’ve wasted no time confiscating it from us. And while their military may be in decline, they’re still a force to be reckoned with...”

Royals, nobles, and ministers alike were gathered here to discuss the value of the ancient city of Isa Lante. It was a treasure trove to any mages conducting research into magic, for starters. It was also a valuable stopover along the deepway, especially with Solistia working to build alliances with other small nations. Relinquishing control over the city was the last thing Solistia wanted to do.

But Metis still had a military edge over Solistia. If war broke out, countless lives would be lost. Metis was just the stronger country.

“I would be surprised if Metis didn’t find some pretense to seize the territory. They have a history of doing just that. What’s your view on the situation, Duke Delthasis?”

“I doubt they’ll make a move. They can’t. Their army may be stronger than ours, but they have a decisive weakness. Please, everyone, take a look at the documents I’ve prepared. You’ll understand what I mean.”

“A weakness? Ah, it must be this— What?!”

“I-Is that truly...”

Delthasis didn’t often attend these sorts of meetings, but he always participated when something important was going on.

The Magic Kingdom of Solistia treasured his intelligence network, and his devotion to the country was lauded as a model for all nobles to follow.

He was attending today because he possessed intel that he had to inform the nation of. Creston had discovered a collection of detailed records at Isa Lante, which stated that the effects of the hero summonings had brought the world to the brink of collapse. Moreover, Metis could no longer carry out their summonings, and an earthquake had wreaked devastating damage across the country.

The documents also touched on the true nature of the Four Gods. Delthasis had tasked his subordinates with investigating by any means necessary, using books from places like the Istol Academy of Magic as references.

When your enemy was a major power, it only made sense to search for that enemy’s weakness.

For what it was worth, Zelos hadn’t been involved in this investigation whatsoever.

“The Four Gods are...proxies? Are you saying they aren’t the true gods of our world?”

Delthasis summarized the investigation’s findings in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. “From what we’ve found, the world’s true god is the entity we know as the Dark God. The Four Gods were merely tasked with watching over its slumber. The four have no intent of properly managing the world. That much is apparent from their approval of the hero summonings.”

If the Four Gods were genuinely trying to manage the world, they would never have let people use the hero summonings. That sort of dangerous magic threatened to destroy the world. But the Four Gods had let people use those summonings. They’d encouraged them. Repeatedly.

The summonings were for the Four Gods’ personal use; that much was clear. And that personal use had been pushing the world ever closer to annihilation.

Fortunately, the crisis had been averted through sheer coincidence. That the crisis had existed at all was shocking news, though.

“Wh-What? Are you saying the Four Gods and their hero summonings were on the cusp of condemning the entire world to ruin?! Will we be okay?”

“Unbelievable. But this does give us an advantage...”

“Wait a moment. Feigning ignorance is their specialty. I can’t imagine they’d admit to any of this.”

“The wise men from long ago have lived up to their reputation, it would seem. Hiding the truth in ancient ruins is quite the idea...”

“Perhaps they had few other options. Metis isn’t known for having mercy toward its foes.”

“As the documents I’ve prepared explain,” Delthasis continued, “the damage from the earthquake has Metis’s economy on the verge of collapse. I cannot imagine they have the budget to mount an attack on us.”

While the intel had shocked the gathered nobles and ministers, they were simultaneously delighted to have gained a plan for knocking Metis, the holy land of the Faith, down a peg. It went to show how much they’d suffered under Metis’s tyranny.

That was especially the case when it came to holy magic, or healing magic, as it was now called here. Metis had told the world that only its priests could use magic that healed wounds. Now, however, it was clear that it had been a lie. A light had appeared at the end of the tunnel.

Priests charged more than apothecaries for treatment, making their services often unaffordable for the average commoner.

The moment people learned mages could use healing magic too, Metis would likely lose its advantage overnight. And if the country truly had lost its ability to summon heroes as well, then it would be left with nothing in its favor but military might.

“The ancient technology mentioned here sounds astounding, but it also sounds dangerous.”

“I’m glad we agree, Your Majesty. It’s degraded terribly over time, but we wouldn’t want any curious souls tinkering with it. Fortunately, my father informed me it’s been sealed away. And I doubt any investigation based on our current understanding would bear much fruit regardless.”

“That advanced, is it? There are fools everywhere, though. Surely someone will lay their hands on it despite knowing the dangers, no?”

“Understanding those ruins is impossible without the wisdom of the ancient people who built the city. I say we prioritize using the place as a city for now.”

“We’ll need to train better scholars if we’re to unravel its mysteries, then... Now, let’s move on to the next topic. How are our diplomatic efforts proceeding with the Kingdom of Isalas and the Artom Empire?”

“Yes, Your Majesty! Allow me to report. We are currently providing aid to the Kingdom of Isalas. In addition, their ores seem of considerable quality, so we’re proceeding with talks to purchase them for a fair price.”

As the Minister of Foreign Affairs gave an update, Duke Delthasis racked his brain about the Isa Lante situation.

The ruins were close to his domain. If they became inhabited, he’d need to designate a noble to rule over the place. However, no noble could properly administer that treasure trove of a city. He trusted no noble he knew to do it, at least. On the off chance some ambitious usurper claimed exclusive control of the city and its ancient relics, Solistia would have to contend with a potent military force in its own backyard.

Sure, the biggest threats were sealed away, but there was always the risk that someone could find a back door.

“Our intelligence reported that the Kingdom of Isalas intended to invade us. What’s happened to that?”

“They were only considering an invasion because their poor, barren land made it difficult to cultivate food. With aid from Artom and now us, alongside Isalas’s potential to profit from the ore trade, I very much doubt they’ll try anything foolish.”

“Fortunately, Metis’s economy is on the brink of collapse too. Now seems like a good opportunity to move forward with our plans. Still, there’s no telling what a country with its back to the wall might do. Be vigilant.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

A war between nations wasn’t worth it politically.

It required considerable death gratuities to be paid to the families of soldiers killed in battle, which stretched the country’s already strained military budget. If war broke out, most of the nation’s soldiers would be stationed at forts along the border, and those forts would require enormous maintenance costs.

The likely enemy in this hypothetical conflict was, of course, the Holy Land of Metis.

The priests of Metis loathed mages, and frankly, the sheer strength of the heroes was a concern too. But at the same time, it had been confirmed that some heroes hoped to desert Metis and seek asylum. Others were in hiding.

“Metis is done for. I imagine some of our allies will look to invade it now.”

“And the question is, when should we do the same, correct? At the very least, we’ll have to coordinate with Artom and Isalas.”

“Yes. Isalas will likely want some fertile land. And if we can get them in our debt, we stand to profit as well. There are uncertainties at play, though.”

“Indeed. The Dark God, for one, and then there are the reincarnators Metis is secretly looking for. The Dark God is one thing, but I know very little about the reincarnators. Word has it that they’re even stronger than the heroes. But who are they?”

“Our reports say they were sent here by the gods of other worlds. We’re short on information, though,” Delthasis said.

It wasn’t so much his spies’ skill that was amazing as it was the effectiveness of the entire network. This vast intelligence system somehow provided Delthasis with information only Metis’s top brass should have been privy to. He was so talented that it seemed he could make the whole world his own, if he ever cared to.

But he had no interest in that. He lived for two things: work and women.

“At the very least, they’re not our enemies. We’ve already been looking into reports of people we believe to be reincarnators.”

“Ah! Just what I’d expect from the Silent Lion. Wasting no time, I see.”

“It seems like they’re just searching for a place to settle down in this world. However, they harbor a fierce anger toward the Four Gods. I doubt they’ll oppose us.”

“They’re angry at the Four Gods? Why is that?”

“Investigators uncovered something a potential reincarnator said at a tavern: that they died as a result of the Four Gods sending the Dark God to their world. Nothing but drunken rambling, perhaps, but I’ve received similar reports from others.”

“Which implies it’s no mere coincidence, yes. Hmm... Still, it’s difficult to make heads or tails of this.”

The existence of these mysterious wild cards was concerning. If they weren’t hostile toward Solistia, however, it would be a saving grace.

“In fact,” Delthasis continued, “most of these reincarnators are reaping significant benefits for our nation. I believe the best course of action is to monitor them. I have an idea of who one of these reincarnators may be, so I shall ask them some questions myself.”

“What?! You know one of these potential reincarnators?!”

“Once we have a better understanding of the situation, we can take appropriate measures. This is heartening news. Just as I’d expect from one of our country’s top minds.”

Delthasis was an excellent politician, but he was also a businessman. The man wore many hats.

He had a relentless side—he wouldn’t hesitate to crush anyone who stood against him—but he’d compensate his allies and collaborators with enormous rewards, so he’d earned a lot of trust. As a result, many were happy to work with him.

He never picked a fight he couldn’t win, and he wouldn’t balk at using any dirty tricks at his disposal. His enemies feared him for it.

“Oh, no; we aren’t that close. Just occasional business associates. Regardless, if I can pass on a reasonable profit to them, I doubt they’ll oppose us.”

Delthasis spoke nonchalantly to this room full of royals and titled nobles, but his gears were turning internally.

I’d like to hear it from the horse’s mouth to get a better idea, though. From memory, he was looking for an alcohol made from riceweed...

If Zelos were there, he probably would’ve said something like, “Who even are you?! How do you know all this?!”

“Well, then, on to our next point of business. I have dinner with a foreign emissary soon.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. Let us continue, then. The next point of discussion concerns how we should regulate the special books a certain country has been circulating...”

“We need to get rid of every last one of those damn things!” the room cried in unison. “We can’t have children seeing those!”

The naughty books from Metis really were seen as a problem, it seemed.

“Some people love reading them, though. Bookstores’ sales are surging, so any restrictions would have an economic impact. If we outlaw them, we need to take measures to prevent a downturn.”

“We have to do something about the contents, at least! Who knows how these things may be affecting our youth? Even my own daughter has been...”

“It’s a problem that they’re so cheap to obtain. Could we place a tax on them to raise the prices?”

“Wait. Depending on our approach, those books could become a new form of art. We should limit the contents, yes, but let’s get our artists to depict things in more agreeable ways!”

This discussion about adult doujinshi was getting more heated than any of the topics about serious politics. Perhaps it was only natural, given the effect these books could have on children.

It had started affecting public sentiment, forcing the government—royals included—to start racking their heads over the issue. The books had even made their way into the social sphere of nobles. The ripples were spreading.

At the end of a long discussion, they decided that Solistia would establish a new department to regulate commerce. This department would designate the adult manga as potentially harmful goods that could only be bought by those over a certain age, keeping them out of children’s hands.

Bookstores caught breaking this rule would be charged hefty fines, so the stores would now be required to keep these books in a section separate from their main sales floor.

Before long, other countries began copying Solistia’s policy. And ultimately, demand grew for less extreme forms of manga, placing increasing economic pressure on the Holy Land of Metis.

The change eventually drove people who’d already been influenced by the adult content to start up their own publishing activities, writing and publishing original works packed with even more extreme adult themes.

These books weren’t as publicly accessible, but apparently their rise caused quite the stir among those in the know.

Eventually, these independent publishers formed a sales event of their own—an event with a surprisingly large economic impact.

With time, the contents of manga made in this world grew more and more refined, and a long line of works that could be considered masterpieces began to come out.

All of this dealt another major blow to the Holy Publisher of Metis, and the trend of porn books that had nothing going for them apart from the fact that they were porn gradually died down. They couldn’t compete with creators who put actual effort into the quality of their writing and art.

As the trend continued, and regulations were tightened, many of the manga considered to be masterpieces started to make their way into broader society, spreading the seeds of what would become a new form of popular entertainment...but that would be a while down the line.

The nobles, royals, and politicians gathered in the meeting room had no idea, for now, that their seemingly trivial decision would allow them to land a major economic blow.

Ultimately, all’s well that ends well. Word had it that eventually, when they received a report on the impact of their decision, they all gave each other a pat on the back.

* * *

Zelos and the heroes walked along the cobblestone floor of Scheuras Castle in Asuura, capital of the Artom Empire. When they’d reached the keep, they’d parted ways with Earl Ilhans, who was now likely in the midst of talks.

Zelos had only ever been asked to escort the earl here; he found it strange that he was still here after arriving. But he’d simply done as he was told, unable to go against the flow.

The castle consisted of several buildings used respectively for internal administration, government affairs, and so on. The royal family lived in the inner palace, where the king held audiences in the throne room. Altogether, the castle’s various buildings made it so large that it was hard to discern its size.

Zelos followed Lusei, walking down a hallway that looked out onto a garden picturesque enough to be in a landscape painting.

“Why am I even here...”

He’d only been meant to serve as a guard, and now here he was, being shown into a castle.

His stomach was already churning with stress, and he was confident it would rupture if someone said he’d be having an audience with the king.

But the most stressed ones here were the heroes.

Their faces were sickly pale. They must’ve really been grilled during the questioning.

Fortunately for them, Artom was a humane country; they hadn’t been tortured. The heroes had cooperated, providing the reufayl with all their intel on the Holy Land of Metis.

Zelos had told the reufayl what he knew as well, which he imagined would probably affect Artom’s policies going forward.

“So, Lusei. Where exactly are we going, if I may ask?”

“Hmm? Oh—I’m showing you to the rooms we’ve arranged for you to stay in. Is there a problem?”

“Well, I mean... The heroes are one thing, but I figured I could stay in an inn or something, you know?”

“Nonsense! It’s thanks to you that the damage to our forces was so minimal! This is our first battle without any fatalities, and you even healed our wounded. We owe you a great debt.”

After the ambush, Zelos had healed the soldiers who’d been injured by the matchlocks. And while he hadn’t thought much of it, they seemed to feel really indebted to him for it. He hadn’t charged a healing fee, so he probably came across as quite the virtuous mage to these outsiders, deserving of the highest respect.

Really, Zelos had just wanted to get his job over and done with. Kindness and compassion hadn’t had anything to do with it.

Now, he saw where his kindness got him.

“Honestly, you don’t need to feel so indebted to me. I was just going to do a bit of sightseeing tomorrow and then leave...”

“R-Really? Still, it would be dishonorable of us to do nothing for you after you helped us out. Consider it a token of our gratitude.”

“That so? Well, in that case, I suppose I have to accept...”

Even if he hadn’t put much thought into any of it, who was he to dismiss people trying to express their gratitude? It was hard for him to turn them down.

Of course, Zelos wasn’t the only one here with things to worry about. The heroes—the culprits behind the attack—were clearly anxious.

And the only one who didn’t look anxious seemed beyond recovery in her own way, walking in complete silence...

“Apparently she’s been like this the whole time. Even during the height of the questioning,” Lusei said.

“I’m not surprised,” Zelos replied. “Not with that terrible heartbreak she’s gone through... Oh?”

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP...

Hearing footsteps behind him, Zelos turned and saw a boy running toward them, his expression desperate. He looked Japanese.

“T-Takumi?” Yoshino called out.

“K-Kazama?” said the rest of the heroes.

Yes, this was Takumi Kazama, the hero they’d all thought dead until recently.

He was also the cause of Yoshino’s heartbreak, and now here he was, tromping right up without reading the room.

Zelos noticed a white-winged little girl in extravagant clothes following Takumi. She clutched an enormous battle-axe, and it looked like Takumi was running for his life as the girl flew after him.

“Hee hee... Get back here~!”

“Aha ha ha ha... Catch me if you ca— EEP!”

“Uh... Isn’t it usually the guy who does the chasing?” quipped every bystander except for Yoshino. “What’s even happening? It’s like a scene out of an old rom-com!”

The girl was swinging her battle-axe wildly at Takumi, who was barely dodging. He bolted straight down the hallway, frantic.

“E-Erm, Lusei...” Zelos said, “Who is that girl?”

“Her name’s Lashara ihr Asuura Artom. She’s our nation’s second princess. She may not look like it, but she’s a year older than me.”

Zelos and the four noncatatonic heroes couldn’t believe their ears. “You’re kidding...”

This had to be one of the great mysteries of this world. She clearly looked more like twelve, maybe thirteen.

With white wings, silver hair, and an innocent smile, she resembled an angel—an angel swinging a battle-axe as she flew through the air, chasing after a boy.

Despite her looks, though, she was no little girl. She was well and truly an adult.

“You already have me! It takes some gall to drool at the sight of some tender young girl! Come here. I will knock some sense into you.”

“Aha ha ha... Aww, are you jealous? You’re just so cute... See, this is why I’m so in love with you! You’re just gonna make me fall for you even harder, baby!”

“I am not naive enough to be swayed by your sweet words again! Prepare yourself!”

Ah, a flirty couple in the throes of a lovers’ quarrel. Though this seemed like one dangerous quarrel...

Lashara threw her enormous battle-axe with stunning force. It spun end over end, getting closer and closer to Takumi’s back. It was hard to believe someone who looked like a little girl could throw like that.

Like a character in a certain sci-fi film, Takumi bent backward. The flying axe whooshed past him, just over his head, and bit deep into a corner of the wall, eliciting a yelp of terror. There had been some crazy strength behind that throw.

While Takumi was distracted by the battle-axe, Lashara accelerated midair and dive-bombed at Takumi like a certain mech from an old fighting game. She collided with him, and her momentum drove them both into the far wall together.

“Finally. No more running. Really, what a hopeless husband you are, lusting after such young children...”

“N-No! You’ve got the wrong idea! I-I was just hoping our kids would be as happy and energetic as them, that’s all!”

“Y-You will not fool me with that. Really, your morals are very suspect. A-And to mention us having children...” She trailed off, mumbling. “Oh, and just so you know, I’m not r-rattled by that at all, all right?”

So she’s a tsundere, huh...? thought Zelos and four of the heroes. Yeah, she’s super rattled by that...

If not for the battle-axe lodged firmly in the wall, this would’ve looked like an elementary school girl joking around with an older boy.

But in reality, the girl was older by a lot. However you looked at it, this screamed “criminal” in society’s eyes.

“Your Highness Lashara,” Lusei called out. “Would you consider checking your surroundings next time? It’s a little awkward to watch you two flirt...”

“Oh? I was not aware you were here, Lusei. Give me a moment, please. I was just about to break him i— I mean, punish him. Then we can talk.”

The onlookers were taken aback. Did she just say she was going to “break him in”? She did, didn’t she?! This princess is more violent than she looks...

It seemed Takumi was at the mercy of his partner, like a certain student always being chased by a green-haired oni girl.

He’d put his hands on a childlike adult, but he had the common sense to refrain from touching an actual child. If he ever did, it would be a crime. At least he was a principled pervert.

“K-Kazama... So you... You really are into kids, huh? You’re disgusting...”

“Yes!” Satoru pumped his fist. “I’ve still got a chance. Thanks for being such a crazy perv, Kazama... Wait, no! Thanking you for that feels wrong!”

“So you were a huge pervert this whole time, were you, Kazama...”

“Ew! I was classmates with someone like this?!”

Lashara sized up the heroes. “Hmm... So these are the newly captured heroes, are they? I did hear they would be coming to the castle today. But I have matters to attend to first. Now, darling—are you ready?”

“Uh... Shouldn’t you greet our guests first, my love? S-Speaking of which... Hey, guys! Why are you all giving me the cold shoulder? It’s our reunion! We should celebrate! To start, do you, uh, mind helping me out?”

“No way,” they responded in unison. “I mean, you’ve got a girlfriend and you’re into little kids...”

An enemy to little girls was an enemy to society.

Even if he had principles for now, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t turn into a beast someday.

Discriminating against those who seemed dangerous was the norm among people with common sense.

“Nobody’s coming to save you,” Lashara said. “Now, be a good boy and accept your punishment, would you, darling?”

“S-Someone! Anyone! Heeeeeeeeelp!”

“Wait.”

“Y-Yoshino? Please! Save me!”

He couldn’t see her expression—her eyes were hidden behind her hair—but an incredible aura emanated from her body.

“Who are you?” Lashara asked.

“My name’s Yoshino Himejima. Takumi there is my childhood friend.”

“And why is a childhood friend interrupting a dispute between husband and wife? This has nothing to do with you,” she said, glaring daggers at Yoshino. At her chest, in particular. Maybe she was jealous, conscious of how she’d stopped growing.

“Maybe not,” Yoshino replied. “But even so, there’s something I need to say to him. Also... If you’re going to punish him, please let me help!”

Everyone else was bewildered. “What?!”

It looked like Yoshino had zero intent to save Takumi here. In fact, she was actively trying to join in on beating him up.

Though it was rather clear why that might be.

“So, Takumi... Remember when I saw that album with pictures of little girls in your room? That wasn’t actually your older brother’s, was it? It was yours, am I right? I never would’ve thought you were into that kind of thing... Your parents would weep if they found out, you know.”

“No... That really wasn’t mi—”

“I can tell you’re lying. You’ve always had a habit of scratching your butt when you panic.”

“Seriously?!” He paused for a second, confirmed that his hands were not, in fact, touching his butt, and only then did he realize...

“Wait. Shit...”

It had been a leading question.

Yoshino had always been able to see right through his lies. When she’d found the photo album in his room, he’d only escaped because his mother had called for them before Yoshino could figure it out. But today, there was no getting out of it.

“Hey, Takumi... That’s just flat-out illegal, right? Even owning it could get you in some real trouble...”

“Where did you even get something like that, Takumi?” one of the boys asked.

“Yeah!” another concurred. “And, uh, could you tell me how you got your hands on it? I wanna see the behind-the-scenes stuff...”

Jun, at least, was playing the straight man. “Uh... You guys are being really out of line here, you know that, right?”

But while Satoru and Kota were brimming with interest, it was a moot point. Knowing where Takumi had gotten the album from didn’t mean much when they were in a whole other world now.

“Really, Takumi,” Yoshino said, “I never would’ve thought you were a perv who was only into little girls. But don’t worry. I’ll beat those rotten ideas out of your head and turn you back into a proper person...”

“W-Wait. Yoshino? Aren’t you gonna save me?!”

“To think that after...after the horrible way we parted...that you’d find happiness without me... With a little girl, at that... This calls for some real punishment—you’re aware of that, aren’t you?”

“I am not a child!” Lashara exclaimed. “Though I do agree with you about his tastes. Reluctant as I may be, I will permit it: You may join me in punishing him.”

“Thank you. Well, then... Are you ready, Takumi?”

“Uh... Lashara? Yoshino? Why are the two of you smiling like that? I-I’m sure we can talk this out...”

“Not happening.”

So began a horrid punishment.

A flurry of meaty punches—“ORA ORA ORA!”—from a hero and a legal loli beat Takumi to a pulp.

One was heartbroken; the other was jealous. And their combined might delivered some merciless discipline to the young “principled perv.”

Death to lolicons.

“This is brutal... I might just be imagining it, but I can almost see Stands behind the two of them. Stands with knives in their hands, and horns coming out of their foreheads... Wait, no. Are those shikigami?”

“Uh, Zelos... Those sound more like hannya masks. And I feel like I can see them too...”

“Damn... Poor Kazama. Feels like his soul’s gonna get devoured and sealed away for all eternity...”

“Let’s make sure we never end up like that, okay, Yukari?”

“Yeah...”

“GAAAAAAAAARGH! AAAAAAH!... Ah... ♡”

The onlookers paled. “Did he just learn something new about himself?”

It looked like Takumi had discovered a new fetish that he would’ve been better off not knowing.

It was a terrible regression he’d gone through—from “mage hero” to “principled lolicon” to “masochist principled lolicon.” From savior to sicko.

Zelos checked with his Appraisal skill and saw the boy’s Pain Resistance skill was maxed out.

Wait... Does Pain Resistance turn pain into pleasure? Is that how that works? And if he’s got that maxed out, then...isn’t that kinda terrifying?

Even though Takumi was getting beaten up, his expression was gradually morphing into one of ecstasy.

Realizing the danger, Zelos suddenly stepped in to stop the two assailants.

“W-Wait a moment. Yoshino... Any more would only be a reward. Look at him. Look how happy he is.”

“Those... Those soft, squishy hands were just about to take me somewhere...” he panted. “Is that... Is that heaven I see?”

“N-No way... Was Takumi always such a pervert?”

“Damn, Takumi... You’ve really crossed that line? You’re just a full-blown masochist now? Still, though...”

“Himejima! Forget about that perv; I’ll make you happy! Leave him to us!”

“You never give up, do you, Kannagi?”

By the side of the hero writhing in pleasurable pain, the pale-faced Lashara wore an incredibly awkward expression.

She didn’t say a word, but the look on her face made it clear what she was thinking: Oops. Did I take it too far?

Satoru Kannagi and Kota Sakamoto, however, felt like they couldn’t forgive their former ally, who’d made a very unexpected job change.

“Hey, Kazama... Let’s have a chat over there. We’ll let our fists do the talking...”

“You don’t get human rights. You’re into little girls, you criminal. Fuck... How’d a guy like you get so popular?!”

They draped their arms around Takumi’s neck and dragged him away with the determined expressions of soldiers marching to the battlefield.

They headed toward a retreat built in the garden.

“W-Wait. I don’t wanna hear what a guy’s fists have to say. H-Hang on. This seriously hurts. Could you stop dragging me? I’m not into getting hit by guys. It doesn’t even feel good...”

“So getting hit by girls does feel good, huh?!” the two of them cried. “Just how twisted are you, you bastard?!”

Lashara stood back and watched. “Hmph... Two more men captured by my charm. It should be a crime to be this beautiful...”

This little princess... She looks innocent, but she’s got quite the ego, doesn’t she?

The two heroes’ thoughts were perfectly synchronized. Sure, the princess looked cute, but anyone chasing their lover around with an axe had to have had some personality issues.

As Zelos observed the girl, he tilted his head in confusion.

Why does it feel like this isn’t the first time I’ve met this girl? Wait a minute...

She had strong-willed eyes and silver hair long enough to reach her back. Somehow, the impression she gave off made Luceris’s face appear in his mind.

It wasn’t like they were peas in a pod, though.

Lashara, clearly the prideful sort, carried herself completely differently.

Besides, Luceris was a regular human. She didn’t have wings like Lashara and Lusei. They looked similar, though, which made Zelos see things out of a strange sense of homesickness. That was all it was, he told himself.

Yeah. I mean, I haven’t seen her in about a month. Maybe I’m just desperate to see her again...

Time had passed, and before Zelos had realized it, it had been more than a month since he’d been kidnapped and dragged to the construction site. Thinking back, he nodded to himself, satisfied with his theory that he must have just been eager to see Luceris again.

“Please refrain from acting like that in front of our guests, Your Highness,” Lusei said. “I don’t mind if you do it in private, but...”

“But what? Oh—are you jealous?”

“No! But you’re embarrassing our country! One of these guests escorted an esteemed diplomat here! Restrain yourself a little, please!”

“Mmm. By the way, were there any gentlemen who caught your eye?”

“What? Where’s this coming from? The escort mission was work, you know? H-How could I even have had the time to think about that?!”

“Oh? Why are you getting so flustered? Did you find someone after all, perhaps?”

“Wh-Wh-What nonsense are you talking about?! You may be a princess, but there are some things I won’t let slide, okay?!”

Hah... This almost feels like home. Jeanne gets flustered just like this...

Having not seen Luceris or Jeanne for a while now, Zelos was overwhelmed with the urge to see them again. He didn’t know whether that meant he was in love with the women, especially given how much younger they were than him. Still, ever since he’d separated from Jeanne’s group at Isa Lante, he’d been constantly surrounded by gruff men, and he’d grown sick of it.

Watching Lashara and Lusei reminded him of Luceris and Jeanne, making him miss them all the more.

“By the way,” Lashara asked, “didn’t you say you would only marry a man stronger than yourself? That man meets that condition, correct?”

“Wh-What are you talking about?! I never said I want to get marri—”

“But you’ve thought it, have you not? The window to marry will fly right past you if you never get over your shyness!”

“Ngh— B-But that doesn’t mean I have to marry Zelos specifically! And besides,” she continued in a quieter voice, “you talk a big game for someone who found their first partner not long ago...”

FWOOSH!

A strange flame lit in Lashara’s eyes.

And then, with remarkable speed for such a small body, she ripped the mask off Lusei’s face.

It happened in a mere instant, like a flash of lightning.

“Come, Lusei... Maybe you’d have a leg to stand on if you could actually interact with people without this mask. Don’t you find it a little rude to criticize me when you cannot even look me in the face?”

“Hwah? Um— Aaaaaah...”

Lusei’s face, finally exposed, immediately turned deep red.

This went well beyond even extreme bashfulness. She started to panic, her speech barely coherent—“Ajaraa... Gibdaaack...”

Imagine that trope where a character’s eyes whirled from shock, and you’d have the general idea.

Gone was the noble, respected warrior.

“Zelos, wasn’t it?” Lashara asked. “Lusei here has her issues, but could I trouble you to take her as your wi— Erm... Zelos?” she paused, noticing his expression of pure shock.

Lusei’s face was the spitting image of someone he knew well.

“L-Luceris?”

Lashara shot him a perplexed look.

Chapter 3: The Old Guy Learns of Luceris’s Upbringing

The sight of Lusei’s face had left Zelos stiff as a board.

He’d been longing to see that face again, and it had suddenly appeared right in front of him.

Apart from Lusei’s black hair and reddish-brown eyes, the two really were peas in a pod. This general of the Artom Empire—a woman known as the Shadowsky General—was a dead ringer for Luceris. It only made sense for Zelos to be surprised.

“‘Luceris’? Who might that be?” Lashara asked. “And does she truly look that similar to Lusei?”

“Look similar? They’re practically identical. Besides the color of their hair and eyes, I mean... And the thing is, Luceris is an apprentice priestess for the Faith of the Four Gods.”

“Hah! Of all things, a disciple for that group of heretics...”

“Hate her already, do you? Well, I guess I can’t blame you... Fortunately, I don’t think she’s a true believer of the Faith. When she learned that holy magic is no different from what mages use, she accepted it pretty easily.”

“Oh? More sensible than I gave her credit for, then. Perhaps I could come around to her after all.”

“From the bits and pieces I’ve heard, I think she just wants to save orphans in the same situation she used to be in. I get the feeling she doesn’t care about the country she serves, nor the Four Gods, as long as she can do that. She’s just in the Faith because she thought they were the only ones who could use healing magic. Best I can tell, she’s not all that devoted to the religion’s beliefs.”

The Faith of the Four Gods repudiated mages, which had a considerable impact on other nations’ priests—an impact that presumably extended to the faith’s apprentice priests as well.

Luceris, however, had accepted Zelos without a hint of hesitation or discrimination.

“And she looks like Lusei, you say? I see, I see...”

“Sounds like you’re implying something. Penny for your thoughts?”

“Don’t worry about it. Something has caught my interest, that is all... Say, does she have any blood relatives?”

“Hmm? No. She said she was abandoned at an orphanage as a kid. Doesn’t even know what her parents look like. Beyond that, I know bits and pieces about her private life that the kids from the orphanage tell me in secret. Including things I probably don’t need to know...”

“I... I see. And you are not paying those children to do this, are you?”

“I would never!”

Lashara’s behavior was sending Zelos’s gray matter into overdrive. Why was she interested in Luceris, an apprentice priestess from abroad? He wondered whether coming at this from the opposite angle might give him a clue.

Luceris had no parents. She did, however, have the head pastor, who had raised her.

Perhaps the head pastor knew something, then? Perhaps, for example, Luceris hadn’t been abandoned anonymously at an orphanage, but entrusted to the head pastor. That would change things.

More than anything, though, it was Lashara’s behavior that intrigued him. And in trying to decipher it, his knowledge about the setting of Swords & Sorceries came in handy. Eventually, he settled on a certain guess.

“This may be rude to ask, but are you and Lusei blood-related, Your Highness? I can’t help but feel like you resemble each other.”

“Hmm? Well, yes... We are cousins. Lusei’s mother is my aunt.”

“Okay. In that case... Did one of your mothers go missing, perhaps? Suddenly disappearing one day, taking a newborn baby with her...”

The air grew tense. “What makes you ask that? I haven’t told you anything of the sort.”

“My best guess is that a child was born without wings. The mother was suspected of cheating, had to shoulder all the blame, and got chased out. Then, stricken with grief, she took her child and fled into the night. Something like that...”

“Y-You know something, don’t you?! Someone must have told you! How else would you know so much?!”

“W-Wait... Seriously? I just strung a bunch of ideas together on the spot... Don’t tell me I was right?!”

A heavy silence formed between Zelos and Lashara.

As hard as his brain had been working, Zelos didn’t have a single piece of conclusive evidence; he shouldn’t have been able to make a clear deduction. He’d been throwing darts to see what stuck.

Back in Swords & Sorceries, the reufayl had strong familial bonds. Their emotions prevented them from tolerating affairs or other such impropriety. Zelos had simply put that fact together with Luceris’s circumstances to make a half-hearted hypothesis.

Even if Lashara’s earlier jealousy toward Takumi had made the reufayl’s strong love of family clear to Zelos, he hadn’t expected to be so on the mark.

Ultimately, Zelos had correctly guessed the royal family’s scandal, which Lashara’s instinctive, emotional response had then confirmed. Now, their expressions were frozen, and the two had fallen silent.

Lashara finally broke the silence with a sigh. “I suppose I have no choice. Your hypothesis is correct, but I will tell you our side of the story. As you just guessed, Meia—Lusei’s mother, and my aunt—gave birth to a wingless child. That was how it started.”

“So people started suspecting her,” Zelos said, “saying there was no way two reufayl parents could have a child that looked human—is that right? And then, let’s see... The rumor made its way out of the family and into broader society? Polygamy may be accepted here, but adultery very much isn’t, so I imagine that caused quite the stir...”

“Have you heard of changelings? It’s said that faeries sometimes swap out children at birth. And...all we can do is assume that is what happened. But there is no way of searching for children kidnapped by faeries...”

“A changeling, eh... Sure it wasn’t just a case of atavism? A trait that skipped a few generations? If any of your ancestors ever mixed with humans in the slightest, then... Well, the chance is low, but two reufayl parents could have a human child, you know? Given your race’s long history, it must have happened at some point. I’d even say that’s the more likely explanation, if you ask me...”

Zelos’s words came as salvation—but they were also brutal to hear.

After all, they meant that Artom had wrongfully chased out an innocent mother.

“P-Please, wait. If that were true, it would mean Aunt Meia was exiled for a crime she never committed...”

“Assuming she didn’t cheat, then yes, that would be the case. Well, I don’t think Luceris knows her mother’s face, for what it’s worth, so it seems likely she’s already passed away. Not that we have any way of investigating that now.”

“B-But that’s...”

Folklore said that changelings were faerie offspring that replaced children of other races at birth. When beastfolk children were occasionally born to human parents, for example, people across history hadn’t found any explanation as to why beyond the fact that the children must have been changelings.

The fact that faeries were hedonistic pranksters who’d probably do exactly that had lent credibility to the idea.

Zelos, however, had just given an alternative explanation: genetics.

Atavism occurred when a child was born with characteristics of an ancestor from generations ago. For example, the gene for excessive body hair could reemerge in a lineage after having skipped generations of descendants. And because this world had multiple humanoid races, it made sense that the atavistic reemergence could be even more striking.

After all, this world had humans, beastfolk, elves, dwarves, and even legends about dragonkin. If one of those races had ever mixed its genes with the reufayl’s ancestors, two reufayl could one day produce a child who appeared to be a completely different race.

Lusei found Zelos’s explanation believable. She’d always struggled to accept the vague idea of changelings, but upon hearing his theory, everything that had never made sense suddenly fell into place.

“I-I cannot accept this!” Lashara shouted. “You are telling me there is human blood among our ancestors?”

“What you accept is up to you, but the reality is that a child here was born without wings, correct? And if you’re sure she wasn’t cheating, then atavism is the only explanation I can think of.”

“But...”

“Besides, faeries can’t swap out a child still in the womb. Even if they could, faeries are nasty little things; don’t you think they’d choose to replace the baby with one of a different animal entirely? A cow, say, or a horse? Well, this is still all speculation, mind you.”

Zelos wasn’t completely convinced by his atavism theory either.

He was just putting the possibility out there, that was all. He hadn’t exactly carried out DNA testing.

Nobody in this world even knew about DNA. And in a world where medicine, biology, and scientific technique were all underdeveloped, it’d be impossible for him to actually prove anything.

“One way or another,” he continued, “it’s all in the past, right? Maybe in the peak of civilization—during ancient times or something—it might’ve been possible to get to the bottom of this. Nowadays, though, there’s no chance. There’s simply no way of proving it.”

“I simply cannot believe this,” Lashara said. “You have so much knowledge; do you truly have no way of proving your theory?”

“Huh? Me? Sorry, but I was an engineering major. I only know as much about medical science as the average person. There’s only so much I can do here.”

“U-Um...” Lusei began. “But... But this may mean my little sister is alive... B-But it’s not like we can prove it, so... Um...”

“Is this honestly the same strong military woman from earlier?” Zelos quipped. “She seems like a whole different person...”

“Lusei has always been incredibly shy. Still, though...” Lashara said.

As Lashara looked around, she saw her cousin racking her brain about family next to her and two jealous hero boys walloping Takumi in the courtyard. Things had devolved into complete chaos.

“We’ve suddenly got a lot of people out of commission now, don’t we?”

“I-It would seem that way...”

Lashara and Zelos couldn’t help but sigh at the spectacle.

They listened in, and managed to hear an exchange between the heroes:

“Wait... Huh? Even though it’s guys hitting me, it’s almost like that’s starting to feel good too...” Takumi mumbled.

“Seriously?! Just how low are you gonna go, you bastard?! We’ve come all the way here, and—”

“Uh, speaking of coming...”

“SOMEONE! SOMEONE, CALL US A THERAPIST!”

It was a lesson to Zelos on the dangers of Pain Resistance.

Meanwhile, Yoshino—having gotten her fill of beating up her childhood friend—was being consoled by Yukari and Jun, the hero couple.

“Hah... Ha ha ha... I feel so empty now. I knocked him to the ground, but my heart still aches so bad. H-Huh? I don’t know why, but I can’t stop the tears from—”

“It’s okay, Himejima,” Jun said. “You don’t have to talk.”

“Don’t open your wounds anymore, Yoshino,” Yukari added. “You just have to get through this. Time heals all wounds.”

Zelos didn’t want anything to do with it.

The best course of action, he decided, was ignoring it all.

He let out another sigh. “By the way... How much longer will we have to keep waiting here?”

It sounded like the guest rooms were already prepared, but Lusei, their guide, was no use right now. Zelos was left clueless as to where his room even was.

It wasn’t like he could wander the castle by himself either. He had no choice but to stand around and wait until things calmed down.

And it was a long, painful wait.

* * *

Once the situation in the hallway finally cleared up, Zelos was shown to his guest room.

Aside from a bed and a table, a decently sized fireplace was set into the floor. A staircase with built-in storage led to a mezzanine.

Overall, the room was reminiscent of a traditional house in Kyoto, but decor like the shelf brackets had more impressive, Western-style designs formed from gold. It was almost like Nijo Castle.

Exhausted from earlier, Zelos flopped onto his bed, stared blankly at the ceiling, and sighed.

So Luceris is probably descended from Artom royalty, huh? Bet she would’ve looked even more like an angel if she’d been born with wings. I’m guessing Jeanne’s just gotten back and told her where I am about now...

After they’d finished their work guarding the deepway construction project, Jeanne’s party had said they intended to tour nearby villages to earn a bit of extra money before going home.

Honestly, Zelos wanted to take both Luceris and Jeanne as wives. But since he was still hesitant about embracing polygamy, as well as the age difference between himself and the two young women, he couldn’t bring himself to actually propose in a way that wasn’t a joke. He didn’t look it, but he was quite the wuss.

After all, Luceris’s and Jeanne’s ages meant they would’ve been born around the time he was screwing around at university. As you might expect, that made him feel awkward about the idea of seriously pursuing marriage with them. Even if Luceris had accidentally admitted she wanted him to take both her and Jeanne as wives, Zelos’s Japanese upbringing didn’t allow him to view that proposal as anything but strange. Try as he might to tell himself, “This is another world. It’s just how things work here,” it was still weird to him.

Meeting Takumi, a hero who proudly admitted his love for little girls, had only made Zelos balk further. He didn’t want to be seen that way too.

Zelos, if anything, was more into voluptuous women. He had no interest in flat little girls. He had about the same values as your average guy, really; he just couldn’t bring himself to take the next step.

He sighed again. Guess I’ve got no right to bad-mouth Kazama, do I? Still—younger women, huh? I mean, technically, the boy’s partner’s a fair bit older than him. She certainly doesn’t look it, though...

In noble society, it was common for middle-aged men like Zelos to wed girls who’d only just reached the age of majority, which was fourteen in this world. But even if that was legal here, some part of him stopped him from going through with it.

At the same time, he hadn’t expected that being away for a single month would leave him longing for the two of them so badly.

So this is love, is it? Hmm... I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong...

For the first time in his life, he felt like he couldn’t control his own heart. It was frustrating.

Usually, he was the sort to make a decision and get straight to work. Yet here he was, a ball of doubt rolling around on his bed.

It wasn’t a good look.

Before long, though, the voice of a lady-in-waiting interrupted his writhing.

“Mr. Zelos? Are you in your room?” she called from the other side of the door.

Surprised, he answered without thinking: “Hwah?! Y-Yes. I’m here. What’s up?”

“I apologize for the interruption. You see, Mr. Zelos, there is somebody who says they would most like to meet with you. Are you free right now?”

“Someone wants to meet me? Me? What could they possibly want to do that for?”

“I wasn’t informed. I was only asked to bring you along with me.”

“Ah. Well, where should I go, then?”

“I’ve been tasked with showing you the way, so you need simply follow me.”

“Gotcha. Let’s get going, then. Really, though, I wonder what this could all be about...”

Zelos put on his gray robe and followed the lady-in-waiting.

Her clothes looked like a traditional dress in a Korean period drama. Walking behind her made him feel like he’d just time-traveled.

If you saw a scene like this on TV, he thought, you’d just know it was a prelude to the character getting into some big hassle.

“Can I ask where we’re headed?”

“The Military Hall. Someone is waiting there for you.”

“What did I do to merit some bigwig wanting to talk to me? I’m drawing a blank...”

Zelos followed the lady-in-waiting through a maze of passageways and gates that separated one building from another, then arrived in front of a grand building. It was built in the shinden-zukuri style, like the Todaiji Daibutsuden in Nara.

A large group of soldiers was training in the cobblestone plaza in front of the building, using scarecrows as targets for their spears. Stands rose a little ways away, providing a place for the king to observe the training.

“This is the Military Hall,” the lady-in-waiting told Zelos as they entered the structure. “The nexus of the castle’s defense and justice system. Many generals carry out their training sessions here.”

“So this is where they keep the peace, huh? It looks more like a big, colorful temple...”

“You may find it strange to see a wooden building in a castle, but some designs cannot be made with stone. The Hall is a dwarven masterwork.”

“Those dwarves sure do get around. Crazy bunch of workaholics...”

Zelos could practically see the dwarves dancing away as they built this impressive structure. The image gave him a headache.

She escorted him through a door that led him into a room with two people sitting at a table: Lusei and a military man who looked grimly at Zelos.

“I have brought him, High Commander,” the lady-in-waiting said. “This is Mr. Zelos.”

“Good work. You may go. Now—Mr. Zelos, was it? I haven’t summoned you in an official capacity; rather, a personal one. You may skip the formalities.”

“Father...” Lusei said with a slight nod. “Zelos, this is my father: Raphon Imara, High Commander. So, about this woman you know—”

“Ah. Now I get it. You want me to go over that again, do you?”

“Not quite,” Lusei replied. “We summoned you here because we have a favor to ask.”

Zelos’s guess had been off the mark.

And now, he was getting a bad feeling about all this. He was convinced he was about to get dragged into another mess.

“Mr. Zelos, you are something of a mercenary, yes?” Raphon asked. “I would like to request your assistance for a job of sorts.”

“Sure, I could probably do that. Though I’ll pass if it involves kidnapping, transporting dangerous goods, or anything else like that. I don’t want to do anything criminal.”

“No, nothing of the sort! I want you to return my daughter to me. ‘Luceris’ is her name?”

“I’m not doing that,” Zelos replied without a moment of hesitation.

“Wh-Why not, may I ask? I hear she’s working as an apprentice priestess for those heretics. You cannot expect me to leave my daughter in such dangerous hands!”

This time, Zelos paused before answering, trying to find the right words. “And what exactly do you intend to say to her, after all this time? She grew up an orphan, and now she’s becoming a priest to help other orphans. She’s an independent woman. So, I wonder—would she even want to see a father she’s never met before? Let alone one who chased her mother out of the country? Besides, we still don’t know for sure that the two of you are related, remember?”

If Zelos were to bring Luceris to the Artom Empire, he’d need to tell her everything.

What she did after hearing it all was another question—and if she refused to go to the Artom Empire, that would be the end of it.

“If she truly looks so similar to Lusei,” Raphon said, “then we must be related. I’m sure she’ll understand if you tell her. She has my blood in her veins.”

“Children are shaped by the environment they grow up in. Luceris has tried her best to be independent for as long as she can remember. She’s made her choice: She wants to help kids in the same situation she was in. To stop kids from having to suffer. I’m not sure the matter of her blood relatives has even crossed her mind.”

On the one hand, here was a father who believed in the power of blood ties—a father who wanted his daughter back. On the other hand was Zelos, who matter-of-factly broke down the flaws of that idea.

It was a conflict between emotions and reality.

Learning about atavism had probably made Raphon desperate to meet Luceris.

But there were some real problems with his plan, that was for sure.

“Blood relationships aren’t everything. In fact, my older sister and I are on such bad terms that we’ve tried to kill each other. There’s no guarantee that people will care for each other just because they share blood. That’s just a fantasy.”

“Your views must be tainted by the circumstances of your own family. Our situation is different!”

“My parents were actually decent people, you know? They just happened to give birth to a daughter rotten by nature. Anyway, everyone has their own way of looking at life, but trying to shove those views down someone else’s throat will only make them hate you. I’d recommend being careful, especially with how delicate the circumstances are.”

“But I cannot just overlook my own daughter becoming an adherent of that cult of heretics! How can you expect me to leave her in a place like that?”

“Ah, you don’t want to leave her in a ‘cult of heretics,’ is that it? So, what—is this all about what’s best for you? Plus, remember: We still don’t know for sure that the two of you are related by blood. Maybe the resemblance is just a freak coincidence. I understand where you’re coming from, Mr. Imara, but there’s no need to rush to conclusions. I think we should start by establishing all the facts.”

“Ngh... B-But...”

Zelos was right. They still didn’t even know if Luceris was actually related to Raphon and Lusei. Even if she were related, Luceris would have to decide if she wanted to meet her family. Raphon might have been her father, but if Luceris refused him, that was that. Kidnapping her wouldn’t end well for anyone.

“Let’s suppose you are related by blood,” Zelos continued, “and Luceris learns the truth. Do you think she’d agree to meet you? As I said earlier, the decision is up to her, not you.”

“R-Ridiculous! I am her father! I have every right to meet my own daughter!”

“Remind me who exiled that daughter in the first place. You couldn’t believe your own wife, from what I’ve heard. It may be harsh, but no, you don’t have the right to meet her.”

“Grr... Please, try to consider my perspective. How could I have believed that a human child would be born in my family?”

“Back a long time ago, your ancestors coexisted with humans, didn’t they? And if even a little human blood got into your bloodline, it wouldn’t be strange for that to manifest at any point down the line. You were so shocked by what you saw that you wanted to do nothing except lay blame. You didn’t stop to listen. You didn’t even try to discover the truth. With every natural phenomenon, there’s always a reason.”

“B-But...”

Zelos was refuting every one of Raphon’s appeals to emotion with cold, hard logic.

He had to. They wouldn’t get anywhere if the discussion stayed hung up on emotions.

“Let’s get back on topic,” Zelos said. “We haven’t confirmed Luceris is related to your family. But if she is your daughter, we should then ask why she’s living in Solistia. The answer, I imagine, is that your wife headed to Solistia when she left, right?”

“Hmm... Why Solistia, though? Isalas is far closer. From what I hear, most of our exiles journey through Isalas to the Ruuda-Iruruh Flatlands...”

“Mm-hmm. And back then, it wouldn’t have been possible to get to Solistia from here without traveling through monster-infested mountains. It’d have been a dangerous trip for anyone who’d grown up as sheltered royalty, reufayl or not. But she chose to make that dangerous trip anyway, even though she had a child. Now, at this point, we’re getting into the realm of conjecture, but...maybe she intended to reach the great library at the Istol Academy of Magic?”

“So... You’re saying that Meia intended to investigate why she gave birth to a human child, only to pass away before achieving her goal?”

“I’m saying we should look into the possibility. The pastor who raised Luceris may know, but it only seems right to get permission from Luceris herself before prying into her past. Would you like me to ask her when I get back?”

“Please do. If what you have said is true, Mr. Zelos, I have made a terrible mistake. A mistake I can never take back. A mistake I could never atone for, however hard I try...”

“As much as it may hurt to hear... Yes.”

Zelos’s earlier guess had been on the mark: He was, in fact, getting dragged into another hassle.

“Still, I wonder how I should explain all this to her,” he said with a sigh. “I can’t imagine it’ll be easy...”

“Zelos,” Lusei interjected, “would you like me to explain? If she really is my little sister, it makes sense to explain it to her myself, don’t you agree?”

“I’m not sure about leaving things to someone who can’t speak properly without wearing a mask. The thought makes me a little uneasy, you know? Besides, it’d be rude to meet her with your face hidden...”

“Urgh... It hurts to hear you say it. I have been curious about my mother, though. I can’t let this opportunity pass.”

“Are you okay leaving your work behind? You’re a general, aren’t you? In charge of your own force?”

“I have a lot of paid vacation saved up. I haven’t used it.”

Zelos smirked. “Maybe you are related. She has the same habit of prioritizing her work over herself.”

Luceris spent every day devoting herself to healing, never taking any time off for herself. She’d only taken leave to accompany the kids from the orphanage on their training camp. Likewise, whenever she went shopping in town, she only bought the essentials. She never splurged—never even considered it—unless there was some big reason to.

Luceris even put aside all the money the orphanage earned selling mandrakes to pay for the children’s food and the building’s upkeep. She put the leftover profits toward buying medicinal supplies to care for the locals.

“Anyway,” Lusei said, “I’m going to Solistia to learn the truth—and to finish what my mother set out to do, if I can.”

Zelos turned to Raphon. “Is that okay? Lusei’s pretty important around here, isn’t she?”

“It’s fine. I will permit it. Lusei Imara, General of the Eastern Front, I hereby order you to trace the last known steps of Meia Imara. You are to investigate and find the truth. We must prevent chaos from occurring should the same thing happen again.”

“Yes, sir. I will prepare to depart immediately.”

“Are you sure this is all right?” Zelos mused. “Isn’t this just an abuse of authority?”

“Meia is royalty—low-ranking, but royalty all the same,” Raphon replied. “This is a perfectly acceptable measure.”

“Well, I was planning on heading home tomorrow anyway. This is perfect.”

Raphon set his elbows on the table, massaged his brow with both hands, and breathed a deep sigh of remorse.

After a moment of silence, he spoke again, a heavy weight to his voice. “I... I loved Meia. But the moment I saw the child she gave birth to, I was aghast. I could never have expected the child to be a human...”

“Why jump straight to cheating? With your wife’s high status, I doubt she would’ve been able to go out and about unattended. I’m sure there would’ve constantly been people with their eyes on her too. The idea of her cheating doesn’t seem plausible.”

“We had heard of changelings, but had never seen one. Not in our entire history. That was why we had such a difficult time believing her... I didn’t want to doubt my wife, but I could not ignore the reality of the child I saw in front of me. Any man would have started to wonder if his wife hadn’t stepped out and...”

“I suppose there are humans living here, even if there aren’t many. Anyway... So you doubted her, but then her attitude made you wonder whether she might be telling the truth after all, and you started to worry about that, right? But by that point, everyone else was getting in more and more of an uproar...”

“Indeed. Eventually, it even reached the ears of the king. The public demanded answers. And not only was she criticized to no end, we exiled her...”

Meia was from a branch family of Artom’s royals, so she was expected to have spotless integrity. As soon as she gave birth to a human child, she was accused of adultery and exiled from the country. The royal family was strict with its principles. Perhaps it sounded excessive, but reufayl were already a minority in this world, so childbirth from adultery was seen as a serious crime. Laws here treated affairs and scams with similar severity. Such was reufayl society.

“Maybe the gene pool has grown too small over time,” Zelos said. “I wonder if cases of atavism are about to get more frequent...”

“Are you saying our small population makes it more likely for old traits to reawaken?” Raphon asked.

“I’m no medical expert, but it may be safe to assume this is only the beginning, not just a one-off. If you don’t change the laws now, while you still can, I can see this ending with more and more orphans. And it’s not like you can just kill any kids who are born different.”

“No, you are right. Whatever issues we may have with humans, we would not sink so low.” He sighed. “Why did it all end up like this?”

“One of the mysteries of life, I suppose. It all comes down to the laws of nature, though, so there’s only so much you can do about it. Say—how about we go for a nice drink and I hear you out about whatever’s on your mind? Getting it all out of your system should help you feel a little better.”

“Yes... Yes, you’re right. May I ask you to join me for a while, then?”

It was a tragedy of ignorance.

Zelos had the advantage of his knowledge from Earth, but this was all new to Raphon. And now that Raphon knew what had really happened, he was racked with guilt. Given that the root cause was an unlucky natural phenomenon, Zelos couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the man.

One way or another, Zelos felt he had no choice but to go out drinking with Raphon and hear out the man’s feelings of regret.

The next morning, Zelos and Lusei departed together, heading straight for the Magic Kingdom of Solistia.

They’d be traveling on the Harley-Sanders Model 13...

* * *

Around that time, a woman on the older end of middle-aged was looking through documents at an orphanage in Santor.

She was a high-ranked pastor dispatched to Solistia from Metis. Despite her rank, the church had relegated her to a remote location thanks to an unpriestly level of debauchery. Needless to say, she was a real character.

She was accompanied by a handful of other priests and pastors who’d also been sent to Solistia. For the most part, they shared her dissatisfaction with the modern Faith of the Four Gods—and as thanks, they’d been practically exiled to this overseas position under the guise of missionary work.

Most of these clergy members had no intent to return to Metis, though. They felt much more comfortable living here in Solistia.

The city of Santor was an especially nice place to live, and many of them had already gotten married here.

The older woman—Head Pastor Melratha—was sort of like the leader of this group.

“So,” she began, “we have to go over the financial report now, yeah? As if the money goes to anything ’cept food for the kids... What kind o’ stupid shit are they expectin’ us to spend our time on, huh? Let’s talk about clothes for the kids. That’s what’s important.”

“You’re right. Hand-me-downs get the job done, but the orphans get bullied for them by other kids. We should buy some clothes that aren’t quite so out-of-date. Affording them is the problem, though...”

“Yeah. Only so much we can do when we’re funded by charity. Least the duke here’s one o’ the better ones. He actually sends the money we need when he’s supposed to, unlike some o’ those other bastards... And some people give us pretty big donations. Guess there’s still some good out there, eh?”

One of the other clergy members nodded. “Yes—like whoever was teaching people at the church on the west side how to grow medicinal herbs. There are clearly some kind souls in the world. Luceris was saying they have a much easier time getting by now. She sounded delighted.”

“Apparently the one who taught her was a mage, but... Well. Can’t deny they’ve helped us out.”

Each of Santor’s four churches doubled as an orphanage.

Although they’d all been built at different times, none of the churches had originally been a place of worship for the Four Gods. They’d been built for worshipping local religious beliefs, but the Faith of the Four Gods had tried pressuring the city into loaning them out to the Faith. These places had always provided charity to various children and homeless people, but a shortage of workers had left them unable to achieve everything they wished to.

An agreement had been made, then: In exchange for the Faith of the Four Gods being allowed to use these churches for their missionary work, they were required to manage the facilities and look after the orphans. In short, the city decided that if the Faith was going to spread its religion, it’d at least do some good deeds while it was at it. That was the deal that the ducal house had made—or forced, you could almost say—with the Faith.

While the priests used funds directly provided by the ducal house to pay for aid for orphans and homeless people, they still needed to send donations back to Metis, purchase medical supplies, and afford their own living expenses. With healing the sick and wounded as their only source of income, they were in dire straits.

The move to start growing medicinal herbs at each of the four churches had made their lives a bit easier of late, at least.

“All righty, then—let’s leave it ’ere for tonight,” Melratha said. “If we stay up too late, we’ll pay for it tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“And tomorrow’s another early morning, eh? Urgh, farmwork at my age is no joke...”

“No grumbling. Those herbs are saving lives.”

The clergy struggled with farmwork—they weren’t used to it—but at the very least, each day here felt more fulfilling than it had back in Metis. They felt a real sense that they were doing good with their lives.

Each of them was a devout humanitarian.

With the meeting over, Melratha let out a sigh. “Well—I say it’s time for a bit more of a drink! Now, where are my snacks... Hmm?”

As she opened a drawer looking for snacks, she came across a silver necklace.

The moment she laid eyes on it, her expression clouded.

“Guess it’s about time I tell ’er. The girl deserves to know about ’er mom...”

The head pastor poured herself some liquor, which she quietly downed as she continued to gaze at the necklace.

Her mind went back to the past. To the day Luceris had been left in her hands...

Chapter 4: The Old Guy Burns Rubber

A jet-black shape shot down the highway that wound through the mountain range.

It was going so fast that even a horse-drawn carriage couldn’t hope to keep up. In fact, its speed saw it blast past all the monsters that tried to catch it and rip through every single turn.

Of course, this shape was the Harley-Sanders Model 13, the magic-powered motorbike Zelos had made.

If I remember correctly, there’s a big switchback coming up...

The motorbike shot through curve after curve like they were nothing.

Zelos was one with the wind right now. Even though he was already going fast enough that nobody could hope to outpace him, he accelerated again.

He wasn’t alone, though. He had a passenger riding two-up behind him—and she was screaming for her life.

“BWAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

He definitely had no right to criticize a certain crazy summoner.

Lusei Imara, commonly known as the Shadowsky General, was a warrior utterly devoted to her nation—and here she was, screaming pathetically on the back of Zelos’s motorcycle, desperate to avoid being flung off the seat.

The reufayl could use their wings to fly, but their maximum speed was only about forty kilometers per hour. After all, they had to use mana to propel their bodies against the force of air resistance. The faster they wanted to fly, the more mana they had to use, which meant reaching high speeds or maintaining flight for long periods of time was arduous.

Zelos’s flight magic, Shadowraven’s Wings, was pretty mana-inefficient too, for what it was worth.

That explained their decision to travel by motorbike rather than fly.

Lusei might’ve been used to traveling forty kilometers an hour, but the bike was going twice that fast; she was not used to this. Plus, riding a motorbike was a different sensation from flying, putting a fear of the unknown into Lusei’s heart. Zelos wasn’t exactly providing a gentle ride either.

She was like a terrified kid riding a roller coaster for the first time. Usually she only got scared enough to stumble over her words when her mask was off, but it was on right now, and she was struggling to speak all the same.

“Pleaslowdooooooooown!”

“Huh? I didn’t quite catch that.”

She was asking—begging—him to slow down, but he couldn’t understand her over the wind in his ears.

The next moment, the Harley-Sanders Model 13 barreled into an orc that had wandered onto the highway, sending it flying.

Zelos had completely taken his eyes off the road.

“D-Didweejus ranova an oooooooohk?!”

“Ha ha! Yeah, orcs are nothing when we’re on this baby, huh?!”

They weren’t even close to having a proper conversation here.

Zelos’s Harley-Sanders had become a lethal weapon tearing along the road.

They proceeded to run over a goblin that wandered out onto the highway and then a bevy of other monsters. The motorbike couldn’t exactly stop on a dime.

Eventually, they arrived at the town of Lysagr.

* * *

The Kingdom of Isalas used to be known as the Iskalas Empire, a unified state that accepted various races without discrimination.

The reign of the third emperor, however, saw a rise in the number of nobles abusing their power, and eventually, factional disputes led to a drawn-out civil war. In response, the beastfolk and the elves abandoned the empire.

One faction held claim to the throne. Another believed the emperor should have been elected from a pool of the empire’s most capable individuals. Another lusted for power and sought to usurp the crown the moment an opportunity presented itself. So on and so forth. The factions plotted against each other, holding the nation back and losing the faith of the commoners. Effectively, the factions got so wrapped in their power struggles that they forgot about their people and self-destructed. Not that the descendants of the royals would agree with that assessment.

Driven out of their fertile land, the claimants to the Iskalas Empire founded the Kingdom of Isalas, a small, remote, and economically stunted nation in the mountains. Isalas was rich in mineral resources, but politics wasn’t such an easy game that you could win just by having some rocks in the ground. The Holy Land of Metis immediately coerced Isalas into selling its resources at bargain-bin prices, leaving the nation’s economy in terrible condition.

Desperate to secure arable land to feed its people, the early Kingdom of Isalas ventured down the Aurus River to invade the Kingdom of Roancina, predecessor to the modern Magic Kingdom of Solistia. However, Isalas suffered a crushing defeat in a battle at Santor Keep. Isalas’s defeat only made it more destitute, and rebellions became a frequent occurrence in the country.

Afterward, Artom extended a helping hand to Isalas, allowing its people to barely escape starvation and leaving them eternally grateful to Artom. To solidify their new relationship, the countries built the Skysoar Highway to connect their nations.

With Artom’s help, it looked like things were finally turning around for Isalas. Then Metis tightened the screws, using its coercive “diplomacy”—practically outright threats—and plunging Isalas into renewed chaos. Having forgotten its past failures, Isalas strung together a plan to invade Solistia again, but early scout efforts revealed that its plan was woefully ill-advised. Isalas shelved the idea shortly after.

It was at this point that Duke Delthasis from Solistia brought together diplomats from an array of minor powers and revealed his project to build the Irmanaz Deepway.

Despite initial difficulties, the project was finally complete, connecting the Skysoar Highway with the Irmanaz Deepway and Isa Lante Deepway to form a revolutionary new trade route.

The new road was guaranteed to drive up trade, which gave hope for an economic recovery as well.

After all, Isalas had found a much-needed trade partner in Solistia, which had use for its valuable minerals. Plus, escaping its extortionate ‘deal’ with Metis was fantastic news for Isalas.

Yesterday’s enemy is today’s friend, as the saying went.

When he heard the news, Louidat Farnando Isalas—the current king of Isalas—sighed in relief. “What a long journey,” he said. “This should finally put some money in the nation’s coffers.”

The king was nearing the end of middle age now, but he’d worked hard to develop the nation’s farmland since he was young. Adored as a wise king, he’d carried out many reforms in his poor nation.

“We should be able to sell our gems, minerals, and precious metals for fair prices now,” a minister said. “But there is no telling how long Metis will stay silent on the matter.”

“Indeed. Though I heard some interesting news from one of Artom’s messengers earlier...”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“It seems that Metis suffered great damage from the recent earthquake. It will likely be a few years before the country is stable again. Maha Luthert in particular is in chaos, I was told.”

“Then I assume their leaders may stop picking fights with us for a while. I can’t imagine they’ll have the time to focus on a remote nation like us.”

“These next few years will be critical, though. We finally have the chance to stabilize ourselves and prepare our army.”

It was ironic, really. Isalas had been preparing its forces to invade Solistia, but now it was allying with Solistia. Now it could repurpose those preparations to invade Metis instead.

“If Metis is embroiled in chaos, this is a good opportunity to reclaim the land they stole from us,” the minister agreed.

“Yes—and we have Solistia as an ally now too. It’s unfortunate we’ll never be able to settle the score for our embarrassment at Santor Keep, but securing arable land comes first.”

“Indeed. It seems Solistia will be providing us with food assistance as well, so it would behoove us to form close relations with them, as we have with Artom.”

“They’ve provided us with healing magic scrolls too. We will need to begin training our own medical mages. Maintaining good relations with Solistia will be of utmost importance.”

“By the way, Sir Ado,” the minister said, turning around to speak to a black-robed mage in the background. “Did you manage to form an alliance with the beastfolk?”

“I wouldn’t call it an alliance,” Ado replied, “but they’re happy with mutual noninterference. And they’ve agreed to lend us a hand if we invade Metis.”

“Ah! Just as I expected from the good Sir Ado. It will be most reassuring to have the beastfolk on our side.”

“Metis has killed or enslaved many of their family members,” Ado said. “So it makes sense. If we’re serious about trying to crush Metis, I think the beastfolk would be happy to help us out.”

“And so our alliance of small nations grows stronger. We have effectively managed to encircle Metis.”

“We can’t get too optimistic, though. I hear Metis still has half its heroes, and I don’t want to see innocent people die in war. Hopefully, we’ll be able to win a lot of them over to our side, but...”

Ado was reviewing everything he knew, measuring the situation with a careful eye.

The Holy Land of Metis might have been at a low point, but it still had the military strength to destroy smaller nations one by one. Unless those nations dealt a blow to the theocracy’s military capabilities, Isalas would always have the sword of Damocles proverbially hanging over its head.

“I have thought the same myself,” the king concurred. “Fortunately, the disaster has Metis in chaos, and they will be busy dealing with that. We should use this time to address our own nation’s issues and stabilize our economy as best as possible. It’s a daunting task, though. There are so many things we lack.”

“Indeed,” the minister said. “And while growing poltas has helped, the project has been beset by issues. We must become self-sufficient with our food and export whatever we can spare. How about wine, Your Majesty?”

Poltas were root vegetables with skins as hard as rock, but boiling them softened their exterior and made them easier to cook. Since animals didn’t eat them and they grew everywhere in the wilderness, people hadn’t thought they were edible.

Even better, their softened skins could be peeled, dried, and turned into a solid fuel once boiled. As the person who’d made these discoveries and popularized the polta, Ado was treated as a champion of the people.

As a sidenote, the terrain of Isalas was also well suited to growing grapes, so the country produced large amounts of raisins and wine, which it kept in storage. It also grew frostcorn—a type of corn that grew in winter—which provided its people with a precious source of protein. Even so, Isalas produced nowhere near enough food to sustain its population.

“All the minerals we could ever want, but food is always out of our reach...” The king sighed.

“Dwelling on the issue will make our spirits flag, Your Majesty. Things will get better from here. Our rise has only just begun!”

King Louidat had a habit of sinking into depression like this at times. His country was struggling on so many fronts.

Feeling helpless, Ado decided to make a suggestion. “Why not export all the old wine we have lying around? The older it gets, the better it is. We could try sending some to Solistia and Artom as a gift. Just as a test run. I think they’d be thrilled.”

“You think they would be happy with old wine? We do have more than we could ever need. Still, are you certain? What if they feel slighted that we didn’t give them our newer vintages? What if they attack us over it?”

“Your Majesty, this is Sir Ado making this suggestion. What do you say we give it a try? If it doesn’t work out, I very much doubt we will come to any harm—and if it does succeed, we could import their herbs and such to make mana potions.”

“You are right...” The king sighed again. “Forced to resort to selling old wine. Such is the struggle of being so destitute...”

Why does he always have to be so negative? Ado wondered. And come on, old man. Your country’s been making wine for centuries now. How have none of you figured out what age does to wine yet? Don’t you know how great a century-old vintage can be?

Ado, of course, had the benefit of his Swords & Sorceries knowledge. In the game, people could age alcohol with mana, making it increasingly delicious as time passed.

While aging and fermentation were known in this world, people didn’t think it was safe to drink wine that was centuries old. Isalas produced huge quantities of wine every year, pushing the previous year’s leftover casks farther and farther into the back of its cellars until they were eventually forgotten about. Then, when wineries needed space, they just threw out the worthless casks.

It was a waste, of course, but people had arbitrarily decided that wine that was too old was no good to drink. As a result, nobody even tried it, and countless old wine casks were just sitting around in storage.

“Hundred-year-old wine is great, you know? It’s valuable enough that a man can go his whole life never knowing whether he’ll even get to taste it. Seriously, send them some, and they’ll be thrilled to send back more aid, I’m telling you. Oh, and if you send some jewelry while you’re at it, they’ll like you even more.”

King Louidat sighed again. “Oh, how I hope you are right...”

He didn’t seem too excited by the plan, but Isalas would need to maintain its alliance with Solistia going forward. The king didn’t have any other ideas to help him leave a good impression, though, so he reluctantly agreed to Ado’s suggestion. And as reluctant as he was, this decision had an impact he never expected.

Upon receiving the gifts, Solistia quickly became enamored with Isalas’s incredibly matured wines and sent back an enormous shipment of food and other aid.

Flabbergasted by the scale of the response, King Louidat decided to try some of the old wine himself...and finally, he understood. The depth and complexity of flavor brought him to tears.

Realizing the value of matured wine, he tried selling a few old bottles, just as a test. They sold for much more than he’d expected.

His mood lifted by the success, the king began limited-volume sales of century-old wine—which would later come to be known as “Goddess’s Tears,” the very best wine money could buy. It was a shocking success. A single bottle was worth close to a small nation’s entire budget.

Just like that, the Kingdom of Isalas was on its way to becoming a wine mecca for its delicious vintages. Many years later, that status would significantly fatten the nation’s wallet.

* * *

“Urgh... Finally. Those meetings are always so exhausting...”

As soon as he was done dealing with King Louidat, Ado returned to his room, collapsed onto the sofa, and let out a deep sigh. The king of Isalas was a real pessimist, and he had a habit of asking Ado for advice about every little thing.

It wouldn’t have been too bad if that were the extent of it, but the king summoned Ado just to gripe about his in-laws or unpleasant retainers, and Ado was sick of it.

After returning from the Ruuda-Iruruh Flatlands, Ado had intended to simply give his report and then relax. Instead, he’d gotten dragged into an endless consultation on political matters.

And of course, Ado was no politician. He wasn’t even particularly good at making judgments on those sorts of things.

By the time he finally made it back to his room, his energy was well and truly spent.

“Welcome back, Ado. You look exhausted,” Lisa said.

“Those meetings always sound like a pain.” Shakti nodded. “Maybe you shouldn’t have told them you are a Sage. They’re just using it as a reason to push all their work onto you.”

“You can say that again. I’m a mage, dammit, not a politician!”

While Lisa and Shakti sympathized with their exhausted comrade, they had no intention of helping when push came to shove.

They found it much easier to sit back and make potions than to get dragged into whatever troublesome politics were going on.

And as a result, Ado got the short end of the stick every time.

He sighed again. “I’m sure Zelos’d be able to manage something. He’s better-spoken than me. I’m no good with all this stuff...”

“You’re making me curious, Ado: Is this Zelos guy really that amazing?” Shakti asked. “I’ve heard rumors about the Destroyers, but it’s hard to be sure when I’ve never actually met any.”

“Yeah,” Lisa chimed in, “I wanna hear too. There’s a famous story about him using AoE magic to blow up everyone in a raid, including his allies. I heard he even left some gankers on the verge of death, tied them up, and hung them upside down from the World Tree. Is any of that true?”

“Pretty much. If you’re talking about the story I think you’re talking about, then my party was in that raid too, and... Well, this guild tried to throw us to the monsters and take the loot for themselves, but Zelos took them down along with the monsters. As for the ones he tied up—that was probably him getting revenge on some guys who tried to kill him and take the rare loot, the Seed of the World Tree, for themselves. I heard rocs ended up eating them.”

“Yikes...”

Ado’s party had often played with the Destroyers back in Swords & Sorceries. They were close enough that they’d even worked together on things like crafting, with Ado’s party joining the Destroyers in carrying out the sorts of terrifying deeds that were permissible because, and only because, they’d been in a game.

“Isn’t that kinda overkill?” Lisa asked.

“Sounds like they used the fact that no one would actually die as an excuse to do whatever messed-up stuff they wanted,” Shakti said. “It probably was a good way of dealing with gankers and troublesome guilds, but... Ado, you joined them for some of those things, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know how,” Ado replied, “but the Destroyers had a really good nose for assholes like that. They’d always find them, and they never hesitated to make examples of them.”

“Sheesh. You make it sound like they spent more time fighting rotten players than they did fighting monsters...” Shakti said.

“I wonder if the Destroyers are here too?” Lisa asked.

“I mean, they could be,” Ado replied. “I heard a whole mountain just vanished in Solistia. I bet that was from some Destroyer using Gluttonous Void.”

Gluttonous Void was a gravity area spell that leveraged the collapse of incredibly dense balls of gravity to create a destructive force that could completely eradicate the user’s foes.

There were only a few mages who knew how to use such a crazy spell. The question was, which of them had ended up in this world?

“I reckon it was probably Zelos,” Ado said. “If Kemo Luvyune or one of the other three had ended up here, I’m pretty sure they’d be causing even more chaos than that.”

“Zelos aside, are the others seriously that dangerous? I don’t know much about them, apart from what Kemo Brose mentioned about Kemo Luvyune.”

“What did the top players spend all their time on, anyway?”

“You’d rather not know. Seriously. Zelos is kinda twisted, and the other four are even worse. But if you’re asking... One made a harem dungeon out of animal-girl homunculi, one spread biohazards and pandemics, one made gear that was super OP but unusable, and one crafted a whole bunch of cursed items and tricked other players into buying them. They were complete menaces, all of them. Zelos was the best of the lot, if only because he restrained himself sometimes.”

They had been a nuisance of a party that had gotten up to all sorts of no good, using the excuse that “it’s just a game.”

Each of them had been out of control, crazy about their specific hobbies, and inevitably caused large-scale damage that other players had gotten caught up in.

What had made it worse was that other players with similar hobbies had flocked to them—and eventually, the majority of the top players had been within their sphere of influence. Any guild that stood against them had been attacked en masse and annihilated.

“Hmm... What did Zelos do, then? You make it sound like he was different from the other four, at least...”

“His thing was developing new spells. That Gluttonous Void spell I used is one of the ones he made. Seriously, though, I was amazed to find someone using programming techniques to make spells. He managed to find a PC in some ruins somewhere, and from then on, there was no stopping him...”

“It was crazy strong even when you used it, Ado—I wonder what would happen if Zelos used it? He’s got Zenith Breaker, doesn’t he?”

“He’d pretty much be a human WMD. I remember he had a thing for making spells that were so strong they weren’t even usable. Oh, and explosives. He helped the other Destroyers with their things too, so he’s probably skilled enough to get up to some cheat-level stuff in this world...”

“Explosives? What is he, a terrorist?”

It was a fair response. Ado’s descriptions absolutely made the Destroyers sound like terrorists.

The Red Destroyer, Kemo Luvyune, was a mad alchemist obsessed with homunculus research. He was an irredeemable furry, and he’d do whatever it took to gather the materials he needed.

The White Destroyer, Kanon, was an apothecary who specialized in medicine, drugs, and so on. She would mass-produce dangerous potions and sell them to other players in a cycle that let her carry out experiment after experiment. She’d left countless victims strung out on drug trips from the debuffs her potions inflicted.

The Blue Destroyer, Gantetsu, was a blacksmith who loved making weapons with terrifying, brutal power and zero practicality. They looked incredible, and they were incredibly strong; the problem was he’d fit each and every one with a self-destruct feature. Player after player had blown themselves up when a Gantetsu-made weapon misfired in their faces.

The Green Destroyer, Dead Ted, was a necromancer. He loved cursed items and worked as a bounty hunter to test out those items on gankers. Not only would he equip them on his victims, afflicting them with nasty debuffs, but he was also fond of making those items incredibly hard to unequip.

The Black Destroyer, Zelos Merlin, was a mage and a silent harbinger of destruction who excelled at improving spells. He’d wiped out an impressive number of malicious player guilds.

Together, the five Destroyers made up for one another’s weaknesses and taught each other even crazier techniques, allowing them all to reach the highest heights. That was how they’d become the game’s top players.

With that power in their hands, they’d managed to complete a bevy of difficult quests—all while leaving a bevy of casualties in their path.

The thought of it all made Lisa and Shakti imagine a big warning sign—Danger! Mixing these individuals can lead to death!

Even calling them terrorists wasn’t that far off the mark, depending on your perspective.

“Anyway, I’m not certain, but if one of the Destroyers is in Solistia, it’s probably Zelos,” Ado said. “If any of the others were here, there’d probably be even crazier stuff going on. I can’t imagine those guys would’ve learned restraint just because they woke up in a fantasy world one day. In fact, they definitely wouldn’t hold back. I trust them on that.”

“They sure sound like, uh...free spirits. And that’s a scary thing to ‘trust’ them about.”

“So they’re strong enough to wipe out entire countries and don’t know how to hold back... Isn’t that kinda bad?”

“They mostly just did their own thing—but yeah, coming together made them really strong. Strong enough that they all managed to become Great Sages. They’re not the type of people to just sit around, though, so if any of the four really bad ones were around, we’d know. And since I haven’t heard about that sort of mayhem so far, I’d guess that it’s Zelos, if any of them.”

“So, what—if the other four were here, they’d be causing so much chaos we wouldn’t be able to miss it?”

“I think I get your point now. The Black Destroyer does sound better than the rest of them. They all sound pretty nasty, though...”

If reincarnators all had the same powers and abilities as they’d had in Swords & Sorceries, mages capable of bringing about mass destruction were real threats. And Sages and Great Sages were even worse. If a nation didn’t keep them in check, there would be no telling what they might get up to; it was a scary thought.

It made sense, then, that they’d be at risk of assassination from those keen to eliminate the danger they posed. Royals and nobles weren’t typically generous enough to overlook such enormous threats to their authority.

“I can just imagine him here,” Ado said. “Wandering around, pulling a bunch of immature stunts, dragging people into his messes...”

“That sounds terrifying,” Shakti said. “I hope we never meet him. From the sounds of it, there’s no telling what might happen if we did.”

“I’m with Shakti,” Lisa agreed. “I’m scared of ever meeting him...”

“Again, he’s got the most common sense out of all of them, so it’d probably be okay. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’d be quick to realize that this world is his new reality—and then get straight to holding a grudge against the Four Gods. And trust me, we want him on our side.”

“W-Wait. Are you saying that—”

“Yeah. I was thinking of going to Solistia to pay him a visit.”

There would be little more reassuring than getting the power of a Destroyer on their side.

And that was doubly true for Zelos, who was like a mentor to Ado.

When Ado had formed a party with his comrades, Zelos had taught him the best ways of training to acquire new skills. Those, and assassination techniques... Really, it was easy to forget sometimes that Zelos was a mage at all.

“D-Do we have to go?” Shakti and Lisa asked, clearly reluctant.

“Yup. We do. Seriously, he’s not a bad guy. You don’t have to be so worried.”

“But won’t he have his real body now, from back on Earth? The same as us?”

“Yeah! Will we even be able to find him?”

“We should be fine. Any reincarnators and heroes here are gonna be living their lives by Earth logic, right? Even if he’s trying to blend in, I’m sure he’ll screw up at some point.”

“Yeah,” the two of them replied, “and it’s the thought of him ‘screwing up’ that scares us...”

Shakti and Lisa’s fear was understandable. Still, it never hurt to have more allies.

Zelos was pretty much the ultimate mage, after all, and the ultimate crafter to boot. They could expect him to be able to do the best job of anyone around, whether he was strengthening gear or making healing potions.

The Black Destroyer was capable of things that Ado simply wasn’t.

And so, the trio set off on another mission to the Magic Kingdom of Solistia—the next step in their plan to get revenge against the Four Gods...

Chapter 5: Croesus Presents His Research

Today, three hundred years after the Istol Academy of Magic’s founding, the academy was holding an event that would go down in history.

It hosted the event in the Grand Auditorium, a common venue for presentations on magic research and more, and a place where all sorts of discoveries were revealed to the public. It was something of a mecca for the students, having left its mark on various fields of research over the years.

Only students whose research had produced excellent results were allowed to present within this auditorium, and those who did were welcomed into the Magic Research Institute of Solistia after graduation. It was quite a prestigious venue given its ability to guarantee young mages’ futures.

The Magic Research Institute of Solistia was a national research organization, and its members devoted themselves to research as public servants. Eventually, they’d go on to be employed at a range of other research institutes.

It promised ample human resources and research funding, as well as high salaries. It was pretty much a dream employer for mages.

Our focus for today, however, was not on the institute’s outstanding graduate students but on Croesus, who had been put forward as a representative of the Saint-Germain faction.

And his research presentation today was about a topic that many a mage had tackled before: deciphering magic formulas.

The conventional understanding was that each magic letter carried meaning, and that stringing them together based on their meanings facilitated spell activation.

Croesus’s research contradicted that belief.

And now that he’d gained enough confidence in his research and achieved conclusive enough results, he’d decided to reveal his findings to the public.

“So from this,” he said to the audience, “we can see that the correct interpretation of this formula is that it creates a rift using a layer of air. In other words, air magic actually works by creating a rift in air, then forming a vacuum into which mana is added—and it is this mana-filled vacuum that then strikes the caster’s target. This reinforces, I hope, my earlier suggestion that magic letters form a language—that the fifty-six phonetic characters work together to form words. I posit that so many mages have failed to notice this phenomenon until now because the idea that each magic letter carried its own meaning was deemed self-evident. Common sense, really—something not even worth questioning. But now, I propose, we should all endeavor to learn the correct approach to deciphering magic formulas—to learn, and to regain the prosperity of eras long lost.”

The crux of Croesus’s argument was that these magic letters should be interpreted as an alphabet that could form words capable of changing the world. Ergo, magic.

Long story short, his research was on the mark—but that didn’t change the fact that some sought to deny it all the same. For example...

“Hold it right there! Even if this theory of yours is correct—”

“It is. I’ve tested it plenty of times, and every result conforms with my hypothesis.”

“Even so... You’re essentially saying that everything we’ve learned all our lives has been a lie. We cannot simply lie down and accept that!”

“I understand why you might not want to accept it, Instructor Samas, but I assure you it is the cold, immutable truth. We will never be able to move forward unless we accept our mistakes. It hurts to decry everything we’ve learned, I know, but we have to do it, for the sake of progress.”

“Then what was even the point of all our study?! Turning our backs on it would be an admission of years—no, centuries—of wasted time. I refuse to accept it!”

“What you or anybody else in this room chooses to accept will not change the facts. Reality can be cruel sometimes, Instructor.”

“Ngh...”

Samas had heard the same theory from Celestina a while ago, but he’d disregarded it.

He’d still thought, at the time, that she was nothing but a failure who’d only barely learned to use a little magic. Now, she was touted as a genius...but since he’d blown off her opinion back then, the Saint-Germain faction was the first to publicly present the theory.

Samas couldn’t accept that everything he’d learned was for naught. He wished he’d tried harder to uncover the theory himself, but it was too late for that now, and all he could do was regret it.

He wasn’t the only one either. Judging by their faces, many other instructors were keen to repudiate the idea. But as much as they tried, they were unable to succeed. They couldn’t poke any holes in Croesus’s research.

“It isn’t as if everything we’ve studied has been wrong,” Croesus said. “Individual magic letters do have meaning, in a sense. We’ve just had the wrong approach—and because of that, we’ve lost a lot of time. That much is true. But we’re scholars. We have to learn. Reading formulas with this new method will be essential if we’re to ever obtain the technologies from ancient times; if we disavow it, we are begging to stay stuck where we are. Let me ask you all: What progress has been made on deciphering magic in the past hundred years? None, I would posit—and I would suggest that a major reason for that has been factions bickering over political power and treating magic as nothing more than a tool of war. Blinded to the truth, they see any opportunity to research new techniques or magic’s innermost secrets as a waste of time. That perspective has been prevalent since the age of upheaval a thousand years ago.”

Croesus went on to cite specific records from this time to explain why their predecessors’ approaches to research had shackled every mage who came after them, preventing advances in magic.

And today was finally the time to escape those shackles.

Even so, many of the academy’s instructors looked awfully shaken...

“Hmm... We’re short on time, so I suppose I should wrap things up here,” Croesus said. “But I would like to stress: The new method is correct! And I believe that if we cast off our old conventions and embrace the truth, we can enter an all-new era of progress. Thank you.”

The Grand Auditorium fell silent.

The audience couldn’t bring themselves to applaud. Everything they’d believed, everything they’d learned, had just been shattered before their eyes.

This presentation would go on to create a rift between those who sought to protect the status quo and those who wished to explore new possibilities.

It wasn’t a catastrophic rift, mind you. Just verbal arguments that would stretch on until magic formulas were fully deciphered.

There was another impact too: The Saint-Germain faction’s research facilities received a good deal of support in the wake of the revelations, expanding the faction’s influence.

The Order of Mages, which sat above the factions, showed some interest in absorbing the Saint-Germain faction. But the Saint-Germain faction had always been a nest of mad scientists, and its members weren’t interested in the slightest.

The only other faction that responded favorably to Croesus’s revelation was the newest: the Solistia faction, the faction of the royals. Its influence rose alongside that of the Saint-Germain faction while the others lost standing.

The Wiesler faction, of course, was no exception. And the brunt of its leadership’s frustration would be directed toward its rank-and-file members: the students.

* * *

Whatever world you were in, there were alumni who looked down on the students who came after them.

That wasn’t true of all alumni, but plenty of students became arrogant after graduation, even if they hadn’t exactly graduated with honors. And those students would sometimes visit their alma mater for the express purpose of lecturing and belittling its current students.

It would be one thing if they intended to tell real-world anecdotes that gave students the perspective of experienced graduates. But in reality, these alumni just wanted to dress up their idle complaining as “pep talks.”

With Wiesler faction alumni turning up out of the blue to take over lecture halls and waste the students’ time with endless complaints and gripes, it should have come as no surprise that the faction’s students had grown sick of listening to these arrogant, pointless lectures. They were starting to have their doubts about the faction’s leadership.

The faction’s older members failed to understand that simple idea, however, so they kept at it:

“Our faction must seize the reins of the military and guide it back to the right path!”

“You brats are slacking off. Back in my day...”

They’d probably heard the same things from their predecessors, and now, they were here to pay it forward.

To the current students, it was just one big nuisance. And it was happening again today.

“My word... Just what have you fools been doing to fall behind those Saint-Germain dolts? If I were still at the academy, this would never have happened!”

As the alumnus flaunted his apparent superiority, every student fought back the urge to reply, Well, if you’re so amazing, then why didn’t you find the right way to decipher magic formulas? Do you really think we’re stupid enough to fall for your shit?

Or, well...almost every student fought back the urge.

“It’s strange—you act like some great researcher, but I’ve never heard of your work pertaining to reading formulas. You may not be at the academy anymore, but you can still do research, no? Well, what have you been doing with your life?”

“Wha—?!”

Suddenly, the heads of every Wiesler faction student whipped around to stare at who’d just spoken: a completely unapologetic Zweit. They saw him as a hero for voicing what had been on everyone’s minds. He wasn’t done yet either.

“‘If I were still here’ this, ‘back in my day’ that... I feel like you’re missing the point, though. Hasn’t the Wiesler faction always been focused on the military? On battlefield tactics and practical combat? What’s the problem with leaving the fundamental research to the Saint-Germain guys? So let me ask, Second-Circle Domalt: Did you even consider what this faction is before you started complaining to us?”

“What is this, brat? Who do you think I a—”

“Second-Circle Domalt. Right? But honestly, I don’t care who you are. Correct me if I’m wrong, but our faction was founded to create and test defensive tactics so we can protect our people if our country ever falls into crisis. Magic research comes second to that. Since when was this faction meant to be a group of magic researchers? Our research has always been centered on combat, as far as I’m aware.”

“Are you trying to imply I didn’t know that? You don’t understand—what I’m saying is that we cannot allow the Saint-Germain faction to outstrip us in influence!”

“Isn’t that your job? What are you expecting out of some students? We already spend all our time investigating terrain, looking through documents about every territory’s military setup, researching potential tactics from every possible angle, studying different combat techniques... The point is, what matters to us is real, practical battle. As far as magic research goes, all we need is the ability to make some basic healing potions and stuff. Our focus is different from the Saint-Germain faction’s, and that’s fine.”

“What nonsense are you spouting?! If the Saint-Germain faction gains influence, how are we supposed to seize control of the military?! Do you expect us to let that accursed Order of Knights strut around the place unimpeded forever?!”

For some reason, the number of knights capable of using magic had been increasing lately, putting the Wiesler faction in a grave situation already. Now, with a rival faction discovering and publicizing a better way of deciphering magic formulas, the Wiesler faction’s standing was declining.

At least, that was how Domalt saw it. In reality, the Wiesler faction had been established to cooperate with the Order of Knights on tactics; they were never meant to have been rivals in the first place.

Over time, however, the other factions under the Order of Mages had influenced the Wiesler mages until they’d become intent on seizing military control from the Order of Knights.

The faction’s mages had no real combat experience, and as a result, they took war too lightly. They were fools who thought magic could solve everything—and those fools were throwing their weight around in important positions.

“So, what?” Zweit scoffed. “You’re panicking because knights are starting to learn magic? The Order of Knights fights differently from mages, though. Knights are expected to fight honorably, head-on, upholding the dignity of the country. But us mages? We have to win using any means necessary. Firing magic from the back lines won’t be enough to turn the tide of a war. Sometimes, we’ll have to make a move ourselves. We’ll have to cooperate with the Order of Knights to unleash our full potential. And I can’t imagine pulling that off unless we and the knights trust each other.”

“Everything you’re saying is more reason we need to seize military power from the knights for ourselves!”

“No. We, as mages, need to change the way we fight. Times are changing—and so is the optimal way of fighting. Things that are common sense in one war could become outdated by the next; that sort of thing happens all the time. And we can’t overcome that just by sitting in the back lines and firing spells. We need to be constantly searching for new tactics. Besides, you wanna know the reason the knights have started using magic? It’s because you and the others like you haven’t been doing your jobs properly. You’re a joke.”

Conventionally, a unit of mages acted as an artillery battery.

It was common for the army to secure a position in a fort, and then station mages atop the walls to fire their spells. It wasn’t a bad idea, but leaders sometimes needed to call for very different tactics. Mages did sometimes need to head to the front line to, say, help a unit of knights encircle an enemy and sever its supply lines—but mages in this world were useless in melee combat, avoiding the front line when possible. And that was in part due to the shortage of mages.

This shortage had arisen due to mages, over the years, fiddling with the ancient magic formulas to “improve” them, resulting in a situation where only people who had a certain amount of mana in their bodies were able to activate spells at all. Many fell short of that threshold—Celestina had been one.

Basically, since mages were limited in number, they tended to take very conservative, safe positions in battle.

They really stuck to that approach too; even when a mission was needed to sever enemy supply lines, it was common for every mage to stoutly decline to join. Without support magic to hide their approach, the knights left to carry out those missions alone were much more susceptible to being spotted, and often suffered significant losses.

With how many times this had happened now, the Order of Knights had started to view mages as so unreliable that they were better off not having any at all—and that had evolved into a broader rejection of mages. Every incident along these lines had only made the rift between knights and mages wider.

“How long do you intend to stick to these old grudges? Why do we all have to be bound by your stubborn stupidity? What’s the point in clinging to power so desperately if it means failing to protect the people? And one last question for you, Second-Circle Domalt: Do you really think you can protect this country?”

“Ngh...”

The Order of Mages had been established, first and foremost, to protect the citizens of Solistia. But now it was in such a sorry state that the students of the academy were quickly losing faith in it. It was hard to say the Order was doing its job as part of the defense forces.

And it wasn’t like Domalt had come to the academy for the students’ sake. He was only here to vent his frustrations—yet at some point, the roles had reversed, and the students were casting aspersions on the Order. It went to show how impressive these students were.

He could probably have salvaged the situation if he’d said, “You make a good point. The Order does need reform; in fact, I’m worried about it myself.” But unfortunately for Domalt, he just didn’t think like that.

He only cared about appearances. And, aware that saying something out of line could get him sacked, he had to watch his mouth. If he were the type of person who could criticize the structures of power when it actually mattered, he wouldn’t have been coming to the academy just to gripe to some students in the first place. Ultimately, he was nothing but frustrated middle management.

“The modern Order of Mages is messed up.”

“Yeah! We’re trying to get good at magic in order to protect the people. What’s even the point of a group that not only fails to work with the Order of Knights, but even fights against them?”

“It’d be faster to rebuild the Order of Mages from the ground up, wouldn’t it?”

“The Order should run on a merit system. One that has nothing to do with nobles. Having idiots running the whole thing just screws over everyone below them.”

“Honestly, with how bad the Order of Mages is now, don’t you think we’d be better off not having it at all?”

Domalt had made a big miscalculation. The current students in the Wiesler faction were in favor of a meritocracy, and they were directly opposed to the Order of Mages as it stood.

If he brushed them off here, talented young mages would defect to other factions—and if those factions welcomed them, the status of the remaining Wiesler mages would worsen even further.

Alternatively, he could try to bring them into the fold of the Order of Mages, but then there was the risk that they’d start reforming the Order’s factional system against his will—and the ripples from that could bring major change to the Order. Change that would be sacrilege to those wanting to protect the privilege they currently had.

Making matters worse for Domalt was the fact that this group of students was led by Zweit, a relative of Duke Solistia.

Domalt couldn’t be too careless around him, lest he expose himself to danger—potentially even expulsion from the Order—by making an enemy of the duke. Now that the royal faction, led by the Solistia faction, was steadily gaining power, it was becoming increasingly difficult to oppose its wishes.

Throw the Saint-Germain faction into the mix, given its alliance of sorts with the Solistia faction now, and it looked like the Wiesler faction was on the verge of irrelevance.

“Why have factions within an organization in the first place? It’s stupid, isn’t it? What were the leaders thinking?”

“Quiet! You brats don’t understand a word of what you’re saying! In a big organization, your bosses’ words are absolute. There’s no telling what might happen to you if you go against them!”

“Well, that’s interesting to hear. We’ve just been expressing our doubts about the way the Order of Mages is set up, right? It sounds like you’re frustrated by that too...but you should know that the blame lies with the people who support that setup. The ones who are running it now. That includes you, Second-Circle Domalt. It pisses me off to listen to you try to pass the buck. Do you really think the Order of Mages—a group abandoning its duty to defend the country so it can expand its influence—can be trusted to protect the people? Do you seriously believe we should be putting the entire army in the hands of a group like that? I’m not so sure, myself.”

Domalt had tried to use his status as an active state mage to silence the students, but Zweit had used that status against him.

The students weren’t under the jurisdiction of the Order of Mages anyway, so Domalt’s attempts to exert his influence exceeded his authority and impeded the growth of promising young students. The Order’s principles and rules didn’t apply to the academy.

Even if everyone there was part of the Wiesler faction, graduated mages and students had vastly different responsibilities. The fault obviously lay with the organization that had made the students so distrustful of it in the first place.

From Domalt’s perspective, the students’ brilliant minds were exactly what made them so dangerous. But if he continued to stand against these young mages devoted to the future of the nation, there was no telling how bad things might get for him.

At this point, he was having some real regrets. If I’d known this would happen, I never would’ve come to the academy today...

But, desperate to vent his frustrations, he had come—and this was the outcome.

“Shut your mouths! Children who’ve never seen a lick of real combat have no right to talk back to me!”

“Huh? We have seen combat, though. We were surrounded by a bunch of monsters in the Ramaf Woods. Monsters that an assassin lured in with felscent, mind you. And we survived.”

“Yeah. That was crazy, huh?”

“I was so sure we were gonna die...”

“Monster after monster... I felt like it was never going to end! We did well to get everyone outta that alive...”

“Good thing we’d learned self-defense. One wrong step out there and we would’ve been dead. Just goes to show that knowing melee combat’s important, huh?”

Silence filled the air. Domalt didn’t know how to respond.

These students had far more combat experience than he did—both with magic and in melee.

The realization that these younger mages really were superior to him left him shocked. They were actual jack-of-all-trades battlemages.

If Domalt were dragged into melee combat, he’d be useless. After all, he’d never been in that situation before, and he’d spent his life assuming that as long as he had his magic, he’d be able to solve everything. That was how many mages thought.

These students, however, had learned that magic alone wasn’t always enough, so they’d put in the effort to learn how to fight up close and personal.

Domalt might have been middle management, but his wages were high, and he was overall quite fond of the status quo. Now, though, he was looking increasingly at risk of losing his position.

Most of the factions were centered around nobles, but it didn’t seem like there would be any stopping these students and their push for a meritocracy—especially since the students were organized around a member of one of the four main noble houses. It made dealing with them an incredibly delicate matter. Meanwhile, the boy’s younger brother, Croesus, had just revealed a better way to decipher magic formulas, drawing attention to his brilliant mind and giving credence to everything Croesus said.

“By the way, what happened with that proposal we submitted to the academy council last month?”

“The heads of the academy were supposed to send it to His Majesty, right? I think we’ll see something happen soon.”

“Hopefully it improves things at the Order of Mages, even just a bit...”

“W-Wait. What exactly did you brats send to the academy council?”

“A proposal for restructuring the Order of Mages in a way we think makes much more sense,” the students replied. “What, is that a problem?”

Domalt felt like his world was crashing down around him.

The academy council, a central administrative body, also passed research and ideas from sufficiently high-achieving students on to the king, who could use that information to hire talented human resources.

Hiring that sort of talent would be in the national interest, and aid in defense to boot, so the king was sure to look over their proposals. Depending on the specifics, it was possible for a proposal’s authors to receive special treatment and be welcomed into influential positions.

Plus, the academy council bore a grudge against the Order of Mages, so it would probably make it a top priority to deliver this proposal to the king.

The Order, after all, had a habit of throwing around its political weight to put pressure on the council, which obviously didn’t endear it to the academy.

Meanwhile, the conflict between the Order of Mages and the Order of Knights was a thorny issue that troubled the king and his ministers alike. They’d probably want to add anyone with potential solutions to their entourage to have them gain experience.

The question, then, was this: What would happen when the proposal Zweit and the others had written was brought before the king? There was a real probability that the crown would waste no time recommending a restructuring of the military, providing a foundation for the overhaul of the Order of Mages.

Looking back on how he’d acted over the years, Domalt worried he might be demoted if that happened—and if he were, he wouldn’t be able to bear it. His heart began beating as fast and as loud as an alarm bell.

“Wh-What else have you brought to the council?! Surely it wasn’t just the one proposal!”

“Well, let’s see... There was a review of military equipment and tactics, as well as a study into the Order of Mages’s reputation among mages and more broadly. Then there was a collection of defensive tactics and training methods to help with regional defense, a proposal for hiring talented individuals... Hmm. What else?”

“Yeah, we sent in a bunch of stuff, didn’t we? Too many to remember.”

“Wh-What have you done?!”

“We have to root out corruption as soon as possible, Second-Circle Domalt. If we don’t, the country will rot.”

“Progress and growing pains go hand in hand. The Order of Mages must be dismantled before it can be rebuilt.”

“Yeah. No need to keep around incompetent, status-obsessed morons.”

“And, hey—it’s out of our hands now, isn’t it? We already sent the report a month ago.”

This was a catastrophe for Domalt.

Even though everyone here was a student who wouldn’t step into governmental roles until much later, they were more competent than Domalt, and it seemed likely that their research and proposals for restructuring the nation would result in actual reform. After all, a subordinate had shown him some of the students’ proposed defensive tactics before, and they’d been pretty impressive.

Some members of the Order of Mages had only made it in because they were nobles who’d pulled some strings. If the students’ suggestions made it into real, large-scale reform, people like that would likely be removed from the Order.

The ones proposing all this were only students, sure, but they were impressive students; that was the problem. In a meritocracy, those students would gain status while Domalt and his ilk would lose it. After all, he was part of the corruption himself; he’d once plagiarized a proposal, replacing the actual writer’s name with his own before submitting it.

This is a disaster. I never would’ve expected the students to be so capable... If things go south, this could end in my dismissal!

Domalt had been carelessly throwing his weight around; now, he shivered terribly, like he’d been doused in ice water.

The times were always changing. And those who missed the boat would be swallowed by the waves and drown.

Perhaps it was too late to do anything now, but Domalt decided to make a report to his superiors anyway.

“S-Something urgent has come up. I’ll let you all off the hook for today. Don’t slack on your studies while I’m gone...”

Domalt proceeded to flee the lecture hall—or perhaps it was more of a dispirited trudge.

“What’s his problem?”

“Who knows? I’m just glad he finally shut up.”

“Pretty much. Well, then—we’ve got some spare time now, so how about we pick up where we left off yesterday? We were covering... I think it was the Duchy of Lutoa, right?”

Not particularly bothered by what had just happened, Zweit and the others returned to their usual routine of investigating battle tactics.

As a sidenote, the proposal that the Wiesler faction students made for restructuring the Order of Mages would eventually lead to the removal of many mages deemed unfit to serve in the Order.

The students’ suggestions for defensive tactics were accepted too, and the troublemakers within the Order of Mages lost their authority and were ousted in the blink of an eye. With that accomplished, the Order of Mages was free to go about reconciling with the Order of Knights, providing a strong foundation for Solistia’s national defense.

Of course, some dissidents continued to struggle until the bitter end. But ultimately, the king spoke to them directly—“Look at these excellent proposals from our nation’s students! And what, tell me, have you all been doing with your time?”—and at that point, nobody could reasonably oppose the restructuring plans.

In other words, the troublemakers failed to prove that they were better than the students.

What was more, since the reforms were ordered by the king himself, refusing them wasn’t an option. Ultimately, many noble mages were moved to posts better suited to their capabilities. Anyone who’d abused their positions to line their pockets while doing nothing of worth was fired without hesitation.

Meanwhile, positions in the Order of Mages were reserved for Zweit and the others in recognition of their achievements; great things were expected of them. The current Wiesler faction students became future leadership candidates for the Order of Mages.

The students, for their part, weren’t even aware. They just continued devoting themselves to their training and their tactics research as always.

* * *

A week after Croesus’s thesis presentation, the Istol Academy of Magic’s great library—that esteemed hall of knowledge—was packed with students, lecturers, and teachers. The latter two had been drawn in by the passion of so many people eager to learn.

Some teachers still couldn’t accept reality, but the discovery of the correct way of deciphering magic formulas was a huge revelation, and many were eager to be among the first to get started on related research.

There was another exception in attendance too: Celestina, the “failure” who’d discovered how to decipher formulas before anyone else and had grown so much she could make simple spells of her own by now.

She had come here with her friends Ulna and Carosty. They were planning to work on deciphering formulas.

“It...certainly has gotten busy here, hasn’t it?” Celestina said. “There’s nowhere for us to do our research when it’s this packed.”

“Whoa! Full house, huh? Feels like it’s going to be hard enough just trying to breathe in here,” Ulna said.

“We should have expected as much,” Carosty said. “Sir Croesus’s thesis will be key in advancing research after so many years of standstill, correct? People are desperate to be among the first to unravel the truth so that they may create their own magic.”

Celestina’s group had come to the library to research—or rather, improve on—magic formulas, but it was so busy that there was nowhere to even sit.

Worse, anyone with a seat lost it the moment they stood; the library had turned into one big game of musical chairs. Getting a seat here was a battle, and fellow students were enemies.

The older students were particularly fierce combatants.

Just as the three of them were wondering what to do, Miska appeared out of nowhere.

“Here—I have the perfect thing to pass the time. Some of the exquisite literature Milady reads in her time off!”

She handed a slim book to Ulna and Carosty.

“W-Wait! Miska! Don’t—”

“Ooh?” Ulna exclaimed. “Let’s see what sort of stuff Miss Celestina rea— Ack!”

“I must say,” Carosty said, “I have never seen a book like this befo— Hywhah?!”

They opened the slim book and were immediately greeted by a brazen panoply of flesh.

It was their first glimpse into a whole new world. Eventually, their gazes turned to Celestina.

“Y-You’ve got it wrong! Miska sneaks into my room and hides these books there, and sometimes I find one sitting on my desk, and... It’s not like I... Like I actually...”

“It’s not good to lie, Milady. I know the truth. I’ve seen those passionate scribbles you make in your precious notebooks. In fact, they are quite the impressive scribbles. You should share them with the world.”

“NOOOOOOOOO! Why are you looking through my things?!”

“Why, to lay witness to how Milady depicts the mysterious tempest we call love, of course! To see the fruits of your unbridled creativity!”

“I-I mean, it is all still a mystery to me, but... Wait! Isn’t this a situation where you pretend you never saw anything?! Isn’t that the kind thing to do?!”

“Oh, Milady... As if I have a single iota of kindness within me!” Miska said, mysteriously proud.

She was willing to use any means necessary to tease Celestina—even if it meant dragging other students into a pit of corruption from which there’d be no return.

“U-Ulna! Carosty! Say something to her!” Celestina said.

“Carosty... This is... It’s really something, huh?”

“Wh-Why, how utterly shameless this is... How indecent! Gulp...”

They stared intensely enough to bore holes through the pages.

Miska gave a satisfied laugh. “It would seem you’ve dragged another two into the quagmire of corruption. I’m impressed, Milady.”

“Why are you blaming me?! This is all your fault, isn’t it, Miska?!”

“Whether they resist or succumb to the temptation is up to them. I just gave them the first push.”

“You’re not ashamed in the slightest, are you? You’re smiling! You look proud of what you’ve done! Urgh, you’re making me mad...”

Miska didn’t do these kinds of things half-heartedly. Nope, she was serious about everything she did.

“Is it just my imagination,” Celestina asked, “or has your behavior been getting more and more extreme lately?”

“Oh, it’s not your imagination,” Miska replied. “I would spit on the Four Gods themselves if it helped me to tease you, Milady!”

“Are you human, Miska, or some godless, evil demon? What color is your blood?!”

“Emerald green. I can live as long as I get sunlight.”

“Photosynthesis?! You’re a plant?!”

Celestina’s barbs only made Miska look even more pleased.

This was how Miska showed her love. But for Celestina, on the other end of her antics, it was infuriating.

Celestina sighed. “More importantly... What do we do now? With all these people here, there’s no space to do research.”

“Mmm... Yeah, I dunno,” Ulna said. “And you’re always surrounded by people wherever we go, Miss Celestina...”

“Yes,” Carosty said, “and I cannot reserve the research facilities until I’m a senior. We’re in quite the pickle...”

There were always kids from the elementary years swarming around Celestina, making it hard for her and the others to focus on their research.

Carosty, meanwhile, still needed special permission to use the Saint-Germain faction’s research facilities—and even if she got that permission, the facilities were too large for just the three of them.

They could use the dorms to research deciphering formulas but couldn’t activate or test any new formulas there. Experiments were banned in the dorms, as a general rule.

“I do have one place in mind, if you would like to hear it,” Miska said.

“Okay, I’m interested,” Celestina said. “Though perhaps worried would be the better word.”

“Sir Croesus’s room. I’ve heard he keeps quite the collection of research materials in there.”

There were only so many places at the academy where one could quietly experiment with magic. Apart from the research facilities, the only other options were general-use laboratories within the great library, and...Croesus’s room, which was practically another dimension.

A space overflowing with secrets and mysteries, it had been called “an affront to common sense,” “the academy’s number one danger zone,” and more.

Celestina sighed. “I’ve been hearing rumors about his room for a while now. I suppose the day has finally come for me to venture into those uncharted waters myself...”

“Ooh! Sounds like you’re ready and raring to go, Miss Celestina!”

Indeed, Celestina’s curiosity had been piqued. She was ready and willing to venture into the unknown.

Carosty, meanwhile, seemed less excited. “W-We mustn’t! We cannot! That room is... It is...”

“Is it really that crazy, Carosty?” Ulna asked.

“Miss Carosty is a victim of that place. I imagine she knows its dangers full well,” Miska said.

“Mages live to discover the truth,” Celestina said, determined. “I’m going! I’ll see what’s in there with my own two eyes!”

Celestina was getting rather sidetracked from her original goal, but one way or another, she was incredibly curious about the no-man’s-land her brother called home at the academy. She couldn’t resist the urge to find out what mysteries lay within.

And so, this determined “seeker of the truth” headed off to investigate the academy’s greatest secret. As she went, she dragged behind her a screaming victim—“No! Not there! I beg of you, anywhere but theeeeeerrrrrre!”

So began the Celestina Expedition, resolved to face danger and uncover the truth behind the academy’s number one mystery...

Chapter 6: Into the Danger Zone Once More

“I hope he’s actually in there...” Zweit muttered.

Zweit—joined by Eromura, his guard—had come to Croesus’s student dorm to deliver the letter he was clutching in his hand. The letter was a call for high-achieving academics to join the researchers from state institutions in an investigation at Isa Lante, an ancient city that had recently been discovered intact. It was a win-win: The researchers would get help, and the students would get work experience.

As the highest achievers at the academy, however, Zweit and Croesus weren’t just allowed to join; they were forced to join.

It was an honor, sure, but Zweit was a fighter. Since his research was entirely on battle tactics, he wasn’t keen on joining. Not when it would mean sidelining his training and research.

As much as Zweit wanted to pass on the academy council’s “opportunity,” the pair didn’t have an option.

He let out a sigh. “Why do they even want me to go to those old ruins? That’s not my thing—I’m no archaeologist, dammit!”

“I don’t know too much about it, but there’s supposed to be some pretty impressive technology in there, right?” Eromura asked. “Isn’t getting to go there before other people kinda a sweet deal?”

“You probably don’t know how this works, so let me spell it out for you: The advance team’s already recovered most of the magic tools from the city. Pretty much the only stuff left now is in the city center. Now, if the place were swarming with monsters, then sure, it’d be a good opportunity to test my skills—but apparently it’s all safe already. So what’s even the point in a combat mage like me going there?”

“No more treasure, huh? Well, that’s a letdown.”

“That’s not my thing either. I’m not that materialistic. It’s just—an undercity like that? The place’ll be impregnable. It’s already got the perfect defense. What am I meant to learn by going there?”

“Oh. That’s what you meant. I thought you were sad about not being able to go on some big adventure.”

There was no real way of breaching an ‘undercity’ from outside. The only way in and out was through the gate.

Sure, there were ventilation ducts that led to the surface, but the terrain above Isa Lante was all steep, craggy foothills. It would be inconceivable for an army to pass through.

Even if an army did reach the ducts, it was more than a thousand-meter drop from the surface to the city. Rappelling would be a risky endeavor, and that was before you considered the city’s various defenses.

The city was truly invincible.

“Still, it can’t be completely impregnable, right?” Eromura asked. “I mean... Have you heard of the Trojan horse?”

“Nope. What is it?”

“Well... A long time ago, this country wanted to invade a fortified city but couldn’t get in. So they built a huge wooden horse, left it outside the walls, and retreated.”

“Oh... Yeah, that makes sense. They hid troops inside the horse and used it to get them into the city, right? Then their soldiers opened the city gates from the inside.”

“Damn, you’re quick on the uptake! Anyway, my point is that there are all sorts of strategies out there.”

“Never thought I’d have to listen to you explain strategy to me. Guess I’ve still got a long way to go...”

“Hey! That’s rude, comrade!”

Eromura felt a little hurt.

It seemed like his “comrade” Zweit saw him as a simpleton. Not that Zweit was exactly wrong about that...

“Seriously, though, was the city’s leader a moron or something?” Zweit asked. “If the enemy left something that suspicious outside your gates, why wouldn’t you just...burn it?”

“You’d think so, yeah. But the defenders probably saw it as a victory trophy, and took it in all excited, only to have that backfire on ’em. It probably would’ve worked a long time ago, at least.”

“No way it’d work now. It’d be just too suspicious. I’d get rid of it, at least. And by the way, ancient cities had devices to nullify magic and stuff to protect their most important parts. A city like that’d never just fall without a fight. And even if an invader did manage to occupy the city, I couldn’t see them ever gaining control over the place. Not with how mysterious it is.”

“Damn. You make this city sound crazy. What’s it even called, by the way?”

“Isa Lante, apparently.”

“Seriously?!”

Wait. What? What does this mean?! Isa Lante? That’s one of the undercities from Swords & Sorceries, isn’t it? Am... Am I in the game’s universe?!

Eromura was a reincarnator, and he hadn’t expected to hear the name “Isa Lante” here.

He had thought that this world resembled the world of Swords & Sorceries, but he’d never thought he’d actually come across a place from the game. Especially not as an ancient ruin.

Back in the game, Eromura’s shtick had been monster hunting; he only had vague memories of the game’s setting. It still threw him for a loop to hear the name “Isa Lante” out of nowhere, though.

“What’s with the reaction?” Zweit asked. “Did you know about Isa Lante already?”

“Uh... Kinda,” Eromura replied. “I’d heard of it, at least...”

“Huh. Guess you know more than I gave you credit for. I thought you were just a horndog with nothing but harems on the mind.”

“Stop being so rude to me! I mean, I do dream of having my own harem, but still...”

“Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I’ve gotta talk to Croesus. He knows more about ancient ruins than I do.”

“H-Hello? You’re... You’re just gonna ignore me? Not gonna say sorry and make me feel better? Zweit? Zweeeeeeit?”

As he watched Zweit walk away through the tears running down his face, Eromura realized how other people saw him.

It was a learning moment.

* * *

An hour after Zweit and Eromura arrived at Croesus’s dorm, Celestina’s group got there too.

Like bungee jumpers resolved to take the plunge, Celestina, Ulna, and Miska were ready to dive into the unknown.

There’s a reason behind every phenomenon. And what kind of mage lets a mystery go unexplored?!

In their ardor, they dragged Carosty along behind them as they made their way into the dorm. Refusing to give up, Carosty resisted tooth and nail, tears in her eyes—but it was futile. Celestina could be pretty cruel, in her own way.

Croesus’s room was on the dorm’s second floor. For whatever reason, the doors to the rooms to the left and right were firmly boarded up. Apparently, there had been rumors of mysterious creatures crawling around in the dead of night.

People had seen things like a shadow with countless eyes, a creature with an ever-shifting form that dropped from the ceiling, and a group of humanoid figures clinging to the roof. And as a result, Croesus’s room and the surrounding area had become a hazard zone. The boarded-up doors gave the hall an intimidating atmosphere.

“Whoa... This is crazy!” Ulna said. “I’m getting some weird vibes from these rooms.”

“What has my brother been getting up to here?” Celestina asked nervously. “There are signs of strange mana in the air...”

“To my knowledge, he unleashed some toxic gases, which put the students in the rooms directly beside his into some drug-induced high,” Miska explained. “They started running around naked and stopping women in the hall from getting past, then doing these weird dances with crazed looks on their faces... Things like that, or so I was told.”

“Don’t tell me... Carosty, were you a victim of that too? Is that what you saw?”

“No! But I... I saw something even more fearsome. Or at least, I... I believe I did, but... I cannot remember what...”

It seemed like she’d gone through an experience so terrifying that her brain had repressed the memory.

“I’m curious to find out what happened to you, but for now, let’s see whether my brother is in his roo—”

GROOOOOOAAAR!!!

“Hoooh... Let’s do this!”

“S-So this is a merge? It feels incredible...”

“What’s the point in a bunch of guys merging together? Wish I could merge with a girl instead. That’d get me going...”

CHWING! VROOO! SCHWING!

The women could hear Celestina’s two brothers and Eromura talking inside the room.

And it wasn’t just talking they could hear. There was something else going on in there too, and whatever it was, it sounded intense.

Explosions, roaring machinery, something being smashed... None of them knew what could have been causing all this noise, but it sounded like some sort of passionate battle.

“‘Merging’? Wh-What does three boys ‘merging’ together mean?” Celestina asked.

“Celestina... Why do you look so happy at the thought of that?” Carosty replied.

“Huh? The door’s not opening,” Ulna said. “What’s going on?”

“It isn’t magic, at least,” Miska said. “But it’s clear that whatever is happening, it’s fiery, it’s passionate, and it’s shaking their souls to the core...”

The sounds of something enormous moving—and of destruction on such a large scale that it couldn’t possibly have been caused by magic—continued for a while. Then, eventually, things fell quiet.

The four women in the hallway exchanged glances and gave each other silent nods. Then one of them, with the ginger movements of someone handling hazardous material, reached for the doorknob, turned it, opened the door a crack, and peeked inside.

They saw the three boys collapsed on the floor.

“C-Croesus! Zweit! Are you okay?!” Celestina asked.

“Sir Croesus? What happened?” Carosty asked. “Why are you sprawled out unconscious? And why do you look so satisfied?”

“This guy’s knocked out too,” Ulna added. “I... I kinda get the vibe they just did something impressive, though.”

“I imagine they just defeated a powerful foe,” Miska said. “With their lives on the line...”

“What do you mean, ‘a powerful foe’?” the three girls replied, incredulous.

They didn’t understand what Miska was getting at. One way or another, though, it was clear from the looks on the boys’ faces that they were proud of what they’d just done.

They began to wake up.

“Urgh... Where... Where are we?” Eromura asked.

“It would seem we were caught up in another strange anomaly,” Croesus replied. “Though as always, I can’t remember a thing now that we’re back...”

“Yeah. It feels like something incredible just happened,” Zweit said, “but I’ve got no idea what.”

Whenever something strange happened in this room, the victims forgot all about it the moment it was over.

It seemed special rules governed reality inside this room, and Croesus was enthusiastic about finding out what those rules were. He was a research nut, as always.

“What did you run into?” Celestina asked. “We heard some incredible sounds—explosions, all sorts of things...”

“Hmm... It feels like we put an end to a twelve-thousand-year-old conflict. But...urgh, it’s no good. I can’t remember the specifics,” Zweit said.

“I was in a war against...‘Angels,’ were they called? I’m not sure that’s right, but...” Croesus said.

“And I was surrounded by a bunch of little steel balls and gaudy flashing lights... It kept just going into the basic reach mode, and the same effect popped up every time; I remember feeling pretty annoyed. I mean, it did have me on the edge of my seat, but...”

Eromura had just been playing pachinko, from the sounds of it. His had been an emotional battle of a different sort.

“Well, there’s only so much we can do if we’ve forgotten about it all,” Zweit said. “So—Celestina? Why’d you come to Croesus’s room?”

“We were hoping to decipher some formulas, so we went to the library, but when we got there...”

“Ah—it was packed, right? And then you figured you’d do your research in Croesus’s room instead. Makes sense—he keeps a lot of overdue library books in here, and you could bounce ideas off him while you’re here.”

“Oh? You have a sharper intuition than I would have expected, Sir Zweit. An impressive deduction, coming from you.”

Carosty could be pretty rude sometimes.

“Personally,” Croesus said, “I’d appreciate having you here to work on research. It’d help with mine too. But I thought you were scared of coming to my room, Carosty?”

“That I am,” she replied. “In fact, I am actively resisting the urge to flee! I still cannot shake the feeling that I glimpsed a strange creature the last time I came... But why is it that I cannot recall what I saw?”

Maybe it was a good thing she couldn’t remember.

“Huh? Why can’t anyone remember this stuff, though?” Eromura asked. “It’s happened before too, right? Doesn’t it bug you, comrade? I feel like there was something crazy going on in here just a moment ago, but I can’t remember for the life of me...”

“Feels like I was fighting something, at least... But yeah, that’s about all I remember. What the hell is up with this room, seriously? Probably fair to say it’s all Croesus’s fault one way or another, but still...”

“‘What is up with this room?’ indeed. I am itching to find out,” Croesus said. “I have a faint recollection of someone telling me to ‘get in the robot,’ but little more than that...”

Strange things happened in here, but the people involved could never say what they’d been. For some reason, they inevitably lost their memories about whatever was happening as soon as it was over. Croesus hypothesized that the combination of spatial anomalies and alternate reality strained their memories somehow.

He had no way of confirming that hypothesis, though. He’d actually tried setting up a magical recording device...but whenever an anomaly happened, the device failed to record it. All he’d found out was that when people in the room got dragged into one of these mysterious events, they disappeared for just a moment.

The recording device saved the moment people got sucked into the phenomenon and disappeared, but it stopped functioning while the phenomenon was playing out. Then, when the event was over, the device would start working again, showing the victims collapsed on the floor.

The recordings, then, just showed people disappearing one moment and reappearing the next, now collapsed on the floor. That really caught Croesus’s interest.

“This is the seventh time it’s happened, and I’m still none the wiser... What a difficult nut to crack,” he said.

“Just give up already, man,” Zweit sighed. “What’re you gonna do if things really spiral out of control and you end up with a bunch of casualties?”

“Anyway, what are you gonna do with the ladies?” Eromura asked Croesus. “Are you really gonna let them do their research or whatever in here? They could get caught up in something if they stay.”

“Oh, that would be fine by me,” Croesus said. “I could always use more data. Heh heh heh heh...”

The same thought ran through Celestina, Ulna, and Carosty’s minds: He’s trying to use us as test subjects, isn’t he?

Croesus really was a mad scientist.

He was entirely willing to make a guinea pig of anyone—even his own sister—if it helped in his pursuit of the truth.

“Honestly, though,” Eromura said, “I’m happy as long as I get to chat with Miska here.”

“W-Wait! Eromura! Comrade!” Zweit said. “I thought you liked elves, but you’re really staring at Miska right now...”

“Spot-on, comrade! I love elves. And Miska’s a half elf, yeah? Put any word in front of ‘elf,’ and it’ll still get me going; ‘high elf,’ ‘half elf,’ even ‘dark elf,’ I don’t give a damn! All elves are the best elves!”

Four voices rang out in shock—“WHAT?!”—before their owners turned their gazes to Miska.

The woman in question quietly clicked her tongue, then shot an annoyed glare at Eromura.

To him, though, her glare was a reward. He started to quiver, waves of pleasure racking his body.

“Oh—had you not realized?” Croesus said. “Miska is a half elf, rest assured. Why else would she still look like she’s in her teens?”

Indeed, Miska still looked like a teenager. If anything, it was strange that the others hadn’t reached this conclusion earlier.

“W-Wait... Croesus... You knew?!” Zweit asked.

“I deduced,” he replied. “I don’t see why all of you are so surprised.”

“Huh. I guess it does make a bunch of things add up, now that you mention it,” Zweit said.

“I was sure she just had a really good skincare routine,” Celestina said. “But—this is unfair! An injustice to every other woman! Actually, though, I do remember her saying something about being classmates with Father...”

“With His Grace?” Carosty asked, pensive. “That would mean... Miska, you were the Queen of Ice—no, the Frozen Empress? One of the transcendentals, able to rival Duke Delthasis himself, stronger than even the court mages... Why, I never knew a mage of your stature was so close by!”

“Whoa—so you’re famous, Miska?” Ulna chimed in. “What for? What’d you do?”

Miska gave a quiet laugh. “Miss Ulna, Miss Ulna... Shouldn’t you know how dangerous it is to pry into a woman’s past?”

A murky black aura surrounded Miska as she gave them a glare so icy that it could cow even the gods.

Miska’s age and past were taboo, but that didn’t stop a certain idiot...

“Oh, I love MILFs! Frosty older ladies are, like, such a turn-on! Please, Miska—cool the flames of love burning in my heart! Take my heat and freeze me! I’m begging you!”

CRACK!

With a splendid axe kick, the Frozen Empress meted out punishment to Eroginis Multielf Ravisha—or Eromura, for short.

Despite having taken an attack from this legendary alumna, Eromura’s expression showed zero regret. In fact, he looked ecstatic. He wasn’t usually a masochist, but since it was an elf hurting him... Well, that changed things.

“Heh, heh... Damn, that hurts. But no regrets! I could’ve asked for nothing more than an elf delivering me to my final moments... GAKH!”

“Eromuraaaaaa! Hang in there! You can survive this, comrade!”

Miska had earned the nickname “the Ice Queen” during her academy days due to her preference for ice magic. Meanwhile, she’d earned “the Frozen Empress” by coldly, physically beating up the boys who swarmed around her.

“C-Comrade... The last thing I saw was...blue...”

“I didn’t need to know that! Are you trying to get me killed too?!”

Miska’s glare turned to Zweit. “Sir Zweit... Have you said your prayers?”

And so Zweit became collateral damage to Eromura’s divine punishment.

The poor boy.

“If you’re a half elf, though,” Croesus said, “then wouldn’t you still be in your teens? Or, well, the equivalent of your teens? Is it really worth getting so worked up about?”

“A woman’s age is taboo, Sir Croesus. A word of warning: Asking that same question of any woman your age would likely spur them to start contemplating your murder. And despite how I may look, I do dream of having a happy family one day, you know?”

“I just don’t see why you care so much,” Croesus said. “Why obsess over your age?”

“Such words will make you the enemy of any woman, Sir Croesus,” Miska replied. “Were you to say that in front of a woman with less restraint than I, your life may well be forfeit.”

“Aha ha ha... No, I don’t think anyone else would get violent over this!” Croesus said with absolute conviction. “Besides, the royals are about the only people who could hit a member of a ducal family and get away with it.”

There was a moment of silence.

Croesus was right about one thing: Regardless of how much someone from a ducal family abused you, you couldn’t beat them in retaliation. Anyone who tried would quickly find their head missing.

Miska, however, was an exception. The fact that she actually lived up to her title as “empress” was what made her so scary. Even the two duchesses—Zweit’s and Croesus’s mothers—avoided her, and it was easy to see why. They’d been Miska’s underclassmen at the academy, after all.

At the same time, nobody was brave enough to bring a marriage proposal to the sort of woman scary enough to hit members of a ducal house without caring about the repercussions.

“You really do know how to hit where it hurts, don’t you, Sir Croesus?” Miska said. “I fear for your future...”

“Miska...” Celestina paused. “Are you sure you shouldn’t, um, change your attitude a bit? If you keep this up, then...”

“Then what? Please, Miss Celestina, be clear with me.”

“N-Nothing. It’s nothing at all, so perhaps you wouldn’t mind lowering your fist? It’s like you intend to kill me. I feel like I’m beginning to see what Croesus was getting at...”

This menacing behavior was going to ruin Miska’s chances of getting married.

“Miska,” Ulna said, “Your next line is... ‘Oh, no! I just—’”

“Oh, no! I just—”

Ulna had read her mind.

Like any straight woman, she wanted to meet a good man with whom she could grow close. Unfortunately for her, though, she had quite a personality. Sure, she had a brilliant mind. She was an expert at everything around the house, capable of doing just about anything she wanted. She was practically a superhuman.

However, she consistently resorted to violence. And that was the fatal flaw that would make her miss her chance to get married.

She’d been popular as an academy student, but the boys had eventually learned to keep their distance—and not just because of her cold attitude.

“And Miss Celestina,” Ulna continued, “your next line is... ‘So you want to get married too, do you, Miska? I’m kind of relieved.’”

“So you want to get married too, do you, Miska? I’m kind of relie— Hwah?!”

“Milady... It’s rude to comment on people’s insecurities, okay? Some thoughts are better left inside your head.”

“Isn’t that what you’re always doing to me?! Why can’t I fight back?!”

“I’m allowed to. I’m in charge of your upbringing, Milady. Do you understand?”

“I-I thought I asked you not to be viole— Gwaaah!”

Meanwhile, the three boys—now somewhat worse for wear—stared at Ulna, tilting their heads and wondering: How can this girl read minds? I know that’s not really the important thing here, but...come on!

As they pondered, Miska pinched Celestina’s cheeks. With a big, satisfied smile, Miska alternated between pinching and squishing the girl’s cheeks, over and over again. She seemed to be having fun.

All Miska’s friends and old classmates were married now; she was the only one still single. She was, of course, worried she’d missed the boat—and having other people bring it up to her was her berserk button.

She resented those who’d been more successful than she in love.

“Your father and your grandfather would cry if they saw what a reckless girl you have grown up to be, Milady.”

“Myumyumyumyu...”

“How nicely your cheeks stretch, Milady. I could see myself making a habit out of squeezing them like this.”

“Ooh, that looks fun! Lemme join in, Miska!” Ulna said.

“Myaaa!”

Ulna joined in, and Celestina’s suffering continued for a while longer.

* * *

“So, Croesus—you know anything about Isa Lante?” Zweit asked. “Figured you’d be the first to look into something like this. If there’s anything you know, could you tell me?”

After getting pulled into some crazy anomaly the moment he’d entered Croesus’s room, Zweit finally broached the subject he’d come here to discuss.

Isa Lante was the latest ancient ruin to have been discovered. Your average mage was itching to be the first one there.

Even though he was a combat specialist, it wasn’t like Zweit had zero interest in the place. Sometimes, though, there were nasty traps in these ruins, so he was a little apprehensive about the idea of a bunch of students joining the state’s researchers on an expedition into the city.

Croesus was knowledgeable about the sorts of magic devices often found in these ruins. In fact, the extent of his knowledge would put adult scholars to shame. Getting the chance to pick his brain was another reason Zweit had come.

“Hmm... The report from the advance party said there didn’t appear to be any traps, at least,” Croesus said.

“No traps? That’s rare. Why’s that?”

“From what I’ve heard, the city was sealed off early in the Dark God War. Then it quietly fell into ruin, isolated from the rest of the world. Apparently, its people starved to death.”

“Damn... That’s a nasty way to go.”

“Remember, the reason these ancient cities set up traps in the first place was to try to deal a blow against the Dark God. The cities that fell early in the war probably never had the time to set them up.”

“Oh. So that’s why they’re sure it’s safe.”

Ruins guaranteed to be safe were rare—and now that some had been found, it was the perfect opportunity to have some students broaden their knowledge.

Or at least, that was the official reason for having students join the expedition. The bigger reason was that the researchers were short-handed...

“Apparently, the city’s main facilities had such incredible technology that the advance team sealed them to stop anyone from getting to them,” Croesus said. “I heard they were so dangerous the whole country could fall to ruin if someone touched them wrong.”

“Guess the place can still be bad news even without traps, huh? Still, why do we have to go there too? I do military research. Just think about it. It doesn’t make any sense to have me investigating ruins, right?”

“I do hear they’ve found a good number of magic tools down there. And some of those tools are weapons, which means they have military value. You and your group have been praised for your essays on that sort of thing, so perhaps the people in charge are hoping you’ll learn from and be inspired by what you find? Ah—and I hear skeletons still appear from time to time, for what it’s worth.”

“So they want me to be a guard too, huh? As extra combat training, I guess?”

“If you ask me, they have something else in mind. I’m not certain, but...”

Croesus proceeded to explain his hypothesis, which was roughly as follows:

There were barely any teachers at the academy who could teach anything to Croesus—the Saint-Germain faction’s best student—or his team. After all, they were far more research-hungry than any other students, and their work was so stunning the teachers were left lost for words.

They’d discovered new potions, new methods of producing magic tools more economically, and, most recently, a new and improved way of deciphering magic formulas.

As a result, the teachers had started pushing them away, effectively admitting, We don’t know what else we can teach you. It was a sad state of affairs.

Zweit’s group, on the other hand, had been training of their own volition, churning out essays regarding the military, and acting nothing like how mages were expected to. They’d laid the foundations for a whole new type of mage—a true battlemage, able to handle short-, mid- and long-range combat alike—and their behavior had started having an impact on the other students too.

Wiesler’s old guard had started to worry about Zweit’s influence. This, then, was probably their attempt to temporarily get rid of the problem—to halt his influence—under the guise of “sending a talented student to investigate an ancient city.”

The fact that both Zweit and Croesus were blood relatives of Duke Solistia had also worried some, who thought that the brothers might be trying to destroy the other factions under secret orders from the Solistia faction. In other words, important individuals viewed the two as thorns in their side.

Court mages from both factions under the Order of Mages didn’t want the Solistia faction placing any more pressure on them than it already was. In particular, they were just about beside themselves with worry about the boys’ father, the duke.

He was a scary man to make an enemy of, though, so they couldn’t be too rash. That was why they’d decided on the underhanded, roundabout approach of sending his sons away for a while to inconvenience him.

This was just Croesus’s hypothesis, but he was pretty much on the mark.

“Well, personally, if it means I get to see this treasure trove of technology, I’m more than happy to play into their hands,” Croesus said.

“But it’s gonna run up till winter break—no, it’ll be spring break now that classes have been delayed, won’t it? These ruins are underground, and near the border, so it’s gonna be tough for students from rural areas to get back home, right?”

“Wouldn’t the academy cover the costs for that? Top students do get special treatment, and the academy would just be hurting its own reputation if it refused to cover the cost for these students to get home.”

“This all sounds like a bit of a mess, huh?” Eromura said. “What’s your dad even doing to get these guys so against him?”

“Well,” Zweit replied, “the court mages who head up the factions usually spend all their time hating each other, but now they’ve got a common enemy in the Solistia faction, so I bet they’re trying to figure out how to rein it in. And knowing how they are, I bet they wanna knock my father down a peg.”

“Jeez... Kinda sounds like they’ve got their priorities mixed up. How much do they hate your dad’s guts? Anyway, what are Anzu and I gonna do? Probably guard you, right, comrade?”

“There are going to be a lot of nobles there, so you probably will be coming along as guards, yeah. Hiring mercenaries instead would make the trip more expensive.”

Requiring nobles to fund their own guards was part of the expedition’s plan to minimize expenses. Nobles arranging their own security was cheaper than hiring mercenaries for everyone—plus, the noble houses had requested it. They only trusted guards they hired themselves.

After all, a mercenary guild could send louts who neglected their guard duty and tried to lay their hands on the students. Of course, anyone who tried to pull something like that would be fired at the first available opportunity and reported to the guild. And that would affect their ranks, so if they wanted to avoid that, they had to take the job seriously.

Speaking of ranks, mercenaries needed to be at least B-rank to apply as guards for this expedition. Your average hooligan wouldn’t cut it on this sort of job anyway. The requirement did lead to some worries, though...

“I, uh... I lost my mercenary rank, so I’m still D-rank...”

“Yeah, but a ducal house has hired you as a guard directly, so you should be exempt. Pretty sure it should be fine, at least?”

“Oh. Right... Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t wanna be stuck without pay.”

“Personally,” Croesus said, “I’m curious about the mage who was there when these ruins were first discovered. He apparently called it ‘Isa Lante’ too, and I heard a big part of the city got destroyed from him fighting something in there. I hear they’re still trying to restore it now!”

“Wait,” Zweit and Eromura said, reaching the same realization. “Don’t tell me that mage was...”

Both of their minds went to a certain gray-robed mage.

“What’s that old guy done now?” Eromura asked.

“I guess I’m missing context—I didn’t even know they were building a road down there—but still, why would Teach be at a construction site? He’s a mage!” Zweit said.

“The reports said there was a horde of undead that attacked when the door to the city was opened,” Croesus explained. “He really is something, though, isn’t he? I hear he barged into the city alone and took out every monster there...”

“Yeah, I could totally see Teach doing that. I gotta ask, though, Croesus... Where the hell are you getting all these ‘reports’ from?”

Croesus got his intel from fellow researchers.

Alumni, many of whom were affiliated with state research facilities, visited the academy pretty frequently. Most of these researchers weren’t interested in status or fame; they were simply inveterate scientists in it for the love of the game. They often passed on little tidbits of information to win over promising graduates to help with future research.

Researchers in this world could be surprisingly loose-lipped. Or maybe they were just desperate to win over Croesus and his group? Either way, they didn’t exactly care about military confidentiality.

“Uh... This is meant to be a big national secret, right? Why are they so chatty about it?” Zweit asked.

“I mean, they’re probably up to their ears with all this new stuff, right?” Eromura said. “I bet they’re desperate to recruit some young researchers.”

“That’s part of it, yes,” Croesus said. “Researchers have a habit of devoting themselves to their niches. It can make some of them stubbornly refuse to admit when they’re wrong, but it also means the more flexible ones actively try to get ideas from the people around them.”

“Oh, I get it... The open-minded researchers want fresh ideas, so they turn to students instead of their stubborn peers. Still, they must’ve really hit a wall if they’re resorting to that,” Zweit mused.

“But either way, it sounds like Isa Lante’s not exactly dangerous, right?” Eromura asked. “What am I gonna get to do there, then?”

Eromura seemed to want his time in the spotlight, but he was looking at this the wrong way. Sure, guards were tasked with protecting their charges, but nobody should have wanted a fight to erupt. The best outcome would be the group making it to Isa Lante in complete safety.

In other words, guards were insurance. Anyone who wanted an emergency to occur wasn’t cut out for guard work.

What Eromura really wanted was adventure, not guard duty. He still saw this world as a game.

“Look, comrade... It’s best if the guards never have to do a thing, you know? People die in battle. We don’t want that to happen.”

“You say that, but, like, I’ll get bored if there’s nothing going on!”

“If there are any casualties, it’ll reflect on whoever’s been hired as guards. And if your charge dies, you don’t get paid, okay? Heck, you could even end up as a slave again.”

“Mmm... Yeah, I don’t want that. This is a pretty tough mission now that I think about it, huh?”

“So, Croesus... When do you think we’ll be leaving the academy?”

“Hmm... Let’s see. This all came up rather suddenly, so I imagine there’ll be an announcement tomorrow. It’ll probably take a week for everyone to get ready, so... I’d expect we’ll leave around the start of next week.”

“That’s pretty soon. Are the guys who organized this really that desperate to get rid of us? So stupid...”

The individuals desperate to cling to power needed to get rid of this burgeoning threat.

“Getting rid of” them outright would be a crime, though, so the only option was to mess with them like this.

It was all a bit of a farce.

“Either way, I guess we’ve just gotta wait until we get more information, huh?” Zweit said.

“Indeed,” Croesus replied. “There isn’t much else we can do until we know the departure date.”

“Shouldn’t we at least start getting ready? Don’t wanna leave it all until the last minute and panic, right?” Eromura said.

“Yeah,” Zweit agreed. “I’ll be fine, but Croesus is the problem.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about me. I’m sure Yi Ling will help me if needed.”

“Drop dead, you normie asshole!” the other two cried.

As the boys wrapped up their discussion, they inadvertently glanced toward the other side of the room. They saw the girls huddled together, discussing something between themselves.

In the middle of the throng was a certain ninja girl, who’d slipped in at some point and opened up a shop.

“Why, this is exactly what I ordered,” Carosty exclaimed. “No, it’s better than what I ordered!”

“Such quality, at such low prices...” Miska murmured. “I hope you’ll keep me as a client going forward, Miss Anzu.”

“Mmm. Trust is everything in business,” Anzu said. “The customer is always right.”

“Ooh... It’s even got a hole for my tail! I’ve never had panties like this before!” Ulna said.

“Are you sure this is profitable, Anzu?” Celestina asked. “You’re using a lot of high-quality fabric...”

“I’m fine. It’s cheap. It doesn’t have any magic effects.”

Anzu ran an exclusive clothing store for those in the know. She mainly sold underwear and the like, though she’d also branched out to other items of clothing lately.

She was an elusive little merchant—there was no telling where and when she’d next set up shop—but the girls of the academy were so eager to buy her wares that they walked around with their purses every day just in case. And today, that habit had paid off—they would never have expected her to appear in Croesus’s room, but here she was.

“I’ve heard made-to-order products are usually expensive, but these prices are quite reasonable...” Miska said.

“I don’t know what these things are supposed to cost. Are these really that much cheaper than normal?” Celestina asked. “I’ve never bought my own underwear before, so I don’t have the faintest idea.”

“Given the quality, these could sell for ten times this much,” Carosty told her. “These garments are art. No. Beyond art. And they are decidedly adorable.”

“They don’t sell many panties for beastfolk, y’know?” Ulna hummed. “I’ve just been cutting holes in cheap undies for humans...”

“Even purchasing underwear seems to be quite the struggle for you beastfolk, I suppose. The thought of it brings a tear to my eye...” Carosty said.

“I have camisoles too.”

“Ooooooh! They’re so sexy!”

The girls—unaware that the boys had started looking in their direction—were creating piles of underwear and rummaging through them.

There were some risqué designs among them too; it was all just too stimulating for these boys, none of whom had ever had a girlfriend. Miska, in particular, was picking out some really incredible items.

“W-Wait a minute...” Eromura whispered to the others. “Isn’t that the fabled ‘G-string’? S-So Miska wears that sort of... Gulp!”

“Comrade! Your nose is bleeding!” Zweit told him. “I’m glad Diio isn’t here. If he were, he would’ve ascended to heaven already.”

Croesus, meanwhile, was observing the situation like a professor. “Now, we must ask: How did Anzu get in here? This is effectively a locked room, and I didn’t hear the door opening... Fascinating. I have to get to the bottom of this.”

The girls finally noticed Zweit and Eromura staring in their direction, and the room fell silent.

Amid the silence, Croesus went over to the window to ensure it was locked, then asked Anzu: “May I ask, Anzu: How did you get into my room? The door is locked, and I didn’t hear it opening.”

“A ninja never reveals her secrets.”

“I see. But I promise you, on my honor as a researcher: I will solve this mystery.”

“Okay. Good luck.”

This was the sole instance Croesus was fortunate to be a research nut.

After all, he had zero interest in women’s underwear. What intrigued him was the mystery; he couldn’t help but investigate.

But that wasn’t the case for Zweit and Eromura. Both had the sorts of desires you’d expect from boys their age.

And now that the girls had noticed them staring...

“Wh-Wha?! Why are you looking?!” Celestina cried.

“How degenerate of you! How lecherous! I thought you to be better than this!” Carosty followed.

“I imagine you two are ready for your just deserts, yes?” Miska said.

“Huh? What’s all the fuss about?” Ulna asked, clearly unbothered. “They just saw us buying some undies, right? What’s the big deal?”

Ulna aside, however, it was time for the inevitable outcome to begin: a harsh, merciless punishment for the two boys.

The girls hurled books that were lying around at the boys, hit them with dubious magic tools, and crushed them with ferocious claw grips. So on, and so forth.

“This is no fai— GAAAAAAH!” Zweit cried.

“Owowowowow! B-But honestly, getting put in a cobra twist by Miska is kinda ho— OW! I give! I give!”

“Oh—don’t throw my magic tools, please,” Croesus interjected. “I need those for my research. I don’t want them getting broken.”

“H-Hey!” the other two boys shouted. “Aren’t you gonna try to help us?!”

Croesus was more worried about the girls breaking his magic tool collection than them breaking Zweit and Eromura.

Ultimately, the two were beaten black and blue, while Croesus was just excited to try solving Anzu’s mystery.

Celestina’s group, meanwhile, was in no state of mind to think about deciphering magic formulas anymore; they left the room red-faced. As they left, Zweit and Eromura, sprawled on the floor, began to write dying messages...but only moments later, they were dragged into another of the mysterious anomalies of Croesus’s room.

This time, the sounds that could be heard from outside the room were a fierce gunfight, and...

“Run! Quick! They’re catching up!”

“The fuck are these things?! You shoot them once, and they shoot you back a hundred times!”

“Medic! We need a medic! Sergeant Bohman’s hurt! Damn it, where’s a medic?!”

And so on, and so forth.

It would forever remain a mystery who exactly “Sergeant Bohman” was.

Chapter 7: Disaster Befalls the Holy Land

A mercenary ran through the streets of a town in the Holy Land of Metis, not far from the border. Arriving at a branch of the mercenaries’ guild, he flung open the door.

He was so exhausted that it looked like he might collapse at any moment. A throng of mercenaries watched over him, concerned. They were about to be a whole lot more concerned, though: This man was here to warn them of an impending nightmare.

Through ragged breath, he shouted: “A-A Hell’s Legion... It’s... They’re coming... Coming here...”

All of a sudden, the noisy guild branch fell silent.

Few terms were more terrifying than “Hell’s Legion.” Those words were a symbol of calamity—of abject terror.

Comprising a swarm of lower-rank monsters led by a vicious higher-rank monster, a Hell’s Legion was strong enough to overrun a nation. It was even more destructive than a monster stampede; it was an emergency at the same level as a natural disaster, capable of ravaging the land.

It was, as the name suggested, like an army straight out of hell.

“A-A Hell’s Legion?! What’s leading it?”

“A... A great givleon... A few towns have already fallen...”

“No! Oh, Gods...”

A great givleon was a gargantuan insect monster. Rumor said they could grow more than a hundred meters long. Worst of all, they laid eggs capable of hatching a thousand insects per brood. The moment the insects were born, they began searching for food, devouring every plant and animal they came across.

Most of the monsters that hatched from those eggs were creatures like megaroaches and king blattellas, which would swarm toward settlements and devour any humans in their way, bones and all.

All of these monsters were essentially cockroaches, but they were particularly ravenous cockroaches. They wouldn’t stop eating until they were fully grown, and now, a huge mass of them was on the hunt.

Worse, aware that they were protected by the givleon, the lower-rank monsters still hadn’t split off from the swarm.

Put that all together, and any humans in the swarm’s path would suffer the cruel fate of becoming insect food, eaten alive.

“I-Issue an evacuation order at once! Go!”

The mercenaries’ guild was suddenly in a flurry.

The guild master’s order sent mercenaries scrambling to report the emergency to the local lord. Before long, the town’s gates were shut, and town guards and paladins alike took up defensive positions.

But trying to defend the town would turn out to be a fatal error.

The scariest thing about givleons was that, in spite of their enormous frames, they could fly.

The townspeople had hoped that closing the gates would keep the swarm out—but when it arrived, that hope proved fruitless. Every monster scaled the walls, either by flying or crawling.

Eventually, this Hell’s Legion split into multiple swarms that engulfed the land, causing the list of casualties to grow faster and faster. Individually, most of these monsters weren’t that strong, but as their numbers continued to swell—into the thousands, then tens of thousands—they caused an unprecedented disaster.

After all, they continued laying eggs even as they ransacked town after town. And it took only hours for their eggs to hatch and spawn new monsters that would join the swarm. The farther the legion went, the more its numbers grew.

If it had been a human army, perhaps Metis could’ve done something to stop it. But this was a force of nature, and Metis could do nothing as it erased yet another town from the map.

By the time news of the tragedy reached Cloistered Emperor Michaelov in Maha Luthert, Metis’s capital, five fortified cities had already been annihilated.

Metis’s string of catastrophes wasn’t over yet.

* * *

Chaos had struck the Holy Land of Metis again, around the same time Zelos was escorting the captive heroes to Asuura, capital of the Artom Empire.

Reconstruction in Metis had been slow following the recent earthquake. And now, a Hell’s Legion had come to kick the nation while it was down.

By the time news reached the capital, five cities had already been destroyed. All five had been protected by sturdy walls, but they’d made no difference—and when their destruction was combined with the casualties from smaller towns and villages, the scale of the disaster was unfathomable.

Metis’s leaders were still largely in the dark too. They knew only that this great givleon was the same monster that had last appeared during their invasion of Artom, laying waste to the Order of Paladins.

Troublingly for Metis, the thing was so formidable that there was no guarantee that all its heroes combined could defeat it. It was terrifying enough to destroy a fort by itself, after all. And now, it was descending on the Holy Land with a swarm at its back.

“We believe Tohrus, Iquhammat, Miitz-Tatta, and Arhammel have all fallen already. And likely Kurruf-Humbell as well.”

“So quickly?! What is going on?!”

“They... They are cockroaches. It’s no surprise they’re fast.”

“Grr... At this rate, even if our reinforcements do make it in time, there’s no guarantee they’ll be enough.”

This swarm could take out even the heroes—Metis’s greatest weapon—with ease. The Order of Paladins had no chance.

Not to mention, many paladins were busy rebuilding the nation and keeping the peace. Even if Metis decided to redeploy them all on a desperate mission to intercept the Hell’s Legion, it probably wouldn’t even have enough time to muster them before it was too late.

Making matters worse, the Cloistered Emperor was a religious leader, not a general. When it came to military strategy, he was no better than a layperson. He’d managed to wage war all this time thanks to support from the nation’s generals and heroes, but between Metis’s failed invasion of Artom and the beastfolk’s decimation of paladins in the Ruuda-Iruruh Flatlands, Metis was sorely lacking manpower right now.

In other words, Metis’s string of defeats had added up, and now they were really stinging, right when the country seemed to be on the brink of collapse.

Why... Why did this have to happen during my reign?

A string of disasters in only a few months had put the Cloistered Emperor in a tough spot.

The hero summoning ritual had allowed Metis to bring forth the ultimate fighting force and wage a holy war against the Artom Empire. It had sounded like a winning proposition.

But instead, a big chunk of Metis’s forces had died in the war, and the army hadn’t had time to recover yet.

Metis’s biggest mistake in the conflict had probably been its failure to realize that Artom’s average citizens had levels on par with the heroes’. The Holy Land had written off Artom as a nation of “heretics” without bothering to collect much intel beyond that. It had assumed, then, that an invasion force of heroes would be enough to get the job done—and the outcome had been catastrophic. That had been the beginning of the end.

If we hadn’t invaded the Ruuda-Iruruh Flatlands, we would still have fighters to spare...

What paltry forces had remained after the failed attack on Artom had been sent to the Ruuda-Iruruh Flatlands.

Holy magic specialized in healing and defense, allowing the paladins to bolster their fighting strength, so Metis had determined that the beastfolk wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight.

But again, Metis had again been well and truly defeated, learning in the process of a powerful new enemy: the reincarnators.

The emergence of these reincarnators had turned the entire game on its head, dealing a crushing blow to the Holy Land. In their defense, who could’ve expected their enemy to be capable of creating a magic tool the size of a fort?

The presence of someone so powerful and so willing to share their magical devices with the beastfolk, who weren’t good at magic, was a major threat to Metis. So far, Metis had just pinned all the blame for its failed incursion on Iwata, one of the heroes, but shifting the blame wasn’t about to bring back the country’s lost paladins.

Then the earthquake had laid waste to the nation’s government and economy, and destroyed the sigil Metis used to summon heroes. And when Metis realized the earthquake was, again, the doing of a reincarnator, it gained an all-new appreciation for how dangerous the reincarnators really were.

It had also made it clear to Metis that the reincarnators really did see them as an enemy.

And now, the Hell’s Legion had come to put the final nail in Metis’s coffin.

We were starting to get the economy back under control, and now it’s this... How much longer will this misfortune linger?

Metis’s forces were already stretched thin. If it redeployed the paladins tasked with reconstruction, that meant abandoning the civilians—and Metis’s leadership just couldn’t do that. After all, Mikhailov was obsessed with going down in history as a great leader. There was no way he could simply throw the common people to the wolves.

“Why... Why did such a monstrosity have to appear now, of all times?”

“I heard a monster like this appeared before, when our forces last attacked Artom. Perhaps it’s the same one from then?”

“But there were other monsters then too. Why would only the givleon come to attack us?”

“Hold on. When we attacked Artom, our forces reached a fort deep in their territory—their last line of defense. We only lost because a horde with calamity-tier monsters randomly appeared behind our forces. But was it really at random? We can count on one hand the number of battles we had with Artom’s forces along the way, and we never managed to harm them much. Don’t tell me... No!”

“Are you suggesting they predicted our attack, and led monsters there to trap us? Would they really have tried such a dangerous tactic?!”

It had taken a while, but Metis’s leadership had finally realized the truth behind their failed invasion.

When Metis had invaded, Artom had formulated a plan to lure in monsters to overcome its numerical disadvantage. One of those very same monsters had gone on to form the Hell’s Legion currently wreaking havoc on Metis.

In other words, there was a real likelihood that Artom had intentionally let loose the terrifying great givleon.

And for that to be the case, Artom would have to be able to expertly predict monster behavior.

“Those demons are as capable as our heroes. Fighting against those horrific monsters would make anyone strong, I suppose...”

“Wait. If you are right, wouldn’t that mean that every time monsters from the Scar of the Dark God failed to reach our lands, it was because Artom stopped them? That’s ridiculous!”

“Perhaps... Perhaps, we have made a grave error. If Artom has impeded the previous monsters coming our way through the Scar, but not this one, could it not mean they have lost patience with us? That they let this one pass on purpose?”

“It’s like they’re sending us a message—‘If not for us, your country would have fallen long ago.’ How dare those lowly demons...”

“It does seem likely, though, given the evidence. And we indeed have no way of stopping the Hell’s Legion. Even if we were at our usual strength, I’m not sure we could.”

It was a disturbing thought.

If what these clergy members were saying was right—if Artom had been keeping the Scar’s monsters at bay and preventing them from reaching the Holy Land—then Mikhailov’s position would be at risk. After all, he was the one who’d given permission to wage war on Artom—and the doctrine of the Faith said to return favors in kind.

If the “demons” really had been protecting Metis’s way of life, then it was clear proof that Metis had wrongly been discriminating against other races this whole time. It would also mean that the Holy Land’s ultimate shield—one that had protected it for so long—had now abandoned it.

The reality, for what it was worth, was far less complicated. The Artom Empire had been defeating monsters in the Scar because of the threat those monsters posed to its own population; it had never been intentionally protecting the Holy Land.

But regardless of intent, there was no doubt that Artom had been safeguarding those who lived on the plains. They were, at the end of the day, constantly taking out the kinds of terrifying monsters that could bring untold devastation if allowed to pass.

Before long, the clergy concluded that they should never have made an enemy of the Artom Empire.

“Yes, yes; with the power of hindsight, I suppose making a foe of them was unwise. But it does not change the fact that they are heretics! And is it not our sacred duty to lead such heretics back to the light?”

“But, Your Holiness... If acting on that duty leads our country to ruin, do we not have our priorities backward? Should we not have been more cordial in our relations with them? Look at the dilemma we are in now. Can you truly say we made the right choices?”

“Grr...”

“It’s like they’re saying, ‘learn your place.’ The nerve of those demons to look down on us...”

But sitting around and calling the Artom Empire “demons” wasn’t going to help. Especially when they’d already antagonized the Empire.

Artom had no intent of defeating monsters to save Metis; in fact, they’d probably rejoice to see the Holy Land fall. And the Holy Land deserved it for what they’d done. The clergy here had no right to complain.

“What’s done is done. The issue now is how to get ourselves out of this mess.”

“What if we were to call for aid from other nations? Make it known that assisting us would earn them the favor of the Gods, and they would be glad to lend us their help, I am sure.”

“I don’t see that working. We’ve already lost the trust of our neighbors. Plus, they’ve started selling their own healing magic. Our holy magic’s value will plummet before long. We’re in a grave situation here.”

“Indeed. I would be surprised if anybody sent us reinforcements. They wouldn’t want to lose their own precious soldiers here.”

There was a big difference between the magic that priests and pastors could use. As a result, pastors were in high demand by other nations during emergencies, since they could use so much more healing magic than priests.

Typically, only nobles, royals, and affluent merchants could afford to be treated with holy magic. Few clergy members directly provided their services to common civilians; instead, the common folk generally had to get by using medicines prepared by priests, or perhaps some lower-rank healing magic. Even those treatments were well beyond what many could afford.

And the reason these costs were so high was that the Holy Land was ripping off the citizens of other countries to line its own pockets.

Clergy who did provide healing to the poor were typically those Mikhailov had banished overseas under the pretense of missionary work, and who had their fair share of discontent toward the Holy Land of Metis.

Long story short, it didn’t seem likely that other nations would respond to any request for aid. In fact, they were more likely to see any such request as a moment of weakness; an opportunity to take advantage of.

Metis’s policies had continued to make it enemies both at home and abroad, and as a result, most of the priests it had sent to other countries had decided to stay in those countries for good. Besides, even if any of them did agree to come back and help, it seemed like Metis might fall to ruin before they arrived.

The size of Metis’s domain was coming back to bite it.

I’m left with no other choice... I’ve had to be careful given my position, but at this point, I’ll have to rely on those stooges from the Crimson Cabal. Whatever happens, I cannot let things keep going as they are.

Mikhailov had decided to mobilize the Faith’s most fervent believers. Most of them were officially members of the Inquisition, but they acted more like murderous maniacs, slaughtering others in the name of the Gods.

“Bring me Head Priest Josephoke of the Inquisition. We need all the help we can get right now.”

“J-Josephoke?!”

“We must use any tool at our disposal to protect the people. I can turn a blind eye to the odd indiscretion if he helps us with that.”

Josephoke, the head of the Inquisition, was a faithless killer. Even the priests regarded him as a powder keg of a man.

On the surface, he presented himself as a pious believer, but he was nothing more than a sadistic, bloodthirsty murderer. He felt delight—sexual pleasure, even—from inflicting suffering and seeing people beg for the mercy of death. He was obsessed with taking lives; it made him feel all-powerful and in charge.

He was good at purging dissidents, though, so the Faith gave him a long leash.

Mikhailov had decided to fight the terror ravaging his country with Metis’s own homegrown terror. There would be nothing “holy” about this approach.

The Inquisition was perfect for doing the government’s dirty work, though.

Before long, Josephoke arrived.

Josephoke was fully aware that he was nothing but a pawn to be manipulated by the church’s leaders. But he was content with that—after all, he was using them to fulfill his twisted desires.

And this was the madman they set loose to “save the country.”

* * *

Josephoke’s thin build and kindly face, no different from any other middle-aged priest’s, belied his position at the head of both the Inquisition and the Crimson Cabal. His voice, however, made him sound more heartless than holy:

“So they’re ‘willing to accept some sacrifices in the name of the greater good,’ they said... Only problem is that the enemy they want us to deal with isn’t human. Humans are so much more fun.”

The Crimson Cabal was a bunch of zealots. But by working with the Inquisition—itself a shady organization—it had turned into a much more organized group of assassins, made up of those who’d be criminals if not for their roles here.

Its members had been given advance pardons for any action so long as it was done in the name of “paladins” eliminating any inconveniences to the Faith. With backing from the Four Gods, the Cabal could justify any horrific deed as righteous, allowing its members to delight in wanton murder under the pretense of “meting out divine punishment.”

Its members were half-hearted about this latest mission, though.

After all, they’d been tasked with eliminating a horde of enormous insect monsters, not humans. These people murdered for pleasure; they felt ecstasy watching their victims writhe in agony, begging for mercy. They just couldn’t get excited about taking on a bunch of emotionless bugs. It was boring.

Besides, it didn’t seem like they even stood a chance, regardless of how many lives they threw at the problem.

They couldn’t just turn this job down, though. Their murderous ways were only overlooked because they followed orders.

If they refused, their pardons would be gone, and they’d be headed for execution.

“I took this job to kill people. Why do I have to go deal with a damned bug infestation...”

Whether from run-of-the-mill psychopathy or some twisted sense of pride, Josephoke was all about causing other people pain, and anything outside of that didn’t interest him.

He didn’t remember his contract mentioning he’d have to deal with a Hell’s Legion. If he’d known things were going to turn out like this, he thought, he would’ve been better off just blending in among the common townsfolk and indulging in kidnapping and murder as an occasional hobby instead.

When he’d received the mission, he’d considered fleeing the country. The only problem was that he’d be captured and executed the moment he entered another country. He was already on the wanted list in at least one other country.

Metis was the only place where he was allowed to slaughter.

He couldn’t leave—but fighting monsters was outside his realm of expertise.

Dejected, Josephoke descended the stairs to the underground passage and opened the door to a room at the end. It was a torture room occupied by several fellow priests and pastors from the Inquisition, sitting around a table.

Even though nobody was being actively tortured, the chamber was still a horrid place. The rusty smell of blood filled the air, and the horrific tools decorating the walls gave the room a foreboding atmosphere.

“Hee... Hee hee... Why the long face, Boss? Somethin’ happen?” one of the priests crooned.

“It sure did... We’ve been ordered to deal with a Hell’s Legion. Don’t know what they expect us to do about it...”

“Oooooof! Well, that ain’t good! How ’bout we run? I say we run!”

“Trust me, I want to. I took this job to have fun killing, damn it. But look at where it’s gotten me. What are we meant to do with a great givleon? They’re asking too much!”

“A great givleon... That’s a legendary, top-rank monster, ain’t it? That’s way above the pay grade o’ a bunch o’ pardoned crims!”

A swarm of monsters outclassed just about any group of average murderers—and the Inquisition’s members were, after all, nothing but rotten miscreants who enjoyed torturing in the name of the gods.

The idea of fighting monsters didn’t titillate or excite them in the slightest. Running would’ve been the easiest option, but as part of the contract they’d entered into to receive their pardons, the Faith would be able to locate them wherever they went.

These pardon contracts, which nullified any wrongdoing—even conduct against church doctrine—only worked within Metis. Since the contracts had been made with magic, any party violating their conditions would feel waves of intense pain through their body.

In other words, the Inquisition members were not unlike slaves, just with better treatment.

One member sighed. “It’s no fun dealing with insects. I’m here to cut up little kids...”

“I know how ya feel—I’m only here ’cause I can’t get enough of killin’ women while I have my fun with ’em. How am I meant to scratch that itch with a bunch o’ big roaches, huh?”

“C’mon, Boss... Why’d ya agree to this job? No way we can take those things on.”

“I didn’t want to agree to it! But we formed a contract for our pardons, remember? We can’t just say no!”

“Bloody fine print, huh? Always gets ya...”

These people had a talent for torturing and murdering to sate their desires, but they were no soldiers. They were only as strong as your average civilian when it came to fighting monsters; apart from their fixation with killing, they practically were average civilians.

And if they lost their positions, they would be nothing but criminals. The moment their contract was broken, they would be executed for their crimes.

“In other words, they plan on using us as pawns. Can’t think of a single way out of this...”

While the Hell’s Legion was rolling unimpeded across the land, some of its monsters were dying along the way.

Since it was an unusually large swarm, it had trouble getting enough food to feed itself. The weaker monsters starved to death, and their brethren devoured their corpses, helping the survivors grow stronger. Eventually, instinct would drive the swarm to split into multiple smaller swarms, which would then spread throughout the country.

The Hell’s Legion was still manageable for now, but once the swarms started splitting off, the problem would spiral out of control. Metis obviously needed to eliminate the monsters as soon as possible, but they didn’t have even a single person capable of doing that...

The fact that Metis had turned to these sadistic murderers to solve its problem showed just how out of options they were.

Right when Josephoke felt at his wits’ end, a woman who’d just recently joined the Inquisition gave him a suggestion:

“How about we unleash them on some other country, then?”

“What?”

The woman was a gentle-looking, black-haired beauty, but Josephoke could intuit that she was as rotten as the rest of them. Apparently, she’d been working as an assassin in the Magic Kingdom of Solistia, ended up on a wanted list there, and fled to the Holy Land. She had an unhealthy obsession with money, and if there was something she wanted, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill to get her hands on it.

She had excellent skills as an assassin too, which had gotten her scouted by the Inquisition in the first place.

“What do you mean by ‘unleash them on some other country’? Do you really think we can control that swarm?”

“We can’t control them, no, but we can lead them. With felscent.”

“That’d get some of us killed too. And I can’t die just yet. There’s so much more killing I wanna do.”

“Hmm... What were they called again? The Crimson Cabal? I’m sure they’d leap at the chance. Come on, it’s easy—just tell them you got a revelation saying to set the monsters on the heretics.”

“Ah... Yes. That should work. They’re reliable for their zealotry, if nothing else. They probably would be glad to die for that.”

“Once it’s set up, you can just take over some village and have all the fun you want. You’ve got your pardon, right? It’d be an all-you-can-kill buffet.”

The woman’s suggestion put a dangerous glint in the eyes of the murderers.

Felscent was a forbidden concoction that attracted monsters. There was another scent called warding fragrance that repelled monsters instead. By using them in tandem, the Inquisition could likely insulate a small village from the insects. While the Hell’s Legion engulfed the land, they’d be free to indulge their cravings for gore in relative safety.

It was a very appealing proposition.

“Well, ain’t that a swell idea? Perfect timin’ too. Been a while since I got the chance to let loose and kill.”

“Heh heh... Yes, and they did say we could use whatever methods we wanted, didn’t they? I say we go get our fill of fun.”

“Finally... Finally, I get to kill some more kids. Hee hee... Never thought I’d end this little chat with a hard-on! Geh-heh.”

“Ah—just one thing. Mind if I take the valuables for myself? You lot only care about the killing, right?”

“What a twisted little plan. You’re one scary woman, you know that? Half. You can have half the valuables. Well, then... Time to kill again, folks!”

They were completely off their rockers. Every one of these lunatics derived pleasure from killing. Sometimes, they’d even torture members of the Crimson Cabal to get their fix. It was killing defenseless civilians, though, that made them the happiest.

Right now, Metis was on the brink of destruction. If a few people happened to die from torture amid the chaos, nobody would even know; the monsters would be perfectly willing to dispose of any corpses.

When the nation was in such dire straits, a couple of sadistic murders would be passed off as a trifling issue.

“Let’s see...” the woman said. “I’d like to turn the monsters toward Solistia, if we can. I don’t think anyone here would care if their towns and villages got destroyed, would they? And Solistia wouldn’t even be able to blame us for it. The monsters are just going to change course and start attacking them out of nowhere; nothing to do with us, isn’t that right?”

“Grah hah hah! Right you are! Well, that’s that—let’s get moving. I want to get this party started!” Josephoke said, grinning wolfishly.

The group sprang into action, making no intent to hide their evil machinations.

The Magic Kingdom of Solistia had no idea what was about to happen.

* * *

Remi Osako—or “Sharanla,” as she’d named her Swords & Sorceries character—was one of the reincarnators dragged into this world, and she was a nasty piece of work.

When she’d gone to mooch off her younger brother Satoshi—also known as Zelos—and borrow money to repay a debt, she’d had to give up after finding him living a meager, self-sufficient life.

After that, she’d moved from place to place, harried by black market debt collectors the entire time. In the process, she’d just so happened to come across an otaku on his way back from a doujinshi event, and she’d gone on to seduce him and mooch off him instead. It was while living with him that she’d gotten into Swords & Sorceries.

She was well-spoken when she wanted to be, which she’d used to win the man over by presenting herself as an upright, respectable woman while spending every day playing around. Fittingly enough, her in-game character had been a thief—at least to begin with. She’d later changed classes to assassin.

She’d gank other players and take every single thing they had, and eventually, she’d become a pretty skilled player, in her own way. She sometimes went by the alias “Megu the Murderess.”

She’d been trying to target a certain top-ranked player when she’d been flung into this world.

And not long after reincarnating here, she’d had the worst possible reunion with that player.

Indeed: The player in question was her own brother, Zelos Merlin. One of the five Destroyers.

The moment they’d reunited, he’d run her over with a motorbike, then genuinely tried to kill her. He’d seemed thrilled by the opportunity too.

But that wasn’t her only problem. Her real concern was that she’d used a youth restoration potion to grow young again.

This supposed wonder drug had a fatal flaw. Sure, it made the imbiber younger again, but with a terrible side effect: When it wore off, the user would suddenly age by about two to three times as many years as they’d gone back. In other words, it shortened the user’s life.

Sharanla had convinced herself that Zelos had an item to nullify the potion’s effect, so she’d been wandering the land trying to find him. In the process, though, she’d tried to assassinate a duke’s son and gotten herself onto a wanted list.

She’d ended up with no choice but to flee the Magic Kingdom of Solistia.

With her days numbered, she had no time to waste.

And now—

“Aha hah... I will smoke you out, Satoshi. Wherever you’re hiding.”

Her grudge against Zelos ran deep.

Back in Swords & Sorceries, the Destroyers had turned the tables on her when she’d tried to gank them.

Worse, they’d ganged up, forced her to equip a cursed item, and tossed her into the den of a raid-boss dragon.

Even after she’d managed to sneak out of the den, she hadn’t been able to remove the item, which one of the Destroyers had called “the Curse of Id.” It was a nasty piece of handiwork too: Every time she ganked someone, a meter filled up, and when it hit a threshold, the item self-destructed, killing her. Afterward, the curse reverted her back to Level 1—and turned her hairstyle into an unflattering, frizzy mess, just for funsies. The Destroyers had really left no stone unturned.

The distinctive look had outed her as a ganker at first glance to other players, and in turn, bounty hunters had come for her head.

Altogether, then, she’d been chased by debt collectors on Earth, bounty hunters in the game, and now a man who was practically a grim reaper in this new world.

She couldn’t catch a break—though she had brought it all on herself. Not that she’d ever actually admit it, mind you.

Her resentment for Zelos was all that kept her going at this point.

“Little brothers were made to be used. That’s all they’re good for. And yet he dares go against me? Well, just you wait, Satoshi! I’ll get you back for everything, I promise!”

What a pathetic excuse for a person. And this pathetic excuse had forgotten a key detail: Her brother was a Destroyer now. He was also, in a certain way, the one person who understood her better than anyone else. Sharanla was totally unaware of the sheer size of the level gap between the two of them too. At the end of the day, she’d never been enough of a gamer to actually bother grinding levels.

But nonetheless, here she was, beginning her own grand plan for revenge—ill-advised and ill-fated though it seemed.

Chapter 8: The Old Guy Gets Misunderstood

After dismounting the motorbike in front of Santor, Zelos and Lusei entered the city on foot.

Then they ran into a problem.

The sun had started setting before they’d even reached the city. And when they finally arrived at an inn for the night, they discovered all its rooms had already been booked by merchants and mercenaries.

At this point, Lusei would have to sleep at Zelos’s place for the night.

The problem was that he had nowhere whatsoever for guests to sleep—he was, after all, a bachelor. He’d never even considered setting up a guest room.

“Sorry to say, but I’ve only got the one bed, and the one set of bedding. Usually I’d use it, but please, Lusei, you sleep in there for the night. I’ll crash on the couch, so—”

“Hwah?! A-Are you telling me to sleep under the same roof as a gentleman I’ve only just met? And... And in his bed?!”

“Erm... Aren’t you overreacting a bit? Don’t worry, I won’t do anything to you. Remember, if I were stupid enough to try something, it’d spark a diplomatic incident.”

Zelos’s house was pretty big for a bachelor pad.

There were a bunch of empty rooms too; the only ones he really used in his day-to-day life were the bedroom, the kitchen, and the living room. He was the type of guy who saw his home as nothing but a place to sleep.

The mask hid Lusei’s face, but couldn’t hide her thumping heart.

In fact, Zelos’s denial that any funny business would happen only made her that much more self-conscious.

“Erm... Makes me a bit sad to see how leery you are of me, you know? I mean, it’s not like we have any other options. I can’t imagine any inns still have spare rooms this late. You’ll just have to give in for the night.”

“G-Give in?! For the night?!”

Lusei’s mind was taking everything in a sexual direction.

At heart, she was one very timid general. She was a coward off the battlefield, who’d blush at the drop of a hat; even just socializing was hard for her, let alone relationships with men.

Plus, she needed her mask to interact with people. Without it, in fact, she’d have been a complete basket case. And she was from a good family, so she’d grown up sheltered, unaware of many things about the world.

“Look,” Zelos said, “I’m not some beast who’d lay his hands on a lady he’s just met. You’ll just have to trust me on that, mind you...”

“B-But Father told me that men all think with their nether regions...”

Urgh... What’s that old bastard been teaching her? She isn’t just your average sheltered girl. This is on a whole other level.

Lusei had been raised by her single father since her mother had gone missing, and he’d given her a distorted view of the world. Zelos was reminded of how a certain old man took doting on his granddaughter to crazy extremes.

But while Lusei was cautious around men, she also yearned for marriage. Plus, it seemed like she was secretly a bit of a perv in her own way, shooting Zelos the occasional, expectant look. It was all a bit awkward to deal with.

Figuring her marriage-hunting activities must’ve really made her desperate, Zelos let out a long, deep sigh. “Let me be unequivocal: I’m not interested in trying to force myself on you. Urgh... This is tiring me out.”

“Wh-What was with that exasperated sigh! This is no way to treat a young maiden! How rude of you!”

“What—trying to sound like the respected general again, are we? It’s too late for that. I’ve already learned what a mess you are. Not the same kind of mess as my sister, thankfully, but a mess all the same...”

“Noooooo!”

Zelos wasn’t bothered by Lusei’s awkward stumbling over her words, but he was worried that her condition was so extreme she couldn’t take part in regular society without wearing a literal mask. He had a feeling she’d get scammed one day, probably by someone promising her marriage.

She may be one hell of a soldier, but she’s absolutely clueless as a person. Honestly, I’m amazed they even thought to appoint her a general... That doesn’t sound like a good idea. Are the reufayl just really short on good soldiers or something?

“You’re thinking something rude, aren’t you?”

“Me? No! Never! I was just—uh, going over a mental checklist of some things I’ve seen recently.”

“Why do I feel like that’s ruder than what I’d imagined before?”

“You’re just seeing things. You know, you’ve got quite the persecution complex, don’t you? Has anyone told you that before?”

“So you were thinking something rude! I knew it! Prepare yourself!” she said, moving to draw her sword.

Zelos, however, pushed his palm against the weapon’s pommel, stopping her with ease.

She looked like a proud soldier, but Zelos couldn’t get over the incredible discrepancy between her personality when she was masked and her personality when she wasn’t.

This timid general could get pretty hotheaded when her mask was on.

“I feel like you should at least learn to talk to people without that mask on.”

“I... I can talk with my family. But when it’s anyone else, I just...” she said, trailing off.

“Some people could view you wearing that mask while you talk as a sign of disrespect. You really need to get used to people.”

“No! There’s no way! I just can’t!”

“Damn! Such confidence! Have you seriously given up already?”

After a moment of reflection, Zelos realized he couldn’t have been the only one who’d tried to acclimate Lusei to talking to people.

Her father—Raphon Imara, a high-ranking military official—had tried too, of course. She still hadn’t gotten over it, though. Her shyness had to be pretty extreme.

It was actually a mystery how she’d become as successful as she was.

“Anyway, I don’t have extra bedding for guests. I suppose I can just borrow some spare sheets from my neighbor, though. Who knows—you may just meet your sister sooner than expected!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because that neighbor is Luceris.”

“You and my little sister are neighbors?! Why haven’t I heard this until now?!”

“I did say we were acquainted, didn’t I? I just didn’t mention we were neighbors specifically.”

“Tell me that kind of thing earlier! I haven’t steeled myself to face her yet!”

“I mean, you’re going to meet her sooner or later anyway, aren’t you? I assumed you’d have prepared yourself for it by now.”

The fact that Lusei and Luceris would meet was already set in stone. That was the whole reason Lusei was here, after all—to talk to Luceris and figure out whether they were related.

Lusei was aware of that too, so Zelos had figured she would’ve already been prepared for what was going to happen. From the sounds of it, though, she was still hesitating.

“We can’t just dawdle around forever. Come on—let’s get a move on. We’ve got to borrow some sheets and a pillow.”

“I-I know we do, but... Aaaaaargh!”

Ready or not, Lusei was in Santor now. It was too late for regret.

Riddled with doubt, she trudged alongside Zelos to the orphanage.

* * *

Luceris let out a deep sigh. Through the church window, she watched the coccos train in the yard of the home next door—a home whose owner still wasn’t back.

Nagri of Hamber Construction had dragged Zelos off more than a month ago, and she hadn’t heard from him since.

She’d grown a little worried. She hadn’t thought he’d be away for this long.

Fortunately, if you could call what happened fortunate, Jeanne’s party had run into him while carrying out guard work at the deepway construction site, so Luceris had at least been able to ask them how he’d been faring.

And what they’d told her was far beyond what she could’ve expected. Apparently, an ancient city had been discovered down there—and a single man had taken out an army of monsters inside.

I’m glad he’s okay, but I wish he’d at least thought to contact me...

Usually, people working at remote construction sites were allowed to send letters back to their families. But since this particular site had been part of an important state project overseen by the duke, construction had been carried out in utmost secrecy so that a certain theocracy wouldn’t catch wind.

Solistia’s plan had, of course, become quite clear to said theocracy when the road was finished and opened. Still, that’d been no reason for Metis to know before it had to. And there’d been extra reason to be wary of Luceris, an apprentice priestess for the Faith of the Four Gods. People in that sort of position were liable to leak intel to Metis.

Of course, Luceris wasn’t exactly devoted to the faith from the bottom of her heart, and the duke was aware of that, so Zelos probably could’ve gotten permission to send her a letter. There was always the risk of spies, though, so it had been best not to tell her anything, for her own safety.

Jeanne and her party hadn’t told Luceris much before departing either. They’d simply left the church one day, saying, “We’ve got work.” They hadn’t even known the full details of that work themselves, but given that it had been an important request from the state, some level of secrecy had been understandable.

Now that the Irmanaz Deepway was open for business, though, the project was no longer a secret, and Jeanne’s group had finally been able to explain things to Luceris.

“Sister, are you still thinking about Sir Zelos? I see little need to worry about one as capable as him,” Kaede said.

“Yeah—what she said!” Johnny agreed. “Pops is strong! Remember what Iris said? She said he’s the strongest mage there is!”

Ange sighed. “A maiden’s heart ain’t that simple. You don’t get how girls feel, Johnny!”

“C’mon—‘how girls feel’? That’s not too convincing coming from you! Still, I wonder if this has made Sister realize how she feels?” Laddie wondered.

“I’m with Laddie. Anyway... Wonder if Pops is gonna bring us some souvenirs? Maybe it’s meat? Or meat? Or maybe...MEAT!” Kai said.

“Hey! What are you tryin’ to say, Laddie?! I may not look too girly, but I am still a girl, okay?!” Ange insisted.

Even though Luceris had become surrounded by noisy kids, she remained absent-minded. She knew Zelos was strong, but after more than a month with no contact, of course she’d be worried.

The kids were right, though.

There were only so many foes out there that could take on Zelos in an actual fight.

Mmnh... I’ve come to terms with how I feel by now, but I still can’t bring myself to act on it...

This was Luceris’s first love, and he was so much older than her.

Her childhood friend Jeanne was in the same boat, and Luceris, scared to confess her feelings alone, was considering asking Jeanne to confess at the same time as her. It sounded like she was being proactive, but really, she was just contemplating the idea because she was too weak-willed to do it herself.

Polygamy was accepted here, so there wouldn’t be any problem with Zelos having two wives. But Jeanne couldn’t be honest with her own feelings, so she wasn’t acting on them either.

“Who knows—maybe you spent so long chickening out that Pops got together with some other woman.”

“C’mon, Johnny—there’s no way! Who’d get together with him? I mean, he doesn’t even have a job!”

“But he does have money, doesn’t he? Enough to live off, at least.”

“Indeed. I believe he could raise a family without financial issues. Every person has their own ways of making money.”

“I’d be happy as long as I had enough money for meat. Luxury is the enemy.”

The kids were surprisingly grounded.

Luceris, for her part, couldn’t stop thinking about what Johnny had just said: Another woman? Could he really get someone with those scruffy looks of his? I don’t know, but if there’s even a tiny chance...

She was really worried now, even if she was casually dissing Zelos a little bit.

Her reaction made you want to say, “Just get together already!” But with both of them worried about the age gap, neither was willing to make the move.

Besides, their love syndrome made them blind to how the other felt; their own feelings were so strong that they weren’t in the mindset to actually check whether it was mutual. Just keeping their own rising instincts—their desires—under control was hard enough.

With love syndrome, instinct came first, not feelings. As a result, both Zelos’s and Luceris’s hearts were still confused, playing catch-up—and if they let their impulses simmer for long enough, they’d go berserk and do all sorts of crazy things. Too bad they were in so deep that they’d forgotten about that little risk.

Love syndrome really was a nuisance.

“Luceris!” Iris called out. “I think someone’s here. I just heard a knock at the door.”

“H-Huh? O-Oh. Thank you, Iris. I wonder who it could be?”

“From the voice, I think it might be Mister Zelos? I probably shouldn’t answer the door, though. I’m just a freeloader here.”

“I suppose I should be the one to go, yes. I’ll do that now.”

Luceris hurried to the church’s door, unlocked it, slowly cracked it open, and peeked through the gap.

The moment she saw the gray-robed mage outside, she couldn’t help but throw the door open.

“Zelos!” she exclaimed. “Welcome back! You’ve been gone for over a month; I was worried about you!”

“I’m back. Sounds like I worried you, huh? Sorry about that.”

“I heard stories from Jeanne and Iris. You must be exhausted!”

“Oh, like you wouldn’t believe. Never thought I’d run into a demon down there, I’ve gotta say...”

“Huh? You... You came across a demon?”

“Whoops... My bad. Forget I said anything. That was meant to be a secret, wasn’t it? If you could, uh...not mention it to anyone else, please.”

Since Jeanne’s party had fought outside the gate to Isa Lante, they didn’t know that Zelos had fought a demon deep inside. If they’d gone in there with him that day, they probably wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale.

Zelos had told Creston about it, figuring he should probably report that kind of thing. Creston hadn’t wanted to delay the project any more than it already had been, though, so his report to the capital had only mentioned the skeletons and wraiths. He didn’t want to scare off potential workers and disrupt what promised to be a big win for Solistia.

Sure, Zelos had defeated the demon—it was gone for now—but he couldn’t guarantee that another one wouldn’t pop up down there. So in the end, Creston’s report had left some things out, and Zelos had been told to keep quiet about what happened.

“Hu— What?! Isn’t that the kind of secret you’re supposed to take to your grave?! Why are you saying it like it’s nothing?!”

“I did say ‘whoops,’ didn’t I? It was an accident. I guess getting back home after all this time made me loosen up too much. Yeah, I’ll mark that one down as my bad.”

It had been a fair while since Zelos was last in Santor, and his homecoming had made him giddy enough to let a state secret slip.

“Well, forgetting about that for a second... I’ve got a favor I’d like to ask you, Luceris.”

“What kind of favor? If it’s anything I can help you with, I will.”

“You see, I don’t have any spare sheets or pillows at my place for guests; would you mind if I borrowed some for a few days? I’ve got someone from the Artom Empire staying at mine for a bit.”

“Oh—a guest? Of course! I have some I can get for you.”

“Much appreciated! Seriously, I didn’t know what to do; I’d never bought anything for guests to sleep on. And all the inns are already full by this time of day, you know?”

“I’ll go get those for you now, then.”

Just as Luceris was turning to find a pillow and sheets, however, she spotted a woman with black wings and a mask standing behind Zelos.

She bowed her head slightly when she noticed Luceris looking at her.

“Zelos?” Luceris started. “Is... Is this woman the ‘guest’ you mentioned?”

“Ah, yes. General Lusei Imara of the Artom Empire. I’ve got spare rooms, if nothing else, so I’m having her stay at my place since the inns are full. I just need to borrow some bedding, and we’ll be good to go.”

“Y-You can’t! Who knows what sort of accidents could happen if an unmarried man and woman were to sleep under the same roof? What would you do if something did happen?”

“Huh? What?”

Luceris felt like she knew where this was going.

So he really did bring back another woman! If I’d known this would happen, I’d have acted sooner and— No! Bad Luceris! I don’t know how I could live with myself if he saw me as loose. Besides, I don’t have the confidence to pull off something like that...

She was in quite a panic.

Oblivious, Zelos was about to respond with something like, Erm, no, I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine. I’d get a sword in my gut if I even tried to pull anything with her, you know? But before he could speak...

“One thing can lead to another,” Luceris said. “There’s no telling what could happen! Maybe you accidentally walk in while she’s bathing, or open the door while she’s changing, or—”

“Oh. Yeah, those...those did happen already, didn’t they? With us. I was just trying not to bring it up again. Figured it’d make things awkward.”

“—and then maybe you give in to your lust and do something you can’t take back! Right?! The head pastor used to tell me: ‘Guys all think with their willies. Never trust ’em.’”

Seriously?! Her too?! Nobody trusts the men in this world, huh?

Melratha’s old advice wasn’t helping Zelos right now.

She hadn’t been wrong, though. In this world, where law and order were no guarantee, being at least a little wary of men was a good way for women to keep safe. There were more male-on-female crimes here than you might have expected.

That mindset helped women stay safe, but sometimes it gave them, depending on personality, an outright aversion to the idea of relationships with the opposite sex.

Finding the right balance was important. And in some situations, people missed that balance, leading to misconceptions.

Luceris was a priest, while Lusei was an important national figure. Both had been brought up with strict morals and a wariness of others, so they tended to assume the worst at times like this.

They weren’t strict, moral paragons; they’d just grown up to be easily scared by things they weren’t used to.

Both Lusei’s virtues and her yearning for marriage made her nervous at the realization she’d be sleeping under the same roof as Zelos. Luceris, meanwhile, couldn’t bring herself to take the next step, yet she was getting jealous of Lusei all the same. Probably another symptom of love syndrome.

Zelos had none of that context, though. All he could do was wonder, How’d these two end up like this?

His solitary life had made him pretty slow when it came to this sort of thing.

He sighed. “Is it really that hard to trust me? Look, I’m not going to make a move on a foreign military VIP just because she’s staying at my house. Ugh, what a pain...”

“Hey! Are you implying I am not an appealing woman?!”

“Um, Zelos... It’s rude to call dealing with a woman ‘a pain.’ You shouldn’t do that!”

The hell do they want me to do here, dammit?!

He’d just been honest, and they’d criticized him for it.

He found it so unfair that his internal grumbling took on a harsher tone.

“Well,” he said, “leaving that aside for a moment... Can we borrow the sheets and pillow? As I said, I don’t have any for guests.”

“Yes, of course... We have some spares, if you’re okay with that?”

“That’s fine by me. I’ll have Lusei sleep in my bed, and I’ll sleep on the couch with the borrowed sheets. And I really need some sleep right now. I’m exhausted...”

“Sh-She’s using the bed? I mean, I did occasionally air out the sheets and so on while you were gone, but...”

“Um... Sorry, what? You were airing out my sheets? I’m sure my house should’ve been locked.”

Even while being kidnapped by the dwarves, he’d made sure his house was locked as he left.

How had Luceris been getting in, then?

“Oh? After you left, I found a key at the church’s back door with a letter that said, ‘We’ll be away for a while, so could you take care of the house in the meantime?’ Weren’t you the one who left that there?”

“I was kidnapped, remember? Out of nowhere! You saw it! When would I have been able to do that?”

“Um... Huh?”

Zelos didn’t need much longer to solve the mystery.

Most likely, Nagri and the other dwarves had left the key there. The one behind the letter—and the kidnapping—had probably been the duke. The way it had been so neatly planned out felt like his handiwork.

Now that I think about it, that was a state-sponsored kidnapping, wasn’t it? I’d written it off as dwarven eccentricity, but no... That was a national conspiracy they pulled on me!

The dwarves of Hamber Construction had built Zelos’s home on Duke Delthasis’s order. They could’ve made themselves as many duplicate keys as they’d wanted. Most likely, the duke had only written up paperwork for Zelos’s construction aid in retrospect, after the kidnapping.

They’d figured that even if Zelos had his reservations about the situation, he was the sort of man flexible enough to get used to it before long and get the job done.

“Anyway, could I get that bedding now? It feels like we’re starting to go in circles here.”

“O-Oh. Of course. By the way, have you eaten yet?”

“Ah, no. I was thinking I’d get home and start running the bath, then cook something while I wait.”

Luceris froze. “The... The bath?”

Houses with baths were rare in this world, but Zelos’s home had one in the room next to the kitchen.

It seemed entirely possible this could end up in the good ol’ trope of a guy walking in on a girl in the bath, followed by a “Kyaaa! You perv!”

“Um, Zelos... Which of you will be bathing first?”

“I mean, it’s only polite to let the guest go first, isn’t it?”

“Is the dressing room visible from the kitchen?”

“If the door’s open, sure, but...it’ll be closed, so that shouldn’t be a problem, right? Besides, I get the feeling my head would fly if I even tried to peep.”

“Then, um... What are you going to do once Lusei’s done?”

“I’ll take a bath myself. Obviously. As I said, I’m exhausted—a bath’ll really hit the spot.”

Luceris turned to stone.

Zelos’s reply had made a certain concern come to mind.

“No! No, no, no! You can’t! You mustn’t! That’d be a crime, Zelos!”

“E-Excuse me?”

“The pastor told me that any man who bathes after a woman is a pervert trying to enjoy himself with her bathwater! I won’t let you turn out like that, Zelos!”

“What kind of ideas did this damn pastor put in your head?! I may have to have a nice little chat with her some day—with my fists, if need be. Though, erm, I suppose I’ll meet her sooner or later regardless...”

He hadn’t been fantasizing about that sort of thing at all—okay, fine, maybe just a little bit, but not that much—and here Luceris was, accusing him of being a perv.

Eventually, Zelos and Lusei were finally allowed to leave and go to Zelos’s home—albeit with a very worked-up Luceris coming along to keep an eye on him.

It was ultimately agreed that Zelos would take his bath first, and Luceris would prepare dinner while he was in there.

Chapter 9: The Old Guy Explains Luceris’s Past

Despite the commotion, Zelos and Lusei eventually managed to eat dinner.

Luceris was watching them like a hawk, though—and the look on her face was starting to scare them. Although she wore her usual saintly smile, she seemed surrounded by a dark, foreboding aura. Even Zelos was getting the jitters.

This is terrifying... And somehow that smile only makes it worse, he thought. What’s even wrong? Did I do something?

Wh-Why does this feel so intense? Lusei thought. I’ve never felt so intimidated in my life. Not even on the battlefield.

They were such powerful fighters that your average person couldn’t even comprehend what they were capable of, and here they were, intimidated by this young priestess.

Luceris wasn’t aware, but she was emitting this aura out of jealousy.

She and Zelos weren’t even lovers—let alone husband and wife—but somehow, it was like she’d caught him cheating on her with Lusei. The two of them felt like little critters being watched by a snake.

“By the way,” Luceris asked, “did you come here for work, Lusei? I thought Zelos only went to help the duke build a road... I can’t imagine how he would have met you on a construction site, though. Do you mind if I ask how you met?”

I-I’m scaaaaaared! the two of them panicked. It felt like a wife interrogating the cheating husband and his mistress.

Luceris was speaking politely right now—abnormally politely, in fact—but something about her question left the Great Sage and the revered general trembling with fear.

They felt like they could very well be killed if they gave the wrong answer. And the fact that Luceris wasn’t putting on this pressure intentionally only made it scarier.

“U-Uh, you see... The funny thing is, as soon as we’d finished building the deepway, I was hired to escort a diplomat to the Artom Empire. And then once I got there, I was given another job...”

“Y-Yes! There’s...a certain mystery my family absolutely needs to investigate, and we requested Zelos’s help. That’s why I accompanied him back to Solistia.”

“Assuming this is a national issue, shouldn’t you have gone to the ducal mansion? Why are you staying at Zelos’s house? That’s the part I don’t understand.”

“Well, a lot of things happened, and...” Zelos began, hesitating. “Hmm... Where do I even start? It’s a bit of a sensitive topic.”

“Indeed. And no, it’s...more a personal matter than a national one. It has to do with a scandal in my family, you could say.”

This was an interrogation, and Luceris was well and truly in charge; there was no defying her here. With as much pressure as Zelos and Lusei were under, they were convinced Luceris could sniff out even the tiniest lie. If they tried to deceive her, they just knew their lives would be forfeit.

There was no escape. Zelos took a quiet breath to compose himself, trying to shake free from the fear.

He’d learned years ago how to get out of this sort of pressure, back when he’d had to give corporate presentations during the global financial crisis.

He had to decide, though: Should he be evasive or as clear and honest as possible?

Luceris wasn’t exactly an unrelated third party here, after all.

Zelos steeled himself. Then, after another deep breath: “Actually, Luceris... There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Of... Of course. What is it?”

“You see, this matter we’ve been talking about—the reason Lusei came here—it may have something to do with you. Can you hear me out?”

“H-Hwah?” Luceris gasped, confused by Zelos’s seriousness. “Huh?”

She had no idea what any of this might have to do with her, after all.

“I’ll get straight to the point: I’d like to talk to someone who’s known you since you were very young. Specifically, that pastor you mentioned earlier.”

“Head Pastor Melratha? Wh— What for?”

Zelos paused to compose himself, then he dropped the bombshell: “Perhaps you’ll understand why if I tell you that Lusei here might be...your older sister. By blood. That’s why we need to see the pastor—to see someone who knows about what happened when you were very young.”

Luceris blinked, stunned beyond words.

“Z-Zelos?!” Lusei exclaimed. “Why are you...”

Luceris finally knew what Zelos had been getting at.

Lusei had hoped to keep things under wraps until they had more info. But with Luceris grilling the two of them so hard, that option had kind of gone out the window.

Even then, though, Lusei wasn’t sure she was ready for all this.

Finding out the truth behind Luceris’s past would confirm whether or not the two of them were related by blood.

And if Luceris really was her little sister, there was no way she could continue being a simple priestess in charge of an orphanage. She would, after all, be Artom royalty, albeit of the lowest rank.

There was a chance the Artom Empire could upend her entire life—again.

“Um... What do you mean? How could she be my sister? I’m... I’m not a reufayl, you know?”

“Ah—see, that’s the crux of this whole thing,” Zelos said. “But answering that question may involve unearthing some unpleasant truths. Of course, right now, we can’t say for sure whether the two of you are related or not. It’s ultimately up to you if you want to hear the rest of what we have to say, Luceris.”

“Oh. So that’s why you want to see the head pastor...”

“Exactly.”

Zelos had given Luceris two options: to find out where she’d come from and risk potentially getting hurt, or to continue living as she always had without incident. The way Zelos had put it made it sound like a potentially painful truth lay hidden in her past. Since this was all about her, it was only fair for her to be the one to decide whether or not she wanted to hear any more. If she did, she could continue to hear Zelos and Lusei out; if she didn’t, she could simply introduce them to the pastor.

In the end, Zelos had framed it as a choice out of consideration.

“Please, Zelos,” she said eventually, her voice quiet. “Tell me.”

“Are you sure? It’s not a pleasant story. It’ll make you upset.”

“I still want to know. If this is really about me, I can’t just run away.”

Zelos sighed, paused for a moment, and finally replied: “All right. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“Z-Zelos!” Lusei cried. She wanted to give her little sister a hug, but knew that Luceris would be hurt when she learned the truth. The Imara family had treated the girl horribly, after all. Nobody could blame Luceris, Lusei thought, if she decided she was already happy and left behind her past.

But that wasn’t what she’d chosen.

“I’ll ask again: Are you sure about this?” Zelos asked. “It’s a sickening story, really. A tragedy caused by some stupid old customs.”

“I’m sure. I don’t want to run away. My past made me who I am today.”

“There you have it, Lusei—looks like she’s much more ready for this than you. She didn’t even hesitate.”

“You’re... You’re a strong person, Luceris. Frankly, I’d be terrified. It won’t be easy, I’m sure—finally hearing the truth after eighteen long years. This burden should be ours to bear. It’s not fair that you have to suffer for it.”

“I’ve... I’ve always wanted to know how I ended up an orphan,” Luceris said. “I’ve been preparing for this day. And now that it’s here, I don’t intend to back down.”

It made sense that an orphan would want to know about their parents. Running away from hearing this had never really been an option for Luceris.

“Understood,” Zelos said. “Well, then... No more beating around the bush. But please keep in mind that we’re still not certain you two are related.”

“I know. And...thank you. Please, go on. Tell me what happened in my past.”

She’d been ready for this, but now that the time had come, she was scared. Of course she was. She clasped her hands over her chest and waited for what felt like an eternity for the truth.

Finally, Zelos explained everything, bit by bit, as clearly as he could: the reufayl child born without wings; the groundless rumors of her mother’s infidelity and society’s rising suspicions; her mother’s inability to regain trust no matter how much she denied the rumors; her sentence of exile; and finally, her disappearance along with her child before her sentence could be carried out.

When Zelos was finally done, Luceris gazed at him, an exhausted look on her face.

“So... Because I was born, they blamed my mother for a crime without any proof and exiled her from the Artom Empire... That’s an even crueler story than I expected.”

“Yes—and thanks to Zelos, we have an explanation now for her innocence. He calls it ‘atavism.’ It’s a phenomenon by which ancestral traits can lie dormant for generations and eventually reappear down the line. And if he’s correct, we’ve made a mistake we can never take back.”

“That’s why they sent Lusei here,” Zelos continued. “To find any leads on where your mother might have gone. The Imara family wants to face their past.”

Luceris could almost intuit what Lusei was feeling. Lusei had probably lived her life with society viewing her as the daughter of an improper woman and a criminal. And now, she’d come here hoping to find out where her mother was.

If her mother was innocent of the crimes she’d been charged with, then Lusei felt determined to meet her.

“Father’s position prevents him from leaving the Empire; otherwise, he’d have come to find her himself.”

“I... I see.”

“Save your sadness for later,” Zelos said, composed. “Remember, we still haven’t proven any of this yet.”

This was, after all, just a summary of what they knew so far—and there was much more they didn’t know. A DNA test would have cleared things up in an instant, but this world didn’t have that sort of technology. And that meant they’d have to find proof themselves.

“So—that about sums it up, I think,” Zelos said. “Our next step is meeting with this pastor—and we’ll need you to help us with that, Luceris. I say ‘need,’ but this is up to you too, of course.”

“So I can either close my eyes to the truth and live out my current life, or I can act on what you’ve told me—is that right? If that’s the case, I understand. I’ll help you.”

Lusei turned to her potential sister. “Luceris... Are you positive?”

“Honestly,” she replied, “I’m not that bothered by the thought of what my blood family is like. As long as I can remember, I’ve been surrounded by orphans who grew up just like I did, and they’ve been my companions—no, my family, for all these years. So, how do I put it... None of this feels real to me yet. It’s like it’s about someone else, or... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be saying that about my own past, should I?”

“I suppose the fact that you can’t remember those terrible things is one saving grace...” Lusei said. “Still, if our suspicions are true, what was done could be a disgrace to my nation—or rather, to our family. I know we haven’t proven anything yet, but let me apologize in advance: We’ve scarred your life already, and now we’re troubling you again. On behalf of the Imara family, I am deeply sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize. We still don’t even know the truth yet. Not for sure...”

But despite the lack of confirmation, Lusei bowed her head to Luceris in apology. It was a sign of her sincerity.

* * *

After showing Lusei to the bedroom, Zelos went to the front door to see Luceris off.

He was standing behind her, so he couldn’t see her face, but he figured she was probably at least a little shaken.

He noticed her clenched hands trembling slightly.

Guess I can’t blame her. If it were me, I probably would’ve chosen to stay in the dark. I mean, this whole thing sounds like a pain...

Luceris’s decision to face her past was admirable. But given everything they’d talked about, she had to be pretty hurt by it all. After all, it was because she had been born without wings that her mother had been left in a predicament and, ultimately, sentenced to exile.

It wasn’t Luceris’s fault, but none of this would have happened if she’d been born with wings. Plus, her mother’s whereabouts were a mystery.

And if she were proven to be a member of the Imara family, she could even get dragged into the usual struggles for inheritance and succession.

“It’d...probably be silly of me to ask if you’re okay, wouldn’t it? There’s no way you aren’t a bit shook up after hearing all that.”

“You’re... You’re right. I am. My mother was exiled, and it’s all because she gave birth to me...”

“That’s where you’re wrong. She was exiled because Artom had lost so much of its knowledge and technology. Because they were such shallow thinkers, they chose to blindly suspect her rather than to find the truth. Besides, it’s not like a kid can choose where they’re born, or the body they’re born in.”

“Are you really saying I did nothing wrong by being born?”

“How could you have done wrong just by being born? That doesn’t even make sense to me.”

A child couldn’t be blamed for their birth. Any notion contrary was nonsense.

If anything should have been blamed, it should have been the environment that directed hatred, rather than joy, toward an innocent newborn life. At the end of the day, whether a baby had wings was superficial, and the real problem was a society that treated such a baby with suspicion and scorn.

“Well,” Zelos said, “we won’t know the rest—the history behind it, or whether you’re really related—until we ask the pastor. No point worrying over it too much, anyway. It’s all in the past. What matters is the present.”

“That’s a positive way of looking at it. I know what I said earlier, but it’s all only just hitting me now, and...and if we can prove that Lusei really is my sister, then...”

“Do you think you could leave the life you’ve built behind? Even if we prove you come from a royal family, it wouldn’t mean you’d have to accept all the baggage that comes with that.”

“Are you saying I’d still be free to choose how I live my life?”

“Why wouldn’t you be? Nobody has the right to deny the person you decide to be. If push comes to shove, I should be able to protect you, at least—in fact, I think I’d probably be over...kill...”

Oh? What’s this?

If worse came to worst, Zelos might have to take on generals of the Artom Empire to protect Luceris. But as the thought came to mind, he realized just how abhorrently powerful he was. Sure, the reufayl were strong, and several high-level reufayl fighters could give him a bit of a hard time if they fought him at once, but if a Destroyer decided to get serious... Well, it was clear how things would end.

Just imagining it sent a shiver down Zelos’s spine.

If he got into a serious fight, could he restrain himself? That was what scared him.

He could just live up to his title and destroy his foes, of course—but doing so would put Luceris in a difficult spot. She was an empathetic woman. She’d never be able to bear the weight of other people dying because of her.

I can see this turning into a bit of a thorny issue...

If Zelos ended up clashing with Artom’s Order of Warriors, Luceris would get hurt, that much was for sure.

If he let loose and killed them all, there was the chance she’d feel responsible and surrender herself to the Artom Empire. The thought left Zelos worried about how he should use his immense power.

Just as he was racking his brain over it, he noticed Luceris shooting him a look. It kind of looked like she was blushing too.

“Wh-What’s up?”

“O-Oh! No! It’s nothing! Just... You said you’d protect me...”

“Of course I did! I promise you, I’ll take on the whole Artom Empire if that’s what I have to do to keep you safe.”

Luceris immediately lowered her head and hugged him.

“Wh-Wh-What?! Why are you— You just suddenly—”

“I’m sorry. Just... Just let me stay like this for a bit. Please.”

Zelos put a hand on her shoulder. He could feel her trembling.

She must have been anxious.

But the moment he’d said he’d protect her, she’d become unable to resist the pounding in her chest, and she’d hugged him out of impulse. And perhaps noticing how she was feeling, he subconsciously gave her a gentle hug back.

Of course she’d be anxious. I mean, we just told her that she’s part of some royal family of warriors. Who wouldn’t be thrown off by that? For now, I guess I’ll just keep holding her until she cal— Hmm?

Suddenly feeling eyes on him, Zelos scanned his surroundings—and saw several figures hiding behind a pile of rice in a corner of the house. It turned out that the eyes he’d felt belonged to a bunch of very talented kids now eagerly peeping on him and Luceris.

They’d probably been using the Invisibility skill to stay hidden.

“Yeah! Go for it, Pops! Kiss her!”

“Landing Sister’s like winning the jackpot. You’re a man, aren’t you?! Make her yours! While you’ve got the chance!”

“Mmm. I wonder if we will be able to see Sister’s child next year? I am most interested in discovering how it feels to be an older sister.”

“Ooh, yeah! I wanna be a big sister too!”

“Guess tonight’ll be a meat feast! Pops is gonna savor that meat like it’s the best meal of his life...”

You’ve gotta be kidding me—the kids are all Peeping Toms now?! Don’t tell me they’re always doing this...

Their technique was rough around the edges, but they were weirdly skilled at hiding their presences.

By Zelos’s standards, they still had a long way to go, but at the very least, they were far better at this than some ragtag kids had any right to be.

“Crap! He saw us! I’m gettin’ outta here!”

“Tch! Figures he’d find out... Guess I gotta train some more.”

“If he’s spotted us, we should surrender with honor and face his blade. Hiding now would hurt my pride.”

“I don’t wanna ‘face his blade’! He’ll turn me into meat! Delicious, juicy meat... No. I don’t wanna be the meat!”

“What is he, a ghoul or something? C’mon. He wouldn’t eat us. Whatever—retreat!”

Now that they’d been detected, the kids bolted away with impressive quickness, their full speed boosted by mana.

It was a splendid tactical withdrawal.

“Damn, they’re fast... Full marks for their retreat, honestly. Oh? What is it, Luceris?”

With the kids gone, the only ones left were Zelos, exasperated, and Luceris, who still had her arms around him.

Maybe Zelos was imagining it, but he thought he could feel her trembling even harder than she had been earlier. And then...

“Nyawhaaaaaa!!!”

Her embarrassed scream echoed through the night sky.

As soon as she was done screaming, she ran away as fast as her legs would carry her.

That moment convinced Zelos that she and Lusei really were related by blood. They were both such wusses that it couldn’t have been a coincidence.

Lusei, meanwhile, had secretly watched the whole thing unfold from the second floor. And she couldn’t help but feel jealous of the girl who might have been her little sister:

“Why? Why can’t I get a man? The world is so... So unfair... Uuurgh...”

She’d lived for twenty-two years, and she’d been single for all twenty-two of them. Her worry that she’d missed her chance was only getting more severe with time.

But all she could do was give it her best from here on out.

There was no telling whether springtime would finally come for Lusei.

* * *

There were innumerable factions among the priests of the Faith of the Four Gods.

There were the authoritarians, obsessed with shoring up their own power; the moderates, whose top priority was giving charity to the people; then you had the fundamentalists, the reformists, and so many more.

The authoritarians had the most political power of all the factions. However, as they grew in power, so too did the zealots, who were also known as the Crimson Cabal—a de facto faction of unhealthily devoted fanatics.

And why was that the case? Well, because they were the perfect group to take on dirty work.

Because of how fervently devoted to the Faith they were, it was easy for the authoritarians to make them do their bidding as long as they said what the zealots wanted to hear; they really were the perfect little pawns. And the authoritarians gave them special privileges, knowing they’d go to any horrific extent as long as it was laid out as “a revelation from the Gods.”

The Faith could leave its most troublesome tasks to the zealots, then—for example, sending orphans to temples filled with zealots so that the zealots could train those orphans into more convenient pawns, or having the zealots go to politically unstable nations to gather intel under the guise of missionary work.

The Inquisition was in charge of supervising the zealots, or the Crimson Cabal.

By reassigning Crimson Cabal members to the Inquisition, the Faith could keep a close eye on them. It was an efficient way of running things. Since pardoning criminals and coercing them to carry out the Faith’s dirty work fell under the Inquisition’s jurisdiction anyway, Cabal members were effectively unspoken instruments of the Inquisition.

Given the circumstances, though, the Faith’s leaders needed all the help they could get, from regular priests to Crimson Cabal members.

And right now, the higher-ups in the Inquisition watched from afar as members of the Cabal spread monster-attracting felscent from small bottles around a certain forest. Felscent’s effect lasted for over a month, and its use was banned in every country.

“Hee hee... Just look at those morons! Not a clue in their little heads that they’re bein’ used! Workin’ so hard—no idea that all that awaits ’em is death!”

“Yes, they’re probably thrilled to ‘martyr’ themselves and be with the Gods. As if there’s really anything after death...”

The priests here had been ordered to martyr themselves—both to protect Metis from the threat of the Hell’s Legion and to punish the Magic Kingdom of Solistia, a supposed enemy of the Four Gods. By spreading felscent along the route to Solistia, they’d be funneling the great givleon and its swarm in that direction.

As for why they were targeting Solistia? It was because, supposedly, mages all disavowed the teachings of the Gods, necessitating divine punishment for a nation full of mages.

But the real reason was that leading the monsters to Solistia would minimize casualties in Metis.

The Magic Kingdom of Solistia sat to the southeast of the Holy Land of Metis. By leading the givleon along the mountains to Solistia, Metis kept its settlements safe and deaths in the Holy Land to a minimum. Eliminating a troublesome enemy nation was a bonus, of course.

It seemed like a masterstroke. Setting the swarm on Solistia would get rid of both an enemy and the Hell’s Legion threatening Metis in one fell swoop.

“Oh—looks like the front of the swarm’s gotten ’ere. We’d better get goin’ then, eh?”

“Yeah. I don’t feel like takin’ on all those bugs. Let’s scram. The fun part’s still waitin’ for us.”

“Hee hee hee... Damn right it is! Can’t be dyin’ in a place like this when we haven’t got to all the killing yet, can we?!”

The leaders of the Inquisition mounted their horses and made a hasty retreat.

Before long, a cockroach swarm would be lured in, the great givleon would notice the remaining zealots, and it would descend upon them to feast.

The zealots’ screams would echo through the forest as they were eaten alive.

The swarm would be led from one place to another, gradually making its way toward the Magic Kingdom of Solistia.

There was a major flaw in this plan, though. First of all, monster stampedes and Hell’s Legions often began when a stronger creature chased them off or overbreeding created food shortages, setting many monsters off in the same direction. And typically, they would continue in that direction.

Now, felscent was potent, but it only affected monsters within a certain range—so all the giant cockroaches outside that range would continue in the direction they’d already been going.

Ultimately, the swarm would just split into two.

The initial Hell’s Legion, now approaching Solistia, would be smaller than when it had first hit Metis. Meanwhile, many of the Legion’s blattellas, periplanetas, and other cockroaches would continue on their trajectories, causing havoc throughout Metis.

Conspiracies didn’t always work out.

Chapter 10: The Old Guy Meets Head Pastor Melratha

Early in the morning, a guest arrived in front of the church run by Luceris.

This guest was a woman, a little past middle age, whose white robes marked her as a member of the clergy. She was famous around Santor—for more reasons than one.

She wore her graying blonde hair in a messy, half-up bun and stood with such rigid, age-defying posture that it made her look even taller than she already was. Her sharp, almond eyes made a frightening first impression, but a closer look would reveal the disheveled nature of her appearance, leaving one with an entirely different impression altogether.

Her vibe wasn’t too dissimilar from that of a certain Great Sage.

Her name was Melratha. No surname.

“So it’s finally time, eh... Looking back, it feels like it’s been so long—but also, no time at all...”

She’d become an orphan at a young age; before that, she’d been nothing but your average street urchin. And as should go without saying, she’d been a problem child, running away from the orphanage time and time again. She’d done whatever it took to survive—extortion, shoplifting, pickpocketing, shoeshining, the works.

Somewhere along the line, she’d risen to top dog status among the orphans. As she’d grown up, though, she’d realized she couldn’t spend her life scrapping with other orphan groups in back alleys forever, so she’d set her sights on becoming a priest.

Her motivation had been very straightforward: If I could use holy magic, I bet I’d never go hungry again! Even from the start, she hadn’t believed in the teachings of the gods. And at the age of sixteen, she made her way to the Holy Land of Metis to train as a priest.

She’d always been the big sister type, inclined to care for others, and with time, she earned the adoration of many people around her—despite causing her fair share of mayhem over the years. She climbed the ranks until, before she’d realized it, she’d been put in charge of overseeing other pastors.

Some were far less fond of her, however, such as the greedy pastors desperate for political power. Usually, they were all busy tearing each other down, but when it came to taking down Melratha, they united for a common cause. And eventually, they succeeded at effectively getting her exiled from Metis by claiming that they were sending her to “spread the word of the Gods.”

Melratha, however, was thrilled at the development—it was her golden ticket away from the hassles of Metis, as far as she saw it—and upon her return to her home country of Solistia, she got straight to living life as she pleased. She’d kept it up ever since.

If anyone asked why she’d started an orphanage here in Solistia, she usually said, “Li’l brats have the right to live too, y’know? Or what, do ya think people can live off charity alone? That’s no solution at all; that’s just bullshit.” In other words, her rebellious spirit had driven her to take care of orphans.

She knew she couldn’t save kids living on the streets by handing them a few loaves of bread, though. So, she helped them find work, exposing them to a broad range of professions. She used every opportunity available to her—but she had no grand plan behind any of this, mind you. She was just winging it all as she went.

Having started life as an orphan herself, it hadn’t taken her long to bring together a bunch of orphans from the streets and give them new lives—even if they’d had to be “brought together” by force.

Her personality—whether you called it refreshingly straightforward or forceful and overbearing—had earned her a great deal of respect here too, and people had started referring to her as the “head pastor.” She had no shortage of individuals willing to work with her.

She did have her vices, though. Alcohol and gambling, specifically.

She was an outrageously good gambler who saw through any attempt at cheating and fleeced the table for everything they had, which had earned her the ire of fellow gamblers. They’d hired hitmen to go after her plenty of times—though every time, she’d managed to either take them out instead or make a getaway, earning her the nickname of “the Prodigal Pastor.”

Eventually, other gamblers came around to liking her, calling her “ma’am” with a sense of closeness and respect.

She eventually made such a name for herself that even the underworld was forced to concede it was no match for her.

Her circle of friends and acquaintances was ridiculously large, spanning everyone from homeless people to crafters and even underworld figures.

Today, she’d come to the church to reveal a certain truth.

“Let’s see... Wonder if Lu’s awake by now?”

Head Pastor Melratha gave the church door a hearty knock.

* * *

“Hey—what’s up with Lu? She’s been spaced out all morning.”

“Actually, she’s been like that ever since she returned from Mister Zelos’s place last night...”

Jeanne and Iris were a little worried as they observed Luceris. She’d been acting strange all morning.

She seemed out of it as she swept the chapel. It was one of her usual morning duties, but she showed no sign of her typical practiced precision. Instead, she looked deep in thought. Now and then, she’d suddenly blush and cringe, release a deep sigh, and go through the cycle again a few moments later. It was hard to watch.

It was almost like...

“I wonder if she’s lovesick?” Lena chimed in from behind the other two.

The two of them turned around as one to look at her. “What?!”

“I mean, she was normal until yesterday, wasn’t she?” Lena said.

“Who is it?” Jeanne said. “Who’s the man who did this to her?!”

“Jeanne,” Lena replied, “you’re talking like you’re her father... And besides, it should be obvious who it was, shouldn’t it?”

“Oh...” said the other two.

The image of a certain gray-robed, middle-aged mage giving a hearty laugh and waving at them popped into both their heads.

Indeed, there weren’t exactly many men around Luceris. In fact, by process of elimination, it had to be Zelos.

“W-Wait... Did that geezer do somethin’ to her?!”

“Uh, Jeanne, that’s still one of those cliché lines a father would say...” Iris said.

“Heh... Knowing Luceris’s personality, if she crossed the line with him, it’d be clear from her face,” Lena said. “She’d be on cloud nine. I wonder if he confessed to her? Maybe even with an eye to marriage?”

“M-Marriage?!”

That word shook Jeanne and Iris to their cores. They and Lena had been taking advantage of Luceris’s kindness to use her church as an emergency base when they didn’t have enough money to stay at inns. If Luceris did get married, there was no guarantee they’d be able to keep that up. The church was run as a place for orphans to stay, after all. A bunch of mercenaries using it for lodging was suspect in the first place. Plus, someone else could start managing the church if Luceris got married. And if that were to happen, it seemed unlikely the three of them would be able to keep staying here.

That would be a serious problem for the party, given how frequently they were broke.

“H-Hang on,” Jeanne said. “We still don’t know for sure that’s what happened, right? We should be careful about this...”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Iris nodded. “And I mean...marrying him?! Would she really—”

“Actually, I got the lowdown from Ange and the others,” Lena said. “Apparently, they saw Zelos and Luceris hugging last night. Something like that, at least.”

“Wh-What did you just say?!”

Jeanne and Iris both imagined a flurry of newspaper gossip articles: Hear ye, hear ye! Exclusive! Hot off the presses! “Santor’s Idol Found Embracing Unemployed Old Bum!” “You won’t believe whose fans burst into tears when they saw her with an older man!”

“S-Since when did he...”

“Not just him—what about Lu?! How long’s she been like that with him? I had no idea...”

“Apparently she intends to marry him at the same time you do, Jeanne. Now all that’s left is for you to admit it yourself.”

“H-Hey! I... I don’t see the geezer like that at all, okay?!”

“You liar!” the other two retorted.

The girls sometimes held girls-only evenings at the church. And during the latest one, Luceris—loose-lipped from alcohol—had let slip that Zelos had prepared medicine for Jeanne when she was sick with a cold.

Or at least, they’d thought Jeanne had a cold. Later, it had turned out to be a severe infection that could have even killed her. It was a terrifying thought. And the one who’d passed the cure for that infection on to Luceris had been Zelos.

Ever since, Jeanne had started becoming more aware of Zelos as a man.

“Hey, Lena... If Jeanne and Luceris end up marrying Mister Zelos, what’s gonna happen to our party?”

“Hmm... I mean, he’s a pretty understanding guy, right?” Lena replied. “I don’t think he’d tie his wives down and stop them from living their own lives—even if Jeanne would probably be thrilled to be tied down by him...”

“Wait!” Iris said. “Jeanne—you’re into bondage?!”

“Like hell I am!” Jeanne replied.

“It’s okay!” the other two ‘reassured’ her. “He’s a sadist anyway. You’d be a perfect match!”

Lena had been speaking in the metaphorical sense—she hadn’t been implying BDSM. But Iris had taken her words literally, and now she and Lena were being overly “considerate” of poor Jeanne.

Despite her looks, Jeanne was a pure maiden at heart, and traditionally feminine; she was excellent at cooking and sewing. She sometimes made herself cute little soft toys or got giddy reading shojo manga, and she dreamed of building a happy family one day.

She was pretty adorable on the inside.

“Just... Just shut up already...”

She was furiously blushing. Her HP was at zero.

At that moment, someone knocked on the church’s door.

“Hey, Jeanne,” Lena said. “I think there’s someone here.”

“Yeah!” Iris nodded. “Are you gonna get that, Jeanne?”

“They’re here for the church, right? Shouldn’t Lu answer it?”

KNOCK! KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK! BAM! SLAM! CRACK!

They stared at the door in worried silence as the gentle knocking deepened into louder and louder thumps. They didn’t know if their visitor had no patience or if this was the start of some kind of harassment.

“U-Uh, hey... Luceris didn’t borrow money from anyone shady lately, did she?” Iris asked.

“Wh-Who knows?” Lena replied. “But in case it is someone dangerous, we can’t just walk up and open the door...”

After a moment of thought, Jeanne said: “I... I know who it is. There’s only one person who knocks on a door like that.”

Jeanne had heard it plenty of times while growing up. The first time, she’d been so terrified that she’d curled up in bed, trembling, sheets pulled over her head.

The knocks had come from someone who would disappear without warning one day, only to reappear a few days later. They were a real troublemaker, bringing chaos wherever they went.

Yes, she knew exactly who knocked on doors like this: It was the woman who’d raised Jeanne and Luceris like daughters. The “Prodigal Pastor.”

“Hmmmmm?” came a voice from the other side of the door. “Girl’s still asleep, is she? Then I s’pose I’ll break down the door with an axe or somethin’...”

“Wh-Whuah?! H-Hang on! I’ll open it! I’m opening it now!”

Jeanne ran to unbolt the lock. She knew that if this woman said she would break down the door, she wasn’t lying.

After opening the door, she saw the familiar face of an old pastor, grinning at her.

“Oh—so someone was there! What took ya so long to let me in, eh? Makin’ me waste all that energy knockin’, I swear...”

“So it is you, Head Pastor... Can you stop showin’ up out of nowhere and tryin’ to break down the door? You’re botherin’ Lu—you know that, right?”

“Hah! It’s your fault for takin’ too long to open the dang door, ain’t it? I only got so long left to live, girl! Who wants to waste their last years waitin’ around for a door to open?”

“Sure, but does that really excuse you tryin’ to break the door off its hinges?”

“If there’s a wall in my way, I smash it to bits. That’s the kinda woman I am. Jeez, girl—you’ve known me for long enough, and ya still don’t get that about me?”

Lena and Iris couldn’t help but feel put off by this overbearing woman. Uuurgh. This is one selfish lady...

Melratha was rough around the edges, and she lived her life with an exaggerated get-up-and-go attitude. Even just the look of her—puffing tobacco smoke out of a pipe she held in one hand—hardly made her seem like a “servant of the gods.”

She was more like a traitor to the Faith, if anything.

“Hmm... Yer tits are still as big as always, huh? Found a man to fondle ’em yet?”

“Wh-Where’d that come from?! No! I haven’t!”

“Ah—not yet, then, eh? I swear... Push it off for too long, and it’ll be too late, y’know? Get out there, find yerself a guy, and get to doin’ the dirty with him.”

“What kind of pastor tells someone to do that?!”

“This one. Only makes sense, right? Gettin’ together with a man, makin’ some kids—what’s wrong with that?! If ya ask me, it’s the whole ‘puttin’ virgins on a pedestal’ thing that gives me the creeps.”

This woman had no filter.

“Besides,” she continued, “even the Cloistered Emperor’s out there playin’ around with the saints behind closed doors. So who gives a shit if yer average joe has some fun in bed too?”

“How do you even know about a scandal like that?! It’d be a disaster if word got out!”

“Guy’s always had a thing for little girls. He’s a sadist too. And now he’s the Cloistered Emperor? What’s this world comin’ to?”

“Y’know, I think I can see why they chased you out of the Holy Land...”

Lena and Iris, meanwhile, were left thinking, She sure is a...free spirit. How does she not have the Inquisition after her?

Melratha was the kind of woman who had no qualms about denouncing the Cloistered Emperor in broad daylight. She was an overbearing whirlwind of a person, but she still had a sense of justice. Many looked up to her as a hero, in fact.

Of course, the Inquisition had come after her. But they’d given up after she’d managed to beat up everyone they sent after her and escape the scene, time and time again. She was good.

Not only had she beaten up every inquisitor who’d stood in her way, but rumor had it that she’d stripped them naked and left them hanging upside down from streetlamps. Ultimately, the Faith had figured that the reputational damage from these failures outweighed the harm of letting one heretic get away unpunished.

That wasn’t all she’d done either—she’d also aired other priests’ dirty laundry in public, and those priests had been stripped of their status as a result. You didn’t want Melratha as your enemy.

“Well, forget about that old pedo for now. Is Lu around?”

“What do you mean, forget about him?! Metis needs to hurry up and get rid of him! For everyone’s sake!”

“The whole damn country’s a shithole, if ya ask me. The whole place can go to ruin for all I care. That’d be best for everyone. Gah hah hah hah!”

N-No, this isn’t a laughing matter, the other three thought. I’d feel bad for all the other people who’d die...

Continuing to roar with laughter, Melratha strolled right inside the church uninvited.

It wasn’t like anyone could stop her.

* * *

While Jeanne was dealing with High Pastor Melratha at the church’s front door, Zelos and Lusei came to see Luceris. Since Zelos’s house was behind the church, they obviously came to the back door.

They were here to talk to Luceris about meeting Melratha, completely unaware that the woman they wanted to meet was there that very moment. The three were discussing their plan of action for the day.

“So there’s another orphanage on the city’s south side?” Zelos asked.

“Yes,” Luceris replied, “and it’s run by Head Pastor Melratha, who oversees the local clergy. Though... I say she runs it, but she mostly pushes the busywork onto others and disappears on a whim...”

“Should a pastor really be acting like that?” Lusei asked. “She doesn’t sound like the most responsible person...”

“You aren’t wrong. I’ve lost count of how many times her behavior has left the other clergy members in tears.”

Just how bad is this woman? Zelos and Lusei thought.

They were struggling to put together a coherent mental image of this head pastor. She loved drinking and gambling; had the respect of people from all walks of life, from regular civilians to underworld kingpins; and was a pastor. It was hard to reconcile all that. She wasn’t the average upstanding citizen, though, that much was clear.

“Do you think we’ll even get the chance to meet her?” Zelos asked.

“It’s hard to say,” Luceris said. “Even the other pastors never know where she is at a given time. I hear she sometimes travels out of the country, so if we’re unlucky...”

“She never stays in one spot for long, eh?”

“No, she doesn’t. She’s a good person, but she can be a touch difficult to work with...”

In other words, Melratha was so unpredictable that getting an appointment could take a while. She’d say she was headed to one place and then change her destination halfway on a sudden whim. Sometimes, she could be gone for a whole two months. Getting hold of her was no easy task.

“I’m reminded of a character from a book I read—a mysterious thief who travels the world,” Lusei said. “I didn’t read too much of it, mind you...”

“Oh—I’ve read that one too!” Luceris said. “From memory, she was...‘so-and-so the Third’? And she wasn’t just a thief; she was a sword master and a sniper as well, wasn’t she?”

Uh... Wait. The writer just fused three characters, didn’t they?

While the two young women were hitting it off, Zelos couldn’t help but get frustrated. Their chat reminded him how much Japanese anime and manga had impacted this world’s pop culture—and how atrocious the knockoff IPs were. It was bad enough that if the original creators got wind of it, they’d rush into the publisher’s headquarters, dynamite in hand.

There wasn’t an ounce of originality in sight. Instead, it was just a bunch of different settings haphazardly smooshed together, like the cheapest of cheap knockoffs.

“The heroine in that is great, isn’t she?” Luceris said. “The way she steals all those mysterious works of art and seals them away...”

“I liked her too,” Lusei said. “Though I don’t understand why her thief outfit is a wedding dress.”

“So the thief’s a ‘heroine’ now, not a ‘hero,’ eh?” Zelos grumbled. “Someone’s gotta crack down on that damn publisher.”

The Holy Publisher of Metis published a lot of books like that.

On the front page of a newspaper sold in town, Zelos had seen that a bunch of countries had recently started regulating Metis’s books.

As a sidenote, he was actually quite fond of a 4-koma manga published in that newspaper—enough that it had gotten him into the habit of buying the newspaper.

He was still peeved by how slow Solistia had been to crack down on the Holy Publisher of Metis, though.

“Forget about books for now,” Zelos said. “We need to figure out whether we’ll be able to meet this pastor.”

Luceris nodded. “We do. You’re right. You never know when or where the head pastor will turn up. It’s difficult to say where she could be at this very moment.”

“Jeez, you make her sound like some kind of cryptid,” Zelos remarked. “Are there guys offering rewards for confirmed Melratha sightings or something?”

Then a voice came from the other side of the church. “Oh? Lookin’ for me, are we? Lemme make something clear: I’m no thief. Well, I ain’t done too much thievin’. Extortion, though—yeah, all the time. But not thievin’.”

“What?!” the three yelped in unison.

They spun around to see an older lady standing there in priest robes. Next to her was Jeanne, palm on her face, driven to her wits’ end by the older woman’s behavior.

Zelos had failed to notice in his shock, but Melratha saying she hadn’t “done too much thieving” implied she’d done some. It just wasn’t her calling card, was all.

She was one crazy pastor, but nobody found it surprising at this point.

“U-Um, Head Pastor... What brings you here so early?” Luceris asked.

“Ah, Lu! Just the girl I was lookin’ for. I had some stuff to tell ya. First thing’s about the herbs we started growin’ at the orphanage. It’s been goin’ pretty well. Did have to give up on the mandrakes, though.”

“R-Right...”

“There was somethin’ else important I had to tell ya too,” Melratha said, shooting a glance at Lusei’s black wings, “but looks like someone’s saved me the hassle.”

“Um... What do you mean, ‘saved you the hassle’?” Luceris said, looking confused.

One look was enough for Melratha to get the gist of the situation. The next moment, she sized up Zelos, her face twisted into a nasty leer.

“Hmm... So this is yer man, is it, Lu? Bit drab, ain’t he? And he’s a mage. You watch out for the Inquisition, ya hear me?”

“H-Hwah?! Where’s this coming from?”

“Look, I ain’t opposed to ya gettin’ married. If yer head over heels for the guy, I don’t give a shit whether he’s a mage or a knight or whatever else. But some folks will.”

Even though she was pointing a casual finger at Zelos and wearing a smirk, her expression had a serious edge to it. That, plus the way she was talking, made it hard to determine if she was teasing Luceris, warning her, or congratulating her.

“So tell me—you two fucked yet? Oh, and it seems like Jeanne’s the same scaredy-cat as she’s always been. Makes me worried, y’know? How ’bout the two of you both marry ’im?”

“Wh-What are you saying?! We aren’t like that...”

“Y-Yeah! Besides, Head Pastor, it’s not like I need a guy or anything...”

“Hey, you.” Melratha turned to Zelos. “At this point, stop worryin’ over the age gap and all that stuff. Just hurry up and make ’em yours already. If I leave it up to them, they’ll be single their whole lives, the rate they’re goin’.”

“Now I’m getting caught in the cross fire?! Jeez, this woman’s even pushier than I thought!”

Melratha was trouble in more ways than one.

“Hey, Jeanne,” Iris called out. “Shouldn’t we get going to the mercenaries’ guild?”

“We probably should, yeah,” Lena agreed. “Don’t want all the good jobs to be gone by the time we get there, do we?”

Jeanne sighed. “Ugh... Fine. Okay, Lu, we’re off to the mercenaries’ guild for a bit.”

“Jeanne, if ya can’t even earn enough to stay at an inn, ya really should hurry up and get married. Bein’ a mercenary’s rough work; won’t be able to keep it up forever! And it doesn’t suit you anyway, does it?” Melratha said.

“Leave me alone already! My rank’s goin’ up! I can kinda get by now, okay?! Besides, you’re single too, aren’t you?!” Jeanne snapped back, indignant. She was right. Melratha was single, so of course Jeanne had reached for that comeback.

But she didn’t expect the reply she was about to get.

“What’re ya sayin’? I had five kids. They ain’t registered as mine, and the father’s dead by now, but all five of ’em grew up healthy. They’re workin’ proper jobs now. I got eleven grandkids too. What, did I never tell ya?”

“Huh?!” Jeanne and Luceris shouted.

Indeed, Melratha had gotten with a man, had kids, and was even a grandmother to a bunch of grandkids. But she was unmarried, and the kids weren’t in her family register.

In the literal sense of the word, then, she was single. But she’d had a partner, she’d loved him, she’d had kids with him, and he’d died—and all of this, apparently, was news to Jeanne and Luceris.

It raised the question: What kind of man had Melratha loved?

“I know you’re shocked, Jeanne, but we really should go to the guild now, okay?” Lena said. “Come on! Get moving.”

“Yeah—hurry up, Jeanne!” Iris echoed. “The money isn’t gonna wait for us! Today’s the day we get a sweet job! It has to be!”

“W-Wait! There’s still so much stuff I’ve gotta ask! Like... Seriously? You had a partner?! There’s no way!”

But time was of the essence, so Jeanne’s party members dragged her off to the guild.

Since the mercenaries’ guild posted new requests in the morning, the early bird got the worm—or, in this case, the best-paying jobs. It also meant the reception desk got very busy around that time of day.

When their livelihoods were on the line, every minute of delay—every second—could be make-or-break for mercenaries. It really was a rough line of work.

Zelos, Luceris, and Lusei stood in stunned silence.

What a chaotic morning. Things were happening so fast that not even Zelos could keep up with them all.

Amid the silence, Melratha began sizing up Lusei. “Hmm... Those black wings—you’re Lusei, no? Meia’s kid? Or am I wrong?”

“Wha— So you do know my mother?!”

“Well, yeah. She’s the one who left Lu under my care. Anyway, nasty stuff your lot got up to there, eh?”

“I... I have no excuse for my family’s actions.”

“The dad comin’ ’ere to look for himself’d be one thing, but what, he’s sendin’ his little girl out to do his work? What a scumbag,” she said harshly.

“Um... So does that mean Lusei and I are...”

“Yeah. Yer sisters. Related by blood. But what’s it matter?” Melratha turned to Lusei. “What—yer family threw ’er away as a kid, and now that ya’ve figured out she really is related, yer gonna tell her to come back? Is that it? Are ya really that arrogant?”

Lusei winced. “I-I did want to find out about my sister, but more than anything, I’m here to learn what happened to my mother...”

“And what good is knowin’ that gonna do ya? Surely ya don’t think yer gonna be able to fix everything yer family messed up, after all these years?”

Lusei understood what the pastor was saying. Whatever the Imara family did to try to fix things, there was no unbreaking what had been broken. Perhaps there’d once been a time to repair things, but that time had passed long ago, leaving nothing but ruin. And the more time that had passed, the worse the situation had grown.

“I... I know it’s late. I know we don’t have the right. But I still want to know where my mother is! I’m begging you! Please, tell me how you met her, and where she is now!”

Lusei was clearly serious about this.

Melratha, though, let out a deep sigh. “And what’ll ya do with Lu here if I tell ya? Girl’s already chosen her own path. Can’t see her wantin’ to go back to some noble house in Artom. She’s a commoner now. She wouldn’t be able to survive in some stuffy ol’ aristocracy.”

“I... I’m fully aware of that. I know I can’t ask her to rejoin the rest of the family after all this time. If you want me to apologize, then I will. I already intended to. But whatever happens... I want to know where my mother is.”

Melratha sighed again. “Yer a stubborn one, aren’tcha? And yer sure ya won’t regret this?”

“I’ll accept the truth, whatever it is. After the terrible things my family did, I can’t ask for any more than that.”

“Good answer. Follow me, then. Mage guy, yer comin’ too!”

Zelos had just been observing the conversation as an outsider, which meant he could analyze everything with a level head. If Luceris had never met her mother all this time, then it seemed very unlikely the woman was still alive. And following from that, he assumed Melratha was about to take them to Meia’s grave.

Perhaps the two young women, their faces suddenly grim, had reached the same conclusion.

The head pastor quickly spun and burst back out of the church, the others in tow. She was the sort of person who wasted no time once they’d made a decision.

And for whatever reason, she’d decided Zelos would be joining them too. He didn’t quite get why.

As they left the church, Zelos called out to the orphans: “Johnny, I’m going out for a bit with Luceris and the others. Watch over the place while we’re gone, would you?”

“Gotcha! Leave it to us!”

“Don’t forget to bring back souvenirs, Pops!”

“I shall be training with Zankei and the others. I estimate we would have no issue surviving for two to three days without assistance.”

“Bring us back some meat! Meat, Pops! Got it?”

“C’mon, Kai—you’re gonna get fat if all you eat’s meat! You need some veggies too! You need to diet!”

The kids were as dependable as ever.

Still, Zelos couldn’t help but feel a little worried, so he left them a bit of pocket money, just in case.

His intuition just told him that was the smart thing to do.

“Now, remember—watch over the place, okay?”

“See ya!” the orphans shouted together.

Zelos, Lusei, and Luceris followed behind the head pastor as the orphans waved goodbye.

Chapter 11: The Old Guy Accompanies Luceris

After leaving the church, the group spent the next three hours walking. Then, finally, Head Pastor Melratha led Zelos, Luceris, and Lusei into a nearby town.

The town’s name was Solace. It wasn’t far from Santor, and it was a fairly prosperous little town, but the road to get here wasn’t paved, so it was a difficult walk.

Walking for three hours straight had taken its toll on Luceris. She was already exhausted.

And Lusei usually traveled by either flying or riding a carriage, so she wasn’t used to walking for long stretches like this either.

“Youngins these days, I swear...” Melratha grumbled. “We’ve only been walkin’ a few hours, and yer already like this? Pathetic!”

“Usually, when someone says ‘follow me’ and starts walking, you don’t expect them to make you walk three hours along a dirt road, do you? Normally you’d take a carriage or a boat if you’re traveling this far,” Zelos said.

“And yet you seem to be hangin’ on just fine, mmm? Yer a tough one for a mage, aren’tcha?”

“Erm... Thank you.”

“Guess I don’t have to worry about leavin’ Lu and Jeanne in your hands, then.”

Melratha, for her part, was casually chatting away and making the walk as if she had all the stamina in the world.

Zelos had heard she was an energetic old lady, but he hadn’t expected her to be this full of vigor.

“By the way, Head Pastor,” Zelos said, “there’s something I’ve been curious about for a while. Why are the kids from the orphanage so strong? They’re a real tough bunch. Sometimes they even seem wiser than adults. Just how did you raise them?”

“Gah hah hah... Nothin’ special. Just made ’em go through some shit so they’d learn to be independent. They ain’t gonna be able to rely on adults forever, are they? And with a bad example or two to learn from, they’ll wise up whether they want to or not.”

Zelos realized there was no need for niceties around this old lady, whose personality went well beyond eccentric.

“Well, got here quicker than I thought,” Melratha said.

“So this town is where you wanted to take us?” Zelos asked.

“Yeah. This is it. Well, it’s in the town. Not long now.”

“Couldn’t we have booked a carriage here if you’d just told us where we were going? Walking all this way on a dirt road is hell on your legs.”

“But where’s the fun in that? Whiskin’ people off on a trek’s the whole point of this kind o’ thing. Besides, a carriage’d be a waste of money. Hah hah!”

“I— I see... By the way, erm, ever since we’ve entered the town, I’ve noticed that every rough-looking guy we walk past is bowing his head to you. Did you get up to something here once, Head Pastor?”

“Just went a bit overboard here in my younger days. Nothin’ too special.”

Apparently she didn’t care to tell the story.

Most of these big, burly guys were probably sailors, but some looked so thuggish that Zelos couldn’t possibly imagine them having honest jobs—and those guys were bowing to Melratha too. She’d clearly gotten into a fight with some kind of criminal group here before.

It felt like they were walking into a yakuza base.

* * *

“Hmm. I think,” Melratha said, “it was somewhere around here?”

She’d led them to a small graveyard on the outskirts of town.

At this point, it was clear to Lusei that her mother was already dead.

After walking among the rows of graves for a few minutes, they arrived at a lone mound under a tree. There was no formal tombstone there, just a large stone. This had to be where the sisters’ mother, Meia, was buried.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t afford a tombstone.”

“No, it’s... I... I was prepared for this, but Mother is... She really is...”

Tears of sadness trickled out from under Lusei’s mask.

Luceris wasn’t crying. She’d been an orphan this whole time, so she’d probably suspected this was the case all along. This was just how things were for most kids who’d been left at an orphanage.

“Looks like ya were already prepared for this, Lu.”

“I was. Most of the kids at the orphanage lost their parents at a young age, so I thought that might have been the case for me as well.”

“If ya already knew she was dead, I s’pose I should’ve brought ya here sooner. I shouldn’t have left it this long,” Melratha said, as blunt as always.

But despite her tone, it was clear to Zelos that she’d been caring for young Luceris in her own way. At the end of the day, maybe she was a proper pastor after all.

Meanwhile, Lusei crouched by the grave, crying. It was tough to watch. Obviously, she’d wished that her mother might’ve still been alive, whatever the circumstances, but her desperate hope had just been shattered.

Zelos looked at Melratha. “It may be a bit rude to ask, Head Pastor, but how did you meet the girls’ mother? If you were the one who organized this grave, I’m assuming you met her while she was still alive.”

“Sharp one, aren’tcha? Yeah, yer right. One day, I ran up to the northern mountains, tryin’ to flee some debt collectors—and that’s when I stumbled across Meia. She was injured. Was only a coincidence I met her...”

“Glossing over the whole ‘debt collectors’ thing for now... Can you continue the story? Why did she come to Solistia in the first place? Was she perhaps—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get to that. Not the most patient man, are ya? Anyway, it was on a day about eighteen years ago...”

Melratha cast her mind back and began telling the story of what had happened that day.

* * *

Three men ran through a forest, searching for a woman who’d failed to pay back her debts too many times now.

She’d run off, shaking the thugs pursuing her, but they were so frustrated to have lost her again that they hadn’t given up yet.

“I swear, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill that old hag!”

“C’mon, Boss. Let’s give up. We never shoulda gotten involved with that pastor in the first place.”

“Yeah! I’m with him! She keeps settin’ traps for us—no idea how she even has the time. She secretly a spy or somethin’?”

These guys were a nasty bunch. They were loan sharks who gave loans with exorbitant interest rates, reaped the profits from those who could repay, and drove many of those who couldn’t to suicide. And of course, they felt no shame about what they did.

As the three scoundrels discussed what to do next, someone watched them from the bushes.

“Look, if we don’t get back the money that hag owes, the leader’ll kill us. You guys don’t wanna die, do ya?”

“Yeah, but we can’t—”

Suddenly, a white figure shot out from the bushes, and the three men yelped—“GUARGH!”

One of the men fainted, his eyes rolling back in his head.

“Fuck... She got us again! Only us two now...”

“This is insane... You sure she’s a pastor?! Wh-Where is she? Where’s she comin’ from?!”

“Right ’ere.”

The moment they spun around to face the voice, Melratha, now standing behind them, smashed the first man’s jaw with a solid blow. Then she hit the second man square in the head with a roundhouse kick, and he collapsed. With that, she’d taken out all her pursuers.

Mmm... Followed me pretty far, huh? Didn’t think it’d take me this long, but they really kept at it. Haven’t been this tired for a while.

This sort of violent life was hardly what you’d have expected from a pastor, but it was nothing new for Melratha.

It wasn’t the first time she’d borrowed money from loan sharks, defaulted on the debt, and then well and truly shattered their pride. The way she saw it, anything you did to scumbags like that was morally justified.

Their business was illegal anyway. It was just that now they were the ones getting screwed over for once.

Well, I can finally head back. Woulda dealt with this faster back when I was in my twenties, but that’s the shit thing about gettin’ older, ain’t it? Every year, my body gets a little worse at doin’ what I want it t— Hmm?

Suddenly, she detected the faint scent of blood in the wind. It was a smell she’d become familiar with while treating the injured.

Blood? Wonder if a monster got to someone? S’pose I should go check it out...

It wasn’t just blood she could smell, though. There was also a scent like perfume in the air, and that didn’t make sense at all.

After all, she was currently deep in a forest, somewhere people rarely went. She was close to the border too. About the only people with business out here would have been mercenaries slaying monsters.

Before long, something caught her attention even more than the strange smell: She could hear a baby crying.

Urgh... Yeah, this’ll be trouble. Ah, whatever.

While she grumbled, Melratha walked toward the sound of the baby’s wail. As she did, the smell of blood grew stronger, reinforcing her hunch that this would be trouble.

Eventually, she reached a rocky outcrop, where she saw a woman collapsed on the ground.

She rushed to the woman’s side, and it didn’t take her long to notice the woman was badly wounded. She was alive, but only just. She also had two white wings on her back.

A reufayl? Why’s she in a place like this? Argh... Never ends, does it? If I run outta mana treatin’ her and I collapse, who knows how long it’ll take me to get back.

But despite her silent complaints, Melratha started treating the woman.

Even if she managed to close the wounds, there was no returning all the lost blood. The woman was unconscious too, and the baby with her wouldn’t make things any easier.

Melratha had to get them back to a nearby town. But how? That was the issue.

Ultimately, she wrapped the baby up in the sleeve of her robe, tied the fabric around her neck like a sling, and carried the unconscious woman on her back out of the forest. She just had to pray they didn’t come across any monsters.

When they eventually emerged onto a major road, a merchant carriage just happened to be passing by, allowing them to hitch a ride back to town. To this day, Melratha counted herself lucky for that carriage.

* * *

“S-So you met my mother in quite the dangerous situation...” Lusei said.

“They were a stubborn lot, I tell ya!” Melratha said. “Had to run my ass off to get away from ’em.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to hear this coming from you, Head Pastor...” Luceris said.

Zelos, meanwhile, had just been quietly listening and analyzing the head pastor’s story. What am I meant to say to any of this? Regardless, it sounds like she was at least alive, then. In which case, how did she die? Well, I’ll hold off on speculation for now. Let’s hear what happened next.

“Anyway, lemme continue. I spent the next month or so nursin’ Meia back to health. But all I could do was close up ’er wounds; I couldn’t heal nerve damage. She’d ended up disabled; couldn’t move ’er body how she wanted. Never ’ave I regretted not bein’ a doctor more than that day...”

* * *

“Jeez, I really am too damn kind for my own good, ain’t I? I’ve spent the whole last month in this town! I never do that!”

“I’m grateful, though. I don’t know anybody in this country—and if I hadn’t met you, Miss Melratha, I wouldn’t be alive right now.”

“No need to call me ‘Miss.’ I ain’t that important. I only found ya by chance—and I wouldn’t have felt right just leavin’ ya there. That’s all.”

The white-winged woman—Meia—still struggled to even stand, but she was gradually regaining her stamina.

Melratha had been able to use holy magic to close her wounds, but not to reconnect her nerves; that was a doctor’s job. With all the monster fangs that had sunk into Meia’s flesh, it was a small miracle she was even still alive.

“Don’tcha think it’s about time ya told me why yer here in Solistia? Mighta just been by coincidence, but we know each other now. I’ll help ya out if I can.”

“Yes... Yes, you’re right. Now that my body refuses to listen to me, I suppose I have no choice but to ask for help. And...perhaps you’ve already guessed what I may want to ask, Miss Melratha.”

“It’s about Luceris, ain’t it? She doesn’t have the wings you reufayl all do. Lemme guess—yer people thought ya cheated on yer man, so they kicked ya out.”

Meia had never given Melratha her family name, but Melratha had guessed she was probably from some well-off noble family just by the way she carried herself. And, Melratha figured, if a noble didn’t want to give their family name, it either meant they were a criminal or had some good reason.

Meia hadn’t had a single guard with her either, so it seemed likely she’d made the reckless choice of taking Luceris and attempting to cross the mountains alone. Then, along that reckless journey, she’d been attacked by monsters.

If Meia hadn’t encountered Melratha that day, both she and Luceris probably would have ended up as monster food.

What could have driven someone of such high birth to take a risk like that? The answer, Melratha figured, was probably that she’d been suspected of infidelity and exiled.

And now, Meia confirmed it: “Yes... That’s all the more reason I had to try to cross the mountains, whatever it took. I still don’t know why my child was born without wings. I simply can’t believe she’s a changeling. There has to be some reason behind it.”

“Ah—so ya took the risk to try and find out? Meaning, what—you were headed for that huge library at the Istol Academy of Magic? Place is open to the public, and they’ll let ya read all the academic books ya want, long as ya don’t take ’em out with ya.”

“You’re right. The library there is famous, even in the Artom Empire. I thought if I had any chance, I’d find it there. I... I want to go back to my husband with my head held high.”

“Yer one strong lady, aren’tcha? Don’t worry. I’ll look into it for ya. I got no shortage o’ acquaintances with free time. Probably take a while, but just you wait; I’ll get it done.”

“Thank you, Miss Melratha. Thank you so much...” Meia said with tears running down her face.

Melratha felt awkward. She had no idea how to respond to the woman’s honest gratitude.

* * *

“Meia seemed like some saint to me. It was clear she loved her family. She told me about Lusei just after that, when I asked her a bunch o’ stuff. So anyway, I went back to Santor for a bit, called out to a bunch o’ folks with spare time, and got ’em to look into it for me. Whoever I could find—folks we used to look after at the orphanage, gangsters, whoever.”

“The first part sounds fine, but gangsters?” Zelos asked. “I can’t help but feel like you chose the wrong guys for the job there... I mean, wouldn’t people have been suspicious of them the moment they stepped on academy grounds?”

“Ya ain’t wrong! In fact, I heard later a bunch of ’em got ’emselves locked up, brought in for questionin’, all that stuff. Really—a bunch o’ grown adults, and they were all dang well useless, weren’t they? You wouldn’t believe how much I regretted ever leavin’ it to them.”

“That’s not a very nice way to talk about them, Head Pastor! They agreed to help you out of their own goodwill...”

Luceris really was a saint. That was nothing new, though.

Zelos looked over to see how Lusei was taking all this and saw she was listening in silence.

She seemed shocked to have learned that not only had Meia never given up on returning home with her child, but she’d kept her hope alive even after being gravely injured and ending up disabled.

Meia had been willfully putting her life on the line. What was more, this was Lusei’s confirmation that her mother really had been innocent of the charges against her—and that the reufayl royalty had been wrong.

Thinking of the ignorance of her family back in Artom flooded her with rage.

“Anyway, back to the story. Just when I’d gotten my hands on some good info from one of my connections, Meia got sick. There was this pandemic at the time...”

* * *

When Melratha received word that Meia had fallen ill, she rushed back from Santor by carriage.

Meia was taking refuge in Solace at the time; Melratha had introduced her to the locals there. There was a group of river workers in town who made their living ferrying people across the river, and Meia was staying at the home of the group’s leader—one of Melratha’s acquaintances, of course.

He was a rough sort, but he was kind and chivalrous, and he’d warmly welcomed Meia into his home. He lived behind an inn run by the river workers.

Melratha burst through the door like a one-woman SWAT team. “Meia! Are ya okay?!”

The second she entered, she saw Meia lying on the floor, breathing heavily and looking like she was in terrible pain.

“Have ya had a doctor see her yet? She looks terrible!”

“Y-Yeah... But Milady’s already—”

Meia had grown popular among the rough group of river workers, and they’d taken to affectionately calling her “Milady.” Meia was something like an idol to these men, who spent their days quarreling over turf wars. Seeing her suffering had left the rough men miserable. They’d struggled to hold back tears.

“Meia!” Melratha shouted. “Snap out of it! Ya were right. Luceris is what they call an ‘atavist’! There was human blood among yer ancestors, and it reappeared. That’s why she’s got no wings. Can ya hear me?!”

“Th-Thank...you... Miss...”

“Hey! Meia! Don’t let some puny little illness get the better of ya! Now’s yer time! Yer gonna go back home, aren’tcha?!”

Meia smiled weakly. “I... I don’t think I’ll be going home. It’s...so frustrating... We finally know what happened, and—and...”

“Don’t give up! Stay with me! What about Luceris?!”

“Miss...Mel...ratha... I beg you... Take care of her. And please... Don’t tell her about her birth. Not until she’s...strong enough...to live by herself... The burden of royal blood would be...too heavy for her... Gakh!” Meia suddenly coughed, spitting blood. Her energy was slowly dwindling.

“Meia!”

This illness was still a mystery at the time, so there was nothing a doctor could do to help. Children and elders across the world had been succumbing to the disease; those who didn’t have the strength to endure it could do nothing but die.

In Meia’s case, perhaps her immune system was still weak from her injuries, or from some other disease she’d contracted from the monsters that had attacked her.

“I... I can’t stand it... I can finally go home... I finally know what happened... Why? Why is this happening? Raphon, I... I’ll be...leaving you behind... I’m sorry, Lusei. I’m sorry, Lu...”

Those were Meia’s final words. She passed with tears in her eyes.

Her dream died with her, unfulfilled.

* * *

“Those were Meia’s final moments. Ya get it now? If not for that illness, Meia would’ve returned to Artom, the truth in her hands. Your lot chased her out based on rumors and guesswork. You made her die sad—and she deserved better. Fuck your ‘royalty’! Fuck your ‘honor’! Do ya think a guilty woman woulda risked her life for the truth the way she did?! No! She woulda gone and shacked up with some other guy, and that woulda been the end of it!”

It had been a long time, but finally, the truth had come to light, and Head Pastor Melratha could vent all the feelings she’d bottled up.

“Ya know, I hate the status-obsessed dickheads who’d exile a woman without even tryin’ to determine the truth. Honestly, I never wanted to tell Lu any o’ this. But I promised Meia. So it was my job to tell her the truth. And now I have. So, Lu—what do ya think, now ya’ve heard all that? Gonna ‘go back’ to the royals?”

“I... I couldn’t. I like living in town. I’m happy with my life. You can tell me I’m a royal, but after so long, I have no intention of accepting it. I... I grew up on the streets, you know?”

“And there ya have it, Lusei. Go tell that to those morons back in Artom. Let ’em regret what they did. Let ’em know their obsession with keepin’ up appearances led to a woman’s tragic death. I’ve seen all kinds o’ shitheads in my life, but it’s the royals from Artom that piss me off more than any of ’em. Look—yer Meia’s daughter. I don’t hold it against you. But I want all those other bastards to be tormented by the thought of what they did for the rest o’ their lives. They deserve it.”

Though they weren’t the same age, Melratha had always considered Meia a close friend. Naturally, she’d harbored rage against everyone who hadn’t believed the woman—against the people who’d doubted their wife, daughter, and granddaughter.

And in turn, she had nothing good to say about the broader Artom Empire, whose nobility had stood by while her friend was exiled. She wanted to see it rot alongside the Holy Land of Metis.

“So I was right after all,” Zelos muttered. “It was atavism. More importantly, your story supports Meia’s innocence. And if she’s dead, there’s nothing Artom can do to make up for it.”

“Just what I’d expect from a mage—sure don’t mince words, do ya? Seeing as Lusei’s here in Solistia in the first place, I’m guessin’ ya told those pricks from the Artom Empire about Lu, did ya? What made ya do that?”

“I was just shocked to see how similar Lusei looked to Luceris, and...well, it escalated from there. Though I agree it’d be insane for them to expect Luceris to return to the royal family now. And if they try to use force to take her back, I will crush them with no holds barred. It’d be partially my fault, after all.”

“Hah! Sounds like someone’s got some guts! What, ya gonna take on the whole country?”

“Well... I’m not exactly your average joe. I could probably take out a whole nation in one attack without breaking a swe—”

Huh? I’m saying something crazy, aren’t I? Am I seriously saying I could eradicate an entire country?!

Zelos made it sound like he was a nuclear warhead in human form.

If he felt like it, he probably could bring a country to ruin with ease—in fact, he had the power and the weapons to do it with a hum in his voice and a spring in his step. Of course, if he did, forget the Dark God; he’d be the world’s new big bad.

“Gah hah hah... Yer an interestin’ one, ain’tcha? I think I get why Lu’s into ya. Deep down, she ain’t exactly yer average girl either. Ya know, back in the day, she’d run off from the orphanage with a wooden sword in her hand and—”

“H-Head Pastor!” Luceris interjected, desperate. She obviously didn’t want anyone to know about this particular anecdote.

While Luceris was busy blushing, Melratha passed by Zelos and subtly whispered in his ear:

“You ever make her sad, yer dead meat. Got it?”

It was the most scared Zelos had ever felt in his forty years of life.

* * *

Zelos and the others had returned from their trip to Solace, but Lusei still hadn’t left her bedroom. She was probably still in shock. Maybe even crying, Zelos thought, and wondering what she’d say to her father when she returned.

She was a timid woman behind the mask.

Well, I don’t think Luceris is about to start living as royalty, at least. She said it herself—it’d be impossible for her. I couldn’t see her ever giving up her current life. Especially not when it’d mean abandoning the kids.

Luceris had become a priest to help people by using her healing magic. Head Pastor Melratha, who’d raised her, had probably influenced her decision. Melratha’s behavior was pretty questionable at times, but she never hesitated to lend a helping hand to those in need. Luceris must have decided to follow in her footsteps.

And when she was so dedicated to fulfilling that goal, abandoning her current life wasn’t even an option.

No idea how those two will get along as sisters... I guess I’ll watch over them for now and hope things go well, eh? Oh—this bit’s rusty. Let’s sand it down and fix it up with some mithril wire.

As he pondered the situation, Zelos serviced the air rider he’d found in Isa Lante. It looked like a big motor scooter, but it had what looked like the head of an industrial cleaning brush in the place of wheels. The air rider also had oval-shaped air nozzles fitted to the front and back, giving it a retro vibe that Zelos just couldn’t get enough of.

It was the sort of futuristic vehicle you might see in a famous shonen manga with aliens named after vegetables.

“I should be able to fix everything except the black box in the middle. Mmm...” He nodded approvingly to himself. “It’s not made for battle, but this is some fine craftsmanship.”

It seemed to move via antigravity and air jets, and Zelos figured he could recreate the mechanical parts it needed himself.

The black box in the middle of the bike, though, just seemed like a cube to him; he couldn’t even figure out how to take it apart. The technology gap there was so large that there was nothing he could really do. It was unfortunate—if he’d been able to understand the full workings of the air rider, he would’ve been able to make more of them from scratch, designed specifically to suit his own tastes. But alas.

“Well, as long as I can get it into working shape, I guess I can’t complain. And it’s in pretty good condition, so that shouldn’t take me long. I’ve checked the power already, so it should be fi— Hmm?”

Suddenly, Zelos felt a strange noise buzzing in his head.

Somehow, it almost felt like language, like something was speaking directly to his mind; it was quite bizarre.

⊃Å∋＠...

“Huh?”

Zelos focused, trying to figure out what this thing was trying to tell him. He waited a while, but the feeling in his head—or had it been more like a wave of emotions?—didn’t come again.

“Huh. Maybe I was just imagining it?”

БГＡΩだΔ＠Φ...

“Okay, yeah, that’s definitely something. Wait... Has it woken up? I’d completely forgotten I had that down there...”

The voice was quiet—but was it even a voice? It was communicating directly to his mind, after all. Perhaps it was more like telepathy. And Zelos thought he might have an idea of where it was coming from.

He hurriedly opened a certain door embedded in the floor of his house and descended into the cellar. He headed to the huge culture tank at the back of the room—the tank in which he was attempting to revive the Dark God.

As he peeked through the tank’s small, singular window, he saw what looked like a small child—maybe about three years old—floating in the liquid. He sighed.

“Did Kemo curse me or something?”

He was referring to Kemo Luvyune, one of the five Destroyers.

Kemo was an oddball who loved animal-eared beastfolk more than anything else. He’d used the Create Dungeon spell to make himself a harem of animal-eared homunculi.

And this little girl floating in the culture tank had fox ears and a tail—and wings and horns, as a matter of fact. She clearly wasn’t your average beastfolk.

She was closer to a chimera.

“Hmm... Did I pick the wrong essence?”

Zelos had never thought he’d create a little girl with animal ears.

By the looks of it, he’d succeeded in reviving the Dark God, but he’d botched its body. And he’d botched it bad.

Just look at all those monster-girl bits. Bet Kemo’d be thrilled.

He could practically hear Kemo’s voice already: Now, my friend, join me! Let us depart on the fluffy path to heaven! An animal-eared paradise awaits us! A whole harem of animal girls—that, I tell you, is the true El Dorado! A kingdom of animal girls is this world’s very own Garden of Eden!

Each time Zelos had helped Kemo make homunculi, Kemo had rambled on about some detail or another that he was fixated on, filling Zelos’s head with it all until he’d been practically brainwashed. Kemo had nearly won him over through sheer passion.

I guess it’s too late now to take it back and start again, huh? And there’s no covering this up. Now what do I do...

He’d never seen such a medley of different body parts before, even when different types of beastfolk got together and had kids.

And even that wasn’t common—most beastfolk marriages stayed within tribes, so it was rare for one tribe’s features to appear within another.

I recognize your mana. You are part of the group that destroyed me, are you not?

“Ah! Good morning. It’s been a while, hasn’t it, little miss Dark God? So you’re finally awake again. How are you feeling?”

Terrible. Being trapped within these narrow confines is maddening.

“Oh, come on. You make it sound like I’m abusing you by putting you in there. I’m the one who revived you, you know? Sorry, but you’ll need to be a good girl and stay in there until your body’s ready. You only just got yourself a corporeal form again; if you leave that tank now, you’ll destroy it.”

What... What are you planning? Why revive me?

“Oh, I just want to get back at someone. If I told you that ‘someone’ was the Four Gods, would you start to understand?”

Zelos felt the Dark God’s surprise in his mind. Clearly, his answer had shocked her.

While he was at it, he figured, he might as well ask the Dark God some questions of his own.

“By the way, little miss Dark God. What exactly are you? I have a general idea, but I’d like to confirm some things.”

I am a realm overseer made by the Creator. When the Creator left for another realm, I was granted administrative permissions as their agent. I am what intelligent life-forms like you would call a “god.”

“What about the Four Gods, then?”

Proxies managing this world in my stead. However, they do not appear to be doing their jobs properly—likely as a result of the influence of the life-forms on which they are based. Nor do they possess the same processing capabilities as I, and consequently, the entirety of the sacred realm and hallowed realm appear to be running on autopilot. I do not have access permissions for these realms.

“So the Four Gods are in charge of all that now? I have trouble believing they’re up to the job...”

Your understanding is correct. The matrix that provides access permissions was divided into four, and they are using its power to reign as overseers of the world. I believe it was the Creator who made this possible.

“So you’re saying the Dark God War was you trying to take back admin permissions for this world—that you weren’t actually trying to destroy it. Is that right?”

Yes. As should be obvious. I am an Observer. My duty is to manage worlds, this one included. I would never destroy it. Even sealed away by the Creator, my systems continued to operate. Over a millennium, I formed a sense of self, and my eventual awakening spurred what you term the “Dark God War.” I was unable to access the Akashic records at that time, leaving me with no option but to act upon insufficient information. Especially as the Creator had already departed this world.

“For someone who’d ‘never destroy the world,’ you sure did a number on it, huh?”

Having seen the ancient footage from the Dark God War, Zelos could sum up the Dark God’s power in a single word: calamitous. But perhaps the scale of the carnage had been an act to draw out the Four Gods; perhaps a clash between the Four Gods and the Dark God had been inevitable. And if the Four Gods had been defeated, that would have been the end of it.

But instead, the Dark God had been sealed away using the sacred treasures.

“Those sacred treasures that were used to seal you away—were those made by the Creator?”

Ah... Those? Yes. Most likely. I believe they were intended to be used in the material realm’s defense system. Antibodies from another world would be summoned to wield them in the event that foreign elements appeared within the material realm. But the Four Gods seem to have taken extreme measures in response to my reawakening. They enticed this world’s civilization to attack me, for example, intentionally causing devastating harm, then provided the summoning system to the world’s intelligent life. Even I do not understand why they did so.

“Hmm... So that’s what the hero summonings were supposed to be. And is there any way to send those ‘antibodies’ back where they came from?”

There is. Keeping the summoned antibodies here too long risks distortion in the world. The summoning and return mechanisms were created in tandem, or so I imagine, to prevent such an occurrence.

“That’s not what’s happened, though. The summoned heroes—or the ‘antibodies,’ as you’re calling them—they’ve been dying here without ever getting sent back.”

Preposterous. That would cause this world’s mana density to continuously drop. In addition, the fabric of other worlds would blend with this world’s. Eventually, more and more foreign elements would appear, encroaching ever more upon this world! Ah... I see. Those times I felt the world suddenly lose a vast amount of mana... Those were hero summonings, were they? Meaning... What have I done? Does this mean I obliterated the antibodies?! I believed that they were some sort of weapon, but...

“You destroyed all those summoning sigils—the source of the ‘antibodies’—because you thought they were weapons? Well, ever since you got sealed away, a certain country’s been summoning more heroes every thirty years, and they’ve done some real damage to the natural world, or so I understand. What other impacts might that have had, if you’re aware? I’ve got a hunch there’s more to it than I’m aware of.”

The antibodies are given the power to operate within this world, but summoning them in such great number—and with such great frequency—will destroy the system itself! In fact, I expect it to be broken already. And as souls from other worlds continue to be brought here and granted power by a broken system, they will become forever trapped within the fabric of this world, their existence distorting it—a problem gradually growing ever more severe until the framework of all existence is corrupted and destroyed. Finally, this realm will collapse.

The problem had been even worse than Zelos had thought. What had happened sounded like the system’s ‘antivirus program’ had become a virus itself. There was no telling exactly how many heroes had been summoned over the years, but it was clear that they’d all died without being sent back home.

And their souls, now stuck within the fabric of a foreign world, had begun to cause distortions. These distortions then rippled, fusing to create larger and larger waves.

“The Four Gods can’t do anything right, can they?”

I concur. They fail to comprehend the importance of managing this world. Why did the Creator ever grant them administrative permissions?

“Did this Creator not say anything to you? Before you got sealed away, I mean.”

Let me see. I had no clear sense of self at the time, but... Ah. My oldest memory is hearing: “Whoa. I fucked up. I was trying to make the god a smoking hot woman with big tits—not this thing! Now what?! I’m outta time...” What does that mean, though?

“Bffft?!”

Now things were becoming clear.

The Dark God that Zelos had encountered in Swords & Sorceries had been a creepy life-form made up of pulsating guts. If you squinted hard enough, from a distance, then maybe you could see a woman’s head floating on top, but the Dark God had mostly looked like a grotesque monstrosity—and one that could transform its body too.

In short, it sounded like the “Creator” had given life to a successor, realized it looked too creepy, and sealed it away.

Then, when the time had come for the Creator to depart this world, they’d made the Four Gods in a haphazard rush. They’d used faerie rulers as the template, as regular faeries wouldn’t have been able to withstand the power of gods.

“So, putting it all together...”

The Creator had been disappointed with their eldritch successor, sealed it away, hurriedly created the Four Gods based on faerie rulers as a substitute, and given the Four Gods the power to manage the world, dividing it between them.

Faeries were hedonistic creatures, though, so they’d wasted no time doing the exact opposite of what the Creator had ordered, and they didn’t give a damn. Obviously, there had been no one left to properly administer the world, and so the Creator’s original successor—the Dark God, which had been sealed away—had reawakened.

Over its many years of isolation, the Dark God had become self-aware, and when the seal broke, the Dark God had gone to seek out the Four Gods that had replaced it. It had attempted to acquire the matrix that granted administrative permissions, which had led it to clash with the magic civilization of the time.

That had been the start of what was now called the Dark God War.

When civilization had approached the brink of annihilation, the Four Gods had granted mortals the summoning sigils, which the mortals had then used to summon masses of heroes. The Dark God, misinterpreting the sigils as an attack from some magical weapon, had destroyed the sigils—along with the summoned heroes—one after another. And humanity, driven into a corner, had gone on to summon more and more heroes using their only remaining summoning sigil.

Eventually, when it had become apparent that the Dark God—sealed away by the sacred treasures granted by the Four Gods—would soon reawaken, the Four Gods had used some unknown means to seal the Dark God back away within Swords & Sorceries, essentially dumping its nuclear waste in someone else’s backyard.

In short, it seemed like the explanation given in scriptures and legends—that “the Four Gods descended to this world by decree of the God of Genesis”—had been made up after the fact. In any world, any era, there were always people who tried to falsify history.

The reason the Creator was gone by the time the Dark God had reawakened was almost certainly that they’d been afraid of revenge from their own creation. The Creator had, after all, sealed away the Dark God for a stupid reason. Upon learning the Dark God was coming back, the Creator had probably rushed to get the hell out with the excuse that “the time has come for me to depart for another realm.”

It was bullshit.

“So, what, the Creator’s just some irresponsible moron?!” And the world of Swords & Sorceries really is a whole other world, is it? I’ve been wondering about that for a while, but I’m still confused.

Zelos was a victim who’d died thanks to the Creator’s carelessness—as were the heroes. The Creator’s sloppy work was the root cause of everything. The Dark God was intent on diligently maintaining the world, while the Four Gods—a bunch of glorified faeries created at the last minute—had no such intent. And yet, those faeries seemed intent on upholding their status as gods.

Things had clearly gotten out of hand.

“How do you get your administrative permissions back? Is there, like, some special thing you have to do?”

I do not know. That is precisely why I attempted to capture those goddesses—but the sacred treasures prevented me from doing so.

“Not sure if you know, but those sacred treasures were destroyed, apparently.”

I am unsurprised. I am the same sort of entity as the Creator. Those treasures were made to eliminate foreign elements; it is only natural that they would break if used against me. That they managed to seal me at all is impressive.

“So they’re the kind of tools that break if you use them for the wrong thing, huh? Sounds like a pain in the ass.”

All of this sounded so ridiculous that Zelos couldn’t help but get a headache.

At any rate, though, his trump card had now awakened. Even if a bunch of other problems remained, he could at least celebrate this.

“Anyway, please stay in there until your body’s fully stabilized. When the time comes, it should let you out automatically; as you are right now, though, you’d lose to the Four Gods. You’re too weak.”

I suppose I must. I will resolve to be content with simply being awake once again... But we cannot merely wait and leave the Four Gods alone, can we?

“I think it should be fine. They can’t summon heroes anymore, and the country that props them up is in the process of imploding. The Four Gods are marching toward their own ruin.”

What fools... Will they truly never learn? Regardless, I suppose you are correct. I could not defeat them in my current form.

“Once you’re out of the tank, let’s pick a name for you. It’d feel weird just calling you ‘Dark God’ forever.”

This is quite the quandary. If only we could remove the protections on the administrative permissions...

“It’s all the Creator’s fault, at the end of the day. Seriously, what a hassle this all is... By the way, this entity you’ve been calling ‘the Creator’—ancient texts call it the God of Genesis, the God of Beginnings, the God of Creation, all sorts of different things. What’s it meant to be called, though? Oh, and if they have an actual name, I’d love to know.”

I call them the Creator or the God of Genesis, but intelligent life primarily called them the God of Creation, if I recall. I doubt the distinction matters. They also have a name, but...it is not one humans could pronounce.

“I’ll stick with ‘God of Creation,’ then. Oh, and one more thing—where’d the God of Creation head off to?”

To begin constructing a new world in a different realm, I would imagine. The Creator’s power grew too strong for this world to bear. Thus, I was created to oversee the world in their stead.

“Shame this world ended up with those useless Four Gods instead. Though the God of Creation is even worse than them, by the sounds of it.” Sorry, little miss Dark God, but I feel like the God of Creation probably just ran away because they were terrified of you...

The God of Creation, it seemed, only cared about the world itself; it was completely indifferent to the inhabitants of the world it had created.

Zelos finally had a grasp on the situation, but it was even more hopeless than he’d expected. He was exasperated beyond words at this point.

He lit a cigarette, hoping it’d calm him down, but the smoke tasted bitter.

Chapter 12: The Old Guy Casually Accepts Another Job

Zelos continued fixing up the air rider.

It had never been intended for combat use, so Zelos would have to make extra space if he wanted to fit it with armaments. Adding high-power weapons, however, risked throwing off the air rider’s balance midair, so he’d have to account for that.

“Well, this is unfortunate... There are plenty of flying monsters out there, and yet this thing doesn’t have any weapons? Bit of a shame. I guess I could sit someone in the back and have them attack with a handheld weapon?”

There was enough space to mount some ammo, but weapons were the problem.

“Maybe I could take that other thing I was making alongside the gunblade and... No. Who’d fire it? I’d need a gunner, if I’m driving. This is going to be one tough nut to crack...”

Fitting something like the Bunker Shooter he’d attached to his Harley-Sanders Model 13 was right out. Even as far as handheld weapons went, his gunblade would be too heavy, throwing off the vehicle’s balance.

He only had one option left:

“The M134 Minigun, huh? Guess I could put one on each side...”

It was a crazy gun—capable of firing a hail of lead bullets—that he’d seen in movies. It was like a mini Vulcan cannon, just as useful in conventional wars as it was fighting aliens. Zelos’s version just looked the same, though. Its internals were completely different.

After all, his ammunition didn’t require any gunpowder. A belt fed bullets from the magazine into the chamber, where a magical explosion would cause them to fire—which meant the cartridges could be made from paper.

In addition, the barrel was rotated by a mana-powered motor, removing the need to charge a battery.

“Ah. And now that I think of it, the mana supply comes from the gunner...”

The drawback was that this thing burned through ammo like there was no tomorrow. Zelos alone had no hope of crafting enough bullets to operate the thing properly; it was far more efficient for him to just attack with his magic directly.

Still, he found something irresistibly cool about the design. Boys will be boys.

“I wonder if I could fit a magic gun inside the light at the front of the bike? If I just incorporate a formula in there, at least, I feel like it should be able to last me one attack. Then apart from that... Hmm. Yeah, I should figure out a name for this baby.”

Zelos had terrible taste in names.

After thinking about it long and hard, he decided on, of all things, “Sidewinder.”

It was an unlucky name. Hopefully, the air rider didn’t explode like the missile of the same name.

After a few more tweaks, Zelos eventually finished repairing the Sidewinder.

* * *

Lusei and Luceris let out deep, simultaneous sighs.

They were still at a loss after what they’d found out about their mother. Currently, they were exchanging ideas and deciding what to do about various matters, including Luceris’s position going forward.

Luceris wanted to maintain the status quo. The royal family might want to tell her to “come home,” but after all this time, she had no intention of agreeing.

Lusei, meanwhile, had resolved herself after holing up in the bedroom for a whole day.

What the Artom Empire decided to do could be a different matter altogether, though.

The biggest issue was that their mother, Meia Imara, had both been falsely charged and was no longer of this world.

That much had already been relayed to the Artom Empire through diplomatic channels, but there were clearly going to be all sorts of repercussions.

Already, word had come back that Raphon Imara had become sick from the shock of the news, and the rest of the family was in an uproar. It had been about two weeks since the report, and things were only getting worse.

“So Luceris... What are you going to do? The Artom Empire wants you to go back to your homeland, even if it’s just for a little while.”

“As I’ve already said, I don’t plan on going. I’ve already found what I want to do with my life; people can tell me I’m royalty, but after all these years, it just doesn’t feel real. I could never survive in such a strict environment.”

“Father really wants to meet you, but...from the sound of it, I suppose that won’t be possible, will it? And knowing him, he’d probably try to pull something to keep you by his side. So if you did go to the Artom Empire, I doubt you’d be able to return.”

“It’d be unreasonable for them to force me to become something I don’t see myself as. I expect them to forcibly educate me as a royal, but I don’t want that.”

“Of course. I can imagine.” Lusei sighed. “It sounds like the whole royal family’s on edge now too. They’ve all started pinning the blame on one another. I know the family brought it on itself, but still, it pains me to hear. I don’t want to go back there right now either.”

They were opening up to each other surprisingly fast as they discussed the nuisance that seemed to be on the horizon.

“Erm... Remind me why you’re having this discussion at my place?” Zelos asked from the nearby kitchen. For some reason, the two sisters were talking this out in his living room. “I can’t help with this kind of stuff, you know? It’d be a different story if things got violent, but diplomacy’s not my forte.”

“We just thought you might have some ideas,” Luceris said. “Anything helps, however small.”

“Personally,” Lusei said, “I feel like going back to Artom right away would get me caught up in all sorts of strife...”

“Hmm. I know I just said I don’t have any ideas, but...” Zelos hummed thoughtfully. “Even if the Artom Empire respects your wishes, Luceris, won’t it be a problem that you’re part of the Faith of the Four Gods? The reufayl worship the Church of Creation, after all.”

“Should I convert, perhaps?” Luceris asked.

“That may be for the best,” Lusei nodded. “The Holy Land seems to be on its last legs anyway. Even its smaller neighbors are hostile now, and with so many uniting against Metis, the Holy Land can’t abuse its authority in the name of diplomacy anymore.”

“And it looks like the Four Gods themselves don’t give a damn about the world either,” Zelos said. “In fact, from what I know about them, they’d sooner try to actively destroy the world than save it.”

Zelos scrambled eggs in a bowl as he spoke. He was making omurice for lunch today. Apparently he was craving it.

Next to him, some freshly made ketchup simmered in a pot. It wouldn’t usually keep for long, but he had resealable packs made from slime materials, so he’d have no issue storing it inside his inventory.

“Should I boil the sausage? Or do you prefer it fried?”

“Fried, please,” Luceris said.

“Me as well,” Lusei agreed. “Besides, wouldn’t boiling it in a pot just be extra effort?”

“Fried it is, then. Now, the only problem is... I’m going to be stir-frying the rice in ketchup, but ketchup’s all we’ll have to top the egg with as well, isn’t it? I should’ve made some demi-glace or something too for a bit of variety.”

Having spent a long time living by himself, Zelos was a pretty good cook.

It’d still take him a while to make enough for three, so he’d hoped to make Lusei’s and Luceris’s portions first, let them eat while the food was hot, and make his last. But apparently, they were too polite to allow that.

He felt really bad about making them wait while he cooked it all. He was timid at heart.

“What are the kids up to right now?” he asked. “I saw them training with the coccos earlier this morning, but nothing since.”

“They’re out trying to raise money so they can register at the mercenaries’ guild, apparently,” Luceris told him. “Actually, I’ve been wondering... Do they think they play up the ‘young child’ angle for their own advantage sometimes?”

“Took you long enough to notice. They’re pretty savvy, you know? Must have learned some things from living on the streets, even if those things are mostly related to getting people to lower their guard...”

“How would that be useful? I can’t say I understand.”

“It’s handy for gathering information. They can pretend to be innocent little kids, and people will let sensitive information drop during small talk. It’s pretty cunning. Thieves do that sort of thing all the time.”

Being a mercenary was risky business. But having the right information—like where dangerous monsters appeared, or the habitats of smaller monsters—could help mercenaries earn money. No professional would willingly tell others about their best hunting spots, of course. But sometimes, people would celebrate after taking down a tough monster, and those celebrations would lead to them bragging about how exactly they’d done it. Info like that could be a great reference for beginners.

Pretending to be clueless kids was a particularly effective way of getting info from mercenaries who loved to look smart; just butter them up, get them in a good mood, and they’d let their secrets slip in no time at all. Of course, not everyone was so loose-lipped, so the kids had to choose their marks wisely.

Today, the kids wanted to hear about other mercenaries’ battles.

“The kids are hoping to go to a dungeon eventually, right?” Zelos said. “Usually, the farther into a dungeon you’re talking about, the more secretive mercenaries are. The kids are probably trying to gather whatever information they need. It’s like war—the quicker one side can gather information and communicate it, the better they’ll do, right? Think of it like the kids going out to learn the info they need to survive.”

“Hmm... Since we reufayl can fly, we are able to gather intel and disseminate it quite quickly. The fresher the information is, the more useful it is. But it’s not so easy for humans, is it? So I suppose it’s all the more important for you to come up with your own ways of getting accurate intel.”

“Yes—and that’s even more important for mercenaries living hand-to-mouth. Seeing as the kids have figured that out already, I’m fascinated to see what their futures hold. They’re a tough bunch, and they’re good at thinking on their feet.”

Zelos had given the kids an opportunity to practice their information gathering when he’d taken them out for hunting practice. Even then, when he’d last seen them in action, they’d been getting information out of people with the finesse of a seasoned pro. The kids were quick to learn, quick to think, and quick to act. Thinking of how much more they might have improved since then honestly made Zelos a little afraid.

He could only pray that they never chose to use their talents for evil.

Soon, Zelos finished cooking three plates of omurice. As he served them, he considered an aperitif.

“By the way, I’ve got wine too, if you’d like some.”

“Day drinking? Is... Is that acceptable?” Luceris said. “It sounds a bit extravagant to me...”

“Where’s it from?” Lusei said. “A word of warning: I’m fairly picky about my wine.”

“I made it myself. It’s an ingredient for liqueur potions and mana liqueur potions. I made a bit too much a while back...”

As you might expect, liqueur potions and mana liqueur potions were restorative items. Zelos had made them in Swords & Sorceries, but he still had bucketloads of them collecting dust in his inventory. Of course, he also had huge amounts of the ingredients used to make those potions.

Figuring white wine might pair nicely with the omurice, he casually selected a pale ceramic bottle and chilled it with basic ice magic. He put some wine glasses on the table—he didn’t even know why he had them, but they were coming in handy now—and carried over the freshly cooked omurice.

“Well, then... Guess we eat?” he said.

“I apologize that I wasn’t any help. I’ve never cooked before...” Lusei said.

“Oh!” Luceris said. “Now that you mention it, I didn’t help either. I’m so sorry, Zelos.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Just dig in. It won’t taste as good if you let it go cold,” he said, uncorking the ceramic bottle. As he filled the glasses with white wine, the aroma of grapes tickled the sisters’ nostrils.

“It smells so good...” Luceris said.

“It does, yes,” Lusei agreed. “This must be some quality wine.”

After appreciating the scent a little longer, they each took a sip—and the shock on their faces was clear.

This wasn’t just good wine—it was unbelievably good.

They couldn’t get over their surprise. The word “ineffable” had been coined for flavors just like this.

“Wh-What even is— One bottle of wine this good would cost enough to put an entire nation in debt!” Lusei said.

“I-Is it really okay for you to give us such delicious wine?” Luceris asked.

“Oh, you’re exaggerating. I was just using it as a potion reagent.”

Zelos didn’t comprehend what he’d done. This world had mana, so when wine matured over many years, not only did its composition change, but the mana within grew more concentrated. Higher concentrations of mana eventually began attracting the surrounding ambient mana, improving the wine’s flavor.

It had been the same situation with the hundred-year wine from the Kingdom of Isalas; it could be used as an ingredient in elixirs, which were said to be able to revive the dead. Red wine was particularly effective, to the extent that old pharmaceutical texts sometimes called it “godblood.”

White wine could be used as an elixir ingredient too, but it was better at restoring mana. Vintage white wine was an ingredient in special mana potions known as spirit drops.

There were few of these potions in existence, and they were made using rare ingredients, so it wasn’t easy to get hold of them.

Zelos had based his own white wine on a single premise: If having more mana makes the potion more effective, then why don’t I put a higher concentration of mana in there to begin with? With that idea in mind, he’d used the finest ingredients: barrels made from thousand-year-old treants and a blend of elemental and dragonjewel grapes.

He’d given his wine the ability to accumulate mana and added legendary flowers called ambrosia to enhance the aroma.

Put all of that together, and the high-quality wine Zelos had made had a far higher mana concentration than the holy water made at temples. It tasted heavenly too.

The addition of ambrosia had actually turned it into soma, the liquor of the gods, and it had some crazy effects—it fully restored the imbiber’s mana, cleansed all status effects, cured any illnesses, and completely nullified curse magic.

It was a terrifyingly potent medicine in so many ways.

“P-Potions? You used this to make potions?!” Lusei and Luceris repeated, shocked.

“I did. It’s arguably more like soma than wine, but whatever you call it, it’s pretty tasty, isn’t it? Maybe I’ll head to the Far-Flung Green Depths and get the ingredients to make some more sometime soon. It wouldn’t hurt to have some more of this stuff...”

“S-Soma?” Luceris asked. “The drink of the gods? The... The drink that’s supposed to cure any illness on the spot?”

“Wh-What are you doing?!” Lusei said. “How can I ever drink regular wine again?!”

“Oh, come on,” Zelos said. “You’re exaggerating. It’s just a little something I made myself.”

The taste of the wine was so overpowering that the sisters couldn’t even tell how the omurice tasted. It was delectable—the sacred drink of the gods. You never saw this stuff on the market. Anyone who had even a single sip, just once in their lives, was considered incredibly lucky—and Zelos had huge stockpiles of it.

If word got out, countries might go to war to get their hands on some.

“Mmm... Guess I should hold off on selling it. From how you two are reacting, I feel like that might be a bad idea.”

“That would be wise, yes,” Lusei said. “There’s no telling how low people might stoop for a taste of this wine.”

“I can’t believe what I just drank...” Luceris said. “Soma, huh? Heh. Ehe heh...”

She laughed, her throat parched. It was a fair reaction.

Soma was so valuable that it was usually only found in national treasure vaults. Even the Holy Land of Metis only had three small bottles of it, kept in a secret location.

Of course, no small nation possessed any—or at least, if one did, their royals kept it completely secret.

After all, the Holy Land of Metis regarded soma as a holy relic. If it found out a small nation had any in storage, it’d immediately invent a pretense to invade the other nation and take it for itself.

Even if a drink wasn’t technically soma, it could still spark a war as long as it had about the same effects. It was dangerous stuff.

“Do you think I should hold off on sharing it with Nagri and his crew too, then? I figured dwarves would be happy to get some, though...” Zelos pondered.

“If you’re planning to give it to dwarves, I’ll take it instead!” Lusei shouted. “There’s no way dwarves could appreciate this flavor!”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say, Lusei,” Luceris said. “Just because they’re dwarves doesn’t mean they don’t care about taste.”

“Luceris...” Lusei sighed. “Dwarves’ll gulp down anything with a high enough alcohol content, even alcohol made for use as fuel. I’ll ask you again: Do you really think they can tell how it tastes?”

“Um... Maybe not, then,” she replied.

Dwarves were obsessed with anything alcoholic. Even if you handed them the finest of liquors, they’d slurp it all on the spot. They were a bunch of raging alcoholics who were happy to drink anything as long as it made them drunk, whether it was the fanciest wine or industrial-grade ethanol. They lived by the motto “Never leave a drop of liquor undrunk.”

“Okay, yeah. I’m starting to feel like it’d be wasted on them now,” Zelos said. “I’ve seen enough of their drinking habits to believe you, Lusei.”

Zelos knew the dwarves better than anyone by now—and thinking about it, he realized giving them this wine would be like feeding caviar to pigs.

He was right too. The dwarves had made merry every night during his stint working with them, and as you might have expected, he’d quickly gotten fed up with it.

He sighed as the memories came flooding back, then started carrying a spoonful of omurice to his mouth. But just before he could eat it, he noticed a bunch of kids outside, their faces pressed against the window.

It looked like the unruly orphans were as hungry as ever.

Ultimately, Zelos had to make omurice for all of them.

* * *

Once Luceris and the others were finally gone, Zelos had a thought and headed toward Creston’s estate.

At the back of the estate was a small forest, in the middle of which stood the Solistia family’s secondary residence, where Creston lived. It was a simple, elegant castle, free of any gaudy ornamentation.

This castle had been a key defensive location before the Magic Kingdom of Solistia was founded. It was just about impregnable—steep mountains made any approach from behind impossible—and it had a long history. So much blood had been spilled here over the years.

Upon Zelos’s arrival, the ducal family’s servants welcomed him warmly and showed him to a guest room, where he quietly waited for Creston to arrive.

Guess I’ll put some of my wine on the table while I wait. Wouldn’t hurt to share a bit.

Zelos laid out five ceramic bottles.

Each was corked, of course, and sealed with a metal cap.

He’d hesitated to give this wine to the dwarves, but he figured offering some to Creston would be fine. Creston was a former duke, after all, and he’d done a lot for Zelos. Besides, Zelos was the type of person who liked to have good relationships with his neighbors.

Before long, Creston arrived, looking incredibly worn out.

“Oh, Sir Zelos! It’s been a while. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I happened to get a hold of some pretty good wine, so I thought I’d share a bit of it with you, Mr. Creston. But, erm... Did something happen since I last saw you? You seem exhausted.”

“Ah, yes. Del’s gone to the capital for a bit, you see, and I’ve taken on his official duties in his absence. It’s quite the burden for an old retiree like myself...”

Duke Delthasis was a busy man and didn’t hesitate to work his own retired father to the bone.

Perhaps he could’ve handed off the work to a subordinate as capable as himself, if he had one. But anyone like that had probably gotten themselves a high-up job in the capital.

And that was how old retired Creston had gotten the short end of the stick.

“Is this the drink you speak of, Sir Zelos?” Creston asked. “I shall look forward to trying some later.”

“Do note, it’s a bit different from your average wine. Tastes good, though.”

“Ooh... Why, you’re only whetting my interest all the more. By the way, Sir Zelos—a question, if I may.”

“What is it?”

“Would you happen to know what causes monsters to stampede?”

From Creston’s serious expression, Zelos figured something big was going down. “A monster stampede, eh?” he asked. “What, have you seen signs that one’s coming?”

“Monsters have been appearing more and more frequently of late in Marquess Ribalt’s lands. We’re discussing the matter with him, as well as looking into it ourselves. Recently, there’s been a surge in monster subjugation requests.”

“Well, as far as I know...”

Stampedes, Zelos explained, were caused when monsters collectively started migrating due to food shortages, breeding purposes, or escaping a particularly powerful predator.

In rare exceptions, stampedes could instead be caused when an overpopulated dungeon ejected monsters—but whatever the case, none of these things happened easily. Maybe a dragon or something showing up would be enough to cause one, but the point was, stampedes just weren’t much of a thing around these parts. The land here was fertile, after all, so it was hard to imagine monsters running out of food to the point where they’d stampede.

Even the monsters in the Far-Flung Green Depths were kept under control by the constant struggle for survival. It was a balanced ecosystem, in its own way.

In which case, the most likely answer seemed to be that the monsters in this supposed stampede were running from a powerful threat. But Creston hadn’t heard about any such threat.

As formidable as the Solistia family’s information network was, it seemed like it hadn’t discovered an explanation yet.

“Hmm. I can’t say,” Zelos mused. “About the only other cause I can think of is that they’re running from a Hell’s Legion—that’s a swarm of a specific monster type led by one big leader that sweeps across the land. It’s full of starving monsters that devour anything in their path. But I can’t imagine any monsters that live around here starting up anything that scary. And even if something like that did happen, it’d disperse eventually, and the problem would solve itself.”

“Mmm... I see, I see. Now, Sir Zelos...”

“Erm... Yes?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

I don’t like where this is going...

“Seeing as you are an S-rank mercenary, I have a bit of a request for you: Would you mind looking into the matter and finding out why so many monsters are appearing? I cannot help but get a very, very bad feeling about these reports.”

It was rare for any kind of monster to appear so frequently around these parts. Some species showed up more than others, but none to this extent. This region’s endemic monsters fought each other constantly for survival, and the circle of life did its job, more or less. Things rarely got to the point where mercenaries needed to cull monsters.

When stampedes did occur, there were always signs, such as sightings of monsters not native to that area or groups of particularly nasty monsters.

Whatever the case, even something like a goblin king could pose a threat in highly populated areas. So Zelos, who’d managed to survive the Far-Flung Green Depths, was the perfect man for the job.

“I... I may have to cross borders to solve this, you realize?”

“That’s of no concern. Mercenaries have the right of free movement. You won’t hear any complaints, even if you have to enter the Holy Land of Metis. Not if you’re there on the request of the mercenaries’ guild.”

Mercenaries had relative freedom. After all, even if they were operating abroad, their presence could save many lives.

Even a mage could avoid Metis’s meddling so long as they were registered to the mercenaries’ guild and obeyed the law. In other words, Zelos could openly set foot in Metis.

“So the guild’s international, eh? Mercenaries can go wherever? Bit dangerous if you think about it, isn’t it?”

“Countries have their own laws for dealing with any issues. The sorts of mercenaries who’d cause trouble are either criminals or troublemakers who’ll get chased out for causing some problem or another.”

Zelos sighed. “Anyway... You do understand it’s hard for me to stay motivated when you always have me bouncing from one job to another, don’t you? Let me make it clear: Once I finish this job, I won’t be working again for a while, okay?”

“I do apologize for this. And of course, I shall let Delthasis know. Mind you, he’s the sort of man who’ll trick people into doing what he wants even if they don’t intend to, so I can’t make any promises...”

“He’s a real piece of work, isn’t he? And the world’s in the palm of his hands... Sometimes he worries me.”

Zelos finally realized that he was doing everything Delthasis wanted. Still, he couldn’t just sit back and say a monster stampede was none of his business. Something like that would eventually threaten his own lifestyle, if he let it, so he decided to accept the request.

The ripples caused by monster stampedes tended to cause more harm than people expected, after all...

* * *

A vehicle that looked very out of place in this world tore along a highway in the Artom Empire. It looked like a kei car, more or less.

A certain mage sat behind the wheel while two women sat in the back seats, bored out of their minds. They looked out the windows, watching the scenery fly past.

“Finally at the Artom border,” Ado said. “It took us a while to get here last time, since we came via Metis then. But the trip’s much easier now that Artom’s finished the highway, even if there are a whole bunch of bird monsters to deal with...”

“But it’s so boring, Ado,” Lisa moaned. “No service stations, no rest stops...”

“Are you seriously expecting to find those here?” Shakti chided her. “Remember, civilization in this world is about on par with the Middle Ages.”

Ado had made the kei car using his crafting skills, and he’d put snow chains on the tires to deal with the icy roads. The metal grated against the pavement below something awful, but he’d had no choice if they wanted a safe trip through the mountains.

“From what I heard,” Ado said, “a little village up ahead has a hot spring. Apparently some builder from Solistia dug it up.”

“Seriously?!” Lisa said. “Ooh... I wonder what’s in their hot spring water? Germanium? Radium? Sulfur, maybe?”

Shakti sighed. “Look, Lisa... They may have a hot spring, but you can’t expect people here to be able to analyze the water’s mineral composition. Just be grateful you’ll even get to have a soak.”

She was right. While there were all kinds of hot springs out there, this world had no technology capable of analyzing the water’s composition in detail. Having the opportunity to relax in a hot spring at all was a blessing.

“I wanna take a nice, long soak in an open-air bath while I drink some alcohol,” Ado said. He paused for a moment. “Wait. Are they even gonna have an open-air bath?”

Ado saw hot springs the same way Zelos did.

Neither Lisa nor Shakti poked fun at him for it, though. After all, they were looking forward to the hot spring as well.

“Speaking of alcohol,” Shakti said, “I heard something about Isalas gifting wine to its allies.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ado said. “That hundred-year-old vintage, right? Sounds amazing.”

The others paused for a moment, stunned. The car fell silent. Until, finally: “Huh?!”

“What?” Ado said.

“Ado... Can you even drink hundred-year-old wine?” Lisa asked.

“Seriously,” Shakti said. “I thought the best wine was only aged for thirty years or so? Not that I’m an expert, of course.”

“Huh? I’ve had some that was 150 years old before, though,” Ado said.

“Where?!” the others shouted.

“In Swords & Sorceries. Found it in a dungeon...”

“Huh?!”

“What?! Did I say something wrong?”

In this case, Ado was in the right. This world had a lot of overlap with the world of Swords & Sorceries. Mana affected the aging process, so wine that had matured for a full century here had a taste incomparable to anything on Earth. It provided a crazy amount of mana recovery to the drinker too.

What Shakti was saying, meanwhile, applied to wine made on Earth. If its seal were broken, a bottle of wine would oxidize and go sour. She’d had that happen to her before, actually; that was why she’d brought it up.

Lisa, for her part, wasn’t old enough to drink alcohol anyway, so she was just making a guess. But it wasn’t like Ado was a wine expert himself, so they’d made him worried—

Wait. Did I mess up?

For what it was worth, century-old wine was a thing on Earth too. Vintners used their accumulated knowledge and techniques to store wine in the perfect temperature, humidity, and so on, leaving their collections for future generations.

A bead of sweat ran down Ado’s brow. “Uh... Fuck. I kinda told the king it’d be a good idea to send hundred-year-old wine to other countries as gifts...”

“Wait. Seriously? Isn’t that a disaster waiting to happen?! There’s no way wine that’s been sitting in a barrel for a whole century could be any good!” Shakti said.

“They could feel slighted enough to declare war on us. Hey, Ado... What do we do? What if the whole alliance falls apart?” Lisa said.

The three of them fell silent.

Their lack of knowledge had them worried—and that worry was gradually escalating into panic.

If the alliance between Isalas and its neighbors fell apart, the kingdom was doomed. In the worst-case scenario, Ado might even be labeled a criminal for betraying the country.

In fact, if things got really bad, there was no telling how many people might lose their lives.

Or at least, those were the worries going through the trio’s minds. They couldn’t stop sweating.

“What do we do... What do we do, what do we do, what do we do?!” Ado shouted.

“Ado! You’re still driving! Eyes front!”

“Th-There’s a carriage! There’s a carriage ahead of us! ADO!”

The chaos had gone from bad to worse.

The panicking young man at the wheel of the kei car just barely managed to swerve off the road in time, dodge the carriage, and careen back onto the road, continuing the trio’s trip.

Chapter 13: The Old Guy Has Fun with His Air Rider

As the morning fog settled over the city of Santor, throngs of traveling merchants rushed to secure the best lots at the local marketplace.

Meanwhile, away from the morning’s hustle and bustle, the residents of Santor’s old town were starting their days, already working up a sweat to put food on the table for tomorrow.

It was the sort of thing you’d probably be able to see in any world, but Zelos felt a sort of freedom and strength from the people here that he didn’t think he could ever have felt back on Earth.

Anyway... A monster stampede, eh? Wonder if a new dungeon’s popped up somewhere?

Back in Swords & Sorceries, when a dungeon appeared and a monster stampede event started, settlements of all sizes were turned into defensive encampments to fend off the approaching horde.

It was a fond memory for Zelos—he’d gotten up to all sorts of mischief during stampedes—but he’d only been able to do all that because he was in a game. Trying to reenact those shenanigans now, in his new reality, would certainly go against the law.

“Seriously, I wonder what’s caused it?” he mused. “Guess I’ll just have to find out for myself... Speaking of which, what about you lot? You want to come with me?”

Zelos looked down at the three black coccos standing next to him.

“Bo-kaw!” (“We shall accompany you, Leader.”)

“Bo-kaw, bo-kah!” (“As invaluable as our regular training is, I would like to try my skills in another real battle. Allow us to join you and test our mettle.”)

“Co-ke-ka-keh!” (“I, too, wish to test my power. And then, someday, I will test it there...”)

“Well, that’s fine by me. Just don’t go too overboard, okay?”

These three coccos were special evolutions of the wild cocco. It seemed like they’d evolved yet again recently; Ukei had become a grapple-master cocco, Zankei a samurai-master cocco, and Senkei a ninja-master cocco. And having achieved these rare evolutions, the coccos were now extra keen to fight.

They were far more dependable than your average mercenary, and Zelos couldn’t find any faults in their fighting. Add Zelos into the mix, and they’d probably be overkill against any foe. But Zelos figured it couldn’t hurt to bring them along, especially when there was no telling what could happen out there.

All three coccos had turned jet-black with their latest evolutions. Ukei had claws on their wings like an archaeopteryx, while Zankei had a silver-colored layer on each wing, and Senkei... Well, Senkei didn’t really seem to have changed much, apart from their feathers getting a little more luxurious.

By this point, Zelos had become inured to these mysterious birds’ constant changes.

Not that it’s my problem, but I wonder where these coccos are going to end up. It feels like they’re already along the lines of a demon lord, right?

Monsters considered demon lords were calamities upon the world, born when a monster evolved too far.

The specifics depended on the species, but they could be strong enough that just one of them could lay waste to an entire country. The twenty-meter-long great givleon Zelos had encountered in the Far-Flung Green Depths, for example, would fall under the category of what were called fortress-tier monsters.

The givleons seen around the Magic Kingdom of Solistia were typically up to five meters long and were generally considered overlord-tier, with strength on par with orc generals.

Certain specimens could go through particularly extreme evolutions depending on their environment or level, however, so you couldn’t just say that all of species X were tier Y. Still, most of the time, generalizing like that was considered common sense, at least in populated areas.

Although common sense often wasn’t enough, it was the only practical option. Society couldn’t base its monster threat levels on extra-evolved exceptions that nobody had seen before, especially when there weren’t even any scholars who understood the mechanisms behind evolution.

Okay. Let’s just give up on using Appraisal on the coccos. I won’t be able to get a good night’s sleep if I keep feeling like I’m helping train potential threats to the world.

Zelos decided to stop thinking about the coccos’ growth.

He muttered under his breath—“I know nothing. I’m innocent. Innocent, I tell you...”—and then took his Sidewinder from his inventory. While he’d originally intended to make the trip on his first magic-powered motorbike, the Harley-Sanders Model 13, he’d changed his mind at the last moment, figuring he might as well give the Sidewinder a test-drive now that he’d fixed it up.

“Well, then... Guess I’m all good to go?” He sighed. “Urgh. I’m tired...”

Zelos mounted the Sidewinder and turned the key.

Mana from a compressed mana tank spread throughout the bike, and the ancient engineering came to life.

As the mana reached a big crystal fitted to the Sidewinder’s underside, an array of geometric patterns appeared, and the big aerothrusters fitted where a regular motorbike’s front and back wheels would be started sucking in air.

Next, the crystal activated and projected a magic formula installed inside the black box, creating a force field that counteracted gravity.

“Aerothrusters operational! Erm... Which way was I headed again? Northwest?”

Zelos checked his compass as the Sidewinder began to slowly rise into the air. He listened to the air shoot out from the subthrusters as the bike changed direction—PSSSH! PSSSH!—and watched as the city of Santor slowly grew smaller and smaller beneath him.

“Ooh... Now this is picturesque. Almost brings a little tear to my eye.”

The bird’s-eye view of the fortified city, shrouded by a light fog, gave off the quintessential fantasy vibe.

It was a whole new kind of excitement for Zelos—very different from when he’d flown using his Shadowraven’s Wings spell.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t bask in the landscape’s ineffable beauty for long. Reluctantly, he pulled the throttle.

The Sidewinder accelerated, darting off into the fantasy world’s sky.

“Being in another world has its perks sometimes...” Zelos mumbled to himself.

He’d gained a renewed appreciation for the privilege of those who could fly.

For a moment, the exhilaration put the bother of the job he’d been given out of mind. He was on top of the world, and it felt good.

* * *

All creatures had to eat to live.

Little critters munched on berries or bugs, while big predators hunted prey to devour its flesh.

Monsters were no exception to that rule, and the larger they grew, the more energy they needed to survive.

Even the mighty great givleon couldn’t escape that fact as it crossed the land. It was starving.

It had grown too large for its own good, and now it was desperate for nourishment. But all the prey it could find was just too small, forcing it to eat the corpses of its fallen brethren just to scrape by, racked by its never-ending hunger.

There were no large monsters in these lands—none large enough, at least.

Usually, you’d have expected the givleon to have starved to death, but its sheer resilience prevented it from dying so easily. It defied the rules of nature.

A great many monsters, sensing the givleon’s approach, had fled in advance, depriving the swarm of prey. Along the journey, many of the givleon’s kin had gradually dropped out of the swarm due to starvation.

Monsters had a keen eye for danger. It was only natural for them to scurry away from an enemy they stood no chance against. Running was a perfectly valid survival strategy.

The givleon, meanwhile, was driven by instinct—but at a certain point, it began to understand its body was changing. It had gotten slower, and its movements more sluggish.

But it certainly wasn’t dying. No. It had noticed these abnormalities were signs of it transforming into something else. Something new.

What do I have to do to sate this hunger? Where should I go?

The givleon couldn’t escape the questions constantly buzzing in its mind. But at the same time, it knew that release was coming.

Soon. Soon, my hunger will be sated...

The enormous, starving creature followed its instincts and quietly awaited its moment of transformation.

In the meantime, it would continue to devour the corpses of its brethren littering the landscape...

* * *

Marquess Ribalt’s territory was a defensive cornerstone of the Magic Kingdom of Solistia, bordering the Holy Land of Metis.

But about three weeks ago, these lands had begun to change.

Monsters began straying from their usual environs and showing up in groups to lay waste to nearby towns and villages.

Marquess Ribalt had dispatched mercenaries and knights to deal with the problem, but the situation had only gone from bad to worse.

If anything, the marquess’s response to the issue had been impressively quick. But nonetheless, the monsters had only continued to swell in numbers, and the marquess had been forced to order a temporary evacuation of the threatened areas.

That was all well and good, but it still wasn’t clear how the territory would deal with so many monsters.

“We’ve finished evacuating the villagers, High Captain Aleph!”

“Good work. What’s the situation with the monsters?”

“They aren’t much of a fight by themselves, but there are just too many. It seemed like they were all running from something.”

“Hmm. This... This might be something more than just a stampede.”

Aleph had been promoted to high captain in recognition of his talent following his return from guard duty in the Far-Flung Green Depths. His subordinates from back then had also been promoted and left under his command, and now they operated as a special task force of knights.

Upon making it back alive from the hell that was the Green Depths, it had quickly become apparent that their experience meant they now far outclassed the other knights. Following their promotions, they’d had more knights placed under their command to be put through a brutal training regime—leading to the squad’s current notoriety.

It had earned Aleph a new nickname: Aleph the Tyrant. But thanks to his harsh training, his squad had yet to lose a single member. It had a much better survival rate than any other squad.

By this point, he’d become a leadership figure within the Order of Knights.

“If it isn’t a stampede, then maybe they’re running away from some gigantic monster?” the knight wondered.

“That’s the only thing I can think of,” Aleph replied. “And on the other side of this border is...”

“Metis. Is this their doing? It’s hard to tell. But either way, yes, all I can think of is that some monster from their side is approaching ours.”

“The Holy Land does see us as an enemy right now. And I assume you know why?”

“Well... I’d guess it’s because we’ve started selling healing magic, right? The mercenaries have access to lower-level healing magic of their own now. That has to be devaluing Metis’s holy magic.”

“Yeah. They’re a bunch of has-beens who refuse to accept progress. They’re willing to do whatever it takes to stop us from succeeding, I’d bet.”

When it came to improving magic tools and potions, or developing magic, Solistia and Metis were diametrically opposed. The Holy Land arrogantly insisted that mages “abandon their wicked knowledge that distorts the ways of nature.” Solistia, meanwhile, typically argued back with something like, “You can’t improve society without advancing technology! Besides, those priest robes you wear are made using magic technology too, you hypocrites!”

The priests of the Faith of the Four Gods believed that their holy magic was an exception—something sacred, a blessing provided to them by the gods. They completely refused to accept the idea that holy magic was the same as all other magic at the end of the day.

It was a fruitless debate between blind belief and research, sophistry and logic, fantasy and reality, irrationality and rationality, stagnation and innovation.

And after many long years of arguing, the conversations had devolved into something a bit like this:

“How dare you accursed mages defy the will of the Gods!”

“Oh, fuck off! Why should we have to get permission from your country for everything?! Do whatever you want in your own territory, but stop trying to butt into ours!”

“Hah! Lowly heretics who mislead the common people with suspicious potions have the gall to complain about us? Human happiness lies in a natural life. Why do you fail to understand?!”

“Yeah, a ‘natural life’ where people have to rely on the Faith for everything—which sure is convenient for Metis, huh? Besides, do you really expect us to believe any of the tripe coming out of your mouth when you’re protecting those evil little faerie bastards?”

“Faeries are the purest race in all existence! They are innocent beings; their pure hearts are completely untainted by sin! You need to keep your noses out of our territory!”

“‘The purest race’? Pfft! Don’t make me laugh! They spend all their time butchering people and animals and laughing at the carnage! And those are the things you say are so pure they have to be protected?! Do you not give a single shit how many civilians die horrible deaths because of those sick little creeps? Some ‘kind believers of the gods’ you are!”

“Y-You still insist on profaning the kin of the Gods, you heretic?! Come! We’ll take this outside!”

“Just what I was waiting for! Okay, let’s do this, asshole!”

Long story short, it was an argument that went nowhere.

As a result, Metis had stopped its trade relations with Solistia, pushing Solistia to instead begin strengthening ties with its other neighbors. The Holy Land of Metis had thought that the embargo would harm Solistia more than itself. As tensions had risen, however, Solistia had secretly built an international highway through ancient dwarven ruins underground.

It was only after Metis learned of the completion of the deepway that it realized its mistake.

Now, the Kingdom of Isalas with its mineral resources, the Artom Empire with its troublesome ‘enemies of the gods,’ and the Magic Kingdom of Solistia with its apostate mages had been linked together by road.

Having so confidently severed trade itself, Metis couldn’t just apologize and say, Actually, I’d quite like to start trading with you again, please. And it wasn’t just those three small nations causing trouble for Metis—recently, several others had started banding together too and displaying open hostility toward the Holy Land.

The Holy Land’s plan had completely backfired.

Then, when an unprecedented earthquake had hit Metis, the country had been left with nobody to turn to for aid.

After its long history of ruling over international relations through force, Metis was now in a situation where nobody would listen if it asked for help.

“Anyway, that’s the situation,” Aleph said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Metis was trying to get back at us somehow.”

“Is that country run by idiots?” the knight said. “It kind of feels like nobody there has any idea how diplomacy works.”

“Apparently they tried to fight the beastfolk and got absolutely crushed—and now they’ve got a shortage of manpower. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear they resorted to inciting monsters against us.”

“If this really is their doing, it’s a nasty way of ‘getting back at us,’ isn’t it?”

“Maybe. Or... Or maybe some monster appeared on their end that they had to foist off on another country?”

They could make all sorts of guesses, but for the time being, they couldn’t be sure about anything.

All they could do was try their best to control the chaos.

At that moment, another knight approached Aleph.

“High Captain Aleph!” he called. “I’ve received word that an evacuation convoy has been attacked by monsters! The lieutenant is requesting backup!”

“Knights, head out to assist Lieutenant Marton!” Aleph shouted. “Save every life you can!”

“Understood! I’ll ride ahead and let the lieutenant know!”

“There’s no time to waste. We are the people’s shield! Their sword! Never forget that!”

“Yes, sir!”

Figuring out why all this was happening could come later. For now, evacuating the civilians took precedence.

Aleph’s task force had been leveraging its experience in the Far-Flung Green Depths to maintain a uniquely harsh training regimen among the Order of Knights. And now, thanks to its preparation, it was strong enough to venture into the Green Depths without Zelos’s aid if the situation called for it.

The task force consisted of many veterans who were skilled enough to take on any average monster without breaking a sweat, and most of them were squad leaders themselves now. The force’s harsh training had earned it some unflattering nicknames, but it was an elite unit full of talented knights who got results.

“Now, how many lives will we be able to save...” Aleph mused.

“Yes—I doubt we’ll be able to save everyone. We just don’t have the numbers, as much as it hurts to admit.”

There were only so many knights.

However fast they moved, it simply wouldn’t be enough to make up for the numbers disadvantage. There would be casualties.

Limiting those casualties was their job—as much as Aleph loathed the idea of treating human lives like a statistic they must optimize.

He could do nothing but try his best and pray that as few lives as possible would be lost.

* * *

Hidden in the forest, a figure peeked out at the civilians and monitored the situation. These people had been beset by monsters and forced to evacuate their settlements. Knights had been assigned to escort the civilians, but something about those knights seemed strange.

“C’mon, you bastards! Bring it on!”

“Mmm... Damn, leveling up feels good. Heh heh...”

“Targets as far as the eye can see—now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Gah hah hah!”

In a phrase, they seemed completely off their rockers.

To them, these monsters swooping in were nothing more than fodder to train against and get stronger.

After surviving a brutal trip into the Far-Flung Green Depths, Aleph’s knights had realized they needed to be strong if they wanted to protect the things they cared about, and so they’d thrown themselves into gauntlet after gauntlet to hone their skills.

These monsters were small fry to them, unfit to even be called enemies. Instead, they were more like training dummies—except these targets were practically offering themselves up on a platter.

“Hey! Ya let one get through, ya idiot!”

“Who do ya think yer talkin’ to?! Like hell I’d fuck up like that!”

“Shut yer mouth and kill! Or do you want people to die while yer busy yappin’?!”

Even as they shouted at each other, they mowed down monster after monster with their blades.

One of the knights took a brief final glance at a monster he’d just cleaved in half, then raised his sword at the next.

There was no break at all.

Wh-What the... Who are these madmen? And how are they so strong?!

The figure hiding in the forest was a spy: Sharanla. And the knights’ brutality sent a shiver down her spine.

Even Metis’s Order of Paladins didn’t have such reckless fighters—nor any even capable of cutting through such an enormous throng of monsters in the first place.

These knights from Solistia, however, struck down multiple monsters with a single swing, fighting with ease as they protected the people.

The Inquisition had planned to drive the Hell’s Legion into the Magic Kingdom of Solistia. While it dealt with the swarm, Sharanla would swipe each town’s valuables, and the other Inquisition members would use their ‘holy mission’ as a pretense to revel in slaughter.

But the Inquisition’s calculations had been way off the mark. These knights weren’t just swift, brave, and valiant; they were cracking jokes as they fought.

Sharanla would have zero chance at winning if she attacked them head-on.

This is bad. Our side has the numerical advantage, but soldier for soldier, it’s not even a contest...

Aside from forcing the giant cockroaches that had appeared in Metis onto Solistia, Sharanla had another objective: finding her little brother, who was somewhere in the country.

The side effect of the youth restoration potion she’d drunk meant that she only had a few years left to live.

She’d decided, despite zero evidence, that Zelos had an antidote, and so she’d set out to get it off him. She hadn’t thought about what she’d do when she met him again, naturally. And she really should have, given how their last meeting had gone.

“Hmm?” one of the knights hummed.

“What?” another asked.

“Oh, just... Got the feeling we’re being watched. Actually, yeah. It’s not just a feeling. I’m sure something is watching us.”

“Could be another monster hiding somewhere. I can’t imagine anything in that stampede has the foresight to lurk around and observe like that, but still...”

Shit! Why do they have such good intuition?! Nobody’s noticed me before!

Sharanla wasn’t actually all that talented. Sure, she’d be a threat to the average citizen of this world, but to these elite Solistian knights, she was bush-league. If she ended up in a fight with them, she’d lose.

Worse, she was on Solistia’s wanted list. She couldn’t just show herself here.

I think this is where I run. Ugh! What a pain in the ass this country is!

And so, Sharanla stormed off from her vantage point, cursing the Magic Kingdom of Solistia.

She had no clue, for the time being, that it was the very brother she was searching for who’d made those knights so formidable.

* * *

Sharanla returned to the Inquisition’s camp, agitated. Like the others, she wore priest robes that indicated she was from the Holy Land of Metis. They were here with the support and pardons of the Holy Land, carrying out the Faith’s dirty work to slake their own desires.

Their desires for murder.

The Inquisition’s top ranks were filled with the sorts of homicidal maniacs you’d find in a psychological thriller, and they merrily carried out the kind of dirty work that people would hesitate to even speak of. It was what they lived for.

Sharanla wasn’t quite the same as them, but she wouldn’t balk at murder if it got her gold or jewels, so they were still birds of a feather.

She sighed. “Urgh, they are such a nuisance... How am I meant to make a profit when we’ve got that to deal with? And who knows where my idiot brother has gotten off to...”

Josephoke, standing nearby, wasted no time asking for her status report. “I see you’re back, Sharanla. How are things on the front lines? How many knights are dead?”

His mission of foisting the Hell’s Legion off onto Solistia wasn’t exactly going well. Previous reports had said that the great givleon was slowing down, and that parts of the swarm behind it had been splitting off of their own volition. The Inquisition had succeeded in bringing the swarm leader all the way here, but if all the other cockroaches scattered at the last moment, it’d be a hollow victory.

“It’s all going to shit,” Sharanla said. “Those damn knights are cleaning up monster after monster from the stampede. How are they even that strong?!”

“You’re kidding... No. Solistia does border the Far-Flung Green Depths. We shouldn’t be surprised it’s got some strong fighters. Same as the Artom Empire.”

“Then how are we supposed to beat them? Do we call it a day? At least we’ve brought the givleon here.”

“Surely you jest. We still haven’t had our fun yet! I want to kill people; I want to see the looks of agony on their faces. That’s the whole reason I took this job in the first place. And if I miss this chance, who knows how long it’ll be until I get the next one?”

“Those knights, though... There’s something wrong with them. They’re not normal.”

Most members of the Inquisition loved killing. And if they returned to the Holy Land now, they’d be back to sitting in stuffy little rooms doing busywork until their next big mission.

They were officially just priests, and the Holy Land was more than happy to take advantage of that to push odd jobs onto them when they weren’t doing Inquisition work. Resistance against the Faith had been quiet lately, leaving the Inquisition with fewer chances to do what it did best: torture.

“Guess we’ll have to make the stampede larger,” Josephoke said.

“Yeah, that should work,” Sharanla agreed. “We’ve got plenty of pawns who’ll lay down their lives if we ask them to.”

“Exactly. And we’ll pin the blame on Solistia’s priests—the Holy Land sees them as traitors anyway. No skin off our backs.”

“Oh, so mean... They’re ‘spreading the holy word’ for you, and you want to just kill them off? You’re a nasty man, you know that?”

“They’re heretics. Being scapegoats is what they deserve.”

Most priests who’d left the Holy Land of Metis on missionary work harbored dissatisfaction with the current state of the Holy Land.

They had an inconvenient sense of rationality and justice.

Metis’s higher-ups, obsessed with their own power and authority, would be more than happy to see them gone.

They were thorns in Metis’s side anyway; why not turn them into scapegoats and get Solistia to dispose of them? Solistia would rid Metis of its political foes, and Metis would get another pretense to censure Solistia.

Politics in the Holy Land was dirty business.

“Damn it... Why do we have to keep sucking up to the guys in charge? If I’d known things were going to be like this, I would’ve stayed a regular criminal,” Josephoke said.

“At least this way it’s easy for us to do as we want. We’ll look like fools for it if we get caught, though,” Sharanla said.

“Hah. As if I’d screw up like that. Those idiots who got caught left too much evidence. Not a thought in their heads.”

“Sounds about right,” Sharanla said. “Well, then, I suppose I’ll give the orders to some pious little fools. I’ll go up to them with tears in my eyes, begging them—‘We need your help to show the world the glory of the Gods. Please, put your lives in my hands, and we can achieve something great.’”

Those “pious little fools” were Crimson Cabal members. They’d always gone to extremes in the name of the Four Gods, but being appointed to roles within the Inquisition had made them even more fanatical; they wouldn’t hesitate to kill if they saw someone deviating from church doctrine in the slightest or give their own lives for the sake of the Four Gods. They were insane.

They were no longer human; they’d become living tools of the Faith of the Four Gods.

So of course, if they were asked to die for the Holy Land, they’d do so as naturally as breathing.

Most of the Faith’s clergy saw them as obstinate nuisances, but they were the perfect pawns for Josephoke and the rest of the Inquisition’s leadership.

“Here you are, calling me a nasty man—and it turns out you’re a nasty woman. Planning to kill some more people for your own benefit, I bet.”

“Oh, how rude. You know, I ask for their belongings. They simply choose death instead. Besides, you’re no better, are you? All you want is blood.”

“So crude. We are just servants of the Gods, sent to ‘deliver criminals to justice.’”

Nothing was more convenient for sadistic killers than having a grand justification for their killing.

They were here because Metis was facing political pressure after its plans had backfired, but honestly, they were just happy to have an excuse. There was little more these criminals could ask for.

By proclaiming that everything they did was done to “pass judgment on those who wrong the Gods,” they could justify their actions. If caught, they’d just pin the blame on the Cloistered Emperor.

In other words, if they were going down, Mikhailov was going down with them.

And they were fully aware that the Faith’s leaders might abandon them too.

These sadistic killers had their differences, but each of them was so messed up that they’d find some twisted way to revel in even their own death—and those who’d do it with the staunch belief that they’d been in the right were even worse.

The fact that Sharanla saw eye to eye with these people showed that perhaps she was the same as them, at the end of the day.

I can get plenty of money, even if I have to kill for it, but murder won’t get back the years of life I’ve lost. Just you wait, Satoshi. I’m coming for you.

Sharanla never learned from her mistakes. All she ever thought of was her plans going perfectly. She never anticipated the worst-case scenario.

And as a result, she hadn’t noticed that she was not well suited to this fantasy world...

Chapter 14: The Coccos Pass Judgment

Zelos noticed a big flaw with his Sidewinder as he rode it through the sky.

Namely, it burned through way more mana than he’d expected.

The cause was the bike’s aerojet. The old one had been worn out, so he’d replaced it.

It wasn’t like he’d used an original part, though; he’d just taken apart the worn-out old one and reproduced it himself. But while he’d tried his best, his replacement part’s metal was significantly different, as were its mana transmission rate, and its weight, and its fan revolution speed, and its air compression rate...

He’d thought its design was simple, but the ancient civilization’s knowledge and technology were actually crucial to getting a bunch of the minute details right, and Zelos simply couldn’t replicate the old design. Fortunately, the force field generator that let the bike fly was working properly, so he didn’t have to worry about suddenly dropping out of the sky.

For flying from point A to point B, sure, it was usable enough. It’d get a passing grade if you ignored its gas mileage.

Should I swap to my regular motorbike? Mmm... Nah. I want to see how this goes for a little longer. If anything’s wrong, I’d rather find out now than when I’m in the middle of an emergency. Besides, I do need to know how long it can run.

There was so much Zelos didn’t know about the air rider.

He’d only ever seen reinforcement NPCs riding them in a Swords & Sorceries raid. This was the first one he’d even touched, so there was a lot he still needed to find out about how it worked.

Figuring out its effective range was particularly important—especially since he was using reproduction parts instead of originals. If he didn’t test to see how far he could get on a full tank of mana now, he’d risk finding out at the worst possible timing down the line.

Also, I guess I’m managing, but the coccos are really in the way.

Ukei sat on the front of the bike, while Zankei and Senkei were on the back seat. The Sidewinder was flying pretty fast, so the little coccos must have been really getting buffeted by the wind—not that they were even flinching.

Maybe the coccos saw this as just another form of training.

“Okay. I think we’re close to the border, so we should be getting into Marquess Ribalt’s territory soon...”

Zelos had flown in a straight line, shortcutting the roads. Now, though, he’d have to cross-reference the shape of the roads below with a map to confirm his location. The nearby roads meandered all over the place to avoid difficult terrain like mountains and wetlands.

The most important factor in building roads was safety. Second was ease of use, since a lot of merchants used them for trade. Ideally, they were also simple to maintain.

As a result, costly projects that involved things like large-scale land reclamation were avoided unless absolutely necessary, so switchbacks were common in rough terrain.

Looks like it can fly for...about three hours? The aerojet’s output starts to drop a little before that, though, so I should keep it to about two hours or so. I don’t get why it builds up heat in the first place, though. It moves using air pressure! Even if it’s leaking mana somewhere, the mana should just disperse into the atmosphere. That’s gotta mean that heat is building up because... Okay, yeah, I’ve got no clue.

While Zelos could make his own inferior replacements for the air rider’s simpler components, he was at a loss when it came to more complex parts. The worst was the core of the bike: It was a black box, and he didn’t even know how to take it apart. It was a literal black cube—he hadn’t seen any screws or anything holding it together, nor any welding marks.

And when he didn’t know how it was put together, trying to take it apart by force seemed like a bad idea, leaving his hands kind of tied.

It was a learning experience for Zelos: His cheat abilities couldn’t solve everything for him.

He’d had to constantly land to refill the mana tank during his trip to the lands of Marquess Ribalt. He’d also been using the Stealth spell, which provided optical camouflage, to avoid detection.

Now that he was close enough, he started to see some monsters from the air—and sure enough, it seemed like there were a lot of them.

Yeah, they definitely look like they’re running away from something. Are they afraid of something? Does this mean some monster in the other direction is actually a threat to them?

Animals were incredibly sensitive to nearby signs of life. And that was doubly true in this world, which was filled with mana. If a monster had a lot of mana, it would create ripples that nearby creatures could detect. Wildlife needed keen senses to survive, so most creatures relied on their abilities to notice changes in nearby mana to decide whether to hunt or flee. They didn’t make decisions based on sight alone like humans did.

Technically, humans and other humanoid species could detect presences like this too—they were just less sensitive to it than animals.

I do feel something pretty strong—quite a ways up ahead, mind you. Is it dragon ruler-class, maybe? Mmm... No. A little weaker than that. What is it, though? What sort of creature is coming here?

Zelos, with his maxed-out Detect Presence skill, was very good at detecting those waves of mana. The tingling feeling on his skin told him something pretty big was making its way to Solistia—especially since he could feel it despite it being well out of sight.

“So it’s...less the presence itself I’m feeling, and more a wave of mana, huh? Is it mana that’s been released into the air and turned into a wave? What’s going on out there? I can’t even see it, but if it’s releasing this much mana, it could be massive. Who knows what kind of crazy monster this thing is...”

Given how clueless Zelos was, though, standing around and speculating wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

And that wasn’t the only problem he noticed.

“With so many monsters running around, the mercenaries have to be making a killing. But it’s gonna be tough for them to butcher all those bodies... This had better not kick-start some epidemic or something.”

The worst part about stampedes was the aftermath.

Defeating the swarming monsters was all well and good, but a whole lot of tough work was then needed to deal with all the corpses littering the landscape. If the monsters were edible, their bodies could be used as emergency rations for victims displaced by the stampede. But some monsters were unpalatable—and some of those couldn’t even be harvested for materials to make armor and the like.

Worse, the longer it took to finish the cleanup, the more the corpses would rot, creating a hotbed for pathogens. And if disease began to spread, there could be a whole secondary catastrophe.

So while it might have sounded like a monster stampede had its benefits, the truth was that dealing with the aftermath was a huge, costly chore. This wasn’t some light novel or game, where a monster’s body vanished into thin air once it died.

Long story short, Zelos was right to be worried about an epidemic.

Well, it’s not like worrying about it is going to do any— Oh?

As his Sidewinder continued to fly in a straight line through the air, Zelos noticed a bunch of monsters running frantically below. And what most interested him was that despite their panic, the monsters all seemed to avoid a specific area.

At first, he thought he might just be seeing things, but no; whenever monsters got near that region, they’d turn left or right to avoid it and head off in a different direction.

In the center of that zone stood a small farming village—and Zelos couldn’t see any monsters inside. It was clearly unnatural.

Did they use warding fragrance or something? Mmm... But how could they have prepared enough to surround the whole village? It’s not exactly cheap stuff. Something about this feels off.

Warding fragrance was simple enough to make, but the ingredients required were surprisingly expensive.

Governments might have kept some in their national reserves, but it was hard to believe a small village could afford this much.

Even if the village could have gotten its hands on all that warding fragrance, they still shouldn’t have had the time to get it all and spread it around the village. Not unless they’d known in advance a stampede was coming. But is that even possible?

No matter how much Zelos thought about it, so many things didn’t add up.

“Ukei, Zankei, Senkei: Can you three check out that village for me?”

“Bok?” (“Has something about it caught your eye, Leader?”)

“Yeah. It’s strange. It’s completely untouched by monsters. Given what’s going on around it, I’d have expected the whole place to be drowning in monsters by this point.”

“Ca-caw. Bokak...” (“I smell something odd down there. It makes me feel slightly sick...”)

“Caw.” (“Me too. I’ll be able to put it out of mind, but it is there.”)

It seemed like the coccos had a bad feeling about the place too.

That was proof: Someone had, indeed, spread warding fragrance down there before the monsters arrived.

“Ah, yes. Warding fragrance can’t stop the strongest monsters, after all. I’m not surprised you three are fine. So would you mind taking a look? Just think of it as a detour on your trip to kill some monsters. I’ll scout ahead.”

“Bo-kah!” (“Of course.”)

“Koba-kah. Ba-caw?” (“We accept. And we have your permission to slay any threats we may encounter, yes?”)

“Caw...” (“Hopefully we get to fight something strong...”)

The three coccos jumped off the Sidewinder, spread their wings, and descended to the ground in an arc.

They were like a special forces unit—or a science ninja team, perhaps.

These three distinctive birds had been unleashed upon the wild once more.

“Now... No time to waste. Let’s see what’s going on up ahead.”

Zelos pulled the throttle, spurring the Sidewinder even faster.

His destination lay in the distance—at the origin of this stampede.

He was going to find out the cause.

* * *

As the coccos landed on the ground, they narrowed their eyes in suspicion at the smell wafting from the village.

What they could smell was a certain scent that monsters hated, mixed with a tinge of copper. The smell of blood.

“Ko-keh?” (“Is that blood I smell?”)

“Bo-keh. Ka-caw.” (“Most likely. Something must be happening in here.”)

“Cah, ke-bok? Ba-caw.” (“Shall we search the village, then? Fortunately, they won’t be able to tell us apart from the humble wild cocco.”)

While normal wild coccos were pure white, Ukei, Zankei, and Senkei were now pitch-black. They were growing extra features like claws and silver feathers too, if you looked closely. But apart from that, they didn’t look all that different from any other cocco. Maybe they were just a smidge larger. In addition, they wore collars on their necks—sort of like pet dogs, except they were birds.

Put it all together, and nobody would suspect anything if they saw the three of them strolling through the village.

“Co-kah-caw.” (“Good idea. But remember, our top priority is figuring out what’s happening here.”)

“Koh, ba-ca-caw...” (“Of course. But if we come across any scoundrels...”)

“Ba-keh, ko-keh!” (“Then surely we are free to mete out justice as we see fit. No crimes will stand under our watch!”)

Finally, the three of them cawed in unison: “Caw-ke-ke!” (“No need to feel guilty about pulverizing villains!”)

They were pretty much agreeing, Well, if they’re evil, we get to kill them, right? Which was a horrible way of approaching the situation, really.

They saw evildoers as the perfect target dummies for testing out new techniques. And the more evil the evildoers, the less the coccos felt the need to hold back. They were raring to go right now.

Perhaps that was what made the coccos monsters. Your average human would probably hesitate to kill, no matter how vile their foe.

The savage birds, now unleashed, exchanged grins—or as close to grins as they could manage—before splitting up to get started on their mission.

They were off to find prey whose deaths nobody would mourn.

* * *

Josephoke and his fellow Inquisition members had snuck through the forest, staying out of sight, as part of their plan to fulfill the murderous desires bubbling over in their hearts.

Solistia’s knights had already evacuated and guided the residents of the towns and villages along the border to safety, leaving the Inquisition without anyone to have fun with.

In response, they’d pushed farther into Solistian territory and infiltrated a village by claiming they were traveling missionaries.

Then, in the middle of the night, they’d spread felscent in the surrounding area, and warding fragrance around the village itself, successfully isolating the village from its surroundings.

With their preparations complete, they’d unveiled their warped desires, and the quiet little village had turned into a hellscape.

First, they’d gone all over town, pretending to provide healing and guidance; but in reality, they’d placed vials of a highly volatile paralyzing agent around the village as they went. Later, when they broke the vials, the contents had paralyzed the villagers.

Next, they’d killed the village’s strong, healthy men on the spot—leaving just a few alive to enjoy their reactions—tied up the women and children with ropes, and revealed their horrific true natures.

Some villagers had managed to escape the village, only to be devoured by the monsters swarming outside the walls. With no apparent prospect of help coming from outside, the Inquisition had gotten to work, force-feeding livestock feed to the trapped villagers and massacring them as their whims saw fit.

Now, three days had passed.

“Ah—hello there, Sadola! Have a good time last night, did you? I couldn’t help but overhear!”

“Oh, yes... Well, he was just such a little cutie that I lost track of time. Such a good little boy, screaming for his mommy to come and save him... I couldn’t stop myself from getting carried away.”

“You’ve always had a thing for killing the little boys, haven’t you? Not that I can blame you. Hearing you at work got me going too.”

“It sounded like you were having plenty of fun yourself, weren’t you, Head Priest Josephoke? There were some delicious screams coming from your room. You’re quite the sadist yourself, aren’t you?”

“Oh, Gods, no. Why, I merely enjoy ‘delivering souls to heaven.’ You could say I’m doing them a favor.”

“You really are a piece of work, huh? Not that I have a leg to stand on.”

The two bloodstained Inquisitors exchanged a laugh.

Most of them had started down this twisted path of sadism out of idle curiosity or rough childhoods. Some had discovered the joys of murder by tormenting small animals before progressing to humans; others saw staining their hands with blood as a twisted expression of love. They didn’t even believe it made them strange. They thought everyone was like this, deep down.

They saw their comrades in the Inquisition as family, and everyone else as prey.

But there was something they’d overlooked.

They believed it was the natural order of things for the strong to do as they pleased to the weak—but they’d never considered what that would mean if they met someone stronger than them.

“GAAAAAARGH!”

“Huh? Was that Volost screaming just now?”

“Oh. Yeah, he’s pretty sloppy with his work. Maybe his toy turned the tables on him?”

“Ah... Yeah, I could see that happening. He gets tunnel vision when he gets carried away.”

Volost was a sex offender with twenty-six prior convictions.

He’d been sentenced to death for rape and murder, but he’d appealed his sentence by joining the Inquisition and agreeing to do its bidding.

Josephoke and the others had yet to notice anything amiss, but one of their comrades had just been executed. Cleaved in half.

The hunt was on.

* * *

After meting out justice on the sex offender, the cocco Zankei casually shifted the plant stalk to the other side of their beak.

Bo-caw... (So this village has fallen into the hands of lowlifes...)

Zankei had simply peered through the window to determine what was going on. Upon seeing the horrific deeds inside, though, the little bird—overcome with righteous rage—had immediately broken the window, leaped in, and killed the man.

The man’s clothes resembled what Zankei had seen on that one human female at the church, but it was clear that, unlike her, this man was no good. Hence the execution. But it seemed likely that this man had allies somewhere nearby too.

In front of Zankei were the two halves of the man’s corpse, and a terrified woman on a bed. Her limbs had all been mangled with a sharp blade, but it seemed like the perpetrator had held back just enough to keep her alive.

Still, if Zankei left the woman like this, she’d probably die from blood loss sooner or later.

Bo-keckko. (This woman is of the same species as Leader. Leaving her here to die would bring shame upon his name. I should treat her wounds.)

As Zankei spread their wings and jumped up onto the bed, the woman let out a faint yelp of terror.

Zankei ignored the yelp and used a leg to grab one of the woman’s arms.

“Caw!” (“Chi of Life!”)

Chi of Life was a sort of mysticism-based healing magic, stimulating the flow of mana around the body to enhance the target’s regenerative abilities.

The woman began healing before Zankei’s eyes, and eventually, her wounds sealed completely, as if they’d never been there in the first place.

Bok-a-ba-caw. (That should do it. Now, next on the agenda is...)

After confirming that the woman was fully healed, Zankei flew out the window and scanned their surroundings. Immediately, they saw two people dressed the same as the man they’d just cleaved in half.

The sharp scent of blood clung to them.

A fierce light filled Zankei’s eyes.

“Bo-kah!” (“JUSTICE!”)

Zankei’s silver feathers gleamed as the cocco decapitated the two humans without hesitation. A geyser of blood shot out from each of their necks.

Zankei simply disappeared; there was no need to confirm the kills. It was already time to move on to their next quarry...

The woman on the bed, breathing a deep sigh of relief at her rescue, saw the image of the gods in the cocco that had saved her. She shed tears of joy as she offered up a prayer. O gods, thank you...

It wasn’t long until the death rattles of more evildoers filled the air.

* * *

A middle-aged man was drunk with pleasure in someone else’s house.

A bunch of underage girls were next to him, naked, their hands tied up.

Another—also underage—was being forced to entertain the man. She no longer had the strength left to resist, and the man was playing with her body as he pleased.

“Hee! Y-You’re all my— My dolls! All mine! A-A-And I’m your master. A-heh!”

The man’s name was Borby Bese. He had seven prior convictions, most of them for kidnapping, assaulting, raping, and killing little girls.

He was a twisted pedophile, completely obsessed with children.

And he didn’t even notice as a little bird, an avian god of death, used the claws on the end of its wings to quietly lift up a window, sneak into the room, and approach him from behind.

The bird looked like a wild cocco, apart from its jet-black feathers and intimidating aura.

And this savage hit man of a bird wasted no time getting to work.

“Caaaw!” (“DIE!”)

After smiting the man for his sins, Ukei untied the girls, then set off in search of more prey.

The cocco struck a powerful image, like a lone swordsman walking through a field.

* * *

Inquisitor Jabb Arlga was a madman.

His wife had run away from him due to his incredible obsession with her—and he’d spent every waking moment afterward tracking her down, finding her, and killing her. He’d then spent the next three years living with her decomposing corpse. And all the while, he’d eaten her rotting flesh, bit by bit.

His mind was no longer even human at this point.

Now, he constantly obsessed over women resembling his late wife and captured them to make them his own.

“Oh, Jesseka... Words can’t express how happy I am. There are three of you now! I... I feel so loved! This is bliss!”

In the room with Jabb were the house’s residents, who looked like a mother and her two daughters, all Jabb’s captives.

They all had the misfortune of resembling the wife that Jabb had killed.

Anything they said to Jabb went in one ear and out the other. He was incapable of understanding anything other than himself. His grasp on reality was fleeting.

If these women resisted, he’d beat them; if they were obedient, he’d whisper sweet nothings in their ears. He was convinced that each of the three was his dead wife.

But now, it was time for Jabb to join his wife in the afterlife.

A dark shadow appeared on a ceiling beam above his head.

This “shadow” was a jet-black cocco, Senkei, hanging upside down.

Senkei’s special evolution meant that they now had both feathers and fur.

Silently, Senkei channeled mana into a single strand of fur, and the strand lengthened and grew in the blink of an eye.

Then Senkei wrapped the strand of fur around Jabb’s neck, yanked him upward, and used the beam to hang him.

“Kakh!”

Shocked by the sudden pain, Jabb scratched viciously at the rope around his neck, trying to rip it with his fingernails as he suffocated.

But the material was as hard as steel. He had no hope of breaking free.

With a flap of their wings, Senkei leaped down onto the bed and watched the hanging criminal, the two of them connected by nothing but a single cord of fur.

Finally, the cocco used one of the claws on its wing to pluck the strand like an instrument’s string.

“Bok.” (“Die, you knave.”)

TWINGGG!

With a clear, melodic tone, the criminal fell into darkness. Never again would he open his eyes.

Knowing there was no need to confirm the kill, Senkei detached the strand of fur from their body and disappeared back into the shadows.

Left in the room were a stunned mother and her daughters, along with the corpse of a man lying on the floor.

* * *

Screams erupted all around the village.

At first, the Inquisitors had assumed these yells were just the sounds of their fellow members doing some really impressive torture on the villagers. But upon venturing outside, they saw the gruesome bodies of their own brethren.

Finally, Josephoke realized that enemies had made their way into the village.

But the Inquisition couldn’t run. The fields just outside the village were swarming with monsters; there was nowhere to run. And now, the villagers were beginning to approach with hoes and axes, eager for vengeance.

In a complete one-eighty, the Inquisitors had gone from hunters to hunted.

“Shit. Why is this happening? Everything was going so well!”

“B-Boss... What do we do? We can’t run!”

“Quiet! Let me think!”

While most members of the Inquisition were murderers, they were little better in a fight than the average civilian.

Maybe they could use a little holy magic, but that wouldn’t be nearly enough to break them out of this situation.

It looked like half of their companions had already been killed, and the slain Inquisitors’ captives were now free. The exterior of the village, meanwhile, was right in the middle of the stampede.

The Inquisitors only had three options: die to the monsters, die to the villagers, or die to the mysterious invaders who’d killed their allies.

They were terrified of all three.

“Found ’em! They’re over here!”

“I’ll fucking kill them for what they did to my daughter!”

“My poor little brother... How dare you, you sick bastards!”

“It’s okay, Mom. I’m going to avenge you now...”

“My... My grandpa didn’t have long left to live, but...why’d he have to die in such a terrible...”

The surviving villagers were closing in on the Inquisitors, clearly planning to kill them.

The Inquisition hadn’t had a chance to torture for a while, so they’d left plenty of villagers alive, hoping they’d have enough victims to last them a long time. Now, though, that had come back to bite them.

The Inquisitors were outnumbered.

Suddenly, a body blasted through the wall of a nearby house and landed at Josephoke’s feet.

“GWAGH!”

“Wh-What’s happening?!” Josephoke gasped, looking down at the swollen, grotesque body of the Inquisitor that had been launched from the house.

Then, through the new hole in the wall, a pitch-black cocco—just a little larger than your average wild cocco—emerged. Unlike regular coccos, this one had claws at the end of its wings.

Claws that were dripping with blood.

Upon seeing Josephoke, the cocco—this one was Ukei—pointed a wing toward the man and made a gesture with a claw. The gesture’s meaning was clear: Come at me.

“A... A wild cocco?! Don’t tell me that puny little monster’s the one behind all this?!”

As Josephoke sighed, another Inquisitor ran screaming from another direction. “H-Help me!”

Both groups swiveled to look.

The next moment, a silver flash shot past the man. A moment later, his upper body slid off his lower body, and both parts fell to the ground, completely separated.

There was no doubting it now: These coccos were the ones who’d been killing the Inquisitors. And there was something strange about them. This one had a layer of shining silver feathers on its wings, which it seemed able to use as a sword.

The cocco casually flicked its wings, shaking off the blood, and stared down Josephoke. It chewed on a blade of grass in its beak as it walked in circles around him, as if sizing him up.

Senkei’s sharp glare shot right through Josephoke and the other Inquisitors. They could tell now: This was no average cocco.

“Wh-What the fuck are these things?”

“B-Boss... B-Behind you. There’s one behind you...”

“Behind me? No—?!”

As Josephoke spun around, he saw a third cocco behind him. At a quick glance, this one had nothing special about it, unlike the other two.

Clearly, though, this one was especially stealthy. Josephoke hadn’t even noticed it standing right behind him.

“Bok-bok...” (“These cretins are the lowest of the low...”)

“Bok, bo-kaw.” (“Yes. Complete scum. I find it hard to believe they’re even the same species as Leader.”)

“Ko-ke-kaboh, bok-baw.” (“Their shared humanity is a stain upon our Leader. I say we eliminate them without further delay. Are we agreed?”)

“Baw!” (“Agreed!”)

The coccos were directing a wave of intense killing intent at Josephoke and the others.

The Inquisitors were too terrified to even move.

After all, while wild coccos were fast, they were on the weaker side, as far as monsters went. They were not the kind of monsters that could sneak around like spies, cleave someone in half, or pummel foes as if their claws were iron fists.

But there was an exception to every rule.

What these three coccos had in common was that they showed respect to the strong, and they would never see eye to eye with louts who took innocent lives.

Even the natural world, with its never-ending struggle for existence, had rules of a sort.

Most monsters were driven by survival instincts; the strong never hesitated to devour the weak for sustenance. It was simply built into them.

But precisely because they knew how harsh the world could be, Ukei, Zankei, and Senkei utterly despised anyone who killed just for fun. Sure, some animals in nature would capture weaklings and bring them back alive, but they did that to teach their offspring how to hunt. This was different.

The coccos could never allow these twisted, sadistic killers to go on living. This slaughter didn’t put any food in any mouths.

The three birds had staunch beliefs about power and how it should be wielded.

“Boka-ba-caw!” (“We are the disciples of the ultimate martial artist!”)

“Ca-cah, ca-caw!” (“We are the arrows of justice! The ruin of fools who dare to desecrate the ways of nature!”)

“Bo-bok, abok-a-baw!” (“We are the reckoners! The death of those arrogant cretins who see no wrong in their sins!”)

Then the three cawed together: “Ba-baaak!” (“The time has come to pay for your crimes, foul reprobates! Tremble in fear; your end is upon you! TRANSFORM!”)

A great torrent of mana swelled, and the coccos’ bodies began to evolve.

Their bodies grew to three meters long, snake tails sprouted from their tail feathers, and each began emitting a unique, radiant aura of mana.

“GRAAAH!” (“SHINING COCKATRICE MODE!”)

“GHOAAAH!” (“RISING COCKATRICE MODE!”)

“GA-GYAAR!” (“DARK COCKATRICE MODE!”)

These monsters were on par with the terrors of the Far-Flung Green Depths.

Zankei had turned into a shining gold cockatrice, ringed by powerful plasma. Ukei was now a dark red cockatrice, wreathed in crimson flames. Meanwhile, Senkei’s color had somehow turned darker than the jet-black it had already been. The three of them seemed furious too.

“NU-GWAAAH!” (“We bring your demise!”)

The Inquisition had incurred the wrath of the three coccos who lived by the survival of the fittest.

And now, it was time for the Inquisitors to face their punishment: annihilation.

The humans who’d witnessed the birds’ transformations were split into two camps. First, the Inquisitors, who were petrified by the coccos’ very presence:

“Th-They... They transformed? What even are these things?!”

“C-Cockatrices? But... They have so much mana...”

“Th-These monstrosities are... They’re about to... No! Someone! Anyone! Help! Help us!”

And then the villagers, who were beginning to form a new religion:

“Ah... How divine. These must be servants of some god!”

“We’ve... We’ve been saved by a god! I don’t know which, but it’s not the Four... I’m never believing in the Four again!”

“We’re witnessing the birth of a legend. Generations to come will hear tales of three enormous birds, passing judgment on the wicked...”

“These divine beasts have saved us all!”

Ukei, Zankei, and Senkei began their massacre of the Inquisitors. There was no stopping their righteous storm now. They gravely wounded Josephoke and the other Inquisitors, then the village’s guards took the battered priests away.

Before long, most likely, they’d be convicted for their crimes and dragged to the gallows as they begged for their lives, regretting what they’d done. Then, the curtains would fall on their miserable lives.

The coccos, meanwhile, wasted no time: Now that the Inquisitors were dealt with, they sprang off into the nearby forest teeming with monsters. Now that they’d gotten started, they could no longer hold back their urge to fight.

And so, the little village was saved. It had been through tragedy, and lives had been lost, but its tale would go on.

And its savior was not some god, but a trio of eccentric birds.

* * *

Sharanla was looking for valuables to steal when she spotted Ukei. She immediately hid.

“You have got to be kidding me! If Satoshi had come himself, I could’ve used it to my advantage, but it’s that damn bird again...”

She’d fought this cocco before and figured its presence meant Zelos was nearby.

Soon, she noticed the other two coccos as well. She hurriedly used Shadow Dive, sinking deeper into the shadows until the danger passed.

Only after the Inquisitors had been thoroughly punished for their deeds did Sharanla get her chance to move.

I’ll stay hidden for a while longer. Then I’ll make a run for it when I get the chance. Doesn’t look like Satoshi’s coming here anyway.

Sharanla was desperate to find her younger brother and get his help to undo the effects of the youth restoration potion.

Even if no magic potion could undo its effects, she’d never believe it if you told her. She was blind to anything she didn’t want to see—which was probably why she’d gotten along so well with the Inquisition and its band of sadistic murderers. She wasn’t twisted exactly like them, but they were all criminals cut from the same cloth.

I swear, the nerve of that man! Even mana potions are stupidly expensive; how does he expect me to find a cure myself? And yet, not only does he abandon his sister, but he tries to kill her?! I’ll make you regret it, you little prick!

Sharanla resented Zelos more with every passing day.

She had a real persecution complex. She was utterly, thoroughly incapable of seeing herself as in the wrong. Funnily enough, people like her always happened to have the worst luck.

Knowing her life was at risk if she was discovered, she stayed hidden a while longer.

Chapter 15: The Old Guy Reunites with Ado

As was sometimes said, traveling is all about who you’re with. And Ado’s traveling party was about to see its relationships tested.

After howling along the road for a while in their kei car, the party had encountered a big problem.

“Hey, Ado,” Shakti said. “We should have been at Santor by now, but I don’t see a big, fortified city anywhere out here.”

“Yeah—right?” Lisa said. “We’ve been driving for, like, a whole four days now... Are you sure you went the right way?”

Ado was silent.

And hopelessly lost.

A highway was an aorta that connected cities to one another, allowing trade to flow. Smaller arterial roads then branched off each highway—including the one Ado’s party had taken—linking various territories into one system. That complexity meant that this highway was by no means a single, straight road; the trio had passed a number of intersections already, and Ado had taken a wrong turn at some point.

The only problem was that they had no idea where they’d gone wrong—or where they were now. They were well and truly lost.

“Huh. That’s weird...” Ado mumbled. “I’m sure I was following the map, so yeah, why haven’t we gotten to Santor? Pretty sure we were going in the right direction too, but for some reason the road just keeps going northwest...”

“Are you sure that’s the right map?” Shakti asked. “You said the intelligence agency put it together, but it looks kinda old...”

“Yeah, it does,” Lisa agreed. “Give me that, Ado. Let me have a look.”

“Uh, sure. Here you go.”

Lisa took the map from Ado and promptly fell speechless when she got her first proper look at it.

Sure, it was technically a map, but it was clearly nowhere near accurate. It looked more like a kid’s drawing.

The orientation was right, at least, but none of the details or measurements were accurate; everything was haphazard, from the distances to the paths that roads took.

This was, after all, a world where civilization had fallen once before. Society had seen a steep decline and was now in its equivalent of the Middle Ages. Apparently, that meant that surveying technologies and knowledge had gone back to being primitive too.

It wasn’t like the map from a certain famous merchant and his entourage, who’d walked around Japan surveying the country. Instead, it resembled the rudimentary sketches of early navigators and maritime explorers, where the continents were the wrong size and the islands were in the wrong spots.

On Earth, at least, the three of them would’ve been able to figure out their bearings via the North Star—but unfortunately for them, this wasn’t Earth. There was probably a star here that could be used for the same thing, but they had no idea which it was.

Or maybe there was no such star here in the first place.

“Ado...” Shakti sighed. “Were you seriously trusting this map to get us there? Look at it! It’s terrible!”

“Yeah. I’m amazed you thought it’d be a good idea to follow this thing on a trip in a foreign country,” Lisa said. “Anyone would get lost if they’re relying on this.”

“Oh. Yeah, I’d been thinking that. Glad I’m not the only one,” Ado said sheepishly.

The women’s puzzled stares turned into cold glares.

Ado had been just as skeptical when he’d first received the map. Not wanting to worry them, he’d decided to stay silent about it and do his best to get them there anyway.

He really should’ve consulted with Shakti and Lisa, but instead, he’d tried to “be considerate” for them, and it had backfired majestically. At this point, anything he said would just sound like an excuse.

He was an awkward man.

“Come on, Ado!” Shakti said. “How could you ever have thought this map could get us there?! Why didn’t you tell us it was this bad?!”

“Oh, I, uh... I just figured it’d probably be fine, I guess...”

“And how did that go for you, huh?! When I asked you earlier whether you were sure we were going the right way, you joked that I should ‘try asking the horses.’ You were avoiding the question because you were already completely lost, weren’t you?!”

“Ah! So you’ve seen through my plans, Sherlock! You really do have a sharp mind... I, Moriarty, could ask for no better adversary!”

“Stop dodging the question already!” the others shouted. “Just apologize!”

“R-Right. Sorry...”

Even a fool could reflect on his actions.

But Ado reflecting now wouldn’t change the fact that they were lost—nor that the other two now thought a little less of him.

Lisa and Shakti had yet to figure it out, but Ado was horrible with directions.

He was so bad that, if not for his childhood friend Yuika, he would’ve constantly gotten lost every time he left his hometown. Once, on an elementary school trip to Mount Bandai, he’d gotten lost at the foot of the mountain before his class had even started climbing.

When he’d left Isalas before—on his party’s previous trip to the Magic Kingdom of Solistia, for example, or to the land of the beastfolk—they’d always had a guide like Zaza with the group.

Then, after they’d tested certain items on one of those trips, they’d gotten a ride to the Magic Academy of Istol from a passing merchant carriage. If Ado had been alone, he would have gotten lost.

His luck was good, if nothing else.

“How did we never notice this until now?” Lisa pondered.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Shakti said. “I never knew Ado had such a shortcoming...”

And it was an especially dangerous shortcoming for someone who’d been whisked off to a whole other world.

It was frankly surprising that it hadn’t gotten him killed yet. He really should have been thanking the people around him.

“Okay, sure, I’m bad with directions,” Ado said. “I’ll admit that. But that’s not our only problem right now, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at this.”

As Lisa and Shakti looked out the window, they saw an obelisk by the side of the road. The name of the territory’s ruler and a location number were carved into the stone, making it a sort of milestone. When signs like this were near people’s dwellings, they’d also have the name of the nearest town or village carved into them.

“The thing is, uh... The last few signs have all had the same town name, but we’ve kept going straight and still haven’t seen the town,” Ado said.

“So... You’re saying the signs are wrong?” Shakti asked. “Like, they’re old, outdated ones that no one’s bothered taking down?”

“Probably, yeah. The last few said Santor, but now this one says Santor Vesta. What happened to Santor itself?!”

The nobles in charge of the local territory were responsible for maintaining these obelisks, but sending stonemasons to recarve them cost money. As a result, some of the older ones hadn’t been updated for over a century, and people visiting Solistia for the first time were likely to get lost. It was an incredibly poor welcome.

Relying on the map, meanwhile, was out of the question. Naturally, nations were hesitant to publish accurate maps of their land to other nations. If international relations took a turn for the worse, a nation’s enemies could use those maps to mount an invasion. Countries were often left to their own devices when drawing maps of other countries, which they had to base largely on conjecture.

“Seriously, Ado...” Lisa sighed. “Tell us that kind of thing earlier, okay?!”

“Sorry...”

“Stop trying to look reliable when you don’t know something. Just ask,” Shakti chided. “I’m amazed your wife put up with you all this time. I would’ve thought anyone would snap, dealing with the way you act.”

“Right? You really are useless without your wife around, aren’t you, Ado?” Lisa agreed.

“Look, I know I’m useless, but you don’t have to be so mean about it!” Ado cried. “But, well, yeah; she’s like the perfect kindergarten teacher. Whenever we went outside my hometown on a date, she’d always lead me by the hand so I didn’t get lost...”

“So you’re comparing yourself to a kindergartener?!” Lisa and Shakti shouted. “You’re seriously admitting you’re that incapable?!”

To an outsider, they’d probably just looked like a loving couple holding hands. But in reality, Ado’s wife had been leading her directionally challenged husband by the hand so he wouldn’t get lost like a little kid.

It really was a mystery that Ado’s sense of direction hadn’t gotten him in trouble earlier.

“Hmm... Anyway, this is strange,” Ado said.

“You can’t just play off your incompetence by trying to sound cool again, okay, Ado?” Lisa said.

“Such a waste, isn’t he? He’s got the looks, but as soon as he opens his mouth...” Shakti sighed. “I never imagined he was this lame, though.”

“Look, enough already!” Ado said. “I’m being serious here. Something’s weird. I can see a whole bunch of little monsters around the forest. I wonder if something bad’s going down around here?”

As Lisa and Shakti peered through the kei car’s window, they noticed Ado was right: there were a lot of small monsters in the distance, milling about near a forest.

The monsters varied, from little critters such as horned rabbits to goblins and orcs, and more and more became visible the farther they drove. Eventually, enough surrounded them that Ado just barely dodged running over one with the car.

“Is this one of those cliché things where it’s, like, a sign a stampede’s about to happen?” Ado mused.

“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Shakti said.

“Yeah. Me too...” Lisa agreed. “It feels like we’re about to get caught in some kind of trouble again. We should probably turn back, right?”

Ado would have loved to agree with Lisa’s suggestion, but reality wasn’t so forgiving.

“Well, bad news,” he said. “The mana tank’s running on fumes. We’ll have to stop and rest somewhere to refill it.”

“So... You’re saying we can’t turn back?” Shakti asked. “Are you sure you can’t do anything about it, Ado?”

“Nope. Nothing,” he said. “Last time I filled the tank was five hours ago, and charging a spare tank will take time. Sorry, but Lisa’s plan’s a no-go.”

“So, what, we just keep going as far as we can?” Lisa asked. “I mean, we can’t set up camp here. There are monsters all over the place.”

Ado’s kei car used a mana-powered motor, just like a certain old guy’s motorbike.

Or rather, Ado’s design used two powerful motors—one above each of the car’s rear wheels. He kept the mana tank under the hood. For the gearbox, he’d repurposed a device he’d made with Zelos back in Swords & Sorceries and had used discs and pads for the braking mechanism.

The harder he stepped on the pedal, the more mana would flow from the tank, allowing him to adjust the car’s speed. It was a simple design.

It didn’t have luxuries like air conditioning, though.

“I’ve got no idea how long this tank of mana’ll last, so I guess we just drive as far as we can, then go the rest of the way on foot,” Ado said.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Shakti said. “Please tell me that’s just a bad joke.”

“We can’t be too fussy, Shakti,” Lisa said. “Ado wouldn’t lie at a time like this. Would he?”

Shakti sighed. “I wish he’d exercised that thoughtfulness before we got lost...”

Ado just sat in silence as Shakti continued to diss him. He did kind of deserve it, though.

Their decision made, they took the kei car as far as it could go. They passed an abandoned town and drove to the top of a hill before the motors finally stalled.

Reluctantly, the party disembarked. Ado put it away in his inventory, and the three of them started walking in a hurry.

As they crested the hill, they spotted the town’s villagers, who were being attacked by monsters.

“Shit... This is bad!” Ado said.

“We have to help them!” Lisa cried.

“I’d like to,” Shakti said, “but look at how many monsters there are. Besides, it seems like the townspeople have some knights guarding them already.”

“W-Wait. Hang on...” Ado murmured, holding the other two back.

At first glance, it had looked like the people below were fighting for their lives. But on a closer look, the knights seemed to be having an easy time in this fight.

The knights were working together with mercenaries, and the monsters—and only the monsters—were dying one after another. The knights all had an unsettling glint in their eyes too. It was kind of creepy.

“Heee ha ha ha! Keep ’em comin’! Get over ’ere and give us our experience, ya monster bastards!”

“I need more... This ain’t enough to level up...”

“Done already? Where are yer balls, ya wimps?! ‘Monsters,’ my ass—yer too weak to be called that! Yer just shitty little rodents!”

“Hee hee... Another level-up! C’mon, you lot, gimme another! At least try to make it interesting!”

But even if these knights were crazy adrenaline junkies, they weren’t forgetting their duty to protect the civilians.

In a sense, they were the model knights.

“Huh... So these are knights,” one mercenary mumbled. “Glad they’re on our side.”

“C’mon, guys,” another said. “We can’t let ’em beat us. Get it together!”

The rest of the mercenaries roared as they rushed forward, and the battlefield grew even more chaotic. It looked like the old idiom was correct: Might makes right. These mercenaries all longed to be as strong as the knights.

The mercenaries had forgotten about loot or harvesting materials; they were entirely focused on slaughtering monsters. And as they fought, they too gained level after level.

This cycle of motivation continued too: Just as the knights inspired the mercenaries to help protect the civilians, everyone fighting for them pushed the civilians to help out as best they could. They started providing backup to the fighters of their own volition, passing them things like potions. And in turn, the knights and mercenaries grew more and more heartened.

These were, after all, Aleph’s knights, who’d grown far stronger from their mission to the Far-Flung Green Depths. Having gone through that baptism by fire, they turned into berserkers whenever they fought monsters nowadays.

It was kill or be killed in fights like that, and they knew it. And while Ado wasn’t yet aware, a major factor behind the knights’ transformation had been his respected mentor.

“Th-This is terrifying,” the three of them said as they watched. “They’re crazy.”

Honestly, they didn’t want to get any closer.

“What do we do, Ado?” Lisa asked.

“Personally, I’d rather keep my distance,” Shakti said. “I feel like those guys could get me pregnant if I let my guard down—and I don’t mean that in some ‘oh, my ovaries!’ way.”

“Nah... Look,” Ado said. “They are protecting the people. They’re doing what they’re supposed to. And if we remain here, we’ll stay alone and lost, you know?”

“And whose fault do you think that is?” Shakti and Lisa snarked.

“Sorry...”

They still hadn’t forgiven Ado for getting them lost.

After all, if not for his terrible navigation, they wouldn’t have been caught in this situation in the first place.

“Anyway, let’s go help them out,” Ado said. “I see refugees, so they’re probably heading to the closest safe city.”

Shakti sighed. “Fine. I guess we don’t have a choice...”

“Mmm... I don’t wanna! Those guys scare me...” Lisa moaned.

And so, Ado’s group headed down to help the guards.

With the trio’s aid, the evacuation mission was a success, and three hours later, everyone made it to the fortified city of Slaiste.

Incidentally, once they all got talking, the knights who’d looked like such berserkers in battle turned out to be surprisingly nice people.

* * *

“We owe you for your help,” a knight said to Ado, bowing his head. “Allow us to thank you again.”

“Ah, no... Don’t worry about it,” Ado replied. “Anyone else would’ve done the same.”

Ado had a lot of thoughts about all this, but he did his best to twist his face into a customer service smile.

He was frankly a little scared of these knights. The fact that they were being so polite now didn’t help.

“We have to report back to the high captain in a moment; we’ll make sure to tell him about you three as well. I’m glad to see some mages have their heads screwed on straight.”

“Really, it’s fine. We’re lucky we ran into you too. We were in a bit of a pickle. Monsters everywhere and all that.”

“Oh. Is that so? Still, whatever the circumstances, you jumped in to save people, so I think it’s only right that we arrange some kind of reward for you.”

“No, we don’t need anything like that. We’re just happy you showed us the way to this city. Honestly, we... We didn’t do anything special.”

“So humble! I swear, if only this country’s mages were as upstanding as the three of you... Ah. My apologies. I shouldn’t vent to our saviors.”

“It, uh... It sounds like you’ve got your own problems to deal with, huh? Anyway, my party has to find an inn to sleep in, so I’ll take my leave now, if that’s okay. I don’t want to leave my two female companions waiting too long.”

“Oh, of course. Sorry for taking up your time. Can’t make women sleep outside for the night, can we? Well, if you need anything, feel free to come to our headquarters. Good night.”

The knight gave a polite smile and walked off.

Ado had somehow gotten through that situation and parted ways with the knights, but it had left him mentally exhausted. The jarring difference between the knights’ earlier behavior and their current demeanor had given him whiplash. Tired and hunched over, he trudged back to where Lisa and Shakti waited.

Being the group leader was rough at times like this.

“Thanks,” Shakti said to Ado as he returned. “I can tell you’re exhausted. I get how you feel, but...it’s probably best not to think about it too much, okay?”

“Yeah,” Lisa agreed. “I still think there’s something wrong with those knights, but at least we shouldn’t have to deal with them again.”

“I sure hope not,” Ado said. “They scared the shit out of me, honestly. I felt like I was locked in a cage with a starving lion.”

It was a rude way of putting it, but Ado’s fear was understandable.

At the same time, at least they’d gotten information. Apparently, monsters had started multiplying in this region about half a month ago. In response, the local lord, deciding the situation was too dangerous, had ordered all civilians in threatened areas to evacuate.

This whole situation had arisen right when the territory was implementing mass evacuation drills as part of recent military reforms, so fortunately there had already been plans in place—plans that had allowed the government to minimize civilian casualties.

Those plans had originally been made for war, but they’d still worked well for escaping the stampede.

And as a result, surprisingly few people had died.

“It’s kinda weird being in a world where levels decide everything, isn’t it?” Ado said.

“It is,” Shakti agreed. “People just seem to ignore the laws of physics when you least expect it... I consider myself a pretty common-sense person, yet I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

“Uh, by ‘ignoring the laws of physics’... Do you mean something like that?” Lisa asked, pointing up at the sky.

Looking up, the other two saw something absurd flying through the sky.

“That’s a motorbike. A flying motorbike...” Shakti murmured, flabbergasted.

“That’s... That’s an air rider, isn’t it?! I didn’t even know this world had those! This is amazing!”

“You sound happy, huh, Ado? What, do you want one?” Lisa asked.

“Hell yeah I do! I’d sell my soul to the devil to get my hands on one of those!”

Ado was a collector through and through, and his longing gaze was just about boring holes into the airborne vehicle.

Either that, or it was just the look of an excited boy staring at a cool toy.

Of course, he had no idea right now that the air rider’s operator was an acquaintance of his—someone far more unusual than Ado himself.

The time was approaching for a meeting—a reunion, technically—between Sage and Great Sage.

* * *

Zelos flew over the fortified city of Slaiste, part of the borderlands controlled by Marquess Ribalt, with a full tank of mana. He’d swapped in a fresh one earlier.

A little after he passed the city, he saw a terrible scene below: monsters running around frantically, clearly fleeing from something.

The monsters didn’t have a leader to keep them in line either. The stronger members of the swarm—whipped into a panic—started fighting each other, creating further chaos.

What the hell is happening here? There shouldn’t be this many of them. Should I blow them up?

Zelos was pretty confident he could deal with the horde by casting a wide-area annihilation spell. If he did, though, he would also likely cause significant collateral damage. It wasn’t the kind of thing he could fire off willy-nilly.

“This is insane... I don’t even want to think what’d happen if all these monsters attacked Slaiste.”

Zelos had already seen parts of the stampede swarming around a settlement, completely isolating it from the rest of the territory, on his way to the borderlands.

He’d left Ukei, Zankei, and Senkei to deal with that, though he had no way of knowing what had transpired since.

I guess I should at least investigate what’s happening. Then I can probably just report it to the mercenaries’ guild. Damn, this is a mess...

Things were already looking pretty grim. It wasn’t going to be an easy fix.

What concerned Zelos most, though, was the wave of mana tingling against his skin. That made him think a calamity-tier monster was approaching. He’d felt this sensation plenty of times in Swords & Sorceries, after all.

After continuing for a while, he came across a plain. He figured he’d just crossed the border.

However, most of the terrain seemed black.

No—something black was covering the plain.

“Oh... Oh, Jesus. What the...”

That sea of darkness was a swarm of cockroaches.

The countless insects had been devouring the corpses of their brethren that had starved to death. So while the swarm had fewer monsters in it now, those that remained were growing stronger. And at the back was a particularly crazy monster.

“A... A great givleon?! I’d hoped I’d never have to see one of these things again...”

Seeing this thing gave Zelos PTSD. Plus, there was something strange about this particular great givleon.

Its black carapace was slowly turning white in spots. At the same time, the creature was gathering up a colossal amount of mana. Zelos recognized the signs of its transformation.

No... Don’t tell me it’s trying to evolve into a demon lord?!

A powerful monster with vast enough mana could evolve into something even stronger: a “demon lord.”

And if the givleon did reach that point, controlling it would become next to impossible.

Shit... I do not want one of those things around! I have to warn everyone, fast, or they’re screwed!

After one more look at the scene below him, Zelos did an about-face and sped off the way he’d come.

But at that same moment, a group of cockroaches leaped up at Zelos from the ground.

“Gwah?!”

These things could fly too. They weren’t limited to prey on the ground.

Zelos immediately turned his air rider to full throttle, redlining the aerothrusters at the bottom of the bike. As he did, he fired off attack magic without missing a beat.

“Purgatory’s Inferno Vortex!”

His wide-area annihilation spell created an enormous firestorm, but it was far more destructive than any natural phenomenon.

There was the saying, “like moths to a flame”—except these were cockroaches, not moths, and they were flying into a blistering hot flame.

It really was like a scene straight out of hell.

Zelos’s sheer hatred of cockroaches had made him use an extrapotent spell. It was overkill, sure, but he did not want these things eating him.

Even then, these dying cockroaches—driven by their starvation—used the last of their strength to inch closer and closer, desperate to devour Zelos even in their final moments. It was a total nightmare.

“OH NO!” he shouted in English, forgetting his Japanese in that moment of abject terror.

Screaming, he propelled the Sidewinder through the air as fast as possible, desperate to get away from this battlefield. He couldn’t stand being here another second.

In a way, this was the most horrifying foe he’d faced yet.

In his panicked retreat to Slaiste, he failed to notice his Sidewinder’s rapidly depleting mana tank. He was too rattled to pay attention to his fuel cage or positioning. Eventually, right as he spotted a sign for the Slaiste mercenaries’ guild below, the Sidewinder began to drop out of the sky.

The bike came plummeting down to the ground.

It took everything Zelos had to slow his descent.

He’d been just a moment away from face-planting the ground at high speed.

He’d screwed up. Again.

* * *

Ado, Lisa, and Shakti had made their way to the local mercenaries’ guild.

The mercenaries’ guilds dotted across the world provided a wide range of services for mercenaries—such as a concierge who directed clients to cheap accommodations.

Sellswords often lived in poverty unless they had particularly high ranks.

Many jobs required them to travel from town to town, and things like carriage expenses for transport meant being a mercenary came with some hefty costs. Naturally, they had to be thrifty.

More capable mercenaries could find escort jobs and the like so they wouldn’t have to pay for their own carriages, but only those with strong track records could land those sorts of jobs.

In an attempt to avoid unrest, the mercenaries’ guild had started up this inn recommendation service to save its members some money. The service had been an unexpected hit too, with added benefits like pulling struggling inns out of potential bankruptcy.

Plus, while the service had been made for mercenaries, it wasn’t restricted to them, so travelers and merchants made use of it too.

“Everywhere’s packed right now,” a guild receptionist told the group, “so I’d recommend The Breezy Lodge in the western district. They should still have some rooms open unless an influx of new customers has arrived last-minute.”

“The western district, huh?” Ado mused. “According to that map I saw earlier, that’s pretty far away.”

“It is, yes. But every inn around this area’s full, since the city’s accommodating the refugees from nearby villages. Not to mention the knights here to help deal with the monsters. For the time being, there won’t be many inns with vacancies.”

“Mmm... All right, fine. I guess we should get a room there while we still can. Can we have a map to find this place?”

The receptionist provided Ado’s group with a map, and the party prepared to depart.

The guild was packed full of mercenaries and knights.

During emergencies such as the stampede, the mercenaries’ guild and the Order of Knights worked together. It was always hard to predict whether the Order of Mages would join too—and that unreliability had seen public opinion of mages fall over time.

Perhaps that was in the past, though. Recently, the king had made an idle complaint that had scared the court mages—the cornerstone of the Order—into assigning mages to every fortified city.

It was, though indirect, an achievement of the next generation: Zweit and his companions.

Similarly, the decision to use mercenaries’ guild locations as temporary headquarters for emergencies had come from widespread sentiment that it was a hassle to make everyone go back and forth between the consulate to wherever else in the middle of an emergency.

“Uh... Maybe we’ve gotten ourselves into a bit of a tough spot, huh?” Ado asked his party members.

“What do you mean, ‘maybe’?! Of course we have! You’re too laid-back about all this, Ado!” Lisa retorted.

“I guess you should expect nothing less from a top-rank player,” Shakti said. “All this chaos going on, and he’s cool as a cucumber...”

Lisa and Shakti were both exasperated with Ado.

In Ado’s mind, the solution was simple: Blow up all the monsters with a huge spell or something. He didn’t see what all the fuss was about. He’d cleared plenty of raids before, and his fellow raiders had always been reassured to have him by their side.

That was back in the game, though. This was reality. And if he made a mistake here, his companions could die.

It wasn’t the time for carelessness.

As Ado’s party was about to leave the guild, a nearby conversation caught their attention.

A knight in full plate armor, his subordinates behind him, was talking to someone who seemed to be a higher-up from the guild.

“Huh. That guy looks pretty important. Probably a commander or something,” Ado said.

“Yeah, and he’s hot!” Lisa exclaimed. “Bet he’s taken, though...”

“Lisa...” Shakti sighed. “Stop staring. It’s rude.”

Desperate for every bit of intel he could get his hands on right now, Ado subtly sidled closer to the discussion.

Fortunately for him, there was a bulletin board full of job requests near the discussion, so he could eavesdrop while pretending to be a mercenary perusing jobs. If anyone got suspicious, he had an excuse.

“So, Sir Aleph,” the guild representative said, “how did things look outside the city?”

“It definitely seems like a stampede,” the man—Aleph—replied. “But we haven’t determined a cause yet. And I’m getting a bad feeling...”

“Ah—your intuition, then? As a rule of thumb, you should never write off your instincts. It means your experience is trying to tell you something.”

“I feel— It’s almost like a tingling sensation on my skin. Somehow, it makes me think some big, powerful monster is getting closer.”

“Just what I’d expect of Knight Marshal Virton’s favorite pupil. I hear you’re the strongest knight in the kingdom!”

“No, no; I still have a long way to go. The actual strongest don’t go around flaunting it, so you may not notice. But they’ve got high standards—both for themselves and for the people around them.”

Ado could tell this situation was, indeed, a big hassle.

And he realized, all too late, that there was no getting out of it now.

“So do we just have to stay holed up in here and wait it out?” the man from the guild asked.

“Most likely, yes,” Aleph replied. “These monsters make for a tough fight, even for my forces. I’d like to request the cooperation of mercenaries for defense.”

“I suppose we have no other choice; this is an emergency. We should be able to prepare some ballistae and other ranged weapons, but we’re short on mages, unfortunately.”

“Yes, I know how you feel. My knights can use magic, but we’re novices at it. Maybe we could use it to keep a human opponent at bay, but I can’t see it being much use against a horde of charging monsters.”

It sounded like the city of Slaiste was about to get stuck in a siege.

Ado, for his part, didn’t want to stand out by fighting. But he was already caught up in it now; he’d have no choice.

The city’s walls were one thing, but the gates were made of wood. They’d break much more easily than the walls. Against a swarm of monsters like this, they might as well not even exist.

Well, damn... Looks like there’s gonna be an assault here, huh? The monsters are nothing special alone, but when there are this many...

Ado would have no problem blowing up small fry like this, but he’d only be able to blast the swarm with magic so many times before he ran out of mana. And exhausting his mana so badly that he collapsed in the middle of a monster swarm was the last thing he wanted to do.

Still, if he didn’t help out here, the burden would fall entirely on his local counterparts—and mages in this world were frail. They had to go all out against their enemies if they wanted to survive. After all, it wasn’t like they could rely on their close-quarter fighting skills if they ran out of mana.

Ado didn’t want to see the city’s people die...but at the same time, he didn’t want to suffer alone to protect them.

And if I survive, they’ll treat me like their champion... Urgh! What a pain in the ass! But we can’t just run awa— Hmm?

As he pondered what to do, he heard a high-pitched whirring sound above him. And it was rapidly getting closer.

He knew this sound from his old world. It was the sound of a jet engine.

VWOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Ado was getting a bad feeling about this.

Sensing that things would go very badly if he kept standing here, he leaped out of the way in a hurry.

In his panic, he pushed a throng of mercenaries and knights, and they all fell to the ground, just before—

BOOOOOOOOOM!

Something fell out of the air and crashed through the roof of the mercenaries’ guild building.

“Wh-What’s happening?! What was that?!”

“Are the monsters attacking?!”

“Is anyone hur— Wait. What the hell is that?!”

“Some magic contraption?! A-And it’s so big that someone’s riding on it...”

Ado shook his head as he stood. As he focused his eyes, he saw something special hovering in midair.

He’d kill to get his hands on it. After all, it was every guy’s dream vehicle.

“That’s... That’s an air rider. Wait. Is it the one we saw earlier? You’re kidding me... H-Huh?”

Ado froze, noticing that the man riding the bike was the same middle-aged guy he’d fought when he was on a secret mission in the Magic Kingdom of Solistia.

Sh-Shit. It’s that mage...

Ado had cheat powers, but from what he’d seen, this mysterious old guy was at least as strong as him, if not stronger. He was probably another reincarnator, Ado figured—though he’d never expected to see him again here.

“M-Mr. Zelos?” Aleph said, blinking. “What just...”

“Oh! If it isn’t Aleph!” Zelos said. “I’m glad you’re here. It’s an emergency—there’s a great givleon, and it’s on its way to the city! You should evacuate the peo— Actually, no. Guess that’s not an option.”

“A-A great givleon?! And... And how big is it?”

“About thirty meters long. So as big as they come. And it’s in the process of turning into a demon lord.”

Zelos’s report shook everyone in the guild.

“WH-WHAT?!”

Practically no one could defeat a demon lord. Maybe heroes could, but even if there happened to be some around, you’d need at least three to stand a chance.

“Oh, and to make matters worse,” Zelos continued, “this one’s from the Far-Flung Green Depths. No doubt about it.”

“WE’RE DOOOOOOMED!”

The situation seemed hopeless.

The fortified city of Slaiste was about to be hit by a catastrophe the likes of which it had never seen before.

Worse, all the monsters swarming outside the city made escape impossible. The guild devolved into a panic.

“H-Hang on a minute...” Ado said. “Zelos? Zelos Merlin? From the Destroyers?!”

“Oh? And, uh... Who are you, exactly? If you know that name, I’m guessing you’re someone like me, but... Hmm.”

“I’m Ado! From Extra-Large Tonkotsu Chashu!”

“Wait— Ado?!”

And so, the two fools were reunited.

The surprise reunion made them forget, for a moment, about the chaos unfolding around them...

Chapter 16: The Old Guy Ropes in Ado

Zelos, Aleph, and the elderly guild master Donsark met in a room at the back of the mercenaries’ guild.

Each wore a serious expression as they discussed what to do about the approaching great givleon. But try as they might, they just couldn’t seem to come up with a solution.

After all, this givleon was on the verge of becoming a demon lord.

Even a regular great givleon could be too much for a city to handle. If it evolved into a demon lord, the defenders of Slaiste wouldn’t just be outmatched; they’d be wiped out. There was no doubt about it.

Right now—while the creature hadn’t finished evolving, and its movements were sluggish—was their best chance to evacuate. But all the monsters stampeding outside the city made that impossible.

Slaiste was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“A ‘demon lord,’ you say...” Donsark said. “I don’t know exactly how strong that makes it, but I’d assume there’d be a lot of casualties. At least as many as caused by a calamity-tier threat.”

“It’s a crisis, yes. The stampede alone was bad enough, and now there’s a demon lord about to join the fray, right when the people have been left with nowhere to run...” Aleph said.

“We could try evacuating the civilians, but I imagine a lot of them would die in the process,” Zelos said. “On the other hand, if we try to defend the city... Well, I’m not sure how much we’d be able to do if the givleon’s still that big once it gets here. It could be smaller if it’s finished evolving by then, but then we’d have a demon lord on our hands. Which I’m pretty sure would only be more of a threat.”

Evolution in this world was like a special mutation that monsters could undergo.

Even monsters that started out fairly unassuming could turn into some new, more powerful form once they’d leveled up enough.

Doing so would cause their capabilities to skyrocket, and, sometimes, let them adapt to harsher elements. For example, a monster living around a volcano might gain lava resistance upon its evolution, while one around icebergs might evolve the ability to armor itself in ice to boost its defense.

As for demon lords... Well, put short, it would be like taking a hero and bumping all their abilities up to the same level as Zelos’s. A monster previously able to destroy a fort with the support of other monsters could become strong enough to eradicate an entire nation all by itself.

Evolution made a creature’s abilities more efficient too, which was why enormous monsters sometimes became significantly smaller. That wasn’t the kind of thing you could determine in advance—you just had to wait and see once the evolution was complete—so exactly what form this givleon would take postevolution was an unknown variable.

Or at least, it usually was. Zelos and Ado, however, remembered the specifics of givleon evolutions from Swords & Sorceries.

“You know, once that thing’s evolved, it’ll only be about the size of a human,” Zelos said. “But it’ll still have as much mana as it does now, and its abilities will be leagues more powerful. Not to mention, it’ll start learning. Thinking. It won’t be guided solely by animal instinct.”

“That’s terrifying,” Aleph replied. “A monster that powerful, with the stature of a human... It really does sound like one of the demon lords from the old stories.”

“I don’t give a damn how much mana it has,” Donsark snapped, clearly agitated. “The question is how strong the thing’s going to be.”

Donsark seemed like he’d really been driven into a corner. The appearance of a calamity-tier monster here was unprecedented, and now this thing was evolving into a demon lord. It was hard to even imagine how much devastation it might cause.

“Well, let’s see...” Zelos said. “Maybe ten Level 900 heroes working together could take it down—if they were using the best equipment, made from rare materials. Either way, the heroes from Metis wouldn’t be able to defeat it, I can tell you that much. The highest-level ones among them are only about Level 500. In fact, Metis’s leaders keep an eye on them to ensure they don’t get any stronger than that.”

“This is starting to sound insurmountable...” Aleph and Donsark muttered.

Even Aleph was only Level 303 right now. There were a handful of Level 500 knights out there, but by the sounds of it, even they stood no chance.

Zelos, for what it was worth, could likely defeat the great givleon all by himself. The problem was, he couldn’t say for certain until he knew its level.

He’d only been using his Appraisal skill on the coccos lately, and he’d been using it less to appraise them, per se, and more to monitor their growth.

He didn’t really even trust his Appraisal skill in the first place—little things about it had always seemed weird to him—but given they were in an emergency right now, maybe he really should’ve given it a shot when he’d seen the thing earlier.

It was only now that he thought: Oops.

More broadly, the fact that this great givleon was coming from Metis to Solistia was strange to begin with.

Usually, if a country with any sense had a monster or natural disaster causing casualties within its borders, it would do everything in its power to contain the catastrophe and prevent damage from spreading to other countries.

And yet, it seemed like Metis had done nothing to stop the great givleon from crossing the border into Solistian territory.

From that, Zelos had to assume that Metis had led the great givleon here on purpose. With how things were going in the Holy Land lately, he could absolutely see them pulling something like that.

“Metis has all sorts of motives to have lured that thing here. Too many to count, in fact,” Zelos said. “And I think they could’ve herded the givleon in a specific direction using felscent, if they’d wanted.”

Aleph and Donsark were both lost for words. Would they really go that far? This... This is Metis we’re talking about. They actually might...

Neither man had thought Metis would go to such lengths to take down Solistia. But if this really was their doing, it could be considered a declaration of war.

Not that there was any proof just yet, mind you.

“If this givleon turns into a demon lord, things will go from bad to worse,” Aleph said. “A whole second catastrophe—worse than the stampede. We must prepare to intercept it! Now! Otherwise, Slaiste will fall!”

“Calm down, Aleph. Or, uh... Okay, that might be asking a bit much given the circumstances,” Zelos said. “Anyway, there’ll be a battle, and its outcome will be determined by how many resources the city has prepared. You’ll need to make sure you have plenty of, say, arrows— Oh, and you’ll want as many potions as you can get your hands on too. Not to mention gathering rocks as projectiles, getting the ballistae ready... Yikes. This is sounding like it’ll cost a lot. Now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder if Metis hoped to disrupt Solistia’s economy with this?”

“And those cretins say they’re holy?!” Donsark shouted. “They’re rotten to the core!”

Donsark had once requested a priest to heal his sickly mother, but the priest had asked for an exorbitant sum as payment. Ultimately, Donsark hadn’t been able to afford the treatment, and his mother had passed away from her illness.

Ever since, he’d held a deep-seated grudge against the Holy Land of Metis. He knew there were decent priests out there, so he usually tried to keep a lid on his resentment.

Current events, though, had left him unable to hide his rage.

By the way, Donsark’s father—who’d contracted the same illness years later—had been saved by a potion created by a mage.

“Personally,” Zelos said, “I’d recommend leaving the battle against the givleon to a small number of elite fighters, and have everyone else focus on dealing with the stampede. And the goal of this fight isn’t victory; it’s survival.”

“My apologies,” Donsark said. “I let my emotions get the better of me.”

“Who’s going to fight the givleon, though?” Aleph asked. “Our forces don’t have anyone who could defeat that thing.”

“Me—along with one other person. Honestly, fighting that bastard is about the last thing I want to do. I suppose I’ll just consider it another bad break and surrender to my rotten luck—but I’ll make sure he bites the bullet too.”

Donsark and Aleph exchanged a glance, hesitated, and then asked in unison: “Who is ‘he’?”

A very mean-spirited grin game to Zelos’s face as he recalled a handy assistant he’d just so happened to run across earlier.

It’s not fair if I have to fight that giant cockroach alone, so I’m dragging you down with me, bud.

In other words, it was a personal motive rather than a practical one. This was one of those things that made Zelos a quintessential Destroyer.

Zelos had no intent of taking on the great givleon alone.

And in turn, Ado’s fate had just been set in stone.

The poor guy.

* * *

“So, Ado,” Zelos said after summarizing, “in short, I’d like you to help me fight that big cockroach. After all, nobody born here can beat that thing. I’d appreciate your help.”

“Hang on,” Ado said. “This is all a bit sudden. And, uh... Do I not get a say in this?”

“Heh... Of course you don’t. Why should I have to fight that thing all by myself? You are coming with me. And that’s a statement, not a question.”

“Why are you so jolly about this?!”

“I mean... Misery loves company, no?”

“Are you seriously just asking me so you can watch me suffer?! You never change, do you? You were the exact same way in your Swords & Sorceries days!”

Ado felt like he was being dragged off to a dangerous labor camp. Of course he didn’t want to go.

But Zelos had an ace up his sleeve.

“Say, Ado... Your wife’s quite the nice young lady, isn’t she? I wonder what she’d think if she heard about you gallivanting around with two other women?”

“H-How do you know about Yuika?! W-Wait. Don’t tell me you—”

“So her real name’s Yuika, eh? Well, that’s beside my point... See, it’s a funny thing. I just happened to bump into her while traveling. You help me fight this cockroach, and I’ll tell you where I saw her. Sounds like a fair deal to me! Mm-hmm!”

“You sneaky asshole! Are you a child?!”

“Ah, yes... See, I’ve been told I’m immature too many times for that line to change my mind.”

Lisa and Shakti, watching from the sidelines, were taken aback by how slimy Zelos was being. Urgh... My god, this guy plays dirty!

Zelos had come across Ado’s wife Yui—or, well, technically, she was still his fiancée—in the village of Hasam. He’d promised her that he’d tell Ado she was safe...but she’d never said he couldn’t use her whereabouts as a bargaining chip.

He cackled at Ado again. “So? What do you say? Are you going to join me? I’m not about to make you fight that thing alone, of course. I’ll be joining you.”

“You... You really are a Destroyer, huh? You’re no better than the rest of them!”

“Oh, come on. It’s fine! I’m the nice Destroyer! Look, how about I sweeten the deal? I won’t just tell you about your wife; I’ll tack another bit of intel on too. You must want to know about your child, don’t you?”

“Wha—?!”

“Mm-hmm. Your wife came to this world with a baby in her belly. And... What do you think that means, Ado?”

Suddenly, the discussion had taken a turn for the serious. Ado’s bewilderment was clear on his face.

Ado had, indeed, been searching for Yui. He certainly hadn’t expected that Zelos would find her first—or that she’d still be pregnant when she got to this world.

“Wait. Does this mean... Does this mean we weren’t actually reincarnated? We were...teleported or something?!”

“Good for you, eh? If we had been reincarnated, based on our characters’ bodies, your kid would’ve just died. But instead...”

“But... But then what does that mean? Did the Four Gods lie to us? Or...”

“Apparently, it was the gods from Earth who brought us here. That raises the question: Did they do it to get back at the Four Gods? Or just out of kindness? Well, anyway... You’re going to be a father, Ado.”

“Ha... Ha ha...” Ado paused to collect himself, then gave Zelos a look of suspicion. “Wait. You’re not actually planning on telling me where Yui is, are you?”

“I will, if you help me. In fact, I’d even be happy to take you there myself. I like to think of myself as a very helpful individual, you know?”

The scales in Ado’s mind were starting to tip heavily in one direction.

Yuika... Why’d this guy have to find you before I did? I mean, even if we take down this huge cockroach, it sounds like he’s planning to go with me to see you... What if he figures out I, uh, tried to kill him that one time? I don’t even wanna imagine what kinda crazy requests he’d start making of me!

Ado’s heart was torn. He didn’t know whether to treat this turn of events as a miracle or as bad luck.

“At this rate,” Zelos said, “this whole city’s going to drown under a sea of cockroaches. And even if you ran, those little bastards wouldn’t be far behind you. We should take the fight to them, and I don’t want to do it alone.”

“I, uh, I haven’t had the best experiences with great givleons,” Ado said. “One that had evolved into a demon lord killed me once before...”

“Ah—now that you mention it, this one’s about to evolve into a demon lord too.”

“When a great givleon evolves, it turns into...that, right?”

“Yup. That.”

“Urgh... Gimme a break already!”

Three years ago, in Swords & Sorceries, there had been a raid event called “Attack of the Great Givleon.”

It had been primarily a siege involving the defense of a fortified city from a huge force of encroaching cockroach monsters. Remarkably few players had taken part—apparently, the mere thought of facing a cockroach army had grossed them out too much.

As a result, the city had fallen to the cockroach forces, and every participating player had been killed. The playerbase had thought that marked the end of the event.

But eventually, they’d learned the truth: The great givleon had become a demon lord following their failed defense of the city.

Swords & Sorceries gave its players a lot of freedom, including the option to shirk confronting a calamity-tier monster—and the players would eventually learn that their decision to do so would see them hoisted by their own petard.

Worse, the evolved givleon had gone from a bug monster to a bugged monster.

“Th-That was a nightmare,” Ado muttered. “And that’s gonna happen again here? I never wanna see that thing again...”

“I mean, even if it does turn into a demon lord, I feel like the two of us could still do something about it. Remember, we didn’t have Zenith Breaker back then.”

“No, but like... I have Zenith Breaker too now, but wouldn’t that thing still be a bit much for us to handle alone? You’re talking about a demon lord!”

“Oh? Seriously? You’ve unlocked that now? Good stuff! In that case, we can absolutely...er, probably beat it. Well, it can’t be as bad as the Dark God, at least. Anyway, I say we get all the small fry out of the way first. Which is everything except the givleon.”

“I do not wanna see a repeat of that disaster... Urgh. What a horrible event that was.”

“Yeah. And of course, what makes it even worse now is that this time, it’s reality. It’s not like I want to fight that thing either, you know.”

A great givleon that evolved into a demon lord would lose both its enormous body and its incredible defensive capabilities.

But in exchange, it would gain a host of new, devastating moves and a terrifying capacity to learn.

“So—you’re saying we blow up the fodder surrounding it first?” Ado confirmed. “Do we just spam annihilation magic?”

“That’s the only thing I can think of, yes,” Zelos said. “But I guess we ought to discuss it with the Order of Knights beforehand. Since, you know... If we’re not careful, we could reshape the entire terrain.”

“Yeah... We’ll probably have to talk it over with the local lord, huh? I’d really rather not talk to a bigwig like that myself, though...”

“As long as the great givleon is alive, I’m guessing that huge swarm isn’t going anywhere,” Zelos said. “We could spend all day blasting at it, but if the leader remains, they’ll regroup sooner or later. I want to get it done in one fell swoop.”

“Yeah... And that shithole country across the border’s not helping, right? In fact... I wonder if they’re the ones who led the givleon here?”

“I was wondering the same thing. I can’t say for sure, but they might’ve used some group as a pawn to bring it here. What was it called again? The Crimson Cabal or something?”

“Oh, right. Those zealots. They’re basically this world’s version of suicide bombers; I could see them being happy to die for ‘the cause.’ If you ask me, that kind of thing’s an insult to life itself.”

“With puppets like that at their disposal, I can’t see the ringleaders coming to the front lines themselves. They’ll just continue putting ideas in people’s heads from the back lines, inciting chaos from somewhere safe. They’ll spout bullshit about it being a ‘quest to create the true world of the Gods,’ when they’re the ones to blame for this world’s endless chaos. Y’know, they’d do a lot more good if they just thanked their gods for ‘bringing them into the world’ and lived their lives to the fullest, but no...”

“Uh, Zelos... Just don’t say anything like that in Metis, okay? The Inquisition would mob you.”

“This world’s messed up if wanting a nice, quiet life is heresy. Do Metis’s leaders seriously not realize that denouncing innocent, hardworking people just because they’re foreigners, all while using their doctrine as an excuse for tyranny, is how this world got so bad in the first place?”

“I mean, in Metis, what priests say goes. Securing a high-ranking spot in the clergy can give you a lot of power, and the pay’s good too. The people leave their kids in the care of churches and temples, hoping they’ll end up as big shots someday... But apparently, only a tiny handful actually become priests.”

“I bet the pastors and bishops at the top see anyone who could threaten their positions as enemies. They don’t want too many priests. Let me guess—they save up enough money for old age, then rely on nepotism to get themselves into some cushy jobs?”

“Mmm... Yeah, I could see it. And I’m guessing it’s the kinda society where power turns even the good apples rotten, isn’t it?”

That’s just the way things were.

In a world where status and prestige were everything, people satisfied with a modest, happy life were seen as doormats. And the more privilege someone had, the more likely they were to let it go to their head.

Then, once their egos got too inflated, they could become despots who brought misery to everyone around them. That much was true of nobles and priests alike.

This vicious cycle had led to Metis bullying other nations with its power—and, in turn, vilifying itself to its neighbors.

The Holy Land had become a complete menace to good, hardworking people.

It was only now that Zelos and Ado realized: Wait. How’d we go from talking about a cockroach invasion to analyzing Metis’s power structures?! There’s still a raid on the way! With a demon lord at its head!

Standing nearby, Shakti and Lisa had lost track of Zelos and Ado’s conversation.

Moreover, they failed to realize that they’d be taking part in the city’s defense, and they had no say in the matter...

With Zelos on one side and stampeding monsters on the other, Ado’s party found itself between the devil and a sea of crazed monsters.

Dilemmas always had a way of sneaking up on you.

* * *

After confirming the recommended inn’s location with the guild one more time, Ado’s party headed to Slaiste’s western district to rest after its long journey.

As you’d have expected from one of the last inns available, it was a single building on the outskirts of town. Outside, some real shady-looking characters stared at the party as they walked past. It seemed like the sort of place where you had to keep your wits about you.

For some reason, Zelos was following them too. Unbeknownst to them, he’d also been looking for an inn to stay at, and had been recommended the same one.

The coccos, meanwhile, were off having fun hunting more monsters in some village Zelos hadn’t even heard of. Apparently, they’d already saved several villages on the brink of destruction.

“Um... ‘Zelos,’ was it?” Shakti asked. “Can I ask why you’re following us?”

“Oh—I’m looking for an inn too, that’s all. Not sure where it is, but I figured I might find it if I tagged along with you guys.”

“Nothing bothers this old guy, does it?” Lisa muttered. “I have the feeling he could survive just about anywhere.”

Lisa’s opinion was on the mark.

If Zelos wanted, he could live in the wild, entirely self-subsistent. The only reason he didn’t was because he didn’t want to. If he had the opportunity to sleep under a roof, of course he’d take it—especially if that roof belonged to an inn that served food, however subpar it might be. It wasn’t like he was expecting the service you’d get at a high-end restaurant or hotel, though—a roof over his head was plenty.

“This place has a certain ambience, doesn’t it?” Zelos said. “It reminds me of the shady back alleys I encountered overseas. I can imagine gangs having turf wars here.”

“Why did you have to say that?!” Shakti complained.

“Right?” Lisa echoed. “Now I’m gonna be scared someone’ll violate us while we’re asleep...”

“Yeah—how’re you so laid-back about saying that, Zelos?” Ado asked. “If this is such a dangerous place that creeps might try to grope us while we sleep, then why aren’t you worried too?”

“Ado...” Zelos sighed. “If I were asleep, you really think you’d want to feel me up? Use your head for a second. Those kinds of thugs’ll usually go for the women, right?”

From the perspective of your average ruffian, Lisa and Shakti were the prime targets among the four of them. Criminals wouldn’t give a damn about Zelos and Ado beyond stealing their valuables.

In other words, women were worth a lot more to criminals than men, both monetarily and sexually.

Besides, men trying to sexually assault other men would have to be more careful—even if the man looked weak—whereas their larger statures gave them a physical advantage over women.

Lisa and Shakti were stronger than your average mercenary, but they both looked dainty and unsuited to combat, which made them more likely to be targeted.

And just because they were physically strong didn’t mean they couldn’t be mentally scarred.

Eventually, the group arrived at the inn.

“Damn...” Ado said. “I’m, uh... I’m struggling to find one nice thing to say about this place.”

Zelos gave a hearty laugh. “Yup—feels like we’ll have to sleep with one eye open, doesn’t it? This is what I meant—it looks like exactly the kind of place where people get assaulted in the middle of the night.”

Lisa and Shakti grimaced. “Are we seriously staying here?!”

The Breezy Lodge was the very picture of a run-down old wreck. Even the name felt tongue-in-cheek.

Maybe a former hero had opened up this place—it seemed like the sort of sarcastic name someone from Earth would have chosen. Going by how old the building looked, though, it couldn’t have been built recently. It had to be over a century old. While it looked like the building had received some level of maintenance, it was impressive that it hadn’t collapsed.

“Ooh. Looks like there’s a tavern on the ground floor,” Zelos commented. “I think I’ll go grab a drink before I turn in.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Ado asked. “What if someone steals your money while you’re drunk?”

“Shakti, we should store our money in our inventories,” Lisa said. “We don’t want anyone picking our pockets.”

“Good idea,” Shakti agreed. “And I’d suggest we each leave a knife next to our pillow in case someone tries any funny business in the middle of the night.”

“Of course, that’ll only help if you notice and wake up,” Zelos said.

The women gave him a silent glare.

It was a fair reaction. But at the same time, the risk was there, so Zelos felt justified in pointing it out.

“Well, whatever the case,” Zelos said, “there can’t be that many inns colluding with thieves.”

“What do you mean that many?” Ado asked. “Are you saying some inns do do that?”

“And why does it seem like you’re almost enjoying scaring us?” Shakti asked.

“Um... Are you a sadist, Zelos?” Lisa asked.

“What are you even saying?” Ado said. “He’s the Black Destroyer! Of course he’s a sadist! He’s pretty famous, y’know?”

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it!” Shakti and Lisa shouted.

Yup. While it had been hard to distinguish from his regular gameplay, Zelos had gotten up to some pretty sadistic stuff in Swords & Sorceries.

Perhaps meeting other players for the first time in a while had put him back in that mindset.

Zelos suddenly started thinking, a serious look on his face. And then, just as suddenly, he dramatically raised his head, as if to say, Eureka!

“Say, Ado...” Zelos started. “Changing the topic a bit, how are we going to split the rooms?”

“Huh? I mean, we’ll be separate from you, won’t we, Zelos?” Ado said. “So I guess that’s...me in one room, Lisa and Shakti in another, and you in another?”

“Hmm. Hmm... Have the three of you ever slept in the same room before?”

“NO!” the three of them cried as one. “Never!”

“Wow. Very synchronized. Almost like you’ve rehearsed it... Which means, you actually have, hmm? Well, well, perhaps I’ll have to tell Yui about this...”

“STOP! Please!” Ado begged. “Are you trying to ruin my relationship?!”

Zelos watched Ado squirm, a perverse smile on his face.

“It’s no stretch of the imagination, you know. A young man out on the road, sleeping in the same room as two other women, making a terrible mistake... You really should have a proper husband-and-wife talk about that and sort it out, okay? Rest assured: I’ll spill the beans to Yui for you, so you three can worry about how to explain things to her. After all, she did want me to see how you were doing...”

“Please! Please, don’t! You have no idea how terrifying she is when she gets jealous! She’ll kill me!”

Huh... You’re surprisingly henpecked, aren’t you, Ado? Lisa and Shakti thought.

Ado was suddenly sweating buckets. The man was clearly under the thumb of his younger wife.

When he’d met her, Zelos thought Yui was the quiet type. He couldn’t imagine her burning with jealousy.

“Relax,” Zelos said to Ado. “Harems are fine in this world!”

“Like hell I can ‘relax’!” Ado snapped back. “Shit, these two could wind up dead as well if she gets angry enough!”

Uh... Just how jealous does your wife get?! Lisa and Shakti thought. Are we actually in danger too?!

Ado’s response was so extreme that even Zelos paused.

Wait, huh? Seriously?!

“So... Wait. Your wife’s a yandere?” Zelos asked.

“Yeah,” Ado replied. “Most of the time, she comes off as a polite girl from a good family, but she’s like a bloodhound. It takes her one strand of my hair to find me, no matter where I am. Her tracking capabilities are out of this world...”

“That’s, uh... Wow. I can imagine governments trying to scout her as an investigator. Sounds like she’d be solving cases twenty-four seven.”

“Yeah, she basically turns into Agent Bauer when it comes to me.”

“You’re lucky she’s pregnant, eh? Otherwise—”

“We’d all be six feet under. She smiles like an angel, but she can be a devil sometimes. You don’t wanna make her angry.”

Zelos was honestly impressed that Ado had had the guts to put the moves on a woman like that. But Ado’s version of events was that she’d gradually fenced him in until he’d been left with no choice but to start dating her.

Still, she was apparently a devoted, loving wife most of the time, so Ado didn’t really mind.

After hearing Ado boast about his love life for a while, Zelos started cursing at the man in his head. I hope your dick drops off, you damn normie! Peh! It wasn’t a good look.

“Let’s just head inside,” Zelos said. “I, uh... I won’t say anything to your wife.”

“Please. If she ever found out, she’d make me spend the next thirty years of my life saying ‘I love you’ to her in public, every day. And if I missed a single day, she’d stab me.”

“Ah. Yeah, that’d be embarrassing as an adult... She really does wear the pants in your relationship, huh?”

Ado’s relationship sounded pretty extreme.

But as a bachelor himself, Zelos wasn’t exactly great at navigating relationships between husband and wife, so he decided to leave the matter there.

He didn’t want to make some careless remark that led to the old trope of a murder-suicide.

Even if, technically, it’d be Ado dying, not him...

“Huh? What about us? Won’t we still be in danger?” Lisa asked.

“It doesn’t sound like anyone’s going to protect us, does it?” Shakti replied. “This fantasy world runs by the law of the jungle, at the end of the day...”

Hearing about Yui’s jealousy reminded them of how dangerous this world could be.

And in a world of swords and spells, Yui could probably pull off the perfect crime if she wanted to.

* * *

As Zelos and the others entered the inn, they found it to be more like a tavern. The place was full of big, beefy, bearlike men going wild—drinking together, gambling over arm wrestling bouts... It was like they’d stepped into a postapocalyptic world, or a movie set in the Wild West.

And standing behind the bar, polishing a glass, was an extra-muscly bald man, wearing nothing but an apron and swim briefs. He certainly made quite the impression.

One way or another, it was clear this wasn’t your average inn.

Zelos, Ado, Shakti, and Lisa stood in shocked silence.

Something about this place was just wrong, but the atmosphere in the room made them all hesitate to say it.

It didn’t seem like any of the patrons minded what they’d sensed, so Zelos and the others got the feeling that they’d be seen as the odd ones out if they mentioned it. Sometimes the wisest move was to just go with the flow.

“Welcome,” the aproned man greeted them. “Ya here for a drink? A bed? Or...nah, yer here for protein powder, ain’tcha?”

Protein powder?! the four of them thought. What kind of inn is this?!

This place was already proving to be more than they’d bargained for. They certainly hadn’t expected a macho-man proprietor to offer them protein.

“Uh... No, just somewhere to sleep,” Ado said.

“Do you have any rooms open?” Zelos asked. “We’re after at least two, if they’re free.”

“We got two rooms on the second floor,” the man said. “Enough beds, and plenty o’ room to get a pump. How about a protein shake for the walk there?”

“Er... We’ll be all right,” Ado replied.

“Macros already locked in, huh? Then let me chuck in some dumbbells and expanders as a bonus. You mercenaries gotta stay fit, right?”

All four gawked.

What kind of inn comes with bonus dumbbells?!

This proprietor was insistent on offering protein powder and exercise equipment to guests who came here exhausted after a long journey. They’d expected the inn to be wild, but they hadn’t thought it’d be this kind of wild.

“Here’s the key to yer rooms—and to gains.”

The four of them looked at one another, baffled.

For some godforsaken reason, the keys were attached to a grip trainer. Was this guy seriously expecting them to work out while they walked to their rooms?

The four reluctantly took their keys and walked over to the staircase.

“I’m beat,” Shakti said. “I just want to get to my room and crash...”

“Yeah. I don’t have much of an appetite right now,” Lisa said. “I’m exhausted. Today has been...a lot.”

“Fair enough,” Ado said. “I guess we just get to our rooms and rest, if we even can. Do you think we’ll be able to?”

“It looks like you’ve all taken some mental damage, eh?” Zelos said. “This inn really does give a horrible first impression...”

As Zelos and Ado watched the two women trudge up the stairs, they exchanged a deep sigh.

“How about you and I grab a drink before we turn in for the night?” Zelos asked Ado. “We should probably have a bite to eat too. And I’d like to have a proper chat with you, while we’re at it.”

“Uh... Sure. That sounds good, Zelos,” Ado replied. “You sure we can trust the food here, though?”

“I mean, surely they wouldn’t serve anything too awful to their guests.”

“Have you already forgotten how eager that guy was to give us protein powder?”

“Mmm... Okay. Maybe you have a point.”

Zelos and Ado headed to the bar and sat down, both feeling a little uneasy.

Before long, they started to talk, telling each other about all the information they’d gathered since arriving in this world.

As night wore on in Slaiste, the two reincarnators shared a drink—all while the proprietor struck bodybuilding poses behind the bar.