Chapter 243

What Did You Do with It?

The Heinkel Kingdom had fallen into ruin. A woman watched it from afar: Linne, a Dark Elf and a researcher for the Demons. She gazed down at the ruins, wrapped in a robe to hide her pointed ears and black skin.

'Even with that magic they call a utopia, it ended like this...'

Still, she could understand why. The king of Heinkel had reached the 7th Circle, but he was a dreadful mage. His opponents had strategically focused on weakening every source of his strength. Defeat had been inevitable, which was why Linne had begun preparing her escape as soon as the outer castle fell.

'What about Gokma?'

She hoped he had been crushed to death beneath that rubble. That private wish was soon proved vain, however, when a rift opened before her. It was unmistakably one of Gokma's, and he emerged from it.

Linne started to bow in greeting as usual, only for her eyes to widen.

“Are you all right...?”

The man who was always so composed was bleeding. Red blood, at that. She wondered whether it belonged to someone else, but the slow trickle left no doubt that it was his. What a marvel. To think she would live to see this man bleed.

Gokma looked her up and down.

“You escaped unscathed, I see.”

What did he mean by that? Was he asking why she hadn't stayed to fight alongside him? What should she do if he intended to execute her for it? Seeing him weakened, she instinctively wondered whether she could beat him now. Perhaps she could, if she went for the wounded beast's throat.

Just as she was weighing her chances, his gaze turned toward her.

'Ah!'

Linne froze. In the course of becoming a Dark Elf, she had seen Godwin's descendants and the Demon Kings. Gokma had been one of the seven baleful stars, but his exit had been the most anticlimactic of them all, and he had vanished. That did not mean he was weak. Of that, she was certain. Even if she brought all the other baleful stars together, they would be no match for this man.

She hurriedly banished the thought. She couldn't let him discover what she was thinking.

“I slipped out so I could make sure to bring the samples this time.”

“...”

“Escaping with nothing but my life last time delayed the research. We couldn't allow that to happen again, could we?”

That had indeed been her main reason. Her value lay entirely in her research. Joining the battle clearly would have been no help.

“I wasn't going to reprimand you. It was thanks to you that the plan went smoothly, after all.”

“Did everything go as you intended?”

“Everything... would not be entirely accurate.”

Gokma clutched his right arm.

“To think Sierra's Wolf, of all people, would be there...”

Sierra's Wolf. Linne already knew that Sierra was the goddess of the moon. Not only sun-worshipping orders but most religious orders were associated with light, so it was only natural that Sierra, who represented darkness, should be scorned and persecuted.

Indeed, the Order of Sierra made no allies. Their chief work was assassinating high-ranking officials, and many nobles had died at their hands. Surprisingly, their targets included Demons, too. Linne remembered being hunted by the Order herself. For some reason, though, the pursuit had stopped, allowing her to devote herself entirely to her research. Until Ferda appeared, that was.

“Is this Wolf really that formidable?”

“Of course. Their experience accumulates with each successive generation. The previous one gave me trouble, too... but something was peculiar about this one.”

“Peculiar how...?”

“She possessed an ability I had never seen in the Wolf before.”

Gokma recalled the encounter. Black hair. Rags. Blue eyes and a dark sword. All of those traits matched the Sierra's Wolf he remembered. But no matter how he looked at it, cutting through space and disrupting magic were not abilities that belonged to Sierra's Wolf.

“Which means it must be part of that woman's own nature. And that means...”

He broke off his muttering.

“Does something trouble you?”

“It's nothing.”

Changing the subject, Gokma looked at Linne.

“Is there anything that might impede your research this time?”

His tone was somewhat aggressive. Linne answered tensely.

“The formula for manufacturing the improved Trauma, and the black blood used to create Knight-class Demons. I recovered both. Once you establish a new base, I can begin mass production.”

“And the records?”

“Things were so urgent that, for now, I've only committed them to memory. There is no need to worry. I remember everything perfectly.”

She claimed urgency, but her intention was clear: if he wanted the research, he had better keep her alive. Gokma gave a faint, derisive smile at the transparent ploy and turned his head.

“Is there anything else?”

“And... ah.”

Something important occurred to her.

“Director?”

“... No. That's all.”

Linne took pains to conceal her thoughts. Having worked with and experimented on so many things, she was a seeker of knowledge before she was a Dark Elf. To satisfy one's curiosity, a seeker had to set aside such things as conscience and ethics. Only then could one make dazzling progress.

That was how she had managed to create a unified mind for Gamigin's Legion. By implementing the elves' unique mental-bonding formula through the mental collapse induced by Trauma, she had perfected Legion.

Then a question had occurred to her. What would happen if she forcibly opened Circles in young children and instilled the elves' mana techniques in them? What if human children with linked minds could use elven magic?

'Now... I'll never know the results.'

Linne looked toward the fallen Heinkel Kingdom. The specimens she had created out of curiosity would now be buried beneath that rubble.

* * *

Inside Ferda's tent, in the camp of the far eastern troops.

After eating his fill, Ferda asked Luri what had happened to her.

“I fought Gokma alongside Sir Alberto.”

“He was already hunting Demons, so that's no surprise.”

“What was more surprising was that even when I succumbed to Trauma, he did not.”

“He didn't succumb to Trauma...”

That was astonishing. He was immune to a creature that instilled instinctive fear in both Ferda and Luri.

'Come to think of it, the armored knight wasn't affected by Trauma either.'

Did they have some spell that protected them as thoroughly as their armor covered them? The armored knight never spoke, so asking was out of the question. It would be better to ask Alberto.

“How did the fight go?”

“...”

“You don't have to tell me if it's difficult.”

“We never stood a chance. Part of it may be that I've grown weaker, but I think physical force alone is simply meaningless against magic.”

Alberto's strength and Luri's agility. Gokma had not merely fended off their joint attacks with ease; he had toyed with them. Legion's influence might have made him stronger than usual, but Ferda would not jump to conclusions. Even that might have been weaker than his true form.

“But the tide turned toward the end.”

“How?”

“Someone intervened. I had never seen her among either the imperial army or the coalition, and her origins were unclear. Gokma called her 'Sierra's Wolf.'”

Wolf. Ferda knew that word. The woman who had pulled him out when he was trapped deep within his consciousness had called herself something.

“Sierra's Chain...”

“How do you know that, Master Ferda?”

“I heard this Chain's voice in the audience chamber. She saved me.”

“But... that Heodret fellow who brought you back never mentioned a woman...”

She suspected Heodret might be connected to Sierra. Even with Ferda's right hand restored, her nerves were still on edge.

“He probably didn't know, either. Even to me, she felt utterly strange.”

Seemingly light yet not light, nimble yet sluggish, sluggish yet nimble. An elusive woman who had been there, yet felt as though she had never existed.

[“We will meet again before long. Let's introduce ourselves properly then.”]

Had she said her name was Angrem? Those had certainly been her words. No matter how he considered it, a Saintess of Sierra saying she would come to introduce herself could mean only one thing.

'It means I'm connected to Sierra.'

He tried to deny it, but the evidence lined up in his mind, one piece at a time. Then he recalled something his father, Erembalt Rosnova, had said.

'He said Mother belonged to the Order of Sierra.'

At the time, his rage toward his father had been too great for him to give it much thought. But he should have taken it seriously then. The voice inside him had assumed his mother's form.

'It could have been a hallucination.'

Perhaps it was a rationalization born of the emotional excess so common among Red Circle users. Knowing that Valdrova's form would seem unnatural, it had manifested as his mother to unsettle him.

'But I resisted to the end.'

Once he stopped rationalizing, it should surely have stopped, too. Instead, it had directly touched his Dark Circle and plunged him into profound darkness. It was not his delusion. It was unquestionably something that thought independently, regardless of his will.

'What happened?'

He had no idea what had happened after that. Since waking, he had found his Red Circle unchanged, and his Dark Circle was no different. That was what made him feel as though he were going mad. Dread swept over him: what if he reached the point where he could no longer distinguish dreams from reality?

“Lord Regent, are you there?”

A woman's voice came from outside the tent. Olivia. Ferda gestured for Luri to let her in, and she escorted Olivia inside.

She looked every inch a Saintess, without a trace of makeup. Her white clothes had yellowed and were stained with blood in places. This was not mere performance; he could sense her awareness of her duties as a Saintess.

Olivia greeted him with a quiet inclination of her head and sat down before him. For some reason, she seemed terribly nervous. It was unlike her.

“How are things with the imperial army?”

“Utterly grim.”

Of course they were. Ureas was dead. With the Empire's Second Prince dead, an emergency was only natural.

“He didn't simply die. He vanished without a trace.”

“Without a trace?”

“Yes. Members of the imperial family have powerful tracking spells placed on them so their bodies can be recovered. He has disappeared beyond even that spell's reach, so 'without a trace' is accurate. How could such a thing happen...?”

Olivia spoke as though it were a headache, but Ferda saw it differently.

“That's a blessing, really.”

“Why?”

“Ureas became a devil.”

“A devil? His personality was always devilish enough...”

“That's not what I mean.”

Ferda told her what he had witnessed, briefly describing the form he had seen with his own eyes.

“You're saying Ureas... took on Amon's form?”

“Yes.”

“Is that common in the world of dark magic?”

Ferda shook his head.

“Even among Demon Followers, it's rare to take a form resembling a Great Demon. The king of Heinkel also came to resemble Gamigin, but that was only possible because Gamigin possessed him.”

“And Ureas...?”

“There were no signs of possession, nor even the distinctive sulfur smell that accompanies a crossing from Hell.”

Those who wielded dark magic inevitably carried the smell of sulfur. Ferda's magic, however, was founded on stealth, so naturally it had no such odor.

Olivia considered this carefully before offering her opinion.

“Couldn't it be some scheme of the Demons? They had already brought Gamigin's utopia into being, after all.”

“For now, that's what I think as well.”

Otherwise, matters were far more serious. It would mean Ureas had been a devil's child all along, and that the imperial bloodline carried a devil's blood.

“Even if it's true, it won't be easy to rally people against them.”

“No, it won't.”

“My own safety is an issue, but... more than anything, it's simply too big. No matter how well a log burns, it won't catch unless the fire you set is large enough.”

Ferda nodded, finding that plausible. Olivia tucked her hair behind her ear and quietly changed the subject.

“Let's discuss this another time. Are you all right, Lord Regent?”

She spoke cautiously.

“I heard your right arm was badly hurt...”

“Ah, about that.”

Ferda held up his right arm. Olivia's anxious eyes widened.

“I distinctly heard it had been severed. How...?”

“Well, what happened was...”

He did not mention the Golden Dragon's visit. Instead, he said only that a scale of the Golden Dragon had been available, and he had used its miracle to restore his right hand.

“Oh... thank goodness. You have your hand back...”

Olivia could not hide her overwhelming emotion, and at last tears welled in her eyes. Ordinarily, he might have dismissed it as her reaction to someone she cared about being hurt. But now he felt terribly stifled. Why? She had spared no support for Hestia and the Grand Duchy of Valdrova. She was unquestionably an excellent partner.

[“Then why does she smile at that lowly handkerchief of yours?!”]

Ureas's shout echoed in Ferda's ears. The handkerchief.

Human hatred often sprang from trivial things. Ureas had been mad with greed, his judgment clouded and easily swayed by lies. He could therefore consign it to the past; there was no need to mention it. He could simply let it pass.

But was there smoke without fire? There had surely been some truth that Ureas had encountered. Ferda wanted only to discover how deep that truth ran.

“Olivia.”

He called her name.

“Y-yes?”

Olivia could not hide her flustered reaction. He had never once addressed her by her name alone.

“What did you do with the handkerchief I gave you?”

Olivia was deeply shaken.