972. Also on the border guard
It is a loss to step forward first.
The demon, the Lord of the Mirror Realm, the being who calls himself the Pure White Destroyer, thought so. Naturally, it was a statement regarding the perspective and attitude toward the human named Encred.
The funny thing is, if that Mirror Realm Slayer had been clumsy, it would have been over if just one person had stepped forward to kill him.
If we fight, power leakage is certain.
Although one of the Lords of the Demon Realm has died, the remaining five are still keeping each other in check. They cannot recklessly expend their power.
It is akin to saying that Balrog was left alone not because he could not be killed, but simply because that human has taken Balrog’s place.
What is there to aim for here?
I intended to lend my strength when fighting the Empire, but the insidious bastards who divide and rule this place will surely wait for that human to weaken.
So, what is the result? I scattered minions here and there with the intention of weakening him, but nothing went according to anyone’s wishes.
Are you fighting?
A subordinate asks. It is a castle built by gathering white stones and stacking them one by one. The pure white castle, the place where he resides.
The place where the Pure White Destroyer stood now was the main hall of the castle he had built. Just because it was called pure white didn’t mean it was truly pure white. With dust and the grime of time accumulated, it was closer to a light gray.
It was a space where, between the colonnades, there were no stairs, and the only things were a single chair and a large, thick rug made of monster hide.
No, we do as we always have.
Even if you lose one, you gain another. That was the way those called demons fought.
* * *
Two henchmen appeared when Encred arrived in Nauril; in other words, two of the Lords of the Demon Realm had reached out. That second demon also frowned. He had been after Pure White had provoked him.
His intention was to expose Pure White’s schemes and help kill him.
He had put quite a bit of effort into this matter.
Are you not even listening?
How dare you? It certainly does not sit well with me. Yet, it feels too wasteful to step forward. In that case, watching is the only answer.
The demon known by the moniker “Burning Crow” stroked his horns and stepped down from his bone chair.
Bird feathers, densely packed against his legs instead of feathers, rustled against him. It was a sound that signaled the texture was different from ordinary feathers.
Aside from these two, the Promiser of Abundance and the Loner of Distrust did not even attempt to speak, yet their henchmen planted throughout the land were slaughtered.
The Father of the Dead, the last of the lords, licked his lips.
A strange balance of power has now been established. For the time being, it is difficult to lay a hand on a single human. Moreover, isn’t it the case that a single swordsman who recently entered the Demonic Realm is causing chaos?
Is it a turbulent time?
Just as it was in the days I was born, the winds of change must be blowing now.
Is this an opportunity?
‘ascension.’
Their ultimate goal is the same. Ascension was like trying to pass through the eye of a needle with the size of a bear. That is how they perceive it. Therefore, not everyone will be able to go.
Competition is fine, but the best method is to eliminate the rest before the opportunity for ascension arrives.
To achieve this, they will stop at nothing. They will stop at nothing.
If they must kill everyone living on the continent, they will do so.
If that were the only way to do it, they would have turned the continent into a sea of fire long ago. In the same sense.
If I can shake the opponent’s mind.
It wasn’t a big deal that a few henchmen died.
Will you sing a hymn even after witnessing human malice?
The devil asked and waited for the answer.
* * *
Saxony saw the man kneeling before him sobbing.
“Please save me. What sin have I committed to deserve this? Doesn’t everyone do this? Please? This was the only way to save my child.”
“Do you think there are more good people in the world? Or more bad people?”
the master asked one day. Saxony did not answer rashly. After pondering for two days, the answer he finally uttered was, “I don’t know.” Upon hearing this, the master burst into laughter.
“Uh, I don’t know either.”
That day, the determination to strike a blow against my master surged within me.
If there seem to be too many wicked people, reduce the number a bit. That will suffice.
My master’s way of thinking was bizarre, but refreshing. He lived like a man who had made assassination his profession.
If you go your separate way later, we can just approach it in a different way.
Perhaps my master sensed from the start that I would not remain merely an assassin. I
thought of that master. A man who attempted to annihilate an entire family right before his eyes to save his own child is weeping uncontrollably.
Are his tears genuine? They appear so. He was not a man great enough to deceive my senses. He was merely a fallen human who gobbled up the honey offered by the devil.
“Aren’t the whites of your eyes gone?”
Saxony asked.
“What do you mean by that?”
This man had gone beyond mere corruption and was possessed by an evil spirit. He had nurtured that spirit within himself. Saxon’s keen senses detected the intangible presence, brimming with malice, that had taken root within the man.
The man wore a bewildered expression. “Until now, I had merely taken a few benefits in exchange for selling information and running errands for the devil, hadn’t I?
Killing a few people? Isn’t that just natural, living in times like these? Am I the only one? No, right? Killing defenseless children or women? No one knows about that, or I made sure no one knew.
Then isn’t that absurd? Morality? Look, what are you talking about? If you’re strong, it’s fine; if you’re weak, you suffer. Isn’t that the way of the world?”
These words poured out from within the man. Saxon felt as though he had heard them, even though he hadn’t.
The malice and selfishness residing within the man had grown larger and larger, and now, killing a few people had become acceptable.
Saxon gazed at the man indifferently.
“please.”
The man prayed. He prayed to save his own life by putting his child first.
It makes me sick.
It was my honest feeling. When did this matter start? It began with a letter from Kreis.
The first person to act upon receiving the letter was Edin Molsen. He was well aware of the blind spot of the city of Loftcreed.
“Assign all the Gilpin Guild members to me. Once the soldiers enter, everyone will be busy hiding my identity. I need to get in before that happens, hide among the people, and keep an eye on things. In that regard, the Gilpin Guild is a good group to observe without raising suspicion.”
He explains the purpose, argument, and reason in a single stroke. It was an excellent expression of opinion.
“Do as you say. If the unit enters immediately, we don’t know what those bastards might do.”
Abnaier replied. He was one of the people holding command in Crys’s absence.
Since Leona was also present at the meeting, the subject of everything being said was the city of Lockfried.
A city built by staking the rise and fall of the merchant guild and her entire life on it.
A somber expression wore across her face. After all, if there were multiple minions of the devil within the city, who knew what might happen.
It was not a situation to simply sit by and watch just because of anxiety.
Abnaier continued.
Call Lord Saxony.
Crys had prepared for everything to a terrifying degree. Due to his usual obsessive anxiety, he had even predetermined the actions he should such an event occur. It was a feat that seemed remarkable in one sense and pure obsession in another, but seeing how it proved effective every single time, one couldn’t help but praise his predictions. Though, given that the enemy was a being prone to absurd behavior, it wasn’t exactly something to be admired without reservation.
You will need to enter the city and take charge of the elimination operation.
Saxen nodded readily.
Abnaier and Edin solidly filled the void left by Kreis.
Ten swordsmen, known as the elite of the Border Guard, entered Lockfried, and Captain Vengeance scrutinized those entering and leaving the Border Guard more closely under the pretext of group training.
In the meantime, the Gilpin Guild made a move, and Saxen infiltrated Lockfried under the cover of night. Naturally, his subordinates were with him.
There are several people under suspicion. It takes too much time to verify them one by one.
This is what the messenger sent by Edin conveyed.
“Sister Teresa, you can take charge of that.”
Audin said, “If he moves himself, the henchmen will easily notice. It wouldn’t be difficult to move while concealing oneself, but Theresa and Saxon would carry out the mission more quietly. They did just that.”
It’s a night I want to sing.
Theresa often crossed over to Lockfried or Greenpearl to entertain people’s ears with her singing on the roadside.
She sang with a subtle divinity in her voice, and everyone who responded to it was recorded on a list.
From this point on, Georg’s daggers moved more actively. They checked every minute action, mannerism, and acquaintance of the suspects.
In doing so, they verified and killed some with their own hands,
while others were dealt with by ten swordsmen who had infiltrated from the Border Guard.
“How did you know?”
Among them appeared some whose fingernails grew to the length of their fingers, or others who were armored from head to toe in iron using artifacts tainted by demonic energy.
“You’re softer than Lord Audin.”
“It makes no sense to even compare you to that.”
The ten swordsmen on this side are under the command of the Mad Knights. They are the ones whom Ragnar personally beat and whom Audin has touched.
To such men, those who have tainted themselves with magic and abandoned their own bodies stood no chance.
Theresa took charge of the few rare henchmen who could cast spells or possessed exceptional skills.
On the side of the city of Greenpearl, Roford and Pell weeded out and dealt with the henchmen in a similar manner. It was not a particularly difficult task, given their extraordinary grip on the city.
One of the henchmen remaining from that process was the one now kneeling before Saxon.
Forgiveness.
The speaking man’s eyes spun around. His facial skin pricked up, twisted, and bent; his eyes dropped, and his lips curled up to the right. In that state, his mouth opened, revealing his inner thoughts.
“Won’t you even forgive someone like me? But you know that someone like me is normal, don’t you? That’s how the world is. Praising someone for being good is because you yourself are evil, isn’t it? It’s instinct. Humans and giants alike, it’s all the same! The same! The same!”
Saxon swung the dagger imbued with Will and slashed the back of the man’s neck. Swish, black smoke billowed from the cut. Blood also flowed profusely.
Screech.
The evil spirit, which had been chattering until the very end, faded away. Watching this, Saxony recalled another man he had seen before meeting this one.
He was a man with a neat appearance who bought and sold secondhand clothes.
“If you kill me, Rone will live, right? Then fine. I will kill myself.”
He looked at his unconscious fiancée. He also understood that she was possessed by a spell cast by a minion of the devil.
The fallen woman was not a beauty capable of shaking a castle, but to him, she was his one and only soulmate. The man proved it.
“If I die and Rone lives, I will do so.”
There are no tears. Only firm determination and unwavering will remain clear.
“It was said that if I kill the person I love, I will be freed from the curse. I will kill myself.”
These were the words the evil spirit uttered just before collapsing—or, to be precise, just before Saxon appeared and struck him on the neck to knock him unconscious.
He was not a minion himself, but a victim of a trick played by one of them.
Saxon said nothing and waited for Theresa.
This was not his area of expertise. If the only way to break the curse was truly just that man’s words, if that was the only way.
Do you support dreams like that, too?
Saxony needlessly asked a person who was not present.
Soon, Theresa came, placed her hand on her head, and sang. In the divinity residing in her song, the evil spirit melted away like frost placed in the sunlight.
“Is Rone alright?”
He is a man bleeding from his abdomen because he was stabbed in the stomach. Although it is not a fatal wound, he spoke without tending to his injury.
It will be fine, Brother.
Theresa answered, scattering a light of healing over the boat as well.
Watching this, Saxony seemed to finally understand the answer to the question his master had posed.
It’s okay not to know.
I’m going to live the way I want anyway.
What does it matter whether there are more good people or bad people?
Come to think of it.
My commander seemed to already know the answer.
“Why are you trying to protect it?”
It was a question with implications. It was a remark that naturally came out as I watched him train fiercely, even though the fight had roughly ended, he had become a knight, and there was a more comfortable and better life he could have had if he wanted.
“There are a lot of good people in the world.”
He did not see only one side of the world. If he saw the bad, he saw the good.
Whether it was balanced or one side was more dominant, I do not know.
He had already set his own path. Saxony was the same.
The captain is one thing, but…
He himself enjoys it now.
“thank you.”
The man expressed his gratitude while shedding tears. He said this while looking straight at me.
I hope you are happy.
Saxony spoke and turned around. On his way back, his teacher’s daughter, his lover, asked.
“Happiness? I want that too.”
“Yeah, we’re going to.”
“I was just joking, why are you taking it so seriously?”
Saxony laughed. The cold assassin now easily showed a smile.
“Somehow you’re getting more and more attractive. Forget about going back to your accommodation tonight.”
The lover spoke. It was something that happened while Encred was taking down Astrail’s Master.
