> [There’s one more. One more…]
Feeling his parents’ last words, the boy, on the cusp of adulthood, trembled as he pressed his body between the tree roots and dense brush. The voice he heard was gradually getting closer.
> […You damned brat!]
Then suddenly, that voice became filled with fury.
> [Are you still struggling…?]
He could hear only one voice anywhere around, and he couldn’t sense the presence of any other person. Yet, it raged at something.
“Do you think… I’ll lose to you?”
Then the voice changed.
> [Ha, as if a snot-nosed brat like you could ever defeat me…]
No, it was the same voice.“No… more.”
But it sounded like an entirely different person.
“No more…”
Someone else…
“No more killing people…”
Someone else…?
> [Alright.]
At that moment, the tree the boy had been hiding under shattered as fire erupted in all directions. Black… completely black flames.
So dark they felt like the night itself.
* * *
“The only solution is to kill all of them.”
The moment Deathbringer heard those words, he understood.
This bastard was someone he couldn’t reason with. He was someone who wouldn’t believe the truth even if it stabbed him in the eye.
“This is seriously driving me nuts.”
That didn’t mean that he couldn’t understand this guy’s feelings. If his parents had been killed like that—well, he didn’t really remember having parents, so he imagined Emmitte in that role—who wouldn’t end up with that kind of paranoid fixation?
But that didn’t give him the right to vilify the Demon Knight.
Deathbringer was so incredibly frustrated by this deadlock with no room for compromise.
“You’re not wrong.”
“…!”
“…Miss Hero.”
“It’s true that Demons are irredeemable beings, and they’re far crueler than you can imagine.”
At that moment, the Inquisitor appeared. An outsider who could break up this situation.
“There are Demons that disguise themselves as weak people like children or the elderly to lure others into their traps, or that bewitch people by appearing as their lover or family member. Such Demons are quite uncommon and rather weak in power, so they’re not regarded as high-ranking Demons.”
He didn’t know how she’d found them, but her timing was impeccable. Suppressing his surprise, Deathbringer stepped aside for her to take over.
“But Brother, the Demon Knight isn’t a Demon. Therefore, none of these examples apply to him.”
“Miss Hero, that belief is…”
“Brother.”
The woman with a lantern hanging from her waist lowered her gaze.
“If he truly were a Demon, I wouldn’t be standing here today. He is far stronger than I am.”
That admission carried a hint of bitterness.
“Miss Hero, how can you say that…?!”
“Because he isn’t a Demon. As paradoxical as it may sound, he really isn’t.”
“…How do you know he isn’t actually targeting you, Miss Hero?!”
The Inquisitor blinked her eyes at his sharp shout. Even Deathbringer couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Are you kidding me?” without realizing it. It was almost a reflexive action.
“Brother, I may still be quite ignorant of the world… but even I cannot imagine a Demon far stronger than I would tolerate the great discomfort that comes from joining me on this journey.”
“That’s!”
“He’s even coughed up blood several times because of my Divine Power, and every time we arrived in a new city, he would stay at the Temple, and there’s also the seal…”
Instead of mocking him, the Inquisitor simply counted off several legitimate reasons on her fingers. If the Demon Knight truly was a Demon, there was no way he’d tolerate all that.
“But still…”
“Brother.”
Even so, he still raised objections. Ironically, Deathbringer thought this inquisitor was quite similar to the Demon Knight. Both had a tendency to deny truths they didn’t want to accept.
“You know the truth, don’t you? The Demonic Energy aside… there’s nothing to criticize about his actions.”
“…”
Right. Could it be that everyone who’d lost pieces of their lives acted like that?
Deathbringer muttered to himself internally, not caring how it might make him appear. However, he tried to avoid thinking about it for too long, lest he end up thinking something disrespectful about the Demon Knight.
“Try looking beneath the surface. If you do, you’ll see he’s someone very much deserving of respect.”
“I-I… I don’t know.”
“I was like that at first as well. But after letting go of my stubbornness and prejudice, I could see the bigger picture. I’m sure you can do the same as well, Brother.”
“B-But if he really isn’t a Demon, why did he touch my family?”
“…What?”
Ah. So that was it.
“Did the Demon Knight harm your family?”
“…He didn’t. But out of everyone in this city, he went out of his way to spend time with my family. Even though they had no prior relationship and were complete strangers! Are you telling me there’s really no meaning to this?”
That… that really was hard to dismiss as a mere coincidence. Even Deathbringer, who knew the Demon Knight well, momentarily had some doubts.
“Tell me, Miss Hero. Was that really just a coincidence…?!”
However, the Demon Knight seeking to harm the inquisitor’s family was incomprehensible.
The Demon Knight had sworn vengeance on all Demons because he’d lost his own family, so there was no way he would ever do something like that.
He was pretty sure of that. He hoped so, at least.
“Hold on a second…”
Right then, the flustered Inquisitor clung to him.
“What do you think? I can’t think of anything to say to that…!”
It was a cry for help from the clueless iron wall.
“The Demon Knight couldn’t have possibly met them to do something like that…!”
“…I don’t know either.”
The problem was that Deathbringer honestly didn’t know either. If he did, he would have already countered those accusations.
“Th-Then what should we do? It couldn’t have actually been just a coincidence, right?”
“Who knows? Personally, I think it’s far more likely that it was a one-in-a-billion coincidence.”
I mean, how could the Demon Knight have possibly known about this guy's family beforehand? While it might seem far-fetched, even if the Demon within the Demon Knight had surfaced, it wouldn’t have changed anything.
Unless the Demon had some weird ability to declare, “Ah, this person is XXX’s kin!” after looking at someone’s face, it was simply quite difficult to believe either it or the Demon Knight had deliberately sought out this inquisitor’s family.
“Or… could the child have approached him first?”
That was a lot more likely.
While plenty of people mistook the Demon Knight for an adventurer because he didn’t wear proper armor, some did mistake him for an actual knight.
That mister, while usually very stern with adults, was incredibly kind to children… If the kid had mistaken him for a knight and asked to see his sword, he might have just indulged that curiosity. It wasn’t entirely impossible that this was what happened.
“A child? What child?”
“Forget it.”
However, instead of explaining all this to the Inquisitor, Deathbringer kept his silence.
It would be pretty troublesome if either of them asked how he knew that yet-to-be-mentioned information. He might even get hit over the head with a shield while being told to respect others’ privacy or something of the sort.
It was better just to keep his mouth shut.
“Miss Hero?”
“Ah, right!”
Anyway, it seemed the inquisitor’s patience was running out. The Inquisitor moved her eyes about and soon blurted out some nonsense.
“Then let’s just ask him! If we ask him whether it was just a coincidence, wouldn’t we get a clear answer?!”
That was a refreshingly straightforward solution. Apart from requiring that they figure out the Demon Knight’s lodging and disrupt his night’s rest.
“…It’s obvious he’ll deny it.”
“Even so, there’s a difference between not asking and at least getting some sort of answer, right?”
The iron wall seemed rather pleased with the answer she’d come up with. She mindlessly pushed forward.
Well, it wasn’t that bad an idea. Even Deathbringer had to admit he couldn’t come up with a better solution.
“Then, let’s go!”
“…Do you know where he’s staying?”
“Don’t you, Mister Inquisitor?”
“…I don’t.”
If this continued, they might be up all night trying to find him, especially given their circumstances.
“It’s not like we’re a parade of idiots or something… There are only a few inns that can accommodate horses, right? We can start looking based on that.”
“Oh!”
“Right… He did have a horse.”
However, it still meant they’d have to disturb his sleep.
Letting out a sigh, Deathbringer agreed to cooperate. Was it because of the Inquisitor’s presence? That other inquisitor had become awfully quiet.
The authority the Hero wielded was just that great… Still, it kind of pissed him off a little. The inquisitor hadn’t even bothered listening to a word he said.
“Why is your expression like that?”
“Should I look happy, then? Seriously, this is so annoying…”
“Hmm…”
“Rather, how did you know to come here, iron wall?”
“Ah. That’s thanks to Berserk. On her way back from training, she saw you following Inquisitor Daniel.”
“Oh…”
“Wait, you were following me?”
“Yes! Right! Why were you following him?!”
“…No, well, you see.”
Deathbringer’s irritation quickly vanished. Now wasn’t the time for him to get angry.
* * *
I organized my Inventory with the clamor of the tavern playing in the background.
Items I rarely needed or were inconvenient to take out from my belt pouch got stored in my bracelet-type Inventory, and things I used frequently or were small got stored in my leg pouch Inventory.
“The lunchboxes will be ready tomorrow. Drinking water, Frederick’s snacks, salt, willow leaves, and then…”
By the way, my leg pouch Inventory always needed me to play some Tetris to keep its insides presentable and its contents easy to locate.
I sat on the floor of the inn, stacking and rearranging my freshly replenished supplies.
“Ah, heated stones.”
In the meantime, I remembered something that had completely escaped my mind. It wasn’t too urgent. As long as I didn’t forget to prepare them tomorrow, I still had plenty of time to make some.
“Tsk. Usually, I only realize I missed something once I’m already on the road.”
However, nothing else came to mind. I furrowed my brows at this vague feeling I always got when packing my bags.
There wasn’t anything I could do about that, though.
“Phew.”
Still, from what I’d noticed while coming to this city, there wasn’t much else I would really need. With my bags fully packed, I dusted off my clothes.
The clothes I was wearing right now didn’t have a self-cleaning function, so I actually had to brush off the dust manually.
Thud.
After that, I let myself fall onto the bed and slowly untied my shoelaces, only to tie them again.
“Is this really where he’s staying?”
“The owner said he’s here.”
Guests had arrived.
“Still, is it really okay for us to come here like this…?”
Bang.
“Huh.”
How did those guys manage to find me? Well, seeing as Deathbringer was with them, there was no need to think any further. Someone from the Information Guild would have no trouble tracking down someone as conspicuous as me.
“Demon Knight! Sorry for coming here in the middle of the night, but we have an urgent matter to discuss!”
But I wondered why they’d come. I looked at the people before me, distorting my expression as best I could.
There was the Inquisitor, Deathbringer, and one unfamiliar face… No, wait. I felt like I’d seen that guy somewhere… Ah, right. Wasn’t that the inquisitor I’d fought earlier this afternoon?
“Your business?”
“How could you just—”
“Ahem.”
I was a little puzzled as to why that last person was here, but I didn’t really want to ask.
So I simply stared at the person who’d spoken first. Deathbringer’s expression didn’t seem too panicked, even though he’d said this was about something urgent, which only made me more curious.
“Erm, Demon Knight.”
It suddenly struck me that it had been a long time since I’d last had a proper conversation with these people, but the thought vanished as soon as it came. It wasn’t anything important, after all.
“Have you… visited a civilian home today?”
The real issue was how they’d found out about that.
“By the way, before you say, ‘I don’t need to tell you anything!’, this has nothing to do with our party issues. We’re asking for a completely different reason!”
Before I could even open my mouth, Deathbringer jumped in. His interruption made me frown even more.
“I did.”
But why was this so important? I quickly tried to figure out what was happening right now.
Did something happen at that house…?
“Do you know them?”
While my mind teetered between worrying about that family and wondering whether I should even report these kinds of things, I tried to choose my words carefully.
If not for the Inquisitor quickly adding, “Please, this is really important,” I might have just snapped at them.
These were the only circumstances under which my character would play nice.
“…I didn’t know them. Is that enough?”
“How could it have been a coincide—”
“Hey. You promised you would hear him out first, right?”
“Are you sure? You really didn’t know them?”
However, I couldn’t tolerate it a third time.
I hadn’t committed any crime, and I certainly didn’t owe them an explanation, especially since they hadn’t even explained the reason for this interrogation.
“You came here unannounced, without any explanation, and are pressing me for answers on something you’re brushing off as important?”
“Ah, that’s… I’m sorry! It’s just my habit as an inquisitor…!”
“I won’t listen to your excuses. If you’re unwilling to give me a proper reason, get out. You’ve already overstepped by digging into my movements.”
I stepped back slightly and began to close the door again.
Bam!
The hand of that gray-haired inquisitor blocked me from doing so. His blazing gaze pierced through Deathbringer’s attempts to calm the situation and reached me.
“No, you have to explain yourself. Why did you meet my family?!”
That was rather unexpected.
When did I ever meet that guy’s family?
“This crazy bastard, how is he so damn strong…?!”
“Brother, you’re getting too worked up! Demon Knight, please don’t misunderstand! We’re not trying to antagonize you here…!”
“Tell me right now! What did you plan on doing to my family when—”
“Such worthless words…”
Then, at that moment, something clicked in my mind.
…Didn’t the kid I’d met earlier say his cousin was an inquisitor?
“You’re nothing but a Demo—!”
Was this how everything tied together?
“Brother!”
“Hey!”
I was left speechless at this absolutely insane coincidence. H-How did this even…?
“Demon Knight, are you really unacquainted with Inquisitor Daniel’s family? If you have some reason for meeting them despite not knowing them, would you please tell us? We just want to clear up this misunderstanding. Please.”
R-Right. I had to clear this up. It was only right to tell them, given how big a misunderstanding this had caused… In his shoes, I also would’ve been extremely upset if the person I’d fought with earlier that day suddenly went to visit my family…
But how should I explain this to them? I was crying in the middle of the street when some little kid came up to me, and that kid happened to be the cousin of this inquisitor…
“Demon Knight, was this really… just a coincidence?”
I recalled thinking at the kid’s house that even if the inquisitor cousin heard about me, it surely wouldn’t reach the Hero’s party.
“Demon Knight?”
“…It was a coincidence.”
I had no idea it was some crazy flag. Damn it!
____
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