Table of Contents

Color Gallery

Title Page

Copyrights and Credits

Table of Contents Page

Prologue: Encouraged to a Reunion

Chapter 1: Emergency to Dispatch

Chapter 2: From Departure to Encounter

Chapter 3: From Changing to Watching

Chapter 4: Waking to a Northbound Flight

Chapter 5: Lodging to Reinforcements

Chapter 6: From Enlistment to March

Chapter 7: Encounter to Engage

Epilogue: Getting a Story Straight to the Hospital

Bonus Story: From the Notes of a Certain Priest

Newsletter

Prologue:
Encouraged to a Reunion

 

THE RUMOR WAS SPREADING—recently, nothing in particular had been wiped out.

If nothing’s been wiped out, do we really need a rumor? Loren wondered. But lately, it seemed like there was always some place or another being wiped off the map. The fact that this had stopped happening was taken as a sign of something even worse on the horizon.

It did seem that humans just sort of naturally loved their rumors. Loren pondered this deep philosophical matter with a sigh. Come to think of it… He thought back on a quest he had gotten wrapped up in a little while back, for which he had gone to investigate a volcano said to house a dragon’s lair. Several villages at the base of that mountain had been decimated by a massive orc outbreak.

Having thought of that, he casually went up to the gossiping adventurers, joined the conversation, and shared this intel, only to be baffled by their reactions. Of all things, they said, “At this point, a nowhere village or two’s not worth a rumor.”

He inquired further and learned that a fair number of villages all over the place—in areas he hadn’t been anywhere near, for that matter—had been annihilated, or nearly so.

This had happened quite frequently, and at this point, the destruction of a village wasn’t really newsworthy. The adventurers explained this to him with a laugh.

Is that really all right? Loren wondered, but it wasn’t like he had anything better to talk about. With a vague smile, he left it at that and took his leave.

“When public order’s on the rocks, mercenaries get to earn their keep…”

When a village fell, it left a power vacuum in its wake. Sure, people would leave it alone for a time, just to be safe, but sooner or later, someone would try to take its place. Nearly every nation was dead set on expansion whenever possible, and these vacancies were the perfect opportunity to grow. This often resulted in a war with the nation that had previously claimed dominion over the now ex-settlement.

Although international tensions were hardly new, these things could crop up domestically too, if nobles got grabby with each other. Often as not, these efforts led to small-scale wars.

A noble’s territory was supposedly assigned to them by their ruling nation, and they weren’t the sort of thing you could just grow or shrink on command, but the devil was in the details. It was hard to prove precisely where the line between the territory of one noble and the next truly lay.

In short, international borders were terribly ambiguous.

This problem was due to a lack of precision mapping. Every nation had its own map, for what it was worth, but these had been drawn by human hands. As the measurements ultimately had to be done with eyes and feet, these measurements, distances, and scales were, to put it lightly, profoundly haphazard.

Indeed, the fundamental issue was that mapping technology was tragically primitive. When Lapis—a certain demon girl who traveled with Loren—learned of these limitations, she was shocked. “Is that really where your kind’s surveying technology stalls out?”

But reality was reality, and there was little that she or Loren could do about it.

Thus, no border was properly set in stone. There was just a vague sense that this belonged here, and that belonged there. The boundaries between noble territories were uncertain and unstable.

“Not that I’ve got any right to complain, after I’ve used that fact to put food on the table.”

As for all the things causing unrest in the world, Loren was sure that someone, somewhere would do something about them.

Yes, perhaps one day, a legendary hero would appear to unify the continent. Then the entire mercenary industry would collapse. But Loren had already wiped his hands of the business, and as an adventurer, he didn’t have any further opinions on the matter.

More importantly, Loren thought. He picked up a cup of ale and looked at Lapis, who was leaning toward him from her seat across the table. They were in the usual place—a corner of the pub attached to the adventurers’ guild.

It was around noon, and the table he was sitting at was topped with a loaf of hard bread and a soup that had been half-heartedly brewed. There was also a plate of pickled vegetables. Naturally, Loren had come to a pub at this time of day to eat lunch.

Although the bulk of the volcano-investigation reward had gone to the newlywed silver-rank adventurer couple, Chuck and Nym, Loren did still have a bit of money left. However, it was a drop in the bucket against the debt looming over his head. Then again, no one was demanding he repay his debt immediately, and since it wasn’t urgent, Loren had ultimately decided not to worry about it. He had money on hand, so he was going to spend it on his meals.

Of course, he didn’t intend to shirk this debt either. But the sum had grown so large that he suspected it would require a national budget to cover it. Loren was no more than an adventurer, and it was hard to imagine he had the means to pay it back in earnest.

I’ll bet they’re going to use this to send me on another insane quest eventually, he thought.

Putting all that aside, his current problem was with the girl leaning across the table. She’d appeared at just about the exact moment Loren came for lunch, as if she’d timed it that way; then she’d taken the opposite chair and made a sudden proposal.

“Mr. Loren, let’s go north.”

What’s she on about, all of a sudden? he wondered as he looked out the window.

The town of Kaffa could be found in the southwestern lands of the continent. It was a temperate region that didn’t experience much in the way of dramatic temperature shifts throughout the year.

Further south, you’d find places that experienced sweltering heat no matter the month. But the north—where Lapis was suggesting they go—had the opposite problem. It was dry and cold, and as far as Loren was concerned, it was certainly not a comfortable place to head.

If they had a need, he wouldn’t object to going there… But isn’t this a bit too sudden? he wondered as he broke the bread in his hands and began chewing on a small piece.

“Mr. Loren? Did you hear me?” Lapis asked a bit sternly, seeing as he’d barely reacted to her words and had instead continued eating.

But Loren was unmoved. He washed the bread down with the bland soup before turning back to her. “You can keep going,” he said. “I’ll think about it once I’ve heard everything you have to say. It’s not like this notion just came to you out of the blue, right?”

Gula was not present. She was always around when they did adventurer work, but Loren still had no idea what she got up to when they were off the clock. Sure, she was a being so powerful as to be called a dark god, and he did have a vague feeling that it was dangerous to leave her to her own devices. But neither did he really have the means to put a leash on her.

Although they were comrades for now, the moment Gula felt so inclined, Loren was sure he’d be sent straight to her stomach with the powers of gluttony she wielded. He didn’t want to kick the hornet’s nest.

“Of course it’s not out of the blue. This is about the chief of the mercenary company you used to run with.”

Now that she brought it up, Loren recalled something he’d learned not long ago.

The information had come from a former member of his company. He didn’t know how accurate this intel was, but he’d been told the chief of the company had been spotted in the Justinian Empire—a nation in the north.

To Loren, the chief was like the father who’d raised him, as well as the master who’d taught him swordsmanship. On top of that, he was a comrade-in-arms. If they could meet again, Loren certainly wanted to do so.

Although he had quit the mercenary business to become an adventurer, if his chief was alive, he at least wanted to tell the man what he’d been up to all this time. However, if you asked him if he wanted to make the long trek all the way to northern Justinia just to do that, his answer would be a quick and resounding “no.”

The northern lands were unspeakably far away.

After he’d gotten the tip on the chief’s location, Loren had secretly looked into Justinia’s precise location on a map. The empire lay due north of the center of the continent. This central region was surrounded by precarious mountains, inside of which lay the demon lands where Lapis’s people resided. If they wanted to get to Justinia from the southwest, they would have to take a considerable detour around demon country.

“Even a one-way trip will take forever, and a ton of money. When you consider the round trip, I just don’t feel up for it. Is there really a pressing need to go that far?”

“There is,” Lapis instantly replied.

She replied so swiftly and resolutely that, for a moment, Loren faltered. Lapis saw this as her chance and leaned even farther across the table, bringing her face close to his.

“During our last job, I was convinced. No matter what it takes, we must meet with your chief and speak with him.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Loren did vaguely understand why Lapis was so fixated on his chief as an individual.

During the job they’d taken before Chuck and Nym’s wedding, their party had investigated some ruins of the ancient kingdom. The door leading to the ruins’ innermost chamber had been sealed with magic, requiring a keyword to open.

While neither Lapis nor the other equally intelligent members of their party had been able to discern an answer to the question carved on the door, Loren had offered a solution as though it was simply obvious. When he spoke the words his chief had told him long ago, the door opened.

Loren had seen it as nothing more than trivia—a little snippet of a fairy tale he thought everyone knew. On the contrary, he’d been puzzled when the rest of his party was stumped. It turned out that none of them had ever heard that fairy tale before.

If Lapis had been the odd one out, her demon heritage might have explained it; she had grown up sheltered from the outside world. But at the time, they had also been accompanied by Dia, who was an Elder, the highest class of vampire. Dia had lived a long time and stepped on every foot of the continent, but she had never heard such a tale before.

When she made quiet note of this to Lapis, Lapis realized she had to persuade Loren to seek out his chief again. Then and there, she made her decision.

“You’re not sure?” Lapis asked. “You don’t want to see him, then?”

“Not exactly… But I don’t feel like we have to go out of our way to do that.”

The nuance was a bit different. His main gripe was that they’d need to cross all the way from the southern end of the continent to the north. The distance alone made him reluctant to lift a finger, and the fact that they would need to take the long way around demon country made the journey even more interminable.

“And it’s not like the chief’s just going to stick around up there forever. Can’t we wait until we hear word that he’s gotten closer?”

Ever since the company fell apart, Loren hadn’t heard a peep about the chief—where he was, what he was doing. Perhaps his old comrade had known a little more, but unfortunately, the fellow had lost his life in the midst of another troublesome episode.

Loren felt a bit downtrodden as he recalled the grim day, but before he knew it, a winged young girl in a simple dress flitted into his field of vision to look at him anxiously. He recovered himself before he could sink any further into depression.

‹Don’t push yourself, Mister…›

The girl was Scena, a Lifeless King, the highest form of undead, who they’d encountered during a certain incident. She’d been turned into this mighty undead being and was speaking directly to Loren’s mind in a voice only he could hear. She sounded ­awfully concerned, and he smiled to reassure her he was alright.

As a result of her battle with Loren, she had lost her physical body, and only her soul remained. If left to her own devices, she would fade away, but by borrowing some space within Loren’s soul, she had managed to maintain her existence.

Precisely because of this arrangement, Scena could quite directly pick up on his emotions.

“Well, how to put it…” Lapis said. “I’m not going to force you. But can you consider it?”

It was impossible to perceive Loren’s conversation with Scena from outside of his head, but Lapis seemed to sense something in the air. She also seemed to decide it was better to put the conversation on hold, and reached out to give her own lunch order to a passing waitress.

Chapter 1:
Emergency to Dispatch

 

IT WAS HARD TO REVISIT the conversation once it had been put on hold.

Even though Lapis was convinced of the journey’s necessity, she considered it unwise to continue insisting, lest she ruin Loren’s mood toward her. For the next few days following her initial proposition, she didn’t so much as mention the topic.

Loren had said he needed some time to think—and think he did. But no matter how he thought, he didn’t see the need to ­invest so much time and effort into meeting up with the chief. His opinion remained unchanged: If possible, he didn’t want to go.

And so time passed with neither Lapis nor Loren bringing it up—and just as they were both liable to forget the matter entirely, an outrageous tidbit of information reached the guild.

The letter detailing this intelligence was accepted by Ivy, a guild receptionist. Whatever the news was, it had been brought in by a messenger on horseback who—having evidently rode his horse at full speed the whole way—was dead tired as he hobbled through the doorway. He cried out urgently as he handed the letter to Ivy, who happened to be running the desk at the time, before collapsing on the spot.

After ordering the other receptionists and staff to treat the rider, Ivy scanned the letter. Her complexion paled somewhat, and she raced off through a door in the back.

The guild in Kaffa was a branch office for the main organization. The back room housed the branch’s management and guildmaster—essentially, the employees with the highest authority. If Ivy had taken off in that direction, it meant that the matter required the attention of the top brass.

The adventurers readied themselves. What’s up now? they wondered. But when Ivy had returned from the depths of the guild, she said only, “It’s an urgent quest!”

A quest form with all the details was immediately posted on the bulletin board, and soon a commotion rose among the adventurers who saw it, which just spoke to the gravity of the situation.

“Loren! Loren! It’s terrible.”

That same evening, Loren had just been discussing getting ­dinner with Lapis and Gula when they suddenly found themselves in the middle of an uproar. Some adventurers even seemed out for blood. Loren took it all in absentmindedly, but when he looked over to whoever it was that was calling his name, he was surprised to find Ivy walking toward him, wearing her guild uniform as always.

“Ivy? What’s all this ruckus?”

“Didn’t she say somethin’ about the guild issuin’ an urgent quest?” Gula asked, but Loren didn’t need her to tell him that.

What he wanted to know was why Ivy was coming toward him, and what he had to do with any of this. And, for the time being, only Ivy could explain that. Instead of going out to meet her, he lounged in his chair and waited for her to arrive. Ivy jogged over, and with all her leftover momentum, she slammed the paper in her hands onto the party’s table.

“It’s terrible!” she cried.

“I heard you the first time. Just calm down and explain what’s so terrible.”

Her face drew close with such intensity, it felt like she was about to grab him; Loren had to push her face back with his hand. Finally, Ivy seemed to realize that continually repeating that something was bad did little to explain its badness. She took a deep breath, calming herself, before pulling up a chair and taking a seat.

“The adventurers’ guild has put out an urgent quest.”

“Yeah, I heard. What’s the big deal?”

“It’s a revenge quest!”

Ivy looked at Loren as though this explained everything, but Loren looked just as confused as before. He wasn’t nearly as understanding as Ivy had hoped he would be.

Then what about Lapis or Gula? The receptionist’s eyes raced to them, but Gula seemed largely uninterested in anything she had to say, while Lapis had opened the dinner menu and seemed more focused on deciding what she was going to eat.

“Hello? Excuse me? Guys?! Something terrible has happened!” Ivy insisted, smacking her hands against the table.

At last, Lapis lifted her eyes from the menu. “Yes, yes, so you say. But what exactly is this terrible thing you’re on about? And besides, the fact that it’s a quest means we don’t have to accept it, correct? Does it really have anything to do with us?”

Even if this terrible thing was tremendously troublesome, all was well as long as it had nothing to do with them. Although Loren’s party was incredibly prone to being wrapped up in just that sort of trouble, if they knew it was going to be trouble from the start, they still did their best to avoid it.

But Ivy immediately relieved them of this notion.

“That’s not how it works! The guildmaster has issued an order. Every adventurer of silver rank and below is obligated to participate in this revenge quest!”

“Are you kidding me?”

This just sounded absurd.

In the first place, if this quest was specifically calling on the adventurers of Kaffa, then they were calling on a branch made up ­entirely of those silver rank and under. Under those conditions, every single adventurer on hand was obligated to embark on this quest.

Is that kind of outrageous stipulation even on the books? Loren cocked his head.

Lapis whispered to him, “The guildmaster has considerable authority over the guild members. If you decline, your membership could be revoked. However…” There, Lapis shifted her gaze from Loren to Ivy. She went on, “Calling on everyone silver rank and below will make for a rather unwieldy number of participants. Do you really need so many people on the case?”

“Ah, not exactly. In this case, you have an option of either sending personnel to take part or contributing financially. It’s all detailed here,” Ivy gestured at the paper she’d brought with her—the paper that was still spread over the table.

It did indeed say something to that effect in the paragraph she was pointing to. But when Loren looked at the minimum amount of money they’d have to contribute if they chose to abstain, his eyes widened.

“Five gold minimum? That’s crazy.”

“A silver might manage to raise those funds,” Lapis explained. “But it will be difficult for iron and lower.”

According to the paper, they needed to provide five gold coins per head that would not be participating. Even if they wanted to pay the minimum to avoid conscription, five gold coins was a massive sum unto itself.

Isn’t this kind of tyrannical? Loren wondered. But he changed his mind when he heard Ivy’s next words.

“An entire guild branch was destroyed.”

The adventurers’ guild was largely a mutual-aid organization for adventurers. It was a community built by collaboration, and it stood to reason that if one branch was crushed, the rest of the organization would band together for retribution. It was also understandable that every member had an obligation to take part.

Still, the guild was completely uninvolved with international politics, and it flexed its influence purely for the sake of adventurers. Destroying a branch was an incredibly reckless thing to do.

“The staff were essentially murdered. The affiliated adventurers were either killed or apprehended, and only a small number managed to escape. These survivors crossed the border to a branch in a neighboring country to plead for assistance. From there, riders were sent out all over the country to spread the news.”

“Neighboring country? Wait, hold up, Ivy. You make it sound like it wasn’t just one branch that got hit.”

Attacking even one branch seemed incredibly reckless to Loren. But if the survivors had escaped to another country for aid, then it stood to reason that they’d had no one closer to go to. Worst case, every single guild outpost in that particular region had been destroyed.

Ivy nodded.

“I find that hard to believe. What lord’s stupid enough to do that? Do they have a grudge or something?”

“It wasn’t a feudal lord,” Ivy answered. Perhaps to calm herself, she placed a hand on the chest of her uniform and calmed her breathing again, which had grown erratic in her anxiety.

Although the receptionist known as Ivy now possessed short mousy hair and a plain face that didn’t make her stand out in any particular way, she was, like Gula, actually a dark god who had been created by the ancient kingdom. The Dark God of Envy, to be precise.

Her face and her figure had been completely changed by her own hand, but her old self still lingered within her. So what could have possibly made her so nervous? All eyes at the table gathered on her.

Once Ivy’s breath was steady, she spoke with a slight quaver. “The country that annihilated fifteen adventurers’ guild branches was none other than the Kingdom of Lonperd, whose territory lies in the northern reach of the continent. The order was given by King Lonperd III himself.”

It took a bit to fully understand what Ivy had just said. Lapis was the first to grasp the implications, and she shook her head as if she simply couldn’t believe it.

Next was Gula, whose face distorted in shock as she let her body fall back into the chair’s backrest. Finally, Loren caught on as well, and with a grim face, he looked between Ivy and the form she’d placed on the table.

“I understand it might be hard to believe,” Ivy said. “Even as I tell it to you, I struggle to understand what’s going on. However, the information we received unequivocally stated that the guild branches were destroyed at the behest of a state government.”

“Sure, the kingdom’s being all kinds of wild, but I can’t believe the guild either. I mean, I know you’re a huge organization and all, but are you seriously gonna retaliate against a whole country?”

The organization known as the adventurers’ guild was so massive that it had spread to every corner of the continent. Loren knew this. But did that mean they could pick a fight with a country and win? That was somewhat difficult to answer.

Certainly in terms of sheer numbers, their forces could rival the number of soldiers in a national army. However, these individuals were spread across the continent, and they weren’t the sort of force that could be mustered and mobilized.

At this thought, Loren realized there was something curious about the participation conditions. “If it’s that important, then shouldn’t you be mobilizing the higher-ranked adventurers too?”

They were very few in number, but adventurers that achieved gold rank and higher were said to possess skills utterly beyond those of silver-rank adventurers. And yet they were excused from the quest. If the situation was so dire, then it only made sense to send their greatest assets into the fray.

“We can’t. The adventurers’ guild is only allowed to operate throughout the continent because of our agreements with each nation. One of the terms is that adventurers of gold-rank and higher are not allowed to participate in any wars.”

According to Ivy, in terms of martial strength, adventurers of gold-rank and higher were, at baseline, individually equal to an entire division of an army. In some cases, their strength rivaled that of entire armies.

These fearsome individuals were allowed to move freely around the continent under the guild’s banner only because of that treaty. If not for that, most countries would do something about an individual as powerful as their entire army whenever they wandered through their backyards.

“In this instance, Lonperd threw the first stone, but if we call on high-ranking adventurers in retribution, our entire diplomatic structure might crumble.”

“Sounds troublesome,” said Gula. “So, to keep this treaty of yours, you can’t even use your strongest units, huh?”

“Doing so would jeopardize the continued existence of the guild itself—or at least it seems that was the decision.”

Say the revenge quest failed. As long as the guild’s problems were contained to Lonperd territory, then even a painful blow would be far from a fatal one.

However, if they broke their international pact and mobilized high-ranking adventurers, that would put states across the continent on guard and risk effectively ending the guild’s relationship with them. So, despite how effective these adventurers would have been, the guild simply could not use them.

“Now hold on there. Does that mean if we do choose to send manpower, we’ll be enlisted to fight in a war?” Lapis asked.

Ivy nodded. “Even before they destroyed the guild branches, Lonperd was at war with its neighbors. As such, we will be lending our aid to a specific army to quell this threat.”

If it was purely a battle between the guild and a kingdom, then as Loren had thought, it would have been a real pickle. However, if they were serving as reinforcements to a nation already at war with their foe, then the terms weren’t so bad after all.

“So, which country are we headed to help out?” Loren asked.

Ivy opened her mouth to answer, but before she could even say anything, Loren’s instincts got to work, and he found himself blurting out the words he just knew she was about to say.

“Don’t tell me it’s Justinia.”

Ivy looked at him with wide eyes; Justinia had indeed been the answer to his question. Loren found himself exchanging an odd look with Lapis.

 

Now that he was compelled to go, Loren had to accept it—rather, he had no say in the matter. But before they went anywhere, there was something he needed to resolve.

“This country is on the far edge of the north, right? If we head out now, are we going to make it in time?”

Even if the messenger had ridden on the fastest horse money could buy, they would have had to take a detour around the middle of the continent, and it would have taken at least ten days to reach Kaffa. And that was if they hadn’t run into trouble on the way. If the Kaffa crew set off now, Loren couldn’t help but feel they’d be too late to do anything.

“A number of guild branches possess enchanted items that allow for the transmission of information. They serve as central hubs—even at its slowest, with our devices and messengers, it only takes a few days for information to reach anywhere.”

“The guild continues to impress.”

“But if we wanna get there from all the way out here, it’s gonna take more than ten days, right? Even if you get us a wagon,” Gula said. “People can’t go as fast as info.”

To this, Ivy calmly responded, “A special transportation service will run between Kaffa and your destination. We will provide accommodation along the way. We can carry ten-odd members at a time via this mode of travel. The costs will be covered by the adventurers who do not wish to participate. Don’t worry, you will be there in good time.”

“I still can’t shake the feeling we won’t make it fast enough.”

At the very least, they would arrive more than ten days after the tragedy. There was no way of knowing how the war between the empire and kingdom was going, but a battle could have a victor well before then.

“The empire and the kingdom have been engaged in a number of small skirmishes and large-scale battles for quite a while now,” said Ivy. “The war won’t be decided that easily.”

“Haven’t you heard about these things, Mr. Loren?” Lapis turned to him, and he thought a bit.

Loren did recall fighting on northern battlefields a number of times, but as for which country he had been fighting for, and which country he had been fighting against—he couldn’t remember a thing.

His company had been focused almost entirely on how to take down the enemy right before their eyes. Alliance and enmity were up to their leaders to decide.

“Sorry. I don’t think I’ll be able to offer much there.”

“In a sense, you truly are a natural-born mercenary, Mr. Loren,” Lapis said, without a shred of cynicism. He genuinely had spent his entire life doing nothing but fighting, and there was even a hint of admiration in the way she said it.

Well, it’s not like I had any other options, Loren thought as Ivy turned serious eyes on him.

“What I’m about to say is something I really do have to make sure you’re aware of,” Ivy said as a preface before covering a few details that came as an actual surprise to the party.

In truth, hardly any of Kaffa’s adventurers were headed off to join this revenge quest themselves. As a penalty, they would have to provide money instead, but as it turned out, the Kaffa branch was willing to provide loans to cover the cost. In short, it all came down to the same thing Loren was so concerned about—the town of Kaffa was simply too far away.

Even if they pressed their adventurers into service, the Kaffa branch had hardly anything to gain. It was better for both the branch and its adventurers to stay out of it, even if it meant taking a loss.

But with all this said, Ivy wanted Loren’s party to participate. That was why she’d come to them.

“My first reason—and I apologize—is that our guild branch does have its honor to uphold.”

In grouping together all adventurers silver rank and below, they had created a bracket with a huge gap between the top and the bottom. Some adventurers were sure to perform magnificently, while others would most certainly die if they went.

If the Kaffa branch just indiscriminately sent all their people out, their reputation would take a hit. So, the branch’s higher-ups had whittled their candidates down to a handful, and Loren’s party happened to be among them.

Lapis seemed discontent with the way the branch had gone about it, but Loren didn’t have much to say about that. He urged Ivy to go on.

Heading off to a battlefield you’d never wanted to set foot on simply because your leaders had asked was nothing new for a mercenary. Even though Loren had distanced himself from that life, this sort of thing had once been an everyday occurrence. His ingrained mercenary instincts meant he wasn’t nearly as displeased as his partner.

“Second, this is just my own instinct,” Ivy went on, “but I have a terrible feeling about the kingdom’s recklessness.”

“And you’re telling us to charge straight into that bad feeling of yours?” Loren frowned, looking terribly bothered.

But though she had been the one to say it, Ivy met his gaze with a face that couldn’t have been more serious. “It’s not completely unrelated to you, Loren.”

“Well, now you’re giving me a bad feeling,” Loren said, a grim smile spreading across his lips.

Ivy pushed past that to explain, “First off, it has to do with dark gods.”

This made Loren’s party grow tense, Gula especially so. Her eyes locked on Ivy in disbelief, but Ivy brushed this aside. She looked only at Loren as she went on.

“And not just one of them. By my guess, two dark gods are in play here.”

“How do you figure?” The smile receded from Loren’s face, and he now looked just as serious as Ivy.

However, his question was answered not by the receptionist but by Gula. “It’s the bond between dark gods—well, not really. The Dark God of Envy’s got this passive thing going on. She’s always searchin’ out targets of that envy. In short, she’s got a good nose for those with a, let’s say, special disposition.”

“Although I’m not certain which dark gods they are, exactly. Though by process of elimination, it would be reasonable to assume they are our two yet missing brethren.”

“Wrath and Pride, huh… That’s a troublesome duo,” Gula grumbled.

Ivy seemed to share the same opinion. A bit of sorrow wormed its way into her serious face.

Although it seemed Gula and Ivy remembered these two dark gods, they were still a complete mystery to Loren and Lapis, and they sought an explanation from Ivy.

“I’ve strayed a bit myself, so I’m not sure if this is still the case, but…”

Not wanting to continue living a life as a dark god, Ivy had used herself as the fundament from which to remake her body from the ground up. She was yet a dark god, but her powers were greatly reduced.

This had been made possible by a device that lay hidden within a certain ruin, but it was possible there were other ruins with similar functions elsewhere on the continent. At least, Ivy didn’t seem to think it would be strange if someone had found another.

For this reason, they couldn’t say for certain whether any information she and Gula possessed on the pre-sealed versions of the gods was still applicable.

After this caveat, Ivy offered up what she knew about the Dark Gods of Wrath and Pride.

The Dark God of Wrath was named Wraith Satania. She had the appearance of a young girl with blonde hair and a stern look on her face. Although she was usually calm, the moment she was angered, she transformed into an unstoppable, untouchable beast.

“If we were to compare ourselves purely on the basis of individual offensive strength, she would probably be the strongest of the dark gods.”

Ivy was about to go on to explain the Dark God of Pride, but after making a show of thinking, she turned to Gula. “What sort of dark god was Pride again?”

“Huh? Ah…right. We don’t know the guy’s face.”

What was that supposed to mean? Loren pressed further. Apparently, the Dark God of Pride had refused to meet with any of the other dark gods face-to-face. In fact, he had refused to expose his real face to anyone who he thought beneath him. His features had always been obscured and wrapped in cloth.

“Definitely a man, though.”

“His name was…Superbia Hyperide, as I recall.”

“This is starting to sound like a pain.”

One of these dark gods was presumably a young girl that became untouchable whenever she lost her temper. The other was presumably some jerk who looked down even on his own comrades. Loren was disinclined to become acquainted with either of them.

“The way I see it,” said Ivy, “There’s no guarantee even silver-rank adventurers will come back in one piece if dark gods are involved. Relatedly, Loren, your party has already met five dark gods—myself included—and lived to tell the tale.”

Maybe it was nice to hear his skills acknowledged, but Loren wasn’t happy about it in the slightest. Still, he did understand what Ivy was trying to say. At present, it was hard to say what effects these dark gods were having on the situation, and how that might have manifested. But as long as he had the demon Lapis and the dark god Gula by his side, he probably wouldn’t be completely at their mercy.

Lapis proposed what she thought might be a loophole. “Can’t you have a little discussion with a gold and temporarily demote them to silver?”

The agreement between the guild and the nations within which they operated stated that no adventurers of gold rank or higher could take part in wars. But what would happen if a few proven adventurers got knocked down a peg or two in the hierarchy?

“That’s a hard sell. The number of adventurers that reach gold or higher is minuscule. Also, their faces are known across the lands. It wouldn’t be long before someone figured out why they had been demoted.”

Now there’s an example of how reputation can backfire, thought Loren. Of course, his party was on the losing end of this situation as a consequence, so it was no laughing matter.

“So the long and short of it is that the guild’s opening up its wallet and telling you to go play mercenary. That is the quest this time around.”

This was information they never would have received if Ivy hadn’t told them. The fact that she was going out of her way to inform the party seemed to be her way of showing integrity.

“Although it sounds like trouble, it doesn’t sound like something we can decline. I don’t mind.” Loren looked around the table to see if his party members were on board. Lapis had her eyes closed, offering no reaction in particular. Gula, meanwhile, shrugged and shook her head as if to say there was no way around it.

When neither raised an objection, Loren turned his eyes back to Ivy. “I don’t mind accepting…on one condition.”

“What is it? As long as it’s not unreasonable, I’ll do what I can.”

Ivy braced herself for whatever Loren was about to say, but Loren lightly waved a hand. It wasn’t that serious. “I’m not trying to be. There’s that silver-rank adventurer Ritz, you know him? I want his party to stay out of this.”

Ivy’s eyes widened a bit—she clearly hadn’t expected the request. She studied him closely, probing for his intentions.

“Chuck and Nym just got married, right? It’s strange, but whenever folks like them take to the battlefield, they rarely ever come back. I can imagine we’ll be caught up in more than our share of trouble, so we won’t be able to help them out. And I’ll be losing sleep if they die.”

It was a well-known jinx in the mercenary trade. Strangely enough, the probability of death really did seem to go up if you’d just gotten hitched, so Loren wasn’t going to question it.

Presumably, newlyweds who were giddy about their recent life-changing events were more prone to distraction, and this was a major contributing factor. But either way, the fact of the matter was that sending someone who fit this particular criteria into battle came with a heightened fatality rate.

“If they want to join the fray and they get on your case about being left off the list, I want you to try to get them to give up. Can you do that?”

“Understood. We will not solicit their assistance ourselves, and if they do put in an application, I promise I will arrange some reason to turn them down.”

“May I add something as well?” Lapis lifted her hand—having aimed for the moment right after Ivy accepted Loren’s terms.

As Loren’s request had been quite reserved, Ivy had acquired a false sense of security. Now she braced herself again, her expression stiff.

“You don’t have to be so wary. My request really is just a tiny little thing.”

But Ivy knew that there was no world in which that was the case. She remained just as wary. Lapis smiled and winked, hoping it would put her at ease, but this only made Ivy even warier.

Chapter 2:
From Departure to Encounter

 

“I SAID IT WAS an itty-bitty little request, so of course it was going to be an itty-bitty little request. She didn’t have to act like that.”

An infuriated Lapis snapped her whip, and the horse, whose behind she had struck, let off a low, discontented grunt.

This had been necessary to direct the horse—she wasn’t just venting her frustrations—but she had, perhaps, exceeded necessity when it came to the strength with which she had struck it. Loren felt a bit sorry for the poor beast. He let out a light sigh from the cabman’s perch.

“Don’t you think that was awful of her, Mr. Loren? When did I ever do anything to make her doubt me so? I’ve conducted myself as an immaculate priest of unquestionable morals. Don’t you think that was unreasonable?”

Loren did pity Lapis (an itty-bitty little bit) but he also thought Ivy had acted completely appropriately. In the first place, anyone aware of Lapis’s true identity would know not to trust her “itty-bitty little request.”

Granted, if she’d come up to Loren with that line, he would have been struck by a feeling of resignation rather than Ivy’s caution. But that was simply because of their relationship; it was unreasonable to expect as much from anyone else.

Lapis had requested that the party be permitted to operate independently.

This was, after all, a quest issued by the adventurers’ guild, and all participants would need to operate under guild management. Perhaps this was simply natural, as the guild was their client, but Lapis had asked Ivy to bend the rules to give them the right to act of their own free will.

Loren had estimated the chances of Ivy accepting this stipulation were around fifty-fifty. However, Ivy had conceded surprisingly easily.

Perhaps she’d thought the request far less terrible than what she’d been braced for, or perhaps she had some other ulterior motive, but Ivy went along with everything Lapis said, and even arranged for a wagon to transport them. As long as they put in a good word to the leaders of the guild branch they were headed to, she promised not to ask about anything that happened along the way.

“Is there a reason we’re the only ones takin’ a different route?” Gula asked, poking her head out of the wagon.

Lapis continued to grumble various grievances under her breath, but eventually, she realized that there was no further satisfaction in doing so. She exhaled before glancing over her shoulder at Gula. “Naturally,” she answered. “There’s no way I’d demand something without good reason.”

“Really now? I bet the guild’s special service is a hell of a lot more comfortable. So why are we rattling around in this cheap wagon here?”

Just to ensure they wouldn’t have room to complain about it later, Ivy had shown them the guild’s original plans for their transportation: a massive carriage that included a sizable living space, and, as Ivy explained, the wheels spun via magic.

An enchanted artifact had been excavated from some ruins, analyzed, and reproduced with modern technology. Compared to the standard wagons of the age, this carriage was an incomparably fast and smooth ride.

If it could be mass-produced, it would certainly change the world. But according to Ivy, it had taken an exorbitant amount of money to produce a single unit, as well as massive amounts of rare and valuable materials. On top of this, even more money was required to maintain it. So as an invention, it came with a host of problems, and it was impossible to produce enough of them to disperse throughout the continent.

“That is, well, it did feel like a bit of a waste, admittedly,” Lapis conceded.

A carriage built with the greatest technology the adventurers’ guild had at its disposal did certainly pique her interest—far more than it would most ordinary people, in fact. But for some reason, she did not rescind her request. She loaded everyone onto the cheaper wagon Ivy booked for them and drove it out of Kaffa.

Lapis was a priest to the god of knowledge and was eternally brimming with curiosity, and yet though she saw that vehicle for the first time in her life, she did not insist on riding it. This had come as a surprise to Loren, but her obstinate insistence on ­taking a different route meant she had to have a reason.

“To put it simply, it was to cut down on travel time.”

“Cut down? That carriage was pretty fast, right?”

“Well, it can apparently go at the speed of a horse, but for far longer than a horse can.”

Although its costs continued to mount, the carriage was a tool rather than a living thing. To get the most out of a horse, the beast required adequate rest. The guild’s carriage did not.

That said, if it ran too long, it would overheat or something. So it couldn’t move for long stretches without any rest whatsoever, but it could still go for a lot longer than a horse. Lapis felt some lingering regrets and had a frustrated look, but neither was she going to concede on this point.

“We have a means of transportation that goes even faster, so there’s no reason not to use it.”

“Really? We have something like that?”

Gula cocked her head, but Loren had all too quickly realized what Lapis was about to say.

“We do,” said Lapis. “The rest have no choice but to circumnavigate the central region in order to reach the north. However, we are able to take the shortest possible route.”

“Hm? Oh…” Gula had caught on too, now. “So you plan to cut straight through demon territory, then.”

Under normal circumstances, it was unthinkable to even consider passing through demon country. Sure, if you were to nervously tiptoe around the edge of their territory, the demons weren’t the sort to chase you down and dispatch you. But if you presumptuously tried to stomp straight through the land of demons, your unwilling hosts weren’t nearly so compassionate as to provide a single shred of mercy.

However, Loren’s party included Lapis. With the daughter of one of the handful of demon lords on their side, the demons would neither obstruct nor attack them. Instead, they would be able to talk things out and proceed while avoiding confrontation.

“But will that cut the time that much?”

Gula still seemed to doubt that taking the shorter route would save them enough time to make it worth turning down the guild’s offer. However, Lapis met these doubts with a grin.

“Why, I wouldn’t choose it if it didn’t make a difference.”

“Makes sense.”

The wagon Ivy had acquired for them was relatively comfortable, as far as wagons went, but it still did not surpass the heights of wagons at large. If they declined a brand-new innovation of great comfort and speed only for it to hardly change the overall travel, it would still be an overall idiotic decision. Gula didn’t think Lapis would ever do something that dumb.

“This time, we will proceed straight for the mountains that surround demon territory. There, we will acquire a different mode of transportation, by which we will immediately reach the center of the continent.”

“The center? Not the north?” Loren pressed.

Lapis shrugged as if to say, I didn’t think you’d catch that. Her response made clear that she hadn’t chosen this different route merely for speed and ride quality.

“Lapis, hiding stuff’s not gonna help anyone.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Loren. My lips have been sealed on this matter, and at present, I am unable to provide an explanation.”

Her apologetic demeanor made both Loren’s and Gula’s faces go stiff. Only a handful of individuals could force Lapis to do anything. All of them were individuals best avoided, if at all possible.

“This isn’t funny, Lapis. Are you selling us out?!”

“No, not exactly… Wait, what are you imagining?!”

“I’m guessing someone absurd ordered you to bring us in or something! It wouldn’t be the first time!”

“I have to maintain my silence! Please let me maintain it!”

Lapis turned her head the other way, but Loren grabbed her shoulder and mustered his strength to make her face him again. As she resisted, Loren brought his face right up to hers and bemoaned, “To hell with your itty-bitty little request! I knew you were up to no good!”

“Can’t you just take it as a wee little favor for your cute girlfriend?!”

“The moment you tack on cute, it’s not a favor anymore!”

Loren and Lapis had nearly broken into a scuffle on the ­cabman’s perch, and thanks to that, Lapis jerked the reins this way and that. In accordance with her movements, the horse lost its ability to walk in a straight line, and the wagon began to jag one way, then the other.

Gula stuck her head out of this shaking wagon to glare at them and mutter, “So you don’t deny that she’s your cute girlfriend.”

“That part’s true or I’m in for a war.”

“That part’s true, undeniably so.”

Their sentences overlapped, both roughly the same shape and length, though they diverged quite a bit at the end. Still mid-grapple, Loren and Lapis froze for a moment in silence.

With the reins no longer sending it in every which way, the horse forcefully corrected its own trajectory and returned to the straight path it had been treading before. Soon after, Lapis was smiling and pressing her body against Loren, tugging so hard that moving straight was again an impossibility.

“Huh? Huh?!”

“So you’re saying you would deny it if it wouldn’t lead to war? Is that how I should understand your response, Mr. Loren?”

“No one said that!”

“Then what exactly did you mean by that statement of yours?”

As the grappling resumed, the horse frustratedly swung its head back and forth in accordance with the reins. Normally, this would have had it shifting course left and right along with them, but it had evidently learned from experience to correct for its rider. Strangely, it continued on straight, and the wagon stopped shaking.

“Hey! Lapis! Quit messing around! And stop swinging the reins like that! The wagon’s gonna roll right off the road!”

“It’s fine! This horse is an excellent steed of the guild’s very own. Do you know, if its rider should go missing, this clever beast knows how to make it all the way back to the Kaffa stables all on its own?!”

“That’s kinda creepy…”

If they left it alone for too long, the horse would simply turn around and return to Kaffa. It was merely an incredibly well-trained animal, but if anyone saw a carriage traveling down the road with neither driver nor riders, it certainly would be an ominous sight.

“Anyways, if we can reach the foot of the mountains by the end of the day, we can set this horsey free and get on our new ride!”

“That’s kinda cutting it close—wait, you really think I’m just gonna go along with this when you still haven’t explained anything?! If this guy can return on his own…”

“Too bad for you. As long as the wagon still has stuff in it, the horse will stick around.”

How about that? Lapis’s triumphant face seemed to say. Loren gritted his teeth in frustration.

As Gula watched this petty exchange, she realized it would take a while yet for the situation to change or settle down. She pulled her head back into the wagon, and in what had become her own exclusive little corner of the world, she closed her eyes to nap the hours away.

 

Even with this exchange, the wagon proceeded on a steady course for the mountains.

Come sunset, Loren’s party had just managed to reach the mountains that delineated the lands of demons from those ruled by other races.

That said, it wasn’t like their path had actually taken them right into that rugged region; they had to stop at the nearest point where the road stopped and vacate the wagon. With a light push, they urged the horse to head back to Kaffa before proceeding a bit farther on their own two feet. Even then, they barely made it, and Loren found himself looking up at the being that awaited them.

“I didn’t think you’d be here. Won’t that cause a huge ruckus?”

Loren asked these words of an entity so massive, he had to strain his neck to look up at it. For some reason, her posture made her seem as though she was meekly scrunching herself up where she sat waiting for them.

“Concealing my physical presence and aura is simple enough. I have no intention of causing a scene,” answered the massive dragon.

Now, Loren hadn’t met so many dragons that he could make out the differences in their facial features, but he had a feeling he’d seen this one before, and the dragon seemed to recognize him too. So, he didn’t hesitate to address her by name.

“Emily, what are you doing here?”

This was the ancient dragon they’d met the last time they infiltrated demon territory.

The dragon seemed a little surprised by their arrival. At first, her eyes widened some, but she quickly came to some sort of understanding and regained her usual expression and air. “It has been some time, human.”

“My thoughts exactly. I didn’t think we’d reunite here.”

Emily was an ancient dragon that had made her den on the other side of the mountains—in demon country. He’d seen her flying in the skies above those same mountains a few times, but he hadn’t expected her to cross them into the outside world.

“Wait, don’t tell me…the way we’re getting straight to the center of the continent…”

“I will be taking you. Reluctantly.”

“You want us to ride you?”

“Is there any other way?”

Emily’s words came as a shock to Loren. The last time they met, Emily had refused to let them ride on her back. When the time had come to give them a lift, it was more that she’d pretended she didn’t see them as they latched onto her leg.

Yet this time around, she was inviting them aboard herself. What had brought about this change of heart? What had happened in the time they were away? Loren was incredibly curious.

“Mr. Loren, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but Ms. Emily is merely taking on certain responsibilities as partial payment for the debt she incurred for destroying you-know-what.”

Loren had been wondering if something had changed Emily’s view on humans, but this train of thought was sent crashing into a wall by Lapis’s calm retort.

Loren looked up at Emily again. For some reason, the dragon turned her head away, as though she was trying to hide from his prying eyes.

“You’re using an ancient dragon as a gofer…”

“I cannot truly protest,” Emily said. “I destroyed what I destroyed. If they say this will write off part of my debt, I am willing to turn a blind eye to some things.”

Then, as though she’d just recalled something, Emily brought her face up to Loren.

Being stared at so intently by a dragon sent a chill running down Loren’s spine. But Emily paid this effect no mind as she curiously asked, “Come to think of it, weren’t you burdened with a portion of that debt as well?”

“Well, yeah… I was.”

Emily happened to be indebted to the same individual that Loren was.

It had all started with a misunderstanding, but while Loren hadn’t asked about the exact amount he owed, he’d been told it wasn’t something any individual would ever be able to pay.

“Isn’t that hard on you? They must be after you night and day to collect. I had amassed a share of wealth, so I was fine, but a novice adventurer would never be able to arrange for so much money.”

“They’re not demanding I pay it back with any speed.”

So far, in fact, there had been not a single demand for payment. Not that he could fork anything up even if asked, but he certainly hadn’t experienced any of the harassment Emily described.

When he told her as much, Emily stared at him in disbelief and shook her head. “The Great Demon King’s envoys are always intruding upon my den, and yet you’re saying not a single one has come to you?”

“Well, it would be a lot of trouble if they did.”

The Great Demon King’s envoys were assuredly powerful, whoever they were, and Loren hated the thought of any of them barging into his room at the inn.

Meanwhile, Emily seemed miffed about Loren’s collector-free heaven of a life. She spit a thin trail of smoke from her mouth as she grumbled to herself.

Loren did understand where she was coming from, but this conversation was getting nowhere. Lapis stepped forward and raised her voice to speak.

“In Mr. Loren’s case, I’ve been ordered to keep him under constant surveillance; that’s why no one else has come for him. In your case, you may suffer collectors, but no one’s observing you, yes?”

“That’s…true.”

“If you’re fine with a monitor being stationed in your den, I could negotiate a leave from collectors. Would you like that?”

“You want the Great Demon King’s underlings permanently stationed in my den? You’re joking.”

“Then please make your peace with it.”

Lapis said this calmly and curtly in an attempt to bring the grievance to an end. But inside, she was smiling, knowing she had managed to skillfully manipulate the conversation.

In all actuality, if you compared Emily’s and Loren’s situations, the greatest difference would be that while Emily had managed to repay a good portion of what she owed, Loren had not returned a single coin of it. The persistence of debt collectors had little to do with it.

At present, Emily seemed to believe that while Loren hadn’t seen any collectors just yet, he was still making payments. Before she dug too deeply, Lapis needed to divert the flow of conversation.

Naturally, she had not, in fact, been assigned the task of monitoring Loren. Since misunderstandings were more trouble than they were worth, she intended to explain this to Loren after the fact. But when she glanced over, she saw he didn’t look particularly surprised. He seemed completely unfazed, though he was cautiously watching every movement Emily made.

“Complaining about it here’s not going to accomplish anything,” Emily finally said, changing gears. “If you keep that fellow waiting for too long, he’ll say I haven’t done enough to warrant reducing my debt. Let us be off.”

She extended her wings down, lowering her stance so Loren and his party members could clamber onto her back.

“Hey, Lapis. I’m not too knowledgeable about history…”

“Are you wondering if there are any records of humans riding on the backs of ancient dragons? As far as I’m aware, there are a few older accounts from the days of the ancient kingdom.”

If Lapis was right on that one, then she was practically referring to the realm of legends and folklore. Loren realized he was feeling a little nervous. But given who he was dealing with, the nervousness was inevitable—or at least so he told himself as he used one of Emily’s wings as a foothold to climb up.

Lapis followed behind him. When she got up, she found Loren sitting there cross-legged, so she plopped herself between his legs and leaned back on his chest as her backrest.

Aren’t you a bit too close? Loren was about to complain. But then Gula, who came up after Lapis, circled around to his back and clung straight to it with her arms wrapped around his neck. He hurriedly grabbed her hands.

“Aw, hey now, Loren. What am I supposed to hold onto, huh?”

“Just not the neck, okay? At least make it the shoulders.”

If it had been someone weaker, he wouldn’t have resisted her hold on his neck. But if Gula got anxious or excitable, she and her raw physical strength might strangle him to death, and there was no guarantee it wouldn’t come to that. Loren wasn’t just ­going to hand that opportunity to her.

“You needn’t group up like that,” said Emily. “I’ll be careful not to drop you…”

“I never worried about that,” Lapis replied. “But this seating arrangement is necessary.”

“Is it? I don’t really see how. But if all’s well with you, I’ll take off.”

Perhaps her answer had never mattered that much, as Emily did not hesitate to kick off the ground with a deftness belied by her large frame.

That alone sent her gliding far up over the ground. Then, with a few flaps of her wings, her body was soaring in no time at all. Loren looked down to see they were flying at a height so great that, had he been standing, his legs would’ve given out.

“I didn’t feel the acceleration at all. Dragons really are in­credible creatures,” Lapis said while still pressing her back into Loren.

Now that she mentioned it, Loren thought back to the moment Emily had taken flight. When a vehicle got going, there was always a moment of impact where his back would be pressed into his seat. With Emily, he’d felt nothing of the sort even when they rose to an incredible altitude.

“I highly doubt you’ll ever ride on the back of another ancient dragon, but remember this nevertheless: A dragon would never fly in a way that burdened those on its back.”

“Not that I want to ride another one.”

Emily turned only her head back to glare at Loren. He clearly did not understand how great an honor it was to ride upon her back, and she was about to offer a few choice words, but Lapis spoke up before she could.

“I wouldn’t ride one either, if I had a choice.”

“Same here. No way, no how.”

With all three of her passengers criticizing her, Emily began to exude a slight negative aura.

Did I say something I shouldn’t have? Loren wondered. But as things stood, Emily’s back wasn’t exactly comfortable.

Maybe if she had a saddle, he thought. But there was no way a dragon would let anyone fasten something like that onto it.

“I’m sorry for being a dragon that can’t offer you a comfortable ride. But you’ll have to put up with it for a while.”

“Ah, are you sulking?”

Before Lapis could rub any more salt in the wound, two arms wrapped around her from behind and squeezed her a bit, eliciting a slight shriek. After which she fell silent.

The power had drained from her body. As Loren supported her, he called out to Emily’s head, “Sorry about that. We got a bit overwhelmed.”

“It’s fine. Let us finish this job and be done with it.”

Having either recovered or decided not to be bothered, Emily grew curt. She flapped her wings, picking up speed as they flew on a course toward the center of the continent.

In this way, they rode that ancient dragon on a straight shot to the heart of demon country—yet this journey through the sky was not particularly enjoyable. It wasn’t because the ride quality was that awful either. In fact, it seemed that Emily really was being mindful of them, and it wasn’t as bad as Loren had initially thought it would be.

So what was the problem, then? Basically, it was the speed and time.

Emily’s flying speed was incredibly fast. She left them no time to take it easy and enjoy the bird’s-eye view. If Loren concentrated, he could just barely make out distant sights, but anything closer was quite literally flying past him, and he quickly gave up. He decided to just concentrate on studying where they were headed.

As for the time aspect, the flight speed really was so fast that the overall flight was incredibly short. From Loren’s perspective, it was like he had been brought to the destination before he really knew what was going on. By the end of it, he hardly had time to appreciate flying through the sky as a human, let alone riding on the back of an ancient dragon.

“Can you see it? That’s the Great Demon King’s castle.”

As Emily called out to him, Loren realized their speed had slowed.

He had been absentmindedly staring straight ahead this whole time, but now he extended his attention to take in the surroundings. The world had become more discernible now that the ancient dragon had slowed, and he finally had some leisure to look around.

Even so, every sight flowed by and vanished. He tried to concentrate on what he could and landed on the structure that Emily had drawn his attention to.

He beheld a massive lake. Timewise, it was the dead of night, but in the darkness, he could make out what looked like a floating island at the center of the lake, and built atop it, a structure so grand, he wondered if he was really looking at a mountain.

Here and there, it was illuminated either by bonfire or magic light. Loren could faintly discern its silhouette, which gave him a chill that ran all through him.

“So that’s it?” Gula asked in his ear, pressing her body against the exact spot where he had felt the chill.

She’d spoken so close that Loren inadvertently quivered, and Lapis, who had grown docile in his arms, regained her senses. She lifted her head from Loren’s chest and looked around as though she had woken from a nap.

“U-umm… Y-yes, right there. That is our destination, the Great Demon King’s castle.”

Between knowing they were headed to the center of the continent and what Emily had said about working off debts, Loren had already guessed where Lapis had been ordered to take him. But now that it was actually standing there before him, and now that it had been explicitly named, he couldn’t help but feel a weight in his chest.

He wanted to leave right away, but it was too late for that. Even if he somehow got off of Emily, he was still in the heart of demon country, and he doubted he’d make it back to human lands on his own two feet.

“You don’t have to be so concerned, Mr. Loren.” Lapis sensed his mental state from their point of contact, and she looked up at him as she spoke in a reassuring tone. “In this instance, His Majesty the Great Demon King has personally invited you. He’s not crazy enough to harm a guest he invited himself.”

Her words did little to alleviate Loren’s anxiety, just given who they were dealing with.

If he irritated the king even a little bit, he could easily imagine his life was over, and if possible, Loren didn’t want to meet the guy. However, with no regard for Loren’s feelings on the matter, Emily hovered in the airspace above the castle and began a spiral downward, slowly descending toward it.

“Now where should we land?”

“Why not right in front of the gate?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

As she responded to Lapis’s question, Emily looked back at her passengers with a grin. Of course, Loren wasn’t hoping to have fun visiting the Great Demon King’s castle in the first place. But Emily was the only one with the power to decide where they landed. All he could do was pray for a peaceful end to the ride.

“All right, that looks like a good spot.”

Emily circled the castle’s perimeter for a bit until she finally made her decision. Altering course, she closed in on the massive structure.

By that point, Loren still didn’t know where she intended to touch down, but the two women—on his back and in his arms—began to panic.

“Hey, hold up!”

“I don’t think that’s any place for a dragon!”

What were those two so hysterical about? Loren focused and barely managed to make out the place Emily was headed toward.

To his eyes, it looked like a balcony. For some reason, it was one of the only unilluminated areas, and the shadow of the castle had shrouded it from the light of the moon. But if Emily’s direction and eyeline were any clues, that seemed to be her destination.

“You don’t want to get off?”

Emily had a truly gargantuan body. She was large enough to be worthy of being called an ancient dragon, and though the castle was gargantuan too, Loren feared what would happen if she descended on a lone balcony. But it seemed Lapis and Gula were concerned about something else.

“Even if we wanna get down, if we hop off there, they’ll treat us like we’re some shady intruders and send out the guard!” Gula protested.

“That’s also a concern, yes, but if you break that balcony, please understand that your debt will increase!”

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. Here we go.”

These words of warning fell on deaf ears. Although Emily killed a bit of her forward momentum, she still had quite a bit of speed as she dove.

Loren imagined a great jolt followed by a substantial injury, but at the same time, he was struck by a rather out-of-place thought: Why do they even have a balcony wide enough for an ancient dragon? What is it even used for?

And as he pondered these things, Emily nimbly landed on the balcony, far too lightly for someone of her magnitude. It was such a splendid landing that none of the passengers on her back felt any real impact. But for some reason, the dragon went on to shake and send all of them toppling off of her.

It was so sudden that no one had braced themselves. They were thrown straight into the air, drawing parabolas through the sky as they flew.

“We’re going to hit the wall!”

“No, even worse!”

Their trajectory took them not toward a wall but a window. The pane was entirely expensive glass, and it didn’t look nearly sturdy enough to stop them. And that was just in terms of ­impact—it went without saying that shattered glass could be terribly dangerous. Worst-case scenario, the fragments could inflict a fatal injury. Loren immediately shifted Lapis and Gula, who were still clinging to him. He wrapped them in his arms in a firm hold and curled his body so his back would hit the window first.

But the impact he anticipated after that weightless stretch never arrived.

Instead, he found himself flying for longer than he’d expected, and at the end, there was a great splash, after which he found himself sinking into warm liquid.

It felt like he had fallen into a marsh, but it was hard to imagine there was a marsh within the castle. What’s more, the ground wasn’t that far away. He immediately set his feet on the bottom and stood. Lapis and Gula—still in his arms—seemed to have taken in some water on impact, as they broke into coughing fits.

“Are you okay?” Loren asked as he released them. Gula was coughing so hard, she couldn’t answer, but Lapis wasn’t quite as badly off. Pointless as it was, she wrung out her vestments a bit before nodding.

Looks like she’s fine, Loren thought as he watched Lapis rub Gula on the back. He turned to take in where they had landed.

He didn’t know how it had been done, exactly, but someone had opened the window before they collided with it. In the distance, he could see Emily circling.

After throwing them, the dragon had evidently fled.

There had to be a nicer way of delivering us, Loren thought as he shifted his attention from the window to the room they had been thrown into.

It was not equipped with any lights; this was a place of pitch-blackness. He was submerged up to his knees in hot water that was just about the perfect temperature, and it covered quite a large area. Furthermore, this water wasn’t the slightest bit murky—it was crystal clear.

“Is this a bath?”

This being a palace, he couldn’t think of any other facility that would require so much hot water.

This place must cost a fortune, he mused. But considering they were in the Great Demon King’s castle, he told himself it wasn’t so strange to find a bath or two.

“But if this much water’s already been warmed up…that means someone just took a bath, or they’re about to.”

“You haven’t considered that someone might be taking one now?”

The response didn’t come from Gula, who was still coughing, or Lapis, who was still nursing her. Loren hadn’t even expected an answer to his murmur, and he stood on guard, turning toward the direction of the voice.

“Curse you, Emily,” said the voice. “I know I said to bring them as quickly as possible, but there was no need to throw them in here. You’ve ruined my alone time.”

“Who’re you?”

The voice was coming from somewhere farther into the room, beyond where the meager light from outside could reach. But if Loren focused his eyes, he could vaguely make out a figure submerged in the bathwater.

“Who am I? Now that’s a funny way to greet someone. That said, I already know who you are, so I won’t ask you to introduce yourself first.”

“You’re not answering the question.”

While Loren made sure he was ready to draw his greatsword at any second, the owner of the voice didn’t seem to take any similar defensive measures. They didn’t even try to leave the water.

Is this the right attitude to take with an armed intruder? Loren wondered. Then he felt a sudden force pulling at his hand from behind.

“You can’t, Mr. Loren. Please, stand down.”

The voice was quiet and stiff, but at the same time, its tone was strong. It was Lapis.

The moment Loren saw her expression, he removed his hand from the hilt, fell to his knees, and lowered his head. His reason was simple enough—he could think of only one person that would make Lapis behave in such a way.

“You need not humble yourself so. You did not ask for this, and I did indeed instruct Emily to bring you before me with all possible haste. Besides, it is only natural to raise your guard when you hear a voice in the dark. I’ll not rebuke you for reaching for your weapon.”

A small ball of light bloomed in the darkness. The orb had presumably been summoned via magic, and it cast light on the face of a young man. His long, pure-white hair cascaded down his shoulders, and his deep-purple eyes brimmed with curiosity as he stared at them.

Everything below his chest was submerged, but from what could be seen above the surface, and from what the clear water revealed, he was of considerable stature and quite muscular.

“Given where we are, I can’t offer much in the way of welcome, but I should at least introduce myself.” The man wiped his face with his hand and smiled. “I am the one who summoned you here. The greatest of demonkind and the lord of demon lords. The Great Demon King. Commit me to thy memory.”

Chapter 3:
From Changing to Watching

 

“WELL, WHATEVER THE CASE, a change of clothes is in order, yes? You don’t wish to continue this conversation while still sopping wet, do you? Not to mention the state I’m currently in.”

The Great Demon King casually stood from the water within which he’d been submerged, showing absolutely no intention of hiding his body. This put all sorts of things on full display, and Loren was concerned about Lapis’s reaction. When he glanced over, however, he found that she was still kneeling, her eyes firmly shut, and her head bent as far down as it would go without dipping below the water. She wasn’t even looking in the king’s general direction.

“I’ll have some things prepared at once. Don’t bother resisting, now.”

The word “resisting” got Loren a bit curious, and he was especially curious about what face the Great Demon King had been making when he said it. He lifted his head ever so slightly to catch a glimpse, but with a snap of the king’s fingers, the bathing area was filled with girls in maid uniforms, who appeared without a sound. Loren quickly put his head back down.

Even though he was kneeling in warm water, he was wracked with chills. His body wouldn’t stop trembling.

The women who’d appeared at his signal were probably indeed maids, just as their appearances suggested. Yet Loren was completely overwhelmed by their auras.

‹Are you okay, Mister…? If anything happens, I’ll do everything I can to protect you.›

Loren was so tense, he couldn’t even respond to Scena’s worried voice. If he made a single mistake, if he happened to offend anyone present, he knew with absolute certainty that he wouldn’t make it out alive. This feeling consumed his flesh.

In terms of pure appearances, the maids could have been described as cute, but the sheer force of presence each and every one of them carried was just as great as, if not greater than, Lapis’s mother, Judie—who happened to be a demon lord.

Once the king rose from his bath, the girls wrapped clean cloth around him and began to dry his body. During this, one of the maids glanced down at Loren and his party. “Your Majesty, who are these individuals?”

They were intruders who had infiltrated the castle while the king was bathing; anyone who heard of such a thing would automatically assume the perpetrators were criminals. It wouldn’t have been strange to see them executed on the spot.

True, it was Emily who had thrown them in here, seeing it as “the fastest way” to present them to the Great Demon King, but the weight that held was completely up to the king to decide. Loren’s body instinctively stiffened.

But the maids only continued to wipe the king down, and the king himself remained terribly flippant. “They’re guests,” the king told his maid. “The ones I ordered Emily to fetch for me. They’re here because they were carried here, and Emily was only following orders. No one has earned any blame.”

“Do you wish to hold an audience with them at this time?”

“An interesting joke, but you can’t be serious. Prepare a change of clothes and a room for each of them. They are my guests, so ensure they are treated appropriately.”

“Understood.”

The maid who had asked the question lowered her head, and immediately the tension in the air dissipated.

Looks like they’ve loosened up, Loren thought. He nearly let out a sigh of relief—only to swallow his breath when the remaining maids dashed toward him.

The girls stepped into the water without hesitation, paying no heed to their dresses. They moved atop the water’s surface, ­approaching Loren and the rest of his party.

It was true that they would have gotten their skirts wet if they waded through water, and so Loren had assumed he should be the one to get out to meet them. But as they glided over the water…forget their skirts, even the soles of their feet remained utterly dry. Loren could only stare in a daze.

“Now, sir, your hand, please. If you linger down there, your belongings will be ruined.”

“Why, if it isn’t Lapis. It has been some time—have you been doing well? You’ll take ill if you allow your hair and robes to remain so wet. You must change at once.”

“Umm, can I just throw the blonde one in some corner or another?”

Loren faintly heard Gula’s protest—“Why am I the only one being treated like garbage?”—and accepted the maid’s outstretched hand. He assumed the maid would pull him to his feet, but she went further than that. She easily hoisted him up and cradled him like she would an infant.

He weighed a fair bit, and that was before you added his equipment. What’s more, the maid was far smaller than he was. But he was helpless in this position. All he could do was exchange a look with Lapis, who was hefted up in a similar fashion by another maid.

When she caught his eyes, she softly shook her head. “Resistance is futile. Just let them do as they please.”

“Your Majesty, this guest has quite the physique. I don’t know that we have any spare clothes that will fit… Would you permit me to borrow something from your wardrobe?”

The maid holding Loren called out to the Great Demon King, who was being dressed in a bathrobe. After sending an amused look at Loren, the king nodded. “Use whatever you wish. What an interesting thought, a human wearing my clothes.”

“You have my gratitude, Your Majesty.”

The maid bowed and lowered her head as she spoke words of gratitude. Then she walked off over the water and out of the bath. She exited into the hall with Loren still in her arms.

Loren was a bit worried about how his comrades were faring, but for now, he was more concerned about what was going to happen to him. Not that worrying was going to do anything; he didn’t think he could best the maid carrying him in a contest of strength, and he ultimately concluded he had to trust her and do as she said. For the time being, he relaxed, hoping it would be easier for the maid to do her job.

“Why, sir. Your reaction has made quite a favorable impression,” the maid remarked without slowing her pace even a mote. She must have sensed the power leaving Loren’s body. “Your trust will make it far easier to do what I must.”

“Isn’t it possible I’ve just given up?”

“If that is the case, then I must say you’ve very appropriately assessed the situation,” she replied with a smile.

I knew it, I’m no match for her, Loren thought. No matter what she did to him now, he knew it would be wiser to just go along with it.

Loren did not ultimately want to commit anything that followed to memory. He was brought to a room full of a bevy of maids, who had been called in as reinforcements. By their hands, he was stripped bare, every scrap of his clothes and equipment taken away.

Loren had about as much shame as the average person, so he did have a few things to say about this treatment. But he’d made his decision, and he held in his complaints.

The maids did tell him that they would tend to his clothes and let them dry. But Neg, who usually clung to Loren’s shoulder, refused to be taken away with the clothes and went as far as to use his web to keep himself in place. Only Loren’s protest allowed him to escape whatever other fate awaited him.

As for underwear, Loren had some in his bags that had managed to avoid getting wet, so that wasn’t an issue. Appropriating the Great Demon King’s clothing, however, was indeed a problem.

The Great Demon King was quite tall, with a well-honed body, but he was still quite a bit slimmer than Loren, and none of the king’s clothes actually fit him.

Once the maids figured this out, they swiftly gave up on dressing Loren in any of the existing garments. Instead, one of them unstitched a particular outfit at an astonishing pace, took Loren’s measurements, and immediately put it back together at the appropriate size.

“Are clothes the kind of thing you can put together that quickly?”

“Naturally, any maid who serves the Great Demon King ought to be able to do as much,” the maid who’d done the needlework answered.

Loren was decked out in what looked like a holy man’s robes of white and silver. It was terribly hard to move in and heavy to boot. Loren looked down reproachfully at the hem, which had been made to drag along the floor, and at the terribly baggy sleeves. He checked himself out here and there, raising his hands and twisting his waist back and forth.

“This doesn’t suit me at all…”

From the moment he was born, Loren had never worn anything even remotely close to this.

There was no mirror on hand, and he couldn’t tell exactly how he looked, but he just knew he looked like a clown. His mood took a turn for the worse, yet for some reason, the tailoring maid seemed a bit impressed.

“I know I’m the one who made the alterations, but this is a surprise. It looks lovely.”

“You know flattering me isn’t really gonna do anything for you.”

“Oh, I know; you just look wonderfully dignified. I’m sure that if you introduced yourself as a king, quite a few people would believe it.”

Yeah, even as compliments go, I think you’re pushing it there, Loren thought. He supposed that the maids had been ordered to treat him like a guest. In short, they were obligated to ensure that his time here was not unpleasant, and they were making the effort to be tactful. He gave up on trying to get an honest opinion out of them and turned to the maid, who still wore a surprised look.

“So what am I supposed to do now?”

“A meal has been prepared. You will be dining with His Majesty.”

“My stomach already hurts.”

Loren was already certain he would take incredible psychic damage from any meeting he ever had to have with the nobles and kings of the human countries with which he was familiar. This king was in a league of his own, and faced with a being of such profound might, Loren couldn’t imagine himself enjoying the meal even a little bit. I should get ready for heartburn and indigestion, he thought with a powerless smile.

The maid cocked her head. “The ingredients were carefully ­selected from the finest sources. They were prepared by the greatest chefs in demon territory.”

“I’m not doubting the quality. It’s a problem of constitution,” he answered, though he didn’t think the maid understood. He suddenly found himself with a very important question: “So how long are we going to be intruding here?”

“My lord understands that you are in a hurry. He brought you here rather forcefully, so he does not intend to keep you long. Or so I have heard.”

One dinner and one night.

By tomorrow morning, their sodden equipment would have dried off and they would be able to head out. Great, if I can just survive the night in one piece, I can leave. Loren let out a discreet sigh of relief.

“If you are satisfied with that explanation, would you care to accompany me? I shall guide you to His Majesty’s dining table.”

Neg clambered his way up to Loren’s left shoulder and stuck himself there. As Loren stroked his back, the maid bowed, stood, and walked off. Loren followed the maid out of the changing room and found himself walking down a long, long corridor for a good long while. At last, he was led into their destination.

“Mr. Loren! I’m glad to see you’re all right! You were taking so long, I thought something must have…happened…to…”

As soon as Loren entered, he was greeted by Lapis. She wasn’t clad in her usual vestments, and was instead wrapped in a dress that exposed her shoulders and emphasized the lines of her body.

Perhaps because she was a demon, the dress was purple and had something of a bewitching quality. However, between her innately innocent features and the fact that her hair seemed to have been somewhat messily arranged, the ensemble had a dash of wholesomeness. Even from Loren’s layman’s perspective, it suited her quite well.

On the opposite end of the spectrum was Gula. Though she wore a dress with a similar design to Lapis’s, her hair was perfectly coiffed, and the dress itself was gold in color. Her proportions, which were more pronounced than Lapis’s, brought her most alluring elements to the fore.

“They dressed you pretty well. Both of you.”

“Are you…really Mr. Loren?” With a great tilt of her head, Lapis closely inspected him.

Behind her, he saw Gula’s eyes widen and freeze. It was like she had forgotten to blink.

So I look that ridiculous, huh? Loren thought with a wry smile and shrugged. “I don’t blame you. If you want to laugh, then laugh.”

“No, umm… Ah, how should I best put this…” Lapis mumbled as she strove to choose her words with utmost care. But she couldn’t manage any further.

It wasn’t long before another wave of maids flooded in, bringing with them various accoutrements. The meal began with the decorations: First, a pristine tablecloth was draped over the table, and various light sources were ferried in and stationed all around. Then came four chairs, each so intricately designed that Loren couldn’t even begin to imagine how much money each one had cost. These were placed at a perfectly equal distance around the table.

Loren and his party watched as the scene was built, until the working maids were followed by the Great Demon King, who they’d last seen naked in his bath. This made them all tense up a bit.

The design of his clothing rather closely resembled Loren’s getup, though the base color of his outfit was black. The Great Demon King confirmed that they were all present before letting out a satisfied laugh.

“There you are. Now wait just a minute. It wouldn’t have been so much trouble if we used the usual dining hall, but some would make a fuss if they saw me breaking bread with a human and someone human-ish.”

“A meal, is it, Your Majesty?” Lapis said, speaking for the party.

Loren for one, had no idea how to talk to someone who had the title of “king,” and he felt it was dangerous to give that responsibility to Gula. Lapis, who was the daughter of a demon lord, was surprisingly a perfectly appropriate choice, when it came to talking to the Great Demon King.

“Indeed, daughter of Judie. Tonight, as I am the one who invited you, I am obligated to entertain you. It may not be much, but enjoy what I offer to your hearts’ content.”

There’s no way we’re going to enjoy this, Loren thought with a stiff look. The smiles Lapis and Gula gave were clearly forced as well, the look of professionals.

Meanwhile, the Great Demon King had his fill of amusement as he gazed at these three faces. As he laughed, the maids continued to arrange the room as though nothing at all was amiss.

“Now then, even if I tell you to relax, that might be difficult for you,” the Great Demon King said once the maids had finished placing the table.

Only Lapis managed to smile at his words, and it was a distinctly wry turn of lips. They were surrounded by maids and seated at a not-particularly-large table with the Great Demon King himself.

If anyone could relax in these circumstances, I’d love to meet them, Loren thought.

Worse yet, the room had no windows. Every mote of the room filled Loren with an overwhelming dread; he could not escape the urge to bolt the first second it was permissible to do so.

The table was stacked high with food. Loren didn’t recognize any of the dishes, but they were presumably quite expensive and classy. None of this helped alleviate the tension within him.

“Whether you remain so wary of me is of little consequence. I have already fulfilled my objective.”

The lights didn’t do much to illuminate the room, and within this dim space, the Great Demon King let out a mild chuckle. He had an affable laugh, the sound no different from that of a young human man. Loren thought this fellow an inhuman, mighty, and peerless monster, so he was a tad surprised to hear a laugh like that.

“What do you mean by ‘objective’?” Lapis asked.

To this, the Great Demon King replied, “That man. Loren, was it? I got to see his face.”

Loren furrowed his brow ever so slightly. After all, they were dealing with a man who was the very pinnacle of what demon-kind could hope to achieve. A man who had summoned an ancient dragon just to see the face of a mere mercenary—or rather, a mere adventurer. He couldn’t fathom what this could possibly mean.

“As expected, he’s quite an interesting fellow, and things are getting quite interesting around him.”

Loren didn’t consider himself so “interesting” that someone would use the word twice in a row to describe him. On the other hand, this was the Great Demon King. It was possible that Loren was such a puny individual that the vast difference between him and a lofty king made him interesting by default. Although this was still a foreign notion to Loren.

Lapis had a very sensible question: “Your Majesty, where did you come to know of him?”

At the very least, the Great Demon King must have known about Loren’s last visit to the land of demons—during which a misfire on the part of a certain ancient dragon had destroyed part of his residence. But Loren didn’t consider this the sort of story that would earn such investment from a king.

“Why of course, I learned of him from my trusted vassal Judie.”

“You mean Mother?”

“You have sent Judie periodic reports from the outside world, have you not?”

As the Great Demon King said this, Lapis stared at him blankly. She then sent an apologetic glance to Loren, but as far as Loren saw it, there was no reason to be mad that she was telling her mother about her travels.

In fact, it cast her in a somewhat better light, knowing she made sure to keep in touch with her mom even after that same mother had taken all her limbs and both her eyes, thereby somewhat forcefully driving her out into the world.

He was a bit curious about what she had written, admittedly.

“Whenever she drops by, she goes on and on about how her daughter found a good man out there. Why, she seems positively overjoyed…”

“Your Majesty?”

“Would you like me to attend the ceremony? Few can say they had the Great Demon King in their party, you know.”

“Your Majesty?!” Lapis shot up from her seat, her hands planted on the table as she cried out. Even in the meager light, it was clear that her face was bright red.

The Great Demon King grinned. Fearing any further reaction would be disrespectful, Lapis frowned and slowly seated herself back down; Loren averted his eyes from her.

‹It’s starting to sound like he summoned an ancient dragon to do his bidding because he exchanged some gossip with a drinking buddy. The world would be shocked if they heard about this.›

Loren completely agreed with Scena’s sentiment, but it was more the fact that the Great Demon King had actually done this that made him so terrifying to Loren.

“I was interested to hear that the daughter of a demon lord I so trusted had fallen for a mere human. Thus, I thought I ought to have a look at his face by any means possible, and here we are.”

“You’re taking the joke too far, Your Majesty…”

“It was just a bit of fun. But now I don’t consider it to be merely that.”

It was only slightly, but Loren heard the drop in the Great Demon King’s tone of voice. He shifted his gaze, staring straight at the king’s face.

It was an insolent act, but the Great Demon King did not seem to find fault in his actions. The smile remained on his face.

“Loren, you certainly are an interesting individual. Despite being a completely ordinary swordsman, or mercenary, or adventurer, your very existence is, in fact, an impossibility.”

What, you think I’m not real? Loren wearily mused, but judging by the Great Demon King’s tone, he didn’t mean it in a bad way. So what exactly did he mean? Loren wanted to ask, but he didn’t know how to say it in a way that wouldn’t get him smacked straight out of existence, so he held his tongue.

“You look like you have something to say. I’m not going to nitpick your manners, so speak freely.”

Now that he had permission, Loren prayed that he wouldn’t be punished for his impertinence. He lifted his heavy tongue and looked at the Great Demon King. “Before that, can I ask something?” The king cocked his head curiously, urging him to go on. So, he asked what he thought he ought to ask: “I don’t know your name, so should I just do what everyone else does and call you ‘Your Majesty the Great Demon King,’ or something?”

“Oh, that did slip my mind. I am known to every demon in the land, so I’ve completely forgotten to introduce myself.”

Lapis had sent a look of genuine concern at Loren when he spoke with his usual tone, but the Great Demon King put a hand to his forehead and smiled wryly, as if this had only just occurred to him.

“I am Foras. For certain reasons, I cannot reveal my surname to you, but you may call me Foras.”

“M-Mr. Loren! You can’t actually call him by name, okay?!”

When he’d said, “you may call me Foras,” Loren was about to do just that, but Lapis’s desperate whisper made him shut up.

I guess actually calling him that would be kind of bad, given how far he stands above me, Loren thought, and so he tried to work out a way to say it that would not cause offense. “Your Majesty, Great Demon King Foras…”

“That’s far too much of a mouthful—it’s even longer than your previous suggestion. Foras is fine. Shall I order you to call me that?”

Now that he’d been given permission twice over, it felt like it would be rude to weasel around it. Loren had no idea what to do; he looked to Lapis for her opinion, and despite the stiff look on her face, she nodded.

Evidently, she’d decided it would be all right. Loren looked back at Foras and opened his mouth. “Foras, you called me ­impossible. What do you mean by that?”

“I’m afraid that’s not for me to explain. Sooner or later, the time will come for you to know, and that is when you will learn. I do apologize for speaking in such a pretentious manner, but even with all that aside, you are still terribly interesting.”

At this, Foras sent a look at one of the maids. He seemed to be signaling for something.

They must have discussed this in advance, thought Loren. As soon as she caught Foras’s gaze, the maid lowered her head, then held her hand above one of the many fixtures illuminating the room. With that single gesture, every light was extinguished, and the windowless room was thrown into complete darkness.

“Regardless of how excellent your night vision might be, you ought to be unable to perceive anything in a pitch-black room—provided you aren’t a demon, or as strange as that other woman. So, Loren. What about you?”

Loren could faintly perceive Foras’s face as he asked the question. He could just barely make out the amused smile, and he was sure his ability to do so was thanks to the power of Scena, the Lifeless King within him. But after a moment had passed, his hazy view of Foras suddenly became far more vivid.

‹I’ve linked up our sight, Mister,› Scena’s voice resounded in his head.

That’s strange, thought Loren.

If he was only now seeing through Scena’s power, then how had he perceived Foras before? It had only been for a short period of time, sure, but in those seconds, Loren had still been able to see.

“In a completely lightless room, even without that distinct power within you, you were able to see my face. Am I wrong?”

“You’re not wrong.” Loren nodded. It didn’t feel like hiding things would get him anywhere.

The entity before him was powerful enough to be called the Great Demon King, so Loren couldn’t be surprised that he’d noticed Scena. There was also no telling just how much Lapis had told Judie, and she might well have gone as far as to tell her everything about Scena. Thus, Loren concluded it would be unwise to play dumb.

In response to Loren, Foras seemed to completely change the subject. “Many think that ‘magic’ is a power manifested through mana and invocations, but that’s not exactly true.”

Loren had no idea what he was trying to say, but Foras went on despite that.

“For you see, as long as you have the will to use it, magic can still be invoked. Well, we demons are just about the only ones with a high-enough affinity to do so, but there was once a subset of humanity who had managed to do so as well.”

“Past tense, huh?”

“They no longer exist. Not anymore,” he said cryptically as he pointed at Loren’s right hand.

Loren lowered his gaze to his hand. There, the ring he had obtained from an Elder—the most powerful kind of vampire—was letting off a barely perceivable glow.

“That is an enchanted artifact so great that even I would be unable to make it without a great deal of effort. Provided sufficient motivation, I might be able to craft something similar, but I say this to underline its potency.”

The ring had been a gift, and it had the ability to steal Scena’s powers from her. If Loren’s willpower ever exceeded Scena’s—or if Scena willingly conceded her powers, and he in turn declared that he wanted them—those powers would immediately become his. Then Scena’s soul would revert to that of an ordinary human. At least, that was what the Elder who had made the ring believed.

“It is an item the likes of which has never before existed.”

Foras casually raised up his hand. In sync with this motion, the maids relit the extinguished lights.

As new light entered the room, Foras leaned back in his chair and gazed at Loren with a smile. Loren was a bit surprised by his stare, but a part of him had expected it. He took it with a rather dubious look on his face.

“Your Majesty, you don’t mean…”

“You’ve started to merge a bit,” Foras said, pointing at Loren.

The ring that had been thrust onto Loren’s finger had begun to feel like the point of a dagger. Loren could do nothing but stare back at the face of the man who was called the Great Demon King.

“That concludes all the business I have with you. I heard there was an interesting fellow out there, so I wanted to get a look at him myself. And that’s all I’ve got for you. If I say I’m satisfied, will that put you at ease?”

Foras spread out his arms with this joking air, but Lapis was gazing at Loren grimly.

The thing the Great Demon King had said wasn’t exactly great news. It didn’t just have to do with Loren’s life; it had to do with the very nature of his existence.

What’s more, Lapis couldn’t immediately think of any effective countermeasures. Her expression clouded, and rightfully so. But after a moment, Loren—the man most concerned with the issue—let out a deep breath, and his expression changed.

“‘Thanks for the information, Your Majesty.’ Is that what I should say?”

His conflicted face had grown peaceful. He seemed neither fearful nor impatient, and Lapis was a bit let down, what with how concerned she was for him.

“Gratitude is free, I suppose. If you are giving your thanks, I will gladly accept it. But really, you’re rather unfazed.”

“Well, it’s not like I can do anything about it at this point. This power’s actually saved me more than once, and I’ll be counting on it from here on out as well. If something bad’s gonna happen to me because of it, then that’s just how it goes.” Loren tapped his index finger against his chest. He seemed completely convinced.

Foras closely inspected Loren’s expression, then determined he was being sincere. He turned to Lapis, who didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved, and smiled. “Lapis, you’ve found yourself a fearless partner. If he was a demon, he would be entirely run-of-the-mill, but for a mere human, he’s absolutely fascinating.”

“Your Majesty…I apologize. When it comes to this matter, I cannot make decisions based on whether or not something is interesting,” Lapis said, doing her best not to look Foras in the eye.

“Hmm? Well, that reaction is most interesting as well,” said Foras, his eyes turning to her with great intrigue.

Lapis clearly found his eyes quite bothersome, as she continued turning this way and that to escape them. Even so, Foras’s gaze continued to corner her—until a word from Gula made the king’s attention swivel to her.

“So anyways, Great Demon King. How long are we supposed to wait with all this food right before our eyes? You put all that work into it, and now it’s gonna go cold.”

“I did not notice that. I could hardly call myself the Great Demon King if my hospitality consisted of cold food. Hey, why don’t you take these cold plates away and bring us some fresh dishes.”

On Foras’s order, the maids waiting by the wall swept out to retrieve the plates on the table, only for Gula to keep them at bay with a harsh glare. She crossed her legs in her seat and said, “You don’t have to get rid of all this, just whip up some new ones too. It’s such a waste to throw out food just ’cuz it’s cold—I’ll take care of it.”

The moment she’d said that, a number of the dishes simply vanished, tableware and all. The eyes of the Great Demon King and his maids widened at this mysterious disappearance; meanwhile, Gula wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“That should do it, right? Why don’t you replace those in particular?”

“You still want more? Lapis, this woman friend of yours is quite the glutton.”

It seemed they had yet to explain that Gula was indeed an entity who presided over the very concept of gluttony.

Lapis remembered reporting everything pertaining to Loren to Judie in quite a bit of detail, but she hadn’t been nearly so deliberate with her reports on Gula. It was easy to imagine very little information on the dark god had made it through her mother to Foras.

Nevertheless, Foras had still perceived the disappearance as eating. In short, he recognized that Gula had, somehow or another, devoured the cold plates off of the table. While Loren and Lapis pondered how he’d figured that out, Foras began ordering the maids to bring out new dishes.

“I’ve gone out of my way to prepare the finest delicacies. I’d appreciate it if you savored them a bit more.”

“Yeah, so I’m saying we’d better get eatin’ when they’re still at their most delicious.”

“Point made. Forgive the lack of consideration. We should have talked over the meal rather than before it.”

While Foras scratched his head, conceded the point, and apologized, Lapis looked uneasy as she watched from the sidelines.

Foras had instructed Loren to call him by name and speak to him casually, but Gula had not even been addressed. Gula’s attitude was clearly not the one she ought to take with a king, and it wouldn’t have been strange if, at any second, Foras took issue with it.

That said, he had declared she was a guest, so it was still hard to think he would threaten her life. It was still worrisome.

On the whole, demons possessed greater stamina and durability than the other races, and by a wide margin, so it was for the first time in her life that Lapis had begun to feel a throbbing pain in her stomach from the anxiety of it all.

Her mental state grew so precarious, it became evident on her face, and one of the maids anxiously said, “Lady Lapis, would you like me to bring you some water?”

She gladly took the maid up on the offer, and as she filled her mouth with the liquid, the table was once again covered with a great many dishes, filling in all the empty spaces that had been left behind.

There was so much food that Loren wanted to ask just how much had been prepared in the first place, but if he looked at it all as a show of the Great Demon King’s assets and power, it was pretty incredible.

“We shall speak no more of bothersome things. Eat your fill, and I will too.”

After encouraging his guests to partake, Foras began to sample the food on the plates closest to him. This led Gula to lay claim to the plates close to her, but Loren was surrounded by dishes he’d never even heard of, and he was a bit hesitant on how to approach them. Lapis was a bit too far gone—she was in no state to pass food down her gullet.

Even so, she realized how rude it would be to fail to even touch what was handed to her. With the water cup in one hand, she picked out small bits and pieces of fruits and vegetables that would be least likely to trouble her stomach and brought them to her lips. Upon seeing this, Loren finally reached for the plate directly in front of him.

By sight and taste, he could tell which parts were likely meat and which presumably vegetable, what was boiled and what was fried. But what exactly were the ingredients, and what were these dishes even called? These were still complete mysteries.

Even so, everything had been made with high-grade ingredients, and the chef was clearly wonderfully skilled. He could at least tell it was, on the whole, delicious.

“Lapis, I see you don’t have much of an appetite. Have you grown accustomed to human food?”

“Your Majesty, the only demons who can enjoy such meals with any regularity are demon lords…”

“And you’re the daughter of a demon lord, yes? I’m sure you’ll succeed her position someday.”

“That’s…still to be seen. Right now, I think I ought to focus on the problems before my eyes.”

“Problems…?” Foras furrowed his brow, and one of the maids closed in to whisper in his ear. “I see, you did mention you were headed off to war, didn’t you?”

“Perhaps it’s slipped your mind, but our visit here is a detour. It would be much appreciated if you could consider our original objective,” Lapis said in a soft, restrained voice.

A look crossed Foras’s face, as if to say he’d only just realized it at this very moment. He hit his hands together. “It’s not that I forgot. It just never occurred to me that it might be important. However, Lapis. I can’t imagine a petty human skirmish would last much past the moment you set foot on the battlefield.”

“Your Majesty, surely you jest. A war will hardly end if a measly little no one like me takes to the fray…”

“No, no, as I recall… Yes, I believe it was ten years ago. When that one demon lord raised a rebellion, didn’t you quell it all on your lone—”

“Your Majesty! Please refrain from such jokes!”

The smile did not fade from Foras’s face. His expression suggested he was just teasing Lapis. But Loren also found it hard to believe that the Great Demon King would say something like that in jest.

Lapis was flustered and red, and halfway out of her chair, which made it hard to say whether she was panicking over a true revelation or thrown off by a complete fabrication. Loren couldn’t make the call just yet.

However, Foras wasn’t done.

Even if Lapis was incredibly strong for a demon, she was—so she said—only eighteen years old. How could she possibly have put down a demon lord’s rebellion on her own a whole decade ago? She would have been only eight at the time.

Lapis cleared her throat several times and took several glances at Foras as she seated herself back down. “A-anyways, if I tidied up a human war all on my own… Why, I would no longer be able to walk freely in human territories. I’m still looking to have some new experiences out there.”

Foras gazed at her disinterestedly, after which he turned to Loren. “So who’s fighting who, anyways?”

“As I recall…it’s the Kingdom of Lonperd and the Justinian Empire. I think. Although I don’t know if a great king of demons cares to know the names of human countries.”

Loren, for one, was skeptical. The affairs of the human world seemed beneath this man, but Foras’s reply was unexpected.

“I don’t know this Justinia, but I do know of Lonperd.”

“That’s surprising. Why’s that?”

If the Great Demon King knew of a country, it had to be one he was personally interested in, and Loren couldn’t see any obvious reason why.

“A short while back, I sensed a curious presence there. So, I got curious and did a bit of digging. That’s why I know it.”

“A strange…presence?”

If the Great Demon King described an entity this way, and this entity was at their destination, their curiosity was inevitably piqued. It would have been a great boon to hear of such a thing on the imperial side, but it was less great news to hear it had shacked up with the enemy.

“Indeed. It bore some false similarities to something I recognized. In fact, for a time, I was convinced you were the one in the kingdom…” Foras’s eyes locked onto Loren.

Loren pointed at himself, making sure Foras was talking about him.

With a nod, Foras said, “How peculiar it was. To my knowledge, you were in the south, but suddenly I sensed you in the north. But, you have Lapis at your side, after all. I thought perhaps she had gotten up to something, and it made me curious. In the end, it turned out to be someone completely different.”

“Your Majesty. Could you tell us more about this individual?”

“I’m happy to share, but I stopped looking into it the moment I realized it wasn’t Loren. I don’t know much more. This individual apparently clothed himself in full black plate at all times and was accompanied by a conversely rather unclothed dark elf. At that point, I knew it couldn’t be Loren, so I simply ceased paying attention… Wait, what’s gotten into you?” Foras asked, perplexed, as he watched the faces of Loren’s party grow distinctly more disdainful.

The individual with a strange presence who fought for the kingdom definitely sounded familiar. The party exchanged looks, knowing that trouble awaited them. In almost perfect unison, their shoulders dropped.

“A dark elf and black plate armor. They’re just about the only ones who match that description, right?”

“Well, you can’t completely guarantee that there’s no one else out there who looks like them, so it’s hard to be absolutely 100 percent certain, but… Yes, it must be them.”

“That bastard, huh…”

Their reactions gave Foras a vague sense of the impact this information had had. He folded his arms, thought a bit, then lightly said, “Well, godspeed.”

“Mr. Loren, this is quite rare, you know. The Great Demon King is encouraging us.”

“Fine, it’s rare. It’s also absolutely useless.”

Even if the Great Demon King was a formidable individual, an apathetic word of encouragement wasn’t going to magically help them out. On the contrary, it threw Loren off, and his reply was quite weary.

Foras’s expression tensed slightly, and he brought his folded arms up to his chest.

This made Lapis pale. Did that put him in a bad mood?

But though Foras held that pose for a moment, he soon lowered his arms. “Sure enough. There is little gratitude to be found for a useless word.”

“Oh, no, Your Majesty,” Lapis cut in, attempting to bring the conversation to a close. “The sentiment alone is…”

“I had you come all the way to sate my curiosity. It is a king’s duty to reward you accordingly.” Foras ignored her and addressed Loren instead.

These words had Loren imagining something quite valuable was in store, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that nothing good would come of anything handed to him by the Great Demon King. He couldn’t sincerely thank the heavens for that—so he tried to propose something inoffensive. “A bit of money would be a huge help.”

“A Great Demon King’s reward couldn’t possibly be so mundane.” It was like Foras couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He stared hard at Loren, who held his head as he realized it wasn’t going to work after all. “Right. For instance, yes, how about that spider on your shoulder?”

“What are you going to do to him?”

The moment Foras pointed at Neg, Loren drew his shoulder back slightly to protect him. Foras’s pointing finger followed in perfect sync with his movements. He glared at Loren and shrugged.

“Nothing terrible. But wouldn’t you be pleased if that spider obtained the ability to transform into an adorable girl?”

“Neg’s a boy.”

What the hell is this demon king talking about? Loren wondered as he stared at the man with an ice-cold gaze. Foras looked just a tad surprised as he gaped at the spider clinging to Loren’s shoulder.

“It’s that fond of you, and it’s a boy?!”

“What’s being a boy or girl got to do with getting attached to someone?”

Foras shook his head in disbelief.

Loren found himself thinking, I doubt anyone would believe this was the ruler of all demonkind if they saw him like this.

It seemed Gula was thinking much the same as she gazed at Foras, thoroughly appalled. Even Lapis seemed a bit ticked off, and there was a sneering glint to her stare. That one surprised Loren.

“Well, whatever… Then, what if that spider had the power to turn into a pretty boy? One so very pretty, you might initially mistake him for a beautiful girl? Then you’d be happy, yes?” Foras asked.

Loren’s reply was immediate and indifferent: “No, not at all.”

In the first place, Neg could only hang out on Loren’s shoulder because he was a spider. That was charming in its own way, and Loren foresaw quite a few problems if he were to take on a human form. Yes, the Great Demon King’s ability to turn a spider into a human was astonishing, but that didn’t mean Loren wanted to see it in action.

“If that’s all you’ve got, I think it’d be a lot more helpful if you could prepare a way to get us up north,” Loren said in an attempt to redirect the conversation.

But Foras wasn’t buying it. “You are my personal guests. I have an obvious obligation to prepare the means by which to send you off. I’ve already arranged for Emily to take you northward come morning.”

“You’re well prepared.”

“More importantly, that spider, yes…”

“Why are you so keen on turning Neg human?”

Foras had leaned across the table and reached out again, so Loren shielded Neg and swatted away the Great Demon King’s outstretched hand. Retracting his fingers, Foras eyed him curiously.

“I mean, you know. Your party ought to be more delightful to look at.”

“Your Highness.”

“Oi, Great Demon King.”

While Foras’s words sent a chill running down Loren’s spine, the tone of Lapis’s and Gula’s voices had him completely petrified.

As he was frozen, staring ahead, he could only hear the girls slowly stand to their feet. Foras’s reactions remained in his field of view, and these enabled him to perfectly imagine the expressions with which they regarded the great king.

“What exactly do you mean by more delightful? Won’t you tell us, Your Majesty?”

“Look at you. You already know how this is gonna go, don’t you?”

Loren heard the cracking of knuckles. Evidently, Foras was in for a real mess if he cocked up his reply. Loren understood that, but also this wasn’t some common thug they were dealing with. This was, in fact, the Great Demon King.

Are you sure you really wanna pick a fight with this guy? Loren wondered as he watched Foras stand with ample composure.

“How this is going to go? Whatever do you mean? How about I ask you this: Do you two really understand your situation? I am the Great Demon King, and every maid before you here is my vassal. You can’t hope to defeat me.”

But while the Great Demon King spoke to Lapis and Gula with this intimidating air, one of the maids raised a polite hand. “My apologies, Your Majesty. I am afraid we will not be intervening in this particular case.”

Flustered, Foras demanded, “And why not?”

“I believe that in this instance, the fault lies with Your Majesty. However, we are your servants. While emotionally speaking, we wish to support Lady Lapis—as you have insulted her—we must contain ourselves, and so we remain impartial.”

Foras looked to all the maids by the wall, who nodded in unison. It wasn’t long before he realized he had not an ounce of backup in his corner. Foras pondered this for a moment, but his expression quickly grew mischievous again. He grinned and turned to Loren.

Loren did his best to predict the words that were about to be spoken. They would definitely come as a question meant to put him in a tight spot, and so, the moment he saw Foras open his mouth, he readied a reply.

“Then it makes the most sense to address the man of most concern,” said Foras. “Well, Loren? Do you consider the demon lord’s daughter and that strange one to be sufficiently delightful?”

“That goes without saying,” Loren said without missing a beat. He was a little relieved to have said it so smoothly. Now everything depended on what Foras, Lapis, and Gula would do with those words.

After all, he hadn’t really confirmed or denied anything. He had spoken in a way that could be taken a variety of ways, and it would be hard to determine his real thoughts from that alone.

But if anyone tried to press him further, it was clear what would come of it. So, no one was inclined to dig any deeper. After all, if he had been too positive, Lapis’s position would be strengthened and the maids would stand on her side. This would put Foras in a terrible position. Meanwhile, if Loren spoke too negatively, it would add fuel to the fire Foras had started, and Lapis and Gula would react with according fury.

On top of that, Lapis and Gula had been afraid of him answering dismissively, while Foras understood he would lose ground if Loren answered any other way. The maids watching understood just how difficult it was for anyone to ascertain his true intentions. For this reason, his vague yet proper response earned him approving looks from a few of them.

“I-I see. Well, let’s leave it at that. Does anyone have any objections?”

“N-no, not at all. A wise decision, Your Majesty, we have no objections.”

With everything still up in the air, Foras brought the topic to a close, and Lapis and Gula went along with it, wearing those fake professional smiles.

That should be the end of that, Loren thought with relief, knowing he’d given the right answer.

But it wasn’t that simple—Foras wouldn’t just let sleeping dogs lie. “So, about the reward.”

“You haven’t forgotten that yet?”

“I wouldn’t be much of a king if I forgot to give someone their due reward,” Foras boldly proclaimed, as though his prior hesitation and confusion had been nothing but a dream. As far as Loren saw it, though, everything would go way more smoothly if he just dropped the whole thing. He wasn’t grateful for this reward in the slightest.

In any case, how to move the conversation forward with as little damage as possible? As an answer, Foras stuck a hand into his own pocket and tossed the thing he withdrew from it in Loren’s direction.

“What’s this?” Loren asked as he caught the object in midair. When he opened his hand and held it up to the light, he found he was holding a coin. He could tell at a glance that it wasn’t any currency that circulated in human lands. It had a silver sheen, and its face was stamped with a vivid depiction of a knight on horseback.

“A coin from the demon country?”

Loren had traveled all across the continent in his mercenary days, and he was somewhat familiar with the coinage used in various places. This was one he’d never seen before—and he could only assume it came from demon lands. However, when Lapis laid eyes on it, she wasn’t so sure.

“No, it is not. This is… What is it exactly?”

Even Lapis didn’t seem to know. They hadn’t even touched on its value, and it seemed like quite a suspicious piece. Just in case, Loren showed it to Gula too, but she shook her head—she didn’t know either.

“Looks like it’s not real money, then.”

Loren the human didn’t know it, and neither did Lapis the demon, or Gula the dark god, privy to knowledge from the days of the ancient kingdom. At the very least, this clearly wasn’t a coin that ever made it into common circulation. That, at least, they could be certain of.

Foras nodded. “I said money was out of the question, didn’t I? So this isn’t money—but it is quite valuable. Carry it close. Never let it leave your person. I’m sure it will save you someday.”

“I’d be fine with regular old money, though. I mean, you’ve got to understand just how helpful it would be to me if you cut down my debt.”

“Loren, I have good news for you,” Foras said, his tone a bit more formal than before.

As Loren sent him a curious look, the Great Demon King continued with true gravity, “Truth be told, many demon lords under my rule have begun to experience a certain trouble, one that grows more dire year after year.”

Even if this trouble didn’t reach the Great Demon King himself, just what could possibly bother the mighty demon lords? Loren straightened his posture to listen.

“It is, you see, an issue of brides and grooms,” Foras declared in all seriousness.

“Umm…what?”

“Oh, you know, the progeny of demon lords are struggling to find anyone who will consent to take their hands. The stronger their powers grow, the harder time they have finding anyone appropriate.”

Loren was taken aback, while Gula sent Lapis a pitying look, and Lapis hung her head, her face red.

“As the greatest of my kind, I fear for the future of demons.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Luckily, humans are quite compatible with demons, racially speaking. And strength aside, there are ways to solve the matter of disparate lifespans.”

“You’re not answering the question,” Loren said in a low voice, his face growing grimmer by the second.

But Foras took his grim gaze head-on and smiled cheerfully. “And so, under absolutely no circumstances will I do anything that might lead to a decrease in your debt.”

“Huh? How’s that related?”

“Incidentally, if you manage to tie the knot, I’ll write it all off.”

“What knot?! What are you talking about?!”

But no matter how Loren lashed out, Foras seemed to have no desire to elaborate any further. He completely ignored Loren’s protest and did not meet his gaze.

Still, Loren couldn’t back down, and as Gula watched, she turned to Lapis, who had gone red to her ears.

“You got a good boss,” she said idly.

“Please refrain from commenting…” Lapis barely managed to say as she hung her head even lower.

It went without saying that many of the maids sent her the warmest of looks.

Chapter 4:
Waking to a Northbound Flight

 

IF ANY NORMAL HUMAN heard of that night, they would never have believed any peace could be found at the Great Demon King’s dinner table. The mood had taken a turn at points, and occasionally a strange feeling had hung in the air, but from Loren’s perspective, it had proceeded quite free of incident. Once he and his party members were released, they were each allotted their own room to use.

I might be just about the only human to spend a night in the Great Demon King’s castle, Loren thought, a strange but powerful emotion coming over him as he entered his room. He proceeded to collapse onto the bed and immediately pass out.

The next day, his eyes cracked open when the sunlight streamed in through the window. Realizing that something about the room had changed while he slept, he stirred—yet struggled to leave the bed.

He had absolutely no idea what the blanket draped over him was made of, but it had to be an expensive piece. He remembered it had been light and comfortable, but now that he struggled into wakefulness, it felt heavier than anything.

Once he shifted, he found that what should have been quite a spacious bed was now so narrow, he couldn’t even roll over. What’s more, he heard a protesting voice whenever he tried to move.

Yeah, something’s up, he thought as he forced open his drowsy eyes. As he tried to sit up, he came face-to-face with an upside-down pair of purple eyes, as well as the girl they belonged to. He reflexively jerked back, his head knocking into the bed behind him.

The girl, who smiled warmly at him, was not completely unfamiliar to Loren. He vaguely recalled a face like hers among those of the maids stationed by the wall during his dinner with the Great Demon King. However, he couldn’t be completely certain.

More importantly, why was she peering into his face as he slept on his bed? He puzzled over this for a moment before realizing the item the back of his head had hit on was not, in fact, a pillow. It was more…springy. Elastic? Plush.

Cautiously, he asked, “Now, I hope I’m wrong, but have you been pillowing me in your lap all night?”

“For close to that amount of time, yes.”

Loren glanced left and right. He immediately realized what was making the bed so cramped that he couldn’t move a muscle.

As it turned out, there was another girl in a maid uniform to his right, and yet another to his left. They had fallen asleep right next to him.

Wait, don’t tell me… he thought as he lifted his head. When he directed his eyes to his own chest, he found yet another maid happily asleep, sprawled flat on top of him.

Realizing he was surrounded by at least four girls, Loren dropped his head back into the lap of the first.

She was sitting on her knees to keep Loren’s head at a comfortable angle, and his head did fit perfectly between her thighs. What’s more, the sensation at the back of his head was quite exquisite, and he nearly fell right back asleep. But he endured and endeavored to maintain consciousness as he sought an explanation from the girl peering into his face.

“What’s going on?”

“What exactly do you mean?” she asked in return.

Loren thought for a moment about what to say. After all, he was currently in the land of demons—a place where what he considered common sense was not in fact held in common.

Perhaps the things he found questionable were simply the way of things here and did not generally warrant those questions. He couldn’t deny the possibility, and as things stood, the maid didn’t seem to understand what he was getting at.

“Why are there four maids in my bed?”

“Are you displeased to find them here?”

Once again, Loren struggled with how to respond. Most men would certainly not be displeased in this situation, but when he thought about how he really felt, he definitely wasn’t happy.

“Rather than displeased, there’s a chill running down my spine.”

“Oh dear. And why is that?”

“A feeble human being surrounded by demons? And not just any demons but attendants of the Great Demon King. I’m too afraid for my life to enjoy anything about this.”

It was hard to believe, given their appearance, but the maids of the Great Demon King’s castle—at least, the ones he’d met the night before—had possessed immeasurable strength. They were so great, in fact, that Loren suspected they rivaled the demon lords.

Four of these entities had snuck into his bed, and he hadn’t even noticed. As far as Loren was concerned, he had been placed in a situation where he could be killed at any moment. This was no time for him to feel happy, or even embarrassed.

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit cynical?” the maid asked with a complicated smile.

“Then you tell me. Why are there four demons in my bed?”

“Why of course, to entertain you.”

It took Loren a long stretch to understand what she meant by this. Once he did understand, he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, and he could only echo her words in turn.

“Entertain me?”

“Shall I rephrase? We’re here to express our affection. ”

“No, no, wait. I don’t understand any of this.”

They were demons. Each and every one of them possessed abilities no human could hope to match, and so there was absolutely no reason for them to entice the humans who stood so far beneath them. Loren couldn’t begin to comprehend why a maid like that would go out of her way to entertain him. In his confusion, he suddenly remembered a certain factor that explained everything.

“Did the Great Demon King put you up to this?” he asked.

“I couldn’t possibly say.”

“Oh, c’mon, that’s pretty much a yes.”

With what Loren knew of the Great Demon King, he could easily see the man getting up to a scheme like this. After all, he’d summoned a simple mercenary to his castle just because he found him “interesting.” Setting his maids upon that mercenary, was very possibly born from the hope that something even more interesting would happen.

“Still, isn’t four a bit overboard?!”

“Well, we didn’t know your preferences, Sir Loren. We thought we’d let you take your pick…”

Now that she mentioned it, he looked again to the maid on his chest, the ones to his sides, and the one offering him a pillow. They were all beautiful girls, but their hair length and body types varied, and though he couldn’t really guess a given demon’s age, they all at least looked to be different ages. Even if none of them were a perfect match with his tastes, he could see most people finding at least one of them intriguing.

“You’re not upset with him?” Loren asked. “I mean, you’re all pretty strong, aren’t you?”

He hated the idea that even run-of-the-mill demons were as frightening as demon lords. By his estimate, the maids at the castle were powerful even among their kind.

The girl’s reaction to these words suggested he wasn’t wrong. “Oh, we are. I do not believe we’re as powerful as demon lords, but we play our part in the defense of the castle, and possess powers appropriate to the role.”

“Then it’s gotta be humiliating, tending to some no-name ­human like me.”

“No, well. I was feeling quite up for it, personally.”

“What?”

Loren thought he must have misheard her, but the girl turned a bit red in the cheeks, fidgeting and swaying to and fro.

“Certainly, if you were a normal man, I wouldn’t ever think to let you touch my body… However, Sir Loren, you have garnered His Majesty’s interest. It’s hard to see you as some ordinary human.”

I’m definitely an ordinary human, he wanted to say. But the maid’s reaction suggested that even if he insisted on this point, she would just say she trusted the king’s judgment. That would be the end of that.

It was unclear what she thought of his silence, but the maid stroked a hand against Loren’s cheek as he rested on her lap. “That said, you were sleeping so soundly, it felt wrong to wake you. Thus, we find ourselves in our current predicament.”

So if I stayed up any later, these four girls would have tried to seduce me, huh? Loren thought. He wanted to thank himself for passing out so quickly.

He’d gone down from both physical and mental fatigue the moment he hit the bed. Given the weary state he’d been in, he didn’t know if he would have been able to fend off their advances.

They probably would’ve gotten past me, he thought with a wry smile.

The maid giving him a lap pillow brought her face a bit closer. “There’s still time right now,” she whispered.

“Sorry, but I’m not feeling up for it.”

Upon receiving Loren’s rejection, the maid reached out to the shoulder of the maid who was lying flat on top of him. She gave the other maid a light shake, which was enough to wake her. This other maid remained upon him but began rummaging under the covers and feeling up his body—to a place Loren didn’t really want to mention. A while later, she looked at the pillow maid with a frown and shook her head.

“Oh, no reaction?”

“Where do you think you’re touching?” Loren asked, his face reddened. “Do you people not have any shame?”

The pillow maid looked at him grimly. “I thought I’d picked the most charming options.”

“Sure, but you can be as good-looking as you want—I’m not so stupid that I’m gonna react to people who can kill me with one hand tied behind their backs.”

As he said this, Loren suddenly found himself thinking of a certain gifted redhead who had accompanied his party on a number of jobs. That young man, Claes, would definitely have slept with the maids, even in this situation. But as Loren wondered if he was even capable of imitating that behavior, he also naturally found himself frowning.

“Well, I’m glad you think so highly of me,” he said. “Can you free me now?”

“Very well. A shame.”

It seemed the maid whose lap he was lying in understood it didn’t matter how long she plied Loren with words. She would not see the development she was hoping for.

In which case, they were nothing but a hindrance if Loren wanted to get up. The maid swiftly shook the maids at his sides awake, and in no time at all, they got out of his bed and out of his hair.

“Is that man of yours crazy or something?”

“Your Majesty, may I take that as your last will and testament?”

When Loren finished changing into his usual equipment, which had been returned to him, the maids led him to a room with a long table—presumably a dining room.

The table was lined with a clean, pure-white tablecloth, on top of which there lay more food than Loren thought breakfast really warranted. What’s more, that didn’t even seem to be the end of it, as maids were bringing still more from the back room.

Who’s gonna eat all this? he wondered. As he looked around, scratching his head, he spied Gula at the foot of the table, silently devouring all the food brought before her. She raised her head to acknowledge Loren’s presence.

Meanwhile, some distance from Gula, the Great Demon King, clad in a loose robe, seemed to be arguing with Lapis, who was dressed in her priest vestments. They hadn’t noticed Loren enter.

The maids aren’t gonna tell them I’m here? he wondered. But the maids remained calm, collected, and silent, forming a wall around Loren without saying so much as a word to Foras. Am I supposed to shut up and see what happens, then?

Loren pulled up a seat next to Gula while Foras and Lapis carried on, seemingly oblivious to his presence.

Given what he’d heard thus far, it seemed Foras had somehow been watching the events of the night before. Or perhaps the maids had already reported it.

“I—see here, I worked very hard to select just a few of the vast number of maids in this palace and send them to his room. And yet it turns out nothing happened at all. Is he truly a man? He can’t be, can he?”

“He is a perfect gentleman. I can guarantee as much. He just has the rationality and self-restraint to refrain from touching any old meal set out before him. Please don’t go questioning his manhood just because you didn’t get your way.”

“No, but they were the most exceptional beauties, you see! Even among demons! Ordinarily, it would be impossible for a human man to resist laying even a finger on them. He was held! Given a lap pillow! And still he didn’t react. Are you sure he’s not impotent?”

Gula glanced at Loren as if to ask, Well, are you?

Gula had made a move on Loren before, and they had skirted dangerously close to certain choices, but he had managed to get through unscathed. If you remember that day, you should know that’s a completely baseless accusation, he thought as he sent her a stern look.

“Please be careful with your words, Your Majesty. The only parts I have yet to find are my legs. I’ve regained a good portion of my original power. I might not be able to beat you, but I think I could very well leave some lasting scars.”

“Wait, wait. I’ll be fine, but if you go on a rampage, my castle is done for. And besides, I’m doing this for your sake.”

“For me? Now you’ll have to explain that very clearly, as I just don’t see how that could be true.”

Though Lapis was smiling sweetly, the air she exuded sent a chill down Loren’s spine. She cocked her head, a curious look on her face.

Loren was rather curious himself. How exactly was sending maids to seduce him supposed to benefit Lapis? Loren couldn’t imagine how.

“You don’t get it? For starters, if he did end up succumbing, I’d have something to hold over his head.”

I’m not so sure about that, Loren thought.

Loren would undoubtedly feel guilty, but he wouldn’t go as far as to call it blackmail material. Perhaps it would be different if he and Lapis had officially promised their futures to one another, but putting aside how they felt at present, their relationship was, at this point, merely that of adventuring comrades, as well as a debtor and his loaner.

“I think you’re pushing it a bit, if you think you can threaten Mr. Loren with that sort of information. The fact that his partner in crime would have been one of your maids would make it abundantly clear that you were behind it, Your Majesty.”

After all, “It was the Great Demon King’s desire,” would be quite a strong excuse in this case. It was impossible to expect a human to resist the will of the Great Demon King, and once he realized the king’s desires, he couldn’t risk defying them and earning the king’s ire.

In this situation, where Loren would have had to go along with the scheme even if he knew he was being manipulated, Lapis would have been very understanding.

“But of course, that’s not all. Why do you think I went out of my way to provide such an array of maids?”

“That would be…because you didn’t know what sort of woman Mr. Loren preferred, correct?”

“Yes! That was precisely my intention.”

Foras said this with a triumphant face, but it seemed Lapis didn’t yet follow exactly where he was trying to lead. She tilted her head one way, then the next as she thought.

Loren didn’t follow either, but Gula, who was still eating in silence, seemed to get it. She beckoned Loren a bit closer.

“Look, I’ve got four fruits here, right?” Gula used her fork to randomly separate four pieces of fruits from the fruit salad on a nearby plate. She impaled each and arranged them in a line.

“If you tell me to pick one, well, I’ll pick it and shove it in my mouth, see?” Gula selected one of the fruits, stabbed it, and tossed it into her mouth.

“And that’s gonna tell you what I like, right? Now, after I do that, if the person cooking the food ever wants to try makin’ my favorite dessert, they’ll start by thinkin’ about the fruit I just ate. And if they follow that recollection, they probably won’t totally miss the mark.”

“Yeah? So what about it?”

“So I’m saying if he figured out which maids you got with and for how long, he’d know your preference in women, right? And then, if he wanted Lapis there to get intimate with you, he’d just have her square with those preferences so she wouldn’t completely miss the mark.”

“That’s right! That is exactly what I was aiming for!” Foras declared. “Lapis is the daughter of my own retainer, and I want things to go smoothly for her as she seeks out a partner. So, I must collect the necessary intelligence! That was the entire point of this plan—and yet that wet blanket didn’t lay a finger on them…”

Foras’s voice rose as he spoke; he thought he’d finally found some understanding in Gula. But only at this point did he notice the cold stare of Loren, sitting beside her.

Foras’s wince drew Lapis’s attention, which was when she noticed Loren as well. Seemingly wishing to greet him, she hurriedly rose from her chair, but she tumbled backward from pure momentum. It was only thanks to a maid, who lunged forward at speeds imperceivable, that she managed to go uninjured.

“H-hey. Did you sleep well?” Foras raised a hand and casually greeted Loren.

Loren thought over how he ought to react. Would he pretend he’d heard nothing and act normal? Or would he chastise the Great Demon King for his scheming? Or thank him? He mulled over which option would cause the least amount of trouble and decided playing dumb was his safest bet.

“Seems I was dead tired. I hit the bed so hard, I didn’t even dream.”

“I see. That is unfortunate. If you had only stayed awake, perhaps you could have experienced more of my castle.”

Foras seemed satisfied with Loren’s tacit excuse for neglecting to respond to the maids. But Lapis sent him a rather intimidating stare, and he sent back a shrug.

“Perhaps that is understandable for a human. I did not account for your low stamina.” The king seemed ready for round two, even though Loren’s expression was blatantly disgusted. Paying him no heed, Foras stuck out his chest as though he had said something brilliant. “Another time, then.”

“Your Majesty, what nonsense is spilling out of you this time?” Lapis said powerlessly. “Please explain yourself.”

Gula watched this three-way farce as she continued speeding through dishes at the same rate as ever. But perhaps thinking that the conversation would get nowhere at this rate, she wiped her mouth clean with a napkin a maid offered her and dove in herself. “So, Great Demon King. You said something about preparing transportation for us, right?”

“Naturally. Once everything is in order, I can send you off immediately. Although I’ll note that what comes of human wars matters little to me.”

Truth be told, they actually had quite a bit of time to spare now. The adventurers who had set off from Kaffa—though they were using a special vehicle—would still take close to ten days to reach the northern battlefield. Loren’s party, on the other hand, had taken a detour to the Great Demon King’s castle, but their progress had been so impossibly fast that it had been only a day since their departure. If they got back on the ancient dragon to head north, they would reach their destination faster than anyone could have predicted.

“Well, we’ll be on foot once we leave the mountains. Our speed will drop from that point on.”

They’d sent the wagon back to Kaffa once they had boarded Emily. Sure, there were wagons in this castle as well, but if they were going to ride Emily to the border, there was no way to bring a wagon along. Once they’d crossed the mountains, they would be forced to walk the rest of the way to the fight.

“Are we going to make it, then?”

“If the maps are to be trusted, it will take about two days on foot.”

Without a wagon, they would need to carry their own supplies. Loren worried that the amount they’d collected while leaving Kaffa wouldn’t be enough, but Foras quickly alleviated these concerns.

“As for your supplies, we will dispose of and replenish anything that has turned.”

“Thanks for that. That’s the sort of help I welcome with open arms.”

“But make sure you have consumed all the food and water before you arrive.”

That was a strange stipulation. When Loren asked, he was told that the goods Foras would be granting to them had been created with demon technology. Demons possessed technology that exceeded what humans could even conceive of, and the same could be said of their food-preservation techniques. Anyone with relevant field expertise would immediately recognize that this foodstuff had not been prepared by human hands, and if they questioned the party on the origin of the goods, they’d be put in a most troublesome position.

“If it does come to that, say that you received them from a kindly traveler you met along the way.”

“You think that’ll work?”

“Well, it’s not completely unheard of. I won’t say they’re incredibly common, but a fair number of demons walk among your kind—like Lapis.”

Obviously, these individuals traveled while concealing their true demonic colors. Though if they did encounter someone in trouble, they occasionally conceded some excess supplies—­according to Foras.

These items were treated as goods of unknown origin. Apparently, rumor had it there was a hidden village somewhere in the continent with incredibly advanced technology.

“They’re not totally off the mark,” said Loren. “The entirety of demon territory is basically a hidden village.”

Foras hit his hands together at this revelation. “I see, good point. I’ll tell them to phrase it just so the next time they have to play it off.”

Loren was less surprised by the fact that his own words were going to be borrowed than by the fact that Foras apparently had a way to contact the demons traveling through human lands.

“Say, about this continent… If you guys got serious, couldn’t you have the entire thing under your control by sunrise tomorrow?” Loren asked Lapis, his voice tense.

And, as if it was nothing special, she replied, “It wouldn’t be impossible—that’s all I’ll say about that.”

The world was quite possibly on the verge of true crisis—and it was all happening where the humans weren’t looking. Leaning his back into the chair, Loren fell silent.

“Your supplies and transportation have been prepared. When would you like to depart?”

In this rather dubious air, Loren was saved by a word from a maid, who’d come to inform them of the preparations. As Loren’s party was already clad in their equipment, they were ready to set off at a moment’s notice. They said their goodbyes to the Great Demon King and left, thinking they would surely never have to stay in that castle again.

“Lapis. I await the good news.”

“Your Majesty, you need only shut your mouth, and you will spare yourself the loss of what little loyalty I still have to you.”

Lapis plastered a stiff smile on her face, trying her hardest not to let the Great Demon King enter her field of vision. She and her party members were guided by a maid down a considerable distance through the castle, and at last were led to leave through one of the large doors.

“I’ve got to be one of the only humans to ever set foot in the Great Demon King’s castle and leave in one piece.”

“Normally, they’re dealt with before they wriggle inside.”

And at the end of this perilous exchange, they were met with Emily, who had taken them here in the first place.

“I’ve been waiting. Now get on my back already,” Emily hurried them, having waited in a prostrate position.

But Loren didn’t immediately clamber onto her back and instead squinted up at her face.

Not knowing the meaning of this look, Emily stared back at him. But she stiffened when she heard Loren’s somewhat resentful question:

“More importantly, isn’t there something you’d like to say to us first?”

Loren was, of course, referring to her choice to pitch them straight into the Great Demon King’s bathtime. Although Foras had said he would not blame Emily for anything, Loren had been literally hurled into hot water with, of all people, the Great Demon King. Personally, he wasn’t going to be satisfied until he got in at least one complaint, and he thought at least a word of apology was in order.

“I thought it would make for a fun surprise.”

“We could have died.”

“You got to ride on an ancient dragon’s back and meet the Great Demon King. Don’t you think such events demand a degree of excitement?”

“So I take it that’s your answer?”

Loren folded his arms and continued staring up at her. For her part, Emily continued to maintain eye contact, but after a moment of thinking, she lowered her head ever so slightly.

“I took it too far. Sorry.”

“Be more careful next time. I’m not gonna hold up if you keep approaching my life the way you would your own.”

The moment Emily apologized, Loren stopped glaring and scratched his head.

Behind him, Lapis and Gula exchanged whispers.

“That dragon just apologized.”

“She probably already thought she’d gone a bit far. The fact she didn’t take a brute-force approach here just goes to show that dragons are creatures of intellect.”

“If she knew she’d have to apologize for it, she shouldn’t’ve done it from the start.”

“Well, you know, I think she just went with the mood.”

“Hey, you two,” said Emily. “Please refrain from stage-whispering where I can hear. Perhaps you’re correct, but I’ve already apologized, haven’t I?”

The dragon’s expression, or rather her air, made clear she was feeling awkward, and upon bearing witness to such a rare sight, Lapis and Gula decided not to say another word.

After clearing her throat—or at least making the sound—Emily took it from the top. “Now get on my back. I’ll carry you until we’re out of demon territory.”

Loren climbed up first and offered a hand to Lapis to help her up.

As Gula watched them go, she asked, “Incidentally, how much of your debt is this worth?”

Emily immediately turned her face away and stared into the distance.

“Can’t say?”

“I don’t want to. It is a matter of my pride.”

The citation of “pride,” a rather nebulous concept, made Gula look at her doubtfully. But as Loren reached a hand down from Emily’s back, she put that thought on hold. Gula could have climbed up even without Loren’s help, but now that she thought about it, Lapis could have very well done so too. Loren’s assistance hadn’t been an offer of necessity. Nevertheless, Lapis had grabbed Loren’s hand to be pulled up, so Gula thought she ought to do so too.

“Don’t bully her too much,” Loren said to her as he hoisted Gula onto the dragon’s back.

What are you on about? Gula thought, confused.

But Lapis, who had already taken a seat, explained, “Remember, a dragon won’t typically permit anyone to ride on their back. Yet she’s letting us ride in exchange for debt relief. If you learned the precise degree of relief, it would be tantamount to knowing the price of Ms. Emily’s pride.”

“Precisely, but…can you not talk about that while on my back?” Emily said rather powerlessly.

Loren and his party members exchanged looks and tacitly agreed not to bring it up again. Emily was the one who would be ferrying them away, after all, and if they got on her bad side, they risked being thrown into yet another part of the Great Demon King’s castle. But more than that, Emily’s pleading tone did make them feel a shred of pity.

“Now then, everyone,” said one of the maids who’d come to see them off, “please be careful on your travels. We await your return.”

Emily slowly took to the skies.

There’s no getting used to this floaty feeling, Loren thought as he waved back at the maid.

“How should I put this, Loren? Doesn’t it seem like the maids have really taken a likin’ to you?”

“I’ll take it as proof that I have an excellent eye for men.”

“Don’t they just think of me as a curiosity? They don’t really get humans around these parts. And, Lapis. Can you only talk about that stuff when I can’t hear?”

They chatted away as they enjoyed the rare experience of a journey through the sky. Along the way, they passed over a number of demon towns—but while a human town would have made a huge ruckus if an ancient dragon flew overhead, from what Loren could see, there hardly seemed to be any reaction down below.

“I guess an ancient dragon’s not a threat to demons.”

“Well, ancient dragons can be reasoned with, and they’re not so indiscriminate as to attack a town for no reason.”

“What about ordinary dragons, then?”

“If it were a flock of, say, ten or so, perhaps they would be a threat. One or two, however, would just mean the town could look forward to a feast the following night.”

A human town—even a human country—could be annihilated by the might of a single dragon; they would at least need to steel themselves for massive casualties. Dragons were downright formidable. Lapis’s casual response to all this just reminded Loren that the truly formidable foes were demons.

Emily’s flight continued smoothly, and when Loren’s stomach was telling him it was about time for lunch, they arrived at the mountains that separated demon country from the other races. The ancient dragon flitted right over the ridge of towering mountains and landed at the edge of a forest in human lands.

“You flew a bit slower than when you took us in.”

“I thought you would be better able to enjoy the scenery this way. You have time to spare, don’t you?”

By Lapis’s estimate, it would take some two days to reach the empire from the foot of the mountains. But if they went as fast as they could, by the time they arrived, the adventurers that had left Kaffa would still be inching their way along.

Showing up too quickly would raise too many questions, so they had more than enough time to spare.

“Proceed with caution. I feel a disconcerting presence to the north. If fate allows it, we shall meet again.”

After Emily lowered them to the ground, she offered these parting words before lifting off and soaring back to demon territory. Her form grew smaller and smaller, and once she was beyond the mountains and out of sight, Loren and his party fastened their bags to their backs. They surveyed the area and began walking northward.

“I believe we can get there in two days if we hurry, but shall we take it a little slowly?” Lapis proposed.

If you ignored Gula’s gluttony, there had been more than enough food and water to last a few days. Considering the war being waged between the kingdom and empire, it did seem prudent to arrive as quickly as possible, but Loren didn’t argue with Lapis’s suggestion.

“We picked the worst possible detour. I’d like to take a bit to calm down and rest up somewhere.”

“Right, not to mention the climate up here is quite a bit different from what we’ve grown accustomed to in Kaffa,” said Lapis. “Perhaps we should take some time to acclimate ourselves.”

Upon hearing that, Loren noted that the wind tickling his skin was certainly different from what he was used to. “The air is a bit dry… The temperature’s a bit lower, I guess.”

“It’s not cold, exactly, but we’re a good deal farther north than Kaffa, and we’re going to go even farther. I assume it will be rather nippy before long.”

If they went as far as the continent’s northernmost tip, they would find themselves in a land of never-melting ice—or so Loren had heard. Although the other parts of the continent did see some change with the seasons, in that far north, the temperature never rose above freezing.

The closer they got to these frigid lands, the further the temperature would drop. The dry air would steal the moisture from their bodies.

“It would be lovely if we could find lodging in a town where we could take it easy and gather intel,” said Lapis. “Oh, you can leave the payments to me.”

“Adding a few dozen silver to my debt is nothing at this point…”

With that said, Loren still felt a bit weird leaving the bill to Lapis. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the funds to cover three people.

“I’m good as long as the food is good.”

“Aren’t there a few famous northern dishes? You can’t count on having good food on the battlefield, so we’ll have to search for something beforehand.”

As they walked, Gula and Lapis spoke without a care.

The mood was so light, it was hard to believe they were headed for an active war zone. But if you took their identities into account, perhaps it was nothing to be so concerned about. And so, Loren didn’t feel like cautioning them on their attitude. He also noticed Neg had stirred and was trying to crawl his way from Loren’s shoulder to the inside of his jacket—perhaps from the cold. Loren loosened the front to make it easier for the spider to pass through.

Chapter 5:
Lodging to Reinforcements

 

AFTER PARTING WITH EMILY and walking north along the highway, Loren’s party fortunately came across lodging just before the day was growing dark.

Compared to the climate around Kaffa, this northern region felt just a touch colder. As the sun set, the difference grew even more pronounced, and Loren worried that it would become too biting for camping. Thus, he found it most fortunate that they would be able to sleep within four walls and with a roof over their heads.

To add to their luck, the town came equipped with a number of facilities that were just what they were looking for.

“They have a hot spring?”

Coming to a town was one thing, but that wouldn’t help them if they couldn’t find a room to stay in, so Lapis immediately decided on an inn and walked in. Lapis was overjoyed to hear about its extra amenity, while Loren studied the face of the staff member who was explaining the facilities.

The female staff member had a friendly smile as she answered Lapis with a deep nod. “We draw water from a nearby hot spring. We have a large bath, and there is an additional fee to use it, but it’s plenty of hot water with that one payment—you can enjoy it as much as you want.”

“How much does it cost? I’m willing to pay whatever it takes.”

Lapis pounced on the idea of soaking in the hot spring as though not doing so had never even been an option. As Loren absently listened in on the costs and conditions, he glanced around the interior of the inn.

The inn they had entered was laid out similarly to most others. The first floor sported a reception desk, a pub, and a dining area. The rooms for lodging guests were located on the second floor and above. Given the time of day, the first floor was bustling with dining customers. However, as Loren studied these customers, a somewhat heavy feeling set in—in stark contrast to Lapis’s excitement.

“You don’t look too well, Loren. What’s up?” Gula asked in a whisper. “Don’t tell me you’re thinkin’ of stealin’ a peek at Lapis while she’s bathin’ or something.”

This just deepened Loren’s grimace. “I don’t wanna die just yet.”

“I don’t think she’d go that far.”

“Well even if my life’s not in danger, I ain’t gonna peep. Don’t worry.”

“Well, I wasn’t really worried to begin with. So what’s eatin’ at you?”

Loren tipped his chin toward the dining area. Following his direction, Gula looked inside and cocked her head, not quite understanding what he was getting at. “What’s the matter?”

“A lotta unsavory characters, don’t you think?”

Gula took another look around, and after staring long and hard, she returned her gaze to Loren’s face and tilted her head once more. “You think so?”

“I guess not from your perspective.”

After all, Gula was a dark god, and Lapis was a demon. Compared to them, a handful of human ruffians were practically cute. Loren was well aware of this, but it wasn’t like anyone else in the establishment was privy to this information.

The stares directed at his party were proof enough—it was blatantly obvious that many harbored some rather unbecoming feelings, and this in turn was dampening Loren’s mood.

“For better or worse, war draws all sorts of people. And among those folks, you’re gonna find a few who are up to no good.”

“So we shouldn’t let our guard down, then, huh? But you really think anyone’s got the guts to lay a hand on us?”

“If they knew who you were, no one would be stupid enough, no.”

This was the headache Loren was facing. Anyone who knew the situation would never even consider targeting Lapis or Gula with mischief in mind. However, no one here knew what they were really looking at. Sure, anyone with a certain level of skill would be able to vaguely detect their hidden strength. But to those who lacked such ken, Lapis and Gula appeared no different from any other charming young ladies.

Worse, those eager to engage in unsavory activities typically acted on their impulses without ever considering the capabilities and circumstances of the other party.

“As long as you’re with me, I doubt anyone’s gonna mess with you…but it depends on the location,” said Loren.

If Lapis and Gula were seen as mere girls, then Loren was perceived as an intimidating swordsman. Perhaps a stranger wouldn’t know the full extent of his strength, but he had a well-trained body and the equipment to match. He was sure they’d be fine as long as they stuck to him. But Loren was also aware there were places in this inn where he wouldn’t be able to follow them.

“From what I’ve seen, the town ain’t big. Not too many places to play around, so they’ll be starved for entertainment.”

“The world’s filled with unfortunate people, I suppose,” Gula mused in a thoughtful tone.

This was a sentiment Loren could agree with. Anyone who messed with Lapis and Gula without knowing what they were dealing with would undoubtedly end up far worse off than if they’d merely been punched by Loren.

“Why don’t you guys expose a touch of your true nature? Intimidate them a bit. Then I bet no one’ll lay a hand on you,” Loren suggested. Once he said it, he thought it was quite a fine idea.

But this time, Gula was the one who grimaced.

“There a problem?”

“If we spook the inn staff, they might kick us out.”

If the intimidating auras of a demon and a dark god were inflicted upon an average person, there could be unimaginable consequences. While those who’d seen their share of rough situations might have some resistance to that full power, Gula was right. There was a risk of frightening the inn’s staff so badly that they’d be denied lodging. Loren retracted his proposal.

“I’m just hoping the entire inn doesn’t go up in flames.”

“Well, we don’t know if they’re gonna bother us yet, right?”

“Bad feelings tend to bear fruit. That’s just how it works.”

“What are we talking about?” Lapis interrupted, having returned from her conversation with the staffer. She had a key in hand and was looking back and forth between the two of them with a puzzled expression.

Not quite sure how to respond, Loren smiled vaguely and then, realizing something, looked back at Lapis’s hand. “Is it just me, or do I only see one key?”

“Yes, one large room should fit all of us, right?”

Lapis smiled sweetly, and Loren sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead. He felt like he might be coming down with a fever, but he knew he had to address the matter. He scratched his head with the hand on his forehead and spoke to Lapis as though he was trying to convince himself. “There’s no way that’s gonna work…”

Did the Great Demon King’s behavior leave its mark or something? Loren wondered.

Lapis’s eyes widened as though she had never seen his rejection coming. “But three private rooms would be so expensive. You’re not suggesting you should be the only one who gets your own room, are you, Mr. Loren?”

Loren was at a loss for words.

Certainly, one large room was cheaper than three smaller ones. The idea of having a private room just for himself had indeed occurred to him. However, that would mean Lapis and Gula had to bunk up, which did come with a level of unfairness. Given that Lapis was the one paying, he found it incredibly awkward to insist.

“But you know…umm, this’d be pretty bad, right?”

“I wouldn’t mind at all. Would you mind, Ms. Gula?”

Gula looked quite troubled to have been dragged into the conversation, especially as she saw that while Lapis was clearly expecting something, Loren was clearly hoping for something else. She thought for a moment, and then asked, “What about dinner?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Lapis promptly replied.

“A’ight, then I wouldn’t mind at all.”

Gula’s overly blunt approach made Lapis clench a triumphant fist to her chest, while Loren slumped in defeat. He had no other way to counter this. To make a comeback at this point, he would have to present an offer better than Lapis’s, and he simply did not have the means.

“That makes it two against one,” said Lapis.

“Yeah, you’re right… Fine, I get it. I know when I’ve lost.”

If you had no means to resist, it was better to just throw in the towel. He raised his hands in surrender, but Lapis’s face took a turn for the sullen.

“Are you upset? This is like your wildest dreams made manifest, you know? Plenty of men would pay scads of money to be in this exact situation.”

“If they didn’t know the context, maybe.”

Loren was utterly convinced that nearly 100 percent of men would change their minds if they had it all explained to them. However, he refrained from further complaint, as he didn’t want to upset Lapis any more than he already had. Instead, he lifted his bag off the floor.

Lapis still seemed somewhat annoyed, but seeing that Loren had resigned himself, she decided there was no point in pushing it. She fiddled with the key in her hand as she took the lead and guided Loren and Gula forward.

“For now, let’s leave the luggage in the room and head to the hot spring. We’ll get warm and freshen up before dinner.”

“You’d better not forget your promise, okay?” said Gula.

“Do you want me to wait in the room?” asked Loren.

A key and a lock did provide some security, but blindly trusting the security of the room was quite a risky proposition.

It was common practice to leave someone in your room at the inn to watch over a party’s belongings, especially when traveling. If Lapis and Gula were going to bathe, then it would be Loren’s job to wait and watch. At least, that was what he thought, but for some reason, Lapis looked rather fed up, like she had something to say.

Despite his sense of foreboding, Loren asked anyway, “If you’re gonna be out for a while, someone’s gotta keep watch, right?”

“Just what do you think of Ms. Gula—let alone me? Protecting our bags with a warding spell is child’s play.”

“Well…sure, fine. Guess you want me to clean up too?”

It was better to give up while he was ahead. That was what Loren told himself as he sighed again.

Out of the corner of his eye, Loren noticed a few blatantly thuggish-looking men standing from their seats. Realizing that those men had been stealing frequent glances at his party, he felt a weight was pressing down on him.

“I’m asking just to be sure: It’s not a mixed bath or anything, is it?”

“It seems there are separate facilities for men and women. Would you have preferred a mixed situation?” Lapis asked with a smug grin.

When those men heard these words, a tinge of envy colored the eyes glancing in their direction. Loren let out a deep, deep sigh, as if to expel every breath from his body.

Despite some minor squabbles, the party ultimately settled for a larger room and proceeded straight for it. This was partly because Loren couldn’t stand the glances coming their way from the dining area, but mainly because nothing could overcome the party’s collective need for rest.

Of the supplies they’d brought from demon territory, the items that most clearly did not belong to humans were discreetly placed at the bottom of their bags. They had taken additional precautions to avoid drawing any attention, but just in case, Loren took further measures to ensure that no humans touched the bags in the first place. Once he had finished up with this, he settled on the sofa in the room and let out a deep breath.

“Why, Mr. Loren, there are only two beds. How curious.”

“What were you expecting?”

The room was furnished with two beds, each of which was most likely intended for a single individual. The only other bed-worthy furnishings were two long sofas. With Loren’s large build, the sofas would feel a bit cramped for sleeping, but that didn’t mean he could consign Lapis or Gula to that fate. And so, he had claimed one of them before anyone else got the chance.

“But I can’t have you be the only one sleeping rough, Mr. Loren…”

“I don’t care. Just go take a bath already. I’ll watch the supplies.” He waved a hand as if to tell her not to worry and urged them to head out, but Lapis gently rejected the offer.

“Actually, there’s something I need to take care of. How about you have Ms. Gula watch the bags and take a bath first, Mr. Loren?”

The way she said it made Loren uneasy. What pressing business could Lapis possibly have in a town they were just passing through? But he was a bit scared to just come out and ask directly.

If she responded with something outrageous, not only would his hard-won peace of mind be instantly obliterated, but he would also have no way of stopping her. And so, as long as the problem wasn’t staring him in the face, he thought it better to pretend he neither saw nor heard it coming.

“Really? Are you good with that, Gula? Gula…?”

No reaction.

Loren looked over to see Gula sitting on the edge of the bed, lost in thought once she had set down her bags.

“Hey, Gula. What’s wrong?”

“Hm? Erk, well, it’s nothing much. Just this kinda…strange presence I’m feeling. Something like that.”

This babbling made Loren even uneasier. The last time they’d taken lodging in a town, that town had ended up completely and utterly destroyed. Loren feared a similar fate awaited this town as well, but he frantically dismissed the thought.

I mean, what are the chances that we’d turn up for the destruction of two towns in a row? This was the thought that put him at ease. However, the very fact that he had thought this raised another concern—perhaps he himself had picked up on some kind of trouble.

“Might just be my imagination. Anyway, how about you go take a bath?”

“Guess I will, then…”

Loren couldn’t shake the feeling that something strange would happen if he got too jumpy and decided to follow Gula’s advice. Indeed, if he acted like he wasn’t worried, perhaps that would be the end of it. He decided to bet on this possibility.

“Then I’ll be heading out for a bit. Ms. Gula, I’m counting on you to take care of things here.”

“Take it easy, Lapis. I’ve got it covered.”

As they exchanged these words of everyday conversation, Loren couldn’t help but feel an underlying tension. He tried to dismiss it as a figment of his imagination, and stuffed a towel and a change of clothes into a small bag before heading for the bathing area.

Once he saw the facilities, he let out a whistle of appreciation.

This was a bath in a random town—to be fair, in a town with frequent lodgers. Loren hadn’t expected much. But the changing area was already quite spacious, and this boded well for the bath itself.

Loren quickly shed his clothes and wrapped a thick cloth—provided by the inn—around his waist, then stepped into the bathing area. At the Great Demon King’s castle, no one had seemed to mind if Neg went into the water, but Loren suspected bringing him along here might get some complaints. He thus had Neg wait with his folded clothes.

In some regions, it was apparently customary to wear a yukata bathing robe when enjoying a bath, but this inn didn’t bother with such complexities. Here, people of all genders bathed completely in the nude.

As Loren stepped through the door that separated the changing area from the baths, Loren found himself in a chamber entirely made of stone. It was far more spacious than he had even anticipated. The bath itself was also quite roomy and could easily accommodate several individuals of Loren’s proportions.

Given all this, he began to think he might actually enjoy himself. First, he reached for one of the washbasins littering the area. He wanted to avoid tainting the bathwater, so he washed his body clean first. This was when he noticed he wasn’t alone—someone was already present, just beyond the rising steam.

Loren regretted having lowered his guard for even a second. The individual before his eyes had been submerged to his shoulders, and now he rose up, making no attempts to conceal his body.

Loren was quite well-built and had a toned physique, but the person in the bath was even more muscular than him. He practically overflowed with raw muscle. Loren watched the cloudy water cascade down this mountain of a man’s muscular body and let his gaze rise to the fellow’s face. In the next instant, he bolted from the scene like a startled hare, paying no mind whatsoever to the state he was in.

“Snare.”

The moment that magical word reached Loren’s ears, an unnatural protrusion burst up from beneath his feet and made him lose his balance. At this rate, he was going to slip and slide spectacularly along the entire bath-hall floor, but he was quick to regain his balance. He supported himself against the wall with both hands.

That was when the large man who’d cast the spell placed his own hand on the wall, cutting off Loren’s escape route.

Loren couldn’t help but marvel at himself for holding in the screams. His entire body was racked with a sense of crisis, one he had never experienced, even on a battlefield. Despite the warm and humid air, Loren’s mind had been thrust into the icy cold of the polar north.

Meanwhile, the man leaned against the wall and spoke in a genuinely offended tone. “Why did you run away as soon as you saw my face?”

“If you know someone who wouldn’t run, I’d love to meet ’em.”

Scena was wailing in a panic within Loren’s mind, and this actually restored a bit of calm. He took care to ensure his voice didn’t quaver.

“Well, that’s quite rude, you know.”

“Forget about me. What are you doing here?”

No matter how hard he mulled it over, he couldn’t come up with an answer. The man in front of him simply should not have been here. As the man positioned himself so as not to let Loren escape, Loren held his gaze.

As far as Loren was aware, this man had been in Kaffa when Loren’s party left. Even if he had left town almost simultaneously, how could he possibly have reached the northern reach in just two days?

“Isn’t this strange?” Loren asked. “I mean, yeah, your existence is inherently strange, but is it strange enough to distort physical distance?”

“What are you talking about? Maybe you need a little something to calm down?”

The man licked his lips, which infused a new level of panic into Scena’s screams. They had continued to rise in pitch and volume, and Loren grimaced. Since he wasn’t actually hearing it as sound, his eardrums weren’t going to burst no matter how loud she got, but it was still undeniably noisy.

Scena was incomplete, as Lifeless Kings went, but she was still the most powerful form of undead. Yet this entity terrified even her. Or perhaps the term “terrify” wasn’t entirely accurate…

Loren begrudgingly looked upon the face of the Dark God of Lust, Luxuria.

He was a far cry from the archetypal image of such a god. This massive, muscular man with a chiseled jawline was smiling inexplicably gently as he took on Loren’s gaze.

‹Mister! I sense impending danger! Do you mind if I use one of my Lifeless King abilities at full blast?!›

Fear and terror had woven into a state of absolute panic. Loren tried to pacify Scena in his head as he struggled to figure out how he would escape. But Luxuria was larger than him, and the only possible escape route had been blocked off by the man’s hand on the wall. Finding an opportune moment was proving to be quite a challenge.

Loren desperately scanned his surroundings for alternative escape routes, at which point he unintentionally glanced down at Luxuria’s lower body.

While Loren had wrapped a cloth around his waist to cover himself, Luxuria had not been as considerate. The sight of a certain large, swinging appendage caught Loren in an involuntary daze, and once again, Scena’s panicked screams tore through his mind.

‹Mister! It’s going shwoop! It’s going bwong!›

Although he didn’t understand what she was saying, Loren tried his best to quell Scena’s hysteria. He turned to Luxuria and asked, “If you haven’t done anything strange, then how did you get here? We only left Kaffa two days ago.”

“Foolish child. To us, distance is but a figment. Haven’t you ever witnessed Gula disappearing right before your eyes?”

Loren did have an inkling as to what he was talking about. When he’d first encountered Gula—who had been partially assimilated with a fairy chieftain—she had sunk into the ground after the fusion was undone. It was unclear where she had disappeared to. If this ability was not unique to Gula, then it wouldn’t be surprising that another dark god like Luxuria could pull it off.

“So you’re alone, then?”

“All too right. Alone, and very lonely,” Luxuria crooned in a whisper while drawing his face closer.

This wasn’t like Loren at all, but he found himself bracing for death. Not that he was resigning himself to being consumed—more that he was preparing to stand his ground while without either weapons or armor. However, as Loren was about to send his clenched fist into Luxuria’s face, Luxuria’s looming body suddenly vanished without a trace.

Loren blinked, confused as to what the hell had just happened. A moment later, his attention was drawn by the sound of something wet hitting the wall. There, he saw Luxuria, now upside down, his limbs sprawled in every direction as he slid down the wall he had crashed into.

“What do you think you’re doing to Mr. Loren?”

This voice, filled with extreme displeasure, belonged to Lapis.

Loren turned to the direction it had come from and saw Lapis, securely wrapped in a cloth, holding a washbasin and a towel. Her stance made it clear she had just unleashed a front kick as she glared at Luxuria, murder in her eyes.

Despite the mismatch between her expression and posture, Loren had just been subjected to the full eyeful of Luxuria, and so to him, Lapis looked even more radiant than usual.

While he’d managed to find some calm, he wasn’t entirely relieved. Now that he’d regained his composure, a new question arose: Why the hell was Lapis in the men’s bath?

“Hey, Lapis. What are you doing here?” he asked.

“My apologies, Mr. Loren, I had some things to attend to. Namely, the process by which one reserves the baths, and then finishing off—ahem, I mean peacefully discussing matters with certain individuals who seemed like they were looking for trouble.”

“Why reserve the bath?”

“Why of course, it would be quite a bother if someone walked in while I was washing your back, Mr. Loren. I’ve properly bribed all the right people, so there shouldn’t be a problem. Although I certainly did not anticipate a dark god.”

“Finish off?”

“Peaceful discussion. Although it ended tragically. I had no choice but to roll them up in rugs to keep them contained. How about we offer them up to Mr. Luxuria?”

After Lapis said this, she suddenly began to fidget. Her face flushed a little red as she stared at Loren. In a faint voice, she said, “So, um, well… I’ve come to wash your back.”

“Bit late for that, don’t you think? Well, err… I’ll leave it to you, then.”

Loren was feeling terribly fatigued, both physically and mentally. At this point, he didn’t feel like washing off or enjoying the bath. He didn’t even feel like he had the willpower to turn down Lapis’s request. And so, he sat and let her do as she pleased.

“So that strange presence I picked up on was you?” Gula said with genuine disappointment as she stared down a light meal in the inn’s first-floor dining room.

Luxuria poked at the ham on his plate with a fork in a manner that didn’t suit his large build. He responded with just as much displeasure as before. “What do you mean ‘strange’? That’s quite rude.”

“Hiding your presence and acting all secretive—just what were you schemin’?”

Gula could vaguely sense the presence of other dark gods, seeing as she was one of them. She hadn’t been able to clearly tell this time because Luxuria had been intentionally concealing his presence. So Gula raised the question thinking something fishy was afoot, and Luxuria responded with genuine offense.

“I’m not plotting anything. I was just taking part in the guild’s quest.”

“Why the hell are you sticking your nose in human wars?”

Gula and her fellow dark gods didn’t really concern themselves with the affairs of humans. When it came to war, they generally thought along the lines of, If you want to fight, go do it for all I care. Gula was only getting involved because Loren and Lapis were as well. Additionally—though she’d only found this out along the way—she’d learned her archenemy was somehow related to this mess.

Perhaps an archenemy for Gula was an archenemy for Luxuria too, but it was unclear if that information had reached him. As such, the reason for the Dark God of Lust’s decision to involve himself was still unknown.

“I need the money,” Luxuria said, to everyone’s surprise. Luxuria went back to poking at his ham, spelling his reasoning out in a somewhat reluctant tone. “I mean, I got these cute kids in Kaffa, you see.”

“You didn’t get them. You made them.”

Luxuria didn’t passively acquire followers. He had to use his abilities to actively indoctrinate them. Luxuria was referring to an incident that had almost completely annihilated the adventurers’ guild as though it was just one of those things that happened now and again, and Gula glared at him pointedly.

Completely undeterred by Gula’s gaze, Luxuria finally brought an impaled piece of ham to his mouth. He chewed thoroughly before swallowing. “They’re earning a reasonable amount as adventurers, those kids, but keeping up with all the necessities does cost a fair bit.”

Loren pondered what a dark god and their entourage might require. Yet no matter how much he thought over it, he couldn’t help but suspect it was something unsavory, so he quickly nixed that train of thought.

Besides, he had something more important to address. Owing to his mental fatigue, he had been unable to bring himself to decline and had let Lapis wash his back at the bath. Not only that, they had then soaked in the water together, and at this point, he now regretted how incredibly defenseless he had left himself.

He feared he was playing right into the hands of the Great Demon King, and depending on how Lapis reported this to her mother, his escape routes had possibly been cut off for good.

“Lapis, about what happened…”

“No need to worry. I understand that I have taken advantage of you at your weakest. I don’t intend to use this as leverage against you,” Lapis reassured him with a bright smile.

As Loren studied the glossy look on her face, he began to wonder just how far he could take her word. Nonetheless, he couldn’t undo what had already been done and he had to accept the consequences. If worse came to worst, he’d just have to accept his fate. He decided not to worry about it for now.

“Even as the eras change, one always needs more money. It’s really quite terrible,” Luxuria sighed as he took another forkful of ham.

Loren had to agree with him there.

“Anyway, I can’t let my cuties get caught up in a dangerous war. I’ve decided to step up and earn some money for them.”

“I’m starting to feel sorry for the enemy.”

Dark gods were already extraordinary individuals, and Luxuria was extraordinary even among his own kind.

The kingdom must have earned some exceptionally terrible comeuppance to deserve this, everyone apart from Luxuria thought to themselves.

“But even if it’s for my kids, it’s still so lonely sleeping on my own. I’ll gladly accept your gift,” Luxuria said, his smile aimed squarely at Lapis.

Luxuria probably thought he was putting his very best smile forward, and Lapis returned a cheerful smile of her own as she nodded deeply and encouragingly. Observing this interaction from the sidelines, Loren noticed that Lapis’s eyes weren’t merely a little scrunched with the strength of her smile, she’d fully closed them.

“Please, by all means, go right ahead,” Lapis said, leaking a few trickles of sweat from her forehead.

Loren couldn’t help but think that this was going to be real trouble for the inn.

The individuals who had planned on messing with Loren and his party had been incapacitated by Lapis before she infiltrated the bath. They were presently wrapped up and had been dumped in Luxuria’s room.

Loren couldn’t help but feel sorry when he thought about the future that awaited them—even if this was the result of their own actions. He had zero interest in imagining what would inevitably unfold between them and Luxuria. As for the employees who would have to deal with the aftermath, he could only offer them his deepest condolences.

“So, are you all planning to head straight to the empire from here?” Luxuria suddenly asked.

The question yanked Loren’s mind back from a world of pink and purple mist.

As the question pertained to the party’s overall strategy, Loren knew he should be the one to respond. Gula and Lapis were looking at him with expectations of exactly that. So after clearing his throat and erasing all other more frivolous thoughts from his head, he turned his mind to Luxuria’s question.

“That’s the plan.”

“You should probably reconsider. Kill some more time around here first,” Luxuria advised. His tone was serious; it didn’t seem like he was joking around.

The party stared at his face—though Lapis had to look away rather quickly. Loren pretended not to notice this and asked the necessary question: “Why’s that?”

“Because it’ll be too suspicious. If you continue north from here, you’ll be at the battlefield tomorrow. You can imagine how they’ll react if you claim that you came from the Kaffa guild, can’t you?”

They’d already gone over this. If they took another day, they would have arrived in the empire in roughly three days’ time. Loren had initially considered the advantages of arriving early, but he had also immediately dismissed the thought.

“So you’re saying it’s still too early, huh?”

The special transportation prepared for the journey would take around ten days, and so three days was simply unbelievable. If they pitched a crazy story like this, they’d probably end up being turned away at the gate. And the fact that it was wartime changed things for the worse. If they were blatantly suspicious in any way, they would become suspect and be detained. Worst-case scenario, they could face execution without even enjoying a proper investigation.

“Will they really be that unreasonable?” Lapis shook her head in disbelief, and Loren couldn’t blame her.

Despite being a priest of the god of knowledge, Lapis likely had yet to experience war. Even if she had, her status as a priest set her apart, and she would have been treated significantly differently than a mercenary like Loren. Even if she acted somewhat strangely, as long as she was a priest, that strangeness would only make people a little wary of her, and she wouldn’t fall victim to the situation that Loren had described.

“Officials tend to be on edge in wartime, see. Sometimes they think it’s best to eliminate all unknown factors; I’ve seen it ­happen before,” Loren explained.

“But in battle, doesn’t the side that lacks composure usually lose?”

“If everyone thought about it like that, wars wouldn’t happen in the first place,” he responded with a wry smile. Then he remembered something and turned his gaze to Luxuria, who was once again stabbing at the ham on his plate. “But you sound pretty knowledgeable about the imperial state of affairs.”

“Of course I am. I already went there once,” Luxuria replied without hesitation.

Loren was about to nod in understanding—indeed, if Luxuria had been there, it was perfectly reasonable to expect that he knew exactly how the empire would react to them. Then he caught on to the implications and glared at him.

Baffled by the intensity of his glare, Luxuria stopped himself mid-stab. “Wh-what?”

“You. Did you just say you’ve been there before?”

“Why, yes. I thought if I could throw myself into battle as soon as possible and make a real name for myself, I could get a bonus from the empire on top of the guild’s reward. An excellent idea, if I do say so myself.”

The intention wasn’t necessarily awful in itself. In fact, if he were to perform some significant deeds and prove himself capable, the empire might want to recruit him. If not, they would at least want to maintain a good relationship, and surely they wouldn’t just send him home empty-handed.

However, something about this had to be taken into consideration.

“And you boldly declared that you were an adventurer from Kaffa?”

“Well, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get the quest rewards. So, naturally.”

“What happened?”

Loren’s succinct line of questioning elicited a noticeably new reaction from Luxuria. His expression didn’t change, and he didn’t stop stabbing at the ham with his fork, but he was clearly averting his gaze from Loren—a fact that was only noticeable if Loren stared directly at his eyes.

This reaction alone told Loren that Luxuria had stirred up some sort of trouble. He glared at him with a touch of violence in his mind. “Answer the question. This could change our plans.”

“I-I mean, those people were terrible! They treated me like a criminal and locked me up when I’d only come to help!” Luxuria indignantly exclaimed.

But from the perspective of Loren and his party, the empire had acted totally appropriately. The news of the kingdom’s atrocities had only just spread to the other guilds, and it would have been suspicious for anyone to claim they’d come from distant Kaffa. And then there was Luxuria’s peculiar appearance to consider.

Anyone who didn’t suspect someone in these circumstances was either a fool or a saint.

“So? I’m assuming you were almost arrested. What did you do then?”

“Well, I wouldn’t be earning anything if they locked me up, right? But if I ran and they started posting wanted posters of yours truly, I’d be out of luck there too, right?”

Few people matched Luxuria’s description. Even if the posters were made by a complete amateur, they would still point straight toward him. Even if Luxuria had nothing to hide and nothing to feel guilty about, as soon as this information spread, his chances of joining the imperial forces were close to nil. As soon as he was found, he would be inevitably captured.

Loren contemplated what Luxuria could have done to avoid this. The thought that crossed his mind was horrifying, and he instinctively buried his face in his hands.

Gula and Lapis glanced at him curiously, but as soon as they heard the words he was muttering under his breath, they caught on.

“It’s you we’re talking about… There’s no way you waited for the heat to die down, let alone gave up… You would never do something that sensible.”

“Why would I show such consideration for the likes of mere humans?”

A dark god did not take human feelings into consideration. It would have been troublesome if anyone had overheard Luxuria’s words, but as luck had it, there was no one else near their table, and his answer faded into the hustle and bustle of the dining hall.

“Yeah, I know you. So I can kinda guess what you did.”

“What would that be?” Lapis urged him to explain.

And so, Loren stifled his voice so he wouldn’t draw any further attention and said, “He probably…got rid of the army, or fort, or base… Whatever he visited first. Made it so it never happened.”

The issue would only have presented itself if there were witnesses to report it. As long as those witnesses were wiped clean off the face of the earth, then Luxuria conducted himself as suspiciously as he liked. No one would know.

It was shortsighted but effective. And it was the kind of quick fix a dark god would land on—one that did not reserve an ounce of consideration for humans.

“To be precise, I only crushed a single fort. But it’s quite all right. It was at a war front quite far from here, and though the enemy pushed forward once the fort was lost, it seems the empire managed to reclaim it. All’s well that ends well,” Luxuria said with a laugh.

Loren held his head and let out a low groan. Now that they understood the situation, Lapis and Gula silently exchanged a nod and, together, delivered a kick to Luxuria.

Putting aside the events that had led up to their stay, Loren and his party decided it would be best to spend another three or four days in town. This meant staying in an inn with access to a hot spring, so this wasn’t much of a hardship. They were able to enjoy some leisure time—a rare luxury to them.

If Loren had to name one problem, it was the fact that he was still largely being supported by Lapis’s wallet. The amount she spent on him made him quite uncomfortable, even though Lapis assured him that he didn’t have to worry about it.

“Considering your debt to His Majesty, just think of it as a little interest,” Lapis told him.

“That ain’t helping even a little,” Loren replied.

But though he said that, he didn’t exactly have any other options. He had no choice but to lean heavily on Lapis and feel quite ashamed to do so.

Amidst this, Luxuria joined Loren’s group before Loren even knew what was happening—and without a shred of reservation. He treated himself to heaping plates of food in the dining hall and crammed a ton of the unruly-looking men Lapis had surrendered to him into one room. There, he would hole up from dawn until dusk, going through mass amounts of cloth and hot water. These costs also came out of Lapis’s pockets.

“Now, Lapis, I know I shouldn’t be complainin’, but why are you takin’ care of Luxuria too?” Gula asked her.

“Well, I just don’t know what he’ll do if I take my eyes off of him,” she replied.

If the other option meant not knowing what that man got up to in the corners when they weren’t looking, it was better to keep him in earshot, even if it cost a pretty penny. This was Lapis’s take at least.

Incidentally, the inn’s workers did have some level of awareness of what Luxuria was getting up to. They were demanding a higher cleaning fee for his room than they did from other guests.

“Also, as long as you turn a blind eye to his conduct, he could be a wonderful asset on the battlefield. At the very least, he could serve as a human shield for Mr. Loren and myself.”

“Well, yeah, I’ll vouch for his combat abilities if nothing else.”

As Loren listened to this exchange, he took a moment to reflect on his party.

He was still human, technically speaking, but he received critical support both from the Lifeless King Scena within him and Neg on his shoulder.

As their priest, Lapis was a demon who wielded both blessings and magic, and was capable of close combat as well.

On paper, Gula was supposed to be a magician, but she not only excelled in magic, she also possessed her innate authority as a dark god, and this was a fearsome power indeed. She was furthermore extraordinarily proficient in combat.

“By the way, what job did Luxuria register with at the guild?”

His attire looked like it restricted freedom of movement, so Loren couldn’t imagine him registering as a warrior or something else in that vein. But it also seemed like a bad joke to consider him a mage, let alone a priest. Luxuria also didn’t use weapons, so his appearance gave no clues as to his usual role.

“How about you ask him directly?” Gula suggested, which made Loren pull a reluctant face.

Luxuria rarely left his room, so having a conversation necessitated either aiming for one of his occasional outings or visiting the room itself. The latter was out of the question. Therein lay a fate worse than death.

“I believe he registered as a priest,” Lapis said.

Loren doubted his ears for a moment, as did Gula. They both stared at Lapis with the faces of people who’d just been told the world was about to end.

Despite this, Lapis continued as though nothing was wrong. “Yes, I remember hearing that he registered as a priest of the god of earth.”

“You’ve gotta be joking.”

“His status seems to be genuine. After reviving, he legitimately obtained qualifications at a temple.”

“Is the god of earth okay? Handing a job to someone like that?”

“Well, Mr. Luxuria’s existence is not in contradiction with the doctrinal teachings of the god of earth. You could even interpret his scripture in a way that would make Mr. Luxuria a prime candidate. That is why I think he got his approval so easily.”

“You’re kidding!”

“The god of earth’s teachings revolve around loving all forms of life in this vast world. Although some interpretations exclude monsters and demons, various other sects embrace them. One they all share, however, is that gender must never be a discriminating factor.”

As far as Loren understood, the god of earth was known as a deity of love and creation. Listening to Lapis, however, left him feeling that the scope of these teachings was far too broad.

“I don’t think I’ll ever convert.”

“Although if you want to become a follower of the god of knowledge, the door is always open.”

“That’s out of the question for entirely different reasons.”

Though Lapis seemed a bit hurt by Loren’s response, this was the god that allowed Lapis to get away with just about anything as long as she said, “It’s because I’m a priest of the god of knowledge.” Her overwhelming abilities had raised the bar a bit too high for anyone else who wanted to devote themselves to her god.

In this way, they spent around four days resting and recuperating before resuming their journey to the northern empire.

By the time they left, Lapis had likely spent quite a substantial amount of money at the inn. In that sense, they were excellent customers. All the same, when they informed the inn that they were checking out, the employees’ faces were awash with pure relief.

We must have been quite a handful, Loren thought. He couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for the inn, but he was convinced that most of the blame rested with Luxuria. Letting that guy shoulder the blame did take a load off of Loren’s mind.

As for Luxuria, he emerged from his room surrounded by men who seemed either perfectly trained or totally brainwashed, their eyes sparkling in a way entirely unlike they had when they had been captured.

“Are you taking them with us?” Loren asked Luxuria, though he had a good idea as to how the man would respond.

Loren wasn’t interested in the dirty details of what had transpired over the past few days. All he knew was that the men who had been confined in Luxuria’s room appeared to have become fully subservient to him. Each and every one of them had an expression that seemed to indicate complete devotion, which Loren found rather unsettling.

“I can’t just leave them behind, can I?”

“Well… I guess not,” Loren reluctantly nodded.

Also, he had seen the despair on the faces of the inn’s employees the instant he suggested leaving these men behind. Although he would rather have abandoned them and Luxuria somewhere in the wilderness, he could only imagine the untold repercussions of this deed. However he yearned, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Besides, there’s plenty of benefits to bringing them along.”

“I don’t wanna hear it, but go on.”

If Luxuria started into the benefits they would bring at night, Loren would cut him down for the sake of not only his sanity but the world’s. As his thoughts strayed to the sword hung across his back, he reminded himself of the great many people out there who would be saved.

Luxuria folded his arms in front of his excessively built chest. With a proud face, he answered, “They’ll bolster our numbers.”

“And what’s so good about that?”

“Now look here. By the time we reach the empire, those adventurers from Kaffa will still be days away, right?”

Even factoring in their detour and their vacation, it had only been six days since Loren’s party set out from Kaffa. The guild had estimated a full ten for their special service, and even if everything proceeded smoothly, they would still be far behind Loren’s party, who would reach the empire by tomorrow.

“After all this, if a measly three or four adventurers show up to lend aid to the army, they’ll just laugh us out the door. We’ll be turned away at the gate.”

“Are you really saying that after you went alone?”

“I’ve learned from experience. Don’t get technical.”

In all actuality, Luxuria alone possessed combat strength equal to a significant number of human soldiers put together. Loren didn’t even know the full extent of his power. If the army had known that, they would never have treated him so harshly. But thinking about it logically, if one or two people came up to a fort saying they were reinforcements, they’d be treated as a grand joke.

“But with these cute little ones joining us, we’re a party of ten.”

Considering the scale of an army, ten-odd adventurers were overall relatively inconsequential, but it was still a decent number and a decent addition. According to Luxuria, giving off the appearance of organization would improve their chances of being accepted. At least, more so than when he had gone on his own.

“It will reduce the likelihood of being turned away at the gate. There’s no harm in bringing them, is there?”

“Of course there is. More bodies is more money.”

Having four party members was one thing. Close to ten was another entirely. Naturally, they would have to carry more supplies, and the expenses would add up as well.

Loren expressed his concern for the cost only for Luxuria to snort. “You’re not the one paying, are you?”

Loren was at a loss for words. Looks like I better not try and argue when there’s money involved, he thought as he turned to Lapis.

Lapis casually replied, “If you think of them as walls and shields, they’re rather cheap as investments go.”

“Your partner might look cute, but she says the least cute things.” Luxuria told Loren, looking a bit put out.

Loren, unable to find the right retort, only shrugged.

“I would very much appreciate it if you also heroically sacrificed yourself on the battlefield, Mr. Luxuria,” Lapis added.

“There’s a sentiment I can agree with,” Gula said.

“Could you kindly go out in a blaze of glory while taking the enemy general down with you?”

“What exactly are you people expecting from me?!”

“Mutually assured destruction,” Lapis and Gula responded in unison.

Even Luxuria took some psychic damage from that one. As he and his followers fell silent, Loren reached for his bags and called out to his party members.

“We should head out soon,” Loren said. “We’ll need to purchase some more supplies too. Lapis, sorry, but could you foot the bill? Having more hands on deck does make sense if we’re gonna infiltrate the military.”

“I suppose we’ve no choice. I’ll give a loan to Mr. Luxuria at 10 percent daily interest.”

“Hey! That’s highway robbery!”

“Compared to the debt Mr. Loren carries, it’s pennies.”

“Please don’t use me as an example.”

This was undeniably an extortionate rate, and Lapis danced about as Luxuria chased her. It wasn’t so bad for the party to get a little playful, but Loren prayed the atmosphere would sober up once they joined the military. With this in mind, he looked up to the northern sky, toward where their journey would take them.

Chapter 6:
From Enlistment to March

 

NOW WITH LUXURIA and his new pals along for the ride, they walked north for roughly a day. Loren very much wanted to avoid camping with these new companions, and while it wasn’t like someone reached down from the heavens to magically grant this wish, he was grateful to leave town in the morning and arrive in another town by sunset.

Although it was certainly a town, it was a town near the front line. Perhaps it had originally been a defensive base, as its construction was like a fusion of city and fortress. Deep moats and high walls surrounded it, lending it quite an imposing visage.

“I’m honestly impressed they let all of us in,” Loren said.

There was a war going on, and the soldiers on guard duty should have been more vigilant. Loren and his party weren’t an obvious problem, but someone as suspicious-looking as Luxuria had managed to pass through the gates without much difficulty. Loren had thought for sure they’d be stopped, but for some reason, the soldiers had barely given the party a second glance and let them straight on through.

“They just did a quick check and let them in,” Loren muttered as he jerked a thumb at Luxuria and his groupies, who were tagging along behind his crew. “Makes me feel like they’re not even doing their jobs.”

Gula and Lapis nodded in sage agreement.

“Well, maybe it’s ’cuz of the war,” said Gula. “The overall soldierly quality might be a bit lackin’.”

“Or maybe they knew at a glance that there would be trouble if they dug too deep,” Lapis added.

As this group was led by an obviously eccentric mountain of a man, they’d never pass for anything like regular people. As Lapis noted, it was clear that engaging with them could well lead to all sorts of unwanted trouble. It was still true that soldiers had their obligations, but anyone with their wits about them would do everything in their power to avoid getting involved with such a group.

Although the men—Luxuria included—protested against being treated like harbingers of ruin, they fell silent under the combined ice-cold stares from Lapis and Gula. But while this made most of them clam up, Luxuria continued to voice his complaints.

“What do you mean by that?!”

“By the way, Mr. Loren. Where should we go from here?”

“Hey, Lapis! Don’t just ignore me!”

“Repayment,” Lapis said.

It was startling how readily Luxuria quieted down the moment this word reached his ears. Just a moment ago, he’d looked ready to grab her, and now he was entirely meek and docile. Loren ­narrowed his eyes at Lapis, wondering what she could have been up to behind his back.

Lapis maintained her usual smile, completely unfazed by the look Loren was giving her. They stared at one another for a bit before she finally let out a slight sigh.

“I wrote up an IOU and had him sign,” she said, for some reason with a hint of resignation.

“You really are…pretty dependable when it comes to these things…”

Loren couldn’t help but be impressed that a single piece of ­paper held such power over a dark god. However, given that Luxuria was so powerful himself, he feared the man might decide to just brush it off and pretend it had never existed.

Gula had an explanation for that, however. “She probably made it a proper formal contract. We’re weak to that sort of thing.”

“Is that how it works?”

“We didn’t choose to be called dark gods, but the name’s not just for show. Well, I doubt you’d understand if I told you about all that stuff. Anyways, it has to do with the methods by which we amp up our powers.”

“Do you get stronger in exchange for a few restrictions, perhaps?”

“You seem to get it, Lapis… And you did a good job, taking advantage of it. Serves you right, Luxuria.” Gula let out a less-than-dignified chuckle, and Luxuria responded with an awkward, tight smile—which seemed to be the most resistance he had left to his name.

But there was little cuteness to be found in a broad-shouldered man with a cleft chin smiling like that, so Loren turned away and pretended not to see.

“So, anyway. We were talking about where to go from here, right?” said Loren. “Well, I figure we should go to the ­adventurers’ guild or get in contact with the army folks that’re gettin’ help from them. So how about we start with one of those?”

“I’d also like to gather some basic information, but that should work out fine,” said Lapis. “That said, Mr. Loren, just how would you get in contact with the army?”

That was the sort of thing that the average citizen would be rather unfamiliar with. Even for those in the adventurer trade, it was rare to deal with a nation’s military. Few had anything like detailed knowledge on the relevant authorities.

But it was a practice with which Loren was all too familiar .

“Well, I’m the former mercenary here. I have a vague idea.”

Before becoming an adventurer, Loren had earned his bread and butter with precisely this work. He hadn’t dealt directly with the administrative side of things—that had been for the higher-ups in the company—but he still had a rough idea of where and how to contact the right folks.

“Should we head to the guild, then?” Gula asked, seeing as both options were viable. Loren and Lapis looked at her, curious as to why she’d chosen that option. Gula pointed to the men sticking close behind them. “If we drag these guys to some soldierly folk who don’t know who we are, they won’t care about the size of our group one way or the other. I get the feelin’ things would just get messy.”

“Yeah…point taken.”

“So I think it’ll be less trouble if we drop by the guild and have them connect us. The guild has a bit more tolerance for this kinda thing.”

Loren glanced at Luxuria and his followers. He wanted to say that Luxuria was the odd one out, but the men he’d tamed had begun to exude a peculiar air of their own. Taking them straight to the military could lead to unnecessary complications.

Moreover, the army could be quite brittle when it came to handling anyone who deviated from social norms. Getting the more flexible adventurers’ guild to act as a mediator wasn’t such a bad idea.

After thinking it through, Loren agreed to visit the adventurers’ guild first to inform them that they’d come here on a quest from the branch in Kaffa. But that drove them straight into another issue.

“From Kaffa? Just where did you enter the empire?”

The guild was indeed fairly understanding of Luxuria and his groupies, and there weren’t any major issues in that regard. But unfortunately, the guild’s doubts weren’t just how quickly they’d reached imperial territory but the route by which they’d done so.

Now that Loren thought about it, it would have been only natural to cross several borders along the way—given that the journey took ten days even with the guild’s special vehicle.

If they’d used that transportation service, the guild would have taken care of all border-crossing procedures, but in taking a different route, Loren and his party had bypassed all the formalities generally required of international travel.

He had been so preoccupied with being sent to demon territory that he had regretfully forgotten this very basic fact of life. But there wasn’t much he could do at this point. Loren smiled vaguely at the guild receptionist, who was looking at him suspiciously.

Just then, Lapis slipped past Loren and stepped in front of him. “Actually, there are a number of secret shortcuts through the mountains.”

“Pardon?”

“To be more precise, the route we took involved a tunnel that links this region to demon country. We happened to stumble upon it by chance.”

Of course, Loren wasn’t actually aware of this route, and he was fairly sure it was a total fabrication. However, if he were to question Lapis while she spoke with full confidence, Lapis’s efforts to dispel the receptionist’s doubts would be for naught. He tried his hardest to maintain his expression as he studied the receptionist’s reaction.

“Such a route exists?”

“Indeed, it does. If you want to know more, I could tell you exactly where to find it in exchange for a small finder’s fee.”

Lapis didn’t seem to feel even a shred of guilt, and the receptionist seemed to determine that this lent her some credibility. She called over her superior to consult.

Meanwhile, Lapis watched them and beamed.

Loren lightly poked her side. In a hushed voice, he asked, “You tellin’ the truth?”

“I never say things that aren’t true. More importantly, Mr. Loren. Please warn me in advance if you’re going to poke my side. I almost made an untoward sound.”

“Who the hell tells someone they’re about to poke them? Anyways, what are you going to do if they seriously ask you to cough up the info? Is there really a shortcut?”

If he took her words at face value, that meant there was another route that would have gotten them here faster than the guild’s special carriage. This information would be of considerable importance to the guild, and Loren suspected they would give anything to obtain the information, even if Lapis overcharged them by an exorbitant amount.

With a calm smile, she replied, “I’ll start by warning them that I can’t guarantee their safety.”

“I see.”

A route that went through the mountains and crossed demon territory obviously wouldn’t be safe, and surely the guild would already be assuming that. But if Lapis dropped an additional warning, it’d be less that they learned it was dangerous and more that they would become concerned that the danger was significant.

The long and short of the matter was that even if they wanted to verify her claims, they most likely wouldn’t be able to.

“I will tell them about a route that has been known to fell even silver-ranked adventurers right at the entrance.”

“Is it really all right to tell them about a route we wouldn’t have survived ourselves?”

“Let’s just say you can get through if luck’s on your side.”

It’s not like I’m lying to anyone, her attitude seemed to say. Loren got the feeling that chastising her on this one would be pointless, and simply prayed that the guild wouldn’t dig too deeply.

Luckily, the fact that this route crossed demon territory—a fact Lapis had casually mentioned—and the fact that they had more pressing issues to deal with meant the guild left it at that. They told Loren’s party they would get them in touch with the imperial army as soon as possible.

“In general, our people are used as strike teams or as supplemental regiments. But more precisely, you’ll be tasked with following the orders of imperial officers,” the receptionist said as she handed them a sheet of paper. The sheet detailed the location of their contact and the name of the presiding officer.

After taking it, Loren rushed everyone out. He was keen to leave before anyone caused a ruckus.

Loren hurried along his party members, leaving the adventurers’ guild and heading straight to the building the guild had directed them to. There they would find the imperial army’s logistics and recruitment division.

But once they were outside, Loren realized they might reach the division before the guild could. He slowed the pace and led the group on a leisurely stroll through the city before they finally reached the office. Once they did, it became abundantly clear that the guild had gotten there first. An official immediately ushered them inside.

“You’ve made it here quickly. I hear you’re from Kaffa, but none of your peers have reached us yet.”

This fellow, who introduced himself as their presiding officer, was a middle-aged soldier. They had been led to a room where they found the officer sitting at a simple wooden desk with a quill wedged between his fingers. He didn’t seem like he’d come fresh off the battlefield. Given his physique, Loren concluded that he was an administrator.

“We took a shortcut. I mean, the quicker we get here, the more we can get out of it, right?”

The part about the shortcut was true, but it wasn’t like they had ever been in a hurry; it was more like the detour had forced them to jump to the head of the pack. They had even taken time to rest along the way. Loren did feel kind of guilty, but he certainly couldn’t fess up to the whole truth.

“That will depend on your accomplishments. Generally speaking, you will only be paid whatever reward you were promised by the guild. But naturally, any deeds that sway the tides of the war on the whole may well earn you a bonus from the army as well.”

The officer smiled, but he didn’t seem to think this was likely. After all, it wasn’t often that a single individual managed to achieve feats so tremendous that they influenced the course of an entire war. Those who could pull off that kind of thing were known as heroes. While someone like Claes might think of himself in that light, Loren understood that he was just another mercenary. He was far removed from such concerns.

“Sounds rough. Right, it seems like we’re better off just doing the work we’re paid for.”

“Maybe so.”

The officer smiled again, and Loren returned it with a business smile of his own. Then the officer beckoned him closer and whispered in his ear, “With that said, what about your companions behind you? Are they really made of the right stuff? You look like you’re capable enough, but…”

Loren discreetly glanced over his shoulder. His party members were waiting patiently for this exchange to run its course. He couldn’t blame the officer for his concern, given their unconventional appearances.

Lapis could be explained at least to some degree. Although her clothing made abundantly clear that she was a priest, she didn’t look kitted out for battle, even if the colors and designs of her vestments were notable.

Gula, on the other hand, was showing off far too much skin. If anyone apart from her wanted to sashay into battle dressed in a tube top and hot pants, Loren would instantly conclude that their brains were of substantially abnormal shape.

As for Luxuria and his followers, the issues went without saying. Some of his comrades were somewhat decently dressed, but the vibes in their eyes and general demeanor made them anything but ordinary.

Loren found it hard to blame the officer for doubting the reliability of the party as a whole.

“Well…appearances aren’t everything,” he said. He couldn’t think of anything else that would reassure the officer, so he did his best to come up with a safe, inoffensive response.

Of course, the officer wasn’t entirely satisfied, but perhaps he just thought of it as part of his job, as he shifted his focus. After rummaging through the documents on his desk for a moment, he pulled out the necessary papers and spread them in front of Loren.

“You may have already heard this at the guild, but the guild reinforcements usually form units tasked with strike raids.”

“Yeah, I heard. What’s the situation, anyways?”

Apart from his own party, Loren hadn’t seen anyone who had business with this officer. He hoped to engage the man in a bit of conversation—mainly to gather intelligence. The officer seemed to have plenty of time to spare, and he easily took the bait.

“Well I’d say the forces at the border are currently in a ­staring match,” the officer explained as he took another sheet from a drawer. It appeared to be a makeshift map that depicted the border between the kingdom and the empire.

As his finger traced the lines of that map, he explained, “Yes, the bulk of our forces are concentrated at the center of our shared border. A few other units are deployed around them, but we are at a standstill. A number of small battalions have weaved through the gaps to scout or conduct raids, and this has led to a few small-scale skirmishes.”

“Sounds like trouble.”

Although Loren’s group was lacking in numbers, he’d learned a few things in his mercenary days. First and foremost, that war was a very costly affair.

This was true regardless of whether any battles were being actively fought; even during a complete standoff, an army accrued enormous costs day by day. These expenses were, of course, paid for by the treasuries of the involved nations, and the burden was ultimately foisted off on the citizens through taxes.

If they were going to fight, Loren thought they would kick things off promptly and conclude the matter swiftly. Apparently, though, some pressures were holding off full-scale hostilities.

“The empire and the kingdom have indeed been at war for a long time, but until recently, it was limited to small skirmishes. Once we realized we could get assistance from the adventurers’ guild, the empire decided to commit and send in the big guns. In response, the kingdom amassed a considerable force of its own,” the officer explained.

“So you’re saying once you sit down and look at it, the forces come out pretty even?”

They’d sent more troops only to find that the enemy had sent an equivalent force. If the war really kicked into gear at this point, there was a high chance that casualties would be significant, ­regardless of the victor.

On top of that, it wasn’t like the empire and kingdom were the only nations in the north; worst-case scenario, even if one of them secured victory, a third party could storm in and take them down while they were weakened. Both sides saw a lose-lose situation staring them in their faces, so neither side could fully commit to the conflict.

“While the numbers slightly favor the empire, we enjoy reinforcements from the adventurers’ guild. They’re a ragtag bunch, which means the kingdom has a slight edge when it comes to quality. All in all, our forces are roughly equal.”

In group battles, individual skill generally didn’t factor, unless said individual was exceptionally outstanding. The adventurers were indeed skilled fighters, but hardly any of them had experience with large-scale battles. They would likely be unable to effectively coordinate with the imperial army.

Meanwhile, the kingdom’s forces, though slightly outnumbered, consisted entirely of soldiers trained specifically for just such combat. Moreover, unlike the imperial army, the kingdom hadn’t called on fighters from outside organizations that might disrupt their ranks. They thus had the advantage in coordination and command structure.

“So,” said the officer, “once our side started sending out adventurers to scout and raid, the kingdom countered by deploying their own units. This has led to a few skirmishes here and there.”

That sounds about right. That’s about how I’d expect adventurers to be used in warfare, Loren thought. They were unreliable in large tactical maneuvers and could be put to more effective use in smaller, more agile groups. This seemed like basic common sense.

But these small strike teams were nothing to scoff at. They didn’t pose a significant threat individually, but they moved fast, and there was no telling where they might pop up. By targeting supply lines and other weak points, they could quickly influence the tide of the war.

The kingdom had therefore cannily dispatched counterforces. However, this had only led to clashes between these smaller units, and the energy invested in these smaller conflicts had contributed to the overall stalemate.

“As time passes, more and more reinforcements arrive from the guild. Eventually, I believe we’ll have the numbers to overcome the quality issue,” the officer explained.

“Well, I don’t think the kingdom’s going to be stupid enough to prolong the conflict, knowing that’ll put them on the back foot… That makes their failure to push for a decisive battle concerning,” said Loren.

“My superiors are the ones in charge of sorting out that kind of thing. For the time being, can you all write your names down here?”

The officer held out a form, which was taken by Lapis, who’d appeared by Loren’s side before anyone even realized she was moving. She ignored both Loren and the officer, who were startled by her sudden appearance, and swiftly wrote down her name, as well as those of her party. Then, folding the page into quarters, she flicked it toward Luxuria like she was throwing a knife.

It was just paper, and Loren didn’t think it would do much, but it whipped around and around until a corner stabbed into Luxuria’s forehead. He hadn’t expected her to throw it and was late to react.

“Hey! That was surprisingly painful!”

“Oh, pipe down and write your name—and don’t forget your friends.”

Luxuria cried out in protest, holding his forehead as blood oozed from it, but Lapis’s response was steadfastly cold. Realizing that further protests would fall on deaf ears, Luxuria grumbled under his breath and scribbled down his name alongside those of his entourage.

Just in case, Loren asked the officer, “You sure we shouldn’t each be signing our own names?”

“Well, no one’s going to be able to tell who wrote what.”

Point taken, Loren thought as he retrieved the paper from Luxuria, who looked like he had something to say. The officer checked that the number of names matched the number of people in the group before sloppily adding the number “891,” signing his own name, and marking it with a large stamp. He handed the paper back to Loren.

“That’s it for the paperwork. Today, the upper floors of this building will serve as your accommodations. Show this paper to the manager at the entrance, and he’ll prepare a room for you. Get your food at the mess. Tomorrow, another officer will come around and call on your group by your designated number. Please follow their orders.”

“I hope they station us somewhere nice and easy.”

“Well…if you’re on administrative duties, you could be assigned to the back like me.”

Not that anyone would think to have adventurers running around an office. Loren understood there was no use even hoping. With a wry smile, he turned to take his leave until something suddenly occurred to him.

“Come to think of it, I heard a rumor,” said Loren. “They say a guy named Juris Mutschild is in the empire. You know anything about him?”

“Do you mean General Mutschild? If you’re thinking of personally selling your services to him, I’d advise against it. They’d only find that suspicious, and you’d be thrown in a cell.”

This was the name of the chief of the mercenary company Loren had once belonged to. Loren was surprised to get a response as soon as he uttered the name. But more surprising was the fact that his chief was now some general. This unexpected revelation left Loren at a loss for words.

It was unclear how the officer interpreted Loren’s reaction, but he continued to provide further context.

“The general turned up a short while back. Made a name for himself during our battles with the kingdom. Given those circumstances, perhaps he would be sympathetic to someone like you. But we’re in the middle of a war, and he commands the main forces. If you go out there and claim you’re his illegitimate son or something, you’d lose your head.”

There were a number of stories about individuals who popped up in wartime and claimed they were the children or relatives of high-ranking military officers. Putting aside the veracity of these claims, they usually showed up when the situation was already complicated, times were tough, and the war needed all hands on deck. If the general—or whoever they were claiming ties to—was anything less than completely innocent, they’d probably put off any investigation. Things would be too busy to bother looking too deep. So for the time being, the claimant might get a pass.

“I’m not even considering it… I’ve just heard the name before. But isn’t that kind of a quick promotion for a guy who just turned up out of nowhere?”

“Well, he’s been a true hero in our battle with the kingdom.”

“Hero… A hero, huh?”

Loren figured he wouldn’t get any more useful information from the officer, so he ended the conversation there. He urged Lapis and the others to leave.

“What the hell is he doing?”

It was good to know the chief had survived the day the company fell, and that he was still alive to this day. But it was bewildering to think that the same chief was now a general of the empire.

Maybe it’s just someone with the same name? This thought did occur to Loren, and if he wanted to be sure, he would have to meet the man. But how could a mere adventurer secure a meeting with an illustrious general? Loren heaved a sigh.

The accommodations the army had prepared for them were by no means high-class.

They were so bad, in fact, that Lapis was protesting up to the very last second. She insisted that if this was the alternative, she would pay for another inn, but as far as Loren was concerned, it was like coming home. This inn lodging made him feel at ease, and that night, he slept so soundly that he surprised even himself. His reward was a feeling of profound refreshment as he opened his eyes the next morning.

That is, until a single statement from Luxuria managed to taint the morning. “It was terribly hot last night.”

Despite the fact that the imperial army had assigned them individual rooms, Luxuria had chosen to sleep in the communal area with his groupies, and they had engaged in unsavory activities all night long. This decision was beyond him, but he remained steadfast and unshaken in his less-than-noble pursuits.

Among the various dark gods Loren had met in his travels, he sincerely believed that Luxuria was the only one that deserved to be locked back up. The problem was a matter of practicality—if they wanted to seal Luxuria, someone would have to take it upon themselves to beat the man in a fight.

Naturally, Loren had no intentions of doing so himself. He didn’t want to face that man ever again, and it felt wrong to ask Lapis or Gula for assistance here.

“Maybe we could work something out with Claes…”

“What are you talking about?” asked Lapis.

She hadn’t been complaining for no reason; her grumpiness implied she hadn’t slept nearly as well as Loren had. When she snapped, he assured her it was nothing and decided to stop thinking about it for the time being.

Luxuria wasn’t the only problem at hand. Another one poked its head out of the ground as they were eating breakfast in the mess. Since the army covered the cost of their food while they served, it was all free. And as soon as Gula learned this, she nearly unleashed the full extent of her authority of gluttony.

Loren had been observing in silence thus far, but when Gula’s requests for refills reached double digits, he realized that things would get out of hand if he continued to sit on his hands. Loren planted a forceful fist on top of Gula’s head, putting an end to her voracious inhalations.

“Whaddaya think you’re doin’?!”

“Are you trying to destroy the army’s coffers with your stomach?!”

“It’s only my tenth plate! And it’s completely free!”

“There’s something called moderation!”

A soldier’s most important asset was their body, and most armies did their best to offer decent food to their forces—at least, as much as funds permitted. In dire circumstances, there were times when the meals they served were completely unpalatable. But in times of abundance, every army Loren knew of maintained a reasonable level of food quality.

So, of all the costs of mobilizing an army, food expenses were a considerable portion. However, if you added Gula into the equation, her overindulgence really could lead to the army’s downfall.

“Show some restraint, would you?”

“Tsk…”

Gula had been ecstatic about the unlimited free meals and seemed incredibly put out when Loren reined her in.

“Fine, I guess I’ll scavenge some leftovers on the battlefield.”

“Hey, only say that where no one can hear you…”

To Gula, the fallen were as good as a delicious meal. Loren felt a twinge of sympathy as he thought about those soldiers, who had probably never dreamed they would come face-to-face with a being who saw them as nothing more than sustenance.

“Number 891—is Loren’s squad here?”

While they were chatting, a group of armed soldiers arrived at their location and called the number that Loren had registered them under the previous day. Once Loren confirmed that the name and number belonged to him, one of the soldiers delivered his commands in a composed manner.

“You’re to head out immediately. Make for the city’s east gate. There, meet up with the other personnel and proceed to the battlefield.”

“Understood. We’ll go right away.”

For some reason, Lapis, Gula, and Luxuria seemed annoyed by the soldier’s commanding tone. Now that Loren thought about it, he realized that under any other circumstance, an ordinary human would have no business ordering any of them about.

Understandable, Loren thought as he urged everyone to comply with the soldier’s orders.

They made their way to the eastern gate as instructed. There, they found other adventurers, who had likely come from guild branches in various cities. They were mixed in with the common soldiers, who were presumably mostly there to signify that these adventurers were technically part of the imperial army.

“Mr. Loren, are you really all right with putting off your reunion with your chief?” Lapis asked after Loren had given his name and number to a clerk, officially adding them to the force.

Although Loren was more interested in knowing what the chief had been getting up to than he was in the war, he also understood that pursuing this was, at present, a practical impossibility.

“There’s no way that some nobody from who-knows-where could get an audience with a high-ranking officer in wartime. So I can’t. Not now.”

“But surely if you mention your name…”

“If that’s all it takes to get an audience, then the imperial army’s an army of fools. In the first place, that officer told us as much, didn’t he? There are all sorts of folks who use the confusion of war to claim they’re someone’s kid or someone’s old war buddy. At this point, that kind of claim is ignored more often than not.”

“Then what will you do?”

This human conflict was completely inconsequential to Lapis. Her interests lay solely in the individual who had once served as Loren’s boss. Knowing that their meeting had at best been delayed had utterly sapped her motivation to do anything war-related.

“Let’s see how things pan out first.”

Loren did still feel a desire to meet the chief in person. While learning that the man held the rank of imperial general had been shocking, he was still eager to learn all that had transpired during their time apart. Considering how very much had changed since the company’s destruction, Loren was even ready to believe that the chief might be an entirely different person who happened to be using the same name. Regardless, he understood that he wouldn’t truly know until they could look each other in the eyes.

“Work our way up, build a reputation, then maybe establish a connection with someone who can pass a message up the chain. That’s way more likely to work. Better than kicking down his door without any prep.”

“Brute force is always an option,” Lapis said, voice low and face grim.

Gula and Luxuria put on dark looks of their own, and at the sight of these unsavory expressions, Loren waved his hand and signaled them all to stop. Regardless of how powerful the imperial army was, they would be in for quite a bit of trouble if they had to face the ire of a demon and two dark gods.

However, that was the kind of behavior that inevitably got you branded as a fugitive who’d be hunted down no matter where you went. Despite his desire to meet his chief, Loren wasn’t about to do anything that would make the rest of his life a living hell.

“Only if you guys think you can conquer the whole world.”

If they were up for that, using force without considering the consequences wasn’t entirely out of the question.

But surely that has to be impossible, Loren thought—only for Lapis to readily nod in agreement.

“That would be impossible. Even if we only focused on human nations.”

“Exactly. So we’ve got no choice but to slowly build up trust.”

“That sounds stressful.”

‹Mister, if you don’t care what methods I use, I think I could take out at least one country,› Scena remarked as she fluttered into view on her wings.

Loren suppressed a wry smile as he responded to her in his mind—cautioning her against just such behavior.

If Scena used her power to its fullest extent, she could raise an undead army. Loren could easily see her swallowing an entire country with that power, but once that was done, it would be a lifeless land where only corpses roamed. Loren wasn’t about to create a living nightmare just to accomplish his personal goals.

No one nearby seemed to hear their ominous conversation. At least, there was no commotion, nor any curious stares directed their way. They talked and passed the time until a group of soldiers, dressed in higher-quality equipment, came to gather their ragtag group.

These were presumably the ranking field officers. Once the ­officers came to a stop in front of the gathering, one of them raised his voice.

“Listen up! I am the commander of the Forty-Fifth Raid Squad. Henceforth, we will scout the perimeter around the main forces and simultaneously eliminate any enemy forces assigned to do the same.”

“For an army, they’re not very well organized, are they?”

The soldiers stood in formation, listening intently to their commander’s words, but the individuals who had presumably been dispatched by the guild didn’t bother. They appeared to be huddled in their own little circles of friends, and some didn’t even seem to be paying much attention.

“I reckon they figured it was impossible to get adventurers to listen to orders,” said Gula.

“Mercenaries do at least a little better than this,” Loren muttered.

Given that mercenaries made a living through warfare, they knew how to move in a group and were experienced in doing so. On the other hand, adventurers typically formed tight-knit parties and only acted within those small groups. They weren’t accustomed to operating alongside dozens or even hundreds of people, and their lack of know-how was showing.

If anyone attempted to jam adventurers into a military structure, it would likely lead to resistance and chaos. The empire had evidently given up on doing so.

“If this is the way it’s gonna be, then our numerical advantage might not count for much.”

When a disorganized mob faced a reasonably well-structured organization, Loren knew the former was done for. In this case, their numbers could even be a hindrance, as Loren had learned from experience.

It wasn’t uncommon to hear tales of armies with so many troops that when chaos struck, they became completely unmanageable, to the point where they were routed by far smaller forces.

“The organization seems rather lackluster for an army headed by your chief, Mr. Loren.”

“Just because someone’s a general, doesn’t necessarily mean they have full command over the entire army. Someone else could be leading the raid teams. Or maybe it really is just some guy with the same name.”

Once the commander’s speech—or rather, his orders—had concluded, the soldiers marched out, and Lapis watched them with a sigh. “Whichever it is, I get the feeling this isn’t going to be especially interesting,” she grumbled.

Loren nearly snorted and had to cover his mouth to play it off. However, Lapis’s eyes were too sharp to be fooled.

“What was that for?” she sullenly asked.

Loren followed along with the people who’d begun to move around them, and sent her a slightly troubled glance. After contemplating a bit, he finally managed to put his thoughts into words. “There’s no such thing as an interesting war. It doesn’t matter which one you join. It’s never interesting.”

“Hmm. I guess you have a point…”

“I’m gonna have a feast!”

“I’m on a mission to capture all the cutest kids!”

Although Lapis seemed to accept these words of wisdom, behind her, Gula and Luxuria seemed far too eager for the battlefield.

“They seem to be having fun, though.”

“I’m not responsible for counting those exceptions.”

If the dark gods were let to run free, the battlefield would be a nightmare.

Should I give them a stern warning while we’re still on the road? Loren wondered as he let out a deep sigh.

Chapter 7:
Encounter to Engage

 

THEY WERE ON THE MOVE again. Once they left the city, it was another two days to the border on foot. The imperial cavalry would have made it there much quicker. However, their force was mainly composed of adventurers, none of whom had been provided with horses. Some adventurers didn’t even know how to ride.

Thus, they were forced to travel to their destination sans rides.

Couldn’t we use carts, though? Loren wondered. But he soon learned from the soldiers walking with them that all such means of transportation had been allocated to the main force. There had been none left for the raid teams. Loren accepted this explanation with resignation.

“I still consider us pretty fortunate,” the young soldier who he’d been talking to went on to say.

Loren asked what he meant by that. According to this fellow, some of the kingdom’s units had infiltrated imperial lines. They were engaging in sabotage and attacking forces just like this one, which had hurt the empire rather badly.

“We may be stuck on foot, but we haven’t run into any of that kind of interference. Don’t you think we’re fortunate if no one’s looking our way?”

The young soldier spoke with a smile, and Loren answered with an ambiguous smile of his own. The truth of the matter was that he had already spotted a few of these covert kingdom operatives nearby.

However, for a number of reasons, the imperial soldiers—along with most of the adventurers—remained oblivious.

First off, the kingdom’s forces were very small, with a maximum of ten people per unit. The operatives also acted discreetly, and due to their secretive nature, no one in Loren’s unit seemed to have noticed their presence. Even when they did, they didn’t peg the interlopers as kingdom soldiers.

For another, these small deployments vanished before anyone could confirm their identity. This had led some of the empire’s soldiers and a select few adventurers to suspect that highly skilled kingdom soldiers had infiltrated imperial territory for reconnaissance, but as assumptions went, this was completely misguided.

“Moving around enemy territory in such small numbers and revealing their presence? They’re practically begging to be hunted down.”

Luxuria probably thought he sounded seductive, and he licked his lips. A chill ran down Loren’s spine, and Lapis immediately assumed a combat stance.

“Not too tasty,” Gula grumbled, similarly licking her lips. “They must not be eatin’ well.”

Perhaps it didn’t sound like much to anyone else, but Loren felt a different sort of chill when she spoke. Upon sensing this, Lapis relaxed her guard and patted Loren’s left shoulder. Meanwhile, on his right, Neg was in his usual position. The spider tapped rhythmically against him as though trying to comfort him.

“Hey, you gluttonous wench! I had my eyes on that one!”

“Shut it, idiot. If the alternative’s being caught by you, they’re a hell of a lot happier in my stomach.”

As for the subject of this conversation? Well, whenever Luxuria or Gula detected one of those suspicious individuals, Luxuria would deploy some sort of arcane device while Gula unleashed her authority to devour them.

“Girl! Girl spotted! Let me guide you to my love nest!”

“Ah, hey! That’s a rare delicacy! Let me eat her!”

“No way! I’ll have her taste so much pleasure, she’ll melt away!”

“You’re the worst. Someone, arrest this sex offender already!”

Most of those nearby had no idea what was going on, and they watched the dark gods argue with puzzled looks. However, Loren was caught between horror and disgust, both of which made him want to cover his ears. He was barely holding it together, and he only managed as well as he did thanks to the sensation of Lapis’s hand on his shoulder and Neg’s forelimbs drumming at his coat, reassuring him it would be all right. They were his only solace.

In short, anything that could have troubled their squad was eliminated by Gula or Luxuria before anyone else could even see the threat. This went on for a whole two days of walking, until Loren’s unit reached the borderlands where the main body of the imperial forces was keeping the kingdom’s in check.

It was a vast plain surrounded by forests with small hills and hollows. Both armies were stationed near the middle of the flatlands, staring at one another across the border.

Around them, units around the same size as the one Loren’s party was traveling with took advantage of the terrain to slip into the enemy’s territory. Loren’s party had no time to rest. They were instantly thrown into one of the small skirmishes that came out of this practice.

“Our primary mission is to eliminate the enemy’s raid teams. Stay vigilant,” the commander of their unit told them.

For a moment, Loren wondered if Luxuria and Gula could just go hunt down all the enemy forces without anybody else having to engage them—just like they had along the way. The dark gods quickly refuted this.

“Well, we could manage when it was only around ten at a time. But when there are dozens, we can’t wipe ’em out instantly or anything.”

“My little tool here can’t handle such a large number all at once,” Luxuria said as he showed Loren a small box.

Luxuria could use this box to drag any target he perceived into its confined space. However, there was a limit to the number of entities he could grab at any given time.

“Incidentally, what happens to the poor saps you drag into there?”

“Do you want to know? I could give you a practical demonstration if you like.”

A smile with a rather sticky impression crossed Luxuria’s face. However, before Loren even had to pull back, Lapis silently delivered a very specific kick to Luxuria: Her toes dug right into his crotch. Luxuria dropped on the spot, unable to let out a sound as he crouched.

“Mr. Loren! My toes feel awful! Just awful, I tell you!”

“Y-yeah. Thanks, Lapis.”

Lapis clung to him with tears in her eyes, and he patted her head. Once again, he reaffirmed his belief that Luxuria was the only dark god he could never let off the leash.

The rowdy atmosphere persisted. Their unit moved in and out, in and out of enemy territory, constantly crossing the border to search for enemy forces. On the first night after reaching the battlefield, they finally came across what seemed to be an enemy recon unit.

They were in a small but densely wooded area. Both sides had entered the woods unaware of the other’s presence, which led to a sudden confrontation.

“Goddammit! Not even starlight gets this deep into the woods!”

“Oi, that doesn’t mean you start lighting torches! You’ll make us sitting ducks!”

“Shut up and light them or we’ll be killing each other! You wanna be the idiot who gets killed by his comrade?!”

The battle quickly descended into chaos, and there was nothing to do about it. They were already cloaked in the darkness of night, but the canopy of leaves blocked all help the moon and stars might have lent. It was inherently stupid to fight in a situation where you could hardly tell friend from foe, but now that the forces had met, there was no real way for either side to spare the other.

Swords clashed, shouts and screams echoed through the dark, and Loren, calmly drawing his greatsword, bore witness to scenes that would ordinarily have been hidden from his view.

Although some torches had been lit at the order to do so, they didn’t do much to dispel the darkness. However, Loren’s eyes could clearly perceive his surroundings. According to the Great Demon King, the powers of a Lifeless King were starting to taint his soul, but because of that, his party had an overwhelming practical advantage over their opponents.

Imperial and kingdom soldiers could be told apart by their equipment, and there were no adventurers among the kingdom’s forces. Given these distinctions, it was impossible for Loren to mistakenly strike an ally.

Despite the dense foliage, there was still sufficient space for Loren to swing his greatsword effectively. He moved alone through the chaos and the trees. Even if his foes sensed something moving at a considerable pace, they were unable to respond if they didn’t know what it was or what it intended.

The soldiers that Loren raced past were helplessly decapitated, cleaved through the torso, or deprived of their arms and legs before their bodies fell to the ground.

“The hell?! What was that?! How many did we lose?!”

“It’s a monster! There’s a monster!”

“I don’t understand! Why can’t I move?!”

“I’m an ally! An ally, you hear?!”

Loren heard the screams of those he killed and the cries of those that were still alive. Confusion spread through the kingdom’s soldiers. Part of this confusion seemed to reach the imperials too, and though no one could see him, Loren smiled wryly.

Loren could see his enemy quite clearly, so cutting them down wasn’t a difficult task. However, those being sliced through found themselves on the bad end of a deadly, one-sided massacre despite zero visibility. To them, it was completely incomprehensible.

The confusion fueled the chaos.

“How many are down?! Dammit, what the hell did those blasted imperials bring with them?!”

“Captain! Where’s the captain…? W-waaaah, not you too, Captain!”

“What do we do?! Retreat?! Charge?!”

Loren’s greatsword reflected the meager light with each slash, and with each slash, at least two soldiers of the kingdom lost their life or limb before collapsing. The kingdom’s forces only grew more disoriented, while the imperials gradually began to understand the situation and regained their composure.

“We haven’t lost anyone yet! Calm yourselves! Our allies have overpowered the kingdom’s forces!”

“Light a torch and secure visibility! Never fear! We won’t lose our advantage!”

“Huh? That’s an adventurer? We only got silvers at best, right? How’s he such a monster?”

“Ooh, these ones are pretty tasty. Must be on a different diet.”

“I’m fired up! I’m boiling over! An all-you-can-eat feast of lively, young beauts!”

Despite the words that made him want to cover his ears, Loren remained calm and efficient as he cut down kingdom soldiers, one after another. Sometimes he came across soldiers recklessly swinging their swords in self-defense, even though they couldn’t see. But these undisciplined swings failed to catch Loren’s flesh, and with a single strike, these soldiers, too, were made into so much lifeless meat.

If the skirmish continued like this, Loren was sure it would end without much difficulty. However, once he’d laid so many soldiers to rest that he had stopped keeping track, something changed in the kingdom’s forces.

“It’s no use! We’ll be annihilated at this rate!”

“Raise the signal! Let them know our position!”

Loren didn’t quite understand what the kingdom’s soldiers were up to. All he knew was that bright white light pierced the layers upon layers of leaves and shot high into the sky. Once it reached a certain height, it burst with an even greater light, then slowly faded away.

It was not an attack. It was a signal, meant to communicate their location. For some inexplicable reason, Loren was filled with unease, and he tightened his grip on his greatsword.

Lapis had been perched on a high branch at the time. She had been surveying the forest-turned-battlefield. She proclaimed herself to be a priest, and so from the very start, participating in a chaotic battle with poor visibility had not been an option for her.

Of course, if push came to shove, she had the confidence and skill to slaughter more enemies than anyone else in this forest, but if she did that now, people would start to question her credentials.

Priests weren’t meant to set foot on the battlefield. When they did, it was never on the front lines. Hers was a job that was supposed to relegate her to the far, far back, where she would be safe and sound.

“For an ordinary priest, even self-defense would be difficult in this situation.”

If Lapis couldn’t fight, then escaping was the most sensible choice. But she couldn’t bring herself to flee so long as Loren remained. The logical course of action, then, was to evacuate to a location where no one could target her.

So, she climbed the trunk of a great tree as though she was running straight up it and selected a sturdy branch to sit on. Although her movements were far too polished for a priest, luckily, it was too dark for anyone to see and question her, and even if she was spotted, she intended to claim she was simply light on her feet.

It was precisely because Lapis was so high up, overlooking the battlefield, that she detected the change in the atmosphere quicker than anyone else. But by the time she realized that alarm bells were ringing in her head, it was too late. Some dire presence had flared in a corner of the forest, and they had barely any time left before it brought something deadly to bear upon them.

“Mr. Loren! Pardon me!”

Lapis had an excellent sense of where Loren was. She leapt down from her branch and rocketed to his side. Before Loren could say a thing, she grabbed his shoulder and yanked him to the ground.

Loren was startled by the sudden touch and jerk, but between Lapis’s behavior and the strange feeling he’d just gotten, he knew something had to be up, and he wasn’t about to complain. As he let himself fall, he grabbed Gula—as she was conveniently nearby—and brought her down with him.

“What the…?!”

Perhaps she hadn’t noticed yet, as she protested Loren’s sudden yank. But in the next instant, their surroundings—which had been shrouded in the darkness of night—were suddenly filled with vivid crimson light.

“Hold your breath!”

A familiar voice, but an unfamiliar tone. Something about this made even Lapis fear her life was in danger. So Loren closed his eyes and did not exhale.

Covered by what he believed to be Lapis’s and Gula’s bodies, Loren felt a surging heat, as though the air around him had spontaneously ignited. The thought was immediate and striking: We’re dead.

Surrounded by such intense heat, a human like Loren stood absolutely no chance. After all, as soon as a human’s throat or chest got burnt too badly, they were doomed to die in terrible agony.

However, the heat that scorched his skin quickly receded. Timidly, Loren opened his eyes. Lapis and Gula had indeed covered him, but all he could see of the world beyond them was a uniform crimson.

Trapped as he now was in a space that seemed incompatible with human life, Loren didn’t know whether to be thankful or surprised. But what really drew his attention was the fact that Lapis and Gula were looking in the same direction, their eyes grim.

“What just happened?” Loren asked.

Speaking required inhalation. It was a potentially fatal mistake, given the fiery blaze that had engulfed everything in sight. However, Loren had a faint sense that he would be all right. And it wasn’t like he could hold his breath indefinitely.

Lapis’s eyes were fixed on a certain point, and her voice was strained as she replied, “It seems something…outrageous just arrived.”

She sounds like she usually does, thought Loren.

“What are you doing there?” Gula called. “I’d love to hear it.”

Her tone was tense as could be, which just went to show how dangerous this entity must be.

Suddenly, Loren realized that Luxuria was nowhere to be seen. He realized it was pretty unlikely that the guy had just up and died, but he couldn’t imagine he had been completely untouched by anything that had made both Lapis and Gula lose their composure. In fact, he might well be the opposite. It wouldn’t have been strange to find him perfectly fine and lively as could be.

This dreadful thought was interrupted by the voice of a young girl.

“Why? I look like I’m gonna answer that? Irritating as ever, Gula. No, forget that. Why aren’t you burning?”

Although the voice belonged to a girl, her tone and word choice felt distinctly masculine. Loren puzzled over this as he tried to rise from his downed position.

“Please don’t get up. It happened so suddenly that my barrier isn’t particularly large,” Lapis warned him.

Loren nodded and only went as far as to sit up. He gently pushed Lapis and Gula off of him and took in what lay beyond the world of red.

It was a girl, as he’d intuited from the voice. She had a slender body and blonde hair that fell to her shoulders. A brown, checkered skirt reached just short of her knees, and over that, she wore a white shirt and navy vest. On top of this, she had donned a frilly, deep-red mantle that was fastened with a large broach over her chest. This was the sort of young girl that was best described by the words “cute” and “delicate.”

But the expression on her face was far from either of those words; she sported an arrogant smile, and she looked at Loren and his party as if they weren’t truly living beings.

“Is she a friend of yours, Ms. Gula?” Lapis asked.

“I reckon you’ve got an inklin’ already, Lapis,” Gula responded, eyes never moving from the girl. “Yeah, I know her. Wraith Satania, Dark God of Wrath. A total pipsqueak, but in attack power alone, she’s the mightiest of our kind. As for why she’s attackin’ us out of nowhere…”

As he lent an ear to Gula, Loren let his gaze stray to their surroundings.

He couldn’t understand how, but the crimson flames that had engulfed their surroundings simply wouldn’t die down. The trees, once so dense as to be a forest, had instantly been consumed by the intense heat.

Naturally, the soldiers who had been fighting amongst these trees had also been taken by the flames, kingdom and imperial alike. Through this crimson filter, Loren made out pitch-black masses that had once held human form littering the forest floor.

“You’re not gonna tell me you joined the kingdom, are you?”

“What would you do if I said yes?”

The girl crossed her arms in front of her chest, looking down at Loren’s party where they were trapped on the ground. She seemed entirely unaffected by the flames roaring around her. Neither her body, nor her hair, nor even her clothing would burn.

This was proof enough that she’d caused this predicament. But Loren was struggling to comprehend how this devastation could be the work of the innocent-looking girl smiling in the middle of it.

“Are you an idiot?” Gula snapped. “Maybe I don’t know why you joined the kingdom, but you didn’t just burn imperials here. You took out your buddies too.”

Loren shuddered as he looked around again. He was trying to assess the extent of the damage this girl had caused, and with only one attack. By now, the nearby trees had completely disintegrated, revealing the extent of the area that she had instantaneously incinerated. If no one had miraculously whisked away all the kingdom’s soldiers all at once, it was safe to assume they had been caught in the infernal cross fire.

“You even burned your allies,” Loren muttered.

“Allies?” Wraith said, genuinely curious. “Where do you see any of those?”

He had no idea how to respond to that.

“I am my only ally,” she said, as if he had insulted her. “Me and me alone. The kingdom’s forces are merely a tool by which I intend to achieve my goal. If they get in the way, I’ll burn them—so what?”

“Well, we’re not called dark gods for nothing, so I’ll let that one slide,” Gula said. “But why’re you with the kingdom anyway? Based on our intel, they’ve got a guy who’s related to our old masters. He might even be a survivor of that damned kingdom. Don’t you get it?!”

“Oh, yes, so I hear. He told me himself, so I imagine it’s true.”

When Wraith readily acknowledged this revelation, Gula’s eyes widened. Meanwhile, Wraith seemed to find her reaction amusing. She let out a chuckle akin to a throaty laugh.

“It’s not like I care if that dark fellow is a survivor.”

“What?!”

“All I care about is living an interesting life. That knight offered me an environment in which to do so, and so I cooperated.”

Despite her appearance, she’s got a terrible personality, thought Loren. Still in his seated position, he mentally addressed Scena, who had presumably been observing the situation from within him. Everything outside of Lapis’s impromptu barrier was still awash in red flames. This was far from a situation where he could just jump up without strategizing.

There anything you can do about all that? he asked Scena.

‹It’s not completely out of the question…but it won’t last long. I’m not sure if it will be enough to best that dark god.›

Scena clearly lacked confidence, but Loren didn’t think about it for more than a moment. He asked her to deploy whatever method she was thinking of.

Sure, he didn’t know how useful it would be, but even if it wasn’t very effective, it was better than being left helpless.

‹Regardless of whether these flames are physical or magical, I think I can dampen them somewhat with Energy Drain. Then, if I cloak your body in protective magic, you might…›

That’s good enough. Whatever the case, we’re not getting out of here if we don’t do something about her first.

‹It’s just, it won’t last long. It’s not like I can completely suppress a dark god’s powers.›

If I can just draw her attention for even a bit, then Lapis and Gula can handle the rest. Probably.

Loren knew he was pretty much counting on others to do his job, but he couldn’t think of any other way out of this situation. Even if he wanted to run, they had nowhere to run to.

At the very least, he could count on Lapis or Gula to act as well. It was his job to buy them the time to do so. Ignoring the ongoing conversation between Gula and Wraith, Loren poured his strength into his hands and kept an eye out for the right time to make his move.

“I always knew you pissed me off, but you’ve got some nerve, saying that right to my face.”

As Loren waited for his opportunity to strike, the dark gods went on—but they weren’t just talking past one another. Gula was beginning to lose her temper. She spoke as though she was trying to suppress her emotions, and her shoulders trembled. Meanwhile, Wraith stared at her with a ferocity at odds with her appearance.

“Don’t you understand I’m telling you not to interfere? Our masters were irritating, sure, but they’re long gone. These days, it’s more important to make my own fun.”

“What if your black knight tries to rebuild? What if it happens all over again?”

“Don’t care.”

“How dare you!”

Gula’s voice roughened as she swung. Wraith didn’t seem to expect the attack to connect while Gula was still in the barrier that shielded her from the crimson flames. She was late to react.

Seizing on this delay, Gula bit into Wraith’s petite body with the invisible mouth manifested by her authority. For a moment, the intense red of the flames faded.

“That hurts, dammit!”

But in the next moment, Wraith placed a hand on the mouth biting into her. Using what was no doubt the authority of wrath, she burned it away to nothingness. This fire seemed to make it to Gula, who clutched her chest and spat up a puff of black smoke.

Loren wasn’t about to let his moment slip by.

The instant he saw the flames weaken, he sprang up and burst forth, passing through Lapis’s barrier and charging straight into a world of fire.

“How stupid can you be, human?! Do you wanna be burnt to a crisp?!”

Wraith didn’t even have a mark where Gula’s authority had bitten into her. She scoffed as the hand that had disintegrated gluttony’s authority turned toward Loren—but then her expression gave way to shock.

Presumably, Wraith had expected a life-form like Loren to be immediately incinerated and immobilized the second he set foot into her flames, but Loren continued forward and unleashed a powerful slash.

“Who the hell are you?!”

“No one special.”

With Scena’s energy drain and whatever magic she was using to protect his body, the heat Loren felt was significantly dampened. Even so, his skin was burning. He didn’t have long.

In that case, there was no use dithering. He needed to keep moving and settle this quickly. So, he swung his two-handed greatsword with all his might.

However, despite Wraith’s youthful appearance, she was a dark god. It wasn’t going to be that easy to hit her. Her skirt fluttered as she darted away and evaded Loren’s attacks.

“Are you even human?! Are you really human?!”

“Been starting to wonder that myself.”

Just the other day, the Great Demon King had told Loren that his soul was gradually mixing with that of the Lifeless King inside him. When Loren asked if he still qualified as human, the king had been unsure as to how to respond.

But if Loren pondered it too much, he felt that he would become trapped in his own thoughts, so he shook his head to clear his mind and resumed his onslaught.

Though the flames had weakened, the forest was still burning, and as Loren swung his blade with considerable force, it seemed like darting around was the most Wraith could do. However, Loren was the one being driven into a corner.

He could still feel his skin slowly burning away, and he knew if Wraith pumped her flames back up to the intensity they’d had before Gula’s attack, his opportunity would be cut even shorter.

If he wanted to beat this, he had no choice but to attack relentlessly. His hands knew no rest. He had to ensure she didn’t have the opportunity to use her authority. But faced with the small, agile dark god, Loren couldn’t seem to land a hit.

“Quit running!”

“Shut it! You won’t catch me with something that big and bulky!” Wraith answered, feeling quite cornered herself.

It was already unbelievable that a mere human was maneuvering about a space created by her authority, but on top of that, the blade this towering man swung had cleaved straight through the numerous protective spells she had thus far attempted to deploy.

She knew she was in for it if she took a direct hit, and this massive man’s constant onslaught gave her no time to rest. He was targeting her with constant and alarming precision.

“What are you?! Gula’s boy toy?!”

“None of your business!”

“How could you possibly swing something so boorish at a sweet, delicate little girl?!”

“A sweet girl doesn’t incinerate a hundred people without warning!”

And she was delicate in appearance alone. She’d just instantly burned over a hundred people to death, enemy and ally alike. Loren felt no sympathy for her. His hands wouldn’t stop until he came out on top—but even he had his limits. He knew he was up against a dark god, but the fact that he had yet to so much as graze her was beginning to make him impatient.

If he could just land one hit, they might have a chance at victory. In the short gaps between his attacks, he took brief glances at Lapis and Gula—only to realize that the damage they’d taken from Wraith’s authority had been greater than he thought. Lapis was tending to Gula, who was holding her mouth, immobile. They didn’t seem to be in any state to help him.

‹I’ll provide support,› Scena’s voice echoed in his head.

She was already draining the power of the surrounding flames as well as shielding his body. Loren doubted she could provide any more than that. But as he felt her power welling from deep within his body, he noticed Wraith’s face contorting in disdain.

“What is this?! What are you?!”

Presumably, Scena was calling on her powers, which was somehow impeding Wraith. Loren swung his sword, and this time he managed to nick the girl’s shoulder as she tried to evade.

He tore through cloth and drew a faint red line on the skin beneath it, but the strike was too shallow to be anything close to fatal.

“You bastard! You dare to wound me!”

Even though it was just a graze, it was painful, and the pain further stoked her rage. The temperature in Wraith’s vicinity shot up. At this rate, the heat would breach Scena’s protective barrier and burn Loren, but he couldn’t stop swinging.

Wraith glared at him darkly, angrily, fully intent on burning through him—but suddenly her face was caught in surprise again, and her gaze dropped to her feet.

“You’ve done a number on my poppets—and even me.”

The ground erupted, and with a thud, there was Luxuria. He was covered in dirt, and his body had been scorched all over. The dark god—who had been missing in action since Wraith’s authority consumed the area—had evidently opted to escape beneath the ground to avoid the heat. His well-trained lackeys had been unable to follow him and had most likely succumbed and turned to ash.

And Luxuria was pissed.

“Hey, you! Where do you think you’re looking?!”

“Oh my, your wardrobe is just darling today.”

Face rugged and dirt-smeared, Luxuria grinned as Wraith held down her skirt. The angle had likely given him a full view of what lay beneath it, and even as his own skin was being burned, that was where his eyes had drifted. Perhaps this was to be expected of a dark god of lust.

“Quit screwing around! This time, I’ll incinerate the earth along with you!”

“Are you sure you should be focusing on that? That boy doesn’t seem nearly as interested in your underwear as me.”

By the time Wraith looked back at Loren, he was standing right in front her. His greatsword was already mid-swing.

Wraith frantically wove together a defensive spell, but Loren’s blade effortlessly cut through the magic and caught Wraith’s body. A direct hit would have split anyone else of her petite stature in two. But she was still a dark god. Through brute force alone, she managed to yank her legs free of Luxuria’s grasp and dodged at the last second, turning what could have been a fatal blow into a deep gash on her left shoulder. Despite her injury, she managed to leap back.

“Oh, how forceful.”

“Are you stupid?! Dammit, I couldn’t take her down.”

Loren could tell he had landed quite a deep hit on Wraith. But it hadn’t been a mortal blow; it was the kind of injury that might lead to death if untreated, which made it far from enough to deal with a dark god.

“Dammit! What’s with your sword?! An ordinary blade would never work on us!” Wraith cursed, but Loren wasn’t going to tell her.

He lunged after her again and swung his sword, but though she was losing blood from her wound, Wraith managed to avoid it by leaping even farther back. Again, he gave chase, but as Wraith landed, she flung out an immense surge of heat that stopped him dead in his tracks.

“Now you’ve done it. Don’t think you’ll get away with this!”

“This is bad…”

Loren sensed the power emanating from Wraith’s body as she pressed her hand against her bleeding shoulder, and he recognized the imminent danger. He backed off.

“If I die from this, then that’s that. But if we meet again, I’ll make you pay for this wound!” Wraith shouted as the world around her was dyed an even deeper crimson.

The color was incomparable to anything she had summoned before, and Loren was well aware that if he was caught up in it, he would die. But the speed at which the redness expanded was so great that he was also well aware he wouldn’t be able to outrun it.

“Dammit!” Loren cursed. “Better hope this does the trick!”

He’d had an epiphany: The sword he held was the weapon of a demon lord, and it had the power to control flames.

He didn’t know how effective it would be against Wraith’s authority, but if he couldn’t get away, what was the harm? He stabbed the tip of the greatsword into the ground before him and poured as much power as possible into the hilt.

“Mr. Loren! Don’t be so reckless!”

‹You mustn’t, Mister!›

Loren closed his eyes tightly, and suddenly, there was a white light so intense that he could make it out even through his eyelids. The following impact rocked his entire body, and the following boom was so thunderous that he feared his ears might never work again. Loren’s mind rapidly left him.

He didn’t know if he actually heard it, or if it was just his mind playing tricks, but he thought both Lapis and Scena cried out as he fell unconscious, still leaning against his sword.

Epilogue:
Getting a Story Straight to the Hospital

 

A SOFT, RHYTHMIC SCRAPING SOUND was making Loren drowsy. There wasn’t much to do besides sleep in the first place, but if he relaxed too much, he would immediately fall back into that warm embrace. He lay on a hospital bed as he called out to the individual who was sitting in a chair by his bedside, peeling a fruit with a knife.

“Why’s it you, though?”

Claes raised his head. He was dressed in plain civilian clothing, and he lightly crossed one knee over the other, turning his fruit in one hand while the other held the knife steady. The peel was never broken, and it came away in one single clean strip. For some reason, he looked like he had stepped straight out of a painting, and this only irritated Loren more.

“Why? Well, I’m here to visit a sick friend, am I not?”

Though Claes seemed flustered, not quite knowing what to do with Loren’s disgruntlement, his hands went on to masterfully split the fruit into small pieces, which he lined tidily atop a plate that had been waiting on a low table by the side of the bed.

“Lapis is usually the one who handles this sort of thing.”

So that’s why you’re so unhappy, Claes realized. “Perhaps, but there’s no law saying I can’t do it.” A cheeky smirk crossed his face as he produced another fruit from the basket he had brought and began skillfully peeling it as well.

Loren hadn’t actually seen how the battle with the Dark God of Wrath had ended. He had only learned the details after he regained consciousness in his hospital bed. He’d used the power of his greatsword to counteract Wraith’s flames, who had been using the pain from her wounds to amplify her authority. After that, he lost consciousness. But he had been successful, at least to a degree.

As a result of his efforts, Wraith had abandoned any hopes of continuing the fight and fled. Gula had been severely wounded by Wraith’s authority, while Luxuria had been burned twice over, both by the authority and by the power of Loren’s sword. He had been pretty well-done.

Then there was Loren, who had overexerted himself and collapsed.

Lapis had honestly considered abandoning everyone besides Loren and leaving them there to rot. Ultimately, she had been forced to deal with the aftermath on her own.

Loren couldn’t really blame her for considering it.

Perhaps Gula hadn’t been much of a hassle, but Loren was already a big man, and on top of him, she’d had to carry Luxuria, who was both bigger than him and, at the time, had also been mostly buried. She’d needed to haul all three of them to safety.

Although Lapis was a demon whose powers greatly exceeded those of the average human, this had presumably still been quite difficult for her. To make matters worse, one of the individuals she’d had to transport was the Dark God of Lust. Physically and mentally, it had apparently cost Lapis a great deal.

Nevertheless, she had managed to carry Loren on her back while dragging Luxuria and Gula away by their ankles as she departed the battlefield and trudged back to the city where they’d started their march to war.

She’d dropped the lot of them off at the hospital for treatment, and once she’d filled out all the forms, she’d set off to meet with imperial officers to explain what had happened. She’d had no time to rest.

This same inquiry was why Lapis was currently away. Loren couldn’t help but feel uneasy as he tried to imagine what sort of explanation she was giving the imperials.

He knew there was no way that Lapis would simply tell them exactly what had happened. However, neither could he fathom how anyone could explain away a situation that had instantly wiped out one hundred soldiers—imperial and kingdom alike.

“We’re fortunate that we arrived after you, I guess,” Claes said.

If his party had arrived at the same time as Loren’s, they would likely have been assigned to the same unit. And if that had happened, Claes suspected that he and his comrades wouldn’t have made it out alive.

He was probably right.

After all, the unit had been completely wiped out. To be more precise, everyone save for the four members of Loren’s party had perished.

Claes was a capable adventurer with a promising future, but the likelihood that he could have survived that encounter was very low. If it hadn’t been for Lapis and Gula shielding Loren, he would have perished in the first blast as well. He acknowledged that his own survival was the product of good fortune as well.

“Still, Loren. You’re lucky they put you in a private room.”

While Loren was lying soundly atop this bed, the skirmishes on the front line continued. The wounded were sent back to the towns in the rear in a constant stream, and the hospitals were full to capacity. This was no situation in which anyone could expect to have a room all to themselves.

The fact that he did was due in part to Lapis strong-arming the hospital. Originally, he’d been assigned to a communal room with Luxuria, but Lapis had put her foot down. As Loren heard it, Lapis had insisted she wouldn’t share a single word of what had happened if they failed to meet her demands. There was some argument over this, but ultimately, her opponents had conceded, and Loren was now in a private room.

He was deeply grateful for this. He appreciated the full extent of what she’d done for him. Sharing a room with Luxuria while unconscious was no laughing matter. Relatedly, Loren feared for the unfortunate souls who had been put in that room in his stead, and what was surely happening in there.

While Loren had suffered minor burns and major exhaustion, when Luxuria was carried in, he had been burned so severely that his survival was nothing short of astounding. Indeed, he was in such a state that the doctors had nearly given up on treating him. Most of what they’d done was purely superficial, but by the next day, he had recovered to the point that he could move independently, and a day after that, the hospital staff were praying that he would just leave already.

Gula had the opposite problem. She did not seem terribly injured on the surface, but it seemed she had suffered significant internal damage. She was still resting and recuperating. Just like Luxuria, she had been doing so badly that the doctors nearly gave up on her. However, though she started out in a dire condition, she was recovering day by day.

The hospital’s staff were utterly baffled by the dark gods’ vitality and wanted to study them further. They brought the matter to Lapis, but she firmly turned them down, leaving absolutely no room for negotiations. She also clarified that if they tried anything funny, they would regret it.

Any further investigation might lead them to discover that their star patients were not, in fact, human, which would undoubtedly cause quite a commotion. Loren couldn’t have been any more grateful to Lapis for nipping that issue in the bud.

“The more misfortune you face on the job, the greater the compensation.”

“I see. That makes sense,” Claes replied with a cheerful smile.

Loren observed his admittedly handsome smile as he picked up a piece of the fruit that Claes had served him. Despite his inexplicable chagrin, he brought the fruit to his mouth. Who had sliced the fruit had no bearing on its taste. However, just thinking about Claes preparing it seemed to slightly diminish the flavor.

“You looking to face a bit of misfortune too? For instance, you could go visit the sickroom of the giant who was brought in with me.”

“Loren, that is one offer I’ll have to decline. I don’t know why, but a voice in the back of my head is screaming at me to never go near that fellow.”

“Why not? Hey, you might just meet your new best friend.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying, but you said yourself it would be a misfortune, which pretty much confirms there’s something terribly wrong with that room.”

Claes’s genuine expression of distaste made Loren tuck the idea away in the back of his mind. Perhaps sending Claes to deal with Luxuria could come in handy in the future. Scena laughed feebly in the back of his head.

“That aside, Loren: Are you really okay?”

As Claes asked this, Loren followed his gaze. He noticed that Neg had appeared on the table with the plate and was trying to make off with one of the pieces. Neg met their stares and raised one of his forelimbs as if to ask, “What? Something wrong?” Loren smiled wryly at Neg’s antics and shifted his gaze to his own arm.

He’d received minor burns on the skin that hadn’t been covered by his equipment—his face, neck, and hands—as well as parts of his legs, where his pants had been burned through. However, the burns were wrapped not with bandages but with a sticky white substance. This substance was actually spider silk, which Neg had produced for him.

Neg had escaped the battle with Wraith unscathed and had used his threads as makeshift bandages to bind Loren’s injuries on the spot. The silk had been stripped away by the doctors in order to treat him, but after they inspected the wounds, these same doctors had realized that the threads were far more effective than any bandages they had. And so, they had returned him to his original state.

“I can’t shake the feeling that your buddy there is making a nest out of your body,” said Claes. The webbing wrapped around Loren only amplified that impression.

“It’s fine. Neg’s a clever one. He doesn’t cause trouble.”

Humans were often repulsed by large spiders. Claes wasn’t exactly repulsed, but Neg did make him anxious. But as he watched Loren stroke Neg’s back, he seemed to understand it really would be all right. His eyes seemed to soften.

“But hold up,” said Loren. “It’s been quite a while since I started hanging with Neg. Isn’t it a bit late to worry?”

“Well, I never really paid much attention to him.”

“I suppose he is a boy.”

“That explains it.”

Loren had cited the spider’s gender as a joke, but Claes seemed to take him seriously. He wondered if this man really would have reacted differently to a female Neg. He decided not to ask, as he was terrified of the potential answer. Instead, he pushed these questions out of his mind.

“Mr. Loren, are you awake?” As if to let out the strange mood that had filled the air, Lapis threw open the sickroom door and stepped in. She stared at Claes’s face in disbelief and said something rather incomprehensible: “Huh? Mr. Claes? Have you perhaps switched teams?”

Though Loren didn’t quite know what Lapis was talking about, he could tell it would lead to no good and immediately retorted, “What are you on about?”

“The world must be ending if Mr. Claes is visiting a man’s sickbed…”

“I’m not listening. Didn’t hear a thing.”

“Oh, at least let me crack wise. I’ve been having a lot of trouble, and there’s a lot more trouble to come.”

Claes had occupied the room’s only chair, so Lapis let out a deep sigh as she settled on the edge of the bed where Loren lay.

“Even more trouble?”

“Yes, well, there’s really no avoiding it. We find ourselves the only survivors of an otherwise annihilated unit. From the empire’s perspective, we have become the sole source of intel on a mysterious force the kingdom deployed. We’re the only ones who’ve borne witness and lived to tell the tale.”

The empire did have a modicum of information on the dark god Wraith. But so few soldiers had survived an encounter with her that she was, as yet, largely a mystery. This was the first time anyone had returned with detailed intelligence.

If Lapis’s report had been sufficient to satisfy the empire, perhaps it wouldn’t have been so troublesome after all. But it was practically guaranteed that the empire would try to interrogate everyone else who had been involved, and that was likely the trouble Lapis was referring to.

“Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be able to give them a proper explanation.”

“Well, you’ll just have to do your best. If it becomes too obvious that we coordinated our stories in advance, our credibility will be diminished.”

As Lapis said this, she leaned in a little lower from her seat on the bed’s edge. She slowly brought her body closer to Loren and made a hand motion at Claes—who was still peeling fruit—like she was shooing away a dog.

Claes smiled tightly at the gesture. “You two take it easy,” he muttered as he set down the fruit and knife on the plate and left the room.

“But we do need to get our stories a little straight, or it will lead to even more trouble.”

“I get that, but why did you kick him out?”

“You never know whose tongue might wag. Worst-case scenario, if someone barges in, I’ll scream and dive under the covers. We’ll act like we were in the middle of something.”

“Is it just my imagination, or does it seem like that would be even more trouble?” Loren said with a weary expression and tone, for which he received a broad smile from Lapis.

A misunderstanding was precisely what Lapis wanted. It was nothing for her to worry about. For Loren’s part, he thought perhaps it might be all right after all. Even so, he had his misgivings, and he ultimately didn’t know what to do.

“For now, let’s just decide on what’s safe to say and what isn’t,” Lapis said before diving in. Loren let the weight of her body fall upon him and listened to her explanation with a resigned expression.