Chapter 110

Chapter 110

At the Scene of a Kindred Massacre (1)

“Hsss...”

As I raised my disheveled body, Shady, who had been lying on my chest, rolled off.

I immediately tried to clear my head. Beside me, I could hear someone’s quiet, gentle breathing.

I did not need to turn my head to know who it was.

...It was Yuri.

Yuri was sitting in a chair beside the bed, collapsed against the bedside and sound asleep.

“Yesterday, I ate the nourishing dish Yuri prepared for me...”

...I could not even remember how I had fallen asleep.

I had not been tired enough to lose consciousness, so perhaps the strange nourishing dish that made my body grow hot was the problem.

Then Sierra entered my eyes.

[... ]

I thought she might get angry like last time, but she was not particularly angry.

...No. Judging by how unusually red her face was, she was definitely angry.

Even if Yuri was asleep, speaking with Sierra seemed a little difficult.

Still... I could tell that nothing had happened last night.

Soon, perhaps because my presence woke Yuri, she stirred while lying face-down.

“Mmm...”

Since she had fallen asleep in a poor posture, her body must have been very stiff.

“...You must have been very uncomfortable, yes? I think I stole your bed...”

I said that to Yuri, who was still not fully awake and was blinking while lying on the bed.

“Ugh... It is fine.”

Soon, Yuri raised herself and leaned back in the chair, stretching.

It was time to sort out the situation.

***

I knew Yuri was bad at cooking.

But strangely enough, the food had been delicious.

That itself was bizarre, but something even more bizarre had happened.

Inside a shabby carriage that had become as familiar to me as a bed, I leaned my back against it and lowered my head, looking at the status window.

Among the list of skills I possessed, one newly created skill entered my eyes.

A skill called “Surging Strength”... which, like Perception, I was seeing for the first time.

It must have been created because of Yuri’s cooking.

Just like the name, it was a passive skill that strengthened me so simply that “strength” truly surged.

The only question was what that “strength” was.

As it had been until now, when a skill appeared on the status window, I naturally gained a sense of what kind of skill it was.

The strengthened power was not muscular strength... but a man’s “strength.”

To put it indirectly, it felt like it raised not only function, but also probability.

“The Clementine family’s nourishing dish, was it...”

It was not a food I had known, but at the very least, I felt I understood the use of the nourishing dish.

Well, that did not mean Yuri, who had fed me the nourishing dish, knew its effect.

After eating the nourishing dish, I could not resist the sleepiness that poured over me.

Unlike during the incident with Eisel, Sierra did not get angry.

She merely told me to rest assured because nothing had happened, then praised Yuri.

She evaluated that Yuri’s self-control was remarkable.

I wondered what self-control she meant all of a sudden, but I simply let it pass.

Though it had been a somewhat defenseless sleep, nothing had happened. Yuri had not known the nourishing dish’s effect either, so it was not something I could blame anyone for, nor was there any need to.

Rather, I had to apologize to Yuri.

An apology for suddenly growing sleepy and taking her bed.

Only the day before, I had heard the same apology from Kaen, so this was, in its own way, a fresh feeling.

I felt grateful to Yuri.

I had never dreamed she would prepare food for me simply because a little blood had flowed from my mouth.

I did have something to give her as well.

However, that object was so precious that I needed a reason to give it to her.

“I wanted to give it to her before Yuri ended up in a situation where her life was in danger, if possible...”

I gave it to her by saying I was truly grateful for the food she had prepared this time.

“Zeto... Even if you obtained it in the Labyrinth, is it all right to give it away like this...?”

Perhaps because the object was burdensome, Yuri hesitated.

It was understandable, but I felt it would become even harder to give it to her if not now.

In any case, it was true that I had picked it up in the Labyrinth, and it was clearly an object I did not need.

I removed the status window from my sight and lifted my head. Soon, the carriage rattled, and the back of my head struck the carriage.

Edward’s class today was joint combat training again. It seemed such classes would continue until we left for the “desert” before long.

It was not difficult to make a plan, so our group quickly finished the battle. Unfortunately, I was in a different group from Eisel and Yuri.

After the battle ended, I asked Edward whether I could return early, and he readily agreed.

I had something to do today, so it was better to board a carriage as early as possible. If I used Shady’s power, I could easily avoid people’s eyes even in broad daylight.

[ Hmm... Reincarnation, is it... ]

Sierra, resting her chin on my shoulder and embracing me, murmured.

I had told her part of my plan.

To be precise, the plan regarding the “Hero.”

Originally, meeting the reincarnated Hero in the game happened in the middle-to-late part. Since Eisel died in the middle part, one could say it happened at least after that.

Because my growth had accelerated, there were more stories of the future I could influence, could twist.

This growth had been for that too.

But since it had come much faster than I expected, I judged that I had reached a level where I could touch the Hero, who could be considered quite an important “root” of the story.

“Smiling.”

Shady, who was in my arms, tilted his head as he saw my smile.

I ruffled his fur wildly.

The goal of the plan was simple.

Bring the Hero to the academy.

In many other media, academies were often unsafe inside, or black curtains stormed into the academy every other day, and other bad things commonly happened. But at least “Innocence Academy” was different.

Starting with the Three of Black Blood, there was the Sage at the deepest part of the Labyrinth.

Even Headmaster Juliut was someone demons could not easily touch.

Foolish demons had already set foot in the academy several times before, but the result was that all of them became missing, their lives or deaths unknown.

When examining the descriptions I had seen in the game, for the recent few years, this was determined to have been Edward’s doing.

Because of this, demons currently hesitated even to set foot in the academy.

At the very least, the academy was absolutely not their home ground.

Furthermore, at this point, with only a few years remaining until the Demon King’s “revival” according to the demons’ prophecy, they thought there was no need to do something foolish and immediately advance the war.

Therefore, I was trying to bring the Hero to the safe academy.

[ If what you say is truly true... the scale of the matter seems to be growing larger and larger. ]

Even to Sierra, it could not help seeming sudden.

But now that she had become the cursed blade of me, a possessed person, and no one else, it was something she would experience.

I had always pursued natural methods, but making things natural even to Sierra was not easy.

That did not mean I could avoid using the knowledge I possessed, and if there was a safe and comfortable method, I could not choose a method that would endanger others’ lives.

At least, my words had never been false, so she simply trusted me firmly this time too.

[ But, you see... ]

Sierra began, and I quietly turned my head toward where she was.

[...Leaving aside bringing the Hero here, how do you intend to persuade her? In the end, are you not an unknown outsider to the Hero? ]

Sierra had pointed out the blind spot of this plan.

Even if I brought the Hero to a safe place before she fell into danger, the key was how I would bring her.

At Sierra’s question, I turned my head back and rested my chin on my hand.

“Who knows...”

I was not bringing her right away, and what I would be doing this time was no more than laying the groundwork.

What I had to do today was deal a major blow to one of the demons’ information organizations, the one that would dig up information on the Hero.

With this, the speed at which the demons’ claws reached the Hero would slow, and using that gap, I would bring her to the academy.

I had prepared a story with which to persuade the Hero, but it seemed best to review her tendencies and personality several times and prepare with certainty.

After all, unlike in the game, I would not be given two chances.

***

Documents and the like flew through the air, and a noisy clamor filled the surroundings.

“Fuck, you brought this garbage and call it information?”

“Ugh... It is so damn noisy I cannot work.”

“What? Did that bastard just say that? Want to take off the horns and go at it?”

“Good, perfect. You son of a bitch. I did not like you anyway.”

All the information collected by the demons who fearlessly set foot on human lands gathered here. Ah, not all of it. It was one of the branches divided by region.

They did not merely gather information, but also collected it directly. Humans apparently had something called information guilds, and this place could safely be called the demons’ information guild.

Not all demons were strong.

Not all demons had talent for killing people.

Only, they were all the same in wanting to become strong.

This place could be seen as a stinking “pit” where those with not a shred of talent, yet unable to abandon the desire to grow strong, gathered.

A great number of demons had gathered here, but not one of them had their horns revealed on their foreheads.

Weak demons could not properly hide their demonic energy, so in this place, they were not allowed to go around carelessly revealing their horns either.

That was one of the few rules here, and one of its policies.

“...Ugh, those ill-mannered bastards fight every single day, every day... This is why I hate associating with red ones.”

The irritating fellow wearing a monocle before me right now was named “Jorgal,” and he was something like my superior.

In truth, until not long ago, he had been my peer.

In other words, he had been a lowly red-horned demon just like me.

But perhaps because he obtained some good connection somewhere, he suddenly gorged himself on humans, and the color of his horn changed.

The bright red horn became a little, just a very little, duller.

From the outside, one might call it an extremely subtle difference, but to demons, the meaning held by that color was very great.

“What do you think? Ah, right. You too... ugh...”

Jorgal turned his head, pointed at my forehead with his finger, and then deliberately sighed.

He knew very well that I was still red-horned.

A red-horned demon.

If one were to call us by a lowly term, red ones.

Even within this disgusting, horrific pit, I had to see myself as located at the very bottom of the food chain.

Even if one had no talent for handling demonic energy, having the color of one’s horn change was an entirely different matter.

To demons, horn color was the measure of strength and, at the same time, rank.

“...Son of a bitch.”

Just as one who has tasted humans eats them better, even though it had not been long since his color changed, his way of throwing his weight around was awkward to the extreme.

At least, if Jorgal had been a red horn like me, I would handle demonic energy better than him.

...Probably.