Chapter 72

Chapter 72

Traces, Pursuit

“The scent of demon blood is foul no matter when I smell it.”

I said that and slowly examined the inside of the room.

This room, which had been the waiting room of actors belonging to the troupe, had become a mess due to the aftermath of battle.

Demon body parts lay strewn around the room, and threatening sword marks carved into the walls here and there entered my sight.

“You said he was a stage actor who had recently been making his name known. This is a first.”

I said this while examining the face of the demon, whose limbs had all been cut off, lying alone in one corner of the room.

“Why would fellows who always acted from the shadows...?”

The doubt was not easily resolved.

I could somehow understand it being in a theater, but spreading one’s face around as an actor was another matter.

Had it perhaps targeted nobles who came to watch plays, especially high-ranking figures?

“What do you think, Ines?”

I asked Ines, captain of the Silver Wings Knights, who had been watching this with me from beside me.

Soon, after looking around the room, she turned her head to me.

“Hmm... Though it is a mess, it seems the battle ended faster than expected. Both sides possessed threatening speed... but I think the unknown swordsman was faster.”

“I see. And... they did not take the horn.”

I answered Ines’s explanation, approached the thoroughly butchered demon corpse, bent down, and examined the horn on its forehead.

The horn was a dark red.

It was not quite a “black-horned” demon, but facing it alone would have required considerable martial strength.

From the thing’s cracked horn, remnants of demonic energy were leaking out.

How many humans had died by the hands of this filthy demon?

I snapped my fingers, purified the demonic energy remaining in the room, and rose from my place.

“The fact that they did not take the horn means they do not belong to any nation or institution, perhaps.”

A demon’s horn was fundamentally a means of proving that one had eliminated a demon.

“What information can be learned from the sword marks? Such as a specific school of swordsmanship...”

I approached Ines, who had been staring at the sword marks carved into the wall, and asked.

“I have been trying to picture how the battle went... At first, I thought it might be sword aura, but this does not seem to be sword aura. Sword aura would not leave sword marks with such a rough shape. Sword aura is more refined. Then that means the wall was directly scraped by a sword... from right over there.”

Ines pointed with a finger toward the entrance some distance away from the room.

Could a sword reach this far without being sword aura?

It was absurd, but the current Ines was not telling a lie.

That meant she firmly believed her own thoughts.

Since I did not have profound knowledge of swordsmanship, I had no choice but to believe what Ines, who belonged to the Round—that is, the Knights of the Round Table—said.

Knights of the Round Table.

They were also called the “Round.”

It referred to ten knights counted among the very best on the continent.

Originally, the Round had twelve seats, but one seat remained vacant after its former holder died, and another seat had been left for the Sword Saint.

The Sword Saint had threatened that he would not join the Round, but even so, they still continued leaving his seat empty.

“It seems to be swordsmanship I have never seen before either, Saintess. I apologize for being unable to help.”

Ines, who had been examining the traces, lowered her head and said this.

“...Ines, raise your head. Whoever this person may be, it is enough if we can understand their intentions. This unknown person who discovered and quietly disposed of a demon even we had not noticed.”

I walked around the room and examined the surroundings.

Body parts cut into several pieces.

Had they been forced to cut them off during battle?

Had they perhaps found pleasure in killing demons?

Or had they simply wanted to cause the thing pain?

For a brief moment, I fell into thought while looking at that rather cruel sight.

A commotion could be heard outside the room.

Soon, one member hurried into the waiting room and shouted.

“Saintess! Those Golden Lion bastards have arrived...!”

The Golden Lion Knights.

They were a knight order belonging to the Kingdom of Therasia, similar to us in that they hunted demons hidden in human lands.

There was an unwritten rule that when facing demons, nation, race, and jurisdiction were not questioned. So why had they come here belatedly?

“Move aside!”

Soon, a blond man wearing golden armor, representing the Golden Lion, entered the room with his subordinates.

“...Sir Terlos, it has been some time.”

Terlos Ocentia.

He was the captain of the Golden Lion Knights.

“I thought there were many winged things on the way here... So the Saintess came in person.”

“You stand before the Saintess. It would be best to choose your words carefully, Terlos.”

Ines answered Terlos’s insulting words in a blade-sharp voice. At this, Terlos spread both palms and said, “Whoops.”

“It is all right, Ines. So... what brings you here?”

My cool voice rang through the room, and Terlos looked at the subordinate beside him before opening his mouth.

“It is nothing else. The demon here was disposed of by one of our subordinates.”

“The thing’s horn is still planted in its forehead.”

Ines immediately refuted Terlos’s ridiculous claim.

“Well, you see... the fellow forgot to bring back the horn, hahah!”

Terlos laughed awkwardly and patted the shoulder of the subordinate standing beside him.

“...It was my first solo subjugation... I apologize. Hehe...”

Soon, his subordinate also scratched his cheek and gave a fishy smile.

“Pfft... Sir Terlos. Did you perhaps prepare a play because this is a theater? What a ridiculous performance. You should have practiced a little more...”

When I burst into laughter and said this while watching them, confusion settled in Terlos’s eyes.

They were lying.

I could clearly feel that unpleasant energy unique to lies.

There was no error in the ability given by the Chief God.

“...Ines.”

—Shing!

As I quietly called Ines, her form beside me vanished for an instant, and then she appeared before Terlos’s subordinate with her sword at his throat.

“You dared tell a lie before the Saintess, Apostle of the Chief God.”

Ines’s murderous voice followed immediately.

Terlos’s subordinate trembled in fear.

“Wh-what are you doing, Ines!”

Terlos also tried to draw his sword immediately, but his foolish action was stopped by my words.

“If you draw your sword as you are, I too will not remain still. Surely even you know, Sir Terlos, that justification lies with us.”

Having been struck where it hurt, Terlos stopped moving and could not say a word.

I looked at him and continued speaking.

“If a new Saintess appeared, should you not at least have investigated what ability that Saintess possesses? Please return now, Sir Terlos. I will overlook this rudeness.”

—Thud!

At last, unable to withstand Ines’s killing intent, Terlos’s subordinate fell flat on his back.

“A fellow like that subjugated a demon alone... not even funny.”

I had heard from Ines that Terlos, captain of the Golden Lion Knights, was far more foolish than he appeared, but I had not known he would be foolish to this degree.

“...We are leaving.”

Terlos said that, kicked his subordinate sprawled on the floor, and left the room.

The subordinate also immediately rose and followed him out.

“Why is it that the Kingdom’s lot are always late with information... To think they might not even know what the Saintess’s ability is...”

“That can happen. In any case, did you not say Terlos is nothing but a scarecrow?”

“Yes. Though he was not here this time, the Golden Lion’s vice-captain. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he, not the captain, leads the Golden Lion.”

“Perhaps Terlos is easy to use because he is foolish.”

“...It is certain that man has something up his sleeve. Perhaps even this matter was planned by him, though I have no idea what intent he had in doing something like this.”

“Hmm...”

As I listened to Ines’s explanation, I let out a low hum.

The vice-captain of the Golden Lion Knights.

I had not met him even at the regular reports of demon subjugations held with the Allied Forces.

I would likely get a sense of what kind of person he was only after meeting him, but he rarely showed himself.

At that moment, Ines let out an “Ah” and approached me.

She opened her mouth.

“Speaking of information, I remembered that there was information about an Acupuncturist praised as a ‘Blind Saint’ in a small village not far from this city.”

“That reminds me of the blind Acupuncturist Antony said he met. Did he visit that village?”

“Yes, I heard he went around the village treating people. And...”

“And?”

“An informant in this city reported that last night, they thought they saw a man with pure-white bandages covering his eyes. They said they only saw him in passing, so it was not certain. However, whether this is related to this matter... The place he was seen was not near the theater.”

“Hmm... Could they be the same person?”

“A blind man who goes around with bandages covering his eyes... If the information is certain, the possibility that they are the same person seems high... but I cannot easily picture a blind Acupuncturist handling a sword and even finding hidden demons.”

“Hoho... I agree. It is rather interesting.”

I smiled at Ines’s competence and looked at the thing over there, the brutally butchered former demon.

No matter how I looked at it, these traces seemed to contain a great deal of emotion... Did this person perhaps hold a grudge against this demon?

For now, it would not be bad to visit the village where he seemed to have definitely stayed.

“Saint...”

Antony’s daughter Emilia had said the same.

Just what kind of person was he, that everyone who met him said such things?

If the person who killed the demon and the person who treated Antony’s daughter were the same, then he lacked nothing in either strength or character.

If such a person belonged nowhere, he was talent I would certainly like to recruit into the knight order.

***

In order to dig up information on Krectar, I sought out the “Black Hand” near the academy.

As befitting an information guild, they hid the locations of their branches thoroughly one by one, but there was already one person in the Black Hand with whom I had built a connection.

After entering the branch, I pulled my robe low and entered the room where she would be.

“Hmhm, Eisel, you came?”

She was lying on the desk and did not even look at me, but she recognized my identity at once.

If even the smallest information that I was approaching this place had all reached the ears of her, the “branch manager,” then it was only natural.

“Do you know how sad I was that you hadn’t visited lately?”

Even though it had been quite some time since I last saw her, she welcomed me with the same sly voice as always.

The more my regression repeated, the less I needed to use the information guild, so it could not be helped from my perspective.

“Oswald. Tell me whether that man has a hideout, and if he does, where it is.”

Ignoring her grumbling that she was hurt, I sat on the chair in front of the desk, faced her, and went straight to the point.

“Oswald... You mean the stage actor who has become famous lately, right?”

“...Yes.”

As I answered her, my teeth ground together.

Oswald.

But to me, the name Krectar was more familiar.

One of the disgusting demons who came to kill me on the same day every time, killed my family and clan, and made me into a test subject.

The slaughter of the Ludwig clan by those demons had happened before I could even grow attached to my family... when I was very young.

The regression I was experiencing was also a kind of “curse” born from being made their test subject and experimented on.

Fortunately, those bastards did not know that I was a regressor.

Even among them, Krectar was especially peculiar.

I had never dreamed that a demon hiding in human lands would be a stage actor.

Since I had no interest in things like theater, it might have been information I would never have learned.

If I had not happened to run into him in front of the theater while wandering the city with Zeto in the previous round, that is.

At that time, I had killed him with Zeto.

We killed him immediately, so there had been no time to extract information from him.

“We were together then...”

The memory of fighting with Zeto revived.

A bitter taste spread in my mouth.

I immediately emptied my head.

This time, I planned to kill him alone.

Right now, it seemed possible to easily subdue him alone and torture him.

At that moment, the words that came from the branch manager’s mouth were somewhat out of the blue.

“You don’t seem like the type to watch theater... So are you perhaps interested in demons?”

The branch manager raised herself from the desk, stretched, and asked me that.

“No matter how much it is the Black Hand, they could not have known that Oswald is the demon Krectar...”

...Then why had the word demon come from her mouth?

Her next quiet words told me the reason.

“Oswald was found brutally butchered. With a horn grown from his forehead. They said he had been cut into several pieces... Ugh. It was so awful that I stopped reading the report halfway through.”

Someone had killed Krectar before me.