13 (56)

“If you are not trying to deceive me.”

Her pupils widened. Her breathing grew rough. Her face turned a little red as well. Half of it had been suspicion, but at her unexpected reaction, Louis became certain. Even the eyebrows of Minister Richard, who had worn an affable expression, ultimately bent. He looked toward Louis as if asking what he meant. So did General Gaion and Phillipeu James, who had been looking at the map for a long while. Needless to say, the attendants did as well, and even the royal guards turned their spear shafts in this direction. She opened her red lips and said she did not know what he meant.

There was trembling in her voice. As expected, it had not been the complete truth. At the very least, it meant lies were mixed in. After reaching a certain conclusion, Louis decided to pressure her further. Louis did not give her an answer. The place, which had been filled with miscellaneous sounds, suddenly stopped. Louis drew the sword from the scabbard at his waist. The clear blade slowly revealed its naked form. This sword, from which blue chill seeped out through complex rune patterns, was Frost Heart. It was a dizzyingly beautiful sword, but if one were cut by it, that thought would change.

The air inside dropped by another level. The sword spun once around his wrist. A blue afterimage was drawn. He stood the blade upright before the bridge of her nose. Her pupils trembled. Louis said to her,

“Depending on your answer, life and death will be decided here.”

It was not that he truly intended to drive her away. More accurately, it was a threat. Whether part of it or the whole, he had to clearly identify what it was. Louis did not suppress the mana that tried to press down on the space. He had indirectly learned this method before. Her expression changed ceaselessly, as if she were thinking many things, and eventually, she closed her eyes. A short groan followed. When her eyes opened again, the confident look in them could no longer be found anywhere. She said,

“I truly do not know where I made a mistake. But since it seems I have been exposed, I will confess. Please spare me. I do not want to die here.”

The small crack had finally opened. Louis snapped at her without changing his expression at all.

“Everything. Every action of yours was false. Tell me the truth. Why did you come here? After hearing that answer, I will decide whether you live or die.”

Perhaps his composed attitude worked, because her lips moved.

“I need a little time to organize what I must tell you.”

The sword swayed, as if it wanted to taste blood. Louis chuckled and withdrew Frost Heart, placing it back into the scabbard with a click. The saying that magic swords had egos did not seem to be a mere vulgar expression, for the sword gave Louis the feeling that it was alive. Well, from the sword’s perspective, demanding blood might have been a natural desire.

The sword, which entered the sapphire-studded scabbard, became docile as if it had been gagged. That aside, the expressions on people’s faces were worth seeing. Minister Richard’s eyes were wide open. That was because just moments ago, he had been praising her strategy and speaking of the bright future they would gain through iron and stone.

The same was true of General Gaion. He had been exchanging several questions with Minister Richard about military deployment and moving the pieces as they spoke. Perhaps flustered, he kept stroking down his long beard. The military deployment they had been laying out became meaningless, and only the pieces remained lonely on the huge table. The wind blew. Her blond hair swayed like reeds. She began speaking calmly.

Justin Nestor. He was the vice cult leader of the cult that served the god of blood, one of the eight cults of black mages. The god of blood they served greatly loved blood and war, and the more sacrifices related to those things were offered, the more terrifying power the god granted. As was true of most people of the cults, their goal was to release demons related to their god into the world. However, right now, his attention was fixed on a single person.

Pontina Louis. A new king who had appeared like a comet from the frontier. Originally the illegitimate child of a duke, he had continued to overcome hardships that ordinary criminals could not. That was certainly something only one born with a special fate could do. If someone with a strong fate was offered as a sacrifice, the god of blood would rejoice enough to shake the red hell. That also meant he would be granted new power to interfere with the present world.

That was all he had known at first. Until he brought a prophet to determine what level of sacrifice Louis was. Prophets. Those who carried out special duties would explain the value of sacrifices. The prophet trembled. Perhaps, he said, it might even be possible to descend a demon god.

He had lived for more than a hundred years now. During that time, the number of sacrifices he had offered was difficult to even imagine. And now, he was more tense than ever. Because he had sensed that some enormous change, perhaps even an opportunity to overturn this world, lay before his eyes.

“……That is why I called you. The time of patience is nearing its end.”

“Would we not be enough?”

The doll-like woman smiling in front of him was Kadrian. The third executive of the assassin group, the Wandering Guild. She was a professional among professionals, with over a hundred assassinations to her name. The Wandering Guild was generally known as a small organization involved with several nations, but its true nature was right there. All of them were black mages and, at the same time, people who had honed their arts. They did not serve the god of blood, but the Wandering Guild was a special group belonging to the main cult.

The man behind her was Oar. He wore a clown mask. His build was small. Baggy trousers and a thin red upper garment. It was a grotesque combination. He repeatedly threw and caught a single dagger. The dagger vanished in midair. Oar was ranked second. He was young, but his skill and achievements were brilliant. Duke Giri of Dorian had died by his hand. The duke of Dorian, a nation eight times larger than the Eron Duchy, had not been an opponent one could easily approach. Since there had been no civil war and relatively little chaos there, assassinating someone there could be seen as even more difficult.

“Nestor. You’re the vice cult leader, and yet you still do it that way? If you keep going like that, you’ll only get older.”

The voice came from the pit below. It was a place where failed works had been gathered. Inside were monsters. Just then, a four-legged monster nearly one meter tall rushed at him. With great momentum. The result was not like that at all. It had been driven into a desperate situation. Whether a rat or any other creature, if cornered to the extreme, it would even bite the tail of its natural enemy.

Boom. A heavy iron hammer came down like a bell tolling. The monster’s head was smashed like a watermelon splitting apart. The man continued smashing the beast, which had sprawled out like a frog. Sire. His huge body was revealed. His muscles matched his size. In particular, his trapezius muscles were enormous. He slung the giant hammer, which had been deeply embedded in the ground, over his shoulder.

“Shut up, Sire. Remember your rank. Even if we follow the main cult’s orders, the vice cult leader who serves the god of blood is higher than us.”

Kadrian, the only woman here, released killing intent. Sire wore an expression that showed he did not care at all.

“Try it. I’ll crush you. You’d better clearly understand that the only reason I’ve been holding back is because I currently have a direct order to cooperate with the vice cult leader, and not because I’m listening to your orders at all.”

The cults were divided by the number of demon gods in the Demon Realm. Just as they did in hell, they rejected, attacked, killed, tortured, and even used one another as sacrifices. Each individual cult was extremely powerful, but the reason they could not gain ground against the Holy Knight Order was largely because of this. Strictly speaking, the Wandering Guild belonged to the main cult. The main cult controlled the other individualized cults. Although it could not exercise perfect control, it also held the authority to restrict wars between cults.

Kadrian’s face soon crumpled. It was the face of someone who looked ready to kill him at any moment. When Nestor laughed, both of their gazes gathered toward him.

“We must wait. We must pray. We must be cautious in capturing Pontina Louis.”

Sire spat out curses. He leaped upward. Soon, the ground shook greatly. He, who had been below, had now come up above. His huge body was covered in blood. The smell of warm blood had not yet cooled.

“I hate boring things.”

He said that. Kadrian’s killing intent reached its peak. Fights among members were common. The problem was merely the timing. Sire continued to pick a fight, but Nestor did not give any answer that deviated from the posture of a seeker. Moreover, his relaxed smile remained the same. Sire grumbled that he could not find even the slightest trace of tension. As if losing interest, Sire set down his iron hammer and said, “I’ll have the first taste. I might kill him, too.”

“The alert level is already at maximum readiness. Alone, you can do nothing.”

His face contorted. “Why? You made me handle cleanup in a place like this, and how many members did you send in the meantime?” Kadrian crossed her arms.

“It was all part of the operation. And we did not use members. We merely sent a few mercenaries. The only ones who arrived first after the general summons were you and Oar, who were nearby.”

“Damn it. It’s always like this. In any case, I’ll go first. I don’t want to see the ridiculous sight of a general assembly either.”

Sire looked behind him. Oar, in his relaxed posture, still had neither words nor killing intent.

“If I’m with you, we should be able to break through even the highest-level security.”

Sire said that to Oar. Oar gave a short nod and rose from his seat.

“If it is only helping, then I will. I will not do more than that.”

“Is there anyone else who will join me?”

One by one, figures revealed themselves from the darkness. Like that, a group of impatient members from the barely gathered Wandering Guild departed. Kadrian sighed and said,

“They’re so willful. Is this also part of the plan?”

“Half of it. I had intended to wait for him anyway. They were not what mattered.”

The Wandering Guild had never originally been a place where controllable beings gathered. The person he was waiting for was the leader of the Wandering Guild. And the members of the Wandering Guild, including him, were to be used not merely in a simple assassination drama, but as a tool called war.

“Then are you saying all the members who just left will be defeated?”

“Who knows. If he is helplessly defeated by them, then it will be proof that he was not as valuable a being as I thought. Though that is unlikely…….”

That was how it was. He had lived too long in the world to trust the prophet completely. He released his smile and completely erased all amusement from his face. Terrifying killing intent and death energy spread from his body. Kadrian’s face showed that she had expected as much. It was the expression of someone who had known he must have been hiding his strength. She repeated inwardly, ‘The vice cult leader who leads the apostle of blood, one of the Eight Great Demon Gods,’ then bowed elegantly and vanished into the darkness.

“My name is Blutiano Bidwell.”

Louis nodded. Before his eyes, a middle-aged man was holding glossy silk. Bidwell was a man with a splendidly curled mustache, and a confident smile rested on his lips. His eyes were narrow, and he looked ambitious. He was thirty years old, and his entire body was sturdy enough to endure long mercantile journeys. He was a well-known slave trader.

He glanced toward Louis, then soon lowered his eyes. He added that the clothes he had brought were specially made by adding their own processing to clothes said to be fashionable among imperial nobles. He also said that they were clothes of which only ten sets had been made at present, and that they had not even been revealed to anyone below the rank of duke. Whether that was true or not, only he would know. Behind him were the female slaves he was offering. Their skin was whiter than the women here.

Their eye colors were all black, and their hair ranged from blond to brown. They were also about a handspan taller. When asked whether they were northern women, he answered that the north had grown chaotic. All of them were stealing glances toward Louis with faces full of curiosity.