13 (68)

His face was frowning as if something was lacking, and the enormous goblet he held was filled with blood. Until his subordinate made the report, the flow had seemed impossible to change, but after the report was made, Nestor’s face changed. His brow gathered toward the center, and he looked into the air as if he could not understand, then looked back at his subordinate. His expressionless face, which had seemed peaceful at a glance, had somehow become brutally sharp.

“Say that again.”

“Cavalry bearing a lion banner is currently charging toward this place.”

He thought it was far too great a coincidence. This Abyss was currently completely empty. The Demon Soldier Corps and the troops that had already been created had been distributed everywhere to respond to Louis’s army. The situation was so subtle that even Nestor was amazed. A considerable number of cavalrymen had come all the way here, yet he had not even known they were entering.

‘I have been completely toyed with for the first time in twenty years. To think the king had such a talent.’

Still not thinking that it might be Christina, he clutched his head at the thought that everything would soon be ruined. The one most surprised by his sudden change of mood was the subordinate reporting to him from the front. In any case, the problem for Nestor was this full moon, because the large-scale Demon Soldier Corps capable of waging war against Louis would only be fully completed after this period passed.

It was skillful enough to seem as if even these internal circumstances had been seen through. Was there a spy? Nestor briefly thought of a few words, then soon shook his head. Rage surged to the top of his head. If there was a subordinate who had leaked the secret, he would make that person experience every painful method he knew in this world. His current situation was like a sandcastle that a child had painstakingly built, now on the verge of collapsing before a sudden wave. He was merely watching that wave come with his eyes. If he had been a child, he would have cried and run away, but he was a strategist who was so seasoned that he had fought the Papal Court for eighty years.

“What is Ian doing?”

“That is… I am not certain, but I saw him drag three or four women into his room two days ago. I know nothing else. He is normally such a rough person that there are no soldiers assigned to monitor him separately.”

Ian might have left that position to amuse himself as he pleased, or else he might be here. Nestor desperately hoped it was the latter and urgently said to the subordinate.

“Tell him to come here. Hurry!”

The room was cool, as if it was shaded. It was a fairly spacious area for one person to stay in. It had all sorts of things, both necessary and unnecessary, but the way this place was decorated could only be known as the taste of the person who had been assigned the room. It was clear that this place must once have been filled with luxurious and clean items as if it had been assigned to a noble, but now various objects were tangled in disorder, enough to call to mind a jungle.

The half-naked marble statue had the form of a succubus, but its neck was nowhere to be seen, and only its body, missing one leg, rolled on the floor while seducing a man. A dried piece of flesh was attached to the remaining leg, and a normal person could not possibly know its purpose.

That day, when Nestor did not permit the sortie order, Ian entered the den where women were being held and brought four of them back. These were the only young women who caught his eye. That did not mean he would treat those women well, and if it had merely been to satisfy desire, the women would have been more comfortable. The problem was that his pleasure spread into far deeper places.

One woman was tied to the bed and had been strangled, but her expression was strange, as if she had not simply died from suffocation. To put it in words, it was the face of someone who had died in the middle of extreme excitement, but that did not mean she had died peacefully. Because she had been strangled to death, her face was swollen red, but in any case, it was certain that she had died more comfortably than the three women who had come here.

The woman’s arms and legs were tightly fixed to the bed, and Ian had left her exactly as she was, just as he had left this room in disorder. A normal person would not have been able to stay even for a moment in a place like this, let alone sleep, but he was different. Rather, he enjoyed it. The entire Wandering Guild had been unknowingly tainted to some degree by demons and had become mentally corrupted, and the useful ones among them had gathered there. Among them, only Ian himself would know how bizarre he was as the leader, and what kind of life he had lived and was living.

In any case, he was doing something in the connected inner room, and he had an extremely pleased expression. Covered entirely in blood, he was in a state that would make anyone who saw him startled. It was as if he had been in a bathtub filled with such things. In front of him was a hide that he had clearly put effort into. He was humming, and from his pleased face, it seemed that he liked the work he had begun in order to kill his boredom for the first time in a while.

He did have the desire to show it off to someone, but if that person was someone of the same kind, he did not particularly want to show it. Preferably, an ordinary person would be good. That was the kind of thing he sometimes did: suddenly showing it to a normal person and startling them. The reaction differed from person to person. Some were shocked and ran away, and some drew their swords, whether to protect themselves or because they felt anger.

Only Ian knew what fate those two kinds of people had met. If it had to be a normal person here… then, as expected, he would have to bring a few more from that den again. He stretched his back out over something soft, closed his eyes, and thought about whom to bring. Since he had gone through almost the entire den to choose women, he was recalling the people he had seen then one by one in his head.

As he searched through them as if choosing what food to eat, a hazy image flashed through his mind. At the same time, a smile spread across his face. That image was of the time he chose the woman—that is, the poignant figure of a young boy who had stood in his way to protect his elder sister, who had become part of this skin, blocking Ian himself despite having no power at all.

He felt sorry for the boy, but something as cruel as could be had indeed happened. Surprisingly, the reason Ian quickly recalled this boy, and the reason he felt it was poignant, was that the cruel thing that had happened to the boy had already happened to Ian as well. So he rose from his seat with a strange excitement and began washing away the blood on his hands, face, entire forearms, and chest in a basin, or rather, the place where somewhat clean water had gathered.

If he looked neat, the boy would not know what had happened to his elder sister. And in the middle of thinking carefully about what words to say to the boy, the outer door was violently knocked on. The person who had been knocking for a long while fell silent for a moment—he clearly feared Ian—and in the end, forcibly opened the door.

He focused on the strangled corpse on the bed in less than a second and muttered a single word, as if to say he had expected as much, then called for Ian, who was probably inside—or rather, whom he inwardly hoped was not inside. Ian made a slightly angry expression, as if his imagination had been broken, then scolded him for coming to look for him at this exact moment of all times. To walk outside, he moved aside the chains hanging like meat.

However, what Ian said was also a laughable thing. He had brought four women here and spent all this time with them, so when exactly had there been any unimportant moment, or rather, any time when he did not want to be disturbed? At any rate, as soon as the man felt Ian’s voice and killing intent from the gloomy inner room, he quickly knelt.

Before he was assigned here and before he became corrupted, he had been born a noble and had been a warrior who had never knelt except to nobles above him. The fact that a man who had horribly hated mercenary-born people knelt without hesitation to Ian, whose origins he did not even know, the moment he heard only his voice, meant that Ian was that difficult a person to deal with.

Ian soon revealed himself, and since he had taken off his upper clothes entirely, he looked as if he had been comfortably taking a nap. However, the man kneeling did not miss the veins drawn here and there across him. Since he had to ensure his head would not fly off because of Ian’s whim, he sharpened his nerves and added, emphasizing the word urgent, “Lord Nestor is urgently looking for you.”

“Now?”

“Yes. You must come immediately.”

“…I don’t want to….”

Knowing that Ian’s relationship with Nestor was not particularly good, he had expected Ian’s reply, but the situation was serious, so he brought out the words he had prepared in advance.

“Louis’s cavalry unit is currently advancing toward this place. Lord Nestor wishes to speak with you about this matter.”

“…A cavalry unit….”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“That is correct.”

He gave a faint laugh, then suddenly began laughing loudly. He laughed so refreshingly that, to the man watching him, it almost seemed like mockery. Ian abruptly cut off his laughter as if holding his breath and said.

“The proud Apostle Nestor has been put in checkmate. Well, I wonder if this side is better than that one.”

He gave the same smile before the man that he had smiled inside a while ago. Then he said.

“Guide me. I’ll follow.”

Ian trudged toward the bizarre center where Nestor was. Since Nestor was maintaining the technique, it was difficult for him to leave this place. Ian, who had been looking crookedly at the Blood King seated upon the throne, not the demon god he served, faced Nestor, whose face had reddened. Nestor had been muttering something without pause, and to anyone looking, he would have seemed as if he was casting a curse.

However, he was not casting a curse. If one had to put it in words, he was in the middle of rapidly matching the things he needed to do from now on and the things that were happening, in order to understand the rapidly changing situation. Most of all, he was gathering information and tracking who the traitor was.

That process was subtle and cunning even for someone as crafty as him, so there was a sense that it was difficult to find the answer. He was so focused that even with Ian, whom he had called, standing in front of him, he was still thinking about that matter. Since Ian had no intention of waiting for him, he fired words at him as if poking him, and Nestor narrowed his eyes, opened the eyes he had closed, and faced Ian.

That gaze had a chilling corner to it even in Ian’s eyes. Although the order was already declining, Nestor was still someone who had received from the Church the high-ranking title of apostle who served the Blood King, an order that had once flourished. His age alone had a span of years incomparable to Ian, who had only just passed thirty, so the things Ian enjoyed may have been the kind of things Nestor had grown sick of and abandoned—or perhaps something of that sort.

“Ian. Thank you for coming.”

“From what I hear, it seems your prayer did not reach very well.”

Nestor’s eyes narrowed sharply, but Ian spoke as if he did not care. After all, the one cornered now was Nestor, not Ian. So Nestor let it pass and continued speaking.

“That is right. Louis’s cavalry unit is currently nearby and attempting to attack this place. As you know, this place was designed for a different purpose, so its defensive posture is very poor…. That is why I was so strict about secrecy…. Well, the soldiers who could protect this place have already been sent out to pursue Louis’s movements, so this place is literally empty. Empty enough that even a simple cavalry unit would be difficult to stop. And I do not think someone who knows this place’s location and exchanged schemes with me would have sent mere cavalry. In other words, as you put it, I have been cornered. In truth, there are any number of ways to escape. The only reason I say I am cornered is because this moment is an essential foundation stone that must be placed upon the great flow to come….”