A New Resident (1)

A year and a half had already passed since Isha summoned me.

My map had expanded considerably, and I could now reach about half of the major cities within the Church’s territory using Gate Magic.

Isha had filled out quite a bit too, and she was starting to look much more like a young woman.

I sincerely wanted to give her an environment where she could interact with other children her own age besides us.

Girls and boys alike.

Isha was probably at an age now where boys would find her attractive too.

…Though if that actually happened, I would probably have some complicated feelings about it. Maybe this was how fathers felt when someone came along to take away the daughter they had raised.

In any case, both Isha and her mother, Torii, had continued improving as sorcerers.

Naturally, they were still nowhere near sorcerers I had known in my previous world, such as Garmon-san or Annie, but if they stayed calm, they were probably capable of driving off something like a wolf or bear.

Which meant, yes, the time had probably come to consider adding more residents to our base.

It all began with a rumor I heard in one of the major cities.

Even this world had schools in some of its major cities—although rather than what I normally pictured as a school, they were specialized educational institutions closer to universities—and one of the teachers at such a school had been arrested by the Church as a heretic.

Apparently, he had openly criticized the Church at the school, saying that it did nothing but hinder the development of ideas and technology while enriching itself.

Just as customs differed from region to region, differences in faith naturally arose as well.

He had apparently gone so far as to say that the present Church, which refused to accept those differences and instead trampled on and killed people for them, was itself denying the love of the god who had created humanity.

…Part of me wondered how he had managed to survive in this world for as long as he had, but perhaps all the resentment he had kept bottled up had finally exploded.

The arrested teacher’s name was Karis Pesi.

He was apparently a well-known teacher in that major city and had many people who admired him.

Perhaps because many people secretly shared his views, the Church had reportedly received a huge number of petitions asking for his life to be spared.

But that was probably precisely why.

The Church remained adamant that Karis would be publicly executed.

If they allowed criticism from someone with influence over those around him to go unpunished, more and more people would inevitably begin saying the same things.

In other words, the Church’s authority would erode.

The upper ranks of the Church were full of fools, but even they were remarkably sensitive when it came to threats that could destabilize their own position.

Since this had happened in a major city I had only just visited, there was very little delay between the event and the information reaching me, so there was still some time before the execution.

If I acted, I could probably save Karis.

“That’s why I want to ask you both. Isha, Torii—what do you want me to do about this?”

At the table after dinner, I asked Isha and Torii.

I had my own opinions, but my highest priority was still the safety of Isha, the one who had summoned me.

Next came Torii’s safety, since she was someone precious to Isha, and somewhere after that came their wishes.

By now, both Isha and Torii were capable of protecting themselves, and more importantly, they had me.

So this was certainly a good opportunity to act, but if they disliked the idea, I intended to forget about this incident and even consider leaving the Church’s sphere of influence altogether.

However, neither of them showed even the slightest hesitation.

“If you can save him, then please do. You can do it, right, Lept?”

“If Devil-sama had not saved us, I am certain we would not be here today. So please follow your heart.”

Both of them supported rescuing Karis.

Though Torii’s response somehow felt a little intense, didn’t it?

Our current life was safe and stable, so there had to be some fear in taking on additional risks, yet even so, neither Isha nor Torii hesitated at all when it came to helping someone else.

In that case, I would honor their feelings.

Late at night, I walked through the city’s backstreets toward my destination.

The cathedral where Karis was being held was incomparably larger than the church in the village where I had rescued Torii, and there were far more people inside.

Naturally, security was much tighter as well, but… I was pretty sure getting inside itself would be easy.

After all, unlike back then, I was alone tonight.

I had needed Isha with me then to earn Torii’s trust, and I was not saying Isha had been a burden, but there was no denying that I had vastly more options available for infiltration when I was alone.

Using spiritual-particle manipulation, I transformed my body into something pitch-black and thin like a shadow, then slipped through the gap around the cathedral door without opening it.

I could not deny that I looked rather monstrous even by my own standards, but I had given up being human in order to keep living, and I undeniably was a monster now, so there was no helping it.

Even inside the building, every time I crossed paths with a patrol, I transformed into a shadow and let them pass.

The shadow form was useful, but walking on two legs was still much faster for actual movement, so I kept switching back and forth like this.

I had mostly figured out the cathedral’s layout, but I sensed no sacred power anywhere inside.

As expected, the cell where Karis was imprisoned seemed to be underground, so I slipped past the guards and doors and descended the staircase I found.

Now came the difficult part.

I put the bored-looking guards and jailers to sleep with magic, slipped through the iron bars, entered the cell, and stood before the man chained inside.

He was a rugged-looking man around forty years old, with painful traces of torture covering his body.

This was most likely Karis, the man I had come to rescue.

Apparently, schools in this world also provided something resembling military training, which would explain his hardened appearance.

Yes, the greatest obstacle in this entire rescue operation was going to be persuading a strong-willed man who, despite holding a stable position as a teacher at a major-city school, had still chosen to pick a fight with the Church.