A Totally False Accusation

“――So, that’s what happened, see. Man, it was a real pain!”

――The Grand Cathedral’s ward.

――In the hospital room where The Fourth Stigmata Kaine is hospitalized.

“…You did well.”

Kaine was wrapped in bandages from head to toe, wearing a hospital gown over them.

Sitting in the chair beside her was The Sixth Stigmata Annise, who had come to visit.

Annise slid her knife dexterously, peeling the apple’s skin smoothly.

“You’re completely useless at a time like this, Senior Kaine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Kaine, as the activation condition for 【Holy Sand (Rust Dust)】, drove a weapon into his own heart.

He should have died, but Flo’s devoted healing had kept him alive.

Even now Flo regularly visited Kaine’s room and cast restorative magic on him.

Today was another visiting day, but Flo and Sheena had been sent to collect monster Magic Stones, so they had sent Annise in their stead.

Annise had agreed to visit on the condition of saying, “Then let’s go on a date together next time.”

“Right, right. I didn’t see it myself, but I heard little Flo did amazing work—sending out healing magic, patching up all the wounded in the aid tents, and people are saying she’s like the reincarnation of Saintess Frances.”

“Huh… that helpless-looking little girl has grown a lot, hasn’t she?”

Annise relayed to Kaine the words she’d heard from one of her several lover “Sisters.”

Even beneath the bandages Kaine looked as if he’d been complimented and felt pleased.

“Senior Kaine, you always get so happy whenever Flo comes up. Are you maybe a lolicon?”

“…I’ll kill you.”

“Say that after you’re healed enough to actually kill someone.”

Annise breezily shrugged off Kaine’s murderous intent.

“Also—I’m not insulting you. I like younger ones too. We’re comrades. Fellow members of the Flo Lovers Club.”

“Don’t lump me in with a lecherous maniac like you, a ‘crazy psycho-lez’.”

“That’s rich coming from you… you’re the sentimental lolicon who projects the image of your beloved onto their daughter.”

“…Alright, I’ll kill you right here.”

“Okay, okay, I’m done peeling the apple so I’m out of here. I don’t want to get killed. Take care, Senior Kaine~”

Annise set the plate of sliced apple on the side table and left the room as if fleeing.

Kaine looked at the remaining apple slices and, as if remembering, murmured aloud.

“…She was peeling an apple with a combat knife, wasn’t she.”

＊＊＊

While Flo and Sheena were disposing of monster corpses, and Annise was visiting Kaine.

—At a certain vacant property in the royal capital.

“So there really was a hidden stairway, huh.”

An empty house, left unsold and abandoned for years.

Down the cleverly hidden stairs to the basement, the white-haired old woman—The Second Stigmata Johanna—was descending.

“A padlock that likely hasn’t been opened in years…is it.”

At the end of the stairs.

A single door blocked Johanna’s path.

It was secured by a padlock, and the padlock itself was bound by multiple coils of chain sealing it shut.

Rust had formed on the chains.

Judging by the rust, there was no sign that the chains had been unlocked for at least several years.

“However, there were no other clues. No choice then—【Sacred Moon Slashing Blade (Lunatic Saint)】.”

Johanna activated Holy-attribute magic.

A blade of light shot from her palm, indiscriminately slicing through the padlock, the chains, and the door.

――Rattle-rattle-rattle!

The padlock and chains became bits of metal, the door turned into splinters, and the settled dust rose into the air.

Johanna covered her mouth with her robe sleeve and entered.

A sterile room with no windows, no carpet or wallpaper, the stone walls exposed.

“There are signs that someone lived here. Moreover—until quite recently.”

The reason Johanna searched this neglected vacant property, even postponing post-disaster cleanup of the major dungeon collapse, was the barrier technique she had recently deployed.

During the large-scale dungeon collapse, she had wrapped the royal capital in a protective barrier to block monster intrusion and to force adventurers into a desperate stand by closing their retreat.

But it was not just a simple protective barrier.

She had implanted an additional effect into the barrier’s formula.

That effect was the ability to detect the presence of monsters within the barrier.

And she detected something.

At this very coordinate she sensed a monster’s reaction—and that it vanished in an instant.

“Barrier Magic—Detection Barrier.”

Johanna activated the same barrier magic she’d used when she found the hidden stairs, enveloping the basement in a barrier.

“…Hmph, as I thought, there are no other exits in this basement. It was a completely sealed room.”

She suspected the cause of the large-scale dungeon collapse lay in this vacant property, and so she had come.

And her prediction proved correct.

“Oh… could this be…!!”

Johanna discovered a magical device installed in the basement and felt her suspicion harden into certainty.

“A magic device that lures monsters…!”

It was a consumable magic device, and its effect had already ended.

However, Johanna did not miss traces that showed it had been active until very recently.

The reason monsters spilling from the dungeon bypassed nearby farms and headed straight for the royal capital as if drawn by something was this device.

“The recent large-scale dungeon collapse—that was neither a trial sent by the Lord nor an unprecedented natural disaster. It was artificially created by someone with malicious intent—so that’s the situation.”

She integrated the information she had gathered so far.

――Dungeons around the royal capital collapsed all at once.

――Armies of monsters headed for the capital as if drawn there.

――Signs of habitation in a basement that should have been sealed.

――A monster’s reaction that briefly tripped the detection barrier.

――Testimonies from many adventurers reporting monsters in the form of black, shadow-like figures.

“Someone who can command monsters with teleportation abilities intentionally caused the dungeon collapses and put the royal capital in danger.”

Why?

Who benefits from doing such a thing?

“A Shadow Necromancer can turn defeated monsters into their own forces. By making them attack the capital, they could inflict massive damage on the city and weaken the forces of adventurers, the Royal Palace Knight Order, and the Church.”

When you think that far, only one person comes to mind.

“So it was your doing after all—Sid Ranorus.”