The Order’s Secret Weapon (4)

“Wait.”

But the investigators refused the soldiers’ suggestion.

“Sir Izmilla is special. She is being targeted by forces of evil, so we who protect her cannot disarm.”

“A murder occurred inside the fortress, and you’re refusing to comply with the investigation? Then we have no choice but to suspect you as the culprits.”

“We will cooperate with the case. However, we cannot allow ourselves to be confined in an interrogation room or an underground prison. We will remain on the second floor of this inn—station soldiers to watch us and conduct the investigation accordingly.”

“Understood. You’re choosing to make difficult what could be simple.”

As he said that, the soldier tossed something at Izmilla’s feet. It was a bloodstained dagger.

“Huh?!”

“Aaaah! It’s the murderer!”

“Clear out! By the name of Fireglyph and the Rescue Knights Order, we are enforcing justice!”

With that, the soldiers swung their weapons and ambushed the investigation team.

“Gah?!”

“Y-You bastards!”

The investigators were knights too, so they weren’t strangers to swordplay.

But inside a crowded inn, a thrusting halberd was more dangerous than a longsword swung wide. And these soldiers’ skill was no ordinary thing.

A knight in armor blocked a halberd thrust with his longsword—yet his body lifted off the ground, and he crashed straight through a door.

“You—!”

Izmilla grasped what was happening and drew her blade.

“First, retreat to somewhere open!”

Izmilla and the investigators bolted out the inn’s back door and ran. The soldiers chased after them, blowing whistles.

“Traitors! By Sir Hexenmaier’s order—drop your weapons and surrender!”

“Anyone, seize those traitors! There will be a reward!”

The townspeople couldn’t physically bar the way of armored knights with swords, but they blatantly obstructed them—tripping legs, tossing trash into their path.

“This won’t do! I’ll use it!”

“N-No! Sir Izmilla! In a place this crowded…!”

The knight who had been warning her and running ahead tripped over a small stool someone had slyly left in the roadway. Seeing that, Izmilla finally shouted, no longer holding back.

“The traitors are them!”

—‘Light of Truth!’

A powerful radiance poured from Izmilla’s body. It was a potent spell that shattered illusions and revealed the true forms of shape-shifters.

As the light spread in all directions, the false appearance of the “soldiers” who had been ferociously attacking the investigators was stripped away.

Monsters with glossy, mercury-like skin swaggered around while still wearing soldier armor and helmets and gripping halberds.

“Hiiik?!”

“M-Monsters!”

“R-Run!”

Only then did people realize those soldiers were demons and flee. But in the daytime market packed with bodies, even running was difficult.

“Doppelgangers?!”

Their true identity was the demon doppelganger—wicked shapeshifters who stole a human’s appearance and infiltrated human society.

These vile creatures lived to steal the essence of beings with form, and they had cunningly shouted lies to frame the real holy knights as traitors.

Yet even after she exposed their disguises with Light of Truth, the situation remained bad. The panic in the crowd left Izmilla and the investigators with fewer paths to escape.

Flustered, Izmilla spread her wings. Angelic wings that glowed with a soft light. In truth, her disguise had already been broken by the Light of Truth she cast.

“Kekeke. The Celestial!”

“So that’s the Rescue Knights Order’s secret weapon?”

“Let’s see just how delicious that blood of yours is!”

The doppelgangers drifted left and right as they slowly closed in. With each step, their forms changed—man, woman, old, child—bewitching the eye.

“You wicked things!”

Just as Izmilla roared, a black shadow crept toward her feet. She reflexively burst light from her wings.

A spear of light pierced and erased one shadow, but others latched onto the investigators’ ankles.

“Gah?!”

“Damn it!”

Black tentacles sprang from the shadow and bound the knights whose ankles were seized. They struggled to break free, but it did nothing.

“Ah!”

As Izmilla panicked at her comrades being caught, the doppelgangers charged her all at once.

But in that instant, Izmilla swung her ceramite longsword.

The blade ignited, and a sweeping arc of flame snapped an onrushing doppelganger’s halberd and severed its arm.

“Kraaaagh!”

A doppelganger screamed as its arm—like a lump of mercury—fell away.

When golden fire spread onto its body, it writhed in agony as if burning alive. Then, abruptly, it turned into the shape of a small child.

“Waaah… big sister… why are you doing this?”

It was an obvious, timeworn trick.

But Izmilla, with little battle experience, reflexively thought the doppelgangers might be using a hostage.

It was only a flicker of hesitation—but that was enough. Other doppelgangers fired shadows at Izmilla’s ankles.

She knew the spell and tried to widen the distance by dragging her ceramite longsword along the ground to cut away from the shadows, but—

—Shadow Tentacles, Scatter!

The doppelgangers adjusted their casting as if they had predicted her movement.

The straight-rushing shadows abruptly split sideways, dodged her slash, and clung to walls, pillars, shop awnings—then spewed tentacles from those surfaces.

Tentacles from both sides wrapped around Izmilla’s body.

The strength was monstrous. Even a hardened knight would be unable to budge once wrapped by those massive, muscular tentacles.

The doppelgangers smiled wetly as they watched Izmilla captured.

“Hup!”

Izmilla beat her wings, and shockwaves burst outward. The shadow tentacles around her couldn’t withstand the sustained wingbeats and finally tore apart.

“Sacred flame!”

A large halo of light appeared above Izmilla’s head, and from its center formed a spear of fire. When she took a throwing stance, the spear flew on its own and plunged into the doppelganger caster who had just used the shadow magic.

At once, a pillar of fire erupted from the ground and incinerated the doppelganger in an instant.

With a horrific scream, one doppelganger burned away completely. Then small fire-spears burst from the fire pillar and struck the shadow tentacles binding the investigators.

“Damn it!”

Sensing things going wrong, a doppelganger swelled its body to a giant size and rushed in, swinging its halberd like a poker.

But Izmilla’s ceramite longsword cut through its waist, and the light from her wings burned both the severed upper body and lower body at once.

As if mice facing their natural predator, the doppelgangers collapsed before Izmilla with barely any resistance.

They possessed strength that normally overwhelmed humans and foul magic besides—but all of it was useless before sacred power.

“A-As expected…”

“The Celestial’s power…”

The investigators already knew Izmilla was the Celestial, yet they still marveled at her tremendous strength and her holy, sanctified appearance.

This was the Order’s hope. Everyone was uplifted by Izmilla’s power—when—

“That was an entertaining show!”

Arrows suddenly flew in from all sides. Astonishingly, the arrows curved—one banking left, one right, and one straight—so that three directions targeted Izmilla at once.

Without much thought, Izmilla cast a holy shield to block them. A transparent barrier enveloped her and knocked the incoming arrows aside.

‘Huh? Talismans?’

Izmilla noticed talismans wrapped around the arrow shafts and tilted her head. In the next instant, the talisman characters glowed and detonated all at once.

“Kyaaah!”

A blinding spray of sparks engulfed Izmilla. The intense sparks created by the talismans seemed to reject magic itself—shattering the transparent shield and striking her directly.

Even Izmilla, with powerful anti-magic resistance, staggered and lost her balance. It was only a moment, but she had briefly blacked out.

“Now!”

While the investigators were thrown into confusion, a group leapt down from atop the market buildings.

“Huh?!”

“Y-You…?!”

“Don’t tell me—the Messenger bloodline?!”

At the sight of masked figures gripping bows, the investigators blanched.

They had barely defeated the doppelgangers—now the Messenger bloodline appeared? Were the doppelgangers and these people working together?

“Why would the Messenger bloodline be with doppelgangers…?”

“Well, life’s like that sometimes, isn’t it? We’ll be taking this young lady.”

Mocking the helpless investigators, they scooped Izmilla up in their arms. Then they mounted prepared horses and spurred them on.

“No!”

“Sir Izmilla!”

The investigators hurried after them.

The riders didn’t even look back. They drew their bows and fired.

“Huh?!”

One investigator froze at an arrow flying straight at his face.

‘It looks like I could knock it aside with my sword—so why is the arrow writhing like that?’

He struck the arrow away with his blade, but the immense force riding the shaft ran up through the sword and snapped straight for his Adam’s apple.

It wasn’t an arrow at all—it was like a living viper.

—Thup!

But then a hand shot out from behind him and caught the arrow.

Like a weasel-hunter’s hand pinning a snake by the neck, the hand seized the writhing arrow, killed its force, and drove it into the ground.

“Hm.”

It was Azadine, arriving late because of the crush of people. In truth, he hadn’t arrived late.

Azadine had been watching from an appropriate distance. He simply could not allow the investigators to die.

‘I was going to let them kidnap her, then track them with Arael’s voice to find their den… but I can’t just watch innocent people get killed.’

“Th-Thank you.”

“But who are you?”

“I’m Hospitaller-Errant Azadine. I’ll retrieve Sir Izmilla, so you lot—confirm-kill the doppelgangers!”

With that, Azadine sprinted forward.

‘Hm. What should I do? Normally I’d want to stall until I learn their intent, but…’

The ones who fired those arrows were Northern Aragasa—among them was Squad Leader Jan, an aide to Prince Kalints Rioneir, son of the Northern Emperor.

‘So that’s why the Order treats Sir Izmilla as special—there’s a reason. I can see why the Northern Emperor has his eye on her too.’

To conserve as much strength as possible, Azadine sent Arael’s voice first.

‘When I use magic, my body gets heated like I’m coming down with a fever. Until I grasp their numbers and their hideout, I need to be careful.’

But then Arael’s voice, hovering overhead, spotted smoke. Flames were rising from the Van Dyke Trading Company.

‘What now?’