54

With the clank of a door, footsteps could be heard.

Slow, shuffling steps dragging along the floor.

It was an old woman.

The old woman approached Hamel slowly and scowled as she looked through the iron bars.

“Who are you? Saying it is too cold to eat?”

“It’s me.”

“This voice… aren’t you a noble priest?”

“Yes.”

The old woman let out a derisive chuckle at Hamel’s answer.

“I don’t know what scheme you’re up to, but it’s useless. There’s nothing you can do now.”

“……”

Hamel fell silent at the old woman’s words.

It was impossible to tell whether the poisonous smoke from the firewood had done its work, or if another poison had been administered after he collapsed.

But as the witch had said, Hamel was in no condition to steady his body.

The old woman seemed well aware of this; she sneered confidently and continued speaking.

“I hear you’re cold?”

“…I’m so cold I can’t eat, I can’t even sleep.”

Perhaps because his body was weak, he trembled from the chill.

“Still full, huh. You were raised very nicely, it seems.”

The mocking old woman turned her head and spoke to the girl.

“Light the fireplace. Our priest is feeling cold in here, so we can’t help it.”

“Yes, I understand.”

The girl hurried over and poured oil onto the fireplace at the end of the cellar.

Then she struck a flint.

Sparks flew as metal struck metal.

But the sparks missed the oil and fell elsewhere.

No wonder—the girl was striking the flint outside the fireplace.

“What are you doing! Hurry and light it!”

The old woman, having waited a moment, shouted irritably.

The girl answered, trembling.

“S-sorry. The fire won’t catch…”

“Stupid girl. At your age you can’t even make a fire? I’ll just turn you into wood too.”

The old woman angrily stepped up to the fireplace.

At the fireplace she shoved the girl roughly and said,

“Get lost. I’ll do it myself.”

The witch grabbed the flint and struck it inside the fireplace.

As the kindling caught with a crackle, the old woman frowned.

“Can’t even do something this simple…”

Hamel whispered a prayer.

“Ehuurshika.”

─Whoosh

A blue flame burst up from the fireplace as if exploding.

The flame rose as if to swallow everything and engulfed the old woman.

“Gyaaah!”

As the old woman recoiled in shock—

“Hup!”

The girl behind her shoved the old woman toward the fireplace with all her strength.

“Aaaah!”

The old woman didn’t just have the Azure Flame attached to her body—she was writhing inside the fire itself.

‘It’s done.’

Things had gone far better than expected.

Just as Hamel clenched his fist, convinced of success—

“…Eeeek!”

The old woman sprang up from the fireplace like a spring.

The blue flame around her body quickly died down.

Like embers doused in water, the Azure Flame smoked away without a trace.

Watching that, Hamel unconsciously gripped the iron bars and shouted.

“It can’t be…!”

The Azure Flame burned greedily until a demon’s breath was choked off.

Of course, higher-tier demons could extinguish the flames, but Vinea was basically a parasitic demon; its own combat ability and endurance weren’t known to be exceptional.

No matter how much Hamel denied it, he couldn’t escape the reality.

“How dare… you all…!”

Because that impossible thing had just happened before his eyes.

The old woman ground her teeth, her whole body burned and blackened.

At that moment, a pendant around her neck shattered with a clink and fell to the floor.

“Aah…!”

Seeing that, the old woman’s rage increased and she trembled all over.

“You lot… I’ll tear your jaws and cram fruit down them.”

The old woman grabbed at the melted skin of her face.

─Crackle

With a ripping sound, her skin tore open and peeled away.

“…!”

What was revealed beneath the torn old woman’s form was a face covered in bark—no, a face made entirely of wood.

‘It wasn’t Vinea…!’

She was only one of the Trents—humans infected by Vinea.

But Hamel had never heard of a Trent possessing such self and power.

“First, it’s you. How dare you conspire and deceive me?”

The Trent took a step toward the girl trembling with fear.

“…Huh.”

The girl, legs giving out, crawled away—but only within the cellar.

Her only option was to press herself as close as possible to the wall opposite the fireplace.

“No!!”

A desperate boy’s scream came from beyond the wall.

The boy shouted urgently.

“Get up. Hurry up and run, you idiot!”

“B-brother…”

The girl trembled and whimpered.

“…I-I can’t get up. Huh.”

Watching that, Hamel ground his teeth as his handcuffs rattled against the iron bars.

But the cuffs wouldn’t break.

Instead, the skin on Hamel’s wrists was shredded, exposing white bone.

“……”

He had to do something.

Hamel gritted his teeth and glared at the demon approaching the girl.

‘The Azure Flame definitely worked. The reason it went out… must be that pendant.’

He couldn’t know the pendant’s true nature right away.

But if only one more time—

If he could pour the Azure Flame on it just once more, he could finish it.

But how?

If it came close, he could try bleeding on it, but the Trent was wary of him already.

Hamel’s gaze drifted naturally to the fireplace.

He could still see the Azure Flame burning blue, fueled by his blood.

‘If only I could move that…’

A murmured desperation escaped him.

At that moment, a possibility flashed through Hamel’s mind.

His innate ability, the Azure Flame, required a prayer to activate.

‘Which means…’

Maybe the Azure Flame was a type of word-magic.

There was no time to weigh whether it would work.

“Move.”

Hamel extended his shredded hand through the iron bars and murmured.

“Move. Move. Move…”

The Trent glanced at Hamel’s muttering and clicked its tongue in amusement.

“Have you lost your mind? Pull yourself together and watch. See what your tricks get that girl to endure.”

The Trent stomped toward the girl and reached out its hand.

There was no time.

But the Azure Flame still did not move.

Had he misjudged it?

Was he to watch another die because of his mistake?

─Click

‘No.’

He couldn’t stand to see that, even in death.

Hamel clenched his teeth until they bled.

He would do it.

It would move.

Then a conversation he’d had with Rena came to mind.

‘Priest, do you know the difference between signifier and signified?’

‘The sun may be blindingly warm to you now, Hamel, but someone else might imagine sunrise or sunset at the word “sun.”’

The basics of word-magic.

It is to align the signifier and the signified.

In other words, unify the incantation you speak with the image the word carries.

‘I commanded “move”… but did I truly think that?’

No.

No.

The activation word was wrong.

Hamel had pictured an image different from the word he had spoken.

‘It wasn’t “move.”’

What Hamel had been desperately hoping and imagining was—

It was—

“Burn it.”

There was only the image of the demon burning horribly.

Hamel’s low murmur echoed through the underground prison.

And in the next moment—

─Whoosh

The Azure Flame in the fireplace surged and then struck the demon like a lightning bolt.

“Kriiiiiiiiiiieeek!”

The demon, which had grabbed the girl’s collar, shook it off and twisted its body.

The Azure Flame burned relentlessly, setting the wooden demon ablaze.

The fire roared as if it would consume the entire cellar, but the girl nearby felt no heat at all.

It was a greedy flame that hunted demons alone.

A divine punishment, perhaps.

“Hiyo. Hihooooo!”

The demon uttered an incomprehensible scream and scrambled up through the cellar.

As if it believed climbing up would grant it life.

But Hamel paid it no heed.

There was no way it could escape.

This time the flames would burn every scrap of its bones.

The demon’s screams dwindled and then abruptly stopped.

A calm silence settled over the cellar.

The girl, frozen in fear, finally asked in a trembling voice.

“I-it’s over?”

Hamel nodded and reassured her in a calm voice.

“Yes. It’s all over, thanks to you.”

“Ah…”

The girl’s body went limp as if all strength left her.

After a moment she began to sob softly.

Soon her weeping grew uncontrollably loud.

“…Why are you crying that it’s over… crying… sob.”

The boy beyond the wall seemed about to scold her, then started crying along.

Hamel quietly waited for their cries to subside.

He wanted them at least to let out their emotions here.

---

─Clack

Hamel lightly rubbed his wrists where the handcuffs had been removed.

The torn skin was regenerating, causing an itchy sensation.

The girl had used the key the demon had dropped to free the others’ restraints.

“Mm…”

After some time, the freed group began to open their drowsy eyes one by one.

They had slept through the fight with the demon and only awoken after it was over.

Was that lucky?

‘No, I’m the one who got lucky.’

Whether because they hadn’t eaten the fruit or because of the Azure Flame, if Hamel hadn’t woken early, they would have met a gruesome end.

Hamel watched them quietly, and Daniel stirred, sat up, and spoke.

“What’s… what happened here?”

“A demon.”

Hamel waited until everyone regained their senses and explained the situation.

Ono, who had been listening quietly, frowned and asked again.

“What? So there’s actually vegetation growing on my head… it’s true.”

Ono tapped his head and made a peculiar face.

The grass growing there had already reached the length of a couple of spans.

“That’s amazing. What’s growing on my head?”

Lena, staring blankly at it, tilted her head.

“You’re wondering that now?”

“Yes,”

Ono asked incredulously, and Rena nodded calmly.

Ono let out a long, deflated sigh.

Hamel studied their heads for a moment and then nodded.

“Miss Rena is an olive. Mr. Daniel is an apple. Mr. Ono is… a maple.”

“That’s so weird.”

Rena’s eyes sparkled, a rare occurrence.

Ono, on the other hand, poked the plant on his head with a disgusted expression.

“So this is a spore of a high-ranking demon, Carnosa Vinea. Huh, I’ve only heard the name… how do we deal with this again?”

“…Hamel. This can be cured, right?”

At Ono’s mutter, Daniel looked at Hamel with concern.

Hamel nodded calmly.

“Yes.”

There were two ways.

One was to drink plenty of saltwater.

That alone would cause the spores rooted in a person’s body to wither and die.

And the other was…

“Killing Vinea herself.”

“…Didn’t we kill the old woman earlier?”

Daniel asked puzzledly, and Hamel hesitated before continuing.

“That’s right. But the old woman wasn’t Vinea herself—she was one of her minions, a Trent.”

“That means…”

“Yes. The estate is in danger.”

An upper-tier demon.

They are beings with the power to annihilate an entire small domain.

Among upper-tier demons, Vinea is one that can be dealt with fairly easily if suppressed early.

But as time passes, the damage and difficulty increase drastically.

The problem was the Trent they had just slain.

Since the minions were already roaming the outskirts of the domain, it was likely already well progressed.

‘Above all…’

Hamel picked up the pendant that had fallen.

The strange object that had extinguished Hamel’s Azure Flame.

A familiar mark was engraved on it.

“That is…”

Daniel, recognizing the mark, frowned.

“Yes. The same sigil I saw in the Rengbaster estate. The mark David used.”

The figure of a beast with a mane.

It was the same symbol seen on the body of the spider-woman who recently killed a tower lord.

‘This again.’

Hamel had a gut feeling that David, or the faction he belonged to, was deeply involved in this incident as well.

Perhaps that was also why he had stayed in Lonelybirch.

‘I must report this to the order immediately… but right now the Lonelybirch estate is in danger.’

Hamel carefully wrapped the pendant in cloth and put it in his bag.

Something was happening.

He had a feeling he needed to hurry.