Chapter 28 – [Hero] Monster Search Operation
After that, until I reached the village, I really wanted to die.
No one blamed me
Everyone must have thought that the ordeal made their nerves sharper, so when I apologized, they passed on without saying anything.
Even Jeren said he understood and forgave me.
That fact seemed to make it even crazier.
I would have been more comfortable if he had insulted me.
***
The Cave of Trials was an overnight drive from Einst.
So I had no choice but to stay vigil, but I never wanted to keep the two together.
The two were kept as far apart as possible without harming equity.
Since I gave Seria the first turn, I pretended to be asleep during that time and kept an eye on him to see if he would do anything.
However, the man was sound asleep snoring at me as if to make fun of me.
Then, at some point, I was relieved and fell asleep.
Until I arrived at Einst, I was as nervous as possible, but nothing really happened.
In fact, it’s all my misunderstanding, and maybe nothing happened between the two?
I even thought about it.
I don’t have any evidence right now.
Just because they are suspicious, they are making their relationship an established fact.
Even though she said she would trust her, am I not trusting her?
Just because of that fantasy?
… Even thinking about it, it seemed a little pathetic.
When I finally reached the entrance of the city, a guard recognized me.
“Oh, are you a warrior by any chance?”
“Yes? Ah yes. I am a warrior.”
My heart pounded for a moment, wondering if my fame would spread.
“The lord is looking for you. I will send a message to the lord, so could you wait a moment?”
I was a bit disappointed that it seemed like an order came down from above to find out, but I decided to take comfort in the fact that the lord was still looking for me.
“What will the lord call us for?”
“Isn’t it possible that they provide support for travel expenses?”
Arin and Uni each looked happy as they let their imagination run wild.
I looked at the silent Seria.
She seemed to be in a better mood than yesterday, but she didn’t seem to want to open her mouth in the current situation.
“Seria.”
“… Huh.”
For some reason, I felt as if she was moving away from me, so I inadvertently called her name.
Should I apologize right now?
The contents of the ordeal were so shocking that I missed the timing to apologize to her.
It was a bit like apologizing now, but my conscience didn’t allow me to pass it on without apologizing.
“I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“… Huh.”
It took her a while to answer.
The answer that took time was not a very neat answer.
Did she accept my apology? Or did she just skim it?
“Sah, did you accept my apology?”
“… Huh.”
Still a vague answer.
Seria expressed her affirmation, but she didn’t seem to accept my apology very much as she was talking.
“Really?”
“Because it is. Please don’t keep asking.”
“M-I’m sorry…”
Did it bother you too much?
He also seems to be a bit angry.
“… I’m not angry, so don’t be so downhearted. I just did it because my thoughts were complicated by the ordeal.”
My expression looked so bleak, she added her words.
Test.
Yeah, that’s what it was.
She too was troubled by her ordeal.
He must have been thinking of a strategy to deal with the demon lord.
Facing him, albeit in a fantasy, seemed to create some kind of alertness.
Then, which demon king did she meet?
Unfortunately, a servant showed up to guide us into the mansion, so we couldn’t ask for more details.
Opportunity will always be there, so you can ask next time.
First, I decided to listen to the lord.
“Are demons in the city?”
“Yes. An evil demon is hovering around every corner of town. This is not something that can happen naturally. Somewhere in the village, a monster is hiding in human form.”
The lord’s story was a bit surprising.
Where demons have stayed for a long time, demons remain in that place. Ordinary people can’t feel it, but when you become a priest, you can sense the energy, and the priests in this city seem to have found it.
Since demonic energy can never come out of a human, that word was equivalent to saying that there was a monster somewhere in this city.
“Eh, monsters hiding in the city… Impossible!”
Arin shouted as if that would never happen.
It didn’t seem to fit the etiquette, but the lord didn’t care because it was such a serious matter.
The fact that he invited us all to the audience room in the first place meant that he wouldn’t pay much attention to such etiquette. Because the matter is so important.
Of course, this is what Seria told us.
“You… Is it a priest? You can feel it when you walk around the city. There are still demonic spirits all over the city, albeit weakly.”
“Oh, that can’t be…”
Demons and humans are different.
The way of thinking itself is completely different from ours before.
It seems that there are some quite human-like objects among them, but if you face them directly, you will never be confused.
Even if he hides in a human city, all humans who encounter the demon will quickly realize his identity.
It was impossible for demons to infiltrate human cities.
“Okay. It’s a nonsense story. But now this is real. Even I can’t believe it.”
“Couldn’t it be that for some reason, demonic energy came out of humans? Infection or something…”
Seria also asked the lord as if it were strange.
“Well, I guess your colleague knows better.”
“Seria. That’s impossible Humans are innately incapable of building demonic energy in their bodies.”
“I know, but…”
In this party, only Arin and Seria are familiar with the demons.
Uni and I don’t know anything except that the demons are our enemies.
Glancing at her Uni, their eyes met as if she had the same thought.
Uni smiled bashfully and winked slightly.
For some reason, I felt that I was not alone, so I smiled slightly.
“Anyway. Mage, maybe you’re right. However, in the opinion of the priests, an ancient monster… I think it’s most likely that the doppelganger was hiding.”
“Doppelganger?”
“How could that be!”
Arin and Seria were shocked.
I don’t know what it is, but is it a powerful demon?
“Okay. They say they can completely disguise themselves in human form. Judging from the tradition that they can even absorb some of the memories of a person in disguise, there’s a good chance they’ve managed to sneak into my city.”
“But, the doppelganger must have gone extinct…”
Arin’s attitude was that she still couldn’t believe it.
Can you disguise yourself as a human? Just hearing it seemed like a terrible monster.
“If you put it like that, doesn’t it make sense that the demon king was resurrected? I don’t want to believe it either, but as a lord, I can’t let this happen.”
The lord put his hand on his head as if he had a headache.
“We are already sending enlisted men and priests to investigate, but the vagabonds are not cooperating well. It looks like they are probably mixed in, which is very troubling.”
Gutterchild…
People in the city used to call the homeless that way.
There were no such people in the small town we lived in, but there were quite a few homeless people like this in a city like this.
I don’t know why they are homeless, but I do know that they usually don’t get along with rich people.
“Are you asking us to help with the investigation?”
“Okay. You guys can’t just let demons roam openly, can’t they?”
The lord nodded at Seria’s question.
That’s right.
The Goddess said that all demons in this land should be driven out.
If the demon king died, their power would naturally weaken, but that didn’t mean they could ignore the monster in front of them and pass by.
No matter how small the monsters were, they were not allowed to exist.
… That is the will of the Goddess, so I have no choice but to follow.
So this mission, as a hero, was a duty he deserved.
“All right. I will do my best to find the monster.”
I bowed my head and said so.
Anyway, I still don’t know where the next Four Heavenly Kings are.
We decided to wait for the Four Heavenly Kings and defeat the monsters hiding somewhere in this city.
The lord said he would support all the expenses until he caught the monster.
To facilitate the investigation, we decided to start the investigation by finding a lodging near the slums and using that as a base.
The only thing the lord told us was the place where demonic energy was felt.
We all moved together to check, but indeed, Magi was still there.
This kind of detection was the role of Arin, the priest, but surprisingly, I could feel the energy a little too.
I can’t express exactly what it is, but it felt like something sticky and unpleasant was stuck on the floor.
Now that I can use Arin’s ability, can I even feel this?
Knowing a little more about her abilities was a reward of its own.
However, there was no other income for the monsters hiding in the city.
“I can’t find it this way.”
Eventually, that evening, Seria declared so.
While eating dinner, we focused on Seria.
She cleared the top of her table to make room, then spread the map she had received from the lord on it.
The map detailed the structure of the city and the place where the magic was found.
“Look at this, the radius is too wide. It’s almost all over the city.”
As she said, the place where Magi remains is not a specific area, but it is really spread all over the city.
Maybe it’s not just one monster?
However, monsters each have their own demonic energy. As we walked around, all the demons we identified were demons of the same nature.
In the end, it meant that a monster was roaming the whole city and plotting something.
“But just staying for a short time doesn’t leave this kind of demonic energy, right? He must have done something here. And that is still going on.”
We listened to her with bated breath.
“Let’s leave it to the lord to find new traces. It’s impossible for us to tour all of this city anyway. So we need to find out what the demons did on the spot instead.”
It was about sharing roles.
Listening to the lord’s words, it seemed that the lord was struggling quite a bit against the people in the slums around him.
For some reason, the lord seemed to want to kill them all, but if he did, there was a risk of killing the monsters as well.
Of course, the goal is to kill the monsters, but before that, I had to find out what they were doing in this city. Killing without knowing the purpose is not a true solution.
“By the way, it seems a bit too much for us to spin around, doesn’t it?”
Arin asked that while looking at her map.
Certainly, we couldn’t go around a few places by ourselves today, but it seemed like it would take too long to investigate one by one like this.
“Huh. So let’s split it in two.”
“In two?”
