37 – Advent – 7
After writing the last chapter of the report, I gathered the papers together, smacked them on my desk, and handed them over to the investigator.
With a nervous face, the investigator grabbed the report I handed over and began to read it with his eyes wide open.
And after a while, he frowned and let out a sigh.
“Can you be sure that these statements… are not false?”
It was a voice full of doubt and anxiety. Even though I hadn’t even turned the first page yet, the cognitive dissonance came from just the content written at the front.
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Judging by the time I read it, it seemed to be around the corner of Scarface’s transformation into a monster. I nodded lightly.
“Yes. The 1st Knight Commander of the Elizabethan Royal Family will prove the authenticity.”
Serena was not being interrogated in the Adventurer’s Guild building like me, but in another high-end room, where she was being treated and questioned separately, so she called her by her last name without hesitation.
If he had listened to it, he would have put on a face that would have made him collapse, but he couldn’t hear it. Besides, on the surface, of course, it is more correct to call it like this.
Using the authority that the royal knight commander of the 1st Knight Commander would prove it, and using the authority that the content was true, the investigator could no longer doubt it and quietly buried his face in the report.
Even so, he was only a low-ranking investigator. The Royal Knight Commander would prove it, but he wouldn’t dare to dispute that fact.
This was a large city that was quite far from the territory of Cartina that Serena had destroyed, but that was the power of the lord.
So, a low-ranking investigator like that naturally couldn’t help but look at Serena’s eyes and get lost. Right now, Kartina is also in the yard using respectful words for Serena.
Left alone in the destroyed city, we tried to inform the surrounding lords of this situation.
At first, I was going to send Serena alone, but then it would be just me and Kartina, so I decided that Serena would carry us on her back.
Because if Kartina and I stayed, the expression Serena would make was obvious.
Serena immediately grabbed me and Kartina with one arm and ran at breakneck speed, and before long, I was able to reach a city far away.
Kartina couldn’t adapt to the speed, so she vomited as soon as Serena threw her to the floor. It was pretty unsightly for a being that lived a long, dirty life.
The guards seemed surprised when the royal knight commander suddenly appeared carrying two people, but they soon made a wise decision to call their superiors.
The captain of the guard who had been summoned out of the blue was startled as soon as he saw us, and then groaned and asked us to wait for a while, and headed towards the manor’s mansion.
Meanwhile, Serena and I matched our words.
While Serena went to the forest to find a dragon at the request of the lord, the pagans who saw Serena and became the judges launched a sacrifice ceremony targeting the entire city, and as a result, the population of the entire city was sacrificed, and the adventurers It turned into a humanoid monster, it was about the same.
They decided to hide the fact that something worshiped by the pagans still resided in Kartina’s body.
Anyway, he gave a definite answer with his own mouth that he would be destroyed sooner or later, so it was clear that if he dared to reveal that fact, it would be the lord’s side of Kartina who would suffer anyway.
Nothing much happened after that. Serena and Cartina were provided with a wagon and headed to another location, and I walked directly to the Adventurer’s Guild building.
The two of them would probably be treated faithfully here in a manor house or a luxurious hotel by now.
One is the commander of the Royal Knights, and the other is a nobleman, even though the territory has been destroyed.
me? As a low-level adventurer, I, of course, did not have that. Knowing that I couldn’t ride the carriage, Serena tried to run amok, but I forcibly stopped her.
In the situation where we had eyes to see, Serena and I were not in a master-servant relationship, but a relationship between a lowest-ranking adventurer and the commander of the Royal Knights.
After a moment of condolences to the people around her who were unable to breathe properly, weighed down by Serena’s terrifying force in the carriage, she entered the drawing room and wrote down what she knew about what had happened in that city.
What happened next was as you can see. The investigator who received my report developed cognitive dissonance upon reading it, and sighed heavily the entire time he read it.
“It’s a city that has been encroached on by humanoid monsters and pagans…”
Finally, the investigator who had read all the way to the last page of the report shook his head.
It was worth it. An entire city was immediately evaporated because of the pagans, because there was no guarantee that their own city would not do that.
That alone is a headache, but there are even monsters that can disguise themselves as humans. I don’t know if the disguise was a one-time thing or if it could be done multiple times, but it was enough to cause headaches.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
“No. I just did what I had to do.”
“Hey, and this thing…”
“I know. It means don’t spill it out of your mouth. Don’t worry.”
“You’re quick-witted. Thank goodness.”
After a nominal exchange of words, the investigator grabbed the report and hurriedly ran out of the drawing room.
It’s good that you’re quick-witted, Rani. If he hadn’t noticed, what would he have done to say such a thing? Laughing at the last words of the investigator, I also stood up.
And as soon as I came down to the first floor, I encountered a chilly atmosphere.
The lobby of the Adventurer’s Guild building was so quiet that one could hear the sound of swallowing saliva.
The cause was, of course, Serena.
In the middle of the lobby, the commander of the royal knights was standing there exuding a menacing spirit, so no matter how good-natured or reckless an adventurer was, he had no choice but to keep his mouth shut.
Cartina, who was standing next to her, looked at Serena’s eyes subtly to see if she had adjusted to her level, but her face was quite calm.
Serena was hesitantly halfway down the stairs when he met my eyes. Her face turned bright for a very short time, then she came flying and stood on the second floor.
As Serena, who was in front of her just before, literally disappeared in the blink of an eye, the adventurers in the lobby looked bewildered, and Kartina, as if she had already expected this, slowly moved to the stairs.
Leaving behind the lobby where the hum and buzz grew louder, I went back up the stairs and stepped back to the second floor, where I saw Serena kneeling in the middle of the hallway with her head bowed.
The ferocious spirit that had been revealed just before had disappeared like a lie.
“Are you all right, lord?”
“What’s the matter with me on the day I ride? What about you, Serena?”
“I have no problem either. Thank you for your concern.”
“First of all, it’s embarrassing if someone sees it, so let’s stand up.”
“All right.”
When Serena got up, Kartina poked her head out from the bottom of the stairs to the second floor. Are you done? He gestured for me to come just as he seemed to be watching his liver.
Cartina looked at Serena and came up to the second floor and stopped a little away from me. He seemed to have grasped Serena’s personality well in that short amount of time.
Well, I learned it while being hit with my own body, so I can’t know if I don’t know.
Recalling that Serena was much more suited to the position of God in terms of strength alone, he took Serena and Kartina back to the parlor he had just left.
I sat down on the sofa first, Serena stood behind me as if it were natural, and Kartina sat across from me.
“How come Serena’s attention seems to have gotten much worse?”
Flinching, Kartina averted her gaze as if she had been hit.
When I was in the city, I felt like I was paying attention but saying something, but now I feel like I can’t even say anything because I’m paying attention to Serena.
Kartina, who was hesitant, nodded her head slightly.
“It’s only natural that my powers are getting weaker. Memories are getting more mixed up. It can’t be helped because the personality of this body’s original owner is getting stronger.”
“Can I take this as meaning that the day you will disappear is not far away?”
“It’s accurate. I’ll lose my strength completely in two days at the most, and a woman named Kartina will return. And… the original owner of this body seems to have been quite afraid of that woman. The feeling of fear that I had only heard in words slowly began to creep in. It’s getting bigger. It’s a rather mysterious feeling.”
I looked back at Serena at Kartina’s words, and Serena avoided my gaze, which was a familiar composition by now.
“So, what are we going to do now?”
“You? Or other things?”
“Of course it’s about my treatment. I don’t care about the body that will soon disappear.”
“Maybe I’ll be able to sit in the lord’s seat again? I have to rebuild the city. The cost of rebuilding will probably be covered by the kingdom. Of course, being able to rebuild a city and being able to reunite with people are separate issues.”
In conclusion, those who quickly escaped the city when rumors of a dragon appeared were the victors.
He must have taken some of his property, and most of all, he could have avoided the terrible ending of being sacrificed or turning into a monster.
Anyway, if such a large-scale human sacrifice was going on, most people would have to be considered to have belonged to a pagan group that believed in something that descended on Kartina, but there were still very few innocent people.
“is it…….”
Kartina blankly stared into space.
It was said that his memories were getting mixed up as his strength was weakening, so it seemed that he was treating Kartina’s situation as if it were something he would have to go through in the future.
I decided to give him some time to think, and looked at Serena.
“Serena.”
“Speak, lord.”
“What did they say to you?”
“He didn’t say anything. I asked about what happened in the city, and when he said that a monster appeared and cut him down, he said he knew and left.”
“As I taught you?”
“Yes. I did not make a single mistake, and I spoke as the lord taught me.”
“Yeah, good job.”
“I just did what I had to do.”
The conversation ended in an instant. Serena basically doesn’t talk much, so it was difficult to have a long conversation.
Like yesterday, if I left him alone for about 8 years and then met him, he would run out of emotions and talk for a long time, but I wasn’t sure what would happen if that happened again.
However, since she was so blindly loyal to me that she knew what I was doing, it was only natural that most of her conversations with Serena would end up like that.
It was a good thing because neither I nor Serena felt particularly uncomfortable.
“Hey, you…”
After the conversation, no one opened their mouths, and in the midst of silence, the door burst open and a different investigator entered.
As soon as the investigator came in, he tried to call me, but he looked at me sitting on the sofa, Kartina, and Serena standing behind him, then he gasped.
Alas, this shouldn’t be the case. He quickly glanced at Serena. Serena, who recognized my glance, approached the investigator as if she had just stood up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, no. Commander of the 1st Royal Knights. I didn’t know you were here. I’m really sorry!”
The investigator bent his waist 90 degrees and handed Serena an apology as hard as he could.
Maybe he received the killing spree from Serena, who was not in a good mood earlier. The appearance of his body trembling didn’t seem like it was just because he suddenly met the royal knight commander.
“If you have something to say, do it quickly and leave.”
“Yes, yes! I understand! Then, then…”
The investigator raised his hand, which was trembling to the point where it was uncomfortable to see, and barely turned the paper over.
“This, regarding the appearance of this humanoid monster, a request for an interview has come in from the royal palace.”
“Directly from the palace?”
“Yes, yes…”
Serena frowned as soon as she heard the word royal palace. The inspector looked like he was about to burst into tears any moment.
“What about?”
“I, over there—”
“there is?”
“You are there—”
“You’re short.”
“I, the nameless adventurer over there.”
When I saw Serena, who was suddenly in a bad mood, and the investigator, who was on the verge of crying because she didn’t know what to do, I asked a sneaky question.
“Has the report already gone up to the palace?”
“Yes, yes—no, yes. This time, a crystal ball with message magic that connects each city was introduced as a test. It’s very effective, so I think it will probably be officially introduced soon.”
I ignored Serena’s ferocious eyes when I was trying to speak in an informal manner, as the investigator used to do, and quickly changed it to an honorific. The thing that bothered me right now was the crystal ball that was said to have been enchanted with a message.
‘It must have succeeded?’
The message magic that Charlotte developed was actually a magic designed to kill me by blasting me with sonic waves.
However, I recovered even that as if nothing had happened, and Charlotte saw some potential in that magic and said that she needed to improve it once, and in the end it seemed she succeeded in this way.
“Ah, it’s still in the test phase, so it’s only given to big cities like here, but when it’s officially supplied, it’ll be given to the lord of each region…”
That’s why Kartina didn’t use that, and instead spent a lot of money to use the transfer door. Compared to this, Kartina’s territory was literally a periphery.
“Thanks for the explanation.”
“No, no! Then, are you going with me…?”
“I’m not going.”
“yes?”
Serena got in between me and the investigator. I heard hiccups and hiccups on the other side of Serena who was blocking me.
“Didn’t you hear? Tell me yourself. I’m not going.”
“Ha, but directly in the palace—”
“It’s none of my business. Get out now.”
At the stern and bloody order to celebrate guests, the investigator trembled and left the room. The door closed, and Serena knelt toward me.
Kartina was sitting on the sofa, her hands clasped in front of her chest, her legs folded and trembling.
“I’m sorry, lord.”
“What do you have to apologize to me for?”
“Didn’t you let me listen to such an unpleasant request?”
It wasn’t an unpleasant request to me, but it must have been an unpleasant request to Serena and you.
He smiled and stroked Serena’s hair a couple of times as she knelt down. Serena’s expression quickly changed to a smile.
It was an expression that would never believe that he had been standing there ready to kill anyone.
“……That change doesn’t seem to adapt to it no matter how many times I see it.”
“Who would have imagined that Serena could make a face like this? She’d be dead and never wake up.”
He also patted Serena’s head, who was about to growl at Kartina, to calm her down.
“Come to think of it, haven’t you heard anything else?”
“You mean what I heard?”
“Uh. Serena said she just answered what I said. What about you?”
Kartina covered her mouth with her hand and thought for a moment, but the worry didn’t last long.
“I sent a request for reconstruction to the kingdom, and there is nothing special other than that I can stay here until then. According to your opinion, I was just a one-sided victim, so there was no information to dig out.”
I told Cartina to testify that she was almost sacrificed, but was rescued by Serena in time, and if someone recognizes Cartina and asks about her changed hair color, I told her to answer that it was a side effect of being exposed to the sacrificial ritual. also did
Even if there were doubts about that statement, in the end it was a testimony that could only be believed because there was a guarantee from the Royal Knight Commander.
It’s a position I’ll give up sooner or later anyway, but I’ll have to use it properly when I have it.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Me? I’m leaving now. Even though Serena said this, I still have to stop by the palace.”
Serena, who was quietly being petted by my words, made a pouty expression.
I tried to go, but he refused right away. I laughed and patted Serena’s head, and Kartina, who watched that, slowly opened her mouth.
“Then it’s time to say goodbye.”
“right.”
“…”
“Why, do you have something to say?”
Kartina shook her head from side to side.
“No. I just wanted to say good-bye.”
“It’s out of the blue.”
“Didn’t we meet unexpectedly. So we should break up suddenly.”
“Are you God?”
“not.”
Kartina glanced at Serena. Serena calmly closed her eyes and accepted my touch. It was a very happy expression.
“Never, never.”
