Ch.830Hallucination?

“If you’ve finished hunting monsters, could you help me out?” Eleonora said, pushing a pile of documents toward me with fiery eyes.

“Umm… Sorry, I’m a bit busy.”

Once again, to avoid being buried under mountains of paperwork, I fled all the way to the frontlines of the Wall of Berengaria under the pretext of inspecting the repair work.

Even to myself, it seemed like a perfect excuse. As the ruler of Landenburg, I had a duty to firmly protect Berengaria.

“What brings Your Majesty here today?”

“Just checking to see how things are going.”

That’s how I arrived at the Wall of Berengaria.

Joshua, who had returned from monster hunting and was now overseeing the wall’s defense, reported with concern that the Ka’har had been showing strange movements lately.

“Strange movements?”

“Yes. For several days now, small detachments have been roaming around the wall.”

“Detachments… Are they scouting the wall’s repair status?”

It’s only been a few months since they were beaten like dogs and driven away, and they’re already poking their heads back in? If they had that kind of energy, they should be busy with their own civil war.

“I don’t think so. According to reports, their movements are more like a search party than scouts. They don’t seem to be checking our situation, but rather looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know that much. There’s no way to find out unless we capture and interrogate them.”

Joshua shook his head slightly.

A Ka’har search party. Quite an interesting story. I didn’t know who they were looking for, but considering they were causing trouble near the wall, it must be someone important.

“Hmm… I should check this out.”

So I decided to scout personally, flying up into the sky to survey the plains around the wall.

It was an absurd situation—a queen personally scouting enemy territory—but not a single loyal subject objected by telling me to take care of myself.

They probably understood that there was no one better suited for this than me.

Unless I single-handedly descended into the enemy’s stronghold to wage war against all of them, I was practically in no danger. Thanks to my flight ability using Karma, I could secure a much wider field of vision than any ordinary scout.

While others could at best ride horses, I was essentially deploying an aerial reconnaissance aircraft. One equipped with napalm and missiles, no less.

The eastern sorcerers also used to share vision with tamed beasts to use them as scouts…

But unlike their scouts, which were mere beasts with no way to resist if discovered, I could annihilate any enemies who spotted me, effectively erasing the discovery itself. I was truly the world’s greatest scout.

…For that reason, I spent three whole days flying over the great plains, thoroughly investigating the Ka’har’s movements.

And then, I…

‘…Mana? Isn’t this the east?’

[Yes, this is the plains. Which means…]

While scouting, I detected a flow of mana from hundreds of meters away. Accelerating to check the source—

‘What’s that?’

I witnessed twenty suspicious barbarians threatening a young girl of their own kind.

The clear flow of mana I felt. No doubt about it. These were eastern sorcerers, whom the Ka’har warriors deeply hated and had supposedly exterminated.

…This is lucky. Who would have thought I’d discover minions of the Third Apostle in a place like this?

The Grand Sorcerer who controlled all the eastern sorcerers.

The Third Apostle, the Snake of the White Valley.

Her annoying underlings were gathered on the ground below, restraining a twin-tailed girl who looked about Lena’s age.

So these were the detachments roaming near the wall…

Perfect timing. From the looks of it, there seem to be two or three high-ranking sorcerers mixed in. If I kill them all, she’ll have a fit.

With a murderous smile, I changed my flight path vertically and dove toward them like a falling comet.

[Wait, no. Hold on. That girl, could she be…?!]

I barely paid attention to Hersella’s voice, which sounded panicked and rambling as if she recognized the girl being restrained by the sorcerers.

—-

Whether because they knew too much about me, or because sorcerers lacked the aggressiveness of warriors, they fled in terror the moment they saw me, like a young man caught by his future father-in-law.

Shouting that the Abha Gisaka… the Heavenly Demon had appeared.

Heavenly Demon, what a grand nickname. Perhaps it was thanks to defeating Orhan, but it seemed I had somehow become the east’s Heavenly Demon.

‘Heh, they’re calling us the Heavenly Demon?’

I chuckled and asked Hersella how she felt about our new nickname.

‘You must be happy. Your childhood dream has come true. How does it feel, Heavenly Demon?’

[…]

Strangely, Hersella remained silent.

It was quite unexpected. I thought she would either be embarrassed about her childhood history or proud of the name Heavenly Demon.

Was she trying to dismiss the teasing with silence, or was her mind elsewhere?

Even as I crushed the fleeing sorcerers like stepped-on frogs, Hersella neither answered nor helped in battle, just watching silently as if asleep.

What’s wrong with her? Did she eat something bad? Normally, she would have been muttering noisily while swinging her tentacles of murder Karma.

…Well, it doesn’t matter. It was strange, but there was no need to worry about it.

Even without her help, I could easily dispatch twenty sorcerers like wringing a child’s neck.

Though their attack methods were unique, they were still just a type of magic. They were only slightly unusual, but their power and countermeasures weren’t much different from western magic.

Moreover, their specialty curse-type sorcery couldn’t penetrate my mana resistance and Stigmata of Astraea, dissipating without any effect.

‘These things are so weak.’

Slaughtering the sorcerers was as simple as hunting rabbits.

—-

“Gaaah…”

A sorcerer consumed by the rune’s mana exhales his final breath and collapses into a heap of meat.

The power of destruction that disintegrates anything it touches.

Perhaps I’d become more proficient at using mana from frequently using the fire rune, because the chunks of meat that used to be palm-sized were now finely shredded to fingernail size, piling up like bloody snow.

The power has increased a bit.

Since my left arm had been completely blown off during the final battle with Orhan, I was worried I might have lost the rune of destruction as well… but fortunately, when my left arm was restored, the rune’s inscription was perfectly recovered too.

A happy miscalculation. While it was quite inefficient against people, it was hard to find a more useful power for destroying objects.

Hadn’t I even brought down the Wall of Berengaria when using it at full power? Though it was partly because I had excavated the foundation that was supposed to support the wall’s weight, even that alone was destructive power enough to astonish high-ranking mages and earn applause from masters and heroes.

‘Was that the last one?’

I clicked my tongue in disappointment as I brushed off the flesh fragments stuck to my palm.

‘That’s a bit unfortunate. I was hoping to capture at least one for interrogation.’

The twenty sorcerers had become twenty piles of fertilizer scattered across the wilderness in less than five minutes.

Like a monkey in Buddha’s palm, as the saying goes. No matter how desperately they tried to flee, they were caught and slaughtered before they could get far.

None escaped my grasp alive. In fact, I had intended to subdue one or two as prisoners for interrogation.

[Well, it couldn’t be helped. How could you capture such fanatics who commit suicide without hesitation even when you try to subdue them by breaking their limbs?]

Hersella, who had been silent all along, finally responded.

Yes. As she said, capturing them was impossible. Even those whose limbs I shattered with restraint immediately bit poison pills or cast suicide spells on themselves.

Even those I knocked unconscious as gently as possible still burst their own hearts with sorcery, suggesting they had probably set up suicide spells in advance, programmed to activate if they lost consciousness or suffered serious injuries.

Did they think death was preferable to “talking” with me face to face? Annoying, but a wise decision. If they had been captured and dragged to the wall, they would have been begging for death.

[Right now, that’s not important… look over there. At the girl who was being chased by these vermin.]

‘Ah, right. When there’s no other option, we can interrogate her instead of the sorcerers.’

For once, you’ve made a wise suggestion.

I lightly shook the blood-soaked Durandal and turned toward the girl, approaching her.

Judging by how openly the sorcerers had tried to kidnap her, this girl must be no ordinary person. Interrogating her might yield something useful.

‘I’ll have to break her limbs and take her with me. Lock her in the dungeon, poke at her nerves a bit, and she’ll start talking—’

[No, no, what are you saying?! I agree with breaking her legs, but I don’t mean you should interrogate her as usual!]

…Don’t interrogate her?

That was a strange thing to say.

Our Heavenly Demon wouldn’t normally hesitate to interrogate someone who might be connected to her mother’s death.

What’s going on? Has she gone soft because the target is a young girl?

Or…

‘Do you know her?’

A previous acquaintance perhaps?

[…Yes. I know her well. Now that I see her clearly, I’m certain. This child is—]

After hesitating briefly, Hersella sighed deeply and was about to reveal the identity of the twin-tailed Ka’har girl who was sitting dazed, staring at me.

“H-Haschal unnieeee!”

Before Hersella could explain the girl’s identity, the girl herself prostrated and revealed who she was.

“It’s all my fault! Please spare me!”

It was a perfect bow, as if drawn in a picture.

[Huh? She’s apologizing? That can’t be right… What is this, a hallucination?]

Hersella, who was about to reveal that the girl before us was her half-sister she had mentioned before, was so surprised she couldn’t even answer properly.