Ch.8989. The Demon of the Convent

The rocking motion of the carriage had become familiar enough that reading a book wasn’t much of a problem anymore.

However, the chattering of Illuania and Findenai beside me was somewhat irritating.

“Can you hear the voice if you put your ear to it?”

“Not quite at that stage yet.”

“Really? I’m looking forward to it. Have you decided on a name?”

“No, not yet. Ah! Would you like to name it, Master?”

“…”

Illuania casually addressed me. I slowly closed the book I was reading and briefly looked at her abdomen. Though not visibly protruding yet, life was being conceived inside.

The more I thought about it, a strange sensation along with a kind of compulsion to do well rose within me.

As I was searching for something to say, Findenai let out a sneer.

“Him? He’d probably give it some weird name. Like a monster or evil spirit name.”

“Surely not…”

Illuania looked at me with genuine disbelief. Even I wouldn’t give a child such a name.

“That’s enough.”

I cautioned Findenai not to spread unnecessary rumors, and she clicked her tongue before changing the subject.

“But do they usually build convents in mountain valleys like this? We’ve been traveling like this for days.”

As Findenai, an outsider, grumbled, Illuania smiled and began to explain.

“The Elia Convent is a famous name. It’s praised by the kingdom as a place where most Saintesses are produced and as a sanctuary closest to the gods.”

“A place close to the gods?”

“That’s why its location isn’t known to ordinary people, and only a very few among the bishops know about it. To make it a place isolated from worldly temptations.”

“Hmm.”

Illuania explained with the gentleness of a mother reading a fairy tale. I also knew about the Elia Convent.

“Then it must be peaceful.”

Findenai expressed disappointment, and Illuania agreed, but I had a different view.

“Convents are actually cliché settings that often appear in horror novels and plays.”

Especially since they were desperate enough to directly request help from Saintess Lucia at the convent, it suggested quite an urgent situation.

“Really? I’ve lived such an ignorant life.”

Findenai replied, scratching her head.

Just then, a small convent perched on a distant ridge came into view outside the carriage.

[Hmm, this looks ominous.]

[…]

The Dark Spiritmaster and the burn-scarred woman attached as Illuania’s guardian spirit had already sensed the foreboding atmosphere.

Not just these two spirits, but I too felt a damp sensation weighing heavily on my body.

I had a feeling this would be more dangerous than expected.

* * *

“Who are you!”

I had anticipated a difficult case from the moment I saw the convent, but we encountered an unexpected obstacle.

Mother Superior Hamathes was a middle-aged woman who appeared quite mature. With wrinkles just beginning to show noticeably, she was too irritable to fit the image of a nun we might expect.

“This is not a place where men can enter freely! And a spiritmaster? Ridiculous! What can an evil Black Mage like you possibly do!”

“Huh.”

Findenai snorted at Mother Superior Hamathes’ rapid-fire words. Seeing her fidgeting with her hands, she seemed eager to grab her axe.

“I came after receiving a letter from Saintess Lucia.”

When I held out the letter, she made a face as if approaching me was repulsive, and snatched just the letter with her index finger.

After putting on her glasses hanging around her neck and checking the contents, Hamathes couldn’t hide her dismay.

There was a handwritten note from Lucia asking Hamathes to be accommodating.

It was something Lucia had prepared, knowing her personality well.

“She seems to be losing her qualifications as a Saintess more and more. This is the worst.”

“If you don’t need me, so be it.”

I replied with a cold gaze, looking up at the convent.

“The stench of demons is overwhelming here.”

I said, covering my nose with my finger, and Hamathes’ eyes widened. With hands trembling from shame, she crumpled Lucia’s letter, then exhaled and replied.

“Fine. If you are the one sent in Lucia’s place, I’ll trust you for now.”

Her quick acquiescence revealed how desperate her situation was.

She looked at the convent once, then came closer and carefully whispered the situation.

I understood why she was being so cautious after hearing the details.

In the early dawn, three nuns had summoned a demon. But when the Mother Superior came out in the morning, the three were found burned to death on the demon summoning circle.

So she gathered the nuns to assess the situation, but…

Out of seven nuns, three had died, so there should have been four remaining, but there were five.

There was one extra person. The summoned demon was cleverly disguised, so the Mother Superior had tried to call Saintess Lucia to identify it.

After all, a Saintess is practically the natural enemy of demons.

“Hmm.”

After hearing the full story, I couldn’t help but make an ambiguous sound.

If this was true, Saintess Lucia would indeed be more suitable than me.

But the Saintess couldn’t leave Greyford right now.

I needed to resolve this.

“Wow. The master was right. This is going to be fun.”

Findenai immediately broke the serious atmosphere. She had brought her axe from the carriage and was swinging it around.

“Why don’t we just beat them one by one? I’m quite skilled at crude torture methods.”

The Mother Superior immediately rebuked her as she grinned.

“Nonsense! How dare you suggest such actions against my girls!”

Hamathes spread her hands wide and spat out that it was absolutely unacceptable.

I also had no intention of torturing innocent people, so I raised my hand to stop Findenai.

“Let’s check the bodies first.”

There was no need to drag this out. However, when I tried to examine the bodies immediately…

The Mother Superior took us to a cemetery near the convent.

“They’re buried here.”

Tombstones marked with the names of the definitely dead nuns, Rachel and Mike, and beside them, an unmarked tombstone.

It seemed they were planning to make it after finding the remaining nun.

I frowned and asked.

“Did you bury them as they were?”

“I-I had no choice. After all, three innocent nuns were murdered. To rest in God’s embrace, they needed a proper funeral. We couldn’t leave the bodies outside for long.”

“Dig them up.”

I intended to check immediately, but the Mother Superior exclaimed in shock.

“N-No! These children have already gone to their respective gods! We must not desecrate their deaths!”

“Even though they summoned a demon?”

This was extremely inconvenient.

I thought I should at least check the condition of the bodies, but she urgently pulled out some photographs from her bosom.

“I-I took pictures with a magic camera I keep separately. I took them in case they might be needed.”

The Mother Superior handed me a stack of photos with a humiliated expression.

It was evident that she had taken quite thorough pictures of the bodies.

A magic camera would be quite expensive.

For a Mother Superior, she possessed a remarkably expensive item.

It would be much easier to see with my own eyes, but I decided against it.

Her determination to protect the nuns’ bodies was palpable.

Besides, I could clearly sense the demonic energy from the ground where they lay.

It was an unpleasant, stuffy ground that felt like thousands of insects crawling. The demon’s involvement seemed half-confirmed.

The condition of all the bodies was similar. Without any special characteristics, they were all blackened and burned all over.

“Tsk, can’t tell much from these.”

“Yes, indeed.”

Agreeing with Findenai’s opinion, I handed her the photos to keep.

“Next, let’s go to where the demon summoning circle was. I hope you haven’t erased that too?”

“…Of course I preserved it.”

The Mother Superior led us to the back of the convent. Under a clothesline where laundry was hung, there was a tablecloth.

When she removed the stones placed to prevent it from blowing away in the wind, a faint pentagram was revealed underneath.

“…”

The energy was definitely unusual.

I glanced slightly toward the Dark Spiritmaster, and she replied with a serious expression.

[A demonic pentagram. Yes, it’s a summoning circle for demons. And from the traces, it seems something was indeed summoned.]

If the Dark Spiritmaster confirmed it, it was certain.

A demon had been summoned with this circle.

“Now, call all the nuns.”

“…Please don’t do anything strange to my girls. They’re already very shocked.”

“It’s to identify the demon.”

When I calmly replied that I wouldn’t harm them, the Mother Superior bit her lip but took out a small bell from her bosom and rang it.

Ding! Ding!

Then came the sound of hurried footsteps from inside. It suddenly reminded me of my military service days.

In the meantime, I stared blankly at the convent.

It appeared to be about a four-story building, with windows packed closely together, and at the very top, a solitary round window.

‘An attic?’

I was thinking that there would be no need for a window at that height unless it was an attic, when the Dark Spiritmaster carefully expressed her doubt beside me.

[But this is strange.]

“…”

[Demons are quite proud by nature. You know that, having faced Griffin’s evil spirit.]

That being who stopped at becoming an evil spirit without becoming a demon.

[There are beings far stronger than Griffin’s evil spirit, and some that are infinitely weaker. But the demonic race itself is extremely arrogant.]

The Dark Spiritmaster calmly folded her arms and looked down at the summoning circle as she continued her explanation.

[They maintain a strict hierarchy among themselves, but they tend to openly look down on humans, even if the human is a king.]

“…What are you trying to say?”

[What I’m trying to say is.]

Clearing her throat, the Dark Spiritmaster slowly circled around the summoning circle. She paused briefly at each spot where a body had been.

[Would a demon come for just three humans as sacrifices?]

“A demon was definitely summoned.”

This was a truth that both the Dark Spiritmaster and I acknowledged.

A demon had definitely come through this summoning circle.

[Right! That’s the problem. Woefully inadequate sacrifices. Actually, they weren’t even sacrifices. They were just the performers of the ritual.]

“…”

[In essence, there were no sacrifices, right? Yet a demon was summoned.]

And it burned all the nuns who summoned it to death, as if executing them.

[There are many strange aspects.]

“…”

That wasn’t all.

The motive was also important in this case.

When the basic question of “why” is asked, the story becomes even more mysterious.

Why?

Why would the nuns of the Elia Convent, called Saintess candidates…

And not just one, but three of them…

Summon a demon?

The more I thought about it, the more questions arose.

The mysteries that followed one after another showed no signs of being solved immediately.

First, I needed to check the nuns. If I could find the demon among them, the case might be resolved more easily than expected.

The nuns gathered one by one and lined up in a single row in front of the Mother Superior.

Some glanced at me, a man, some blushed, some frowned in disgust.

They showed various reactions, but…

Anyway.

“I am Deus Verdi, a spiritmaster.”

When I calmly announced myself, they reluctantly bowed their heads in greeting.

The Mother Superior said I could question them as long as I didn’t touch them, and I asked various questions.

They were predictable questions that might appear in a detective novel.

Starting with what they were doing at the time, what they did the night before, if there was anything unusual about the victims, if any nun had been behaving strangely after the incident, and so on.

Since the incident happened at dawn, they all said they were asleep, and there were no suspicious nuns—textbook answers.

But it felt more like they genuinely didn’t know, rather than trying to hide something from me.

I couldn’t sense any demonic energy.

From the nuns’ bodies to the entire convent, which was enveloped in demonic energy, I couldn’t sense any from the nuns themselves.

[High-ranking demons can freely emit, bury, or hide their energy as they please.]

The Dark Spiritmaster advised from beside me, but I was skeptical of that opinion.

‘That would mean a high-ranking demon responded to the summoning for meager sacrifices.’

It was strange.

There was a strong feeling that things weren’t adding up.

‘I shouldn’t be mistaken.’

I am not a detective.

Nor am I a cold, evidence-finding detective from a mystery novel.

Finding clues and deducing from them is important, of course, but I strongly felt that wouldn’t be enough to solve this case.

As the sky darkened, I exhaled to clear my complicated thoughts.

“Not everyone came out?”

“I-I saw it too.”

Along with Findenai’s sarcastic voice and Illuania’s startled exclamation.

Both pointed at the same window.

The top floor of the convent.

The highest round window.

“There was someone there.”

“Yes, I definitely saw it too.”

At their testimony, I immediately glared at the Mother Superior.

I wondered if she was brazenly hiding something, but…

Surprisingly, it wasn’t just the Mother Superior whose expression crumbled.

All the nuns in the convent were staring at us with turbulent expressions, as if we had seen a shameful secret they never wanted revealed.

“Who is it?”

But not intimidated by their demeanor, I asked, and the Mother Superior clutched the rosary of the god she served and replied.

“There is no one.”

“Do you think I’ll believe that with that reaction?”

I replied with a mocking laugh at the absurdity, and the Mother Superior answered as if ready to pounce.

“There really is no one. Even if there were, they would have nothing to do with this case.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

I began walking toward the top floor of the convent.