Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 21 - Chapter 1

"Maybe they made a few mistakes, but it was for the sake of love."

-No matter how much your parents suck, they're still your parents.

Author: Rudeus GREYRAT

Translation: Jean RF MAGOTT

Chapter 1:

Playing Dumb

WE TOUCHED DOWN in the Adventurers’ District. It must have been…ten or fifteen minutes since we took off?

“Whew.” I exhaled.

I’d practiced this a bunch, so I rarely botched a landing when coming down from a magic leap anymore. No broken legs from the impact this time. It might have only been fifteen minutes in the air, but since Zenith’s disappearance, several hours had already passed. I needed to find her, quickly. As impatient as I was to get going, we needed to think this through. 

When I’d returned to Cliff’s house, Zenith was gone. Apparently, Geese had taken her on a walk. I’d thought she’d surely be back before long, but there was still no sign of her even as night crept up on us. Geese might have been an S-ranked adventurer, but he was no good in a fight, and he was a demon besides. Everyone knew how demonfolk were treated in the Holy Country of Millis. Because he could pass for beastfolk, Geese avoided some of the abuse, but it was possible the city guard had gotten the wrong idea and arrested him for kidnapping a mentally impaired woman. I also didn’t want to think about what the Latria family would do if they heard that Zenith was off with a demon… Claire Latria, that old bat, wanted to force Zenith to get married in her current state. Who knew what that woman was capable of?

I needed to get Zenith in my sight and under my protection as soon as possible.

“Let’s get going, Aisha.”

“W-wait a sec, Big Brother…” Aisha replied. She sank to the ground, her legs shaking so badly that her knees knocked together. She seemed to be too weak to stand.

“There’s no time, come on,” I said.

“O-okay, but…can we at least walk on the ground?”

Ah, so Aisha didn’t like heights. That was my bad. I seemed to be surrounded by people who were bad with heights. Sylphie was terrified of high places, and I wasn’t that keen on them myself. I bet Eris liked them, though… Ugh, now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that.

“If we run along the ground we’ll cause a traffic accident,” I said. “Come on, let’s go find Zenith.”

Right now we had to think about searching—for Zenith, or for Geese who was with her. I couldn’t leave her alone in her current condition.

“Bleh… I can’t walk.”

“Fine, I’ll give you a piggyback ride.”

“You’re not gonna fly?”

“I won’t,” I said as I hoisted Aisha up off the ground onto my back.

Now to begin the investigation. The Adventurers’ District was big, though. Where to start?

“How about checking the taverns, Big Brother? It’s dinner time. Maybe they went out to eat somewhere.”

“Oh, good idea.”

I followed Aisha’s suggestion, and we jogged along, peering into the taverns that lined the street as we hunted for Zenith or Geese. Everywhere was packed with the dinner crowd, but I didn’t have to go inspecting every customer like an idiot. By limiting our questioning to staff we could cut down the time spent at each location. I was sure someone would have seen them. A woman with a vacant stare accompanied by a monkey-faced demon wouldn’t be easily forgotten.

Though it had been dark for a while now, the Adventurers’ District was still crammed full of people. Adventurers back from a quest and clutching their prizes, and the merchants they bargained with; adventurers done with a job and looking for a meal, and the bar and innkeepers calling out to them. I heard a few fights going on, too. Perhaps because of the time, there weren’t any carriages passing, so it was unlikely that Zenith had gone wandering and gotten pulled under the wheels of one. That, at least, was a relief.

“Monkey-faced? You must mean Geese. Yeah, I saw him over at the Dappled Light Tavern.” At the third tavern, I got a lead. Geese had been in this country a fair while now, and knowing him, his reputation preceded him.

“Did he have a woman with him?” I asked.

“A woman…? Dunno about that…” said the barkeep, frowning.

I figured I might as well go and see for myself. I asked him the address, then pressed a copper coin into his hand with a word of thanks before hurrying off to the Dappled Light Tavern. I had a real bad feeling.

***

The Dappled Light Tavern was in a bad part of town. Leering men swaggered along, eyeing the women who loitered on the street. I was pretty sure those were prostitutes. We probably weren’t far from the pleasure district. Even Millishion had one, apparently. 

The men were looking our way, intrigued. I suppose Aisha and I looked too vanilla to blend in here.

“Ha ha! Well, hey, kid, you come to play then?”

One of them actually came up and started chatting to me. Had I come to play? I was of course always striving to up my game, improve my performance, but right now we weren’t in bed, weren’t doing that—

“B-Big Brother, put me down. This is embarrassing!”

Never mind. They were just intrigued by how Aisha clung to my back. I put her down, and the staring stopped.

The sign read Dappled Light Tavern. The tavern looked pretty standard, but the patrons coming in and out were a seedy crowd. Long ago, the scowl on the face of the man leaving now would have had me scared witless. Since coming to this world though, I’d grown tough. Now I could even walk, fearless, into a place like this. Honestly, the Ruquag Mercenary Band office in Sharia was more intimidating. Still, I didn’t like thinking about Zenith hanging around in a place like this. What the hell had Geese been thinking? I liked the guy, but if he’d gotten confused and tried to sell Zenith to a brothel or something, I’d never forgive him. I’d take both his arms. His legs too.

“Welcome!” The barkeep’s spirited greeting carried over the general hubbub as we entered. The tavern might have looked shady from the outside, but once inside the atmosphere was friendly. I didn’t feel like an outsider here. The patrons weren’t all rough types, either. There were plenty of ordinary-looking adventurers too. I quickly scanned the faces in the room, then turned to the barkeep to—

“And then this was the real clever bit: I said, ‘I reckon all three teleportation circles are traps, and there’s another path!’”

I’d recognize that voice anywhere. In the back of the room, a monkey-faced man was throwing back drinks as he boasted to the young adventurers seated around him. His companions were a boy with spiked-up hair, another with long hair and a nose piercing, and a girl with slightly slanted eyes and hair dyed an unnatural color. He looked like, how should I put it…? Kind of an old poser.

Zenith wasn’t there. I looked around the room, but I couldn’t see her anywhere.

“…Then, just like I’d suspected, we damn well found one! A secret passage to the boss’s rooms…”

I approached the table, and Geese noticed me. In a split second, his expression changed to one of horror.

“Geese,” I said.

“H-hey, Boss! I was, uh, I was just talking about you! You lot, this guy here is the Quagmire I told ya about!”

The other three gaped at me. The girl, her hand pressed to her breast, actually leaned her chair back on two legs away from me. What the hell had he been saying about me? It stung a bit, having a girl recoil from me like that. But whatever, that wasn’t important right now. I had a mountain of questions for him. But where to begin…? First off, maybe I could lure him into telling me whether the Man-God was involved or not.

“Geese…I didn’t want to believe it,” I said. “You, my enemy…”

“Eh? Say what?”

“He told you everything, right? Visited you in a dream. Told you what I’d do now?”

“Dreams? What’re you talking about?” asked Geese with a nervous laugh. He was deflecting.

I pointed my finger at him and concentrated my magic. Once the Stone Canon formed, it began to spin rapidly, like a drill whose buzzing reverberated around the room. The young adventurers, their eyes wide, made to stand up.

“Stay where you are,” I said brusquely, and they stopped.

I looked into Geese’s eyes and asked again,

“What words did he fill your head with? Tell me everything, and I’ll let you live.”

“Woah, woah! H-hey, c-c-cut that out…! I’m sorry! I don’t know what I did, but it wasn’t my fault! Now, get that thing away from me!” he stuttered.

I drew my finger back a little. Geese jumped from his chair and threw himself on the ground at my feet. Without a hint of dignity, he groveled and apologized.

“Looks like I really messed up! I’m sorry I made you mad, bo—uh, I mean, Rudeus! Look, see how sorry I am?! I just don’t know what I did! Can you just tell me that, so I can apologize properly? You gotta forgive me!”

This all caught me off guard. It wasn’t the reaction I’d expected at all. Maybe he wasn’t serving the Man-God? But no, it was too early to know for sure. Even with that small niggling doubt, however, I felt bad seeing my longtime companion bowing and scraping in front of me.

Eventually, I spoke. “Where’s my mother?”

“Huh?” said Geese, looking up with his head tilted to one side. The expression on his face, red with drink, was one of bewilderment. If he was acting, it was a great performance.

“My mother. Zenith Greyrat.”

“…Zenith? I just showed her around a bit, then took her home…”

“She’s not at the house. That’s why I’m here,” I said, crossing my arms.

Just then, one of the boys snickered. I looked around and saw Aisha was standing beside me, mimicking my pose and nodding. It was just family resemblance—neither of us were in the mood to joke. I glared at the boy and he froze with a tiny squeak. Jeez, what had Geese been telling these people about me?

“Huh… But, here now… I definitely took her home, you know?”

“Where’d you leave her?”

“Where? Well, y’know, at the entry to the Adventurers’ District. A servant from the house came to get her, so I left her with them.”

A servant? Our servant? Cliff and I had been at the church headquarters. Aisha had been shopping, and Wendy had been at the house… No, wait. He wasn’t talking about my house.

“Someone from the Latria family…?”

“Yeah, yeah. I checked their coat of arms properly and all. They were a Latria servant, no doubt about it,” he said.

My pulse quickened. Zenith had been taken, taken by a servant of the Latrias. Calm down, I told myself. Get your thoughts in order. First things first: Geese had taken Zenith out. Why?

“What were you doing taking my mother out of the house in the first place?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Boss. It’s just been a while since I saw you or her, so I wanted to catch up, that’s all.”

So it had been a whim. Okay, I guess that made sense… But hold on, something didn’t line up.

“How did you know where Cliff lives?”

“’Cause I went to see the Latrias first. I don’t much like going there, but I thought if you were there to receive me… But then they said something came up and you and Zenith were staying elsewhere, so that’s where I should go. So I came all the way over here.”

“I thought you hated going into the Divine District.”

“That’s just because as a demon…ya never know when someone’s gonna jump you for no reason when you hang around in there. It’s not like I’d rather die or something,” he protested.

His excuse sounded…weak. Too vague. Part of it was probably the alcohol, but maybe something was eating at him. There was a pause. But wait, I got it. I knew what had happened. It had gone down like this, give or take a few details:

Yesterday, I let my temper get the best of me at the Latria Manor and stormed out. They must have set a tail on us as we walked home. I was careless, and they found out where we were staying. I’d been oblivious.

If the Latrias had come and demanded that the Grimors hand over Zenith, they knew they’d be refused. They were in enemy factions, and the current political climate made launching an outright attack on the Grimors untenable. Although the demon expulsionists were ascendent at present, one misstep could mean their downfall. So the Latrias used Geese—a totally ignorant demon dude who’d fallen right into their hands.

Any other day, they’d have driven a creature like him away. But today, they acquired a pawn no one would expect demon expulsionists to use. They manipulated him into bringing Zenith out into the open. They probably didn’t grab her immediately because they were concerned about a bodyguard. But there was no bodyguard. I was out, and by horrible coincidence, so was Aisha. Ultimately, luck was on their side. They took Zenith without resistance. And I expected they’d have no qualms feigning ignorance later: Geese? No, I can’t say I know anyone of that name. Why would you ever imagine that we’d be acquainted with a filthy demon? Or something like that. Now that they’d kidnapped Zenith, they just had to hide her. It would be a simple matter to assign her a carer to keep watch on her. 

“H-hey, Boss? What’s going on?”

“…When the Latrias told you where we were, did they say anything else?”

“Eh? Um, yeah, they said Zenith must’ve missed being home, so I should take her out into the city…”

It wasn’t fair to blame Geese. He didn’t know any better. I was the one who told him that we were going to the Latrias and that we’d be staying there. If he thought I was in there, he was unlikely to suspect anything even when the Latrias welcomed him without their usual harshness. Then they filled his head with their stories—of course he ended up their puppet. I’d been careless. I should have taken Zenith home today. After seeing who the Latrias were we shouldn’t have stayed in Millishion a moment longer. It would have taken some time, but I ought to have taken her back to our house, then come back to give the mercenary band’s Millishion chapter my undivided attention. It wasn’t like I was pressed for time. I’d kept a potential weakness close by me. That was a mistake. I should have brought Zenith back for some quiet sightseeing after everything was over. 

Regret wasn’t going to help this late in the game, though. I needed to get Zenith back.

“Geese, the thing is…”

Having softened a little on him, I filled Geese in on everything that had happened, then asked for his help. Yeah, he’d been manipulated, but he wasn’t totally blameless either. I was pretty sure he wasn’t serving the Man-God after his latest reaction, and we needed every halfway-competent ally we could get in these circumstances.

“…You serious?” said Geese after I finished, his face pained. “Now I think about it, it was weird how the Latrias just told me the address without making a thing of it, even without you there to go in between… I just assumed you’d cleared it with them, Boss. So that’s why they said to take her outside…”

I’d been reckless and shown my enemy my weak point. But everyone makes mistakes. I’d get Zenith back right away.

“Okay, I’m in. I’ll help you out,” said Geese.

“Thanks,” I replied.

With Geese on board, we decided to head straight for the Latria manor…though I was half-despairing. This wasn’t how we’d get her back.

***

The manor was dead silent. It was past dinner time now, far closer to bedtime. I’d been carrying two people with me, and that slowed me down. So, I got us there as quickly as possible. Aisha looked like she might cry.

“You promised…” she muttered.

You can guess the route we took.

“They’re still up,” I said.

The lights were still on in the manor, yet there was no one at the gate, not even a bell. What were you supposed to do if you wanted to call them? Maybe people just yelled. How did they plan on receiving guests? But then they probably meant to turn away anyone calling at this hour without consideration. Oh, well.

“It’s Rudeus!” I yelled banging on the gate. “Is anyone home?” 

If the neighbors complained, that wasn’t my problem. It was perhaps a stretch to say justice was on my side, but I had probable cause. If the Latrias were behind Zenith’s kidnapping, they were in the wrong. If they weren’t, then the servant Geese had met was both an imposter and the real kidnapper. I’d done my best to cut all ties with this family, but if someone was using their name falsely, that was their problem as well. But no one came out. I banged on the gate harder and yelled some more. The force of my blows strengthened by my Magic Armor bent the gate’s golden latticework further and further out of shape.

“I need to talk to you about my mother!” I called out. But of course, no reply came. 

Well, about time to smash my way in.

“If you don’t get out here, I’ll beat your gate down!” I warned.

Just in case they didn’t answer, I concentrated magic in my right hand. If they thought this flimsy gate could stop me, they didn’t know me.

“Whoa there, Boss, hold on! That’s not gonna end well!”

That stopped me. It was true, breaking down the gate was extreme. This situation was getting to me—I was getting frantic. The other day Claire had insisted on marrying Zenith off and making her have babies. Find a partner, hold a wedding, set up house, have kids… Actually, thinking through that whole time-consuming process, we still had time. No need to panic. If I kept an eye on the Latrias’ movements, they would eventually lead me to Zenith. There was one weak link in that lengthy chain of events, though. You just had to zoom in on the “having kids” link, and ta-da! There it was.

If you got a man and a woman, threw them in bed together and waited about thirty minutes, that was all the time you needed. It’d be what they called a fait accompli; by the time I found Zenith, chances were high that that egg would already be scrambled. I wanted to believe Claire wouldn’t be that ruthless about her own daughter, but I couldn’t put anything past a hag who’d marry off her mentally impaired daughter. That was why I needed to hurry. 

Even so, breaking down the gate was rash. I could have broken through in one shot with my Stone Cannon, but the bang would have garnered attention. I didn’t know the laws of this country, but in most of them, breaking down a gate is a crime. If people came and called the police and I ended up a criminal, that would bring trouble on Cliff and the pope as well. 

I needed to get a handle on what was happening before I acted.

“You’re right. If I use earth magic to open the lock, we can sneak—”

“Sneak where, exactly?” came a voice from the other side of the gate. I looked and saw that, at some point, five men and women had appeared on the other side of the lattice gate. Three soldiers, a butler, and an old woman dressed in fine clothes.

“Whatever do you mean by this? Banging on my gate at this hour.”

It was Claire Latria. I was silent for a moment. Had she come out after hearing my voice? Or had she been lying in wait for me…?

“Claire… Isn’t this a bit underhanded?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how you tricked Geese into helping you abduct my mother.”

At this, Claire looked at Geese and frowned.

“Abduct your mother? I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”

“I thought you’d play dumb…” I said and gave Geese a meaningful look.

He nodded, then pointed to one of the three guards.

“That one. That’s the one who came for Zenith,” he said.

I looked at the guard, who shrugged, trying to look innocent. Like he didn’t know what we were talking about.

“Doctrine forbids any of our family from fraternizing with demonfolk,” said Claire sharply, with a cold look at Geese. “We would never, ever employ a filthy demon like that.”

No surprises so far.

“If you believe Zenith has been abducted, then there ought to be a search party. Perhaps this demon is behind it. I’d like to hear him explain himself, in detail…” 

Geese took a step back, grunting in dismay. She meant to shut him up. Now that I thought about it, if Geese had been murdered tonight, then I doubted I’d have ever found my way here. It was a good thing I moved quickly on this.

“You’re telling me you have absolutely no idea where my mother is?”

“None at all. And even if I did, you cut yourself out of this family. I have no obligation to tell you anything.”

The hag just kept layering on that venom… What was her angle? What good would antagonizing me do her? It couldn’t be that she was actually one of the Man-God’s disciples, could it? I couldn’t figure out her deal. Might it also be possible that she truly didn’t know anything? In which case, was Geese lying? Why would he do that? He was a liar, but not the kind who did it to hurt people, I was sure.

“Claire…”

She huffed through her nose, turning her cold eyes back to me.

“Yes, Rudeus? If you think I am lying, by all means go ahead and search the house.”

She was confident I wouldn’t find anything, then. Or she’d already moved Zenith elsewhere.

“If that’s quite all, I must ask you to leave now. You are no longer a relation of the Latrias—isn’t that so?” 

I was silent. My expression was all bitterness, I’m sure. I had my prime suspect right in front of me, and no way of getting to the truth. I had her right here, but I couldn’t think of what to say.

I was so afraid for Zenith, and yet I’d never get her whereabouts out of this woman. The thought came to me that at this point I might as well abduct Claire and make her tell me by whatever means necessary. Actually, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. I had no evidence—only Geese’s word. But if it was really true, and the Latrias had taken her…

Wait a minute, calm down, I told myself. Talking came first. I knew when I came she’d probably play dumb. Talking would bring the truth out. A person might look unpleasant until you tried talking to them and found they weren’t all bad. Hadn’t I just learned that?

“My mother… Is my mother…a relation to the Latria Family?”

“She is my daughter. A mother has an obligation to care for her prodigal children.”

“Bullshit! That’s what you call forcing her into a marriage she can’t consent to?” 

Claire didn’t reply. 

“I’m her son. My father told me to protect her with my life, and I’m going to honor that obligation. I’ll never abandon her, and so long as I’m alive I’m going to look after her. So please… Give Mom back…”

Claire didn’t reply. She did, however, look away, as though she couldn’t bear to meet my gaze. What was that about? Was that doubt? Did some part of her think what she was doing was wrong? Claire had never come across as such an awful person when Therese talked about her. There had to be some miscommunication here. Yes, that was it. Right. I had to restrain myself, talk reasonably, and get her to tell me what she wanted…

“The guard is here,” Claire said.

I was wrong. She hadn’t been averting her eyes from mine, but rather looking at something else. Toward the road. A group who had to be the guard was running toward us, lamps raised.

“If you perseverate any further, I will have you arrested as an intruder,” she said. “Well?” 

I glared back at her. This obstinate, heartless old hag. She wasn’t listening to a thing I said. I imagined taking her as a hostage and using her to demand Zenith’s return. This gate meant nothing to me. I could smash through it, lift her up by the throat and shout for the others to bring Zenith out at once.

It would be over in less than two seconds. An instant. 

But would it get Zenith back? I made myself look once more into the hag’s cold eyes. She didn’t look concerned—on the contrary, her eyes seemed to goad me to try it. She couldn’t think I was helpless. Last time I was here, I’d flown off the handle. I’d been so angry my own memory was a blur, but I heard later that I’d sent six or seven guards flying. She currently had two guards, with another two running toward us. That was significantly fewer than I’d dealt with last time. Numbers weren’t everything, but she had to know I had no issue using force if it came to that. Yet here she was with only this gate between us.

“I could take you captive and make you tell me where Zenith is,” I said.

“Please proceed,” she spat back at my bravado. “If you think it’ll get her back.”

How was she so confident? She knew I could do it if I wanted to. She knew I got violent when I was pissed off. Did she not care what happened to her? Why was she doing this? Shit, I cursed silently. I really couldn’t read her. Was she trying to make me get violent…? In front of the guard, perhaps?

“Claire, you haven’t received a message in a dream, have you?”

“Excuse me?” she replied. “A message? What are you on about now?”

For just a moment, her ice-cold mask cracked and she gaped at me. That was the face of someone who really didn’t know anything—much the same as Geese’s earlier. No, she wasn’t a disciple of the Man-God either.

The confusion vanished in seconds. With a dismissive tut, she looked away from me and back at the guards running toward us.

“We’re the city guard, from the Cathedral Knights’ Arrow Company, ma’am! Heard there was a disturbance. Is everything all right?”

“Well, officers, these—”

“Thank you,” I cut her off, summoning up my last ounce of rationality. “I’m done here for today.”

***

I felt thoroughly defeated as I made my way home along streets lined with houses. My mind was spinning. I knew I wasn’t thinking logically. Unspeakable rage and frustration roiled inside me. In the end, I still didn’t know where Zenith was. But my conversation with Claire, her tight-lipped expression, and her answers had me convinced. Claire had manipulated Geese and kidnapped Zenith. No doubt in my mind. I probably could have handled things better, but even so. Without bothering to even try to talk things through, she’d abducted Zenith, then played dumb and snubbed me. Damn it… 

“Hey, I’m sorry about this… I really screwed things up.”

“No, Geese. It’s not your fault. You came all the way to the Divine District for my mother, even though you didn’t want to.”

“I…I guess,” he said.

Geese hadn’t done this. He was a pawn in her scheme and nothing more. The timing seemed a little too perfect, but being in the wrong place at the wrong time was how people ended up as pawns. While I was looking the other way, my enemy had been waiting for their moment to strike. 

“Geese? Can you ask around about my mother?”

“I can try, but it might be tough.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought…”

Geese was a demon. Passing soldiers eyed him with suspicion just for walking down the street in a residential area like this. It’d be tough indeed for him to ask around for information in the Divine District. The guard might even throw him in jail.

Still, he could be a more subtle kind of help. If the other side were going to play it like that, using whatever cowardly tricks they could, then fine. I had some tricks of my own. From this day on, Rudeus Greyrat was the enemy of the Demon Expulsionists. Old Claire had herself to thank for that.

“Aisha, Geese,” I said to the other two. “What comes next will be a little dangerous. I’m counting on you both.”

“Of course, Big Brother, but what…what are you going to do?” asked Aisha. She sounded nervous. I looked down at her.

“We’re going to kidnap the Blessed Child,” I replied. Geese jumped up.

“What?! What’s with the crazy talk all of a sudden?!” He came up to grab my shoulders. “You can’t, Boss!”

“The Latrias have strong ties to the Temple Knights, and the Temple Knights are with the Cardinal. They maintain their influence through the Blessed Child, meaning the Blessed Child will make the most effective hostage. Anyone else, there’d be the possibility that they’d just sacrifice that piece, but the Blessed Child guarantees we’ll get my mother back.”

My opponents had resorted to kidnapping, so I wanted an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I couldn’t think of any better candidate than the Blessed Child to use in a hostage exchange.

“Effective, sure, but what about after that?! Assuming we get Zenith back safe, we’ll turn the whole of Millis against us!”

Screw the Holy Country of Millis. With Orsted’s brute force and Ariel’s political clout we’d beat them into submission. I’d given up on operating here. Zenith was way more important in my eyes. The fight against the Man-God mattered, too, but what was this all for if I threw away what I loved most?

“It might be all right for you, Boss, but I’m a demon,” Geese whimpered. “After all that—before they know I’m involved with you—they’ll kill me!” 

The word “kill” slowed me down a little. My head cleared. 

Geese was right: if I made enemies of the Latrias—and the Temple Knights along with them—I wouldn’t just be putting myself in danger, but everyone around me. And they’d have an army full of types like I’d met earlier today. Who knew what they were capable of? The pope would probably be fine, but Cliff was sure to become a major target. 

I remembered that in the future diary, Aisha and Zanoba had been killed by Millishion Knights. If I made Millis my enemy, we wouldn’t be safe even back in Sharia, and that wasn’t even getting into the obstacles it would almost certainly throw up against future progress. The followers of Millis were all over the Central Continent; they could easily get in the way. There was no reason the Holy Knights of Millis shouldn’t be our allies. If we were enemies when Laplace was reincarnated, no one would be happier about it than the Man-God.

Was kidnapping her even a good move to begin with? But no, surely the Man-God wasn’t trying to get me to kidnap the Blessed Child. That was paranoia talking. 

Then I recalled something. Behind closed doors, the pope had implied he wanted to do something about the Blessed Child and her cardinalist supporters. If I played things right, I might be able to get Zenith back while also bringing down the Latrias and the cardinal. I wasn’t too concerned about coming out on the pope’s side. No matter what I did, if I wanted to sell Ruijerd figures I’d already picked a side. I guessed Cliff didn’t really want me declaring my team yet, but he’d understand.

The only point that nagged at me was Therese. Therese, the captain of the Blessed Child’s guard. She’d saved me ten years ago and again today. This was no way to repay that kindness. Damn it.

“Aisha, what do you think?” I asked. Her face was grave, but she looked up when I spoke.

“I think kidnapping the Blessed Child is going too far.”

“Right.”

“You’re always cool and collected, so I feel like… This isn’t like you, Big Brother.”

Your big brother isn’t usually all that cool and collected, I thought. Still, if she felt that way, it proved I really wasn’t thinking clearly. Right. At times like this, it was easy to make a bad call. Okay, Rudy, pull yourself together… I needed to calm down a bit, then I could think.

First, was this part of the Man-God’s plan? Right now, that felt like a stretch. My paranoia tended to run wild wherever he was concerned, but the issue at hand was essentially between me and the Latrias. Far as I knew, it was that simple. It wasn’t impossible that he was trying to make me strike against Claire and make an enemy of the cardinalists, but it seemed too convoluted. Besides, I’d always sided with the pope; I disagreed with the cardinal position on plenty of things. Perhaps the Man-God had pushed things in this direction after seeing a future where I joined forces with the cardinal, but then it would make more sense to pit me against the Blessed Child or the cardinal or whoever—someone who’d send me on a more clearly adversarial path than Claire. Though Claire would happily act as an in-between for the cardinal, so…maybe the idea was to make me her enemy and the cardinalist would naturally follow? But even if that were so, I wouldn’t find any evidence to prove it.

I was overthinking it.

For now, I’d assume the Man-God wasn’t involved and go from there. It wasn’t a good idea to make outright enemies of the whole expulsionist faction, at any rate.

“All right. Kidnapping the Blessed Child is too much. Let’s forget that idea.”

That made it feel way less necessary to jump straight to extreme measures. I had the pope backing me up and even Therese felt warmly about me, judging by today’s meeting. If I talked through everything with those two, they might help me. There were other options to try before turning to all-or-nothing strategies. That was my whole reason for going to the church headquarters today. I didn’t know what that stubborn old hag wanted, but I doubted she’d immediately push Zenith into the bed of a stranger to clinch things, not in the midst of all this. Besides, after that convoluted kidnapping plot, surely she wouldn’t move straight on to such an obvious plan.

“There are tons of people we can ask for help. Let’s begin by approaching as many as we can. The Latrias must have a next move planned, after all,” I said. The other two looked relieved. I must have sounded sufficiently rational.

“Just in case, though, Geese—I want you to poke around for any information on my mother’s whereabouts. I know it won’t be easy…so you don’t have to do it alone. I can pay.”

“Gotcha, Boss.”

“And me?” asked Aisha, squeezing my hand. “What should I do?” Perhaps she felt responsible too. I thought for a moment.

“Okay, you go search the building used by the mercenary company branch.”

“Huh?! You don’t want me to look for Zenith?”

“I want to set up a contact tablet and an emergency teleportation circle. It’d be good to ask Sir Orsted about the Man-God’s involvement here, too.”

“Oh… Right. That’s true. What about after that?”

“You back up Geese in searching for Zenith.”

“Got it!” said Aisha, nodding determinedly. This would be tough for a demon like Geese if he were alone, but paired with Aisha they’d be a force to be reckoned with. I felt reassured that they could track down anything, no matter how obscure.

“One more thing. If it looks like my mother is in real danger, I’ll act first and consequences be damned. You two should be ready to get away from here if it comes to that.”

“Okay.”

“I understand.” 

Both of them nodded resolutely.

Right, I thought. Guess I’m going back to the church headquarters tomorrow.