Chapter 10
“HRMM… Still, I’m amazed at how quickly we ran into deep world lore.”
Though the angel Tyriel had been possessed by the Oni Princess, there were still pieces of her in other oni catacombs. It was possible that a second or third Oni Princess might appear.
Worse, there was a demon on the loose who was likely the root of Chimera Clausen’s evil, and whoever it was, he was equipped with a missing divine tool. It was entirely possible that this demon had already uncovered another catacomb and begun its dirty work there.
It seemed the threat of Chimera Clausen would not be put to bed so easily. Mira, already exhausted from all the problems and surprises, stepped out of the spirit airship and left the prime minister’s mansion in hopes of finding something sweet to gorge herself on.
Not long after she started her trek, someone accosted her out of nowhere.
“Danb—er… Mira! It’s been a while.”
When she turned curiously and saw the man behind her, she was equally happy and surprised.
“Ooh! Wallen—uh, Wally! What a coincidence meeting you here!” she exclaimed. He was still dressed in a black suit, black fedora, and sunglasses. Though he looked quite a lot like a secret agent, he was actually one of the Wise Men, the exorcist Wallenstein. “I see your attire is as…uncharacteristic as usual. You used to be so much more distinct.”
Wallenstein now dressed much differently than he had in-game. He laughed dryly and said with a hint of melancholy, “I was younger then.”
“What brings you here? Knowing your goal, I can’t imagine you came running due to the Chimera Clausen thing.” Wallenstein had been working to rescue the demons who’d been lost to evil. If he had a reason to be in Sentopoli, it was presumably related to that.
Mira was correct; Wallenstein had come on demon-related business.
The prime minister’s mansion was in a quiet residential district, so foot traffic was sparse. After confirming that nobody was eavesdropping on them, Wallenstein kept his voice low and explained, “I’ve received information that points to the presence of a duke-level demon here.”
Demon nobles were likely to have subordinates with whom they shared a sort of special connection. When the demon’s power was sealed, that connection was usually severed. But dukes were massively powerful, and so was their connection to subordinates. It even remained after they were sealed, if just barely. So once a duke was successfully sealed, that was the perfect opportunity to apprehend all of its subordinates.
“I see. Sounds important.”
“Sure is. As it turns out, this one’s a duke among dukes; it has two hundred subordinates.”
“Oho. You can tell?”
Wallenstein had a grasp of not just the demon’s status but its entourage as well. How in the world had he obtained so much information? Mira was dreadfully curious.
Wallenstein replied, “Actually, this girl knows their names—” He looked around. “Huh? Hey, Liliella?” Wallenstein called her name, worried. After a moment, a little girl jumped down from a streetside tree.
“Here!” A girl in a dress ran over and smiled innocently. She looked younger than Mira, with striking pink hair and red eyes. There was something about her that was bewitching, but it wasn’t due to her appearance alone.
“Er, so, Mira. This is Liliella, and she’s a…friend. I sealed her abilities just the other day,” Wallenstein said, introducing her.
Liliella bowed. “Nice to meet you.” After Mira introduced herself in turn, Wallenstein explained. Apparently, his information had come from this girl, Liliella, who had once been the subordinate of that very duke. Because of that, she was acquainted with his other demon underlings and had a good grasp of how many there were. However, she did not know how many were still alive or waiting to reincarnate.
The duke also hadn’t contacted her in quite a while, which meant she didn’t know his current whereabouts. According to Liliella, when a demon had many underlings, they treated them differently based on their strength. The stronger ones would be used often, while the weaker ones would be ignored. Like her. She didn’t seem to be a very strong subordinate, so she’d been left on standby and neglected without ever receiving orders.
“But honestly, I’m glad I sucked. I didn’t have to do anything and I wasn’t hurting anyone.” Liliella smiled so sweetly that one could hardly imagine she’d been a nasty demon just days ago.
She gave off such a good girl aura that any thought of her being a tool of evil was immediately crushed. Mira couldn’t help but put a gentle hand on her head, saying, “Yes, of course. You’re so right.”
Liliella didn’t know where the duke was now, but she did have some information that might lead them to him.
First, the duke had been doing something in Sentopoli. Second, he had begun whatever it was before Liliella had been ordered to stand by. Apparently, back when Sentopoli was still a young city, Liliella had infiltrated it. Her job had been to exhaustively report on the development of the city to the duke.
“But the duke took me off the job eventually. As the city got bigger, I was ordered to stand by. That’s when Katiella took my place.” Katiella was a strong demon the duke had always favored. She might still be in Sentopoli to this day, and if so, she was likely still in contact with the duke.
Wallenstein had said before that, when their abilities were sealed, demons became docile, as if they’d become an entirely new person. But based on Liliella’s testimony, it seemed like they didn’t lose their memories. That meant that, if they could find and seal Katiella, she could tell them everything she knew. If she was in contact with the duke, then maybe that info would be enough to trace his location.
“I was really surprised to see that thing in the sky the day after our arrival. And you were there too, Mira!” Wallenstein exclaimed.
Wallenstein had come to pursue the duke but had stumbled into the Chimera Clausen chaos. He’d arrived the night before the declaration of victory and found himself in a city in turmoil the next day. All thanks to Mira.
“By the way, did Chimera Clausen have any dealings with demons?” he asked. If it was demons’ job to do evil to humans, then that was a natural question to ask. In fact, he’d sought her out just so he could ask it.
And he’d hit the nail right on the head.
“They certainly did.”
The timing was too perfect. Mira told Wallenstein and Liliella about the War-Torn Burial Ground and the demon she’d just learned about. When she’d finished, Liliella spoke up. “That’s gotta be the duke!” If any demon would impersonate Captain Ludwig, she thought, it was sure to be the duke she’d served. She explained that the duke always carried something wrapped in a cloth soaked with the blood of fiends and holy beasts and never let it out of his sight. The cloth was said to suppress divine authority.
Even if they didn’t use it, merely walking around with a divine item was difficult for evil beings. But with that cloth, it would be easy. What other reason could there be? And there couldn’t be many demons holding onto divine items. Liliella must be right; that duke was at the root of Chimera Clausen’s existence.
“We’ve got our connection. Maybe now is our chance,” Wallenstein declared.
Until now, it had been unclear whether the duke’s underlings were still in this city. But if the duke had contributed to the formation of Chimera Clausen, then Wallenstein was certain that he must have left someone to keep watch here. Cunning demons liked to place observers where they’d done their dirty work in order to get a front-row seat to the effects of their nasty deeds. Given that Chimera Clausen was such a large-scale operation, it was even more likely that the demon wanted to keep tabs on it.
One of the duke’s underlings was probably still in hiding. And now that Chimera Clausen had been destroyed, that observer must be hard at work. They would have had to make contact with the duke in the past few days. And the more recent the contact, the more precisely they could narrow down the duke’s current location.
“Hrmm… That makes sense. So now is the time to strike. But the problem is finding the observer; do you have any way to search for them?”
The observer would almost certainly know the duke’s current position. But how to find them… Sentopoli was overflowing with people; even if the trio knew they were hiding somewhere in the city, that was too broad to find their target.
“We need decisive proof. Unfortunately, we have nothing…” Wallenstein grinned sourly, though he added that he did know one place that might be connected.
“Oho. Then what are we waiting for?” Mira asked where it was, ready to tag along.
Demons were Wallenstein’s specialty, but this was related to the origin of Chimera Clausen, so Mira intended to help him as much as she could. But knowing how busy she must be helping with the Chimera cleanup, Wallenstein was hesitant to accept her help.
“Ehm, are you sure? Aren’t you tied down with other things?”
“Worry not. I’ve already finished my share of work for the day; I’ve got all afternoon.”
If that was the case, Wallenstein gladly welcomed her company.
***
Along the way, Mira asked, “By the way, do you have some way of referring to demons before and after they’ve been sealed? It’s a little confusing to call them all demons…”
There were two kinds of demons: modern demons who took horrible pleasure in harming humans, and those like Liliella who’d been sealed and lost their wicked desires. Mira had trouble keeping them organized in her head.
“Actually, we were thinking the same thing. We’re considering calling them light and dark demons.” Wallenstein and his people had also brought up ideas like “justice demons” and “chaos demons.” Nothing had really stuck yet, though; they would hold a vote next week.
Mira could see that Wallenstein was having fun in his own way.
“It’s a little uninspiring… But good enough. For now, we can make do with light and dark,” she agreed.
“Let’s do that,” Wallenstein agreed. “But the thing is…”
Apparently, there were some contrarians who believed the two names should be reversed. They reasoned that the demons who’d forgotten their duty—those that were now evil—had blank-white minds.
“You sure are a…unique group,” Mira chuckled humorlessly.
The trio arrived at Liliella’s old base. It was near the center of the staircase-like residential district, a place where small homes were packed in one after another. Despite how jumbled it was, there was a certain charm to it. When she’d been relieved of this post, Liliella had handed it right over to the dark demon Katiella.
“It’ll make things easy if she still lives here…” Wallenstein said hopefully. However, the home was in such a sorry state that it was hard to imagine anyone residing there. Still, Wallenstein wasn’t giving up just yet.
“Let’s hope we can find some info in here,” Liliella agreed.
They must not have really expected to find her here, as neither seemed very disappointed. They got right to looking for a way inside. Mira helped too, and eventually they found an unlocked window that allowed stealthy entry into the home. Dust blanketed the inside, plainly showing its recent disuse.
Mira recalled the demons she’d encountered so far and murmured, “It’s kind of, er…normal? I’d say it looks like any regular home.”
A table, a silverware cupboard, a kitchen, a bed. It was all dirty now, but seeing all these domestic trappings, one could imagine the average life its resident might have lived. When Mira did imagine it, however, something felt off. She shied away from the thought of that demon living in such a human environment.
“Oh, you’ve never met a female demon, have you?” Wallenstein replied to Mira’s murmuring. When she asked what he meant by that, he informed her of a new discovery in the field of demons.
Just as there were male and female humans, so too with demons. But male and female dark demons looked different and lived differently as well. Dark demon males were the demonic beings Mira had fought to this point. Anyone could tell at a glance that they were demons. Wallenstein added that whatever she was imagining in her mind right now was probably a male dark demon.
“When I first met a female demon, I was really surprised by how different they could be,” he added, glancing at Liliella. He explained that she had looked like this even when she was a dark demon.
Mira gazed at her. She was amazed by how human the girl looked. “Goodness… She doesn’t look like a demon at all.” She might have run into female dark demons in the past without even knowing it. The thought made Mira shudder.
“Right? It makes my job a whole lot harder.”
The only demons of this world that Mira could imagine were like the one she’d fought at Nebrapolis. And all of the dark demons she’d encountered in-game were like that. She’d never considered gender differences.
But Wallenstein claimed that those were all just males; females often lived in human settlements without ever being discovered.
Sometimes, dark demons would take human form and visit despair upon mankind. Female demons lived the same lives as real humans, dissolving into human society and becoming cogs in the machine. From there, they gradually dismantled institutions from the inside. Very few knew this fact.
“Oh, do you remember the Chivalric Order of One that we all challenged together? You might recall that there was a concubine who started the civil war that led to the destruction of that country. She was a dark demon,” Wallenstein revealed, as if it were nothing.
“You mean that seductive, beautiful, wicked woman…” Mira was stunned by his words.
Thinking back on it, Mira had known there was more to that concubine than met the eye. However, she was shocked at the truth that she was more than just a wicked woman, but an actual demon.
Wallenstein added that he and his people had already dealt with the concubine, and now she was one of their most reliable allies. When she became a light demon again, she retained all of the beauty and none of the nastiness.
“I’d…love to meet her some time,” Mira said, concealing her ulterior motives.
Wallenstein replied genially, “I’ll show you around our base someday.”
Mira’s cover as an innocent little girl continued to camouflage her less-than-pure intentions.
***
With yet another revelation about demons discovered, they continued their search of the abandoned home.
Liliella’s abilities shone here. Since the house had been left vacant for so long, moving anything at all sent dust flying so they could hardly see. But by cracking a window, she was able to magically sweep all the dust outside with a single gesture.
It seemed she specialized in the magic of household chores. She could clean, wash and dry laundry, move objects, and more. The duke saw this as almost completely useless.
“Those are wonderful abilities,” Mira said, impressed. It might not have endeared her to demons…but for a human, these skills were solid gold.
“She’s a big help to us,” Wallenstein murmured, and patted Liliella gently on the head.
Liliella resented the childlike treatment a little, but in the end, she gave up and smiled happily.
Thanks to her, the home was much easier to search now. They moved furniture around for ten minutes or so, looking for any useful clues.
“Oh, what’s this?” Mira plucked up a sheet of paper that had been hidden under the bed. It was covered in words and numbers.
“Do you think…this is a receipt or something?”
“Hrmm… Maybe so.”
The words were smudged, but not unreadable. Mira and Wallenstein looked it over from top to bottom. It was a pay stub, and included the names of both the employer and employee.
If nobody had lived there since Katiella, then it must be hers. This would be a vital clue. The name “Felicia” was written on it—perhaps her alias. There was a date on it as well, indicating that she had lived here until at least eight years ago.
Moreover, they knew the shop she had worked at. They didn’t know if she was still there now, but maybe someone at this “Moonlit Garden” knew about Felicia. They might be able to get some information if they asked around.
“Hrmm… Moonlit Garden. What kind of place is it, I wonder?” Mira mused.
“That’s a good question. It sounds like some kind of stylish florist. Or a seedy bar.”
What was the place this female demon had worked at like? The trio left the vacant house, ready to pursue their new lead.
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