Chapter 8
THE ISUZU ALLIANCE’S spirit airship was currently parked in the prime minister’s garden. Mira was stunned.
But about something entirely unrelated.
“An…angel?”
Next to Mira—and just as surprised—was Kagura. “Didn’t expect that answer…”
Their astonished eyes were fixed on the person across from them.
“My apologies for the trouble. I’m truly sorry.” The girl bowed. Her voice was much more subdued than her appearance would suggest. Her innocent nature made it difficult to believe she’d been possessed by the Oni Princess not long ago.
When they’d heard the girl had finally awoken, Mira and Kagura had immediately dropped everything to come speak to her. But…an angel?
The pair stepped away for a moment and began to whisper back and forth.
“Okay, Gramps. What do you think?”
“Hrmm. Given the circumstances, I don’t think she’s lying. The results when I try to Inspect remind me of an angel I once met, too.”
They both focused on her and noted the result: Information Not Found. The same had happened when Mira met an angel during a quest related to the Three Great Kingdoms.
“Checks out. But why would an angel be possessed by a vengeful spirit? And why here, of all places?”
“I suppose we’ll have to ask her.”
They once again approached the bed where the angel lay. She looked up at them and smiled. “Have you finished whispering?”
“Yes,” Mira answered. “We’re sorry for making you wait.”
“It’s not a problem. Ask me anything, and I’ll answer whatever I can.” The angel gazed at them with serious eyes. Despite her youthful figure, her manners were that of a gentlewoman. Kagura’s first question was, naturally, how an angel could have been possessed by the vengeful spirit of the Oni Princess.
“Allow me to start from the beginning,” the angel said. She began to speak of days long past.
Long ago, there existed a small race known as oni, who all shared the ability to turn the power of nature—plants and the earth—into special mana. The oni race used this mana to protect themselves, to fight, and occasionally as nourishment.
When they were still few in number, they might have caused a forest or two to wither—but nature’s healing power could easily respond. Monsters and fiends were much more prevalent than they were in modern times, so the oni struggled desperately to survive. As such, the spirits quietly accepted the oni’s destruction of nature and focused on rejuvenating what they could.
But one day, there was an explosive increase in the number of oni. The oni race had met primordial humans, the predecessor of the modern human race. Primordial humans had the rare ability to reproduce with other races.
The children resulting from unions between humans and oni might have been weaker than pure oni, but it was only the difference between unthinkably powerful and unbelievably powerful. This new generation of human-oni children were called demi-oni, and their increased fertility caused their population to explode.
Yet this created a problem: the traditional ways of imparting knowledge to oni children could not keep pace with the burgeoning population. This resulted in conflicting ideologies. Demi-oni split into multiple tribes and set off to follow their own respective philosophies. They spread to all the corners of the world, grew greater in number, and soon became the dominant race of the planet.
The tribes began to take on names of their own: the Abyssal Oni, Marine Oni, Steel Oni, and more. There were at least fifty tribes, though they were often called simply “oni” by outsiders.
Of course, all of them took the power of nature as sustenance. Each time the fires of war were kindled and the oni tribes clashed with other races, the world lost some of its life.
By now, the spirits could no longer ignore the damage. They revealed themselves to the demi-oni and pleaded for them to at least stop fighting others and destroying nature. But the oni believed themselves the strongest in the world. They burned with ambition, so they refused. They saw spirits as their newest enemy, leading to a war between oni tribes and the protectors of nature.
Just as the Spirit King had said, the oni were exterminated.
“But there was an issue. The power wielded by the oni suddenly changed.”
The angel explained that, after the decisive battle, the corpses of the defeated oni emitted a black mist—a curse that devoured spirits. It was far stronger in the days that followed the war. The spirits had no way of standing against it. Yet if left alone, the whole region would be tainted and die.
That could not be allowed. Thus, the remaining races and the spirits searched for a way. When they were out of options and at their wits’ end, the angel had offered a helping hand.
She’d proposed a plan—lock the corpses in catacombs with oni-sealing coffins and shut them away until the curse dissipated. The angel would leave a piece of herself in each one, both to watch over the souls of the oni and to soothe them in death. The coffins were buried deep in the earth.
The War-Torn Burial Ground was one of those very catacombs. Its name referred to the oni tribe within, a warlike group with extreme combat prowess. They and their subordinate tribes had been buried there together.
“Hrmm… You’re like a human sacrifice.” Mira gazed at the angel and furrowed her brow.
According to the Spirit King, this battle had occurred tens of thousands of years ago. If this story was true, the angel had been trapped underground since then.
Angels were often seen as the opposite of demons, and in this world, they were exactly that. Mira and Kagura had met angels during quests related to the Three Great Kingdoms. Whenever they did, the beings were an awe-inspiring presence.
But the angel before them now seemed much weaker than those they remembered. Perhaps it was because she had been split into pieces, or perhaps because she had been trapped for so long. Just how much had this angel been through?
“I can hardly imagine…” Kagura was speechless. The angel’s sacrifice was incomprehensible.
“I asked for this. Don’t worry about me, please,” the angel said, sensing their sympathy—or perhaps their pity. She then smiled. “But there is one thing I don’t understand. May I ask you something?”
Mira and Kagura were struck by the angel’s stalwart nature that seemed to defy her adorable looks.
After staring vacantly at the angel for a moment, Kagura finally stammered out, “Umm, sure. Go ahead.”
“Thank you,” the angel said with a bow. She cocked her head slightly and asked, “How did humans find the oni coffins? Regardless of the state I was in, it should have been impossible to find that place.”
The angel explained in detail how the oni catacombs had been sealed. They’d been constructed with a material infused with angels’ special powers, then a special barrier had been cast on top of them. The catacombs were only halfway in the corporeal world—humans shouldn’t even be able to perceive them, let alone interact with them.
Yet still, the catacombs had been found, and the mist sealed within was seeping into this world. On top of that, thousands of oni grudges, which had been stable until that point, had coalesced into one being. The angel theorized that perhaps the restored connection to the real world had allowed the oni’s resentment to bubble up once more.
The mass of grudges had possessed the nearest body: the angel herself. After suffering for so long under the oni curse, she was left without the power to resist, and the curse took over. And that’s how Kagura found her.
“I’d planned to return the oni corpses to this world once I’d finished purifying the curses, but it seems we were brought back prematurely.”
The angel had spoken rather calmly up to this point, but now she looked frustrated. She must have been confident in her sealing abilities. She explained that only a fellow angel, a god, or the Spirit King should have been able to open the catacombs. But that was unthinkable; those beings knew the circumstances of the sealing; they would never open the coffins. To the Spirit King, that would be doing direct harm to his kin. He, at least, would probably prefer to have the oni sealed forever.
“My seal had no flaws. So how…?” the angel murmured sadly. There was real emotion on her face now. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Mira found her adorable—like a little girl who’d had her perfect plans ruined. Still, she and Kagura remained silent in the face of her sadness.
After a few minutes, Kagura spoke up. “What if it was…love, or something?”
“Love?” The angel cocked her head, wide-eyed.
Tears formed in Kagura’s eyes as she clenched her fists and explained her theory: what if there was someone out there who was in love with the very angel who’d sacrificed herself for the sake of the world?
That person might have accepted it at first, thinking it was for the best. But as time passed, perhaps their feelings grew stronger, weighing on their heart more than duty ever could. Should they respect her status as an angel and prioritize her mission? Or be true to their heart and be with the one they loved?
“Conflict and regret. Worry and confession. After worrying and worrying over it for so long, they finally chose you!” That unknown angel, Kagura exclaimed, had opened the catacombs in order to save the one they loved. Kagura certainly had a soft spot for romance stories.
The angel just stared back at Kagura, stunned.
Mira mercilessly cut apart Kagura’s wild theory. “Your fantasy there is full of holes. I mean, where is this mystery angel? If they love her, why aren’t they here right now? Did they run away like a coward from the grudge?”
Kagura sniffed dismissively. “They fought for her, but they weren’t strong enough.”
“Going for the tragic angle now, eh?”
“No…” Kagura began to reconsider.
“All jokes aside,” Mira sighed, “are angels really the only ones who can open these tombs? What if a demon was involved? I mean, you’re antitheses, are you not?” Demons were often seen as the polar opposite of angels. The effects of this incident would be major and widespread, so it would be no surprise if demons had a hand in it. However, the angel looked even more confused.
“Demons? No, I don’t think that is possible,” the angel said. “Even they should know that undoing that curse would cause untold tragedy.” She sincerely believed that demons would never do such a thing.
“…Hrmm, I see. You haven’t had contact with the world for tens of thousands of years. You don’t know.”
“I know it surprised me when you mentioned it, Gramps. She’s gonna be shocked…”
Everybody in modern times knew that demons acted specifically to bring about tragedy. But when Mira met Wallenstein, he’d told her how things had differed before: how, long ago, demons worked alongside angels to bring prosperity to humanity.
How do I explain this? Mira wondered. Right on cue, the Spirit King’s voice echoed in her brain.
“You know the demons’ past already,” he said. “However, this angel’s long captivity explains her lack of knowledge. Miss Mira, allow me to speak to them. Take hands with Kagura and the angel.”
He’d obviously been eavesdropping on their conversation, but Mira welcomed his aid. If he could explain everything, that would probably be the fastest way to convince the angel.
“Friends, may I take your hands for a moment?” she asked the others.
“Huh?” Kagura gasped. “What’re you up to?”
“Yes, of course,” the angel agreed.
As commanded, Mira took their hands—ignoring Kagura’s befuddlement—and focused on the voice in her head. Before long, Kagura understood and muttered, “Wow, this is incredible.” She stopped struggling to get her hand loose.
The Spirit King described what Wallenstein had said in much more detail. He told them that, long ago, demons had existed to lead humanity into a better future, much like angels. But during the past ten thousand years, they had been infected by evil, mutating into their current malicious form.
The atrocities committed during the oni war had weakened the Spirit King’s connection to this world. As a result, he was unable to find out exactly why the demons had undergone such a change, but they were now exactly opposed to their former goals.
The angel was shocked. “How can this be…?”
Now that she knew the truth, the angel grieved for the loss of demons’ goodness. She remembered them as beings that shared in her and her comrades’ joy while leading the world to a better future. The Spirit King’s words had essentially turned her world on its head; no wonder she was shocked beyond belief.
“Regardless, that is how it stands,” the Spirit King said. “Angel… Tyriel, was it? Allow me to answer the question Miss Mira posed. Miss Mira, you are exactly right.”
They now had a name to go with the face, but Tyriel was spiraling into despair. The Spirit King understood her pain, but he confirmed Mira’s suspicion that demons were most likely involved in this incident. Like angels, demons had powers beyond the mortal world; they would be able to perceive the sealed coffins just as angels could.
“However, let me share something that I would only know as someone who participated in the creation of the catacombs. To undo the seal, one would need the power of a member of the Trinity who created the seal. As demons have fallen to evil, they cannot receive the powers of gods…not even temporarily. I have not shared such power myself. So how did they undo the seal?”
In that case…modern demons would only be able to find the coffins; they should not be able to break the seal. Yet obviously they had. This was now a very vexing mystery.
“So we need to figure out how they got a key that they didn’t have the right to anymore?” Kagura frowned in thought and tried to think of a method a demon might use. “Like…maybe they captured an angel and held them hostage, or something?”
“That would be difficult. The gods would not pass on their power to open a catacomb’s seal, no matter what peril an angel was in.” Even angels weren’t valuable enough as a hostage, apparently.
“Then what if they said they were using the key for something besides opening the tombs? Like to defeat demons, or to save someone, or something?” Kagura offered another suggestion.
But the Spirit King refuted once more, “No god would fail to see through such a ruse, especially after they were betrayed. No…the gods and I would never lend our power to open the catacombs, which must mean that the demons used some other means.”
“Hmm…” Kagura pouted and looked to Mira for aid.
“In that case, hrmm… What if their power was stolen? Like what Gregorius tried to do to you at the Ancient Ring Gate.”
The Spirit Palace where the Spirit King lived was connected to the Ancient Ring Gate. Mira had defended him in the end, but Gregorius had been trying to siphon the Spirit King’s power there. Perhaps the demons might have done the same to a god.
“I cannot say it is…impossible. But such a thing would require a special location and much preparation. What matters most is the location; no matter how prepared you are, you can do nothing without a connection to the god you mean to steal from,” the Spirit King replied.
Mira and Kagura thought about it. That sounded impossible too. After all, the only places with special connections to the Trinity were the Chambers of Revelation beneath the royal castles of the Three Great Kingdoms.
The Chambers of Revelation were the most secure places in all the continent, protected by the Three Divine Generals that even Atlantis’s Forty-Eight Nameless Generals could not overcome.
The Forty-Eight Nameless Generals were each individually as strong as Wise Men like Kagura and Mira; the fact that all forty-eight of them had lost to just three people was a famous story among players. Even a duke-tier demon—or rather, especially a demon—could not approach the Chamber of Revelation and live to tell the tale.
The only other possibility they could imagine was that someone other than Gregorius had stolen the Spirit King’s power, but the Spirit King confidently declared that Gregorius was the first to try such a thing. They were back to square one.
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