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Slayers - Volume 15 - Chapter 2




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2: Every Time I Travel, We Meet Halfway

“A doppelgänger, eh?” Milgazia whispered with his usual stoic expression after I explained what I’d seen.

“Doppelgänger” was a word referring to the phenomenon of briefly glimpsing a double of oneself out of the corner of one’s eye, or to the double itself. Assuming the situation wasn’t some kind of heartwarming “identical twins separated at birth” deal, anyway. Some people believed the doppelgänger was a premonition of imminent death. Others thought it was some kind of shape-shifting monster. And others yet classified it as a mere figment of the imagination. Nobody really knew the truth.

The four of us—me, Gourry, Milgazia, and Mephy—were discussing the possibilities as we wandered the main avenue. It was no surprise that the local guard had come running after all the hubbub, but the incident was pretty clear-cut. We told them that Gourry had slain an attacking demon, and that was that. They had no reason to think we bore any responsibility. Fortunately, despite the other patrons’ injuries, there had been no fatalities. Unfortunately, the damage to the eatery was bad enough that we couldn’t even sit and have a calm conversation there, let alone finish our meal. Hence the decision to leave.

“While we’re on the subject, what do dragons and elves say about doppelgängers?” I asked.

“We tend to think they’re false reports or mistaken identity,” Milgazia said easily. “I’ve never heard of a dragon or elf experiencing a doppelgänger phenomenon, but we know that they occur in human societies. We believe them to be rumors stemming from differences in cultural spheres—that is, false reports—or cases of mistaken identity based on superficial resemblances.”

“So you don’t think they’re real?”

“It could be mistaken identity in your case too. Perhaps this other person simply looked a lot like you,” Mephy suggested.

“No way.” I shook my head. “There are lots of people out there, so yeah, everyone’s got a look-alike or two. But wearing the exact same bandanna and pauldrons?”

“Then...” Mephy said, looking to Gourry next. “Did you see this person? Her so-called doppelgänger?”

“No, I didn’t,” he replied flatly.

“Weeeeell?” Mephy puffed out her chest as she gave me serious side-eye. “Are you positive you weren’t just seeing things?”

Oof, that one stung... Fortunately, someone unexpected threw me a lifeline.

“We can’t say for certain, Mephy.”

“What do you mean, Uncle Milgazia?”

“Don’t you remember the incident in Dils? Dynast assumed the king’s appearance—so closely that not even those who knew him well could tell the difference.”

“Then you think this other ‘me’ is—”

“It’s possible. It could also be mistaken identity, as Mephy suggested. And even if it is a demon disguised as you, we don’t know their objective.”

“That’s true, but...”

“Either way, we should find a place to sit down,” Gourry jumped in. “We can’t just walk around all day, can we?”

“Yeah, good point.” I nodded in agreement. That demon had interrupted our lunch, after all, so I looked around to find another eatery nearby. “Well, we could all go in there.”

“Uncle and I don’t particularly require—” Mephy tried to object, but I interrupted her.

“C’mon, humor us. Besides, we need a more private place to talk.” I proceeded to half-drag them inside and pick a random table.

“You said we need a private place to talk,” Milgazia said once we sat down. “But I don’t see how further discussion of the matter will be of use.”

“Guh!” He kinda had me there.

“Indeed, I think she just wants to eat. Humans, honestly...” Mephy muttered.

“Sh-Shut up! I can’t control when I get hungry!”

As we were talking, a waitress came by. “Oh? I thought you were leaving,” she said.

...

“Miss?” she prompted me.

“Huh?” I honked stupidly. The waitress seemed to be addressing me... but I was pretty sure I’d never been to this particular eatery before. “Me?” I asked at length, pointing to myself.

She nodded. “Well, of course you. Ah, I see. Did you forget the directions I gave you? I’ll try not to overwhelm you with village names this time. How’s this? Leave the city from the north entrance and follow the road a little ways. When you reach the big fork in the road, go west... or rather, left, and you’ll reach a city called Atlas. From there, head northwest to—”

“W-Wait a minute!” I quickly put the brakes on her direction-giving.

She blinked in confusion at first, then said, “Oh... Of course. It really is too much to remember, isn’t it? How’s this, then? Leave the city from the north. When the road splits, take the left fork. Then follow that until you reach Atlas City. Once you get there, ask someone else—”

“I said wait! What are you even talking about?!”

“Why, the way to Sairaag City, of course. You asked me about it when you were here before.”

“Huh?” I bleated again. When I was here? The way to Sairaag? I already knew how to get to Sairaag, and, sorry to repeat myself, but I’d never been to this—

Hang on!

“Hey!” I stood up with a clatter and seized the waitress’s hand. “I think that was my twin sister! We were separated at birth!”

“Huh?!” My words caused not just the waitress, but also Gourry and Mephy, to gasp in surprise.

“I’ve been searching for her for years! To think I’d finally find her here... You say you saw someone who looked just like me?!”

“Er, yes. Are you... certain that wasn’t you? She was dressed just like you...”

“How long ago was it? How did she seem? She asked how to get to Sairaag, right?”

“You just missed her... Well, not quite just, but it hasn’t been long. It was around noon or so. And as for how she seemed... Calm, I’d say. She had a light meal, then asked how to get to Sairaag. She sounded like she wanted to leave as soon as possible.”

“I see...” I nodded and sat down again. “Anyway, we’d like to order some food!”

“What?! You’re not going after your sister? You could still catch her in town if you left now!”

“Nah, it’s fine. Uh, I mean, now that I know where she’s going, I can take my time. Rushing things would only cheapen the reunion. Now, about my order...”

“Er... Yes, of course.” The waitress looked a bit unsatisfied, but took our orders and withdrew into the back. While we were waiting...

“L-Lina... you have a twin sister?!”

“Don’t you go believing that stupid story, Gourry!”

“You mean you were lying?!” asked Milgazia, who had also apparently believed it. He’d remained stone-faced the whole time, so I’d assumed he was onto me.

“I had to say that to get her to drop it, okay? But this proves it! There’s someone in town who looks just like me!”

“You’re not playing some elaborate joke on us? You were the one who picked this place...” Mephy suggested.

But it was Gourry who allayed her suspicions. “There’s no way. That lady said she was calm. And that she ate a light meal. Neither sounds much like Lina, huh?”

“Very true.”

“Agreed.”

“Hang on, you guys. What exactly are you— Okay, I won’t ask what you’re implying, because I know you’ll just say ‘exactly what it sounds like,’ so I’m actually going to drop it. Moving on! I think we can all agree now that I’ve got a double around here, yes?”

“Even so, it’s an incredible coincidence that she happened to stop here...”

“I don’t think it is a coincidence,” I continued. “We can investigate after we eat, but say my double went around to every eatery in the area to ask the way to Sairaag. It’s pretty darn likely I’d end up hearing about it eventually, right? And I’ll bet they did something similar in the city where we ran into you guys, but the indiscriminate destruction wrought by a certain elf I won’t name forced us to skip town in a hurry—”

“Excuse me! I object to that phrasing!”

“So the question is... Who did it, and why?”

“Don’t just ignore me!”

“The answer is simple. This is an invitation from the demons—to Sairaag City.”

At that, Mephy fell silent.

“True... That does seem to be the most logical conclusion,” Milgazia whispered, waiting until the waitress served a salad and left. “But then what’s going on in Sairaag?”

The best way I can think of to describe Sairaag City is to say that it was fighting Gyria City for the title of “world’s unluckiest town.” About a hundred years ago, it had been torched by the demon beast Zanaffar, a mutant version of a kind of living magical armor that humans had carelessly tried to replicate. Then after finally crawling its way back to life, the city was destroyed again two years ago by a wannabe sage gone mad. Then Hellmaster set up a home base in the ruins, and the Lord of Nightmares paid a little visit, and...

Okay, I take it back. Gyria had nothing on Sairaag. Gyria has seen its share of court intrigue, but the city itself had only burned down once. I mean, not that anyone’s keeping score, but that was small potatoes by comparison!

And on top of all that, it now smelled like the demons were plotting something new in Sairaag. The place was basically an ongoing misfortune expo. Seriously, word to the wise for anyone who might think about living there? Don’t.

Now, Sairaag’s woebegone backstory aside...

“The city’s gotta be rife with negative energy after everything it’s been through. Maybe the demons find it easy to use,” I proposed, reaching for my veggies.

“That is possible,” Milgazia agreed stoically. “We’re aware that a number of terrible tragedies have befallen the city recently. I’ve always wondered what the cause could be.”

Erk. Well, other than the Zanaffar thing a century ago, all of said tragedies had involved me and Gourry... but I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring that up. I mean, it’s not like they were our fault! The wannabe sage and the nasty demon dudes started it all! Gourry and I were victims!

“Th-The question remains, what do the demons want?” I said, swallowing my lettuce and trying to change the subject.

But Milgazia continued to peer at me, stone-faced. “We’ll find that out when we get there.”

“Yeah, maybe, but... Hey, hang on a minute! You make it sound like we’re definitely going!”

“What?!” Milgazia’s eyebrow inched upward. “Don’t tell me you don’t intend to go, human girl!”

“You bet your butt I don’t! This is an obvious trap, with no incentive to walk into it to boot! Why should I go just because they want me to, huh?!” I said, swishing my knife around for emphasis.

But Milgazia was persistent. “Is that so? Can you really be certain that this is wholly unrelated to the incident in the restaurant earlier?”

“Huh?”

“The attack from the demon resembling a dead tree. Perhaps it was mere coincidence that it happened to join us at that restaurant... But the second demon that appeared demonstrated curious behavior as well. It seemed as though it was trying to thwart the dead tree demon. They weren’t allies, but they also weren’t enemies. If they were, then rather than simply interfering, the red demon would have attacked the dead tree demon. But the red demon certainly wasn’t there to protect the people in general either. It was more like...” He cast a glance in Gourry’s direction. “Like it was there to protect him.”

“Yeah... I read no hostility from him at all,” Gourry mused, pushing his green pepper rings to the side of his plate before wrapping some chopped sausage in lettuce and sticking it in his mouth.

“One demon attacked you. One demon protected you. And now demons are attempting to lure you to Sairaag... Yet you truly believe it’s all unconnected?”

“W-Well, when you put it that way... Yeah, I guess not.”

“If these two situations are related, then forgoing a visit to Sairaag may incite the demons to attempt a more coercive invitation. Moreover, with this information in mind, Mephy and I will be going to Sairaag ourselves. I suspect there’s a connection between this and the recent mass demon spawnings, and while there’s no guarantee that we’ll learn what we need to know in Sairaag, it’s our only lead. Will you go with us, even knowing it’s a trap? Or will you part ways with us here and follow your own path? If you choose the latter, be aware that the demons will likely invent a reason to make you go. The simplest route would be to take a hostage, which would put you at a greater disadvantage with no real upside. I think, then, that you’d agree there’s only one reasonable choice.”

“Umm. Nghmmm...” I shoveled some salad into my mouth while I mulled that one over.

The dragon elder had a point. Hellmaster had done exactly that before, in fact, when he kidnapped Gourry to force my hand. If I decided out of stubbornness not to go to Sairaag, the demons might get angry enough to try something similar. I didn’t want to deal with that again. Besides, there was one benefit to taking the initiative and going to Sairaag now—we’d have Milgazia and Mephy.

I’d first caught sight of my double before we ran into them, see, and the demon that had attacked us at the eatery hadn’t had a human form... suggesting it wasn’t particularly powerful as pure demons went. It stood to reason that the demons weren’t any the wiser about Milgazia and Mephy. If they knew what they were up against, they would’ve sent someone a little more powerful. They’d catch on eventually, but for now, this arrangement was quite advantageous for us.

So, like Milgazia said, the choice was obvious. I sighed. “Fine, I’ll go. Just get off my back already...” I said with an air of annoyance as I stuck my knife into my ground sausage.

The strange weather phenomena gradually seemed to be dying down. The demonic activity, however... Far from lessening, it was getting worse by the day. We’d had a few run-ins with demidemons on the road already.

In towns along the way, we heard rumors of other countries getting serious in their response to the threat. Some said the Elemekia Empire was sending out their Gungnir Knights to slay demons. Others said Saillune was forming a hunting party led by a woman of the royal family. Some people even said that Zephilia was dispatching the Eternal Queen’s special forces and the Knight of Ceifeed.

Though if the Knight of Ceifeed really is taking action, this is probably well in hand without me doing anything... Unfortunately, we had no way of knowing if any of it was true. Talk is cheap, after all.

So, setting all that aside, we eventually ended up in Atlas City.

“Doesn’t this place seem... a little less populated than the last time we were here?” Gourry asked, craning his neck in every direction.

“It does,” I replied casually enough. After all, there had been attacks in this part of the world too. “You saw it when we came in, right? Part of the outer wall was wrecked. And people were talking in the village we left this morning about demons hitting Atlas City not too long ago.”

Gourry thought for a minute, then said, “Oh! I do remember hearing that.”

“Wow, you remembered something for once?”

“It was when I accidentally put a piece of green pepper in my mouth.”

So that’s what made it stick, huh?

Thankfully, the damage to the city had been minimal, but it was clear from the vibe in town that the attack had put the locals on edge.

Gourry and I had been to Atlas before, and during our last visit, the streets had been packed with market stalls. These were few and far between now. Most vendors came from nearby villages to sell their wares, but with demons roaming the lands these days, not many people were brave enough to travel. The reduced market meant reduced traffic, leaving the city as a whole somewhat desolate.

I looked around the tense streets, and my eyes fell on a familiar face across the way. She noticed me too and stopped... then started walking toward us.

“Mistress Lina. Master Gourry,” she called. Her hair, the color of sunset, rustled in the breeze. Her features were as delicate as ever, but there was no longer sorrow in her eyes.

I spoke up, timidly, but with a smile nonetheless. “It’s been a while. How are you doing, Rubia?”

Rubia’s place was in a quiet area on the far side of town. Her house... Or maybe you should call it a shop? Her small flower shop sat in the middle of an open lot. She’d explained on the way over that the sorcerer she’d once served had left it to her upon his passing.

Thinking back on how Gourry and I had met Rubia... Frankly, I wasn’t entirely sure how to interact with her. But she didn’t seem to share my awkwardness and had warmly invited us over as acquaintances.

“Come on in,” she said.

We stepped into the shop full of greenery and flowers in all colors. She offered us some aromatic tea, the smell of which wafted through the place.

“Thanks,” I said as I took a sip, allowing its unique flavor to fill my mouth. It was an especially fragrant tea. The sort that always kinda reminded me of medicine. And yet... “Wow, this is delicious,” I found myself whispering. With milk and sugar added, the tea’s aroma, creaminess, and sweetness achieved a perfect balance. A girl could get used to tea like that.

“Indeed, it’s quite fine.” Was it the tea or the greenery that had mellowed Mephy out? Either way, she graced Rubia with a rare compliment.

“I’m glad you like it,” Rubia replied with a smile.

“You have so many kinds of flowers,” Mephy continued. “Potted as well. You tend them well, for a human.” Naturally, as an elf, she could assess the condition of the flowers in the shop at a glance. I wished she’d give the same level of attention to anything else, of course...

“Thank you. I raised them all myself,” said Rubia.

“Alone?” I found myself asking.

“Yes,” she replied like it was nothing.

“Isn’t that hard?”

“Oh... I’m used to it. I used to cultivate herbs, after all,” she said.

Ah. That explains it.

When most people think of a sorcerer, they picture some jerk chucking spells around willy-nilly, blasting away bad guys and monsters. But that’s actually a misunderstanding.

...

Yes, I know that’s not convincing coming from me, but I’m telling you, it’s a misunderstanding!

Ahem. When we speak of magic, we speak of powers that don’t normally exist in this world. Sorcery is the art of drawing on those otherworldly powers through various methods for our own purposes. And a sorcerer is a person who practices that art.

In other words, any fool could memorize a simple spell like Lighting, speak the chant, and cast it. But that doesn’t make them a sorcerer. A bona fide sorcerer has a vast mental library of knowledge and the ability to piece together seemingly unrelated phenomena based on it. Wisdom, you could say.

Plants and herbs play a very important role in the rituals and research that entails. But when you need a particular variety, there’s nothing more irritating than having to trawl around some mountainside who-knows-where, so most sorcerers cultivate their own collection. That way, you can pick them when you need them, and if you have extras, you can preserve them and sell them to a magic shop for good coin. Two birds with one stone.

So as a former sorcerer’s assistant, there was nothing unusual about Rubia having experience with plants.

“Even so... It’s impressive you do all this by yourself,” I said sincerely.

She blushed. “Well, this is really nothing compared to raising a delicate mandragora...”

The mandragora, with its deadly scream... Yeah, not particularly romantic, that one.

“But...” Mephy looked around her and frowned. “I see flowers here that aren’t in season.”

“Oh, I have a greenhouse,” Rubia said casually.

“A greenhouse?!” I unwittingly shouted.

“What’s that?” Gourry asked.

I didn’t fault him for his ignorance there. I was only in the know because I’d read about greenhouses in scrolls and heard talk here and there.

“It’s a house made of transparent glass for cultivating plants. You can regulate the temperature within to grow things out of season.”

“A house... made of glass?!” Gourry parroted in surprise.

I couldn’t blame him. The only glass we’d ever seen was the stained glass of churches. To create large transparent panes required a skilled artisan, and they were accordingly quite pricey. Moreover, glass was fragile. To build a whole house out of it for growing plants... I frankly couldn’t imagine anyone pulling it off. A single neighborhood brat with a stone-throwing habit could do a lot of damage awfully fast, and maintaining a consistent temperature inside had to be a labor-intensive process.

Easy to break, time-consuming... Most people, let alone sorcerers, wouldn’t have the time to make a greenhouse just for growing things. The sorcerer Rubia used to serve had an out-of-the-way location, let’s say, and an assistant to tend to it in his place. But even so...

“Do you really have one, Rubia?!” I shouted.

“Er... you don’t have to sound so surprised. Why would I lie?”

“Well, I thought it might be some kind of scam. ‘You, too, can be an owner of a greenhouse!’ Or something like that.”

“I would never do anything so foolish. Would you like to see it?” she offered.

“Yes! Please!” I immediately agreed.

“I wanna see it too!” Gourry followed suit.

While we were getting fired up, Milgazia and Mephy sighed and sipped their tea soberly.

“Shall we join them, Uncle Milgazia?”

“I suppose, although I don’t understand it at all...”

“This is... This is it...” It stood there in Rubia’s back garden, glittering nobly under the Atlas City sun. “The legendary greenhouse!”

“‘Legendary’?”

I say “back garden,” but her property was actually a rather large parcel surrounded by trees in the middle of farmland. Various flowers and herbs grew all around. I wondered if the trees bore some kind of medicinal fruits as well.

And there it was in the center of the yard...

About the size of a shed! With metal rods running horizontally and vertically! And see-through glass set between them! A true crystal castle of nature! Okay, that’s a little much! But indeed, it really was a greenhouse!

Gourry and I peppered Rubia with questions.

“Hey! Can I get close? Can I get close?”

“Can I keep breathing even after I get close?!”

“Yes, of course you may...” Rubia replied with a strained smile.

We carefully approached the structure.

“Hey... Hey, can I touch it?!” Gourry asked excitedly.


“Oh, please! I don’t need permission to touch it! Take this!” I declared, raising my hand to the glass.

“Aha! Me too!” Gourry did the same.

“Heh heh heh. You went and touched it, Gourry...”

“Y-You did too, Lina!”

“Fool! I’m wearing gloves!”

“So am I... Wait, ah! Mine’re fingerless gloves! You tricked me!”

“Gwahahaha! You fell for it, Gourry! But you have no one to blame but yourself! You touched the greenhouse bare-fingered without permission! Now you’ll pay the price!”

“Er, excuse me, you two...” While Gourry and I were having our fun, Rubia spoke up from behind us, consternated. “It’s not a haunted house and it isn’t going to curse you, so please don’t look so afraid, Master Gourry. But I’m thrilled you’re so excited about it. Would you like to step inside?”

At this, me and the trembling Gourry leaned forward, our eyes shining. “Can we?! We don’t need to pay an entrance fee?!”

“Of course not.”

“And we won’t be cursed if we go in?!”

“Of course not.”

“Woo-hoo!” Gourry and I let out a whoop.

“Er... what are they so happy about, Uncle Milgazia?”

“I truly do not understand humans.”

Ignoring the party poopers’ cool reception vis-à-vis this marvel of technology, Gourry and I followed Rubia inside.

“Waaah! There’s herbs growing in here! Herbs!”

“Well, yes, that’s what it’s for.”

“Waaah! There’s a stone pillar in the center!”

“Yes. When it gets cold, I heat the stone, which keeps the greenhouse warm for an extended period of time.”

“Heh heh! Just being grown here gives these flowers a particular nobility! Look at this! How elegantly the leaves curve on this one!”

“Mistress Lina, that’s a weed.”

“Amazing! There’s a tree in here too! Even though it’s dead!” Gourry remarked.

“A tree? I don’t grow trees here...” Rubia frowned, apparently ignorant of the presence of a dead tree in the greenhouse—

Wait... A dead tree?!

“Rubia! Run!”

“What?” Rubia whispered in confusion.

Just then, Gourry, who seemed to have picked up on what was happening, dove in, swept her up, and dashed for the greenhouse door! There was a roar through the air, followed by the sound of something hard breaking. As I took off after Gourry and Rubia, I saw the stone pillar at the center of the greenhouse shatter out of the corner of my eye. And appearing from behind it...

“What’s wrong?!”

“What’s going on?!”

“A demon!” I howled at the shocked Milgazia and Mephy as they came running up to me, then looked back at the greenhouse. “It’s the dead tree one that attacked us before! Be careful!”

The door to the greenhouse was wide open. The stone pillar inside was broken. But... there was no sign of the dead tree demon.

“Where is it?” Mephy asked with a frown.

“It was there! I swear!” I said, my eyes fixed on the glass shed.

“Wh... What was that?!” Rubia asked fearfully.

“A demon! Get to safety!” I replied.

“Get to safety? Where?”

I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to tell her. There really wasn’t anywhere safe when dealing with a pure demon, and leaving the group might just make her more vulnerable. “Okay, just be careful!”

The instant those words left my mouth, I felt a presence appear beside me. I turned to see the ground swell up before assuming the shape of the dead tree demon. And as it took form...

Slash! Gourry wasn’t about to let it make the first move. He closed in in the blink of an eye and cut it down. Still, I knew we couldn’t relax yet. And just as expected...

“Behind you!” Mephy cried.

Rubia and I leaped to the side in time to let arrows the color of the dead wood fly past, stick into the ground, and regenerate into a tree demon! I looked in the direction the arrows had come from... and saw another dead tree demon standing there.

“What’s going on here?!” Gourry asked in a panic.

“Calm down!” I called in response. “This is probably like the Red and Gray demons we fought at Dragons’ Peak! They’re two in one, so if you only defeat half, the other half regrows it!”

“It sounds like we’ll need to attack both at once, then!” Milgazia declared, stepping forward.

“Exactly! So get to it, if you please!”

“I shall!” Milgazia swept out his hands, pointing one at each of the demons, then let out an earth-shaking howl.

Clearly realizing the danger they were in, the two demons began to sink into the ground... then rose back up again!

“You won’t escape us!” Mephy proclaimed as her white armor expanded behind her like wings and released a howl of its own. The tree demons trying to escape into the ground—rather, into the astral plane—had been dragged back into ours by her armor’s power.

Vrrroosh! Beams of light flew from Milgazia’s hands and shattered the dead trees. Well... one of them, anyway.

We all gasped. Milgazia’s second blast was blocked right before it landed... not by the tree demon, but by the hand of a young man who hadn’t been there just a moment ago.

Dude looked about Gourry’s age, with an unremarkable face, dusty blond hair, and an unassuming gaze. He was tall and lanky, and didn’t seem particularly tough. But needless to say, I wasn’t judging this book by its cover! He’d appeared out of nowhere, after all, and stopped Milgazia’s strike—strong enough to obliterate a pure demon—with a single hand.

“Isn’t this a florist’s? That’s no good... A florist shouldn’t be mean to trees,” he said airily, turning his gaze on Milgazia and Mephy. “Ah, but you have a dragon and an elf too? This is the first I’ve heard of that. Aha... you’re using that ugly armor to mask your presence. That’s not playing fair, is it?”

“U-Ugly?!” Mephy shouted, clearly unhappy about hearing the straight-up truth. But of course, she wasn’t careless enough to leave herself vulnerable. She was keenly aware that even though this dude looked like a young man, he was unmistakably a powerful demon. Sufficiently powerful pure demons could appear human, after all.

“Plants are things to be treasured. We should all put a little more green in the world.” With that nonsense, he raised his hand, in which... Was it a chestnut? Something to that effect appeared in his palm. “See? Like this.”

He tossed it and it landed with a hard sound, splitting open to reveal the fruit inside. Grmmm... The fruit grew to the size of a human head, and from it, dozens upon dozens of insect legs sprouted, drawing it up to human height! The headless spider—frankly, calling it that feels like an insult to spiders—looked like a pulsing green brain mounted on top of countless twisted legs.

The husk from which the “fruit” had come underwent its own transformation. It grew instantly, swelled, and took the shape of a humanoid stack of bones. If you think I’m describing a skeleton, you’re dead wrong. I wish it had been a skeleton. No, I’m being literal. It genuinely looked like some kind of bones—not sure what kind they were, but definitely not of this world—big and small, lumped together haphazardly in a vaguely humanoid shape. Some kind of green fluid leaked from the seams where the bones knitted together.

Needless to say, these things were also demons. I didn’t think they’d actually come out of the chestnut, mind you. That was just the signal for them to appear from wherever they’d been hiding.

“Well, they are both green... But I’d rather not see any more of that put into this world.”

“Oh, please. Don’t be like that. The cute little green one is Vaidaz. And the beautiful green one is Gwon. Oh... They’re both green. Is that confusing?”

“No need to clarify. They’re both second-rate demons we’re gonna crush in seconds.”

“How cruel. I, Bradu, consider them both my precious friends. And it’s not nice to judge others by their appearances, no sir. People who aren’t nice deserve death. Yes, then it’s decided.”

And with that invitation—from Bradu, apparently—the demons sprang into action!

“Skree!” With a strange cry emanating from who-the-heck-knows-where, the brainbug demon readied its legs to scuttle forward. By the way, just FYI, I’m not even gonna try to learn these things’ names!

I chanted a spell under my breath as Gourry ran over and moved to protect me.

“Not so fast!” Milgazia fired a magic ball of light. But before it could reach the brainbug...

“I told you to be kind to plants, didn’t I?” Bradu leaped forward from the sidelines and, with a flicking motion, released an energy ball that intercepted Milgazia’s blast midflight!

What followed was a rush of air and a flash. The shock wave shattered the glass of the nearby greenhouse and stopped us all in our tracks.

Noooooooo! The greenhouse! ...Okay, right, priorities!

A dark figure charged through the flash!

“Hold it right there!” Vwee! Mephy’s armor shot out light and reduced the incoming foe to sparks! It was one of the dead tree demons.

A decoy?! I thought, but in that same instant, the bone demon appeared right next to me!

“Gotcha!” Gourry moved immediately, his sword gleaming as he swung. When the strike connected, the bone demon’s body exploded! Green fluid gushed out, and...

Oh, crap!

I realized it instinctively with no basis or reason. The bone demon’s weapon wasn’t spells or brute strength... It was this fluid! The demon had ridden the shock wave toward us in pieces, then reconstituted at my side and let Gourry smash it in order to rain down a shower of the stuff at point-blank range.

The moment seemed to last forever. The green liquid filled my entire field of vision. And then—Whoosh!—the spray changed direction abruptly and spattered on the ground beside me.

Bluuurshbrrrb... The ground covered in the stuff began to smoke with an eerie noise.

It worked just like I’d feared. I figured Milgazia or Mephy must have twigged the danger and saved my hide, but...

“What?!” As the last of the light faded, Bradu let out a noise of surprise, but he wasn’t looking at us. I reflexively glanced in the direction he was staring and...

Gweh?! I retreated a half step.

The red figure moved a long distance in a flash and grabbed onto the reconstituting bone demon. An inhuman scream rang out. I heard a hard cracking noise.

Greeeeyaaah! It was the death rattle of the bone demon breaking apart...

“Gwon!” Bradu cried, but there was nothing left to respond to him.

The bone demon had been turned into dust and scattered by the red figure’s sinewy hand. It seemed he was the one who’d stopped the fluid attack, not Milgazia or Mephy.

Sheesh, this guy’s still hard to look at. But first at the restaurant, and now this? What in the world...?

Bradu remained as unassuming as ever, even as he turned a hateful glare on the muscly demon. “You traitor!”

“I could say the same to you,” the red guy responded, glaring back.

“What’s going on here?” Milgazia asked.

“How should I know?” I quipped instinctively.

“I see... It’s a question of which one you serve, then,” remarked Bradu.

“Exactly,” said the red demon.

“Hey! Someone wanna clue me in?!” I shouted, interrupting the exchange. The muscly demon seemed like he was on our side for now, so I thought he might be willing to explain, but...

“I don’t have to explain anything to a mere human,” he spat, clear hatred in his voice.

Well, that confirms that... We aren’t enemies at the moment, but we sure as heck aren’t allies either.

“Have it your way... But I still intend to see this through, and if you try to stop me, I’ll destroy you too. No more, no less,” Bradu declared. The brainbug demon and two tree demons stepped forward again, and...

Twitch!

I felt a shudder run through me. My legs went numb. What... What’s going on here?! I fell to my knees, completely baffled, then looked around and saw Gourry, Rubia, and Mephy in a similar state. Milgazia was still standing, although just barely. His legs were trembling. We’d definitely been hit by an attack of some kind, but I wasn’t sure what it was!

The muscly demon, seemingly unaffected, ran at the swaying brainbug! When he did—Vwip!—a brown lance thrust out of the ground and impaled him.

“Graaaah!” As the red guy let out a scream, the piercing lance split into a multitude of branches inside of him. That was it. He broke into pieces, turned into white ash in midair, and disappeared on the wind. All without giving us a single bit of information.

The branches of the lance then twisted together... And morphed into the form of a dead tree demon!

A third?! I thought they were a double act! Based on the red guy’s priorities, I could infer that the unknown attack had come from the brainbug. But even with that knowledge, there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Yet just as I was thinking that—Vwumm!—Mephy’s armor opened like wings and released a low hum. As it did, the limpness in my body vanished like a bad dream.

“Hraaaagh!” With a howl that shook the air around him, Milgazia conjured a pale blue ball of magic and threw it at the brainbug!

The light scorched the air around it, evaporated a few of the eerie creature’s legs... and then suddenly stopped midair.

“Goodness me... I finally find you, and what do we have here?” As the new arrival spoke, the orb contracted and absorbed into his hand without a trace. “Picking yet another fight, I see. But then, I suppose that’s just who you are...”

“Bwuh...?” I whispered hoarsely.

“You...” Milgazia did the same.

It was Gourry who spoke his name. “Xellos!”

Priest of the Beast, Xellos... Indeed, we knew this guy.

That smile, totally inappropriate to the situation. Those black robes. At first glance, he looked like the kind of mysterious priest every family has one or two of. But there was more to this guy than met the eye.

He was the personal retainer of Greater Beast Zellas Metallium, one of the Dark Lord’s five lieutenants. He was also the demon who’d single-handedly destroyed a dragon army a thousand years ago in the Incarnation War. He was probably one of the strongest demons out there, bar the Dark Lord and his lieutenants. And... yeah, you could say Gourry and I had a history with him.

“Don’t engage, Mephy,” Milgazia said softly.

“What?” Mephy asked. She didn’t know anything about Xellos.

“Ah, well, well... I see. Hah hah hah.” At Xellos’s appearance, Bradu let out a knowing chuckle. “It seems the battle’s over, then... Or is it?!”

With that, he launched his orbs of light at us! But—Bwoosh!—a swing of Xellos’s staff dispersed them en route.

“What?!”

“Don’t get the wrong idea, Master Bradu.” Xellos walked forward unceremoniously and placed a friendly hand on the dead tree demon, his gaze focused on Bradu. “The truth is, I empathize with the bat from the old story...”

At this, Bradu fell silent. I mean, this was pretty typical Xellos, if we’re being honest...

“In other words, I’m a neutral party. Though, speaking as an individual... Ah, but never mind that.”

“When we last parted ways, you suggested we’d be enemies the next time we crossed paths,” I spoke up in place of the silenced Bradu.

Xellos looked at us. “Well, it’s in the nature of circumstances to change, isn’t it? Also... I wouldn’t say we’re exactly on the same side either,” he admitted bluntly.

“I see. And? What are you plotting this time? What’s going on in Sairaag?”

“That’s—”

“Don’t say ‘a secret’! Tell us. This is a trade!”

“A trade?!” Xellos’s eyebrow sprang up as if I’d made fun of him. “Now, now... Miss Lina, I don’t think you have a single thing to trade with me!”

“Don’t play dumb with me! Remember that restaurant back when we arrived in Gyria City? You didn’t have enough change, so I lent you two coppers! You owe me, man!”

“E-Excuse me! You still remember that?!”

“Wait a minute... That means you remember it too! And if you remember it, then not paying your dues would be the lowest of the low! Or is that just how Greater Beast’s servants roll?!”

“Well, it was such a little thing... I don’t know why you feel the need to resort to threats. Or to bring Lord Greater Beast’s name into it.” He scratched at his cheek, looking genuinely troubled.

And during all this, Bradu had remained perfectly still. More precisely... he felt he had no choice but to remain still, I’ll bet. Anyone who knew Xellos’s power would be smart to lie low until they knew what his game was.

“Well... we’ll discuss the matter of the coppers later,” Xellos said. He then turned his gaze back to Bradu. “If I might be so bold, Master Bradu, I believe it’s very silly for demons to kill each other over something as trivial as this.”

“Trivial?!” Hostility appeared in Bradu’s eyes in response to Xellos’s casual statement.

“Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m referring to the lives of a few humans. Although we occupy slightly different positions right now, you’re still a demon. Besides, we’ve had a rather bad run of it lately. We really shouldn’t fight and risk one of us dying. So... I was wondering if you might withdraw for now, out of respect for me?”

Bradu stared darkly into Xellos’s eyes for a time. I guess he realized he didn’t stand a chance, because he, the dead tree demon, and the brainbug all vanished into thin air at once. He was apparently backing off... For the time being, at least.

“Let’s see now... Oh?” Once Bradu was gone, Xellos looked around. His eyes fell on the busted greenhouse, as if noticing it for the first time. “Isn’t that a rare sight? A greenhouse, I believe. But... Goodness. So many broken panes. I suppose it happened when they attacked you, didn’t it? Which means this is on you, Miss Lina. Each pane is so expensive, and the plants inside will suffer until they’re replaced. What a tragic loss!”

“Hey... What are you getting at, Xellos?”

“Why, nothing at all!” he replied, looking at me with his trademark unflappable smile. “But if I repair the greenhouse, wouldn’t you say that repays the two-copper debt I owe you?”

“You’ll repair it?” Two coppers wouldn’t even cover the cost of fixing a single bar of the frame. But the idea of Xellos repairing the greenhouse gave me the delightful mental image of him dressed like a carpenter, swinging around a hammer. “Okay. Go ahead, then,” I replied without a second thought.

“Very well. In that case...” Xellos swung his staff. Instantly, the fallen shards of glass lit up, floated into the air, and began to reassemble in their empty frames.

Then came a burst of orange light, and when it receded, the greenhouse was restored without so much as a crack to show for the damage it had suffered. In fact, it looked even more transparent and well crafted than before.

Curse you, Xellos! I wanted to see you dressed as a carpenter!

“It... It can’t be,” Mephy breathed. “Extracting just the glass components from a particular area and reassembling them in the desired form... It’s theoretically possible, but to do it so quickly... Instantly!” she muttered to herself.

Well, it was obvious even to me that what Xellos had done was pretty impressive. Was he saying such a feat was only worth two coppers to him?

“Indeed... It would be rather difficult for you to replicate that, wouldn’t it?” Xellos said, smiling at Mephy. There was no braggadocio or sarcasm in his tone. He sounded like he was simply stating a fact.

“Who are you?” Mephy replied in a strained whisper.

“I’m sure you’ve heard his name, Mephy. This is Xellos,” Milgazia reminded her.

At this, she was silent for a moment. She then gasped, “The Dragon Slayer of the Incarnation War?!”

Xellos merely clicked his tongue and wagged his finger. “That title’s a bit too audacious for me. I much prefer being called ‘the mysterious priest’ or ‘that unknown but agreeable young man.’”

“How about ‘cockroach-cloak’? Or maybe ‘messenger demon’?” I snarked.

“Miss Linaaa...” He glared at me in response.

“But...” Milgazia began. He was watching Xellos carefully and closely. “You said you ‘finally found’ someone, and your involvement suggests some kind of grand plan in the works. What are you after, messenger demon?”

Dang, the dragon actually went there!

“Please don’t call me that! It’s Xellos! X-E-L-L-O-S!” he protested with a rare raising of his voice. He then looked back at me. “Now that I’ve repaired the greenhouse, my debt to you is fulfilled. And so, our larger plans must remain...” He raised a finger to his lips.

“A secret?” Gourry asked casually a second before Xellos could finish.

The Priest’s mouth went agape, and he looked for a moment like he was about to cry. “You’re terrible, Master Gourry!” he said at last in the tone of a pouting child, then disappeared into thin air.

Only silence was left in his wake.

“Well... he’s...” Mephy said timidly after a spell. “He’s not exactly what I’d imagined.”

“That’s what makes him terrifying,” I said, my tone sharp. “He’s the type to cut off someone’s head with a grand ol’ smile.”

It took a while before I finally wiped off the cold sweat forming on my brow.



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