There was also another issue: if they dispatched messengers to observe Vandal, there was a risk that they would be uncovered, and he would then crush their souls. An impossible feat for a regular human, but that dhampir surely wouldn’t hesitate.
Perhaps it was a slightly smaller problem than that, but there was a strange incident that had occurred. The actual events were nothing compared to what Vandal was doing: a rogue criminal hand killed a merchant, his daughter, and the adventurers guarding them and stolen their belongings. A tragic incident, but hardly a rarity on Ramda.
“What is this man?”
The issue was the male culprit. The reports from the other gods that reached Alda told of a man named Kanata Kaito. He had a completely unknown unique skill and high-powered fire attribute magic, with hair and eyes of a color never seen in that vicinity, and around thirty years old. Furthermore, there was no record of him other than this incident. And that was precisely the thing that was so strange.
None of the gods knew of this man called Kanata or had any record of him. Regardless of how little one cared about the pantheon, everyone prayed to something at least once in their lives. Even if there was someone who had never prayed themselves, it wasn’t true for every single person around them. If they spent any time in a town or village, they would have talked to people and been seen by people. But even if that had never happened, a human always had parents. This Kanata didn’t even have that.
He had suddenly appeared, and then suddenly started committing crimes. It was a complete mystery what he had been doing until that age and how he had achieved such a high levels for his skills.
There might have been a nearby community who worshipped gods who weren’t collaborators with Alda, and Kanata came from there. It was a stretch. There was no indication of such a place. If he had come from afar and quietly crept in to conceal his movements, his sudden and blatant crime spree made no sense.
“Fitun, you seem to have some idea who this Kanata is.”
“I do, Lord Alda.” The Thunder God Fitun looked a little uncomfortable. “In fact, this one called Kanata Kaito is someone I had taken a special interest in and given special protections.”
“What? Even Curatos has no record of him.”
“Yet I profess the same. Kanata was born from a pregnant woman who was traveling to her husband’s side when monsters attacked her carriage and killed her. The monsters took the newborn away, perhaps as a snack for later, but appear to have ended up raising him to adulthood. Maybe this is why there are no records.”
If what Fitun said was true, that kind of birth would indeed leave no records, even with Curatos.
“I happened to see Kanata’s existence and took a liking to his raw talents and potential. I admit to giving him special protections, but I also fear that they eventually twisted him.”
“. . . You’re saying his strange unique skill was due to your protection?”
“Yes. I’m truly sorry.”
“Some of your own believers were among those slain.”
“Indeed. It seems that the blessings from me, and my special protection, twisted him at the very root of his being.”
“Why did you never speak of this man, even to Curatos?”
“For fear that you would oppose my protection of him. I made a foolish mistake, that much is now clear.”
Fitun continued to capably answer every question, but Alda couldn’t shake his suspicions. At the same time, no proof to the contrary was forthcoming either.
“Unfortunately, he moved away from his belief in me,” Fitun continued, “meaning I have no idea why he was discovered in the underground crypt with the remains of the Demon King.”
“Okay. Enough. Regarding the seal that was broken, we shall have to ask Neinroad.”
Neinroad was the hero who had been chosen by Shizarion, a god who had been eradicated by the Demon King. Neinroad was eventually chosen as a goddess herself and now led the wind attribute gods in place of Shizarion. The task left her even more thinly strung than Alda, but as this particular seal had been created by her, Alda had no choice but to get her involved.
“Then I shall take my leave—” Fitun gave a bow and moved to go. “Wait,” Alda interrupted. “This Kanata Kaito also had a strange name. Can we be sure he didn’t appear from another world?” Alda’s suspicions arose from the unfamiliar surname of “Kaito.”
Fitun, however, didn’t even seem to understand where the question was coming from. “Yes, we can be sure. It seems the monsters who raised him just gave him a random name. You know the kind of random clicks and grunts they make.”
“I see. Well, sorry for keeping you.”
“Not at all.”
Fitun departed, and Alda allowed himself a moment. He was overthinking all this, surely.
“Indeed, Zurwan has yet to recover,” Alda concluded. “There would be no way to summon people from other worlds. There are none among the remnants of the Demon King’s forces who possess strength to such a degree.”
If there were anyone capable of such a feat, it might be Reincarnation God Rodocolte. All he ever talked about was the need to develop Ramda, and he was also the most powerful among the gods of which Alda was aware. With this authority, it would be possible—easy, even—for him to reincarnate people from other worlds here on Ramda.
“Even if that were the case, though, everything this Kanata did was simply too foolish.”
He had killed dozens of people, pillaged, raped, and seemingly broken one of the seals on the Demon King. Nothing he did worked toward the progress that Rodocolte was always banging on about. It pushed the needle in completely the opposite direction.