Chapter 104

With one swift tug, Abbie pulled a little girl out of her shadow like she was lifting a cat by the scruff of its neck. “Seems like something tagged along with us. What do you want me to do with it?” Abbie held out the girl, who looked no older than ten. The apparent stowaway wore a white kimono over a dress with three holes in the chest. She glared at Abbie with her cheeks puffed up in obvious displeasure. “Hey. Let go of me, will you?” “It’s not like I really wanna touch you, shrimpy.” The two promptly started bickering, but Menou was in no mood to mediate. “Mayaaa?!” This girl was Maya Ooshima, the former pinky finger of Pandæmonium. Menou, who thought she’d left this girl behind in Grisarika with Sahara, let out a shriek at the sight of her. Meanwhile, in the alley where Menou battled the Executioners… A new priestess stepped onto the scene while Teach looked after the white-robes still immobilized. The young woman had a very austere appearance, her commonplace brown hair bound with string. She held a scripture in her left hand and carried a simply designed broadsword with a somewhat rounded tip on her back. Although its size was unusual, it was nonetheless an Executioner’s blade designed for beheading. Her priestess robes had been modified to allow for freer movement, and she wore an oddly eye-catching band on her left arm. It was the symbol of an Inquisitor, a member of the Faust branch charged with meting out justice. Taking in the sight of the alleyway, she narrowed one eye in vexation. “You incompetent fools.” Rather than aid the injured, she gave them a sharp glare and a short insult. “You just had to jump the gun when you learned of Flarette’s whereabouts, and this is the best you can do? Did you not even have the sense to simply watch and wait until I arrived? You so-called Executioners have an awful lot of pride for a useless bunch only good for fighting.” “Nngh…” Teach gritted her teeth at the one-sided lecture. She was a seasoned, veteran priestess and had fought and won countless battles as an Executioner, yet now she was being scolded by a girl who looked to be less than twenty. As humiliating as it was, she couldn’t argue. Her group had launched a surprise attack without permission and failed without gaining anything in the process. The Inquisitor was right: They’d jumped the gun. However, Teach had needed to prove herself useful as an Executioner, even if it meant acting without orders. “Perhaps this failure will serve to show you once and for all how useless you really are. From now on, you Executioners will be under my command.” Teach bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood at Michele’s cold words. For the past six months, Executioners had been met with nothing but cold treatment. The position of Executioner was even beginning to be dissolved, absorbed into the Inquisitors as low-level subordinates instead. At this rate, the long-secret job of Executioner would cease to exist entirely. Feeling threatened by this development, Teach had brought her few remaining pupils on a mission to take down Flarette and prove their worth. “W-wait. We didn’t lose for nothing. We found out during the battle that her goal is related to the Starhusk, and we gained information on her weapons and abilities. If we just had one more chance, I’m sure we could—” “That is not for you to decide. Nor I, of course.” Interrupting Teach’s desperate justification, Michele held out the scripture in her right hand. “Only the Lord can say.” It was true. The Lord written of in scripture was the one who guided the Faust. “All that remains for you useless Executioners to do is to join my unit and serve the Lord’s Own Army. You should be honored to serve as the Lord’s hands and feet.” “Why should we Executioners have to work together with scum like them?!” Michele’s words were so haughty that Teach couldn’t stop her outburst. Being treated as a subordinate of the Inquisitors was tolerable, if only barely. Teach wasn’t foolish enough to mess with the chain of command purely out of pride. However, she took umbrage at being added to the ranks of the so-called Lord’s Own Army. Its personnel were objectionable, to say the least. “We are still Executioners, hunters of the taboo. Members of the Faust and protectors of the people! I cannot in good conscience abide the insanity of inviting the wicked to join us!” The Lord’s Own Army had formed around the newly arrived Inquisitor Michele in the past six months, and it was made up of strange members. Setting aside that the organization was led by a girl who appeared to be in her teens, the group’s members were heretics. Supposedly, they’d been gathered to hunt taboos. That was the only way to describe the people who made up this new unit. The Lord’s Own Army issued reassignment orders that ignored the Faust’s customs, and it even hired others from outside. Some of these newcomers were even of the sort that Executioners normally eliminated. Although the ranks of the Lord’s Own Army were technically separate from the Faust for now, they already strutted around like they were superior, infuriating Teach. Michele’s expression didn’t change. “Tell me, what is taboo?” “It’s anything that causes serious harm by its mere existence!” “Incorrect. Taboo refers to anything outside of the Lord’s guidelines. Therefore, if our Lord wills it so, anyone can be made an exception.” Teach was aghast at Michele’s refusal to see reason. The two women had vastly different moral values. Normal members of the Faust believed that the Lord’s words were just a convenient way of communicating the collective will of the top brass. Yet Michele acted as though the Lord was an individual who genuinely existed. From Teach’s perspective, she seemed like a zealot with far too much blind faith. “Will you not submit and cooperate?” Michele asked. “Absolutely not! I refuse to rub shoulders with heretics and sink to the dregs of the Faust!” “I see. Then begone from my sight. You are to live out the rest of your days in obscurity in some distant church.” With this implied promise to reassign Teach, Michele turned on her heel. An Inquisitor’s authority outranked an Executioner’s. However, the flames of defiance still burned in Teach’s eyes. She glared hatefully at Michele until the young woman was out of sight.