I told everyone present that I wanted to search for a solution where no one had to be sacrificed, instead of taking either side.
There are seven people here: Katia, Fei, Sue, Yuri, Elder Ronandt, Natsume, and me.
I’m well aware that it’s absurd to try to change the fate of the world with only seven people.
But I also know that Julius wouldn’t have given up even in this hopeless situation.
So I won’t give up, either.
I may as well struggle until the very last, even if it’s in vain.
My strength is probably less than what Wakaba and her people have in one pinky finger.
But since it can’t do any harm, I’ll give it a shot anyway.
I’d rather tackle things head-on and fall than give up without even trying.
“Yeah, sure, but what are you gonna do exactly?”
While I’m brimming with determination, Natsume shoots me a bored-sounding question.
The others all agreed with me, except for him, the only person who doesn’t seem motivated to try.
He didn’t refuse either, though, so I assumed it was a passive agreement.
Ever since he woke up after the battle in the elf village, Natsume has barely even shown any signs of life.
Maybe that’s to be expected when you consider he just found out he’d been brainwashed and working as a pawn for Wakaba’s side.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I forgive him for what he did.
But it doesn’t seem like he expects to be forgiven, either. He told us to use the rest of his life to make him atone as we see fit, like he doesn’t even have the will to live for himself anymore.
As much as it bothers me that he also doesn’t seem all that motivated to take his atonement into his own hands, I may as well make him go along with all this, at the very least.
“Well, we don’t know nearly enough about what’s going on to form a plan. I think we need to start by gathering information before we do anything else.”
Everything we’ve learned so far, both from Taboo and from Wakaba and company, is brand-new to all of us.
Even if we take for granted that it’s all true—we’d never get anywhere if we doubted any of it at this point—I think we should still try to get more details from the people in the know.
“And so, Elder Ronandt, I’d like to return to the elf village for a while. Would you be willing to help with that?”
“But of course. Why, I’ll take ye anywhere ye’d like, as long as I’ve been there before.”
Ronandt flashes a confident grin.
It’s no wonder people call him humanity’s strongest mage.
He’s got a very powerful presence.
I certainly feel better knowing that we have an authority on Spatial Magic here, and that he’s willing to help us.
Without his teleportation prowess, all we’d be able to do is wander around lost in this unknown location.
That was probably what Wakaba was hoping for, but Elder Ronandt’s arrival solves that problem.
From what I understand, Elder Ronandt had never been here, either. Nonetheless, he was able to get here by way of the connection between me and Fei, with whom I made a familiar contract.
Clearly it went well, even though it was apparently his first time attempting such a thing.
When he told me all this, I couldn’t help but feel it was an unbelievable stroke of good luck.
The pieces fell into place for my rescue just in time, as if it was meant to be that way all along.
It’s almost too good to be true, in fact.
I do actually have one theory about all this.
My unique skill, Divine Protection.
The effect of Divine Protection is fairly vague: It makes it easier for me to gain the results you desire in any situation.
And since it’s not the sort of thing you can visibly confirm, there’s no way of knowing how much of all this is a result of the skill.
Personally, I’ve never once felt an unmistakable blessing at work from this skill.
So I always assumed it just meant that my luck was slightly improved.
But now, with things seemingly laid out in my favor right in front of my eyes, I’m starting to wonder if maybe this skill has a more dramatic effect than I realized.
And if my hunch is right, then I have a faint idea of why Wakaba would have gone out of her way to send me to this isolated place.
Maybe she saw me as too much of an unpredictable variable?
I have a powerful meta ability against the Demon Lord because I’m the Hero, and on top of that, I possess the wild card known as Divine Protection.
From Wakaba’s point of view, it would make sense to want to remove me from play entirely.
I don’t know for sure if that’s really the reason, but I’m willing to bet it’s not far off.
I need to find that out for sure, among other things.
Elder Ronandt completed his long-distance teleport spell while I was lost in thought, and now we’re back in the elf village.
Except…
“Nobody seems to be here…”
Katia’s murmured observation is right: The place is completely deserted.
“Nope, no good. I checked from up above, and there’s nooobody here as far as I can see.”
Fei comes flying down in dragon form with the same results.
“There were so many people here before. How did they all leave in such a short amount of time…?”
I knew the elves had been wiped out, but there should still have been the remnants of the imperial army and the demon army.
How in the world had several troops’ worth of people gotten so far away so quickly that Fei couldn’t find a trace of them?
“Well, there’s no point wondering about it. It’s the ends that matter, not the means, eh? And since it ends up that no one’s here, we’ll just have to choose our next actions accordingly.”
Elder Ronandt is right.
I can’t just stand here thinking about how they moved so many people.
While I’m worried about the safety of the people who are now out of reach, like Anna and Hyrince, it won’t do them any good to keep thinking about it.
Instead of trying to figure out a question to which I’ll never find the answer, it’s more important to focus on what we should do now.
“Should we go after them?”
As soon as I muttered it out loud, I realized it wasn’t realistic.
“We haven’t the slightest idea where they went. And since we don’t know how they’re traveling, there’s no telling if we could even catch up to them at all.”
As if to confirm my instinct, Katia points out the problems with this idea.
We wouldn’t even know which direction they went in, and if they used teleportation or something like it, we’d be even less likely to find them at all.
And the longer we dawdle, the further the situation slips out of our control.
There’s no time to waste.
“But in that case, what should we do instead…?”
My first instinct, asking Wakaba and the others for more information, was a bust.
Since the only plan was to figure things out once we had more information, not being able to get that information at all leaves us at a standstill.
“If you wish for information, surely there is one other with knowledge of the situation.”
My eyes widen at Elder Ronandt’s remark.
“The Word of God Pontiff.”
The head of the faction opposing Wakaba and her side.
He certainly would be likely to know more than we do.
After all, he’s the one who falsely presented Natsume as the new hero to the world.
That means he clearly has some connection to Wakaba, who was manipulating Natsume.
I don’t know how much information they shared, nor how they ultimately wound up parting ways to lead opposite sides.
But that’s just one more question I could ask him myself.
“I can bring us to the Holy Kingdom of Alleius if you’d like. Shall we go?”
“Yes, please. Thank you.”
I nod firmly at Elder Ronandt.
There’s no telling whether he’ll talk to us if we show up uninvited.
But the fact is, I don’t have any other leads.
Why waste time worrying about it when you can just take action, right?
Elder Ronandt’s long-distance teleportation activates once more.
The scenery changes in front of us to the interior of a dome-shaped building.
At our feet is something that appears to be a teleport gate.
“Where are we?”
“The Holy Kingdom of Alleius has teleport gates that connect to every nation in the world. This is the gate that connects to the empire. That is how I arrived when I first came here, you see.”
As he speaks, some soldiers on guard (I think?) come running up to us.
“I am Ronandt Orozoi, Head Mage of the Imperial Court! I seek an audience with the Pontiff of the Word of God!”
Ronandt bellows at the soldiers as they approach.
The effect on the soldiers is immediate.
But judging by the way they’re exchanging glances and wavering about, they certainly don’t seem like elite guardians of the teleport gates, an all-important facility of Alleius.
“Good heavens! Quit milling about and go convey the message, would you?!”
At that, the soldiers finally go running out of the room.
“…Perhaps we should not get our hopes too high, eh?”
Elder Ronandt shakes his head as he watches the soldiers scurrying away.
I have to agree.
If they’re anything to go by, the Holy Kingdom of Alleius must be in a fair amount of chaos, too.
It’s hard to imagine that the pontiff, no doubt already a busy man, would have time to meet with us when we’ve turned up without an appointment from out of the blue.
This might have been a fool’s errand.
But contrary to my expectations, we only waited for a few minutes.
Then the soldiers returned and informed us they would take us to see the pontiff.