“Mwa-ha-ha-ha! It’s all over! No one can stop the demon lord’s revival now!”
It wasn’t Zomamurgormi talking.
A scruffy-haired ratfolk man wearing vestments of the Heraluon Temple.
The one Tia had invited from a nearby land to fight the wraith. I assumed he was possessed, but nope.
At his feet lay a number of adventurers and priests, all unconscious. I recognized several of them, including Ms. Nona, a regular at the Hero’s Rest.
Only the priest and Zomamurgormi were awake.
And the latter was facing the priest down, at a distance. I’d assumed they were on the same side, but clearly not.
“Why is a priest…?”
“Can you not tell, strange masked man?”
My goal was to engage him in conversation while using Magic Hand to move the unconscious to safety.
“The heavens will be done! An apostle of Heraluon appeared to me in my slumber in the fortress city, giving me a mission from the divine!”
Not an oracle, but a mission? That sounded a lot like Hauto, who was made out to be a fake hero back in Muno County.
“To revive the demon lord that we might slay a demon lord!”
“You realize that makes no sense?”
I saw Zomamurgormi trying to move, so I threw a pebble to pin him down.
He’d been heading for a throne—on which sat a limbless, headless corpse. So much miasma on it, I could tell even without the skill. My AR display told me this was the demon lord corpse—the Dark Lord of Necromancy.
“How rude! You would insult the servant of the most venerable goddess?”
“Servants of venerable goddesses don’t go around reviving demon lords!”
“You fool! Once it is revived, I shall destroy it! That it may never be revived again!”
“A mere priest? How?”
The hero Hayato and his talented party had barely pulled it off, so a level-30-something priest was hardly gonna manage that solo. Demon lords weren’t pushovers!
“Mediocre minds cannot comprehend! Behold, my divine icon! This holds the powers of my goddess and will destroy any demon lord!”
It sure didn’t look the part.
I’d hung with Karion and Urion, so I could tell.
“Tricked by a demon…?” I muttered.
He heard me and was incensed, but I ignored his rantings—listening would accomplish nothing further.
While this futile discussion went on, I’d gotten the adventurers as far from harm’s way as I could.
It seemed like the demon lord’s revival would take a bit longer.
“S…” I looked at Zomamurgormi. “What do you gain from winding this priest up?”
“Mwa-ha-ha! Is it not obvious? Once the demon lord returns—”
He trailed off.
“What?”
At the least, I’d gathered that either the weasel or his demons had put the priest up to this.
“The demon lord will fight the hero! Leaving me free to recover the Purple Moon Core!”
“I thought your plans to swipe that were already underway?”
“Well—”
Once again, he trailed off.
His eyes darted this way and that, sweat drenching the fur on his brow.
He sure was acting funny.
“Right, with the theft plan underway, I’ve no real need to revive the demon lord—,” he muttered, talking very fast.
The miasma gathering on the demon lord had formed arms and a head.
“The demons tricked me!”
The demon summoner believed they worked for him, but they must have gotten his head all spun around. Maybe they’d used Psychic Magic or “Charm Person.”
But even as Zomamurgormi raged, behind him—the demon lord’s eyes opened.