“How long have you two known each other?” she asked.
“Must be ten years, give or take,” answered Emilia.
“That’s a very long time.”
Emilia just scoffed. Alice saw in her a confident, mature woman and so couldn’t help saying what came to mind.
“I’m a little jealous, you know. You two have such a good relationship.”
“What?!”
Immediately, the look in Emilia’s green eyes darkened.
“A good relationship? You must be joking!”
It didn’t look like she was trying to hide embarrassment. Her disdain for Leon seemed the same as those exhibited by the people on the street. A bottomless hate and disgust.
“Any relationship between us is strictly business,” she explained. “Nothin’ more, nothin’ less… Oh, I guess there is one other thing…”
Here Leon interrupted her.
“I don’t think we need to tell her about that,” he said, in an oddly stiff voice. Emilia, however, disregarded him and kept going.
“There’s one other thing that ties us beyond our arrangement. You see…I’m his mistress. He has to do whatever I say. Isn’t that right, Leon?”
Leon simply gazed at the ground, silent. Emilia laughed and went on.
“I was just about to call for you, actually. Saved me some time comin’ here yourself. Once I’ve finished the young lady’s job, why don’t you and I have a little chat?”
Alice found it difficult to keep up with the conversation. Leon, on the other hand, only sighed. Emilia took this as tacit acceptance and spoke on.
“You’re familiar with the Village of the Kin-Eaters, in the western part of Lucatiel Dungeon? It’s a nice place to earn some loot without too much risk. Our mutual acquaintances have their eye on the place, which is why any nuisances that show up need to be dealt with smoothly.”
“She’s back, then? The Orc Queen?”
“Damn right, she is. That’s where you come in. You’re the only one who can put those things down for good, Leon Crossheart.”
So far, Alice had kept her mouth shut, but when Emilia said that, she just had to ask…
“Did you say…put them down for good?”
“Sure did. As I’m sure even you know, fiends don’t stay dead for long. Maybe it takes a few days, maybe years, but they always come back eventually.”
Indeed, just as Emilia had said, fiends were, in a sense, immortal. This was the biggest reason for the darkness in people’s hearts.
“No matter how many you kill, they keep comin’ back. The fiends’ numbers are growing while humanity’s are dwindling. One day, there won’t be any of us left.”
But if Leon could kill them for good, then…
“Master can save the world!”
The reason for Alice’s elation was surely not pure pragmatism, but Emilia showed no tact, cruelly dismissing her hopes.
“Nobody’s saving the world,” she said. “In fact, that power’s the only reason he’s not dead.”
The look on her face as she nibbled her lip was not the disgust of before. No, it was the exact opposite: grief.
“Listen to me,” she said. “Sometimes strength ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. The world can have other ideas. There’s no better example of that than Leon here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he ain’t your knight in shinin’ armor. His job isn’t to save the world. He’s just a tool. A tool to be thrown away once he outlives his use.”
Alice didn’t understand what Emilia meant at first.
“Thrown…away?”
“Yep. Leon’s a Red-Eye. A fiend. He can’t just run around unsupervised. He’s only alive at all because his power is useful.”
Alice felt it was deeply unjust for others to dictate Leon’s life.
“But why? What did he ever do?!”
Emilia just grinned. “Have you heard of Night Walker?” she asked.
The non sequitur threw Alice for a loop. She nodded with a mixture of anger and doubt.
Night Walker was the name of an infamous serial killer. Their age, history, and even gender were all unknown. The only thing linking their crimes was that they always left a poem at the scene, written in their victim’s blood. They had 284 confirmed kills, but rumors said the true number was over a thousand.
“Four years ago we found out who he was. He was a fiend; a vampire, to be precise. Not only did that grant him superhuman physical capabilities, but the power to turn other humans into fiends as well. Of course, nobody would care if this were just some Blue-Eye. The problem was, he was a Red-Eye.”
Red-Eyes kept their minds and so possessed the same level of intelligence as a human.
“After that, people learned how dangerous a Red-Eye could be. Now they’re destroyed whenever they show up. That way, they can’t come back, you see.”
With all this new information coming at her from out of the blue, Alice wasn’t sure how to respond.
“What do you mean…they can’t come back?”
“You heard me. Red-Eyes don’t revive like other fiends. Price of keeping your human mind, I suppose. I dunno why, but it’s true.”
If killed, Leon would be dead for good. And the ones giving Leon’s orders wanted this to happen.
“B-but why?! It’s not fair! Master’s the only one of us with the power to save the world! Why would they kill him?”
“Twenty-eight thousand.”
The sudden unexplained number threw Alice off-kilter. Seeing her reaction, Emilia went on.
“That’s the latest estimate of how many new fiends appear every single day. And on the other side, we’ve only got the one. Leon.”
Faced with such a crushing reality, even Alice began to feel daunted.
“Still, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a handy power to have. So Leon’s earned himself a stay of execution, shall we say. There’s no better assassin of fiends than him. So he has his uses…for now.”
And once he’d served his purpose, he’d be discarded. That was his fate. His punishment.
“Listen. Power’s a curse. As if bein’ turned into a Red-Eye ain’t bad enough, Leon’s got himself the power to slay immortals to boot. That’s why they won’t let him die so easily. If public opinion of Red-Eyes was like it was four years ago, maybe there’d still be a chance for him, but…”
It almost sounded like she didn’t want it to be true. Alice was sure that Emilia’s apparent disgust for Leon wasn’t the complete story, but before she could venture further, Emilia cut short her digression and returned to the topic she had been discussing earlier.
“Leon. I’m ordering you to slay the Orc Queen. As we speak, she’s producing more and more of those pig-faced bastards. She needs to be stopped. Permanently.”
In short, what she was asking was this: stride into the lair of the orcs, a fortress of Class Three fiends, and slay their beloved monarch. Alone.
“That’s suicide! You’re sending Leon to die!” protested Alice.
“Of course. Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve been saying?”
“You can’t be serious! I shan’t stand for it! I shan’t!”