A monstermancer—a descendant of the Lingreen line who had the power to tame all monsters.
When Leen had given me the lecture on demons, there was something she hadn’t touched on: What demon had the first Lingreen made a pact with?
Considering her ability, the answer naturally revealed itself. This first Lingreen must have formed a contract with the progenitor of all demons, the first demon to be born into the hinterworld: Lucilfer. If so, it was no surprise her powers were so incredible—this demon’s rank was above all else’s.
Whereas Cormeca could only create living dead and leave them to their own devices, Leen had been capable of fishing out an individual’s existence and replicating the ego they had lost. If Krauna had been a run-of-the-mill wraith, howling insults and curses like any old monster, then the situation wouldn’t have been as taut as it was now. The wraith before us, Krauna, behaved with the intellect of a living, breathing human.
“You followed Allen to Leston...and you laughed! You laughed as Allen killed me and everyone else! You laughed! I remember it so clearly!”
“Eek!”
Krauna didn’t allow Cormeca, who could only retreat, any quarter. With each word that came out of Krauna’s lips, the whole room shook.
“Wh-What are you doing?” Cormeca managed to ask. “You’re a church knight, aren’t you?! That’s a monster, no matter how you view it, so exterminate it! Now!”
For her part, Ruvy was frozen to the spot. It was as if she couldn’t see Cormeca or Krauna. Her eyes were focused on the inciter of this scene: Leen.
Cormeca followed Ruvy’s line of sight and looked over at Leen too. Then, as if having realized something, she gasped.
“I-It doesn’t matter what you have to say, my innocence has already been proven! There’s no stigma on me. Therefore I’m no witch! Surely that girl over there controlling a monster is the witch!”
Cormeca wasn’t wrong. Leen had controlled a wraith right in the middle of a witch trial. It made sense to suspect her.
“Then go ahead and indict me,” Leen said. Her lips were still fixed in a big smile, and she seemed to be greatly enjoying herself. “If there is a stigma on me, then no one will hound you anymore.”
In the face of Leen’s calm demeanor, Cormeca couldn’t respond. Her gaze was locked on one spot—on the emerald Sphere that glowed among the particles of her staff.
That was the moment my suspicions became clear.
“Ruvy!” I called out.
At my voice, Ruvy seemed to regain her composure as she looked at me.
“Cormeca’s stigma is in her Sphere!” I went on.
Cormeca flinched and quickly hid her Sphere with her left hand.
When a Sphere bonded with an adventurer, it embedded itself in their nervous system, becoming a part of them. This fact was so obvious to every adventurer that mentioning it was almost a waste of breath. You wouldn’t so easily forget the kind of pain that made it impossible to sleep upon getting it; you wouldn’t forget how it felt in your hand. However, I wasn’t certain if those within the Church of Saphir knew this, considering how much they hated adventurers. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t consider someone’s Sphere as their “skin.”
Cormeca’s Sphere was a translucent reddish, agate color with a complex design within it. No one would notice a small black mark mixed in within all that. She didn’t need to paint over it, cut it off, burn it away. Who knew there would be someone who could go to their own witch trial confidently baring their stigma in plain sight?
“I know you didn’t curse Erifell in order to get this witch trial going,” I said.
Erifell was a guild receptionist—she knew all about Cormeca, and that included the details of her Sphere.
“And when you saw Leen bring Krauna out before all of us, you weren’t able to indict her. Why? Because you saw Leen’s Sphere and thought that maybe she was hiding her stigma in the exact same way you were,” I went on.
Cormeca, therefore, needed to keep Erifell pinned down. She needed to curse her, render her unable to speak, kill her, then get Derg to carry out the indictment in her place. It was clear to everyone that Erifell was dogged enough to corner Cormeca and almost had her.
It didn’t matter if she said this was a false accusation—at this stage, it was easy to find out if Cormeca was innocent or guilty. All she needed to do was show us her right hand, allow her Sphere to be checked, and we’d see if the black mark within it matched Erifell’s inverta.
“Show me your hand, Cormeca Esma,” Ruvy said.
Yes, all she needed to do was to answer Ruvy’s command. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.
With bloodshot eyes, Cormeca shook her head furiously.
“No! No, no, no! This isn’t—! I’m not—!”
Suddenly a flash cut through the room.
“If you won’t...cooperate...” Ruvy said.
This wasn’t something that you’d blink and miss. No, it had been impossible to even follow with my eyes.
“...I’ll have to investigate...myself,” Ruvy went on.
Before I knew it, Ruvy was already sheathing her sword, and Cormeca’s right hand was flying through the air.
“AAAAAGHHH!”
Cormeca screamed—was it due to the pain, or was it some deeper reason?
Krauna managed to catch Cormeca’s hand. She lovingly removed the glove and tossed aside what was inside it, not paying it any further attention.
“Ohh... Allen... Allen!”
She cradled the glove and shed tears from eyes that no longer had physical form.
“G-Give it back! That’s mine!” Cormeca said.
As she reached out her arm, blood poured from the wound, staining the old carpet.
“Oh... Her stigma...”
It was Erifell who noticed first. There was a shape on the back of Cormeca’s left hand that was a mirror image of the inverta on Erifell’s body. If a stigma were cut off from the body, it would appear elsewhere. It was irrefutable evidence that one could never escape from.
“Ngh... Grh...”
Cormeca was hunched over, groaning in pain. She spun her head to glare at everyone in the room.
“Wh-What a farce! Do you KNOW how much I loved him?!” Cormeca howled to the heavens, as if cursing the world itself. “Allen was mine! I was always with him. You were the one who stole him! You stole him from me! What’s wrong with taking back what was mine?!”