“I know now. The demon that’s capable of using spores as a medium to transmit a curse is the thirty-fourth ranked demon in the Beelbel lineage: Zwini Dahni!”
“That’s way too late!”
With Cormeca’s death, Erifell’s inverta disappeared. Some color returned to her and her coughing finally stopped. The whole thing had taken a toll on her and she was currently unconscious. We decided that it wouldn’t be ideal to move her right now, so she was asleep in a bed in a room in the church that had been safe from the fungus.
We were in a separate room ourselves waiting for the Carbuncles to give their verdict. Things went a bit differently than normal, but a witch trial had taken place, so the public result of this would affect how we went forward.
“I’m so ashamed of myself. I was unable to do a single thing,” Derg said as he sat into a chair and slumped his shoulders.
Leen shook her head in response. “That’s not true. Without you, Derg, we wouldn’t have been able to actually get the witch trial underway,” she said.
“But when it mattered, I was useless...”
“If you say that, then look at Hakura! He only made the accusation and left everything else to me!”
“Hey! I was the one who realized she might’ve been hiding her stigma in her Sphere!” I snapped.
“Are you sure you’re all right, lad?” the slime said from Leen’s arms.
In the confusion during the cleanup, the slime had ended up talking and was heard by Derg. Fortunately, due to the chaos of the trial itself, Derg had accepted it and hadn’t asked too many questions.
I scratched my head and decided there was not much point hiding it.
“Well, witches’ curses don’t seem to work on me,” I said.
I didn’t know why, but my body seemed to reject their curses. For some reason, when a witch tried to curse me, my Sphere would emit those particles and protect me of its own will. That was part of the reason the guild had foisted so many witch hunting jobs on me.
Anyway, myself aside...
“Hey, Leen?” I said.
“Yes?” she replied.
“How long has Krauna been with you?”
“This whole time. Since we got back from Leston.”
“This whole time?! Right next to us?!”
“Yes. I didn’t want it getting out if she appeared in town, so I put her on standby in the same low-energy mode I use with Blue. Anyway, it took a while for her sense of self to be reconstructed, so she only became able to talk again recently.”
“Explain this stuff earlier!”
“But if I said I was bringing a wraith around you’d be freaked out!”
She had done this out of some sort of concern for me, her traveling companion, but I wasn’t grateful in the slightest upon hearing this sudden bombshell being dropped.
“That was why I knew right from the start that Cormeca was the witch!”
“Then you should’ve said so!”
What was the point of all the thinking and questioning we’d done?
“Was it okay to summon Krauna right in front of the Carbuncles like that?” I asked.
“Honestly, no. I’ll be in trouble if they question me about it.”
Leen wouldn’t just be questioned; she’d done something that a witch would do. If I’d been some adventurer who hadn’t known better, I might’ve indicted her there and then if I’d stumbled upon the scene. It was a pain to think that it was all in the Carbuncles’ hands...
“Excuse...me...”
Just at that moment, the door was opened without so much as a knock. There stood two women belonging to the church. One had red, puffy eyes, almost as if she’d been crying. I wondered what sort of terrifying experience she’d undergone. I was just feeling sorry for her, when they both shot me the most withering glare. What was with them?
After a short while looking at each other—or, rather, receiving a one-sided stare down—the twist bread girl spoke.
“Lady Ruvy requests your presence. Your friend has regained consciousness.”
All of us looked at each other.