“Aha! Trope alert! The beautiful elf maiden has arrived!”
“Yagi, did you think if you brought in a beautiful elf maiden, you’d be able to railroad us into a big, unreasonable fetch quest?”
“Hmm… Do you want to refuse her, then?”
“Of course not.”
Those were the days.
I flashed back to about twenty years ago when I was playing D&B. I’d forgotten exactly what kind of quest it was, but I’ll never forget Yagi’s smug face.
At the time, the fact that players always accept the requests of beautiful elves was almost part of the beauty of the form. How could we do anything else?
But now, actually faced with a real-life beautiful elf maiden…would I refuse her?
Well, of course not.
The oracle of the warrior clan, a true elf, she who was the repository of knowledge. This woman with three distinguished monikers was that enchanting.
She wasn’t just pretty, or cute. Her eyes, her voice, her desire to protect, her allure and knack for flattery, all stood out. She was the living definition of charm.
At my age, as an office employee, I had met many beautiful women while entertaining clients, but this oracle was on an entirely different plane of existence. If I hadn’t recalled Yagi’s smug face, I might have completely fallen for her at first sight, the way Sedam had, beside me.
Her enchanting voice drew us in. “In order to understand the circumstances behind this dreadful mishap, please allow me to explain what daemons and the warrior clan are in the first place. I think we should start there: with the true history long hidden to so many.”
This is not the time to get swept up in her voice… I felt a wave of nerves come over me and gulped. Focus on her words!
“I’m very interested. Please, tell us.”
“As you desire.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The mystic spoke without hesitation, telling us the following story.
Daemons were the vanguards sent from another world, who crossed into this world through a gate called an Epicenter. The first Epicenter was born long, long ago from the heart of the Divine King, when he was drunk on despair and hatred.
In that distant age, a great hero had destroyed the Epicenter born from within the Divine King and defeated the countless daemons spawned from it. This hero’s power was granted to him by a legendary sage.
The sage granted the hero many boons. The divine legion, a holy sword, and an elf maiden. The divine legion were warriors to fight the daemons. The holy sword was a weapon with the strength to destroy an Epicenter. And the elf maiden sacrificed herself to give the hero and the divine soldiers great magic power.
After the battle, the hero abandoned his war with the daemons and served Shrendal. The divine legion hunted daemons under the guidance of the sage…and their descendants became known as the warrior clan.
The repository of knowledge was the daughter of the first-generation elf maiden, a woman not born, but made.
The sage granted the warrior clan many skills to fight the daemons. One of those was a ritual to communicate with the spirit of the first elf maiden to acquire prophecies of daemon behavior.
“To be precise,” the mystic told us, “this is a ritual to read the memory and consciousness of daemons from their corpses.”
We were silent.
What she’d told us in her sing-song voice were secrets that went all the way back to the very roots of this world.
I had already researched and asked people about the tale of the hero who’d foiled the first brood war, so I knew most of it. But this was the first I’d heard about the Divine King either becoming or creating an Epicenter, and of the sage. There was no evidence that what she said was true, but if she was a true elf, then she must have already been living for hundreds if not thousands of years. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d even seen many of these events herself.
I mean, I was grateful, and this so-called true history was important, but the story she’d just told us was pretty outrageous.
She wasn’t done dropping bombshells. “Daemons do not actually possess individual egos. The sage teaches that they are born in swarms, like ants or bees, with a single collective consciousness.”
The mystic continued, oblivious to our surprise.
“Therefore, by examining the consciousness of a daemon’s brain, even in a corpse, it is possible to read the consciousness of all daemons. The daemonists call this collective consciousness the King of Daemons.”
The mystic paused.
When I looked around at everyone’s reaction, Sedam, Clara, and Reyha had looks of both surprise and disgust. Ild wasn’t following the story at all. Meanwhile, the warrior clan, including Canberils and Lade, looked pained throughout the entire thing.
“Right…” I collected my thoughts. “I understand the advantages. But isn’t using the corpse of a daemon the sort of thing the daemonists do themselves? Isn’t it dangerous?”
The mystic’s story reminded me of Corbal, who’d transformed and fused with an altar made of daemon corpses, and Diane’s mother, who’d ultimately been brainwashed by daemonism and fused with an Unholy Spirit, transforming into a daemon nest. The warrior clan, bound to a life of hunting daemons, were as dependent on daemonic corpses as the daemonists were.
“As you might expect, there are dangers involved. So far, we have been blessed with the protection of Rimeydal, and I have been able to fulfill my role without any serious issues. But the reason for this is that by hiding my explorations behind the medium of corpses, my existence was concealed from the collective consciousness of the daemons.”
“Until now.”
“Exactly.” The mystic nodded slightly. “When I found information pointing toward you, the ritual was exactly the same as it had always been. But perhaps…” The small sigh that the elf maiden gave here might have been the first emotion she let us see. “Perhaps the King of Daemons is aware of what we do. Perhaps it intentionally gave us your name, and the knowledge that you were an Epicenter, hoping we would destroy its greatest rival on its behalf.”
“I see.”
We had finally reached the end of the explanation.
I nodded and readjusted my position in the chair. As I did, I verified this story in my head and thought about what should be done.
I didn’t have a definitive answer regarding the broader interpretation of the word “epicenter” that I’d pondered earlier. The warrior clan still didn’t know about my Gate of Magic, and considering the reaction of the Daemon’s Sight during my inquisition, they’d probably come to the conclusion that the information was a false story fed to them under the pretense of a prophecy.
Although, I should have been happy that their inaccurate interpretation cleared my name of suspicion.
“I am responsible for this blunder,” the mystic declared. “When I learned that you were going to build a mechanism for fighting the daemons in this world…I knew that I could never be forgiven for such a great sin. A horrible trespass, against a good and mighty man. But I beg you: Please, direct your anger toward my life only.” The elf maiden dropped to the ground as soon as she finished speaking, her voice gone nearly silent. “I beg you.”
The warriors behind her dropped down as well.
I watched silently.
Clara looked at me with a troubled expression. To be honest, I felt troubled, too.
Before, I’d known almost nothing about daemons, but now I had mountains of information. Moreover, there were many terms that the mystic had used that I’d never heard before. We couldn’t overlook what we’d learned, or it would come back to hurt us later.
“As the warlord, I apologize as well. Please accept the many warrior clan treasures we brought as recompense for your suffering.” Canberils spoke gravely from behind the mystic. Lade didn’t say anything, but he was flat on the ground like everyone else.
When they first arrived, I’d felt a lot of anger and anxiety. I didn’t desire to dwell on those feelings any longer. To my left and right, both Sedam and Clara nodded.
I finally spoke. “I accept your apology. However, I don’t need you to pay with your life.”
“This one thanks the great magician for his boundless kindness toward one so unworthy of mercy.”
Canberils was more prosaic. “Thank you.”
I looked at Canberils and the mystic, who lifted their heads in relief, and thought some more.
There were many things I wanted to check and confirm regarding the Divine King, the sage, and the King of Daemons. It looked like we could finally proceed with the alliance with the warrior clan.
That meant…
I had to go with them. To the home of the warrior clan.