When Cion and I got back to the encampment, it was completely deserted. The embers of hastily extinguished fires were still smoldering, and most of the mercenaries’ supplies were still there—only the people were missing.
“Did they...?”
“Alicia! Look at this!”
I’d already started to put the pieces together by the time Cion brought over a note from the innkeeper. It read simply, “Heading to Spirit Mountain Temple.”
The logical conclusion was that the demons Cion had wiped out had been a diversion, and the main body of the invading army had been moving separately.
“Now that I think of it, that lion wasn’t there either...” I muttered.
The demons from last night hadn’t been well organized by any stretch of the imagination. To put it charitably, they’d been handpicked troops. To put it uncharitably, they’d been a motley gathering. They hadn’t been working in coordination with the others; they’d felt like an impromptu force assembled for the sole purpose of killing Cion. That was precisely why Veiss and me joining the fray had been enough to drive them back. If that lion had been in charge, we wouldn’t have been nearly so lucky.
“I’d been wanting to wash off and take a little rest, but I suppose that’ll have to wait,” I said with a strained smile.
Cion was already rechecking her equipment. “You can stay here if you’re too tired. You didn’t get much sleep the night before, right?”
“If you weren’t going either, then I’d sleep here with you. But we can’t afford that right now...”
One of us leaving the other behind wasn’t an option anymore. If Cion tried to ditch me again, I’d chase after her even if I had to crawl on all fours. And if I tied up Cion and went ahead without her, I knew she’d chase after me as well.
“Frankly, there are still too many things that don’t add up.”
Glasses had gone missing, and the demon army had invaded. Cion had been called away, and they’d launched a surprise attack. This couldn’t all have been the Golden Lion’s plan. He was a hard guy to read, but he’d felt like a proud warrior. These sneaky plays were someone else’s work.
“That man with the burned face was with the guys who attacked me last night,” Cion said. “He called himself Raven, the Black Bird of something or other... He said he was the Demon Lord’s right hand.”
“Huh...”
The Demon Lord had wanted peace... And this guy had been his right hand?
“And he’s the same ‘devil’ who attacked the capital,” I muttered. “Devil” hadn’t been a literal description, though—just a pejorative reference to him being devil-touched. “I didn’t see him among the corpses, so he must have fled right away.”
“That guy’s bad news. When we fought, it felt like he was sucking out my power.”
“Like Scarlet Brave, you mean?”
Cion shook her head. “It’s probably the same type of skill, but I still don’t totally get it.”
She explained that he hadn’t touched her, but she’d still felt her power draining away. Even while she’d been absorbing mana from the demons’ blood with Scarlet Brave, she’d been steadily losing strength. I’d seen similar sorts of things before—the saint could read people’s memories with a single touch, and then keep them continually under her control afterward. And fundamentally, unlike spells and orisons, skills just weren’t as constrained by logic in the first place.
“Did it seem like the demons around him were being affected as well?”
Cion tried to recall; she wasn’t all that sure, but she shook her head no. To be fair, demons’ mana capacity was on a completely different level from humans’, so getting a little drained might not have had much of an impact. Still, though...
“We’ll just have to pray that his ability doesn’t let him drain mana from everyone within range.”
Or worse, incapacitate anyone he was able to see, or something—I had to believe that a bullshit power like that just wasn’t possible, but he sounded like a really obnoxious opponent regardless. Worst case, I’d just have to rely on Cion to handle Mr. Right Arm.
Before I could say anything, Cion opened her mouth.
“Hey, Alicia?” she said slowly. “I know you’re trying not to put too much on me right now, but it’s okay. You don’t need to worry about me.”
She spoke without any of her usual stubbornness. There was something soft and gentle in her tone, and it felt like if I turned her down, she’d quietly back off. But—
“I trust you, Alicia.”
—Cion’s eyes shone with a strength I’d never seen before.
Did something happen back there?
For some reason, the words just wouldn’t come out. I knew she’d tell me the answer, but I had a strange feeling that as soon as I asked that question, there’d be no going back for the two of us.
I had come running to help her when she’d been cornered, but I hadn’t really contributed all that much; Veiss had done most of the work. All I’d been able to do was target the demons attacking Cion and hamper their movements.
“The truth is, I hadn’t been planning on coming back,” she said. “Not after what I did to you. And I didn’t want to keep putting you in danger either... But I realized something when I was about to die—I guess I love you even more than I thought, Alicia.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Did... Did she just say what I think she said?
Cion just kept on speaking nonchalantly, totally unconcerned with my reaction. “I’m not gonna be like Master. Sometimes he just tries too hard to act tough, y’know?”
“W-Wait a second—! Um, C-Cion? Did you, uh...?”
“Hmm?”
“Ummmm?!”
Huh? Am I the one being weird about this? Have I been spending too much time around the Horny Slut? Is that pervert rubbing off on me?!