“Of course I don’t hate you. Why would I? We don’t know whether that guy was even telling the truth; and in any case, I don’t have any memories of my father whatsoever.”
So that’s not what she’s really asking.
“What am I supposed to do...?” Cion was wavering—over her sins, over the outcome they’d led to. “I—”
“If you’re going to ask me to kill you, I refuse.”
I took Cion’s hand. Even cut up, scraped raw, and covered in dried blood, it was still soft and gentle. It wasn’t meant for fighting. But all this time, she’d lived her life on the battlefield, trying desperately to survive.
“If fighting for the sake of money is evil, then we’re living in a world of nothing but villains. Don’t you know? The people who hold up grand causes—who say they’re fighting for the world, for humanity, for justice—end up sowing more chaos and taking more lives than anyone.”
Since time immemorial, the world of humankind had been plagued by endless violence. The Church made it sound like the conflict between humans and demons was the entirety of human history, but that wasn’t true at all. There’d been royal succession crises, there’d been territory disputes between nobles, and zooming out further, there’d been wars between nations as well. The Church’s story of the menace of our natural enemy had just been effective enough to wrap all of that up and shove it under the rug. Whether demons existed or not, humanity was still a collective of countless individuals. That collective would develop friction, friction would create divides, and divides would lead to strife.
“All that guy’s doing is lashing out, more or less. His leader got killed, and now he’s drunk on tragedy and trying to fight the entire world.” As I spoke, I felt a little frustration at myself. My words weren’t all that different from Raven’s, and neither was I. “What’s important is what we can protect here and now. Please help me, Cion.”
“Alicia...”
I held her hand in both of mine, and that was all it took—just because we were the same gender, just because we’d ended up in the same sort of circumstances, just because we’d both fought back as best as we could. The person she’d held as her guiding star had disappeared, and she’d become thoroughly dependent on me for support. At some point, she’d gotten her ends and her means mixed up, and she’d made it her mission to guard the champion who’d saved her life. But he’d been taken from her, and while she’d been at a loss for what to do, I’d slipped my way in.
“Let’s end this war,” I said.
You never meant to start it, but you can stop it with your own hands.
I said the right words in her ear, and this pure, innocent girl went where I told her. It was an ugly, calculating seduction, perfectly fitting for a whore of the Gods.
“Okay.” Cion nodded reassuringly and gave me a kind smile.
I felt an awful twinge of pain somewhere deep in my chest.
“Alicia...?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
I put on a smile as well.
I must have had the wrong idea. I’d just assumed that she and I had come to understand one another through our shared pain. But Cion and I fundamentally didn’t see the world in the same way.
“Cion, just... Just promise me one thing, all right?”
So I was going to use that to stop this battle—to end this war. I genuinely didn’t want this girl to have to fight anymore. But in order to make that happen, I had to get her to keep fighting. It all sounded like a load of bullshit, didn’t it.
I took a breath. “You don’t need to save me.”
“Alicia...?”
“I’m asking you to prioritize the lives of everyone here over my life alone.”
Cion still didn’t understand. But that was fine. If the time came, I knew she’d make the right call.
“Also, take this.” I held out the knife I’d been using.
“You sure?”
“Don’t worry. It’s a lot sturdier than I am.”
Cion’s gaze was filled with determination as she felt the heft of it in her hand.
It’s fine. Glasses had it specially made, same as my bible.
“I’m counting on you,” I told her.
“Okay.”
I didn’t say anything further as I stepped forward. The wolfman and the devil were still locked in their battle to the death, and I made my way toward them—with the Hero, slayer of the Demon Lord, at my side.
“Quit scuttling around like that! What are you, a damn cockroach?!” the wolfman roared.
He was fierce and violent as he brandished his sword, but there was a note of delight somewhere in his howl.
The devil laughed too as he struck back, grinning madly from ear to ear. “You’ve grown rather hideous yourself, haven’t you?!”
The huge sword swung down to cleave him in two, but he sidestepped it and countered with a giant beast claw. His wings and tail flitted dexterously around him as he taunted and toyed with Veiss.
The two monsters’ clash was starting to throw the surrounding battlefield into chaos as well. The mercenaries were losing their coordination and getting mowed down by the mindlessly rampaging divine soldiers.
“Sir Veiss! Be careful!” I called out to him.
“Yeah, I got it!”
Nope, he doesn’t get it at all.
It was obvious in the way he fought. The champion-turned-beast was lashing out ferociously. As the devil leaped back from his strikes, Veiss came dangerously close to slicing right through priests on the sidelines too. He wasn’t making any effort whatsoever to avoid it; he looked like he wouldn’t care even if bystanders did get killed in the cross fire.
“Calm down, Master!” Cion shouted, ducking and rolling as she tried to join the battle.
Veiss wasn’t listening, though.
“You’re wounded, brat! Get the hell away!”
He just kept rushing forward, ignoring her warnings.
“No, dammit...”
Cion desperately tried to catch up, but between her injuries and her exhaustion, she was left behind in the dust. This fight was for Raven and Veiss alone. I’d heard they’d clashed once before in the capital, but what the hell was this?
“Yeah, there it is!” Veiss shouted. “You had that same look in your eyes back then too! Jealous of the whole damn world, ain’tcha?!”
“You know nothing!” Raven snarled back. “You are a vile beast, incapable of anything other than the wielding of brute force!”
The monsters just kept tearing into one another. Honestly, there wasn’t any room for me or Cion to intervene. In fact, in his transformed state, Veiss was gradually starting to wear Raven down.
“Fine by me! That’s the only way guys like me can live!”
“And that is why you must die! The world to come must be purged of barbaric animals like you!”
“Who the hell put you in charge of that, asshole?!”
Raven’s heel stomped down to crack the earth, and he bared his fangs.
“You ought never to have been called a champion, you filth!”
“Damn, that’s funny! I never wanted that title in the first place either!”
Their verbal barbs alone didn’t give any clue who was in the right. I knew Veiss had always been foulmouthed; but Raven, for his part, clearly wasn’t operating on the same logic as the rest of us.
“What are they even talking about...?” I grumbled.
Frankly, I had no interest at all in whatever history those two had. Not my problem. But as I was now, I didn’t have enough power left to stop them. Even if I were at full strength and going all out, I still wasn’t confident I’d be able to manage it. Weaklings like us had no choice but to depend on champions—or on the Gods.
I let out a frustrated hiss. If I leaped in there without a plan, I’d be the one getting cut to ribbons.
What the hell do we do?
Cion was still frantically trying to stick with them, but she was pretty much useless here. If Veiss beat Raven, he’d disappear on his own and leave us alone, so we just needed to either kill the devil or win him over. But I couldn’t come up with any approaches either way...
“Missy!” a ragged voice called out.
“Boss?!”
Our friend the former royal knight captain stood back-to-back with me amid the chaos. He looked more exhausted than I’d ever seen him.
“I was hoping we could help clean up this mess,” he said with a sigh. “But we’re hitting our limits. I dunno about the demons, but I shouldn’t have served my guys the cheap stuff...”
“Enough whining,” I said. “Get to the point.”
“We’re looking for an opening to pull out. If we’re gonna get wiped out here, better to head back and spread the word.”
“I see plenty of men unable to move.”
“If they weren’t prepared for the worst, they wouldn’t be here.”
“So you’re just...”
He’s just going to abandon anyone who can’t run away.
“Listen,” he said. “We’re working with the lion guy to have him send out messengers too and coordinate our movements. When the time comes—”
“I refuse.”
“Missy...”
I felt the gaze of the man guarding my back turn to me for a moment.
I know. I know I’m being selfish. But I don’t care.
“We’re staying here,” I said. “If you wish to flee, please do so without us.”
“If you think those guys are gonna go along with that, you’ve got a damn low opinion of ’em...”
“Indeed. I’m a cruel and manipulative woman.”
He sighed. “Got it. We’ll do everything we can.”
“Thank you. I owe you one.”
“Better pay us back in spades, okay?”
“I’ll do all I can as well.”
I made my assurances, but with the divine soldiers sucking up all the local aether, my orisons were still barely working. My injuries basically hadn’t healed at all. I was running out of options, and my odds of winning were as close as they could be to zero.
This was absolutely, positively “not my job.” Demon-slaying and peace negotiations were both supposed to be outside of my jurisdiction. As a bride of the Gods, my role was to operate behind the scenes—not center stage in big, dramatic battles with champions and Heroes and devils. Frankly, I just wasn’t suited for the spotlight. I ought to have turned and run right now with my tail between my legs. None of this was my job at all.
But I couldn’t just let this happen. Even after all this time debasing myself as a slave of the Gods out of cowardly self-preservation, I couldn’t ignore what was happening here.
I moved away from the innkeeper, heading toward the clashing monsters to join in the fight myself.
When did I become such a good person?
I asked myself that, but it didn’t really feel like a bad thing anymore. There it was—I’d finally learned to believe that instead of turning a blind eye and getting tormented by awful dreams, it was far better to struggle and fight back against the nightmare.
Whose influence was that?
No need to even ask.