Chapter 78
“Greetings. I’m Belcia, and I’ve just joined the Hero’s party. I look forward to working with you.”
“Ah, u-um…… Y-yes…… I’m Prea, and I’m glad to meet you too…… Um, what exactly is going on……?”
Prea’s wildly darting gaze moved from Riella to the Holy Sword to Se-on. Her eyes seemed to demand an explanation.
For the record, Yubel was currently asleep on Se-on’s back. She’d cried so much that she was exhausted.
“Hehe…… I’m not really sure, either? I went pew! and shot an arrow, and Se-on got hit, then a wind suddenly whooshed in and sent me flying!”
“What does that mean……? And you, Mr. Holy Sword……?”
“I don’t know, either. One minute we were suddenly jumping from place to place, then that Hero idiot let go of me and I went flying. All I remember is how awful that felt. Ugh.”
“Hmm, then what about you, Sir Se-on……?”
“……This one’s with the Demon King’s army. She says she’s the Demon King’s secretary.”
“Ah, that’s a relief! At least you know something, Sir Se-on…… Wh-What!?”
Boing! Prea leaped up like a character in a comic.
The new recruit joining the Hero’s party was the Demon King’s secretary. How could anyone not be shocked? The person who could be called the Demon King’s army’s second-in-command was joining the Hero’s party as a newcomer? No history book had ever recorded a plot this outrageous.
Still reeling, she looked at the woman who’d introduced herself as Belcia…… the Demon King’s secretary. Belcia looked distinctly annoyed.
“Tsk. It’s ‘Secretary to His Majesty the Demon King.’ Please distinguish clearly between a secretary and a secretary to His Majesty. And I’ve quit now, so accept me without a fuss, Lady Prea.”
“Huh? But when we first met, you said you were the Demon King’s secretary. What was that about?”
“……That was an introduction of my work experience. It seems you misunderstood.”
“Huh? If your work experience is as the Demon King’s secretary, wouldn’t that be a problem……? You’re joining the Hero’s party, so it’s suspicious, and besides, you seem to be a demon……”
“Hmm, I don’t understand. Are you discriminating against me because I’m a demon? Humans really are all the same. I thought you might be different since you’re a saintess, but I’m disappointed. In the first place, I’m closer to a devil than a demon…… But never mind that.”
“N-No…… I’m not prejudiced……! Ugh, and you’re a devil!? Then I really can’t accept you…… Wait, maybe? If Lady Yubel is……”
“Then where am I supposed to direct this ‘hatred toward His Majesty the Demon King’? Please accept me already. I’ll show you what I can do later.”
“……”
Prea was dumbfounded.
What was with that high-handed attitude about joining the Hero’s party? It didn’t seem like she’d officially been accepted yet, but she was acting as if they’d already agreed in advance that she could join.
“Um, you really do hate the Demon King, right?”
“Yes. Can’t you tell from my blazing eyes? I feel like wiping out three generations of His Majesty the Demon King’s family this very moment.”
“Ah, yes……”
Even though looking someone straight in the eye was difficult for her, she could manage to sneak a glance. She’d looked into Belcia’s eyes for just a moment. Thankfully, they were blazing, so Belcia apparently wasn’t lying.
“……Hmm.”
Still, to anyone looking, those eyes seemed closer to ‘love for the Demon King’ than ‘hatred for the Demon King’……. And why did she keep calling him ‘His Majesty’? There was no way Prea could pretend to believe that.
“Um, I’m afraid joining the Hero’s party—”
“Ah, it doesn’t matter if you refuse, Lady Prea. I’m already in the Hero’s party. Hehe.”
“Y-Yes!?”
Whip! Prea’s head spun around toward Se-on. Se-on avoided her eyes and quietly nodded. Prea looked half-dazed as she turned back to Belcia, who was making a V sign with her fingers.
Peace, peace—
“Ah, no……”
Unbelievable.
Prea wanted to confront Se-on right then and there, but it wasn’t easy to do that in front of the person involved. Especially for Prea, who grew timid whenever Yubel wasn’t involved.
“Haa…… I wonder if Lady Yubel even knows about this……”
In the end, Prea would only hear the reason later.
“By the way, you’ve been saying the name Yubel for a while now. Which one of you is Yubel?”
“Huh? O-Obviously, the person on Sir Se-on’s back is Lady Yubel……?”
“……What?”
~
A moment later, a concentrated killing intent engulfed the Hero’s party. It was especially focused on the Hero, who’d apparently been the first to hear her name.
Belcia knew what it meant when a devil told someone their name. It was practically a marriage proposal, or so she’d heard.
But to the Hero’s party, who had no idea how much weight that act carried, the situation came out of nowhere.
***
“So…… you made a deal with her?”
“Yeah, it just sort of happened. I’m sorry I went ahead with it without discussing it with you. Um, could you let it slide just this once?”
“……Haa, it’s fine. She seems like the sort who’d follow us whether or not she joined the Hero’s party, so this is probably better……”
“Hahaha…… I’ll take responsibility if anything goes wrong.”
“I’d rather nothing went wrong in the first place……”
Prea looked worriedly at Belcia, who was asleep. It was still dark out, so she couldn’t make out Belcia’s face clearly.
She was probably still bothered by what had happened earlier.
“What was that killing intent just now……!? Can we really trust that deal? And she calls Lady Yubel ‘Master’—she’s completely suspicious!”
“Y-Yeah. I think it’ll probably be fine…… Hahaha…… You saw that she couldn’t actually attack us, didn’t you, Prea?”
“Haa, well, yes…… As long as she doesn’t harm Lady Yubel, I don’t really mind……”
This time, Prea’s gaze turned to Yubel, who was asleep.
Prea seemed to have noticed the way Belcia looked at Yubel, and was keeping an even closer eye on Belcia than usual.
“Well, it seems like Belcia wants to join the party because of Yubel. Didn’t she say she’d been captivated by her beauty and wanted to serve her?”
“Ugh…… Now that I think about it, there’s no way! Let’s just cancel the deal and find a way to run away by ourselves! I can’t hand my Yubel over to some shady woman like that……”
“Hahaha……”
It was scary because Prea looked serious. I knew how much she cared about Yubel, so her reaction wasn’t all that strange…… but I wondered if she’d become a little too possessive.
Anyway, about that deal.
After clearing up the misunderstanding that we’d each thought the other was trying to attack Yubel, I’d made a deal with Belcia, who wanted us to let her join the Hero’s party.
In exchange for accepting her into our party, she’d leave us alone and even help us kill the Demon King…… It was a deal that overwhelmingly favored our Hero’s party.
What on earth was she thinking?
Since she was close to a devil and we’d even drawn up a contract through magic, I had no choice but to trust her. I’d heard that if a devil broke a contract, its very existence would be erased.
Even if Belcia wasn’t really a devil and could break the contract without consequence, it wouldn’t matter. I’d already mapped out how to deal with her.
“Well, shall we turn in, too?”
“Yes. So, it’s about time…… for you to hand Lady Yubel over to me, isn’t it, Sir Se-on?”
“……That’s a little difficult.”
“What’s difficult about it!? You lecherous monster……! You’re going to do something weird to Lady Yubel while she’s asleep again, aren’t you!? Even now, you’re slyly rubbing your, your thing against Lady Yubel’s head!”
“Pfft! Khe, cough! W-What are you talking about!!”
It was a misunderstanding. Yubel was simply using my lap as a pillow while she slept. It only looked that way because of the angle—nothing like what Prea was saying was happening.
“In the first place, it’s not like I want to…… to do that! It’s just that if I’m not by her side right now, her condition gets strange!”
“D-Does that even make sense!? Come here, Lady Yubel……!”
With a quick lift, Prea forcibly picked up Yubel, who’d been sleeping beside me. She slipped her hands under Yubel’s arms and lifted her like someone picking up a cat.
But then, this would happen again……
“Eek…… Hhh, hhh……!”
“H-Huh? Lady Yubel’s breathing is getting so ragged!?”
“See…… I’m not staying close to her for no reason.”
It’s been like this ever since I found Yubel in the forest.
If she couldn’t smell me, she seemed to get anxious and start showing strange symptoms. At first, Belcia had tried to pull Yubel away from me, too. But once she saw Yubel like this, she’d only threatened to kill me if I tried anything weird.
Prea had also been uncertain, but she handed Yubel back to me. Then Yubel’s expression visibly began to improve.
Prea’s expression, on the other hand, twisted more and more.
“H-How dare you……”
“Now you understand, right? Right now, without me, Yubel— Aagh!”
Suddenly, a bright light flared, and Prea’s Holy Spear lodged between my legs. Thankfully, it missed.
“What in the world did you do in the forest!?”
“What did I—ugh!—do!? Stop firing at me—!?”
“Anyone can see you used pheromones to seduce our pure Lady Yubel and turn her into ‘a body that can’t live without Se-on’!! Eek! Don’t dodge! Just die!”
What on earth was this saintess going on about!
Amazingly, this had happened in the forest when I was with Belcia, too. Back then, it had been a knife instead of a Holy Spear.
Thankfully, Riella woke up because of the commotion and stopped the thoroughly riled-up Prea, so there weren’t any serious casualties.
Would this party be okay like this?
***
Time passed, and it was the dead of night. Everyone in the Hero’s party had fallen asleep.
[Target ‘Belcia’ is moving to the ‘Mirror World’.]
“My Lord, are you listening? Please stop pretending to sleep. I already know that you’re awake even when ‘that personality’ is unconscious.”
“……You noticed, then.”
“Yes. There’s something I’d like to ask you, if you’ll forgive my presumption…… I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. Yes, as your master, it is my duty to clear up your questions now.”
“Yes……. Then, this way……”
The two left the campsite and walked into the depths of the forest. Ordinarily, the soft chirping of insects would have filled the air, but in this world, where time had stopped, there wasn’t a sound to be heard.
And in a world that quiet, there were people who could react to even the faintest sound.
“……The Demon King?”
Se-on woke up.
A rather shocking statement reached Se-on’s ears, unaffected by the time stop. Words he didn’t want to hear and didn’t want to believe. Perhaps he’d already begun to suspect the truth, little by little, but he’d kept denying it and turning away.
[Objective: Eavesdrop on the conversation between the ‘Demon King’ and ‘Belcia’.]