Chapter 70
I couldn't hide my bewilderment at the overly peaceful scenery for a place that was supposedly invaded.
Of course, it might be different if we go to the outskirts, even if only the center is like this...
Considering that it wasn't an ordinary person, but the Saintesss, one of the representatives of the church, who was kidnapped by demon race, this peace and sense of stability was unrealistic.
If a key figure of the church can be kidnapped by demon race, it means there's no management at all.
Yet for that, the city's scenery was too peaceful.
Seeing this, I felt my mind becoming complicated and frowned, then just in case, I said to Siren, "Can you check if there are any traces related to demon race around?"
"Okay."
Siren nodded and stretched her hand upward.
Wondering what she was doing, I was silently watching Siren when suddenly an intense mana storm swept through the surroundings and mana started spreading in all directions.
...She's definitely a monster.
I nodded, thinking I now understood why Priltanin Lirelsu, the former royal mage, that was, Siren's magic teacher, was astonished when he saw Siren.
As I was admiring Siren, she tilted her head as if puzzled and said to me, "There's nothing."
"Nothing? You mean there are no demon race?"
"Yeah. Outside the city, maybe, but inside there are no beings that look like demon races at all."
At those words, I frowned, feeling the situation falling into confusion.
Then is it a lie that Ruen was kidnapped? No, Liana has no reason to lie to me. It would be right to consider the kidnapping as true.
Then where on earth did Ruen go, and where are the demon race who supposedly kidnapped her?
No, I can’t even be sure if Ruen was actually in the port city of Chetica in the first place.
I asked Siren to locate Ruen, but…
"...I can faintly feel traces, but I don't know exactly where she is."
Even Siren couldn't properly locate Ruen and expressed difficulty.
"I think they might have confined the Saintess in a place that can't be detected by tracking magic."
It was natural, if one thought about it, since she was kidnapped.
I pondered for a moment at those words, then decided to meet up with Liana first, having no choice.
***
As I was moving towards places where Liana might be, like a tavern, Liana, who had been waiting in advance, greeted us with a very stern expression and said to me, "Damian..."
Judging by her very haggard expression, it seemed she had been through a lot of mental anguish due to Ruen's kidnapping.
However, what was strange was that unlike usual, she called me “Damian” in a more informal way.
Thinking it might be because she was having a hard time, I was about to pat Liana's back when…
"Myeok...!"
Suddenly, Daisy in my arms made an expression of wariness and tried to push Liana away.
It seemed she was acting this way due to strong jealousy because I had returned after a long time, but because the situation was so urgent, I pushed Daisy's head in to calm her down and said to Liana, "What exactly happened?"
At my question, Liana looked around and then said to me in a small voice, "We should move to a different location first. There might be eyes watching here."
Thinking that would be good, I nodded.
Liana gestured to me and led me somewhere.
Liana took us to a small room in the basement of an inconspicuous building.
She indicated where we should sit and urgently started speaking.
"First, please understand that I can't be as polite as usual because the situation is urgent."
"It's fine, just tell me what happened."
Liana nodded, then handed me a document and said,
"After you entered the portal to train, a person called Archbishop Mikhail came to see the Saintess.”
Archbishop Mikhail was the one who joined forces with Elisia to make Dasoon a hero.
I nodded as I recalled this, and Liana continued speaking in a calm voice, "Archbishop Mikhail passed information to the Saintess that the city of Chetica would be invaded. Whether this information was true or false, it was an urgent situation, so the Saintess took troops and..."
To summarize, if the port city of Chetica were to be taken by demon race, there was an extremely high possibility that an unsalvageable situation would unfold.
To prepare for this, she came to Chetica with holy knights, but unlike what she had heard from Mikhail, a very peaceful scene was unfolding, and while she was bewildered, “black mages” appeared.
"...Black mages?"
It wasn't particularly special for black mages to appear, as they crawled through the darkness like cockroaches.
But it was somewhat strange that they openly appeared before the Saintess accompanied by holy knights.
Moreover, given the characteristics of black mages, they have a strong tendency towards gloominess.
There were almost no cases where they came out openly, so it was hard to understand why they acted like this.
Acting in a way that's hard to understand. In this case, it can only be a trap.
However, it was somewhat puzzling because it was such an obvious trap.
As questions kept arising about their behavior, as if they didn't care about being discovered,
Liana, with her hair quite disheveled, said to me, "The black mages who appeared like that blew away all the holy knights somewhere, then kidnapped only the Saintess and disappeared."
No matter how I listened to it, there were more than one or two suspicious points.
Realizing that the situation was more tangled than I thought, I pondered for a moment, then asked Liana if there was any additional information, and she nodded and told me what she had found out.
"First of all, it's true that the demon race were trying to invade this place. To be more precise, you can think of it as them just pretending to invade and confronting from afar."
According to the original work, the demon race was a race that not only was extremely belligerent but worshipped such tendencies.
They were described as hating acts of waiting and watching like cowards.
As such, it was somewhat strange that they were not just in a simple confrontation, but have been in a long-term standoff.
As I was pondering this, thinking it was odd, I came up with one speculation.
Could it be that the black mages and demon race made a contract and trapped Ruen?
While there was far too little evidence to call this the truth, somehow I had a feeling it might be so, and I said to Liana, "...Yes. I also judged that possibility to be high, so based on what you said, I tried to investigate, but no matter how much I searched, I couldn't obtain any related information."
"That means you couldn't find any information about Ruen either, I guess."
"Yes. I searched everywhere using my ability... but I couldn't find any trace of the Saintess underground, above ground, or in the sky."
Watching Liana crumble, a suspicion suddenly crossed my mind.
Of course, this was an extremely sensitive issue to bring up, so it was difficult to mention it carelessly.
Just in case, I asked a few questions, "...You couldn't find any trace of Ruen at all?"
"No."
The moment I heard those words, the suspicion I had planted started to sprout.
But this alone was far from enough, so I asked a question to the Liana who might be real or fake, just in case.
"But with your ability, shouldn't you be able to notice?"
"Yes, that's true, but... it was difficult to discover because the black mages had hidden her so well."
Liana, who had never told me what her ability was, started speaking as if she had told me about her ability before.
The moment I heard those words, I could realize that the Liana in front of me was a “fake”.
As soon as I made that judgment, I immediately told Siren to capture the fake Liana.
"Okay."
"D-Damian? What on earth are you doing!?"
I wanted to strike her head with a hammer, but I had to consider the possibility that my guess might be wrong, so I held back and took Daisy out of my chest.
"Myeok! Myak!"
As soon as Daisy saw Liana, she started barking and becoming wary.
Seeing this, I realized that person was a fake and immediately created a shadow hammer and struck the fake Liana's head.
Crack.
With the sound of something breaking,
The fake Liana's body melted like slime and turned into a black liquid.
Seeing this, I frowned as I contained the liquid with shadows to prevent it from escaping.
I thought something was off from the beginning.
If it were Liana's personality, she would have likely come to find me directly rather than coincidentally meeting at a tavern.
And the way she address me also tipped me off.
Furthermore, the fact that Daisy was greatly wary.
Lastly, I was able to realize Liana was fake because she spoke as if she had told me about her information-related skills, when she had never told me about them.
But what's strange is.
The fact that Siren didn't notice Liana was fake, so I asked about this, "I'm not sure about that either... Her unique mana structure was clearly Liana's, so I thought she was Liana. Moreover, when she came asking for help last time, she was definitely real..."
She said she couldn't notice at all because the mana structure, which was like a person's fingerprint, was completely identical.
"I'm sorry..."
I put Daisy on top of Siren's head, who was apologizing, and observed the reaction.
Seeing Daisy remain calm, it seemed Siren was real, so I patted Siren's head and told her it was okay.
"I'm asking just in case, but can you track the black mages with this liquid contained in the shadow?"
"Yeah. I think that's possible."
"Then please do."
I watched Siren using magic and calmly took a deep breath, frowning.