The beast tamer exiled from the hero’s party and the cat eared girl from the strongest race meet
Gray looked at the unconscious demon with a mixed expression—half exasperated, half impressed.
“Still, that’s insane… I’ve fought demons in my line of work before, but they’re not the kind you can subdue this easily, right? Aren’t they basically all terrifying monsters?”
“I agree with you there. This one isn’t weak by any means. If we had fought properly, it would have been a tough battle.”
“So you struck him down quickly while he was underestimating us, huh?”
“Exactly. Besides, this time our main goal is information gathering. Sora, Luna.”
“Yes.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
They had no idea what kind of abilities this demon possessed.
Which meant, first, they had to strip away his power completely.
“Strength Seal.”
“Astral Seal.”
Sora and Luna recited unfamiliar spells.
Even though we’d been together for quite a while now, the fact that they still had magic I’d never seen was pretty amazing.
Well, I’d heard that spiritfolk could wield close to ten thousand different spells… so for them, maybe this was nothing unusual.
“Rain, the sealing is complete.”
“We’ve locked his power down tight. Not that it’s absolutely unbreakable… but he won’t be counterattacking anytime soon.”
“Thanks. Now then, I’d like to interrogate him to find out what he was plotting, but…”
Right now he was quiet only because he was unconscious.
Once he woke up, he’d definitely thrash around.
His power was sealed, so restraining him should be possible…
But I doubted he’d obediently talk about his intentions.
“Sora, Luna. Can you use magic to look into his mind?”
“…That will be a little difficult. Demons have high resistance to magic, so it won’t go smoothly. If he gave consent, it wouldn’t be an issue, but that won’t happen, of course.”
“And even if we force our way in, there’s no guarantee we’ll get the precise information we want. It’s not a magic well-suited for information gathering.”
“I see…”
So, what should we do?
Interrogation… or maybe torture?
Not that I’d ever done torture before.
Honestly, I’m not good with violence unless absolutely necessary.
I don’t enjoy bloodshed for its own sake.
Still, if there’s no other option… hmm.
“If you’re hesitating, want me to handle it?”
“No, Gray. I’m not going to dump it all on you. If it comes to that, I’ll…”
“Hold on, Rain. I’ve got a good idea.”
Luna smirked wickedly.
It looked like she had something in mind—but what exactly?
“Sister, whip up a quick meal.”
Ah… so that’s it.
That one line told me everything.
“If you say so, I’ll cook. But isn’t this really not the time for food?”
“Just make it. That way, we’ll be able to draw out the information easily and cleanly, heh heh heh.”
Luna was wearing a very mischievous smile.
――――――――――
After that, an interrogation was conducted on the demon who had regained consciousness.
No… perhaps it was torture.
After all, it involved Sora’s cooking… Any more than that would be too cruel to recall.
In any case, the demon talked.
We left the handling of him to Gray…
And to organize the information we’d obtained, we returned to Kriegland.
――――――――――
“A plan to abduct the townspeople… huh.”
That was the information we had extracted from the demon.
Apparently, in the near future, a demon unit led by one of the Four Heavenly Kings—Altera the Blazing Flame—was scheduled to launch a large-scale assault on Kriegland.
But that was just a feint.
The demons’ real objective was to use the chaos to abduct a certain number of townspeople.
Why abduct them?
The demon we captured hadn’t been told that much, so we couldn’t learn the reason… but it was not something we could possibly ignore.
“A demon attack… and the abduction of townspeople… both are serious problems.”
Yuki made a bitter face.
I was probably making a similar expression.
A demon assault alone would already be a huge incident, but on top of that, a kidnapping plan?
How were we supposed to overcome such a crisis?
“It’s a difficult problem, but isn’t it obvious what we should do?”
“Oh? And what would that be?”
“Leave the demon attack to the people of this town. They’re well prepared for it, and besides, reinforcements are being sent from the kingdom, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. The king is on alert, so they’ll dispatch a unit of considerable size.”
“Then the town should be entrusted to them. Of course, if things get really bad, we might have to step in… but our focus should be crushing the enemy’s true objective. That’s what we set out to do from the beginning.”
“The enemy’s objective… which is to abduct humans.”
“Exactly. Sora’s right.”
We still didn’t know the demons’ ultimate purpose in abducting people.
But Iris had once warned us with unsettling words—things like “labor force” or “breeding stock.”
It wasn’t something we could just let slide.
We had to treat that as the true threat, and plan accordingly.
“…I just thought of something.”
Yuki spoke again, face twisted with unease—like he didn’t want his suspicion to be true.
“The demon we caught today… you could say he was part of a preliminary test, right? To gather the data needed for the main operation, they first tried abducting townsfolk with a small unit…”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“Then… doesn’t that mean there are already people who’ve been abducted?”
“That would…”
The word “missing persons” must really mean people already taken by demons.
We didn’t know what kind of treatment those captives were receiving…
But one thing was certain—they were no longer in this town.
They must have been taken across the sea, to the demon continent in the west.
If that was the case…
“We have to save them.”
Our voices—mine and Yuki’s—overlapped.
We looked at each other, both surprised.
After a brief pause, we both gave a small chuckle.
“Heh… so we were thinking the same thing.”
“Looks like it.”
I glanced around at everyone’s faces.
No one objected. Their expressions said, We’ll leave it to you.
“Then… while continuing to uncover the enemy’s true purpose, let’s also move to rescue the abducted people.”
“““Yeah!!!”””
Comments
Post a Comment