Even after that, the remnants of Eden didn’t give up their pursuit of me.
Even though they were dying in droves without even knowing why.
Faith was truly terrifying.
They’d throw their lives away so easily just to prove their belief.
Maybe that was why Eden was the second-largest organization among all the groups.
For reference, the largest organization was “Under Chain”.
Since necromancers dealt with the undead, it was only natural they had a massive army.
Think about how many had died during the Empire’s conquest wars.
Now, you could just walk down the street, and the moment someone cast dark magic, corpses would spring up from anywhere. It was beyond explanation.
…Though right now, it looked like I might become one of those corpses myself.
“Johan Damus.”
“Why does everyone keep calling me by my full name? Isn’t that a bit too formal for preaching?”
“Johan.”
“He really called me that just because I told him to.”
“Then, Sir Damus?”
“No, that’s not what I meant…”
Forget the first name or surname. Who even were these people? Were they seriously trying to preach or something?
I couldn’t believe I’d ended up caught up with these lunatics. I had no idea what kind of mess this was.
“If you come with us now, we can ensure your arms and legs remain intact, Brother Johan.”
“Oh fuck, now he’s suddenly all friendly.”
Even his expression changed so drastically, it gave me chills.
Was this how cult fanatics worked?
“Hoo…”
Anyway, there was no way I could just let them drag me off like this.
What was the point of being taken away with my limbs intact? I’d just die when I got there.
Even if I lost an arm or a leg, it’d be better to survive. Fortunately, I was a noble. Losing limbs didn’t mean much. I could easily hire someone to care for me.
Once again, I gripped the sword disguised with illusion magic as a dagger.
“That is a foolish move. Bold and clever, yes, but it’s a trick you’ve already used several times. Looking closely, I can even gauge where the tip of your sword is from the shimmer in the air.”
“I know.”
Camouflage magic could overlay an illusion, but it wasn’t perfect.
It only made something look a certain way. The sword itself didn’t actually change, so every movement left a faint afterimage.
Until now, enemies had conveniently mistaken that for my clumsy swordsmanship, but once someone had figured out my trick, there was no fooling them again.
Yeah, in the end, this was all it amounted to. It was only useful for surprise attacks.
“You resist even knowing that? How utterly foolish.”
“Yeah, it’s foolish. But when did I ever say I was going to fight?”
What if I just pretended to get into a fighting stance, then turned and ran away?
Besides screaming and chasing after me, what else could he even do?
“Wh-What?! S-Stop! If you run, I’ll kill everyone around here!”
“You’re seriously evil, you know that?”
Still, I was a free spirit.
My life was the most important thing to me.
“What the hell, why isn’t he stopping?!”
Even if these guys took nearby civilians hostage and tried to threaten me, I wouldn’t care.
That kind of thing was the knights’ responsibility, not mine.
I was a model citizen who respected other people’s professions.
“And you call yourself a noble?!”
“Oh.”
Okay, that one stung a little.
Being in a position of authority over others did weigh on my conscience.
Nobles enjoyed privileges, yes, but that meant they also had responsibilities.
“But I’m not a capital noble, am I?”
Still, I wasn’t about to fall for such a cheap provocation.
The capital was the emperor’s concern, not mine.
If I started worrying about that, I’d be overstepping my bounds.
How could I, a subject of the Empire, dare to challenge the authority of the Emperor?
Ah, His Majesty, the solemn and mighty Emperor!
Without looking back, I started to run.
Maybe because he had been waiting for my attack from the start, his pursuit was a beat too late.
I wasn’t much of a swordsman, my stamina was lacking, and I couldn’t even use magic well. But since I was the one who bolted first, that gave me at least some advantage.
The distance between us was closing bit by bit, but if I could just buy a little time, that crazy clown who helped me earlier would take care of things.
“Johan Damus. If you come quietly, your limbs will…”
“What now?! Who the hell are you?”
But Eden’s reinforcements came even faster than that.
I turned a corner into an alley and ran straight into another fanatic.
He seemed startled by my sudden appearance and hesitated for a moment, but then started spouting his rehearsed lines to try and coax me into surrendering.
Fortunately, this time the situation was in my favor.
He froze up in surprise, while my senses were razor sharp. If I could finish this before he snapped out of it…
“Whoa, you scared me! What the—?”
“Gah!”
Clang!
Ah… but it didn’t work.
His desperate counterattack caught me off guard, and I was knocked back pathetically.
Sure, my skills weren’t great, but I was also just exhausted. I’d already taken out three of Eden’s followers and had been running nonstop; there was no helping it.
In other words, this current mess was my fault for not factoring that in.
“Fuck…….”
It was my fault, sure, but the curse slipped out anyway.
I’d managed to hold on so far, only to blow it with such a ridiculous mistake.
If I had just been pushed back, that’d be one thing. But now I was completely surrounded.
There was the guy who had been chasing me from the start, and now this new one right in front of me.
To make matters worse, I’d been flung away by that counterattack and lost all momentum.
“This is the end of the road.”
“…Wait, can you just hear me out for a second? It’s really important.”
“Tell it to us when you get there.”
“Don’t come any closer! I’ll scream if you do!”
“That’s a pretty weak threat.”
“I’ll shout your cult leader’s name!”
There was no other choice.
Backed into a corner like this, I had no option left but to draw my double-edged sword.
Unlike the leaders of other groups who lived however they pleased, the leader of Eden, Kult, held a proper social status.
Mentioning his name here was as good as admitting that I knew his secret.
“You guys don’t even know why you were told to drag me in, do you? Of course not. Lackeys like you wouldn’t have a clue.”
Even though I had been focused entirely on running for my life, I had still managed to grasp the situation to some extent.
Countless followers of Eden had died. So had civilians.
And yet the knights hadn’t moved a finger. There was no way that made sense.
They were clearly being held back by something.
The Empire had a lot of enemies from the start.
And this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, so the Imperial Knights had already been systematized to respond immediately to terrorist acts like this.
“Just look at how many people they’ve sent. You can tell what’s going on. That bastard’s nearby, isn’t he?”
“Don’t you dare speak the cult leader’s name so carelessly.”
“…He’s nearby, isn’t he?”
Look at them! Look at how their eyes are spinning with madness! Alright, alright—I get it. Sorry for saying your cult leader’s name so casually.
“Anyway, didn’t he personally order you to bring me in?”
“…That’s right.”
“Then why do you think he gave that order? Why go all out, sending this many people just to catch someone like me?”
Honestly, I had no idea.
But was I the only one in the dark?
There was a good chance the lackeys didn’t know either.
Judging from the current situation, it was clear that the order to bring me in had come directly from that bastard, Kult.
He was the only one who could mobilize a force of this scale without restriction.
Given that, I threw them something to think about.
That I was being captured because I knew who the leader of Eden really was.
I was leading them in that direction on purpose.
“Getting the picture now? So what do you think will happen if I start shouting that bastard…no, his name, begging for my life? What do you think the Empire will make of it if someone like me suddenly vanishes?”
A double-edged sword.
It could screw the enemy over, but it could just as easily put me at the very top of Eden’s kill list.
The magic word: Kult.
If I disappeared or was killed after naming Kult, suspicion would surely fall on him.
But if I used this trick to survive the moment, it was also certain that I’d become Eden’s number one target for elimination.
“Or what? Are you planning to kill everyone in the capital who might’ve heard me shout?”
“……”
“Someone you can’t even see is picking your people off one by one, and you really think you can silence everyone for good?”
“Johan Damus.”
“I said don’t come any closer. If you do, we’re all going down.”
Alright, things had calmed down for the moment.
Now what was I supposed to do?
Bringing up that bastard Kult to stay alive had worked, but now that I’d mentioned him, there was no way they were letting me go.
Now I was someone who knew the truth about their secret organization.
All I’d managed to do was buy a little time. Not solve the actual problem.
Right. Time. Time was the key.
Time was the only thing I could count on now.
If I could just stall long enough, someone was bound to show up. Someone who could break through Eden’s forces.
“I have to admit, that story piqued my interest too. Johan Damus.”
Crunch!
Suddenly, the head of the guy who had been glaring at me exploded.
And then a woman with red hair and bright yellow eyes appeared.
“To think we’d run into each other in a place like this… What a coincidence.”
Lobelia Vicious von Miltonia.
“Johan Damus, do you see this? Who would’ve thought there was so much scrap metal in the world?”
With those words, Lobelia threw a huge chunk of metal to the ground.
Looking closely, it seemed like a chunk of iron, melted and roughly lumped together.
Crackle!
Judging from the red lightning still lingering on the hunk of metal, it seemed clear that Lobelia had made it herself.
“Even scrap metal can have value if you recycle it properly.”
Lobelia’s ability, Red Thunder, could easily melt metal.
Thanks to that, I could quickly figure out what that chunk of metal really was.
“There are a few more over here.”
They were symbols of faith.
Eden’s emblems had been melted and fused into massive chunks of metal by the red lightning.
“You heretic!!”
It might have been the most perfect way to strike a fanatic’s nerve.
***
Immediately after Lobelia’s arrival, Safe Clown’s support vanished, but fortunately, the situation was quickly brought under control.
Of course, that was partly because our main character had the handy skill of smashing people’s skulls with bare hands.
Terrifying, really.
And the appearance of the Imperial Knights, who came alongside the princess, was enough to completely shatter the enemy’s will to fight.
After all, what could anyone do when a military force that had swept across the continent made its move?
If they had been confident in winning a direct fight against the Knights, those organizations wouldn’t have kept their activities hidden beneath the surface in the first place.
“Well then, Your Highness, we’ll go ahead and clear out the street now.”
“Yes, of course. I’ve been inconsiderate, calling over someone so busy. Thank you for your work.”
“Not at all. We’re simply doing our duty.”
“You’re quite rigid.”
“If your heart isn’t hardened enough to kill someone, then you’d best harden your head instead, don’t you think?”
These were people who had likely massacred at least hundreds of thousands in countless conquest wars. It wouldn’t be surprising if some part of their mind had snapped.
And whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, the Imperial Knights couldn’t exactly be called Lobelia’s allies.
They followed only the Emperor.
With the imperial succession still uncertain, they were maintaining strict neutrality.
If they had gotten involved in the struggle for the throne, rivers of blood would’ve flowed. So it was better that they remained quietly on the sidelines.
After the Imperial Knights departed and the suffocating tension finally began to lift, Lobelia smiled brightly and said,
“Now then. Oracle? I saved your life, didn’t I?”
“I don’t know about the Oracle part, but you definitely saved the life of Johan Damus.”
“Exactly. So that means you owe me a debt, doesn’t it?”
“…That’s right.”
“In that case, shouldn’t there be something you ought to give me?”
Now, what should I do?
Lobelia had found out that I knew the leader of Eden.
She already called me the Oracle. Was she really going to let this opportunity slide?
Honestly, if it had been just a moment earlier, I would’ve spelled out the name of Kult Hereticus loud and clear without hesitation.
And why not? I had planned to use that fact as leverage.
Eden would probably want to tear me limb from limb just for knowing who their cult leader was.
But now, there were no longer any followers left who knew that fact. Lobelia had personally smashed in their skulls and erased the evidence.
“…Would buying you a meal be enough, maybe?”
Just testing the waters.
I had no desire to end up on Eden’s assassination list as an informant.
“I have quite the refined palate, you know.”
An unexpected response.
As expected of our main character—
Bold and righteous.
Saving a life must’ve just felt like the natural thing to do for her.
I hurriedly began trying to recall every good restaurant I knew.
“Well then…”
“So if we’re going to eat, how about just eating together at the Imperial Palace? The palace’s chef is quite skilled.”
Would you look at this insane power freak?
She was downright sinister and underhanded.
Dragging someone like me who had no backing at all into the battlefield that was central politics?
That was basically a death sentence.
“Did you say you wanted to know the name of Eden’s cult leader? His name is ‘Kult’ and that bastard is…”
“Haha! That’s what I like about you.”
But I was a true ordinary citizen. Someone who knew when to yield to injustice.
***
TN: Changed the princess’s name to Lobelia
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