Is It Bad That the Main Character’s a Roleplayer? - Chapter 83: Don’t Do This (8)

Ayu Hin wasn’t a port city. Despite being close to the beach, given its topography, getting there by horse was much faster than by boat from the hidden port.

However, if about 300 people wanted to go there and didn’t have even a single horse, that logic would be reversed.

As such, the pirates in the port offered them a boat, a ship that would carry the people of the order and the wizards to the vicinity of Ayu Hin.

“What made you do it?”

Windhand was leaning over the railing. In the distance, he could see Ayu Hin, which had been built on a hill.

“Never thought you’d be the first to offer them a ride. To those church bastards, no less.”

However, one passenger remained on board. Windhand passed a bottle of alcohol to Boss Rahong. It was something he’d smuggled over from the port.

“You… Wasn’t it you who told me?”

Probably unaware of that detail, Rahong accepted the bottle and instead pointed out a particular matter. Strong liquor poured out of the copper bottle.

“We can’t lose our family again, right?… We shouldn’t let them live atop burning ashes again… I just thought what you said was right.”

She gently lowered her wrinkled eyelids.

“Because those kids are innocent.”

“…What’s going on, old hag? Finally overcame your stubbornness?”

“You definitely won’t live long.”

“Longer than you, though.”

“Fine. Live long, then. The longer you live, the more shit you get to see.”

“Are you cursing me right now?”

This trivial banter was perfect for covering up their mixed feelings and sadness. Furthermore, using the alcohol, they set free all those hidden emotions before they could fester.

“…Do you think they’ll be successful?”

“Do you want to know?”

Windhand was handed another bottle of alcohol and poured the liquor into his mouth. He completely ignored the doctor’s advice that drinking too much alcohol was like stabbing himself in the stomach.

“The port already looks like this, so if they don’t even manage to deal with Vipurit, we’ll be doomed, right?”

There were many among the pirates who didn’t listen to that advice, though.

“Captain!”

At that moment, the person in the crow’s nest shouted loudly. Rahong’s eyes turned fierce.

“Don’t be so loud. What if the Demons notice us…”

“I saw a blue signal coming up from Ayu Hin!”

“…!”

“Vipurit is dead!”

That was quite enough reason to shout out like that.

* * *

“Gasp!”

The Inquisitor opened her eyes and immediately raised her body slightly. The air she urgently took in seemed both cold and heavy.

Her lungs, ribs, and all the muscles surrounding them were aching severely.

“The Demon Knight?!”

However, now wasn’t the time for her to succumb to this pain. She anxiously looked about. Turning her head, she could feel her hair touching only one side of her face as her surroundings came into view.

She was in a prison cell, albeit adjusted to be a bit more comfortable.

“…?”

Her first theory was that she’d failed.

However, if that were the case, she wouldn’t have ever woken up again. So, she proved that hypothesis wrong.

So, did that mean they’d successfully subdued the Demon Knight? Even though she’d collapsed?

No, rather, were the others safe?

Rustle.

She was alive, so she concluded the worst-case scenario probably hadn’t passed. She now raised her body entirely.

The soft cotton blanket covering her body was pushed aside. While there were no beds in these prison cells, multiple blankets had been piled beneath her to make a makeshift bed.

“Ah, there you are.”

Furthermore, her eternal partners, her mace and shield, were leaning beside each other against a prison wall.

Seeing her usual armor, which she’d entrusted to the main forces, lying atop a piece of cloth, she became even more convinced that the situation wasn’t so bad.

“Is Vipurit really dead?”

“You saw it yourself.”

“No… I mean, I still can’t quite believe that Vipurit turned into that monster…”

Even more so when she heard the chatter echoing through the hallway outside.

The Inquisitor blinked her eyes before deciding to first put on her clothes.

She had left her armor behind to be less conspicuous while infiltrating, which had made her miss it even more.

“When will the Hero wake up?”

“The priests said her injuries aren’t that serious.”

She quickly put on her armor, quietly listening to the chatter. Although she had no squires to assist her, she fully donned her armor in less than 10 minutes.

“So, that monster really ended up just getting sealed…”

Squeak.

She pushed open the steel bar door. As it evidently hadn’t been maintained well, the sound of metal rubbing against metal quickly echoed throughout the hallway.

The chatter she’d been hearing from a distance immediately stopped.

“Th-The Hero!”

“She’s awake!”

The Inquisitor saw members of the church rushing toward her. Of course, even if she said ‘members’, that didn’t mean many were present.

“I-I’ll let the others know!”

One of them even turned to rush elsewhere. The remaining two came right up to her.

“Ah, hello.”

The Inquisitor slightly greeted those who rushed toward her with a bow, then tried to find out the most important things.

“What’s the situation right now?”

About the Demon Knight, the thief, and the people who were there at that time.

As well as what had happened after she collapsed.

The priests fell silent for a moment when faced with her question. Given her little experience interacting with others, she couldn’t recognize the more subtle emotions in their expression, but to her, it didn’t seem as if anything too awful had happened.

“Let me… first explain everything from the beginning.”

“I’m listening.”

After some time had passed, they began to explain.

How the main forces had come at just the right time, why so few people were here now, how many casualties there were, how they handled the aftermath, and so on.

“We were able to get here so fast thanks to the port’s pirates helping us. I was prepared for them to treat us with great hostility, but most were surprisingly cooperative.”

“As we entered the city, we noticed our enemies were in a great state of confusion, so we divided our forces to subdue them.”

“Of the 38 who went inside the castle, none have died, and 35 were injured. Among them, four were seriously injured. However, the priests were able to treat them onsite immediately, so their lives were saved. They are currently recovering.”

“Of the 264 who remained outside, 19 died, and 37 were injured. The remaining enemies fought like a ragtag group of amateurs, so they didn’t cause us any significant damage. Most of the deaths happened while fighting against the Demons.”

“Currently, the wizards are trying to create a safe zone with the castle and prison as its center, and we are focusing our efforts on dealing with the Demons and searching for survivors.”

The Inquisitor quietly listened to their report. Then, as her curiosity grew, she finally started asking some questions.

“The pirates didn’t come with you?”

“Given the danger this place holds, they remained on the beach. After successfully reclaiming this area, we sent them a signal, so they’re probably returning to the port to pick up some supplies as we had agreed.”

“What did you mean regarding our enemies being in a great state of confusion?”

“It seemed something went wrong and Vipurit’s men were getting attacked by the Demons. There were almost no higher-ranking members to be seen, so they were left in a daze. The Archmage decided we could easily subdue them if we split them up.”

“Ah, that probably happened because all the Demon Contractors in the castle died, so the Demons ran berserk.”

“Yes. After investigating, we came to the same conclusion.”

“What happened to Vipurit?”

“His death has been confirmed. We have disposed of his body already.”

However, there was one last question that she had put off remaining in her mind.

“…What happened to the Demon Knight?”

That there were no deaths among the 38 people who’d faced the Demon Knight pointed to a certain possibility. However, it didn’t necessarily mean things were like that.

After putting it off for a long time, the Inquisitor finally asked about him. As a Hero, she shouldn’t think such weak things, but… she was rather afraid of what the priest would tell her.

“He…”

Then, the priest’s face darkened.

“…The bishop insisted on the death penalty, but the Archmage fiercely opposed him, so he ended up getting temporarily sealed.”

The Inquisitor’s eyes widened.

* * *

“It sure is hard being old…”

The Archmage massaged the back of his neck as he reviewed the never-ending list of tasks.

He had taken 300 people with him, but he was left speechless that even that amount wasn’t enough. This wasn’t something that could be solved even with the deep wisdom of a Sage.

“Should I say it’s fortunate that not many were affected by this disaster…”

The old Shaggi looked back to when the Great Demon had taken over the Demon Knight’s body and blew up the whole castle.

Thinking back on it, he felt it was a very fortunate choice that they’d only brought 40 people inside and not all of them.

Had they been dragged inside the castle, they all would have died the moment it got blown away.

“…Maybe there really was no one there.”

Of course, luck had its limits. With everything pretty much destroyed, there was no way to check whether what he thought was true, but he felt like no one had been left inside.

To call the survival of the Inquisitor, the thief, and everyone he led a coincidence was just too much.

“I wonder if the attack got deflected somehow… Or was it never meant to hit us?”

The Archmage looked back at the castle. Its top part was completely missing, as if it had been dug up by a trowel, leaving only a bit of its bottom half behind.

That resulted from the Inquisitor blocking the attack and the sword strike’s aim being just high enough to miss them.

That was also why he was contemplating whether they’d really managed to avoid it through their own power or if it was never meant to hit them, to begin with. The wall still standing was about the height of someone lying down.

As such, instead of entertaining the possibility that someone got caught up in this act of destruction, he concluded that there had been no victims.

If the Demon Knight woke up and controlled the Demon as he’d shown he could, one could argue that he’d saved more lives than he’d taken this time.

“…However, one should still mourn the dead.”

The moment one used relative values as a standard to weigh life and death against each other, kindness and empathy would become meaningless. However, wisdom didn’t always lie in goodness.

He had done his best as a Sage. He would never regret this decision, even if it wasn’t the right one.

“Hm.”

…While he had no regrets, he was a little scared.

Reminding himself of something, he loosened his stiff fingers. A Demon was still a Demon. How could he have threatened them so much with just a single blow?

“Sir Archmage!!”

He then heard a booming voice calling out to him. When he heard her, his only thought was, ‘So she finally came, huh?’

Rather than saying he liked or disliked this, it was more that he recognized the work he had to take care of, no matter what just came to his doorstep.

“Keep working.”

“Yes.”

He approached a wizard and glanced at what he was working on. The Demon Knight was imprisoned within an empty space where a now demolished building had once stood.

The wizards were strengthening the restraint magic circle under his supervision.

“You’re keeping the Demon Knight sealed…”

Meanwhile, a certain someone who’d approached him while accompanied by the sound of clanking metal immediately looked toward him. Her gaze quickly fell on the sealed man, however.

Despite being quite inflexible, the Inquisitor was fairly smart and understood how seals worked.

There was no way she would be surprised by that. The part the Inquisitor was so surprised by was…

“Wh-What’s with that blade?”

The sword pierced through the Demon Knight’s abdomen.

“He stabbed himself with it.”

“Himself…?”

The Archmage could roughly guess where the Inquisitor’s memories stopped.

Had she remembered the Demon Knight leaving the Thief alive and stabbing himself instead, she wouldn’t have repeated back his words like that.

“Yes, himself.”

“That’s…”

The Inquisitor’s eyes trembled upon hearing that the Demon Knight had hurt himself in such a way.

However, since she couldn’t guess the intentions behind these actions, the shaking ceased.

“But if we leave him like that, won’t he die from blood loss?”

“Do you think we’re just leaving him like that? Don’t worry. We are providing him with treatment.”

No. It was even doubtful whether he even needed that treatment to begin with. Although he hadn’t fully healed yet because of the blade still stuck in him, he likely wouldn’t require much treatment.

While he lacked the same regenerative powers displayed by the Inquisitor, his natural recovery speed clearly surpassed that of ordinary people.

“Still, this is simply too much. H-He shouldn’t be treated like this.”

Well. Was that really the case?

The Archmage followed the Inquisitor’s gaze and looked at the sealed man.

Not only were his arms and legs restrained, but even his eyes were covered and his mouth bound with a wet cloth. However, this still seemed insufficient in his eyes.

This was a completely separate matter from his trust in the Demon Knight.

His strength clearly exceeded that of an average human, so he was extremely dangerous.

Even if the probability of the Demon awakening again instead of the Demon Knight was limited to just 0.01%, the damage they’d suffer was far too overwhelming.

Furthermore, he was the supervisor of this site. He was responsible for far too many lives to care about a single person’s circumstances.

“No matter what you say, Inquisitor, I cannot compromise on this. You know his strength is the greatest out of all of us.”

“I’m not asking you to remove his restraints. I’m just asking if it wouldn’t be fine to remove the blade stuck in his abdomen.”

However, the Inquisitor didn’t back down easily. This was even more difficult because she was such an inflexible person to begin with.

How could he persuade someone who fully agreed to the seal, given this person had gone on a rampage not too long ago, but still wanted to remove the sword because she thought ‘it wasn’t right?’ She also wasn’t asking anything too unreasonable here.

“I didn’t know he’d stabbed himself with this sword, but… I at least saw that the Demon Knight voluntarily stopped his attack at the last moment. There were also no deaths among us, only among the Demon worshipers and pirates. I doubt that’s a coincidence.”

“I also don’t believe this was a coincidence. But…”

“I’m not asking you to weaken or release him from the seal. All I ask is to give him the minimum treatment a person deserves. Can’t you do that, at least?”

“…We currently don’t have enough manpower. When the situation becomes more stable, we’ll start his treatment, okay?”

“…As long as that’s the case.”

In the end, the Archmage decided to give in. Truthfully, he also felt quite uncomfortable with the Demon Knight’s treatment.

Just as one cannot criticize sacrificing the few for the greater good by saying it couldn’t be helped, one also couldn’t say it was right.

“Instead, there is something I would like to ask of you, Inquisitor.”

Moreover, there was something he needed the Inquisitor’s cooperation for.

He wasn’t such a petty person that he wouldn’t accept her request if she decided to refuse his, but relationships tended to be far smoother when there was give and take.

“What would that be?”

“It’s nothing much. We just need your power to deal with the Demons in this city.”

No, was that really all? Although he didn’t say it, quite a few things required the Inquisitor’s power.

Purifying the corpses and the corrupted land throughout the area, escorting those still trapped to this palace, and clearing the path outside by killing the Demons around the city could only become less of a burden if the Inquisitor stepped in.

Of course, if the Archmage stepped in, it would have a similar effect, but… Unfortunately, he had a lot more work to do.

From taking care of the survivors and preparing their food, clothing, and shelter, to requisitioning supplies to be sent to the rear, hunting down Demon Worshipers who might still be hiding among the people, deciding on the treatment of those who surrendered when they noticed their defeat was imminent, taking care of the bodies of the dead Demon Worshipers, and so on.

Therefore, he had no choice but to leave the rest to the Inquisitor. They were just that understaffed.

“This isn’t something you should ask for. It’s something I ought to do.”

“I knew you would say that… But have you even gotten proper rest? Only eight hours have passed since you collapsed.”

“It’s fine. I’m not the only one who couldn’t rest properly. I can’t pass on my duties when the situation is like this.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. The Demon Knight would have probably done the same thing.”

The Archmage saw that her hair, although cut once more, was still glossy.

Although he was glad she chose not to attack the Demon Knight after this incident, he was a little worried about the excessive respect she held toward him.

He wondered how things would turn out if the Demon Knight didn’t wake up.

“Don’t overdo it.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t plan on putting too much strain on myself. I know being patient and moving forward one step at a time will save more people than rushing and ultimately falling.”

“…That is very true.”

However, even if that happened, the Inquisitor wouldn’t lose her way. No, she probably never even considered that the Demon Knight might never wake up.

In the end, she also trusted that man a lot.

“…Now that I think about it, where did that thief go?”

Then, right as the Inquisitor was about to leave, she turned around again. He’d thought she might ask about him.

He just found it hard to answer her this time.

“Ah, he… is taking care of some tasks he’s been given.”

“Is that so? Then, do you know where he went?”

“…I don’t. Why are you looking for him?”

Considering the mission the Archmage had entrusted the thief with, if the Inquisitor found out about it, she wouldn’t be happy about it.

She would understand if he explained the situation a bit more, but the distance between them would greatly increase. They had barely managed to become friendly with each other these days, so there was no need to destroy that progress.

That was why he pretended not to know.

“That’s…”

It was then the Inquisitor’s turn to look at a loss. The Archmage could guess as to why.

“I-I have to thank him.”

The answer came quicker than expected. A helpless yet happy smile appeared on the Archmage’s face.

“I see. However, the task he was given is very covert, so I advise you not to look for him for now, Inquisitor. He probably hasn’t left the city’s vicinity, so you can do it later… Why don’t you tell him after he’s completed his work?”

“Okay. Understood.”

However, he still couldn’t let them meet now.

“Then, I’ll go now.”

“Be careful.”

He waved his hand and sent the Inquisitor off. When he saw that the Inquisitor had left, he turned his head back to his own work.

“Sir Archmage! There’s a problem with the safe zone barrier!”

“It’s my turn first! We’ve discovered some objects and materials developed by the Demon Worshipers! They seem to be curse jars and research papers on mutating zombies!”

…However, he hadn’t noticed more work coming his way.

Maybe.

* * *

* * *

While the Archmage was struggling to get his work done, the Deathbringer was hiding in an alleyway. He was carrying out a mission the Archmage had entrusted him with.

『I’m sorry.』

However, saying he was focused entirely on his task would be a lie.

He was leaning against a wall, pondering over past memories. The dawn’s glow above the man, now firmly bound and further sealed, had intertwined with his eyelashes. Beneath them, the dimly flickering gray irises continued to appear in his mind.

『I’m really sorry.』

Could there be an apology more contradictory in this world? It was almost as incongruous as the word ‘glorious death’, yet it didn’t feel as awkward.

Whenever Deathbringer recalled that moment, his feelings became a complicated mess.

The Demon Knight definitely wasn’t speaking as the Demon, but… he also didn’t seem like the man he knew. Were it the Demon Knight he knew, he’d have spat out some firm words instead of such a soft apology.

However, despite that, why did that subtle incongruity not make him feel completely uncomfortable?

Perhaps it was because that smiling face made him seem so harmless.

‘I would never want to hurt you. I’m sorry for hurting you.’ It was a smile that conveyed these messages solely through his facial expressions…

And yet.

He hadn’t been able to do anything. All because he had no strength, honor, or power to make others follow him.

“Sigh…”

He couldn’t even allow his collapsed body to rest on a bed, nor could he treat the Demon Knight due to his awkward position.

He couldn’t say anything to that bishop who was running around saying the Demon Knight should be killed, and—due to being wholly disregarded—he had even less to say when they decided to seal the man after the Archmage barely persuaded that guy.

No one even listened when he asked for that sword to be pulled out of him, at least.

He was helpless.

Just like when he couldn’t do anything when the Demon Knight was trying to kill him.

“Shit.”

Thud.

The Deathbringer slammed his head against the wall in anger as he thought over this matter.

A shallow sense of shame settled into a corner of his mind. It was an emotion he’d never felt before joining the Hero’s party on their journey.

Before joining them, he was someone considered a ‘predator’.

Even then, he had no fame or power, but as soon as the silence of night fell over everything, he would become the executioner of all kinds of scum.

But now? While gathering information and discovering the truth behind things were part of his talents, he could no longer exist as an executioner.

When he decided to go with them, he thought he could do it if he put his mind to it… However, that was just an illusion.

The world they lived in and the world he lived in were completely different.

It wasn’t like they couldn’t kill someone just because they were human, unlike him, who could only kill humans.

“Damn it, why did it turn out like this?”

At that moment, a sound outside the alley he was hiding in broke him out of his bottomless thoughts.

The hopelessness about to crawl up inside him and try to take over his brain was instantly suppressed, and his cold reason returned, making him focus all five of his senses. He focused entirely on his assigned task.

“Be quiet if you don’t want to die.”

“Damn it. I never thought the Demon Worshipers would get beaten like this…”

He melted into the shadows as he listened to their conversation.

Those tasked with removing the corpses from the castle and moving the remains of collapsed buildings complained without end.

“I can’t even enjoy myself like this!”

“Didn’t you survive, at least?”

“That’s true, but…”

As for their identities, they were pirates who cooperated with the Demon Worshipers but surrendered almost instantly after seeing they’d been defeated.

After selling out their home for doubtful profit, they immediately raised the white flag when faced with some hardship. That was the type of people they were: traitors.

“Hurry up and move this stuff. If we don’t work, they might kill us, too.”

If someone asked why this non-recyclable trash was even still alive after the main forces came here, well, he also didn’t know.

If he had to answer, it probably was because too many pirates were left alive to threaten or execute them all. If they wanted to kill every last one, they’d have to be prepared to suffer quite some damage themselves.

“You think they’d actually kill us? When there are so many of us?”

So, to buy some time for reinforcements to arrive, the Archmage tried negotiating a temporary truce using false bait—an amnesty—just as he had done before… They were convinced to do some labor under the promise of being kept alive.

“We’re doing what they’re telling us to do! They can’t just kill us like that!”

The result was idiots like those two walking around alive.

Idiots who didn’t even think twice about the sins they’d confidently committed, saying they must be kept alive because they’d already surrendered and were doing hard labor as ordered.

“And we can just take some of the ordinary people hostage and run away if we have to.”

There were even some among them who thought like that.

They were such disgusting people. While you could say that planning a way out beforehand was wise, did they feel no shame in doing so after what they’d done? Even if they died an easy death, it wouldn’t be punishment enough.

The Archmage, expecting something like this to happen, made the right call when he asked Deathbringer to observe and supervise these guys.

People like this usually believed they’d done nothing wrong and blamed it on others.

“We’re prohibited from going to places where those civilians are, though.”

“That’s no problem. Some guys I know are hiding among them. We can just ask them to get us some hostages.”

“Wow, you’re quick. How’d they manage to do that?”

“Don’t know. Maybe they snuck in when those guys started looking for survivors.”

“Damn, I should’ve done the same.”

Going by their conversation, it seemed they wanted to pretend to be ordinary citizens, those they’d brutally slaughtered not too long ago, like their comrades.

“Unfortunately…”

However, he and the other thieves were one step ahead of those guys.

“They were caught.”

Most of the pirates hiding among the civilians had already been found out.

What they were looking for now were dissenters who might cause a riot. Was there truly a need to keep those time bombs alive when their situation was already unstable enough?

As such, those guys were also subjects for elimination.

Having gotten all the information he needed, Deathbringer moved his hand to his waist. He only remembered half a beat later that his Kukri had been smashed by the Demon Knight not too long ago.

“Hmm.”

While a bit unfortunate, it didn’t matter. He didn’t care that much about the weapon… He could kill someone even without one.

After all, he’d spent most of his short life doing such things.

“If that iron wall finds out about this, I’ll be done for…”

At that moment, Deathbringer realized a certain matter.

It was true that he wasn’t much help regarding battles between superhumans, but… This kind of thing was pretty much impossible for the Demon Knight, Hero, and Archmage. Only he could do this.

“So, what should I do now?”

And because he was the only one who could do this, he would never be excluded from the party. However, he vowed to keep this a secret from the Hero because he didn’t want to get nagged by her.

Feeling better about himself, Deathbringer perked up his ears.

He had only one goal: get rid of all the scum so the Demon Knight would awaken to a sparkling clean environment.

“Ah, it’s been a while since I last took out the trash like this.”

It was at that moment the Deathbringer, a code name given to very few even within the Information Guild, descended upon this city.

The time had come for the wicked to be judged.

* * *

“…?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Hmm… I think I just heard a scream.”

However, it was from around where the wizards were maintaining the barrier to keep out Demons.

As it had been constructed hastily, it would break if even just a few Demons gathered and touched it a little bit. However, the barrier had a built-in function wherein the wizards would be notified if it was broken.

There was no way they would stand by if the barrier broke and the Demons killed someone.

“I didn’t hear anything…”

“Yeah, I might have heard wrong.”

So, she guessed she had misheard. It wasn’t even a full scream, just a ‘Kuk’… So, it might have just been some rubble getting pushed over by the wind.

“Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere…?”

“Not really.”

While she hadn’t gotten a proper rest since coming to this place, the same was true for everyone here. Even if it meant struggling for a bit, she didn’t want to fall back to rest, especially because she was their first line of defense.

“Be prepared. I can see some Demons over there.”

Instead, she took up arms to deal with the remaining Demons and worshipers around the city’s center. At that moment, they spotted a Gargoyle hiding in the shadows of the city.

“Don’t overdo it.”

“It’ll be fine.”

While she couldn’t claim to be in peak physical condition, she could still move her body and use her Divine Power. However, the total amount available to her was slightly reduced at the moment.

“I’ll do it alone.”

However, killing those remnants wouldn’t even require her to use the usual maximum amount of power.

The Inquisitor controlled her breathing to prevent any overload. Her body was imbued with less than an eighth of what she used when fighting the Demon Knight.

She felt a bit of heat welling up within her, along with soreness flaring up again in the muscles that hadn’t yet recovered.

“Are you sure you’ll be fine? It hasn’t been that long since you woke up…”

“It’ll be fine, really.”

While using Divine Power did hurt its wielder, so long as one didn’t use it excessively, it would usually just cause some minor aches.

This wasn’t enough to make her give in, not when she’d endured debilitating, intense pain before. Thinking about the Demon Knight, who was locked in a fierce battle with the Demon while covered in layers of seals, she felt even more determined.

After firmly shaking off her worries, she went forward alone.

Creak!

However, she wasn’t very talented at sneaking up on her targets. The Gargoyle noticed her.

She briefly thought about the thief at that moment. He’d even managed to sneak up on a Great Demon, so he certainly wouldn’t have gotten noticed by the likes of this thing.

She felt some envy right then, but that feeling quickly dissipated.

Although she wasn’t that gifted in stealth, this situation was actually convenient for her. She had intended to test something out, after all.

“Haap!”

The Inquisitor swung her mace as that damn thing approached her, baring its teeth. Rumble. The ground before her began trembling as she hit it with her mace.

Kiieeek!

The Gargoyle quickly tried to fly up, but it was impossible on this terribly shaking ground. The Divine Power radiating from the mace and traveling through the ground swept over where the Gargoyle was.

“Amazing…!”

“I can’t believe she could use it in such a way…”

The priests and inquisitors behind her were astonished by her show of power. They couldn’t comprehend what they’d just seen.

Even in the long history of their Church, there were no reports of someone using Divine Power in such a way. To be exact, it wasn’t possible for anyone to use it like that.

“So that is… a Hero…”

“It isn’t anything special, though.”

“This is a completely new way of using Divine Power. It’s utterly amazing.”

In any case, Divine Power was an energy specialized for use in protection, deflection, and healing.

Moreover, those with a lot of Divine Power usually gravitated more toward the occupation of priests, who healed people and Purified land, than inquisitors.

There was no way an inquisitor, who should be busy using it to protect their body and deflect attacks, would develop such a skill. This was only possible because she chose to be an inquisitor and had far more Divine Power than others in her occupation.

After seeing the Demon Knight performing a similar attack, she’d kept wondering whether she could do something like that, which led to this point.

“If you make good use of it… It’ll become an amazing weapon.”

“I think so, as well.”

But that time had not yet come. It required too much Divine Power and was still somewhat unstable.

She needed to experiment with it more and use it in different ways to get a feel for it. That incident with the Demon Knight made her recognize her own shortcomings more acutely.

“If you ever need any help, please let me know anytime.”

“Thank you for your kind offer.”

The Inquisitor moved forward again, continually assessing how much of her Divine Power she could use.

Of course, aside from helping as many people as possible, she had another reason why she couldn’t allow herself to collapse.

“There’s another Demon over there, too!”

“I’ll kill it. And one of you, please enter that red-roofed building over there. There’s a person inside. They’ll understand if you tell them we returned after catching a Dragon.”

“Understood.”

Most priests, the bishop included, were horrified by the Demon Knight. Were she to overdo it again and collapse… They really might sentence him to death because there was no one left who could potentially stop the Demon Knight.

Even if the only thing she could do was ask them. Her position as the Hero made it easier for her to persuade members of the Temple, but she wasn’t their superior.

If they refused her request, there was nothing she could do.

However, she absolutely had to stop that from happening.

As such, the Inquisitor reigned in her impatience and proceeded one step at a time. Though she couldn’t get a proper rest, she could still withstand the accumulating fatigue as she advanced while controlling her speed.

If she continued at this pace, she could clean up the whole city and save every survivor by tomorrow morning.

Also, if she finished before the Demon Knight woke up… She could personally guard his seal.

In that case, even the bishop wouldn’t dare do anything to harm him.

Her green eyes sparkled. She had come up with the perfect plan.

Immediately after that, the Demons roaming around the city started to disappear.

Each day began to pass by quickly.