Volume 2 - CH 466

10-52. One after another…

At first glance, this may seem like an unrelated story, but Houen believed it to be a crucial distinction.

As a method to prevent resurrection, it succeeded.

They had evacuated all the citizens from the Garott Kingdom and removed the situation where magic power was sealed within magic barriers.

The magic power required for resurrection should have been released through this process, and there shouldn’t have been an immediate appearance of the four voices.

The Devils also believed that if the magic barriers in the Garott Kingdom were released, the resurrection wouldn’t occur yet.

However, that wasn’t the case.

The successful release of magic power from the magic barriers and the subsequent resurrection indicated that there must have been some other factor at play.

That factor was the presence of humans from the Valpan Kingdom who worshiped the voices and the appearance of angels. There had to be some clue in this.

“Angels must have done something to the humans, at least that’s my theory… Dacia, where did you encounter the angels?”

“It was when we stormed the last human stronghold, the Volodra Kingdom. I remember they appeared right at the very end. My memories were altered, and I ended up hostile to a few The Devils.”

“It seems they have the ability to manipulate memories…”

So, it was the angels who erased Houen’s memories. I see. That’s why The Devils couldn’t speak freely.

But when Houen’s memories were erased, there was only Lack within the range of my haze manipulation… If they activated their memory manipulation ability outside that range, it could be troublesome. They targeted Houen accurately. If the activation conditions are loose, the range could expand… Being subjected to memory erasure without even perceiving it is too troublesome.

At that point, Houen started talking again.

“Their alternative method of resurrection… But since we don’t know what the angels did, thinking about it might be futile. We have the Shadow Eyes in the Valpan Kingdom… but we don’t want to make too conspicuous moves, considering the possibility of being targeted by the angels, who are our enemies’ subordinates.”

“Just because they’re a covert unit doesn’t mean they’re all-powerful. If the enemies are angels serving the voices, the difficulty level would skyrocket.”

In response to Houen’s words, Roze reacted.

Angels are unknown entities to us, after all.

We only learned of their existence very recently, in fact, just a moment ago. They might possess abilities similar to The Devils, such as memory manipulation, so getting involved with them recklessly would be dangerous.

But there are things we must do…

Ideally, we should gather information about the angels before conducting investigations involving the church and others. However, we don’t have the luxury of time.

What should we do in situations like this?

Well, not investigating won’t help us gather information, will it?

Isn’t it too risky to send someone for information gathering like this?

However, I feel like I might come up with something.

“Hmm.”

“Roze-chan has a point. Those Shadow Eyes that we fought together with, right? We can’t investigate the current situation. Angels have just appeared, after all. And from what I’ve heard, their faith is quite strong. They probably spread the word that the gods they serve are the Voices.”

“Just by their appearance, they seem quite divine… If you didn’t know any better, you’d believe they were messengers of the gods right away.”

“I agree…”

“Oh, Karna, do you agree too?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm…”

After I groaned once more, Dacia began to speak.

“Angels have continued to keep their existence hidden. Even when the two countries with magic barriers were falling in the war, they didn’t show up until the very end. We don’t know if there are specific conditions for their appearance, or if they are kept as a last resort, but…”

“If it’s the latter, my memories wouldn’t have been erased. Considering how they precisely erased my memories once I realized that the Voices were our enemies… based on this current conversation, it’s more likely to be the former.”

“Hey, maybe right now isn’t the time to be thinking about the conditions for the angels’ appearance? Come on, let’s think of a solution quickly.”

“That’s true.”

“Hmm…”

They nodded at Yurie’s words.

Talk about the conditions for their appearance wasn’t really relevant now. Right now, we needed to think about what the angels did to help the Voices resurrect and how to defeat the Voices.

“The Voice of the Heavens has significantly weakened. If it dies, the other Voices will weaken as well. Additionally, the Voice of the Earth should be somewhat depleted. Since the Voice of the Land has split skills, there’s a way to fight it. Its main body is only strong in terms of vitality and wasn’t good at close combat. The problem is… the Voice of the Sky.”

“What about it?”

At that voice, everyone looked up.

The voice of the sky floated lazily in the air, gazing down at us with indifference.

It looked sleepy, maybe that’s the proper word.

Everyone quickly assumed combat positions.

Mana protected the unconscious Alena as she backed away.

I was still thinking.

“One after another…!”

“Ya see~ Asa~… He is in a pinch, so we could use some time to recover Y’know~. So, I thought I’d make you guys a little less mobile since you were giving the Tokoro a run for its money~.”

The voice of the sky opened its hands.

A light electric crackling danced between its fingers.

“…Angels… Gods… Faith… Memory… Weakening… Interference… Huh?”

“Brace yourself! It’s about to do something!”

“Wa- wait a second!”

Wait, hold on a moment?

The Voices could only interfere with us four, right?

And if the angels were helping them…

That means only a few people knew about the Voices?

“Ah!!”

“Goodnight~”

BHAM!

A shockwave hit everyone in the area, and our consciousness was instantly taken away.