Volume 1 - CH 8

In the end, I waited through the night, but Colette never returned to the dormitory.

It wasn’t uncommon for students to not return to the dormitory on occasion, but because the person in question was Colette, a princess, the Academy was in an uproar over it.

“Lady Mylene!”

I was naively hoping she would somehow show up to class when Albert called out to me.

“Albert… Your Highness. It may be a pointless question to ask, but would you happen to have seen Princess Colette?”

“…I have not.”

I clicked my tongue in annoyance. Albert knew where I was directing my frustrations, so he wasn’t panicked.

It had only been a day since she went off to investigate; since she hadn’t returned, things were likely worse than we thought.

In the first place, the group we’re dealing with would not hesitate to kill, so even if Colette was royalty, her safety wasn’t guaranteed… Rather, if I was right about their goal, then it was more that Colette, the princess of a powerful military-focused nation, was a perfect ‘sacrifice’ for them to use.

But their goal didn’t concern me. What did was that they dared lay their hands on someone close to me. They couldn’t make me any angrier than they already did.

At this point I was too angry to even concentrate, and it would be like this the whole day; I’d gain nothing from sticking around for classes today.

Pelmann would prolly get even more upset since this would be the second day I’ve skipped out on classes, but…

“Tch…”

I clicked my tongue again, but really I knew what I had to do. There was no point in thinking any more about it.

“Your Highness, could you let Instructor Pelmann know I will be absent for today’s classes as well? Please tell him I have left to search for Princess Colette.”

I no longer had the time nor the luxury for a careful investigation.

And with that in mind, I purposely tasked Albert with delivering my message…

“Pl-please wait for me, Lady Mylene! I will also..!”

I stopped Albert from finishing his sentence by bringing my face up close to his own.

“Did you not understand? Let me make it clear to you if you didn’t: do not follow me.”

…so that I could force him to stay behind today.

I needed someone to tell Pelmann I would be absent, and I wanted Albert to stay behind; those were the two reasons why I ordered him to deliver my message.

“I… I cannot do that! I am your loyal follower, Lady Mylene, but those are not orders I can obey!”

But Albert refused to give in.

I really did like that he was finally showing some spine, that he didn’t just blindly follow my orders, and that he was willing to speak his mind. Really, if this had been about anything else, I would have praised him for it…

“Do I have to spell it out entirely before you understand? You will just be a burden if you come.”

…but our current circumstances are no good. The guys we’d be dealing with today were actually dangerous people — the kinds of people who wouldn’t think twice about killing us.

If I were on my own, I could move faster, more freely. I wouldn’t say I could do everything perfectly on my own, but I could figure it out along the way.

Bringing Albert, on the other hand, was opening myself up to unnecessary risk. In the worst case scenario, they could capture him and use him as a hostage.

“E-even so..! It was you who taught me the sword, Lady Mylene! Th-there is no way I would slow you down, so please..!”

“You do realize you’re already slowing me down like this, right? Just be a good boy and give up. You’re not yet strong enough.”

I answered him with annoyance when he still refused.

I didn’t dislike reckless guys, but I did dislike brats who didn’t know their own limits.

“St-still, I cannot give up! I know exactly how incapable I am, but even so, Princess Colette is still my friend! And even if I know it is you who will be going, Lady Mylene, I cannot just leave everything to a single girl to do, all alone. That… that is not something someone who is to become the ruler of a kingdom should do!”

Even so…

Albert still didn’t give up.

Really, it was impossible to deal with kids like this — brats that didn’t know their place.

Then again, maybe it was just in my nature, but I couldn’t bring myself to really hate this kind of naïveté.

“Are you an idiot? The ruler ‘should be’ the person who stays away from the battlefield, who issues orders from the back and in safety. Don’t just put yourself in danger because you suddenly feel like its the right thing to do.”

“Ugh…”

Did Albert finally understand? He seemed to deflate without an answer.

Well, knowing him, he would still follow me in secret, even if that meant going against everything I told him.

It was absolutely stupid for a king to do… but not a bad way to go for a man.

I finally pulled away from him and sighed in resignation. There was only one thing I could do then; I glanced around and noticed the male student sitting next to me, suspiciously peeking at us every so often.

“Um… Clive, was it?”

“Y-yes, h-how may I help?!”

I called out to him when he next peeked.

The boy had been so self-conscious of his own suspiciousness that he immediately jumped to his feet, snapping to attention with a perfectly straight back as though he meant to salute us.

“Would you be so kind as to inform Instructor Pelmann that Prince Albert and I will be absent from classes today?”

“O-of course, ma’am! I-it would be my pleasure!”

For the record, this guy was just a classmate. I had no idea why he was so polite when he was from a noble family in a country I was unrelated to, but I put the thought aside as I stood from my seat.

“I shall be headed out then. Will you not also be coming?”

I stopped to call out to Albert, who stood as though in a daze.

After a long pause, his face relaxed with a wide smile.

“Ah..! Of course! Thank you very much!”

And like that we departed the classroom and returned to the dormitory.

Today would probably be the day I had to use that frail rapier of mine…

◆

The town was as bright and bustling as ever when we arrived.

Really, the atmosphere was so lively that it was hard to believe there was a creeping drug problem beneath its surface.

From the point-of-view of the people living in this town, today was probably just another ordinary day.

Rather than a drug problem, all they knew was there was a new medicine making its way through the market — medicine that had only positives to it.

…I bet they had no idea that there were things going on right under their noses that would lead to the greatest war they had yet to know.

“So what now? Will we be using our disguises again today?”

“No, we won’t be needing them today since we don’t need to be secretive about it anymore. We’ll start by finding a dealer, and we can have him tell us whatever we need.”

If we wanted to stop them, it was a matter of speed now.

It might’ve been possible we were too late, and the worst possible outcome had already come to pass, but… the only thing I knew now was that my friend’s life was at stake. I couldn’t just give up on her.

The two of us quickly made our way down the main street; unsurprisingly, there weren’t any dealers that would try and do their business out here in the open.

I wonder… would we run into that same guy from yesterday, the one who gave us the free samples?

There were probably many well-kept secrets about Ludus itself, and right now we had very little to go by. Yesterday’s dealer might be some low-ranking grunt in the group, but we should be able to force information out of him, since those types were usually the most loose-lipped of all.

We ducked into a side street, still headed for where we went yesteryday; the amount of people walking around had decreased considerably since leaving the main street.

I guess even the few people here were too many to have around at once.

We finally made it back to where we were yesterday, but there was no dealer in sight this time. I looked around, hoping to spot him or anyone else when I noticed an opening leading into a narrower alleyway.

It was unsurprising that worthless insects, like the hooded man from yesterday, preferred dark and gloomy hiding spots like this.

Without hesitation, I plunged forward, moving into and through the alley, when…

“Oh, what’s this? What’re the two of you doin’ in a place like this, li’l noble girl and boy?”

Down at the end of the path, we found the dealer from yesterday. He didn’t seem to have any idea we were the pair he met yesterday, and he greeted us in a positive voice.

How sickeningly insolent. Whatever; it was time for me to make my move.

I quickly closed the distance between us, with only the sound of my heavy steps on the ground to answer him.

“Are you looking to get some Ludus? Don’t worry, I’ve got som– oof!”

I drove my fist into the side of his face.

The punch flung the man back, seinding him crashing into the pile of barrels behind him.

Without regards to his safety, I drew closer before grabbing the front of his shirt with my hands. He moaned in pain.

“Ugh… you bitch! The hell are yo– gah!”

Without warning, I punched the other side of his face. He staggered in pain, and thin trails of blood trickled down each end of his mouth.

I saw his eyes water as he turned to spit something — a chipped tooth.

“Eek..! Wh-wh-what are you..”

Judging from his reaction, I was certain now that he really was just a low-ranking grunt. But still, he should know some things at least.

“I’ve got some questions for you. About the stuff you’ve been peddling.”

“Wh-what are you tryin– guh?!”

This time I slammed my fist straight onto his nose. Blood streamed freely from his now-flattened feature.

“M-muh nose…! I-id’s brogen..!”

He was cowering pathetically now, trying to hide away his face by shielding it behind his hands.

At this rate, it shouldn’t take much more to get him to start talking.

“Listen up: if you say anything unnecessary, I’ll beat you again. And if you say nothing, then I’ll still beat you. Got it?”

“G-god id…”

It took three hits for him to become obedient. They usually gave in after the second, but it was probably because I wasn’t as intimidating as I used to be.

“Why are you guys distributing those drugs? It clearly isn’t for money, so what’s your goal?”

“I-I don’t know..! No! Please! I really don’t! The important guys, the ones above me doin’ it all! They’re a bunch o’ lunatics! I’m jus’ a dealer! I ain’t know nothin’!”

The man shrank back, shaking even harder, when I threatened him with a raised fist.

He really didn’t seem to know. Well, I guess small fry like this would sooner sell out what they knew if they really felt their life was in danger.

“L-like I said..! I’m j-jus’ a grunt! I only get paid to give the stuff out! I ain’t know nothing, I swear!”

…He didn’t seem to be lying about it, either.

In the end, he really was just nobody in the organization, I guess. There was only so much information we could pull from someone like that.

“Next: do you even know what kind of drug it was you were handing out? I wouldn’t lie, if I were you.”

“No, I don’t know anything..! I-I mean, I was told I shouldn’t use it because it gets in my head, but..”

“That what the ‘guys above you’ said?”

“Y-yeah… I would get paid if I ain’t say nothin’ and jus’ hand it out. They was havin’ trouble findin’ workers, so I jus’ kept me mouth shut…”

So if it were all true, then my guess was right: this group or whatever really did just want to get Ludus spread as much as possible.

I didn’t know what it cost to make Ludus, but it was safe to assume they weren’t turning a profit through it. Considering they also had dealers on their payroll, this organization was probably losing tons of money because of this operation.

“Next: where do you go to resupply your stock when you run out?”

“Th-they got bases all over the city. I seen some people; they all wearing the same clothes, and they’re bringin’ it in from somewhere…”

That would mean they could be producing Ludus themselves.

…This whole plot was turning out to be a larger operation than I’d suspected. Damn it all.

“One last thing: you talked to someone to get started handing out the drugs, right? Take me to them.”

“O-okay… b-but you gotta let me go after! I ain’t want them to know it was me..!”

“Pfft, like hell I will. You think I’ll trust that you aren’t just lying to run away?”

“Please! I’m beggin’ you here! They’ll kill me if they knew!”

His desperation made it obvious that the group he worked for really was that kind of cutthroat organization.

But… that wasn’t my problem at all. In the first place, why would I have any sympathy for these people? They know they’re doing wrong, and they keep doing it anyway for the money.

“That won’t be a problem. After all, today’s their last day. I’m bringing the whole thing down.”

I didn’t know what kind of organization I’d be facing, but it was all the same to me once I was done with them.

Well, it might not be the entire organization, but whatever part of it that operated in this town would be gone, at least.

Oh, this guy’s trying to waste our time again. So…

“D-don’t hit me anymore… Please…”

I hit him on the nose again, and he was more than willing to cooperate now.

◆

“I-it’s here… I d-don’t know about any other places…”

The dealer had stumbled forward and guided us around, eventually arriving at a place he claimed to be where the drugs were distributed.

At first glance, it looked like a perfectly ordinary house, but… upon closer look, between the heavy curtains blocking the windows and the distinct lack of clear openings, this was most definitely a suspicious-looking place.

“We come here an’ get more drugs to sell… but I know it’s them hooded guys who’re the ones bringing them in…”

Hooded guys’ huh? Were they like the hooded man we saw yesterday, the one that left the other guy for dead?

And the fact that they were both in hooded robes… was that like their uniform or something? I suppose there was no more denying that this was a big group handling everything.

With that in mind, I decided on what we needed to do next.

We would attack this place. If we happened to find Colette here, then everything was settled. If not, then I can just find out by having another conversation with one of the guys in this house. That was what it meant to search.

“All right then, good for you, you did what you were told. You’re free to go after I’m finished here.”

“R-really?!”

I playfully patted the man’s back, and he smiled with pure joy.

Well, if the worst has happened to Colette, then my next goal was revenge. If that happened, I wouldn’t just let this guy go, and I’d hunt him down for it. But that wasn’t important right now; I didn’t need to focus on a mere underling just yet.

But I did plan on getting a bit more use out of him.

“Do you know anything about this place?”

“I know a bit o’ the ground floor, I guess.”

I asked him about the layout of the house.

…It seemed fairly clear to me, and with that, I’ve got a rough idea of what I can do.

“W-was that good enough?”

“Yep, it was fine.”

He sighed in relief after hearing my answer.

It was true though; I knew enough about the building itself.

“All right, Albert, we’ll be going for a frontal assault here. You ready?”

“A frontal assault? …I understand. You must have a plan in mind.”

I checked with Albert to make sure he was prepared, and he nodded his readiness.

Everything was in place and ready then.

“Hey, trash, you’re done here. As promised, you’re free to go — after you do one more thing for me.”

“Huh? Wh-wha–?!”

I picked him up, lifting him onto my shoulder as I ignored his surprise.

He tried to resist by wriggling about, but it was impossible for him to escape once I had him in place like this.

“Let’s go, Albert!”

It had been some time since I was last in a real fight, so I might end up going overboard here.

I called out to Albert to encourage him. I peeked at the man caught in my arms and stifled a chuckle… before throwing him at a window.

“Aaaahhhh!!”

The man screamed in panic as his body flew into the window, smashing it open.

He crashed through in an explosion of glass and wall.

At the same time, I kicked down the wooden door of the house.

“Yo! Look alive, people! It’s raid time!”

“Wha–?!”

“Who’s this brat?! W-wait, that hair, it can’t be..!”

As I entered, there were three men standing around, wearing hooded robes.

Like that man had said, the guys in charge of handing out the drugs to the dealers were all wearing the same thing.

But that wasn’t important right now.

Rather, it was important that I keep my momentum going while they were confused.

And so I leapt into action, springing into the leftmost man.

He was slow to react, clumsily reaching for a weapon, but it was to be expected; not many people could respond immediately when a situation suddenly turned chaotic.

I channeled magical power into my hand before punching into his jaw; there was the sound of crunching bone, and I saw teeth and blood burst from his mouth.

“You bitch..!”

The next man, who was standing by the door, raised his sword.

But unfortunately, he would not be swinging it.

“Urgh?! The ceiling..?!”

It took a certain amount of skill to use longer weapons in tight spaces like this.

And that had been my intent: people who have trained a certain way for a long enough time would fall back on muscle memory, just like this.

Unfortunately for them, that meant drawing their weapons in a small space, something they probably have never trained for.

As an aside, that was also why I hadn’t drawn my rapier and instead settled for my fists.

“Too slow, idiot!”

While he floundered about in confusion, I dove in and smashed his abdomen. He bent over from the blow, and I delivered a half-moon kick to his face.

Now only one left; I looked over and saw Albert already entangled with him.

Though he wasn’t as flashy as I was, Albert was keeping the man at bay with his rapier.

I used my fists because it was simply easier, but in an environment like this, rapiers were especially effective: whereas random objects would get in the way of an effective attack, a rapier, specialized in pinpoint thrusts, could very easily weave through would-be obstacles to land a hit. Albert, despite the spoiled prince he was, was not only educated but had also gone through my training, and he was making use of his rapier’s effectiveness; he was looking like a pretty reliable fighter like this.

Assuming this last guy was like the other two, Albert would probably win even without my help thanks to the natural advantage rapiers had in situations like this, but…

…There was no need to make it a fair fight!

I snuck around to the guy and grabbed hold of his arms, twisting them around as I threw him down to the ground.

“Woah?!”

He crashed chest-first into the ground and moaned in pain as I mounted his back with his arms still caught.

“Good job, Albert. You’ve made this a lot easier.”

“It was an honor to help, Lady Mylene.”

Well, things wouldn’t be that much different if Albert hadn’t been here.

But it was true that he made things easier for me: we now had one guy subdued but conscious, ready to interrogate.

“Ugh… You… Wait, that hair…! You must be Mylene Petyul!”

“Heh, not bad. Seems like you know a bit about brats from different places, huh?”

“Kuh..! Even the way you talk is barbaric! I should have expected no less from Iltania’s lowly mutt!”

My attack had left him choking for breath, but he still wore a patronizing sneer.

In the Kingdom of Iltania, the Hair of Sulberia was the mark of God’s chosen one, but to other countries, it was just an indication of someone with great magical power.

And yet, this guy knew who I was as soon as he saw my hair.

…I knew I’d find these kinds of people near me at some point, but I hadn’t realized they were already this close.

“If that’s how you feel, I don’t really care. I still got some questions for you to answer.”

“Wh-who would answer your questions?!”

He seemed more resolute than the other guy; the face that stared defiantly back at me seemed rather determined.

It was the kind of stubborn face that really would refuse to give in… In other words, an actual pain in the ass.

“Oh, that so?”

Well, that wasn’t my problem, so I casually tore off a fingernail from the hand I held twisted in place.

“Eeee?!”

“Well, aren’t you quite the resiliant one? I bet that one probably hurt.”

I flicked it away, and the nail made dry clicking noises as it bounced across the wooden floor.

I mean, I didn’t have much of a choice if he wasn’t going to talk.

“It breaks my heart to do this — it really does — but if your mouth isn’t talking, I gotta ask your body. Ah, what a shame…”

“Damn you, Iltania’s Hound! You will not break me! My faith keeps me strong!”

He seemed to be trying to convince himself, but it just sounded like desperate wailing to me.

Still, I already learned something from him: ‘Iltania’s Hound’, huh? I guess that was what he, no, what his religion called me? Maybe to them, the Hair of Sulberia was something bad.

So would that mean they were spreading Ludus as a way to undermine me? I should ask about that later, but first there were more important things to get to.

“Since you seem to know who I am, I’ll get right to the point: what did you do to Colette?”

“…”

Playing dumb, huh? That ‘faith’ of his sure was great. I started to wonder how strong it would hold if I plucked another of his nails.

I guess I had no other choice… Torturing people wasn’t a hobby of mine, but I would have to get into it if I wanted answers.

I remembered learning about torture techniques back when I was still a merc. Looking back, it was actually a pretty gross experience.

It had been when I joined a bandit subjugation campaign; they were trying to get information out of some captives, and… they had done some pretty nasty stuff.

I really didn’t want to do what they did back then, but we were in a pretty tight spot, so I guess I’d have to make the best of it.

“Second one, there it goes!”

“Ugh… Aghh!!”

I casually announced it before tearing off another nail.

This time around, he couldn’t stay quiet. How many more would we go through before he talked…

“Let’s try again: what did you do to Colette?”

“I’ll… I’ll never tal– gah!!”

I didn’t want to keep asking, so I went ahead and tore off another.

In the end, he hadn’t talked, even after the fifth nail.

“Pretty stubborn, huh? You made it through your entire hand without cracking.”

Going by his glare, he didn’t seem to appreciate my joke, but there was a faint trace of relief in his expression.

I didn’t want to waste any more time on this, and at this rate, it would take way too long.

As I let out a deliberate sigh of exasperation, I could see the corners of the man’s mouth begin turning upward; he seemed to believe he had the upper hand now.

“Ah, well, guess I have no choice now but to try a little harder now.”

“Huh, wha..?! Ack.. aaahhh?!”

Of course, that hadn’t meant the pain was over for him.

Rather, it meant moving on to the next step: breaking the bones of each finger, twisting them slowly, one-by-one, and deforming them bit-by-bit until they snapped with a loud crunching noise.

The key to a successful torture… was making them believe the pain would never end.

They wouldn’t die; it would just be one long period of hellish torment after another.

“Gah… Kah..!”

He was already moaning in pain. I didn’t blame him; even I would have been crying out at this point.

But the problem was getting him to tell me what I wanted to know, and I was already getting irritated by how slowly he was answering.

“It’s a little late to be saying, but I am torturing you. If you’re still not talking after this, I’ll do the same to your left hand, and then each arm, and then I’ll start from the bottom, moving up from your toes and all the way to your eyes and ears. There won’t be any part of you that won’t be hurt. And you know, even if you don’t talk… I still got your two buddies over there.”

I leaned in to whisper into his ear like I was scolding him, and as I drew back, I could see the light of hope fade from his eyes.

Only terror remained.

“A little while ago, weren’t you saying something about how your faith wouldn’t be shaken? I find it a wonderful idea — that you would sacrifice yourself and endure like this to protect something important.”

I spoke gently to him, explaining it all in a single breath.

“Because I’m such a good person, I’ll tell you something important: even if you did endure this all to the very end, there isn’t any guarantee those two will be able to, you know? You can still be fixed up as you are, so don’t you think it’d be better for the both of us if you talked now?”

I offered him the carrot and the stick. His face paled as he realized I was implying there would do things that no amount of treatment could fix.

It was good that he was so quick on the uptake, but it was possible that learning he had an out was what caused his reaction.

Seeing the possibility of ending this brutal torture must have seemed like a forbidden temptation; I didn’t know what the whole ‘Iltania’s Hound’ thing was all about, but I would bet that giving him this offer made me seem like a real demon.

“So allow me to ask you once again: where is Princess Colette?”

The faint hope he showed ealier was completely gone; it must have finally set in that even if he martyred himself here, his sacrifice would potentially mean nothing.

Even if I stayed quiet and endured, how do I know those two will? — was probably what he was thinking, and that doubt probably made it impossible for him to maintain his resolve.

He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something but closed it. I was fed up when he did it a second time, and I moved my hand to his middle finger.

“O-okay, okay! I’ll talk! Just, please..!”

In that moment, he had completely broken: not his fingers, but his heart.

“Yesterday… S-someone said we had caught the Princess of Colhoun. Th-they probably took her to the warehouse, not here. She should still be there…”

By ‘warehouse’, he probably meant where they were storing Ludus.

That being said, it sounded like Colette had gotten pretty close to solving it all herself, only to fail and got captured at the end.

Well, shit, that wasn’t good. I mentally clicked my tongue in annoyance.

“And what about now? Have you guys done anything to her?”

Since he was finally compliant, there was no need for me to threaten him any further, so I began asking questions in my usual tone.

“She wasn’t unharmed, but she should still be alive… Because of who she is, we hadn’t decided on what to do with her, but I don’t know if they’ve done anything by now.”

And like that he confirmed the most important point: Colette’s safety. Still, I wasn’t completely relieved after hearing his words.

…Were they planning on making an enemy out of the Colhoun Empire? If they had resolved themselves to it, that would make them far more dangerous than I thought.

“Tch… whatever. One last question: where is that warehouse?”

Although there was more that I wanted to ask, there wasn’t the time for it.

The sooner I found Colette, the sooner the danger would all be over.

As for these guys’ goal… Well, we could just figure it all out later.

“On the west side of town, there is a stone building, marked with a symbol of our god, the horned snake…”

Meanwhile, the man didn’t even hesitate to reveal the location of their warehouse.

And that was all I needed to know.

That symbol he mentioned though — it sounded familiar. Out of curiosity, I turned the man over.

A horned snake, he said… If I remembered right, didn’t the hooded guy from yesterday wear a pendant with something like that?

“Wh-what is it now?”

I had him face up now, and sure enough, there was a pendant around his neck.

And on the pendant was the horned snake he just mentioned… This was their god?

The name of a certain pagan deity came to mind as I linked this symbol to the ‘faith’ he kept talking about earlier.

“Dia Myrth…”

“What the..?! How do you know the name of our God?!”

The man responded violently to the name I had muttered without thinking.

Seeing his reaction, I felt my face twist with disgust, but I made no attempt to hide it.

Ugh, now I knew for sure things were much worse than I’d first thought.

“I’ve heard enough. Go take a nap.”

“W-wait! Why are you doing all of this?!”

I answered him with a fist to his lower jaw, and he fell silent.

“Lady Mylene..?”

I yanked the horned snake medallion off the chain and pocketed it before slowly rising and turning to face Albert, who had called out to me with a puzzled look on his face.

It only dawned on me just now that he had been here this entire time.

“Did I scare you?”

“No, not at all. In fact, your interrogation technique was incredible that I had no doubt of your success, Lady Mylene. But what did concern me was how he reacted when you knew about his religion.”

I was worried seeing the torture might have been too stimulating for a prince like Albert, but he had waved it off and mentioned something completely different instead.

And to that, I wasn’t sure of how to answer.

It would have been simple to just answer that I knew about the cult the man belonged to.

But I couldn’t exactly say that because… the cult had not yet revealed itself.

On the other hand, if they continue to grow until they became as they did in the history I remembered, then it was only a matter of time before a confrontation between us happened, and Albert would no doubt become involved as well.

“Have you ever heard of something called ‘the Gods of the Moon’?”

“The gods of the moon… Hm, I cannot say I am familiar with the name…”

“I’ve only learned about them recently myself, so I’m not surprised you don’t. Well, they also seem to be the kind of people who don’t want to be found.”

Although my memories of it all were beginning to fade, I was still able to remember the names of certain things thanks to how commonplace they had become in the final days of Iltania.

In the first place, we should still be a long time away from when they first revealed themselves, and I didn’t know for sure if they would still use that same name.

“The only things I know are that they worship a horned snake they call Dia Myrth and that they seem to hate every other religion, going as far as calling the Iltanian faith a heretical religion.”

Their beliefs had led to their hostility toward the the Iltanian faith and anything associated with it.

Seeing as that guy was calling me Iltania’s Hound after seeing my hair, I was convinced the cult was the same Gods of the Moon group from back then.

“In summary, they’re a pagan cult. I don’t think they’re very active at the moment, but they’re probably the ones behind the spread of Ludus that we’ve seen. They’re bad people, basically.”

Yep, that was the best way to describe them: a pagan cult full of bad people.

But did they hate the Iltanian faith because it had been convenient for them, or did they hate it because it was actually part of their beliefs?

I had done my best to stay away from those freaks back then, so I didn’t know for sure. What I did know was how they whispered their honeyed words into the ears of any who would listen and so easily spread their doomsday prophecies.

And many of those guys had called Mylene some weird names, too, in those final days.

“So they consider our faith heretical… Did they distribute their drug to the students of the Academy as a means to hurt us?”

“I have no idea about that. I can’t even say for certain if these guys are a part of that group in the first place… Damn it all, I should have asked about it.”

If I had realized it sooner, I definitely could’ve asked, but… our primary objective here was rescuing Colette.

And right now, we didn’t have the time for unrelated topics like that.

“We should go. There’ll be plenty of time to find out more about these guys after we’ve confirmed Colette’s safety.”

“Yes, of course. I shall follow your lead.”

Still, it was disturbing to find that first Ludus and now the cult were already lurking about, when they had only appeared later in the future.

…Well, whatever; it didn’t really matter. My goal in this life was to destroy any that would get in my way. There wasn’t a need for me to worry so much about the details.

At any rate, they weren’t going to go quietly. But that wasn’t a bad thing; this would be a good chance to test out the power I’ve aquired, after all.

I tightly gripped the horned snake medallion in silence.

The cold metal dug into my slender fingers. What I wanted was power that not even the gods could stop. That was the current me’s objective.

Loosening my grip, I let the medal fall out of my hands.

I had to make sure Colette was safe. I hated this feeling of helplessness, of being able to do nothing.

I wouldn’t pray to God, but as I left this house, I found myself wishing for my friend’s safety.