Three days later, on a still and silent night.
Until the day Footman and the [Orc]s attacked the [Ogre] village, I had spent my time watching Rimuru through one of Moss's clones. Then I brought Shizu and Ria with me and transferred to the Jura Great Forest once more. By then, night had already fallen across the sky.
Unlike the sky of hell, formed from condensed magic power, the sky above the great forest was a true natural night sky. It carried a coolness similar to the chill of the north, yet different from it as well.
"Wow... no matter how many years pass, the night sky here is beautiful. It looks so much clearer than it does in Ingrassia."
Flying freely through the air on magic power, just a little higher than the treetops so we would not be noticed, Shizu fixed her gaze on the sky and her eyes shone.
Maybe because she had avoided the tragic fate she suffered in the novel this time around, even after living nearly two hundred years, she still retained a childlike wonder somewhere in her heart.
"Later, it might be nice to bring the Free School children here too. Pirino and Piz would probably love it as well."
In a little while, we would be fighting not only a high-ranking majin, but also two hundred thousand [Orc]s... and we had to subdue them without killing them. Even so, she looked remarkably relaxed.
Then again, so was I.
"Come to think of it, I should stop by Eldorado when I get the chance. From the way Leon talked at Walpurgis, it sounds like Pirino and Piz have gotten a lot stronger too."
Pirino, Shizu's childhood friend, and Piz, her pet [Cryptid], a Wind Fox.
Back when Shizu became an adventurer alongside me, Chronoa, and Ria, those two had entered Leon's service as apprentice knights. Now they were full-fledged members of the [Magic Knights].
According to Leon, Pirino had such excellent compatibility with a high spirit that she had even become a candidate for the next [Knight].
"You might even have a good match against her now. Every captain who receives the title of [Knight] from Leon is at least at the level of a sage."
"Yes, I think so too."
Being called a Hero, she might have found being compared to someone else a blow to her pride. But Shizu either was not the type to care about that, or she was simply happy that her old friends had grown stronger. She smiled brightly, looking genuinely excited.
"Adelio."
While Shizu and I were talking, Ria, who had been smiling softly beside us, called out to me as if she had noticed something.
"Just like you said, near the place where I can feel the magic power of the [Ogre]s, I can also sense the magic power of the [Orc]s and a [Deathman]."
"Really? Then... it looks like the curse I put on Kazaream is working just fine after all."
Roughly three hundred years ago, I had found Kazaream when she was on the verge of being killed by Leon, back when he was still a self-proclaimed Demon Lord, and secretly placed a curse on her.
That curse was the reason I had been able to predict that Footman and Gelmud would attack the [Ogre] village tonight.
"...I don't really like doing things this way, though."
To be honest, right up until the moment I cast the curse, I had been debating whether or not to erase Kazaream completely.
The number of incidents caused by that single [Deathman] had simply been too vast, and too dangerous.
But in the end, I did not kill her.
Instead, I placed [Curse of Illusion], one of the curses in the dark magic branch that let me track the locations of both her and the [Deathmen] created by her hands.
It was because I was worried that if Kazaream died, the butterfly effect from that event would alter the movements of the Eastern Empire.
At this point in time, the Eastern Empire was unquestionably the strongest nation in the world, so fighting it head-on was impossible.
"...We're close."
Maybe because we had come quite near the [Ogre] village, the cries of the pigheads, thick with hatred and greed, began to echo in my ears.
"...Crush... them."
"...Tram... ple them."
"...Take our comrades'... strength... as our own."
"...Take the enemies'... power... as mine."
"...! Teacher, that sound..."
"Yeah. Those are the voices of the [Orc]s."
"Trample them."
"Trample them."
"Make our comrades' strength our own."
"Make the enemies' strength our own."
"Hehe, sounds like those pigs are pretty furious, doesn't it?"
"And their gluttony has probably grown along with it."
All two hundred thousand of those voices were filled with hatred, so every time the cries reached us, my ears itched a little. But that was all.
If the voices of the [Greater Demon]s chattering noisily in hell were like the hissing of cats, then the voices of the [Orc]s felt more like a slightly loud swarm of flies.
"I'll deal with the [Deathman] myself. Shizu, keep the [Orc]s tied down so the [Ogre]s don't die, and Ria, just in case, keep checking whether there are any other majin nearby."
"Yes!"
"Okay, got it."
Swoosh!
The moment Shizu and Ria answered, I dropped from the air to the ground, wrapped my entire body in golden magic power, and leaped toward the village.
So fast that the scenery rushing past my eyes changed completely in a single instant.
Slash! Swoosh!
"...The Moderate Harlequin Alliance... you're always behind this in the end, aren't you, Yuuki."
Thinking of my disciple, who had grown up before I knew it and become the head of a faction called the Guild, I frowned slightly.
"If you won't give up of your own accord, then even if you're my student, I won't let things slide."
The one waiting ahead was not Yuuki himself, but one of his subordinates. Even so, I had no intention of showing mercy.
I had no desire to let a plan that was obviously doomed to fail pile up any more pointless sacrifices.
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