Chapter 18

The young man introduced himself as Theo and the young woman as Emma. Both had dark brown hair and green eyes, and, just as Lion thought, they were siblings. Leading the way, they brought Lion to the village where they lived. It was called Gironde, and they decided that Lion would stay over at their house that night.

It should be noted that the siblings’1 house was actually an inn run by their family, and they let Lion stay there. At that moment, Lion was eating dinner with Theo in the inn’s dining room.

“You really saved me back there! When I tried to find lodging in the village at the foot of the mountain, not a single soul was around.”

“That’s because the demons from the Southern Demon King’s territory have been flooding the country all the way there. It’s dangerous to stay in villages lacking sufficient protection, so a lot of the villagers have left seeking shelter.”

“There are still a lot of people in this village, aren’t there?”

“Since there are many households in Gironde, we all put our money together and hired a group to drive away the demons. And, well, we also have a self-defense group2.”

The siblings’ village was almost halfway up the mountain, so although it might appear like it would be more likely to be harmed by the demons than the village at the foot of the mountain, everyone was working together to protect the village in one way or another. Theo glanced at a table in the middle of the dining room, where a group of muscular men were making a ruckus. They were, most likely, the demon-repelling party. Given their physiques, Lion assumed that they were fighters and axe-wielders.

Huh? They have a strong looking party already, though. So what’s that favour they want to ask of me?

The reason why Lion had followed them all the way here was because he thought that he would, without a doubt, be commissioned to guard the village.

“Then, what’s that favour you wanted to ask of me?”

“It’s…”

“Alright, alright, brother! Mister Lion worked hard too, so we have to let him rest! Let’s leave the talk at that for today.”

Emma, who was waiting on tables, patted her brother’s shoulder as she passed by, sending Lion a wink. Her wavy hair, tied up into a high ponytail, fluttered around, and she gave off an open-hearted impression.

“Ah, th-that’s right. Mister Lion, how about you take a rest for today? I’d be happy if you listened to what I have to say tomorrow.”

“In that case…” Lion said, and finished his meal. He made use of the hot bath in the joint bathroom and returned to his room. He slipped into bed and petted Orthros. Was it still chilly because the village was up in the mountains, even though it was close to the southern lands?

Since his summoning beasts would disappear once Lion’s consciousness slipped anyway, he decided to keep Orthros by his side until he fell asleep.

Ever since that day, a month had gone by… A month had passed since he parted ways with Seirios. It wasn’t because Seirios had not come back. Lion had only stayed in Salto for one night, and then left the town immediately, staying in surrounding villages and taking on small commissions.

Although he was told by Seirios that he wanted Lion to wait for him, Lion had been scared to meet him, so he ran away. Running away was fine, but being by himself was lonely, so he had always kept a summoning beast by his side as company and to guard him. Normally, he kept the limitation of only being able to summon one beast in mind, so he very rarely kept a summon up continuously.

I’m sorry, Mister Sei. I don’t know how I should act towards you…

Ever since that day, a feeling of guilt had lodged inside his heart whenever he remembered Seirios sighing in relief.

With his eyes shut, anguished and troubled, Lion felt something lick his forehead. Orthros’ two heads were peering at him in worry.

“I’m alright, Orthros. You’re so kind, aren’t you? Let’s do our best and earn our keep, yeah? Goodnight.”

And so, that one night in the village of Gironde wore on.

**********

As the days passed by, southern demons rioting and streaming into other kingdoms were becoming a huge problem. Lion saw people who had been attacked by demons, even in the villages he had passed through, and he even met people who had crossed the border fleeing from the southern Mauser Kingdom.

Lion found out what was happening in Mauser Kingdom from their stories. The situation wasn’t looking good. It was the result of the continuous, about a hundred years long, absence of a Demon King that should govern the demons. Having defeated the Demon King that had tormented them, humankind basked in prosperity for a century, but in the end, they were now being tormented by the demons’ rebellion instead.

Lion grew worried about his mother, who lived in Mauser, and wondered whether he ought to go see her at least once. However, that wasn’t his biggest motivation for heading there. The main reason was because, for a second time, the white bird had perched on the window of an inn in one village, and Lion had received his second official notice.

It said: “What are you doing? Don’t make me wait.”

It was his older brother’s summoning beast. One month had gone by since he had received the first message, and his brother, tired of waiting, had sent him another one.

His older brother was angry.

“To obey the commands of your family is a given – and that goes double for you, since you’re worthless even under normal circumstances.” Lion remembered being told that before. Besides, currently Lion didn’t have any definite goals, and any other reasons he might have had for refusing to return home were now gone.

And so, he had decided to return to Mauser and was now travelling through the Tailes Kingdom, heading towards the national border. However…

“So you want me to search for a group of missing girls?”

“Shh! You’re being too loud, Mister Lion!”

Emma raised her index finger to her mouth. It was morning. Theo, Emma, and Lion were having breakfast together inside the dining room. Since the people who stayed at the inn went down to eat their breakfast at random times, even Emma, who was usually waitressing, was relatively free at that time.

Theo lowered his voice, leaned forward towards Lion and began to explain quietly.

“There were some girls that went missing while escaping from a nearby village. It’s happened five or six times already. Although some say they probably got eaten by demons, it’s strange, isn’t it? Why would only young girls disappear? And, since we have Emma in our family, I want to discover the truth of it properly.”

“Yeah…That’s quite a lot of disappearances. If they had been eaten by demons, there would be at least some people who would have seen it happen.”

“There’s no one. Truth be told, I even lost contact with a friend of mine… And I asked the guards stationed at the garrison near the foot of the mountain to search for her, too.”

“We were on our way back when we met you, Mister Lion.”

“Then, you want me to search for your friend? But, if there are so many girls missing, haven’t others looked for them already?”

Emma bit her lip softly, and the space between her eyebrows wrinkled as they drew close.

“About that… Currently, everyone has their hands full dealing with the damage the demons are causing, and since no one saw them getting attacked by the demons, we’ve been told that there was no way to get a large group together to search for them…”

They had talked to the mayor of the village about it, too, but they were told that since everyone contributed money to hire guards to protect the village, in these circumstances, he couldn’t simply go as far as to influence them to help with a missing girl from another village.

“You saw that burly bunch drinking here last night, right? They’ve been hired by our village to chase off demons, but they’re kinda fishy.”

“When I wait on tables, I overhear what people are talking about, even without wanting to. And so…”

They were probably talking about that party of men who were drinking excitedly last night.

Apparently, they had been staying at their inn for a few weeks now.

And a few days ago, one of the drunk fighters said the following:

“That guy is also taking advantage of the chaos caused by the demons, coming up with some profitable businesses. Like with those village girls. Speaking of, I wonder, wouldn’t he send us some too? There’s not enough women around.”

Emma heard the party’s men laugh crudely and had grown suspicious. She wondered whether the disappearance of those girls could be a kidnapping and whether the men from the party might know something about it.

“That’s why I cut you off yesterday. That party was recommended to us by the administrator that runs this whole area, so that basically means they must be acquainted with him.”

The administrator in question was a former hero, praised as such for his strength. The ex-hero was already in his fifties, and had retired a long time ago, and now his work consisted of doing stuff like dispatching guards. He did so together with his old companions, employing a huge network of contacts.

“A former hero? He wouldn’t get involved in a crime like that then, would he?”

Theo and Emma looked back at Lion at the same time, a look of extreme disgust showing on their faces. Somehow these two were perfectly in sync, as if they were twins.

“No no no. He might have been a hero, but that was over thirty years ago. Honestly, he kinda seems to have fallen to the dark side. He demands stupidly high amounts of money as commission fees, too! But since the villages of this whole region are under his thumb, no one can complain about it.”

“There are even stories of him killing villagers who defied him and staging it as an accident.”

What the hell was going on with that? If that was the case, wouldn’t he be no different than a bandit? Heroes were supposed to be more like…saviours of humanity who took action in order to protect people. Actually, all the heroes Lion had met until now had been like that.

“When you hear ‘former hero’, you imagine a good-looking older man, right? But that’s all wrong! He’s stout, fat and gives women lewd stares! Ah, there’s even a rumor that he likes cute young men, too! I definitely think that he’s the one behind the kidnapping!”

Whether his face is pretty or ugly doesn’t really have anything to do with it, though… Well, I picture heroes as cool, too, so…

Some travellers walked into the dining room, so Emma, who was speaking loudly in excitement, hurriedly stopped talking. The travellers were dressed rather warmly.

“It’s so cold; it’s so cold! It’s really weird for it to be this cold this time of year. I heard that, around Salto, snow fell for the first time in decades! First, the demon invasion, and now, strange weather! Makes one wonder if we’re cursed.”

“Are you an employee here, miss? Do you serve hot soup for breakfast?”

“Ah, yes! We do; it comes with bread and eggs.”

Emma quickly ran into the kitchen. Theo stood up from his seat as well.

“I also gotta go stock up now. With just my sister and I alone, it’s impossible to search for our friend without the administrator finding out about it. We can’t ask anyone affiliated with them, either. So, say Mister Lion, won’t you think about it?”

Adding that he would somehow get money to compensate Lion, Theo bowed his head.

…Damnit, there comes another commission that I’m unsuited for…

After Theo left, Lion strolled through Gironde aimlessly. Since he didn’t know when a situation could occur in which he would need to summon a suitable beast, he hadn’t summoned any today.

Some children in their early teens were looking after their younger siblings outside while also doing the laundry or cutting wood. It was a simple, idyllic scene.

The children of the area were supposed to go to a school located two villages away from there, but since the demons became so pervasive, the school had been temporarily closed.

According to what Emma had said, the missing children were all young girls between the ages of ten and twenty. Were children being kidnapped for some nefarious reason? Children like the ones in front of him who were diligently helping their families?

The goal behind kidnappings of young girls was often to sell them as sex slaves.

Lion couldn’t understand people who would stoop so low as to sacrifice innocent children, and he didn’t want to either. However, there were certainly people like that in this world.

What’s the difference between humans who prey on humans and demons who prey on humans? There are good people in this world, but there are bad people too… Even among demons, there can’t be just bad ones who harm people either-

A black-haired, beautiful man with bright features flashed through Lion’s mind again.

‘You’re wonderful.’, ‘Don’t look down on yourself.’, ‘You’re a kind, good human.’ Those were the things that he said to Lion.

It would be kind of irresponsible of me to just ignore the situation and go to Mauser, wouldn’t it?

While Lion, since he was a limited summoner, couldn’t search for the mastermind behind the kidnapping and round-up all the criminals involved by himself, he would still support Theo and Emma as much as he was able to.

That was what he decided to do.