Chapter 96

"Just put up with it for a few days, okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm just worried about causing trouble for you and the Grand Duke."

"Why would you think that? The temple's the one who threw you aside first."

"R-right."

"And if the temple gets stubborn about it, we'll find a way to keep you safe."

Iberin worked at calming Rozelia, her face set with conviction.

So tucked in close against her chest, Rozelia's faintly twisted expression went unseen.

---

Even when Lyssel arrived, the priests didn't react.

The high priest, seated arrogantly on the reception room sofa with his chin tilted up, offered a greeting from that same position.

"You've come."

"Hah."

It was so absurd a dry laugh nearly escaped him.

Pons trembled as if the insult had been aimed at him personally.

"You—"

Lyssel held him back before he could get whatever it was out.

Stopped mid-word, Pons stepped back, biting down on his lip.

"High Priest of the Temple of the Sun, the Lord's servant. Aporant."

As far as Lyssel knew, this was the first time the high priest had ever set foot at Lecashe.

The first thought that came to him in the unexpected situation was what are they up to?

This wasn't some rank-and-file priest — the high priest himself had come, and suspicion was the natural response.

"Lyssel Lecashe."

On top of which, the high priest was talking down to him — a grand duke who ranked just under the emperor, not the pope.

The opening had been bad, and the greeting was just as overbearing.

When Lyssel answered in kind, the man's eyebrow twitched, his mood visibly souring.

"What's brought the temple all the way out here?"

"Demonic energy is running high, so we've come intending to purify it. Our priests' power may also be of help in driving back monsters."

"Is that so. Hard to say how much help, exactly."

The pretext was thin.

If they'd been able to purify the demonic energy in the Forest of the World Tree, they'd have done it ages ago.

It'd have lifted the temple's name — why would they sit on their hands?

Because they couldn't. That was why.

And now, suddenly, they were going to try purifying it?

He'd thrown in the bit about helping fight off monsters, but right now the west was more urgent than the south.

There had to be another reason they'd come to Lecashe in person.

Of course, the kind of people who'd tell him if he asked weren't the kind who'd show up unannounced.

"Wrap up whatever you came for and head back. We're not the kind of acquaintances who benefit from drawing this out, are we?"

Lyssel cut him with that, cold.

"Very well."

The high priest answered, the corner of his mouth twitching repeatedly.

But Lyssel had no intention of letting it go at that.

He walked out, leaving them where they were, and ordered Pons,

"Watch every move they make. Don't miss a thing."

Something about it sat wrong.

---

The priests did nothing but loiter aimlessly near the forest.

What they were actually doing, no one could tell.

The forest was dangerous, so a knight order was always at their side.

They seemed to be searching for something, but they puttered around the entrance, were startled witless by any monster that lunged out, and turned to the knights for help every other minute.

Not a single knight looked kindly on them.

"They said they'd come to help with monster-clearing, but they don't actually use any holy power. I have no idea what they think they're doing."

"They poke at this and that and end up in danger! It's a real headache!"

"Are the priests heading out again tomorrow?"

Pons asked the knights about the priests one by one and compiled it all into a report.

"They look like they're searching for something, all right, but we came to hunt monsters and protect the people — not to clean up after them."

"It's the worst. First time I've actually seen a priest, and they had me feeling like some kind of valet."

"Insufferably arrogant. They don't treat commoners like people at all."

The reviews were terrible.

Priests normally only dealt with nobles.

Lower-ranking nobles and rank-and-file knights rarely got near one.

People who'd initially been pleased to be working alongside priests had gradually come to want nothing to do with them.

"Mm."

Lyssel stroked his chin as he took the report.

The note that they seemed to be searching for something nagged at him.

"What are they after?"

"That part, we haven't been able to figure out. But every knight tells the same story — they keep looking around, poking at this and that."

"So they didn't come to help after all."

"Looks that way."

"It wouldn't be the ijet."

If they'd wanted ijet, they'd just ask. They could've negotiated for it.

But instead, they were quietly hunting for something.

He thought himself in circles and couldn't land on anything.

"Could they think the cause of the monsters spilling out is in Lecashe?"

"The cause — in Lecashe?"

"Any bad label that can be stuck on a noble house has been stuck on Lecashe at some point. In the south, perceptions have improved a bit, but we've still got a long way to go — that part's the truth."

"That could be it."

Most nobles would take that as an insult.

If they found out they were being suspected, they might pull their cooperation.

"We'll find out by watching them a little longer. More importantly, Rozelia?"

"She hasn't even come out of the corner room. The staff are taking turns bringing her meals."

"How does she seem?"

"Holding up. A little anxious, but she's keeping her composure. Lady Iberin's been visiting her often to look after her. We're being as careful as possible about not being noticed."

"Good."

He just had to hope all of this passed without incident.

Lyssel let out a heavy breath, his face troubled.

The one small mercy was that neither the high priest nor the other priests showed any real interest in the Lecashe estate itself.

---

The fight against the monsters carried on, with the priests almost wholly cut out of it.

But no matter how many monsters they took down, more kept coming, and the numbers only grew.

"Have you been clearing the monsters on this scale all along?"

The way the nobles and the knights looked at Lyssel had somehow shifted.

There were genuinely a lot more of them lately, but he didn't need to undersell what he'd been doing, so he added nothing.

"Oh — word came in today from the reinforcements sent to Argan."

"Did it? What did they say?"

"The monsters are pulling back."

"What?"

"Less pulling back, more like running away, by their account."

"What on earth."

It was so far outside what he'd expected that Lyssel couldn't even finish the sentence.

Monsters were beasts that ran almost purely on instinct.

And yet they were retreating midway through?

"Is that a bad sign?"

When Lyssel's expression darkened, the noble — who'd taken it as good news — went pale himself.

"It means there's something stronger there. Strong enough that the monsters run from it."

"Isn't that more dangerous, then?"

The noble's face drained of color.

A being strong enough to send monsters fleeing.

A high-tier monster, or a dragon.

"I need to go into the Forest of the World Tree for a bit."

"Shall I call the knight order, then?"

"No. I'll go alone."

Lyssel couldn't shake an odd, unidentifiable sense.

Leaving only that I'll be back, he slipped into the forest by himself.

---

Sure enough, monsters swarmed the entrance.

The knights were holding them back to keep them from getting fully out, but they were fighting among themselves to be the first ones through.

"Strange."

Monsters never preyed on their own kind.

As if they could sense kindred beings by some shared aura.

And here those same creatures were attacking each other.

How hadn't he caught the wrongness sooner?

It was only after he'd pushed past the outer edge into the deeper interior that Lyssel understood.

The truly dangerous place wasn't out there.

It was here — the Forest of the World Tree, where monsters had always teemed.

The monsters that had crawled out of somewhere for thousands of years, no matter how many were killed, were gone.

Or rather — there were still that many weak monsters near the entrance, but the strong ones had vanished without a trace.

"This is…"

The monsters at the heart of the forest were the territorial ones.

And they'd left.

A forest with no monsters in it carried a bleak, wrong sort of feeling.

The strange cries that were always around — gone.

The forest's only shrine sat surrounded by overgrown brush, its color faded.

In that moment, Lyssel felt it.

Why does it feel like the shrine is calling me?

Without realizing it, he took a half-step back.

Hummm — hummm—

As Lyssel pulled away, the shrine seemed to keen at him, a low buzzing hum.

At that sound, Lyssel turned toward the shrine again as if he'd never stepped back at all. Pulled by something he couldn't name, he came up to the shrine's entrance, and —

"Ngh!"

A sudden burst of headache hit him like a hammer.

Lyssel could take most kinds of pain, but he'd never experienced anything like this, and he dropped to his knees.

The strange pull kept tugging at him, but standing near the shrine, the pain was bad enough that he felt he might die on the spot.

In the end, Lyssel couldn't endure it and broke for the edge of the forest.

He came out almost at a run, and there was Iberin standing there with worry written across her face.

"Lyssel!"

Iberin called out to him, loud.

"Iberin."

His face drained white, Lyssel leaned into her like the strength had gone out of him.

"Lyssel, what's wrong. Did something happen in there?"

The man who always said he was fine, leaning on her with no thought for who might see — that was a first.

"It's nothing. Just a bit of a headache."

He'd known there was a shrine inside the forest, but he'd never experienced anything that strange before.

It had to be connected to the monster surge.