Chapter 72: Traces
***Saint POV***
“The scent of demonic blood is always bad.”
I said, slowly scanning the interior of the room.
The room, which was supposed to be the actors’ dressing room for the troupe, was a mess in the aftermath of the battle.
Demon body parts littered the room, and menacing sword marks were carved into the walls.
“You say you’re a theater actor who’s been making a name for yourself lately, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
I said, glancing at the dismembered face of a demon lying in the center of the room.
‘Why is it that they’re always in the shadows…?’
The question was not easily answered.
I could somehow understand being in a theater, but being an actor and having your face blown off was another story.
I wondered if he was targeting the nobles who came to see the play, especially the high ranking officials.
“What does Inés think?”
I asked Ines, the leader of the Silver Winged Knights, who was watching from the sidelines.
She looks around the room, then turns her head to me.
“Hmm… As messy as it was, the battle seems to have ended more quickly than I expected, though both sides possessed intimidating speed… though I suspect the nameless swordsman was faster.”
“I see, and besides…It didn’t take its horns.”
I replied to Ines’ explanation, stepping closer to the completely butchered corpse of the demon, bending down to examine the horn on its forehead.
The horn was blackish-red in color. It wasn’t a ‘black horned’ demon, but it would have taken considerable force to take it on alone.
Its cracked horns leaked remnants of magicka.
How many humans had died at the hands of this filthy fiend? I snapped my fingers, cleansing the room of any lingering demonic energy, and stood up.
“I wonder if not taking the horns means they don’t belong to any nation or organization.”
The demon horn was basically a way for a person to prove that they had exterminated a demon.
“What about the sword marks, can they tell us anything about a particular school of swordsmanship…”
I asked as I approached Ines, who was staring at the sword marks on the wall.
“I’m trying to visualize what the battle might have been like…At first I thought it was a sword, but I don’t think it’s a sword, because a sword doesn’t make rough marks like that. Swords are a bit more refined. So that means he scratched the wall directly with the blade…right there.”
Inés pointed her finger toward the entrance, away from the room.
How could a sword reach that far when it wasn’t even a sword? It didn’t make sense, but Ines wasn’t wrong either.
I believed in what Ines was saying.
I didn’t know much about swordsmanship, so I had to take her word for it that she belonged to the Round, or Knights of the Round Table.
Knights of the Round Table, also known as the Round is a term used to describe the ten most powerful knights on the continent.
The Round originally had twelve seats, but one was still vacant due to the death of the original Round, and the other was reserved for Sword Saint.
Although he had vowed not to join the round, they had still left his spot open.
“I’m afraid this is new to me as well, Saint. I apologize for not being more helpful.”
Ines, who had been scanning the trail, bowed her head.
“…Ines, raise your head. It’s enough that we can see the intentions of whoever it is. This mysterious figure has found a demon that we didn’t even realize was there, and he’s done it in secret.”
I paced the room, scanning my surroundings.
Looking at the body parts I wondered if he had been forced to cut them off in the middle of a battle.
Did he get some kind of pleasure from killing demons? Or did he just want to make it suffer?
After a few moments of contemplating this rather gruesome sight, I heard a commotion outside the room and a member of the troupe rushed into the waiting room, shouting.
“Holy Mother, the Golden Lions are here…!”
The Knights of the Golden Lion, were a knight order from the kingdom of Terracia that, like us, hunted demons that lurked in human lands.
It is an unwritten rule that dealing with demons knows no country, race, or jurisdiction, so why did they come here so late?
“Get out of the way!”
Soon after, a blond man in golden armor, representing the Golden Lion, enters the room with his henchmen.
“…Lord Terlos, it’s been a long time.”
Terlos Okentia, the leader of the Knights of the Golden Lion.
“I thought I saw a lot of winged things on the way here…You’re here in person.”
“She is here. You’d better watch your language, Terlos.”
Inés responded to Terlos’ insult with a sharp voice. “Oops,” Terlos says, and holds out his palms.
“It’s okay, Inés, so… What brings you here?”
My frosty voice echoes through the room, and Terlos looks at the man beside him, then opens his mouth.
“It’s because my man took care of the demon here.”
“His horns are still embedded in his forehead.”
Inés retorted, immediately recognizing the absurdity of Terlos’ claim.
“Well… He said he forgot to bring his horns, ha ha!”
Terlos smirked and patted the shoulder of the subordinate standing next to him.
“…This is my first time slaying alone… I apologize. Hehe…”
His subordinate scratched his cheeks and smiled wryly.
“Phew… Lord Terlos, you saw that this is a theater and you’ve prepared a play? What a ridiculous play, you should have practiced a bit more…”
I burst out laughing, and Terlos’ eyes widened in confusion.
They were lying and there was a distinctly unpleasant aura about them since my god given abilities would make no mistake.
“…Ines.”
As I called out to Ines’ name in a low voice, she disappeared in an instant from next to me and appeared in front of Terlos’ subordinate, pointing a sword at his throat.
“How dare you speak falsehoods before a saint, an apostle of the Lord?”
Inés’ murderous voice immediately followed and Terlos’ henchman was shaking with fear.
“What do you think you’re doing, Inés?”
Terlos was about to draw his sword, but his foolishness was interrupted by my words.
“If you go ahead and draw your sword, I’m not going to stand idly by, and I don’t think you realize, Sir Terlos, that we have the last word.”
My words stung, and Terlos stopped moving, unable to utter a word.
I stared at him and continued.
“If a new saint has appeared, you should have at least seen what she is capable of. If you will excuse me, Sir Terlos, I’ll let your rudeness slide this time.”
Terlos’ subordinate, who hadn’t gotten the better of Inés, is hit and stumbles backwards.
‘A guy like that, single-handedly defeating a demon…How ridiculous.’
Inés had heard that Terlos, the leader of the Knights of the Golden Lion, was much more foolish than he appeared, but she hadn’t expected him to be this foolish.
“…I’m going back.”
With that, Terlos kicked his man off the ground and left the room.
The man scrambled to his feet and followed him.
“How is it that the Kingdom is always so late with information…I can’t believe they don’t even know what the Saint’s abilities are…”
“That’s possible, didn’t Inés say that Terlos was just a puppet anyway?”
“Yes. He wasn’t there this time, but the Golden Lion’s deputy leader. It’s safe to say he controls the Golden Lion, not the leader.”
“Terlos is foolish, so he’s easy to take advantage of.”
“…He’s up to something, that’s for sure. Maybe this wasn’t something he planned, but I can’t imagine what he’s up to.”
“Hmm…”
I pondered as I listened to Ines’ explanation.
I hadn’t seen the deputy leader of the Golden Lion Knights before, not even in his regular reports of demon slayings to the Alliance.
I’d have to meet him to get a sense of what he was like, but he rarely showed up.
Just then, Inés lets out an “ah” and as she approaches me she opens her mouth.
“Speaking of information, there was some information about an acupuncturist hailed as a ‘blind saint’ in a small town not too far from this city.”
“That reminds me of the blind acupuncturist Anthony met, did he stop by that town?”
“Yes, from what I’ve heard, he used to go from town to town, healing people, and…”
“And?”
“I had an informant in town tell me that he thought he saw a man with a white bandage over his eyes last night. They say it was a passing glimpse, so it’s not exactly accurate, but they don’t know if it has anything to do with this…… The sighting wasn’t anywhere near the theater.”
“Hmm… Could it be the same person?”
“A blind man walking around with a bandage covering his eyes… If it’s solid information, I’d say it’s likely the same person, but… I can’t quite picture a blind acupuncturist wielding a sword and catching demons in hiding.”
“Hmph… I agree, it’s quite interesting.”
I smiled at Ines’ competence, and then looked at the slaughtered ‘former demon’ on the other side.
No matter how I look at it, these marks seem to be full of emotion… Did he have a grudge against this demon?
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to visit the village where he must have been.
‘A saint…’
What kind of person is he that everyone he meets says such things?
If the man who slayed the demon and the man who cured Anthony’s daughter were the same person, then he was a force to be reckoned with.
If he didn’t belong to any organization, he was exactly the kind of person I’d want to recruit to my knight order.
***
I sought out the Black Hand near the Academy to learn more about Krektar.
As an information guild, they keep the location of their branches closely guarded, but there was one person in the Black Hand who I had already made a connection with.
Entering the branch, I pressed my robes together and entered her room.
“Hmph, Aizel, you’re here?”
She was hunched over her desk, not even looking at me, but she recognized me instantly.
Not surprisingly, even the slightest hint of my approaching presence would have reached her ears as the ‘branch manager’.
“Do you know how much I’ve missed you lately?”
She greeted me with the same smirk on her face that I hadn’t seen in quite some time.
It was something I couldn’t help but feel, since regression after regression had left me with no need for the Information Guild.
“Oswald. Tell me if he has a lair, and if so, where.”
I ignored her grumbles of frustration and got straight to the point, sitting down in the chair in front of my desk and facing her.
“Oswald… You mean the theater actor who became famous recently?”
“…Yes.”
My teeth grind together as I answer her.
He was known as Oswald but the name Krektar was more familiar to me.
One of those disgusting demons who came to kill me, always on the same day, who killed my family, my clan, and used me as a test subject.
They had wiped out the Ludwig clan before I had even bonded with my family… I was very young.
The regression I’m experiencing is also a “curse” of sorts, a result of being used as a guinea pig for their experiments.
Fortunately, they don’t know I’m a regressor.
Of all of them, Krektar was unique and I had no idea he was an actor in a play.
I was never interested in theater, so I may have never known this information.
If it weren’t for the fact that I had stumbled upon him in front of the theater while wandering the city with Zetto last time but Zetto and I killed him then.
We killed him so quickly that we didn’t have time to get any information from him.
‘We were together then…’
The memory of the battle with Zetto comes flooding back and a bitter taste tingles in my mouth.
I shook it out of my head.
This time, I was going to kill him alone.
I could easily subdue him and torture him by myself now but the next words that came out of her mouth were a bit of a surprise.
“I don’t think you’re going to watch the play… I wonder if you’re interested in demons?”
The branch chief pushed herself up from her desk, stretched, and turned to me.
“Even with the Black Hand, I wouldn’t have known that Oswald was a demon…”
…But why did the word ‘demon’ come out of her mouth?
Her next words revealed the reason.
“Oswald was found slaughtered, with horns sprouting from his forehead, cut into several pieces… Yuck. It was so gruesome, I had to stop reading the report.”
Someone killed Krektar before me.