"You over there — yes, you. Take the hood off, and let us verify your identity."
"Isn't this supposed to be a free city? I'm just a traveler wandering from place to place."
The man they had stopped was tall, his voice slightly hoarse. Beneath the hood there was nothing but darkness, with only a few strands of silver hair slipping into view.
"Apologies, sir. This is for everyone's safety. Gaderia may be a free city that welcomes visitors from every land, but criminals of the most vicious sort, wanted across the continent, still have to be screened with care and kept under watch."
One of the two guards delivered the explanation with a grave face, while the other moved forward to pull back the suspicious traveler's hood.
The hooded man put out a hand, apparently intending to refuse the search.
"Former court Mage of the Ohaly Kingdom, Lois. Currently the leader of Ohaly's last remaining remnant. Well, well. Look what important personage we've run into."
Another hand closed around the one that had been about to release magic, and the somewhat aged voice spoke again. "I wouldn't advise that."
Feeling the strength drain out of his hand, Lois forced the words out through his teeth.
"Grand Bishop of the Church of the New God... Schwenk."
The two soldiers had no idea what to make of this interruption. Schlacht, the Demon Race general who used to be responsible for the outermost gate, was still laid up in bed with his injuries.
"Um, you really are Lord Schwenk, aren't you... and also—"
The guards kept their wary eyes fixed on the hooded Lois.
"Indeed I am. I never imagined a day would come when I'd be famous myself." Schwenk smiled, splendid in his white priestly vestments, the Scripture cradled in both arms.
"Tch. You've got the wrong man. Free city, my foot. I'm not going in."
Lois tugged his hood down and turned to leave.
"So there was nothing wrong with my Mana Perception that day after all. Here I am, picking up strange Mana perfectly well."
When he followed the voice to its source and saw who had arrived, Lois gave no thought at all to the hood the wind had knocked back. His one remaining right eye stretched wide until it was webbed with blood, as though to brand that existence into it.
"What are you glaring at me for? And releasing magic in Gaderia without the slightest restraint, no less."
Nanoda descended slowly out of the air, drawing every eye in the crowd.
She had noticed it while training in the cave on the back hill: a powerful, utterly unconcealed Mana approaching Gaderia's territory.
With the incident from a few days ago having blown up so publicly, and with security tightened because of it, Nanoda had decided to come and look for herself.
"The white-haired broken-horned demon! It's you! You're the one! Murderer!"
Lois's earlier attitude reversed itself entirely as he flew into a frenzy. The figure he had almost managed to forget rose again in his mind. Hatred, deeper than rage, blinded him. Killing intent took root, and his hand came up of its own accord, leveled at Nanoda.
Nanoda, for her part, was still trying to work out who this one-eyed, silver-haired man with the eyepatch was.
Continental Mages' Association? No, that didn't seem right. Mages from the Association at least kept their Mana somewhat reined in.
"Slapping a crime on me the moment you see me. So then — who did I kill, and who are you? As far as my memory goes, I've never laid eyes on you before."
Nanoda watched the Mana gathering in the palm opposite her and questioned him with complete composure.
Seeing the Acting Bishop run headlong into a remnant of the King of War's forces, Schwenk merely shifted a step aside, so slightly no one noticed, and smiled as he settled in to watch the show.
"My master, Wilhelm — you're the one who slaughtered him, aren't you!"
"I see. So you've come from Ohaly? That's right. I did wound him badly that day, and in the end he died. I won't deny it."
The enemy who killed his master. It occurred to Nanoda that if she had been the one to lose that duel, Yuna might have turned into exactly the man standing in front of her now.
"It's just as the story passed around among the soldiers said. It really is you!" Lois clenched his jaw, and then, in the instant before he struck, hesitation caught him — because Nanoda kept talking.
"But that was war. On a battlefield, someone is dying at every moment, and everyone fights for the side they stand on. More than that, he was the one who provoked me, dangling news of my disciple in front of me. And losing that duel gave him exactly what he wanted: a name that outlives him. Sorry. If you've truly made up your mind to have your revenge, we can go somewhere else and settle it to the death."
Nanoda had noticed the fearful stares from the people waiting to enter the city. Even after the Hero's death, the Ohaly Kingdom's war of invasion still left ordinary people cold with dread — let alone now, with the leader of its remnants standing here in front of them.
"What is this supposed to be..."
Lois lowered the hand that had been ready to cast. A question had taken shape inside him.
Could he really defeat this enemy, the one even old Wilhelm had failed to beat? He was considerably stronger than he had been back then, and yet, facing this member of the Demon Race, he could not sense a single chance of winning.
His rage and his hatred felt unbearably heavy to him now, exactly like the justice he had once believed in so absolutely.
Why not throw everything into it? At worst, he would go and keep his master company.
No. That would be nothing like justice.
"Good. Then there's no need for us to fight. You keep to your side, I'll keep to mine. Go on."
Nanoda snuffed out the spell she had prepared.
Her plan had been that if Lois made a move, she would use Paradox Magic to shift the two of them far away from the crowd and fight there.
One thing still puzzled her. Why was this Lois not down in the Southern Lands fighting alongside Minus, instead of running north on his own? Still, that hardly mattered at the moment.
"Lord Acting Bishop, that man is wanted by Ohaly, by the nations of the Central Lands, and by the Southern Kingdom. You're just going to let him walk away?"
Schwenk shook his head steadily, the Scripture held against his chest.
"If he raises a hand against Gaderia or against me, then naturally I'll raise mine."
Nanoda wore the look of someone being lectured on how to do her own job, and Schwenk found he had nothing more to say.
"Demon Race. One last thing — will you tell me? What my master did... was it his own choice?"
Lois seemed entirely indifferent to the Grand Bishop's hostility, staring straight at Nanoda instead.
"Who knows. It was his choice."
"Then when he made that decision, was there someone assisting him that I never knew about?"
The truth was that Lois had never known what old Wilhelm was truly after.
"..." The question silenced Nanoda for a moment, because it dragged up something that had been giving her a headache: the devil Wilhelm had spoken of. From that day until now, she had not caught a single trace of news about it. And who had been the one guiding her to that battlefield? Could it have been that devil?
"There was. That's all I can tell you — that there was. What kind of existence it is, I don't know either."
"So it's true... I thought it was strange when my master ordered me to lead a unit back north to scout. By the time I'd finished and returned to the Southern Lands, the King had betrayed the kingdom, and my master..."
____
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