WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

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◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss ◈

Chapter 52

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Enemies of the Ten Towers (2)

What appeared before us on our way to the listing review hall was a man in shabby clothes. The wounds scattered across his body and his torn clothing made it clear he'd been through considerable hardship.

A quick look told me he didn't seem to be infected with the silver thread. So how had he ended up hurt like that?

"This is the Ten Towers' Emergency Relief Team. We're currently moving to a safe location, would you like to join us?"

Niobe took one step forward and asked. In that brief moment, she must have judged that he wasn't a silver-thread host.

However green she looked, a Blasphemia agent was still an agent. I was admiring her decent eye for it when the man opened his mouth.

"You..."

"You're Blasphemia, aren't you."

"...Excuse me?"

Niobe's answer came a beat too late. The man's hair stood on end as Qi (鬪氣) coiled around his entire body.

Damn it. If he was hunting Blasphemia, there was maybe a ninety percent chance he was a priest of the vanished god. I asked Lampades, clinging to that last sliver of hope.

"That face. Have you seen it before, in the mercenary business?"

Maybe Blasphemia had hired him as a fixer for some secret job, and he was just angry his client hadn't paid up.

"No. Never seen him before. I've been out of the business a good while now, what with founding my own tower, so he could be some rising talent who showed up after I left, but..."

Lampades loaded mana into the tools strapped across his body, wary of the shabby man.

I held back a sigh threatening to slip out. A priest, after all? I'd thought there was some chance he was a fixer, since he was using Qi.

In a world where magic dominated the paradigm, those who wielded Qi were few and far between. Magic's standing was simply too absolute. Qi was, in a sense, something like a refuge for those magic had pushed aside.

Fixers were about the only group where you saw a relatively higher number of Qi users, though most of them treated it as an emergency backup for when their mana ran dry, or as a supplementary tool for physical enhancement.

So there was still some chance this man was a fixer too...

"You Blasphemia bastards! Where are the members of our order you dragged off?!"

Nope. A hundred percent, a priest of the vanished god.

'A priest who wields Qi.'

I ran through what I knew about the gods. It's common enough for priests to pick up some other esper power to mask their divine power.

But the level of skill he'd shown wasn't something you'd reach just by picking up Qi as a cover skill. He'd clearly trained in it in earnest.

A belligerent god who valued the discipline of Qi as much as divine power. It wasn't hard to guess which order the man came from.

"If you won't answer...!"

A red light swirled in the man's grip. The children following behind us trembled at the ferocity of it.

I quickly sent Kyne a message with instructions and stepped forward.

"That will be quite enough."

* * *

The smiling man closed the distance by one step. An entirely ordinary stride, with no imposing air or pressure to it.

'I can't sense any mana from him...!'

But that very ordinariness was what felt wrong.

The reason the priest of the vanished god had been able to see through the girl mage's identity in the first place was a magic tool the Ten Towers' agents carried.

The vital-sign detector the Ten Towers issued its agents. He'd committed to memory, completely, the mana-field pattern of that device, one specialized for sending and receiving signals.

Under normal circumstances, its output was faint enough to be masked entirely by each agent's own mana field, undetectable. But the priest, having clashed with the Ten Towers' lackeys more times than he could count, had developed the ability to pick out the device's field, faint as it was, buried within a person's own mana field.

From this man, though, he could sense no trace of mana at all. Utter stillness.

Not one of the Blasphemia agents he'd ever fought had managed to hide their mana this completely. This had to be a mage of terrifying skill.

"Are you... the one in charge here?"

"I suppose you could say that, more or less."

Ortes shrugged once and spoke in a low voice.

"Would you not let the people behind me go. Let us talk, just the two of us. They are nothing more than one clueless rookie and some poor souls caught up in a terror attack, are they not."

"Ha. And when did you ever just let us go! Tell me, have you ever once listened when we begged you to spare even one child!"

Niobe flinched back a step at the ferocity of that presence. Ortes didn't so much as waver.

"If you come at it that way, you will never learn where your believers ended up."

"....."

He couldn't gauge exactly how strong the Blasphemia agent in front of him really was. But instinct told him this wasn't an opponent he'd beat easily. If reinforcements showed up while the fight dragged on, even he would have a hard time walking away with a clean victory.

"Fine. I'll admit time isn't on my side. But how am I supposed to trust you?"

"...I'll be the hostage."

It was Kyne who stepped forward from behind Ortes with resolve. Every eye among the escaping group turned to her.

"I'm not really sure what you're talking about, but... either way, if I become your hostage, that person can't just act recklessly, right?"

The priest of the forgotten god glared at Ortes. Ortes gave a calm nod.

An unspoken agreement had been reached. Kyne stepped slowly forward.

* * *

Lampades was the only one present who knew the real relationship between Kyne and Ortes, corporate scholarship student and the Office Head of the Secretariat of that same company, and he was appalled.

'That, that bastard...?!'

Was he really offering up his own company's scholarship student as bait, without a moment's hesitation?

'No, wait. Would a kid even come up with the idea of becoming a hostage on her own? Don't tell me, this was Ortes's doing!'

How could a person be so heartless.

"I'd rather be the hostage myself!"

The listing review hall wasn't much farther, and with the Ten Towers relief team mage and the admissions officer there, Astrape should make it there safely.

Hearing Lampades volunteer, the admissions officer's hand shot up too, an expression of the professional duty he felt as an adult responsible for protecting the children.

"No. Skilled mages like the two of you still have your fangs even if you drop your weapons right now, not unless you're fitted with a mana-sealing restraint. Leave, now. Go!"

But the priest of the forgotten god refused their offer. As the adults bit down on their lips in frustration, Ortes's voice reached them.

"All of you, take the other children to safety. I will settle things here."

"Relief Team Leader...!"

The admissions officer's voice caught in his throat.

He'd assumed Ortes, who'd arrived with Niobe after she introduced herself as part of the Emergency Relief Team, was her superior. In despair at his own helplessness to protect the students, he bowed his head and made his plea to the Ten Towers mage.

"Please, you have to bring her back safely. That girl, that girl is...!"

The admissions officer had asked about her prosthetic arm and caught a glimpse of Kyne's past. A kind-hearted girl who, despite her hard upbringing, would sacrifice herself for others, she couldn't lose her life here to some superstition follower.

Ortes nodded gravely.

Lampades squeezed his eyes shut at the sheer nerve of that performance.

* * *

While Kyne edged slowly forward, Ortes whispered to Niobe.

"Do not report this matter up the chain. There is word that some people are colluding with the superstition followers. I will report directly to the Audit Office Head myself, the same as I did at the mana-engine train... I mean, the Charlotte branch."

Niobe thought she could sense a certain tension beneath Ortes's smiling face. It was the kind of weight a person might carry when the organization's survival and innocent lives both hung on the task at hand.

"Right now, all you need to think about is getting these people safely evacuated. I will make sure that girl comes back safe, one way or another."

Niobe nodded, her heart full of respect and support.

Only once the mages, the Museion applicants among them, had disappeared from sight did the priest of the forgotten god finally move. Slinging Kyne over his shoulder, he wove a complicated path, as though trying to shake off any possible pursuit.

Ortes ran along, cursing the needlessly suspicious priest in his head.

'Damn it. That ignorant lout. The surveillance cameras aren't even working right now anyway, what's he so paranoid for.'

The man's sprint came to a stop. Ortes, halting right after, thought to himself.

'Once I'm out of Elysion, I should hole up in Etna City for a while.'

* * *

With Kyne set in front of him, the priest glared at me.

"Where did you abduct the believers of our order to?"

Damn it. Why am I stuck putting on some act that was never in the cards for me.

But this was also an opportunity. Strength enough to storm into Elysion alone was no ordinary feat. He clearly held a fairly high position within his order.

If I coaxed him well, he could turn out to be a big help in the conflict with Argyrion still to come.

...Though the fact that he'd charged into Elysion alone did make me a little worried about how sharp he actually was.

"First off, a pleasure to meet you, priest of Enyalios."

* * *

The muscles of Demos, priest of Enyalios, the war god who symbolized struggle and violence, tensed.

"I've never once left a Blasphemia bastard I've met alive. So how do you know?"

"It is a simple reason. It is because I-"

"I see! Information tortured out of the people you dragged off from our order! You filthy bastards!"

"...It is because I carry a relic of Phoibos."

"What?"

Confusion. A good start. Ortes's smile deepened, just a touch.

Honestly, it was a simple deduction, one that didn't even take opening my eyes. How many combat priests specializing in close-quarters brawling through Qi were there to begin with?

Having seized control of the conversation, Ortes's mind began working quickly.

"First, I suppose I should ask this. Was your dispatch here the collective will of the Order of the Divine Name? Or was it your own decision alone?"

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