Chapter 47 – 47. Strange Companion – City of Witches (2)

“Tell the ogres. Unless there is something special to do, stay hidden in your own place and don’t attack humans for no reason.”

“Ah, I get it.”

“…”

As Aris gives her orders to her newly accepted ‘subjects’, the ogres return to their lair in the forest. And if there are people who come looking for traces of Aris, they will arrange them according to their own taste…

Just figure it out.

If it’s an enemy, it will be excluded, and if it’s Aris’ family, it will take care of it.

As a bonus, there are other Ogre Mages besides Tio, so they will survive on their own.

If you can’t buy it by then, it can’t be helped.

Just by saving the lives of the bastards who came here to fuck men, it’s like I’ve done everything I had to do. Collecting more than necessary or something.

Regardless of what Tio says or not, she was the only one who thought I would get it in the first place.

Plus, she doesn’t seem to care that much either.

Ogre Mage Tio Gransha.

This is the first time in my life that I have thought about taking on an ogre mage as a disciple, and I have wondered what it would have been like if she had a path to learning. Right now, it was blocking the way in front of me, so I tried to kill it, but it was able to run away every time.

There was a chance to chase it down and kill it, but I let it go because I couldn’t ruin my big goal just by catching it. I easily defeated it in the final Cassandra battle, so of course I was able to overcome it.

Above all, the decisive difference in behavior that made me think of saving Tio Gransha.

In fact, that guy, even though she said she hated him for killing humans, did not commit any more evil deeds than necessary.

Well, compared to other monsters playing around with human corpses, or compared to the other Four Heavenly Kings or Demon King Army commanders who used pregnant humans as shields and attacked them, they didn’t do anything like that.

Even if he did dirty things as an enemy, he would have dug a trap. Compared to other monsters, he was more of a gentleman.

A trap created purely through resourcefulness and stratagem.

Even though he was angry just by persistently targeting the person who was constantly being dragged into that trap and holding the expedition team back, I didn’t really hate him.

Rather, it was the same year that I fell into that trap again.

Even though the trap was a nightmare, it wasn’t disgusting.

They were treated with respect as enemies, and there was an extenuating factor in the fact that there was a conflict between the expedition team trying to kill the Demon King and the Demon King’s army trying to stop it.

Anyway, Tio Gransha, that…

Should I say she is. Anyway, my sister took it in with Anna, and now the only people with me are Nia and Lucy. Well, I don’t know what to do in the future, but the monsters called ogres themselves are things that will crawl on their own as long as you establish a relationship between them.

Anna took care of controlling the momentum and setting the upper and lower positions appropriately, so I won’t have to worry too much. Even if more people are added to the group, there are not many people who pay much attention.

I don’t really like Sollias, but in the first place, she is not in a position to express much dissatisfaction with my choice of companion, nor can she, and she has to be with me somehow… But, as always, she is in a position to be with me forever. There is no such thing.

She knows that she hates monsters, and she knows how much she hates the Demon Lord’s clan. Of course, in any case, as long as we are working towards the same ‘goal’, we will have to at least improve our relationship.

What is Adramelech…

As always, he looks like he’s looking at this place with his eyes wide open. What happened?

Aside from that, there are only Dick and Mine who have their weapons out and are cleaning them.

It’s the same scene as before.

While my sister, Anna, and I are away, Lucy clings to me and makes a campfire. The forest was quiet, oblivious to the battle that had just occurred, and Lucy spoke to me.

“Clarke.”

“Why?”

“…Why did you keep that thing alive?”

“…There’s no particular reason to kill?”

“Didn’t you kill everyone who came at you?”

“Are you anxious?”

Nod your head. To put it simply, what’s unsettling is… Um.

To be honest, from Lucy’s point of view, considering all the times she’s been with me, other than being with the fugitive knight, I’m probably the only human relationship she’s had. To Lucy, Anna is the older sister who cooks delicious food well, and her older sister is a very scary older sister.

Other than that, considering that I care about the rest, I wonder if my position will be threatened in many ways. Of course, that didn’t mean I had any intention of leaving Lucy alone. For Lucy, that uncle was her only family, and for her who doesn’t even know her own connection, I am the only one left now.

Is that why I feel like a puppy that doesn’t want to poop as he is worried about going back alone?

“Hug me.”

And then he came in front of me and wrapped his tail tightly around my waist. With her red hair tied into pigtails, she looks more sulky than usual. The appearance of asking for a hug. Her little sister is talking to me like she’s asking her older brother for a hug and I giggle and put my arm around Lucy’s shoulders and give her a hug.

The tightness of its tail that holds my waist becomes slightly stronger, its horns shine as if it is excited, and its slightly hot breath comes out, but it seems to be controlling it well so that it is not hot, and it leans its head towards me with a purring sound.

Now that I think about it, I’m tangled again.

They say that the hair on your head is like dog hair, so it won’t work if you don’t comb it.

“I’ll comb your hair.”

“Huh.”

Then he takes out a comb and combs Lucy’s hair. The fugitive who helped me. The escaped knight told me several times when he left Lucy in my care. What is her favorite food? After every meal, she gets something on her mouth, so she wipes it well. Her hair is like a dog’s hair, so I ask her to comb it regularly.

Sometimes the tail scales fall off, so please watch carefully. And he even told me to feed him lots of delicious food.

It suddenly occurred to me.

Lucy, who was left in my care by a man who wasn’t a good person but wasn’t a complete villain, is still following me innocently, and is only looking at me.

I stroke Lucy’s head, gently loosening any tangled hair. And Lucy said to me: With eyes full of doubts.

And as he joins us, Lucy also seems to be starting to become somewhat aware of her own identity, and she asks me about it.

“…Uncle, did you know what kind of person I am?”

“You probably didn’t know.”

I don’t think that guy is the kind of person who thinks about things like that. He just seemed like a human being who lived and died as he pleased.

-Why is this old man, who seems to have lived the whole world, so dead-faced? It’s like experiencing betrayal once or twice in a human relationship.

The wizards keep chasing you.

In particular, among the elementary school professors who I thought were doing well, assassins were dispatched and came to kill me, and this was what he said while looking at me when he had to kill them. We were close and interacted with each other, but in the end, I used my magic knowledge…

It’s also a story about a time when I was attacking something that I couldn’t handle properly and broke my head, and then I felt ashamed and annoyed, wondering if I had passed on magic knowledge to this bastard for no reason.

-…Listen carefully. Don’t sincerely believe things that make you smile when you pretend to be friendly. Don’t believe the pretense. Don’t trust a smile. Look at the anger, sadness, and despair boiling in your heart. Because that alone proves everything about that person.

These were the words of a somewhat twisted knight, and in many ways, his disposition could not be said to be good. It is said that human nature can be known through anger, sadness, and despair. As far as I know, there is only one thing that can be known from that.

How cruel can a person be?

And it’s just a matter of knowing how far the break is.

I didn’t agree with his opinion. If the world was so full of darkness that we could judge it based on that, then the world wasn’t just full of painful and sad memories.

-That’s right, but I don’t really care whether you agree or not. I escaped from a place full of pretense, a father who politely insisted on a false peace and all, and a guy who responded to it…

Well, one thing we can learn from his words.

There is nothing other than love that comes with good intentions for no reason.

He didn’t even receive that love properly.

…

No one cared about him, and he wanted to become king, but in the end, in a situation where someone else had no choice but to become king instead of him, he committed a betrayal in order to become king once again.

For some reason, it was discovered ‘early’ and he was kicked out.

…

To be honest, I think it’s his own gain.

Although he can understand the feeling of not being loved, he is trying to overthrow his father and become king. He fought desperately to somehow become king, but if someone else said he would become king, he might get angry and do that.

That’s it.

He eventually betrayed his father, and that is a serious crime that cannot be forgiven no matter what he does.

That’s why I am truly, truly grateful to my father, who treated me like a child even when he knew he would be eaten. Watching the monster that is me grow by the minute, he wondered how many people wouldn’t go crazy if the time came for him to die.

If my father had been like that, I might have been broken as well, so I missed my father even more, who had embraced me with love until the end and left a will telling me to calmly accept my fate and follow my own path.

Considering that he couldn’t even abandon the girl who followed him, he was a pitiful human being who couldn’t even become a complete villain.

If he had become a hot villain, wouldn’t that have been a good ending in its own way?

-…Why on earth should I, who was born with a purpose, see the world as beautiful?

-I tried to do something, but I felt like all my efforts and results were being denied… Do you know what?

Well.

I’ve seen countless things ruined by being caught up in it and feeling ashamed of themselves. Those who have collapsed and been irreparably shattered into pieces. These are stories where you feel sorry for those people, but you crush them because it is the best way for them to quickly end their painful lives.

It wasn’t very pleasant.

In the end, I have eliminated countless people in the name of Arch Mage who burn things that should not be touched and abandon humanity.

I have seen many people trample on their achievements and efforts simply because of school ties, regionalism, and bloodlines, and I absolutely detest their behavior.

That’s why I took over Lorraine and destroyed those who only believed in their skills, called them harsh, and boasted about their pedigree. People used to criticize me, saying that I had commoner blood and that my father was a bastard, but this is what I thought.

…If you don’t have anything to boast about, why would you look down on someone who is overwhelmingly more skilled, more powerful, and more successful than you based on their lineage?

Anyway, I know he was going through a lot of trouble, and in the end, he did it out of frustration, but he was caught early and ran away, and in the meantime, he got Lucy.

The end of a being who was neither completely evil nor good can be seen as grand in its own way.

…I thought I was going to die that day.

No, if it were normal, dying would have been natural.

That’s right, because a chase party came from Camelot, and Lancelot, a knight of Camelot who stands shoulder to shoulder with Gawain, chased me along with King Arthur.

And what I have encountered so far is one of them, ‘Mordred’.

Okay.

King Arthur’s legitimate son.

It was Mordred.

And Lancelot’s chase.

For me, who was not a wizard and could only use a hammer, the pursuit of Lancelot, a great knight who stood shoulder to shoulder with his older brother Gawain, was more than enough to remind me of the word death.

If it weren’t for Lucy, Lancelot was so dangerous that he would have died more than 10 times, and it was only after I created an opening and turned Lucy into a groggy that he was able to escape.

A battle between King Arthur and Arthur Pendragon to kill Mordred, saying that he will finish it off himself since he is none other than his ‘son’.

As a bonus, they received a ‘revelation from the oracle’ and organized a tracking party to kill me. And Lancelot came to kill it.

King Arthur chased Mordred, and Lancelot chased me.

The result of the battle against King Arthur and Mordred, none other than Lancelot.

I don’t know the details of the scene.

However, the explosion between Mordred’s ‘Clarent’ and the holy sword ‘Excalibur’, which emits an unimaginably powerful holy light that can be seen from afar, was enough to make the heavens and earth shake. The last news received was that King Arthur had punished the traitor, but ultimately died at the hands of Mordred.

And to comfort Lucy, who is saddened by the fact that Mordred is dead.

He will cry when he dies, so comfort him well.

-…If I die, I’m going to fucking cry. And, rather than a traitor like this… Wouldn’t the guy who suffered like a dog and is about to be thrown out to be at least cleaner?

-You…You show Lucy a new world.

-…It’s short, but let’s live a little more sincerely. You, who made me think about living more confidently, must live. If I had lived like you, who was always confident in yourself, would I have lived a slightly better life?

-I don’t know. I don’t know. Because I didn’t live my life thinking about that. Still…At least I hope that you, who proudly saved the world, showed that little boy a new world, rather than a traitor like this.

I said something like that.

“…Lucy, I am the type of person who always returns the humiliation or insults I receive.”

And vice versa.

“And the grace I received. Mordred saved me, and you followed me and helped me countless times.”

I said to Lucy while combing her hair.

“…So you don’t have to worry. I was saved by you from death, and I was able to arrive at Magia by being led by you. And this time, I will lead you.”

“…Huh.”

Lucy leaned her head against me and snuggled further into my arms, and only Lucy’s tail gently rubbing on the floor showed that Lucy’s mood had relaxed.

After I finished arranging my hair.

Now let’s check what you need to do before arriving in Frisia.

1. Securing a base before entering Gehenna.

It’s natural.

It is clear that the Elder God’s pursuers will chase us, and it is absolutely necessary to have a base where we can secure and defend ourselves and prepare an escape route in case of emergency.

2. Enter Gehenna.

Currently, my older sister has created a half-asshole of the great evil Baphomet, the ruler of the witches. Naturally, from the witches’ point of view, their sister had committed an irreversible treason.

The reason is that Baphomet looked down on him in the first place and acted according to his own greed, but even if that were the case, the ruler there would ask how he could get in when he was like that, but I don’t know.

If she was sane, she would have been afraid of her older sister who turned Baphomet into her asshole, so she wouldn’t try to take advantage of it.

Besides, if it gets in the way, I’m really going to destroy everything this time, and I was planning on fixing it at least once anyway.

Entering itself. My sister knows the method, so there is no problem.

3. Gather information on Mandrake that does not cry.

It is a core material for operating the holy relics of the Age of God. Of course, only by saving this can I save Elizabeth. As I said to Lucy, I don’t forget the grudges I received, but I even less forget the grace.

She saved everyone, and I was saved too.

I can’t let her fade away.

After finding information about Mandrake…

Next, you need a place to manufacture it.

It requires advanced magic engineering, but I have the ability to make it.

However, when manufacturing equipment, a special ‘flame’ must be used.

And since I know what the flame is and where it is, it is a low priority. For now, we need information about what we currently don’t know and where to find essential ingredients.

After Lucy calmed down and saw her snuggling in my arms, Nia spoke to me next.

“Master, are you going to Gehenna now?”