< 10 : Awe and Fear (6) >
Rick drew his sword and started moving towards the girl.
He didn’t want to surprise her, so he didn’t bother to hide his footsteps.
The sound of Rick’s steps echoed through the bushes, and the girl, who was staring at the sky, turned her eyes to him.
The distance that seemed to be hundreds of steps was quickly shortened.
Rick arrived in front of the girl with swift steps and stopped a few paces away from her.
“…A Cloud investigator?”
The girl said as she scanned Rick once.
She recognized his identity by looking at his uniform.
Her eyes alternated between his neat uniform and the sword in his hand.
He was wearing a Cloud uniform and holding a sword.
It wasn’t hard to guess what Rick was thinking.
“Are you living here?”
“That doesn’t seem like something you would be interested in.”
The girl’s eyes showed wariness at Rick’s question.
It was a suspicious reaction.
She was wary of him, a Cloud investigator.
Rick intuitively realized that the girl in front of him was hiding something.
“If you didn’t do anything to the nearby village, it would be better for you to cooperate with the investigation.”
“What happened to the village?”
“Yeah. Several villagers disappeared without a trace.”
She couldn’t help but be surprised by the news that the whole village had disappeared.
The girl showed a puzzled look at Rick’s words.
She looked innocent, as if she had nothing to do with it.
But she was a person who lived alone in the dangerous mountains.
She didn’t seem to be starving, judging by the baguettes in the cave.
She was too well-fed for someone who lived in the mountains.
Rick didn’t relax his tension towards the girl.
“The whole village disappeared, that’s amazing.”
“You’re quite calm about it. But miss, where did you get those breads behind you?”
“Those breads? Oh, you mean the grace.”
“Grace…?”
“It’s the meal that the great one gave me.”
The great one. And grace.
Both were words that could be misunderstood.
Rick was sure that the girl in front of him was a priestess of someone.
She wasn’t from the holy land, judging by her clothes and word choice.
And even if she was a high priestess of the holy land, receiving bread was something strange.
It was more likely that she had a connection with an evil god.
“Who is this great one?”
“How can a mere human call his name?”
“…Is there any possibility that he took away the villagers?”
The last question was half-joking.
Of course, Rick didn’t expect a meaningful answer either.
But the girl in front of him was more peculiar than he thought.
She answered Rick’s question with an affectionate face.
“I don’t know either. But if he did take them away, they would be going back to where they belong. Wouldn’t they be happy then?”
“She’s completely crazy.”
“You should be careful with your words. You might get punished by heaven.”
The girl in front of him was not normal.
The moment he realized that fact, Rick pointed his sword at her.
There was no point in questioning her further.
She was clearly a person who served an evil god.
If he didn’t execute her here and now, there might be more damage in the future.
“So it seems that this great one of yours took away the people.”
“What are you doing?”
The girl asked as she saw the sword aimed at her.
She still pretended to be innocent.
Rick felt nauseous at her sight.
She was a girl who lived alone in the mountains where all kinds of beasts appeared frequently.
She was obviously not an ordinary being.
Even if she wore a human disguise, her essence as a priestess of an evil god did not change.
“What am I doing? You swallowed up so many people with your evil god and you have the nerve to ask me that.”
“…I see.”
“I see?”
“I think this world would be better off without people like you.”
She said with cold eyes.
As soon as her words ended,
Rick felt a huge pressure from the sky.
He couldn’t see it.
But he could sense it.
Something beyond his perception was targeting him and moving.
It aimed for his head.
Rick reflexively raised his sword to protect his head.
Clang!
A heavy vibration ran through his hand that blocked the attack.
He had fended off a sudden attack, but he couldn’t help being shocked.
“…!”
He couldn’t see its shape or form.
But he felt a crushing force on his body that had a definite presence.
The girl in front of him had done something.
He sensed that and rushed towards her.
“I won’t let you do anything else!”
He closed the gap between them with light steps.
Five steps.
Four steps.
——And three steps.
As Rick was about to swing his sword at the rapidly closing distance, he felt the pressure again and lifted his sword.
Clang!
With a heavy impact on his sword, Rick reflexively stepped back a few steps.
“I told you. You’ll be punished by heaven if you’re rude.”
The girl, who hugged the book, smiled and looked at him.
She was watching him after doing something.
Ugh.
Rick clenched his teeth at the sight of the relaxed girl and fixed his posture.
He would only lose the advantage if he let the enemy take the initiative.
Rick readied himself and ran towards the girl again.
If only it wasn’t for the enormous amount of magic that started to gather above his head.
‘An attack magic is coming.’
It looked like a simple magic of the lower realm.
But the amount of magic gathered for the magic was extraordinary.
It was too late to get out of the range of the magic.
He had no choice but to defend himself.
Rick pulled up his whole body’s magic and prepared to withstand the attack.
Boom!
With a thunderous roar, a powerful lightning bolt pierced through Rick’s body.
Rick screamed in agony as if his guts were burning.
It was this powerful even though he reduced the impact by pulling up his magic.
If he took a few more hits, his life would be in danger.
Rick suppressed the pain that came from his whole body and analyzed the situation.
The enemy could pour out magic from a distance.
If he kept his distance, he would have to endure the enemy’s attacks one-sidedly.
He had to close the gap between him and the girl somehow.
‘Rick Swail. Pull yourself together.’
Rick encouraged himself and got ready again.
He would be attacked if he stayed still.
He had to break through the enemy’s long-range attacks to get close to her.
A simple charge would be easily blocked.
Rick devised a strategy to deal with the priestess of an evil god and ran forward with his sword in his hand.
“Huff…”
Tap tap tap—.
His body moved forward with light movements.
Even as Rick showed irregular movements, the magic that poured out at him did not stop.
Boom! Boom!
With successive thunderous noises, lightning bolts fell on the places where Rick had passed by.
The threatening lightning bolts were meaningless if they didn’t hit him.
Rick wrapped his body with magic and charged at the girl.
“Die now—!”
His sword swung at the girl who was close in an instant.
The girl who held the magic book was not prepared for any response.
Rick did not doubt that his strike would cut her down.
Until he saw her lips move before him.
“…Barrier.”
Crack!
The sharp sword strike grazed the surface of the barrier and passed by.
A large crack appeared on the surface of the barrier where the magic-filled sword had brushed by.
He was momentarily confused by the sudden appearance of the barrier.
But he quickly regained his posture and swung his sword again.
He thought he could destroy the barrier in front of him with one more swing of his sword.
If it wasn’t for the lightning bolt that fell on his head from above.
“Kuh… Kuh…”
Boom!
Rick’s body twitched as it was hit by the lightning bolt from the sky.
Rick tried to block the next attack by pulling up his magic after being hit by the lightning bolt.
But the evil god who watched him did not allow it.
Boom! Boom!
Several more lightning bolts fell on Rick’s head with his sword in hand.
Rick’s body convulsed as he was hit by consecutive lightning bolts.
“Kuk… Kuh…”
Thud.
His sword fell from his hand and dug into the ground.
Rick collapsed on the spot with his eyes rolled back.
But the wrath of the evil god that was directed at him did not spare him even when he was down.
Boom! Boom!
Lightning bolts rained down from the dry sky without pause.
Rick’s consciousness faded as he felt his body being pounded by lightning bolts.
As his consciousness scattered, Rick looked up at the girl in front of him.
She was filled with awe in her eyes.
*****
Cloud. Centrius branch.
Hus Allemier, a second-class investigator, looked at the paper in front of him with a troubled expression.
He had left for an investigation to find traces of an evil god, saying that he was a third-class investigator, Rick.
It had been ten days since then.
But Rick, who had left for an investigation, had not returned to the branch yet.
If he had not found any traces near the village, he would have come back to ask for help from Hus, but what came back was not Rick but a single report.
“Rick Swail…”
Hus read the contents of the paper in front of him again.
Rick Swail.
Missing.
His horse was found in a nearby village.
A Cloud investigator who missed the regular reporting deadline, and even left his horse behind and disappeared.
Something must have happened to him.
He recalled his junior who had disappeared and clenched the report in his hand.
“Evil god… evil god.”
Without leaving any traces, the villagers of four villages had disappeared altogether.
It was hard to believe when he first heard the report from Rick.
What kind of thing could make people disappear without any traces?
He thought Rick had not done a thorough investigation.
But now, even Rick, the investigator who had reported it, was gone without a trace.
“…”
There was something here.
He sensed that and bit his lip.
A being that could erase people without a trace.
And a being that could wipe out a whole village without a sound.
Such a being was staying nearby.
“I need to consult with the holy land.”
Hus took out a piece of paper and dipped his dry pen in ink.
Swoosh.
He spread the paper neatly and started writing a letter on it.
The enemy was not an ordinary criminal, but a different kind of being.
And to deal with an evil god, he needed an expert who matched him.
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