“…Are you sure this is okay?”
“Hmm. I guess not, right?”
“…For soone who says that, you look completely unconcerned.”
The Order's secret prison where the Saintess was confined.
There wasn't any particular difficulty in finding its location.
From the mont I made the bucket list to save the Saintess, I had intended to carry out a rescue mission, so I had already committed that much to mory.
Not only the coordinates of the Saintess's secret prison, but also the entry route and the path of movent inside the prison were already practically engraved in my mind.
Rather, the problem wasn't getting to the point of encountering the Saintess, but what would happen ‘after’ I t her, especially since the original plan had changed.
“……”
Unlike the original plan, I hadn't co to rescue the Saintess.
If I had co to rescue her, it would have been a simple matter of disabling the devices restraining her and taking her with .
But the current situation wasn't one that would easily permit such an action.
I still hadn't decided whether to make that choice or not.
I planned to decide after seeing her and having a conversation first.
For the sa reason, I hadn't planned for a violent confrontation.
“……”
The personnel I brought with was just one person.
Loxy.
It could only be her.
There was no other special reason.
She was the only one who could secretly enter this place with .
“…If we get caught and my identity is revealed, I think I'll be killed on the spot.”
“Sa goes for .”
“……”
“And what can we do? You're the only one who can get in here safely.”
Shrug-
“If you don't like it, you shouldn't have beco a Demon.”
“……”
The Saintess was being treated as the greatest dissident since the founding of the Order.
Of course, with the existence of the prison notoriously called the 'Darkest Dungeon', it wasn't that there weren't others who had committed more heinous cris than her.
That place was a kind of 'trash can' where all the atrocious criminals who had committed unspeakable cris were gathered.
It didn't an that those imprisoned there held 'important positions'.
The severity of a cri and its ripple effect were two completely different stories.
Of course, since the Order was based on religion, the severity of the cri of 'blasphemy' was debatable.
But at least in terms of ripple effect, no other criminal in the Order ca close to matching even the tip of the Saintess's toes.
While even the great Tom Hardist had been forgotten after a long period of imprisonnt, the word 'Saintess' was still unforgotten, to the point of making the front page of the news.
Therefore, it was only natural that this prison, holding the Saintess, was more heavily guarded than any other in the Order.
Not in the physical sense of deploying many soldiers or having a large guard force, but in the realm of 'magic', which could be called the Order's specialty.
Dozens of tis more detection and protection magic spells were engraved here compared to other prisons.
Of course, the route I had figured out was the optimal one to avoid as much of that magic as possible.
But even that route made it difficult to evade all the magic.
In the case of wide-area detection magic installed throughout the prison, you couldn't avoid it just by hiding well.
…That was the context.
The reason I brought Loxy.
The only way to evade that detection magic and enter was with soone who had a Demon's Singularity.
“Haa…”
Of course, if she were still running away from like before, I wouldn't have bothered to bring her.
But a slightly improved Loxy had more or less returned to her normal state.
Although she still spoke formally, unlike before, and couldn't carelessly spout curses.
She could at least speak without much difficulty.
Splash, splash.
The basic entry route was based in the sewers.
Though not publicly known, the prison where the Saintess was located wasn't far from the Order's Headquarters.
A space that had the characteristics of an 'Unexplored Land', like Kunlun in Murim.
A dead land that belonged to the Order Territory but had almost no Magical Beasts or humans residing there due to its harsh environnt.
The Black Forest.
The Order's isolated castle in its center was the Saintess's secret prison.
- …Did you hear?
Halt.
While passing through the sewer.
The sound of a conversation between soldiers on guard duty ca from above, connected by a sewer pipe.
- What?
- That the Saintess's execution has been decided.
Normally, I would have just passed by while they were talking.
But I stopped for a mont and listened to their conversation.
The topic of conversation was what it was.
And I didn't have the most recent information myself.
I judged that it wouldn't be a bad idea to listen before moving on.
- Yeah, I heard. Is there anyone here who doesn't know?
- Hah... I don't know. Whether it's the right thing to do.
- …What can you do? Blasphemy is a serious cri. It's a cri that could shake the very foundations of the Order.
- …
- It's not that I don't think it's too harsh, but even the Saintess is just a person.
It seed one of the soldiers was for it.
And the other was against it.
Though it seed they both shared a sense of pity.
- And be careful what you say.
- What? What did I say?
- That's the problem, your words. Is the Saintess being executed for committing murder or sothing?
- …
- It all started from words, didn't it? Words have consequences.
Shake shake-
Through a small crack in the manhole cover, the figure of a soldier shaking his head could be seen.
The conversation, thus concluded, fell into a brief silence.
Then, the topic changed with a new subject brought up by the soldier who had shaken his head.
- Hey, but did you see the Beastkin this ti? The Beastkin Faction or whatever, it's no joke, right?
The two soldiers' conversation seed to reflect the current state of public opinion in the entire Order Territory.
There were those who approved of the Saintess's execution and those who opposed it.
But people were naturally more drawn to novel and buzzworthy topics than to an uncomfortable story that was awkward and required debating its righteousness.
I decided there was no need to listen further.
Splash, splash.
How long did we walk, following the water that lapped at our feet?
“…How much further do we have to go?”
Loxy, perhaps tired of silently following down an unfamiliar path, asked a question.
“We're almost there.”
The place where the Saintess was imprisoned was not in the upper part of the castle.
It was in the deepest part of the castle's dungeons.
Perhaps to prevent infiltration even through the sewer pipes, the path wasn't straight but twisted and turned, forming sothing like a maze.
Normally, water that was barely used wouldn't have filled up like this, but the fact that it was lapping at our ankles was because the waterway andered, causing the water to remain in the pipes for a longer ti.
It was bound to take a long ti.
“…Ugh.”
Perhaps the stench hit her nose as she took a breath to speak.
She let out a small gasp and pinched her nose again.
“Just bear with it a little longer.”
Splash, splash.
Halt.
We reached a dead end.
“Are we here?”
“Yeah.”
Giving a short reply to Loxy, I looked up at the top of the dead-end sewer pipe.
Unlike other places where the access shafts were long, this one had a manhole directly at the top with no shaft.
“Looks like it.”
Drrrk-
As I channeled Mana into my fingertips and turned the manhole cover.
Grk, grk, grrrrk-
With the sound of long-unmoved, rusted tal grinding against stone, an upward passage opened.
Heave-ho.
Climbing up through it, we found ourselves in a huge cavern.
“…This is it? Are you sure we didn't co to the wrong place?”
It was a truly massive cavern.
A place where the surroundings were steeped in darkness, with no end in sight.
As soon as we climbed up from the sewer, which had at least a little light, I couldn't see Loxy.
Even though I could hear her voice right in front of .
“…Just a mont. I'll try to light a fire…”
“Don't.”
She had a combustion-type morize Paper to use in a pinch, but I stopped her from using it.
“There are dozens of detection spells set up here. Using Mana is like announcing our presence.”
We were only able to get this far without any problems thanks to her 'Demon's Singularity'.
The Magic Circles that should have activated were corrupted by the Demonic Species' Mana and failed to function properly.
I hadn't pointed it out, but I had manually suppressed at least twenty Magic Circles as we ca through the sewer.
If she were to cast a spell directly, it would be affected by the Demon's Singularity, but a morize Paper contained the Mana of a Priest engraved on it.
In other words, Eliya's Mana was engraved on it.
Besides, the unique reaction that leaks out when a morize Paper is activated would be detected.
Using a morize Paper here was no different from suicide.
“…Then what do we do? I can't even see what's right in front of .”
Above all.
Using ignition magic would be useless anyway.
Because even this darkness that enveloped our surroundings wasn't natural, but a magical device.
It was a type of interference magic installed by the Order to make it impossible to pinpoint the Saintess's exact location by sight within this massive cavern.
…Of course.
“Close your eyes.”
“…What?”
“From here on, there's no need to follow with your eyes.”
That didn't an there was no way.
This was a plan I had ticulously crafted, befitting the Saintess's importance.
It was impossible to find the Saintess inside here with the naked eye, but the five senses of a human weren't limited to just sight.
“Your nose.”
“……?”
“Let's use it one more ti.”
The Trait I had used to pinpoint Shuten's location in Kunlun.
The Trait, Scout.
That Trait could guide us to where the Saintess was.
As if she had caught on, she didn't ask any more questions and imdiately activated the Trait.
[Trait, 'Scout (★☆☆)' has been activated.]
[Scout: When you focus your attention, the sensitivity of your five senses increases by up to 500%.]
Then.
“This is…”
She let out a low exclamation.
I couldn't see her expression, but her voice was tinged with bewildernt.
It was only natural.
In Kunlun, there had been a scent clue directly linked to Shuten, but she had nothing to specify the Saintess's scent by.
Moreover, there was interference magic installed here to confuse the sense of sll.
“There are too many.”
Though the scents were faint, her nose was probably detecting thousands of different scents that exist in this world all at once.
Scents so diverse and precise that they were difficult to distinguish even with Scout.
“At this rate…”
And to her, I said.
“Vanilla, mint chocolate, squid, cheese.”
I recited the 'olfactory coordinates' where the Saintess was located.
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