“Captain Remedios. If we use defeating the Guardian Deity as a baseline… hm, if there were a fisherman here he’d be giving us the stink-eye. Still, that means he’s twice as strong as an old Dragon.”
“Indeed. We’ve determined that he’s stronger than the legendary Demon Gods who were defeated by the Thirteen Heroes. That is to say, his appearance in the human world would be a great tragedy and multiple nations will be destroyed. That’s how powerful he is.”
“Although, I hear that when Jaldabaoth was wreaking havoc in the Kingdom, he was driven off by Momon-dono. That would mean Momon-dono must be just as powerful, right?”
Remedios swallowed, and then continued.
“Or does that mean — he used some kind of special item when defeating Jaldabaoth?”
That was when Evileye’s attitude changed.
Neia could not see her face, but she had the feeling that her face was flushing under that mask of hers.
“I don’t think he used any such item. However, Momon-sama fought magnificently when he duelled Jaldabaoth. I was fighting Jaldabaoth’s subordinates back then, so I did not see the full fight, but it was a terrifying battle. It was a battle fought by a hero among heroes, a champion among champions.”
“Is, is that so?”
It was all Gustavo could do to squeeze those words out after being crushed by Evileye’s presence as she leaned herself out.
“Precisely! Ah, what an amazing battle. Momon-sama defended me while he was fighting Jaldabaoth, you know.”
“So he fought Jaldabaoth — that monster — and drove him off? Is that true?”
“What? Are you saying what I saw with my own two eyes was a lie?”
Evileye countered Remedios’s question with a vicious retort. Gustavo struggled to clear the uneasy mood in the air.
“Ah, no, what our Captain meant was that if Darkness could attack some weak point of Jaldabaoth’s, perhaps we could do something too. I apologize for not clarifying.”
“No, we should be apologizing for the immature tone our Evileye is taking with a client.”
That reply came from Lakyus. What was this, when the two main players were sidelined and their supporting cast went on to smooth things out between themselves.
“Hm… well, assuming Jaldabaoth really does have some weak point, Momon-sama must have won by attacking it. Still, it’s hard to imagine a demon like that would leave his weaknesses unguarded.”
“Indeed… perhaps he used an item or a subordinate to make up for it.”
While this was the first time she had heard of the maid demons, Jaldabaoth had several powerful demon minions.
After questioning demihuman captives, they knew there were at least three of them.
There was the demon who ruled the wilderness where the demihumans lived.
There was the demon who ruled the port city of Rimun.
And then, there was the scaly demon who commanded the demihuman army.
“So, can you tell us in detail about that scaly demon you mentioned earlier?”
“That’s right, can you tell us what abilities it has?”
“Yes I fought it before, so I’ll take Evileye’s place and describe it in detail.”
She described its abilities and how they fought it. Lakyus’s tale ended with Brain Unglaus — a man on Gazef’s level — slaying that demon.
“...That’s strange. Jaldabaoth hasn’t made any movements after conquering the Holy Kingdom’s capital, but that scaly demon’s been commanding the demihuman armies in his place. Wasn’t it already defeated?”
“I see… however, we’ve met this Brain fellow before, and I don’t think he was lying. It’s probably not a unique demon, just a high level one.”
“In other words, Jaldabaoth can conjure that demon any number of times as long as certain conditions are met? Or perhaps he can summon the same demon multiple times?”
Neia could not cast spells, but she had heard this during her lectures.
It was difficult to summon multiple beings with summon magic.
In other words, when a summon spell was active, casting another summon spell would cause the previous summon spell to end. The currently-summoned monsters would go back from whence they came and new monsters would be summoned in their place.
However, people capable of high tier summoning spells could simultaneously conjure several weaker monsters at once, of the sort that one would evoke with a low tier summon spell. For instance, one could use a fourth tier spell to summon multiple monsters that could be invoked by a third tier spell.
“I don’t understand at all. His method of summoning demons is still a mystery. While it felt like he was summoning them with spells, he couldn’t have summoned multiple demons of such power… but if he could, that would beg the question of why he did not do so in the Kingdom. Perhaps if he were a magic caster who specializes in summoning, he could simultaneously summon multiple copies of such a creature…”
“So even if we defeated the scaly demons, Jaldabaoth could immediately resummon it?”
“Just so. However, that refers to the situation where Jaldabaoth conjures them with magic. If he used some kind of special ability to do it, that would be another matter entirely.”
“So you don’t know much about that side of things?”
“Sorry, but I don’t. We know very little about him.”
Evileye sounded clearly disheartened.
“...Erm, I didn’t get any of that at all, you know?”
“...I’ll explain it to you later, Captain.”
“No, start clarifying now. I haven’t been able to keep up since just now.”
This is our Captain… the person in charge of all of us...
“That being the case, was that disgusting insect maid one of Jaldabaoth’s summons too?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to think that way…”
Blue Rose’s members began discussing among themselves.
“Erm, may I ask a question?”
Everyone turned to look at Neia after she nervously spoke up, and the tremendous pressure made her regret doing so. Perhaps it might be better for someone other than her to bring this up. However, the die had been cast, and after firming up her resolve, she asked:
“This might be a very basic question, but where did Jaldabaoth come from? Was the name of Jaldabaoth passed down from earlier days?”
“That is unclear. We’ve studied all sorts of literature, but we haven’t been able to find that name in any of them. We’ve also tried looking for clues based on his appearance, but similarly, we haven’t been able to make any headway either.”
“Could it be an alias? Maybe he caused trouble under a different name in the past?”
“I doubt that. To demons — this applies to angels as well — their names are a very important part of their very being. If a demon wants to show up, it has to engrave its name into the world. Therefore, they can’t use false names. Experiments show that using a false name might even cause them to disappear on the spot.”
Neia knew next to nothing about demons and angels, but if an adamantite ranked magic caster said so, then that ought to be the case.
“As for his origins, if he came from the other side of the continent, then it’s only natural that there’d be no information about him… but after thinking so much, every possibility seems equally likely, and so there’s no telling where to begin.”
Evileye shrugged.
“...Say. What if you got Jaldabaoth’s appearance wrong? Was the Jaldabaoth you looked into the Jaldabaoth in the picture? What if that appearance of his was a deception?”
“Ho,” Evileye leaned over the table towards Remedios. “Can you go into more detail?”