“We managed to press Jaldabaoth in that form quite badly, and then he revealed his true form…”
Remedios closed her eyes.
“It was an utter defeat for us.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Telling them that much should be fine, right, Gustavo?”
“Yes, no objections here. If we can learn more about him from his appearance, hiding that information would be harmful instead.”
“While I feel a full disclosure would be better….”
Remedios began muttering and grumbling, and then she told Evileye about Jaldabaoth’s appearance.
Halfway through, Remedios’s face twisted in anger. She had probably recalled the battle that nobody here knew anything about.
“I see, then we’ll continue our investigations based on what we have just learned. We’ll keep you informed with our findings, so could you tell us if you wish to stay in the city?”
“We haven’t decided that yet. In any case, does that mean you do not know anything about that form of his?”
“—Lakyus, do you remember?”
Lakyus shook her head.
“That’s how it is. Sorry.”
“I understand. Then, after we make our decision, we will contact you immediately.”
“But in that case, we’ll have to consider the worst-case scenario — the possibility that his appearance in the Kingdom was intended to create a false impression, so he deliberately refrained from showing his true power.”
“In other words, our country was Jaldabaoth’s true objective, and that he had some other plan for the Kingdom?”
“Perhaps. If the Kingdom was his main priority, he would have shown his true form like he did in the Holy Kingdom, no? Or was it because he was startled by Momon-sama’s strength, and chose to protect his true identity rather than let his plan be ruined? I really don’t want to think that’s the case.”
Evileye’s words left the room in a gloomy silence, so profound that even the faint sounds of breathing seemed very loud. Who would speak first? In this tense atmosphere, Lakyus proved her bravery.
“Now then, let me say again — we’re in the same boat as you. We want to know more about Jaldabaoth. Frankly speaking, everything we’ve learned is basically analysis from our encounter with him. We have no inkling of Jaldabaoth’s aims, true identity, or abilities.”
“Maybe we could summon demons to learn about Jaldabaoth… But that will stain the soul… And even if we summon low ranking demons, it’s quite likely that they won’t know anything about high ranking demons. In that case, we’ll need to contact a summoning adept…”
“Unfortunately, we don’t know anyone who’s good at summoning demons.”
Evileye had been the first one to supplement Lakyus’s words, followed by one of the twins.
Surely nobody would, at least not under usual circumstances, Neia mused.
Diabolists were typically evil beings, and fortunately very few of them were powerful in their own right. That was because most of the time, they either destroyed themselves or they were slain by death squads.
Of course, there might be some experts in the field who had submersed themselves into the darkness, but they typically hid themselves and did not make friends.
“Still, just waiting there to die is very frustrating. The next time that monster comes to the Kingdom, I want to make him weep with my own two hands. In order to do that, I need to learn as much as I can about him.”
“Also, he was not leading any demihumans in the Kingdom. If he recruited the demihumans due to his failure in the Kingdom, then we’ll need to be even more wary of him.”
Those words were spoken by Gagaran, and then the other twin.
“Is that why you wanted to know what we knew?”
Everyone in Blue Rose nodded. Lakyus summed up for them.
“We'll pay a sum equal to the fees we'd receive for a similar request..”
“Captain. May I handle the upcoming negotiations?”
Remedios immediately agreed with Gustavo’s question.
“—In place of money, we would like some other form of payment.”
“What is it? While we would like to meet your wishes, we can’t do everything… However, if you want to make contact with powerful nobles, that could be arranged.”
“Is that so? Thank you very much. However, we were not thinking of that — could you come to our country and fight alongside us?”
The room was silent once more. It lasted several seconds — no, perhaps it was longer. The next sound they heard was that of Lakyus leaning on her chair.
“I am very sorry, but we cannot offer that form of payment.”
“...We’re gathering intelligence because we don’t want to die. Doing that would be counter to our purposes.”
Evileye shrugged, as if to say there was nothing that could be done about it.
“We won’t ask you to fight Jaldabaoth. All you need to do is wait in the rear and help with healing magic.”
“Bullshit, you don’t have the luxury of doing that.”
Gagaran’s words left them speechless.
She was correct. The northern half of the Holy Kingdom was now subjugated by Jaldabaoth’s beastmen, and all they could do was mount a feeble resistance. Many of the people had been incarcerated in camps, and the surviving paladins were hidden in caves as defeated soldiers.
“No, that’s not the case. We stopped the demihuman advance in the nick of time.”
They still held the south, where the Army and Jaldabaoth’s forces were staring each other down, so saying that they were at the edge of extinction might be accurate.
To Neia, who knew what was going on, Gustavo’s words sounded more like lies than the truth.
“Can you come, in that case?”
“I refuse.”
Remedios sat up to ask her question, and Evileye flatly rejected it. Given the way everyone in Blue Rose remained silent, she was most definitely not alone in her opinion. They must have all felt the same way.
“...Frankly speaking… we might have stopped them in the nick of time, but we’re also at the end of our rope. The Holy Kingdom is in ruins, but the southern troops are still intact. However, they alone won’t be enough to beat Jaldabaoth.”
Gustavo poured a glass of water for himself, drank from it, and then continued.
“The reason why we haven’t been completely conquered yet is because the navy has been pinning down Jaldabaoth’s army on the northern coastline and holding them off. If Jaldabaoth manages to figure out some way to deal with that and advances his troops to the south, they won’t be able to offer the slightest bit of resistance.”
However, that was the thinking of a man from the north, who knew Jaldabaoth’s power. The people of the south would probably have different plans. For instance, driving off Jaldabaoth with their own might.
While part of the reason for that was because they had not shared their intelligence, it was also due to the long-standing feud between the north and the south.
From the start, many of the nobles in the south had always protested the fact that a woman — skipping ahead of her elder brother — was to be crowned as Holy Queen for the first time in history.
For that reason, in order to avoid a rift between the north and the south, the former Holy Queen ignored even such baseless allegations as “The Holy Queen assumed her position because she had something going on with the temples, and she was secretly assisted by Queralt Custodio.”
After that, the south did not escalate matters any further and thus a full-scale confrontation was averted, but that was only because the north and south had been in a balance of power. Now that the north was in ruins, the south no longer had any reason to hold themselves back any more. Thus, the south began snubbing the north now.