Chapter 92

The funerals for the priests after that went by very smoothly. From my perspective, it was a great relief. The lords, well aware of my notoriety, courteously guided my way and gave me lavish treatment. In particular, the successor lord to the blonde, tanned, chubby lord I killed before acted friendly, saying he became a lord thanks to me.

Even when I arrived in the Amur Territory, nothing much happened, aside from the lord's wife glaring at me as if she wanted me dead. As the high priest, I once again expressed my condolences for the death of the Lord of Amur and then left the territory.

The lord's wife threw a fit, displeased with my condolences, but that was not my problem to worry about. If you don't like it, you shouldn't have acted like a dick. The saying 'look where you're going to lie down before stretching out' wasn't for nothing.

If the Lord of Amur had behaved, he wouldn't have died by my hand. He acted on excessive greed and ended up dying by my hand. The Lord of Amur's wife hurled curses at me on my way back, but I paid her no mind.

Priest Elson and I bid each other farewell at the edge of the Amur Territory. Priest Elson seemed very tired, perhaps from all he had experienced during this funeral procession, and he looked a little older than when I first saw him. The benevolent priest I saw at our first meeting had somehow transformed into a farmer worn out by farm work.

"Truly, you have worked hard, High Priest Lusius."

"You have worked hard, Priest Elson."

"However, would you permit this old man to offer a piece of advice?"

"Yes, by all means."

"High Priest Lusius. You must not live too dissolute a life."

"Thank you for the advice."

It seemed Priest Elson wanted to say more, but I cut him off there. I believed I was being sufficiently restrained. Priest Elson stared at me intently, then nodded and left. I said.

"Take care."

With the funerals over, all that was left for me was to be stuck in my territory again. I planned to leave the investigation of Evangeline to the Magic Tower for the time being. Since the traces of her escape led to the Dwarf Kingdom, there was no one else who could investigate. The only ones who could move freely throughout the Dwarf Kingdom were the Magic Tower mages and their party.

"Huh?"

I paused my thoughts for a moment. Come to think of it, if Soya was an important suspect, didn't that mean these bastards didn't think it was Evangeline? The exact circumstances of the incident would only be clear once the investigation report arrived in my territory in a few days, but judging by the Magic Tower's actions so far, they had clearly lost Evangeline's trail in the Dwarf Kingdom.

That's why they were trying to solve the case by shaking down poor Soya. It seemed the Evangeline case was going to take much longer than I thought. I hadn't even properly grasped her objective in the first place. For what purpose was she doing all this? All of Evangeline's actions so far had followed a single goal. To have humans annihilated at the hands of other species.

But this was truly strange. Evangeline was not very proactive about this goal.

She proposed to Cellu that she would give her power, so let's destroy the human cities, and she also made a proposal to Elsi to destroy the slave market. I found this part very strange. If Evangeline was truly such a powerful being, why did she only make proposals? If she could make one mermaid that fucking strong, why didn't she force her?

If she just gave power to the mermaids in the slave market right now, they would all bulk up and kill everyone, wouldn't they? If she went around spreading power in the slave market of the Aberdeen Territory, Lord Aberdeen would just become a piece of ham, whether he was a gym addict or a Samoan, right?

Compared to her goal and its risk, Evangeline did very little. In fact, while we were chasing Evangeline, the only crime she had actually committed was one. The murder of a few mercenaries and priests was all. Cellu castrated the sailors herself, claiming she used them as material for masturbation, and Elsi hadn't committed any crimes in the first place.

What the hell was she after? My head was a mess. The carriage wheels kept turning.

It was a short trip from the edge of the Amur Territory to our territory. The boundaries of the territories weren't right next to each other; rather, the outposts that defined the boundaries were some distance apart. Before long, I could see guards chatting with each other. As soon as they saw me, the guards quickly entered an alert stance, pointed their spears, and shouted.

"H-Halt! Halt! Hands up! Move and I'll stab you!"

Seeing him stutter, he must be a new recruit. I stopped. The outpost guard commander was looking back and forth between me and the new recruit soldier, a sign of tension clearly on his face. As I thought, the challenge must be performed regardless of rank. Normally, someone of my high status would get a free pass, but I had changed that because you never know what might happen later.

"Th-Thunder!"

"Ignorance of the password."

I've been away from the territory for weeks, how would I know the password? The new recruit looked at the guard commander with a bewildered expression. The guard commander muttered 'addition password' in a small voice. An addition password was a password where two numbers were added to make a specific number. For example, if the addition password was 10 and a guard shouted "7!", I would have to shout "3!". The addition password of our territory was 10. The new recruit shouted.

"Addition Password!"

The guard commander's face turned ghostly pale. I grinned at the new recruit. The new recruit, interpreting that smile in some way, looked at me and smiled awkwardly. And shouted again.

"Addition Password!"

Cute, you bastard. After shouting 'Addition Password' one more time, the new recruit waited for a moment, then shouted.

"If you don't say the addition password, I'll stab you!"

What? Is he an idiot? Is he telling me to scream 'Addition Password!' like that? Or is he telling me to say 'octopus'? If it's the addition password octopus, can't I just end this by saying 1? As I stopped smiling and stared at the new recruit with a dazed expression, the guard commander was on the verge of fainting. It's not his fault. The new recruit is just an idiot. I began to gently coach the new recruit in a low voice.

"Now, new recruit. How about you think again about how you're supposed to do the addition password?"

"Huh? Ah, ah! Thirteen!"

If the addition password is 10, why is 13 coming out? Are our guards already practicing higher-dimensional mathematics? Judging by the guard commander's face, which was not just pale but practically a corpse, that was definitely not it. I thought for a moment about whether to issue a thundering command or cause a complete mess, then said.

".....Minus 3."

"Who goes there!"

"Peta Lusius. Lord of Peta Territory."

"Purpose?"

"Going home."

"Three steps forward for identity verification!"

"Identity has been verified!"

With the new recruit's final line, the challenge/interrogation ended. As I passed the outpost, my eyes met with the trembling guard commander. The new recruit stood next to him, on guard with a very proud expression.

I spoke to the guard commander.

"Guard Commander. Things seem pretty comfortable for you lately, huh? There are no monsters at the boundary line, and if there's any hard work, the knights do it all for you. Right?"

"No, sir!"

"Would you like to try training with the Knight Order? The training curriculum is so well-designed these days that everyone's gaze changes after they go through it once."

"No, sir! I will work harder!"

"You have to do a good job with new recruit training, right?"

"Yes, that's right, sir!"

"What if an esteemed guest came and you made another mistake? Right?"

"Yes, that's right, sir!"

The new recruit's expression was hardening. It must be because my reaction was different from what he expected. He must have thought he did a great job, so a reaction like this was bound to be bewildering. I hummed as I passed through the outpost. I could hear the guard commander's angry voice from behind.

"Did I fucking teach you to do the challenge like that?"

"No, sir!"

"Are you an idiot? Did I fucking tell you to just scream 'Addition Password!' when you're supposed to be giving the addition password?"

"No, sir!"

The guard commander's enraged voice reached all the way here. It was a voice that reminded me of my military days for the first time in a long while. So this is why division commanders and battalion commanders used to visit the outposts when I was in the military. Those bastards didn't come for inspections to ensure the outpost security was tight. They were just coming up to get a whiff of the lewd smell of the newbies standing guard for the first time.

Passing the boundary line, even the air seemed to change. As I entered the village, people saw me, were surprised, whispered among themselves, and came forward to greet me.

"M-My Lord! You've returned!"

"Yes. Has anything happened while I was away?"

"Ah, no.... that is.... no, sir...."

But the atmosphere was strange. The territory residents couldn't even meet my eyes and were talking to me while looking into empty space. What is this? What in the world happened in the territory? Did Eve perform a strip show in front of the mansion's main gate? The entire territory was filled with an awkward atmosphere. Even when the rumor about me being a mermaid-lover spread, the village atmosphere didn't get this fucked up. It was clear that a rumor had spread about me fucking beastfolk too.

I opened the carriage window and called over a territory resident. The villager approached, flinching and cowering. His eyes looked terrified, as if I was going to eat him alive. I felt my mood sour at his needless display of fear.

"Did something happen in the territory?"

"N-Nothing happened, sir."

"It definitely seems like a strange rumor has spread, has it not?"

"Th-Ah, no, sir! No rumors have spread at all!"

That meant a fucking awful rumor had spread.

A strange rumor so bad that the territory residents couldn't even look me straight in the face. No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't find the cause of such a rumor. Soya would have received the letter. She would have quietly shown Eve the object. And Eve, other than gutting the Grand Duke of the North's ship that one time, had been living very quietly in the territory.

What is it? What in the world happened?

I made my way towards the territory mansion.

"Welcome back, My Lord!"

Robin greeted me in a loud voice, matching my arrival. But his expression was filled with deep concern. I had to see Eve quickly. This fucking awful atmosphere was about 80 percent Eve's fault, and if it wasn't, for the remaining 20 percent, I'd have to start looking from there.

This strange atmosphere persisted even as I walked down the corridor. The servants couldn't meet my eyes, and the knights passed by clearing their throats. I threw open the door to my office and said.

"Eve, your loving God..."

"You fucking bastard!"

A flowerpot came flying at me.