There is still no information about the Demon King. Satin had only recently become aware of his powers, and unlike Rita, who was a mage, he had no real means of protecting himself. So it wasn’t easy for him to accept the proposal right away.
Besides, Rita was someone who, even in the Dark Age, went off to slay the Demon King. Given how things were now messily following the original plot, she was highly likely to survive no matter what happened.
In contrast, Satin wasn’t necessary for that scene. If he followed them, he might just end up dying a pointless death.
With an awkward smile, Satin subtly declined.
“I feel like I’d just be more of a hindrance than a help.”
“Are you worried? If we bring Edward along, even if you get hurt, we can heal you right away, so don’t worry.”
Saying someone could just get hurt recklessly because they could be healed was quite a dangerous mindset.
Satin looked at Rita with a dissatisfied expression. Rita’s eyes sparkled with excitement like a madwoman, completely missing Satin’s concern. She seemed convinced he would never turn her down.
Just then, Cain, who had been quietly waiting for his mushroom soup, spoke up.
“Don’t use Satin to feed your sense of heroism.”
Rita raised an eyebrow and shot back,
“This isn’t about heroism. It’s a sense of justice. How is helping the people of Cloverland through a crisis some kind of glory-seeking?”
“If you really just wanted to help, you could go donate money to the Bureau of Order. Stop dragging innocent people into danger.”
Satin didn’t outright agree with Cain, but he did give a small nod. Rita, who had been frowning, looked at Satin’s reaction and wilted slightly.
“You think so too?”
“Well, I don’t think it’s all about heroism or anything, but… I think it’d be too much for me.”
“Then, I guess there’s nothing I can do…”
Rita didn’t press him further and accepted his refusal.
After finishing breakfast, the three of them lingered in the lobby for a while. Guests around the room were deep in serious conversations, each holding a newspaper. Some were skeptical about the news of the Demon King’s appearance, while others, like Rita, had their eyes shining with eagerness to go see for themselves.
Big rewards always draw a crowd.
There was no guarantee that the people gathering were all competent.
If Satin had known how to use magic like Rita or Cain, he might have reluctantly agreed to her request. He had never seriously dreamed of hitting it big, but that didn’t mean he was completely uninterested.
He briefly wondered what he could do if he got a share of the reward money.
Maybe I could build a fence around the garden.
Sometimes animals from the forest would damage his crops. Satin wasn’t one for dramatic emotional outbursts, but the time when some creature—maybe a deer, maybe a water deer—devoured all the seedlings not long after they sprouted, he had flown into a rage, grabbed his hoe, and rushed outside.
But catching wild animals wasn’t easy. After several failed attempts, the villagers advised him to set toothed traps. But worried his grandfather might get hurt, Satin never set them.
If he could install a fence with the reward money, he wouldn’t need traps…
Ah, right. Grandpa’s dead. Guess I could set traps now.
And if he knew how to use magic, he could hunt on his own—no need to crave the reward money.
Yeah, slaying the Demon King just isn’t my business. I should stay out of it.
Satin reaffirmed his resolve.
Of course, it’s not always easy to stick to a decision. Less than thirty minutes after making his vow, Satin’s conviction began to waver.
It happened after he saw one of the guests hastily running down the stairs.
A pale-faced man was arguing with one of the staff members. Listening in, it seemed a family member was ill.
“My kid won’t wake up! How can you say we can’t call a doctor?”
“We’re truly sorry, sir. But there are no doctors available for house calls right now. Other guests are also still waiting.”
“What the hell is going on here? Don’t tell me there was something wrong with the food! He was fine just yesterday!”
The man’s tone grew rough at the staff’s insistence that a doctor couldn’t be called. He seemed to have lost his composure with worry for his child. The staff member, flustered, tried to explain calmly.
“It’s not just your child, sir. There are lots of children in the city like this right now. Elderly folks too. The doctors are saying it doesn’t seem to be a contagious disease—it’s probably something magical in nature. Even if you did see a doctor, they likely wouldn’t be able to offer a cure.”
“That can’t be…”
A quiet stir spread through the lobby. Satin, who had been planning to lazily head back to his room, stopped at the foot of the stairs. Cain, a step ahead, turned and looked back.
“Not going up?”
“Yeah, I should…”
Even as he replied, Satin couldn’t take his eyes off the guest clinging helplessly to the hotel staff.
He thought he could stay out of it. The story was already moving on its own, so he figured he could just pretend not to notice. After all, Satin wasn’t the protagonist, and he wasn’t responsible for any of this.
But something felt off. A misplaced sense of guilt started to creep in.
Beside him, Rita muttered in a worried tone,
“Looks like the situation’s worse than we thought.”
Satin recalled news stories he had seen before. There were cases around the world where people fell ill from prolonged exposure to contaminated substances.
When the environment collapses, it’s the weakest who suffer first. Crops wither. Fish and birds die. By the time the livestock start collapsing, people are already in danger. Illness spreads, starting with children and the elderly, until no one is safe.
If innocent children and the elderly in Cloverland were falling ill because of the black fog, then it was a truly serious problem. The fog had only appeared just over a day ago. At this rate, even healthy adults could collapse by tomorrow or the day after.
If this keeps up, everyone might be dead in a week…
He didn’t know the exact population of Cloverland, but it wasn’t small. There were already dozens of people just in this inn.
“Are you worried?”
Cain asked. Satin hesitated briefly before nodding. Cain paused, then asked again,
“You, or the others?”
“Well…”
Satin started to answer immediately but faltered as he met Cain’s eyes. There was something subtly disapproving in his gaze. He didn’t know exactly what Cain disapproved of, but there was no need to give a wrong answer. So Satin kept it vague.
“That’s not really the point, is it? Whether it’s me or them, we’re all in danger anyway.”
“Should we look for a way out?”
“…Just the two of us?”
“Who else would there be?”
Cain answered smoothly with a sly smile. His gaze still felt a bit strange.
Eventually, Satin sighed and gave the answer he’d avoided earlier.
“I’m worried about the others too. The kids and elderly are getting sick. Maybe there’s something we can do to help.”
“Like what?”
“I mean… maybe we can find something if we look.”
Even as he said it, it sounded ridiculous. A disease even doctors couldn’t cure. It was spreading too fast, and even Satin himself might already be in danger. He couldn’t imagine actually finding a way to solve it.
And yet, he wanted to do something. He was projecting the past onto the present, knowing full well this wasn’t the same situation.
Rita, who had stayed quiet this whole time, suddenly draped an arm over Satin’s shoulder. Her gaze shifted toward Cain. She looked back and forth between the two of them, then said,
“Since it’s come to this, why don’t we just go take out the Demon King ourselves?”
***
Edward had already received visits from seven different guests. All of them were staying at the same inn. Each one came asking—pleading—for him to examine a sick companion, saying the Temple was too crowded to get in.
This is serious.
Yesterday, it was the Bureau of Order in chaos. Today, it was the Temple. Word was, every clinic in town was struggling as well.
What in the world is going on…
Children and the elderly were collapsing and falling into deep sleep with no discernible cause. Splashing water on them did nothing. The doctors said they couldn’t even guess what kind of illness it was, and the Temple had found no remedy either.
When Edward received the second request, he attempted to awaken one of the sleeping children using Holy Magic. It didn’t work. After that, he didn’t bother trying again.
Is it really because of that black fog?
Through the window, he could still see the black fog in the distance. It looked no different from yesterday—just as ominous, just as foreboding.
The sudden appearance of the fog, followed by people suddenly falling ill… It wasn’t a stretch to assume a connection between the two.
Edward recalled his visit to the Bureau of Order yesterday. There, he had met with Harris, the mage in charge of magical incidents. They were already acquainted, so Harris had been more forthcoming than usual.
“We’ve been getting threatening letters at the Bureau for years now.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about that.”
“But nothing ever happened, so I figured it was just some lunatic with delusions.”
The way he phrased it suggested that his thoughts had changed.
“So you think the one who sent those threats might be behind this?”
“It’s worth suspecting, at least.”
He called it suspicion, but Edward could sense a vague certainty in Harris’s expression. Maybe he was trying to pin this incident on the same anonymous culprit they’d failed to catch for years.
“My predecessor once claimed he knew who was sending the letters.”
“You mean Mr. Kernel?”
Kernel was the mage who had handled magical cases at the Bureau of Order before Harris. Edward had met him a few times.
Their first encounter had been four years ago during the campaign against a Black Magician. Kernel had been a pompous figure back then, and Edward hadn’t had much direct interaction with him. They only exchanged a few words later at a formal event with other clerics.
