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Chapter 84
Chapter 84 – It seems to be the infiltration into the Holy City
Starting from the conclusion, Renya’s party took a mere 12 hours to arrive after their departure.
With almost no breaks along the way, they flat out forced their travel after the sun went down with magic lights.
En route, they easily overtook the magic ship that went ahead.
The magic ship, which proceeded by floating a bit above the ground, can adjust the direction it’s travelling by slightly using its propellers after accelerating once. Thus its advance is actually quite calm, but that won’t work for the car containing Renya’s group.
The mysterious object roared loudly with a speed which overwhelmingly exceeds that of the magic ship, blowing up a cloud of dust with its wheels; as a result the soldiers apparently strengthened their alertness on the magic ship’s side, and it turned into a situation where they aimed the ship’s armaments installed on the ship’s exterior at Renya and the others. However, ignoring those completely, Emil made the wheels drift and spin in the direction of the ship’s movement as much as she liked, and in the end, passed the magic ship by going full throttle on the accelerator.
Thus, after Emil indulged to her heart’s content in the provoking action of hurling the risen-up cloud of dust at the magic ship, the soldiers on the magic ship’s side had no other choice but to dumbfoundedly see the mysterious object off, leaving the magic ship in a lurch with a laughter echoing back to them.
Of course Emil ended up getting plentifully scolded by Renya while having her head grabbed in a vise-like iron claw afterwards.
Incidentally, their travel created a situation of several reports reaching the guild about a monster as yet unknown that roars loudly while shining brightly, but the people in question had no way of knowing about that.
As for the check at the national border; they avoided that by making a large detour.
Of course, that’s obviously a criminal act, but they had no other choice, since Renya thought that it would be bad if they left behind any kind of records that they passed the border.
The alibi for the time they are absent from the city of Kukrika has been entrusted to Frau.
Unlike the magic ship that can’t travel on anything but level ground due to its large size, Renya’s group’s car was capable of driving even on fairly bad roads with many bumps as long as the wheels could touch the ground.
However, the worse the road got, the more the frame’s shaking intensified. Renya was barely able to endure it, but the masked person sitting in the rear seat was tormented by a terrible car sickness. It resulted in a state of them gasping for air when they finally arrived in the holy city.
As expected, it’s impossible to enter the holy city while driving the car, Renya thought. They got off the car quite a distance away from the holy city and approached on foot.
Renya stored the car in his [Inventory].
Renya was worried whether it would fit since it was fairly big, but him being able to easily store it by using 2 inventory slots, made him surprised all the more.
Once he observes the entrance from the shade of a rock that was slightly away from the entrance gate, he sees that the holy city is the type of place surrounded by high walls all over, and it seems necessary to receive a check-up by the soldiers at the gate in order to enter inside.
Usually it would be an inspection which would finish with him showing his guild card and paying a certain amount of money, but Renya has absolutely no intention to pass through that examination.
After he hides his face by wrapping it up with a cloth so that only his eyes are peeking out, he carries the masked person on his back.
Making sure that Emil had her face hidden in a similar manner, Renya dashed out of the hiding place they used to observe the situation at the gate.
The soldiers raise their voices among each other due to the suspicious human shadow approaching all of a sudden, but Renya ignores them completely.
After he ran up close to the wall, he bent his knees once, filled them with strength, and jumped up.
“Ha?”
While someone’s awfully idiotic voice resounded, Renya’s body lightly flew up to the top of the wall, landed there for a moment, and immediately jumped off from there.
Going by Renya’s estimation, the wall is around 7~8 meters tall.
It’s definitely not a height a human can reach by jumping, much less with a person on their back.
Even so, after coming to this different world and being well aware that his common sense is way off in various ways, Renya had a feeling that it’s somehow possible for him. Since he boosted his momentum with wind magic as support, he didn’t have any doubt that he would be able to jump up.
That is, however, definitely not the same for the soldiers guarding the gate.
Unable to understand the event taking place in front of their eyes, moreover, not willing to accept it as reality, they easily fell into a state of being unable to think.
Their thinking restarted a while after Renya jumped off the wall and vanished into the city.
All of those who ended up seeing that looked at each other, and asked with just their eyes whether what happened in front of them was reality or a daydream. One of them let his feelings show by mumbling,
“I’m sure I just saw a bad dream, didn’t I?”
Taking that line as a trigger for some reason, the soldiers return to their posts again as if nothing happened.
At the same time, voices were raised by the travellers who happened to be present, but the soldiers completely ignored these and tried not to pay attention to them.
It’s a safe bet the root of their behaviour was founded in their fear, not wanting to get involved with a monster that can overtake a wall with such a height.
It is a digression, but Emil easily jumped over the wall using her own abilities, without landing once like Renya or using magic as support.
One can say being burdened with the weight of only one person is the difference, but it’s also a fact that proves the high physical ability of demons.
Having jumped over the wall, Renya immediately removes the cloth covering his face and stores it in his [Inventory]. He continues to run under cover without stopping his feet.
“Renya-kun, although we managed to get away from the gate in this course of events, what do you plan to do from now on?” (Emil)
As Renya tries to get away from the gate and wall at high speed for the time being, Emil, who runs next to him without falling behind at all, asks him that.
“First we look for an inn, I guess.” (Renya)
No matter what we do after this, first, I have to lower the person on my back at some quiet place, Renya judges.
After the severe car sickness, on top of being forced to walk for quite a long distance, and put up with the series of absurd maneuvers while escaping the gate, that person is leaning against Renya’s back completely limp.
“I wonder whether we can find one, an inn, that is.” (Emil)
As they avoided the checkpoint and the holy city’s gate, Renya’s group currently has no means to prove their own identity.
“I think somewhere there will be an inn where we can stay at, as long as we fork over the money to do so, but the problem is…” (Renya)
Renya muttered those words as he stopped in an alley with no people.
“I’m completely unfamiliar with this city, I guess?” (Renya)
“It’s the first time for me as well, to come to the Holy City.” (Emil)
“If it’s an inn, probably… in that direction…”
The masked person, who leaned on Renya’s back, pointed in a direction with a slightly trembling finger, but Renya shook his head right away.
“In case of regular inns, they will always demand identification papers, won’t they?” (Renya)
“Then…?”
“A place with little pedestrian traffic… right, where’s a place that looks like a slum? There must be one in the Holy City as well, right?” (Renya)
From the beginning, Renya doesn’t believe in the existence of a world without a single shadow, where god’s power shines widely even unto the lower classes.
If there’s light, there will always be a shadow somewhere.
And, the stronger that light becomes, the deeper the shadows grow.
“There are three gates in the Holy City: east, south and west, but… there’s no gate in the north.”
No matter from where you look at the city, there’s an elegant castle in its centre.
With that playing a central role, the locations close to the centre are flourishing places, Renya assesses.
In that case, the slum-like places are surely situated at parts of the city’s outer circumferences, but this time these sections are close to the gates, with their intense traffic of people coming and going.
If the slums are the first thing people entering the holy city see, it will give the city a really bad reputation.
For that reason they didn’t build a gate in the north, gathering such people along the northern wall.
“I see, close to the northern wall, eh?”
Once they knew the location, it was no trouble for Renya and Emil to go there.
Even if they don’t know the way, it doesn’t matter as long as they move along the roofs.
The two easily jumped over the protective wall surrounding the city after all.
Climbing on the roof of a building was easy.
Of course, the masked person remained on Renya’s back as is.
Once they go up on top of a roof from the deserted alley, they attract the attention of some people.
However, the very low number of residents that noticed Renya’s group didn’t report them as suspicious characters to the guards, even if they called out to Renya and the others.
The reason for that is that Renya’s group’s moving speed was far too fast.
At the time they wondered whether something was there or not, they couldn’t see them anymore.
Moreover, Renya’s group makes almost no sound.
Due to the two’s footsteps being silent even as they jump from one roof to the other, those who were able to guess that it was likely people running there, close their mouths while pretending not having seen anything.
The bodily movements of those two had deviated from common sense to such an extent.
Emil, who was running behind Renya, harboured such thoughts as well.
Not only can he still run atop the roofs keeping his body’s balance while carrying a person on his back, but he doesn’t cause any sounds at the time of jumping and landing either. Even from the point of view of Emil, who’s a demon, Renya’s movements are abnormal.
Emil wondered whether he is wearing some very special boots, but no matter how she looks at them, those are nothing more but ordinary boots.
“The way of using his knees and ankles… I think?” (Emil)
Using it as an actual reference, Emil tries to imitate him while following his movements with her eyes.
While she’s doing that, the two quickly arrive at the northern part of the holy city.
Jumping off the roof and landing on the ground, Renya surveys the surroundings around him.
Buildings similar to ruins, and objects that can’t be called buildings are lining up in this city block, which is completely surrounded by tall buildings as if to hide it from sight. It was a place with the stench of garbage and decaying flesh lingering in the air.
At the roadside, there are small figures of people that wore rags, and old people lying directly on the ground while exposing their thin, decaying limbs.
There are also women who tempt clients by exposing their unhealthy-looking skin as much as possible.
Furthermore, there are ruffians with bad looks, who covered their bodies in misappropriated armours with leather or supplemented by metal plates.
In their hands, they are tightly grasping a great variety of drawn weapons, likely sullied with a considerable large amount of blood no matter how you look at them. The masked person on Renya’s back reflexively fills their hands with strength and grabs Renya’s shoulders.
Speaking of Renya, he sighs with a somewhat disgusted mood, due to his impression that they are really too blatant. Emil next to him continues to stare at Renya’s movements while smiling as if there’s something funny about it.
“Oi, you guys… didn’t you come down from above just now?”
One man from the group of bad-looking men starts to talk to Renya.
He’s a middle-aged man who had small swords hanging on both sides of his leather armour, and hid one of his eyes behind an eyepatch.
His unkempt, ruffled hair is filthy and oily, and he stinks with a bad stench if you just get close to him.
“We didn’t know the way, so we got here from above.”
It didn’t seem like the man understood Renya’s words about getting here from above, but even the man was apparently capable of understanding the part about not knowing the way.
“Outsiders? … Do ya understand where ya are?”
Is it because they realized that Renya and the others aren’t residents of the holy city? The ruffian’s atmosphere changes.
His stare stickily licked Emil’s body all over. Emil’s smile transformed into an extremely displeased one.
“Somehow, yes. … We are looking for an inn, but do you know a good place?” (Renya)
“You an idiot? Inns are at the main street. Something like an inn, there ain’t any in a place like this.”
“Really? Then we will search somewhere else.” (Renya)
“Wait, sonny. If ya ask others ‘bout something, ya gotta pay, right? I ain’t tellin’ ya to leave behind all ya have. Just leave that nee-chan o’er there. Don’t worry, we’ll return her after we finish our business with her.”
Judging that he won’t be able to obtain the necessary information, Renya tried to turn his back on the man, but the man’s voice stops his feet.
While turning and looking around, he can see that the women and elderly, who were at the roadside until now, quickly left towards somewhere after sensing the dangerous mood.
The bad-looking ruffians, who were behind the man that called out to Renya, raise the weapons in their hands as if unnaturally showing them off, and slowly come closer. Renya tapped Emil’s shoulder while looking at them with the feeling of seeing something foolish.
“Emil, it looks like they are asking for you.” (Renya)
Those words of Renya were a permission for Emil.
Being allowed to make a move, Emil’s face was warped as it exposed her discomfort, but her eyes were filled with joy and her lips slanted upwards into the shape of a crescent moon.
“Is it fine for me to deal with everyone here?” (Emil)
“Annihilate them, they are troublesome… If you can search for information from their corpses, please extract the one pointing us to a reasonably clean inn where we can stay by paying money. Can you do that?” (Renya)
“Leave it to me.” (Emil)
Making the cuff of her coat flutter, Emil leaves from in front of Renya.
Seeing her petite figure approach, all the ruffian broke out into laughter.
“Ah right, be obedient and don’t look at us with scornful eyes, okay?”
“You are annoying.” (Emil)
One of the men misunderstood Emil’s approach as her having resolved herself. He went in front and tried to grab Emil, but the arm casually swung by Emil mowed down the place where the man’s head was. As the man’s head vanished, a vividly red flower bloomed on a dirty wall so much that it sticks out like a sore thumb.
The ruffians dumbfoundedly watch the collapsing figure of the man, while a fountain of blood vigorously gushes out from the neck’s section, unable to understand what might have happened there.
“Aah, damn it! If I crush the head, extracting the information won’t work, will it?” (Emil)
Emil grumbles while swinging her slender and flexible arms, which don’t seem like they could tear a man’s head off as if it wasn’t there at all moments ago.
“You all are too fragile, aren’t you? You are torn to pieces with me just pushing a bit. Don’t you think so?” (Emil)
Emil taps the shoulder of another man while asking.
Even though it should have only been that much, the man’s body, which had its shoulder hit, is slapped into the ground, where it bursts into fresh blood and flesh in a grand manner while causing a damp sound.
The ruffians, who had two of their group killed in the twinkling of an eye, are unable to voice out any words, and can’t move a single step due to the overwhelming violence.
Only Emil’s sigh echoes in the space dominated by silence.
“Haa… moderation is difficult. It looks like I barely avoided breaking the head though.” (Emil)
Treating the head that is rolling around after being torn off the body of the man that was slapped into the ground just like a ball with her feet, Emil gazes at the ruffians, who began to emit greasy sweat as their faces turned pale, while smiling sweetly.
“Well then, let’s get it done quickly. My master desires information and my companion is exhausted.” (Emil)
Without pleading for their lives, the ruffians weren’t allowed to even run away.
It didn’t take that much time until an end was put to their exceedingly immoral lives.
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