Side Story 3: Visiting a Remote Island 12

The man started flailing around after the Evil Energy Slime entered him. Doesn’t look like he’s capable of a real conversation anymore.

「Rugraaaah!」

His earlier movements were that of a complete amateur, but now, he crouched low to the ground like a wild beast. The fact he shifted posture in an instant meant he gained an incredible amount of speed.

Well, not that it was enough to catch Fran off guard.

「Hah!」

「Grah?!」

「There.」

The man swung his arms like a whip, but Fran easily parried the blow with me before sweeping his legs with a kick. The man slammed into the ground, and I pinned him down with a combination of earth magic and telekinesis.

He roared and thrashed around in an attempt to free himself. Due to his newfound strength, it took a bit of effort to keep him down.

The only problem was that he had gone completely mad and showed no sign of calming down. Conversation was obviously impossible, so we no longer had any way to extract information from him.

「Tch. This doesn’t look good. Perhaps I should cut open his stomach and drag that slime out?」

Ouna offered a suggestion, and for normal people, that or purification magic would probably be the only options. Though I doubt either of those would actually fix him.

Fortunately, we were not normal people. Fran was a Rank S adventurer with a divine sword sealing an Evil God Fragment. If you exclude Evil God worshipers, we’re the world’s foremost experts on evil energy.

「Leave it to us.」

「You can do something about this?」

「Nn.」

『Yeah, just watch.』

I examined the man for the area with the densest concentration of evil energy. As expected, the region around his stomach was the worst, but I could sense evil energy all over his body. Apparently, the Evil Energy Slime had spread through his blood vessels.

『Evil God’s Trust!』

I activated a skill to take control over all the evil energy within him. To my surprise, it worked practically instantly. I’d expected at least a small amount of resistance, but there was none. It felt ridiculously easy, almost as though the evil energy willingly surrendered itself to me.

『Stop struggling.』

「Ah…」

『And stand up for now.』

「Ah…」

He seemed to be following my orders completely. I could tell that the Evil Energy Slime was under my control, but what about the man himself?

「Your divine sword has taken control over him? Astonishing. Perhaps that rumor about it sealing the Evil God was true…? No, this goes beyond a mere seal. Is it capable of using its power?」

Ouna gave me an intense stare with her single eye.

「I have seen many swords for destroying evil, but one for controlling it…? Those accursed divine swords, I should have expected as much. They truly are capable of anything. Is it possible to reproduce this with an ordinary weapon? No, taming a Evil God Fragment is on an entire different level…」

My existence seems to have stimulated Ouna’s interest as a blacksmith. She continued to mutter to herself as she stared at me without blinking.

Her eyes seemed like that of a mad scientist observing a test subject. A little frightening.

『A-Anyway, can you split the slime away from this guy?』

「Ah…」

The man nodded at my command and began trembling violently.

Then, I began hearing unpleasant ripping sounds from inside of him. Uh, is he going to be okay?

I waited nervously until the Evil Energy Slime crawled out of the man’s mouth… But at the same time, blood spurted out of his entire body.

『C-Crap!』

I hurriedly cast restoration magic, but it was too late. Apparently, the slime had been completely fused into the man’s flesh. Separating them caused his blood vessels to rupture, and by the time the slime emerged from his mouth, he was already dead.

『I really screwed that up…』

「Can you get any information from the slime?」

『I wonder. Hey slime, do you know where this guy came from?』

「…?」

Apparently not. The Evil Energy Slime only quivered in confusion. It acted just like an ordinary slime.

As we stood in front of the slime wondering what to do next, I sensed a reaction from the Evil God Fragment inside of me.

『Oi! What are you—』

The Evil God Fragment suddenly released a pulse of evil energy, and the next instant, the slime melted away into thin air. This was no attack. The Evil God Fragment had absorbed the slime into herself.

「What just happened? I sensed an incredible amount of evil energy just now… Fran, are you alright?」

「Nn. I’m fine.」

「I see. As expected of the wielder.」

Ouna gave Fran a look of concern, but the curiosity had not disappeared from her gaze. She seemed extremely interested in me as a blacksmith.

『Huh? Is this… the memories of that slime?』

『…!』

Apparently, the Evil God’s Innocence managed to extract information from the slime after absorbing it. A scene suddenly appeared in my mind. It looked like a landscape painting of a rural village.

In addition, I gained a rough sense of the location. North. Not very far away, either.

According to the Evil God’s Innocence, this location contained a seal imprisoning a familiar of the Evil God. And the Evil Energy Slime was apparently created out of that familiar.

I could also sense the Evil God’s Innocence being furious at the people exploiting one of its former subordinates.

「We’re going north.」

「Hoh? Did you find something?」

「Nn. A familiar of the Evil God is sealed there.」

「I see. That certainly sounds suspicious. It’s worth investigating.」

Since we had no other leads, Fran and Ouna decided to head for the location of this seal. Once we got closer, the Evil God’s Innocence would apparently be able to guide us there.

（Ouna is fast.）

『Yeah. I never expected her to keep up with Urushi. Her swords are pretty insane.』

（Nn.）

Five minutes after heading north.

Fran was riding the horse-sized Urushi, and Ouna ran right beside us. She seemed to be going all out, but the fact that she could keep up with Urushi’s full sprint was incredible. Even Fran would get left in the dust unless without using Awakening and her other skills.

The secret behind her speed was the sword in her hand. Of course, Ouna herself was high-level with excellent stats, but she also possessed a blade specialized in enhancing her running ability.

The sword Soumatou. However, this speed boost came with some downsides. Equipping the sword apparently lowered her defenses significantly. Fighting with this debuff was completely out of the question.

Many of the swords in her possession seemed to have abilities that were double-edged in nature.

She could use Ananri to cloak herself in darkness and erase her presence, but it also made it harder for her to see her opponents. This was usually fine due to Ouna’s highly developed skills in detection, but the risk was nonzero.

Tsutsumotase was even worse. The sword’s charm effect was powerful, but not infallible. If the target possessed a strong enough mind, the charm would fail, and in that case, the user would instead become charmed by the target.

Ouna used it against the man from earlier because he was obviously an ordinary person, but she laughed when we asked if it worked on everyone. Apparently, she would never take the risk against anyone strong.

『…!』

『Oh? Looks like we’re getting close.』

The Evil God’s Innocence sent me a message. Apparently, our destination was already in sight. That was fast.

「This seems to be the edge of a ranch. Is that their hideout?」

「Master?」

『No, it’s underground. There’s a hollow space below us.』

I used earth magic to probe the ground and discovered a large cavity.

「I cannot tell if it is hollow or not, but there is definitely a great deal of evil energy below us.」

Ouna focused her senses for a moment before nodding in agreement.　Earlier, she mentioned visiting the Cradle of the Earth Dragons after sensing evil energy there, so she apparently possessed the ability to detect it.

However, neither of us managed to find the entrance…

「We can just dig our way in with earth magic.」

『Oh, great idea, Fran! Let’s just dig a hole!』

「Nn. Like Eiworth did.」

Come to think of it, that reckless old man Eiworth did the same thing when we raided that underground facility in Kranzel’s capital.

For some reason, Fran seemed to like Eiworth a lot.　She understands that his personality is… problematic in many ways, but she admires his free-spirited way of living.

I’m not sure whether to praise her for learning from past experiences or warn her against imitating Eiworth.

While I was pondering that, Fran had already started digging with earth magic.　Before I knew it, she had completed a vertical shaft roughly two meters in diameter.

「I can feel the evil energy now. It’s very dense.」

「Nn.」

「Heh… I hope there we can find a monster worth cutting.」

The nasty aura of evil energy crept out of the dark pit Fran opened.　To anyone capable of sensing evil energy, it looked as though a black mist was spreading to cover everything nearby.

Despite that, Ouna’s fearless smile did not waver.　She’s definitely no ordinary person.

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