Priests of the Sereon Church were scattered here and there, questioning the villagers.
If I just pretended not to know and walked past, they’d investigate among themselves and leave on their own.
With a feeling half hope and half resignation, I quietly headed toward the inn.
“Hm?”
But before I could even turn my back, I already felt someone’s gaze on me.
When I glanced over, several people in white robes were watching me.
Perhaps they had already finished their questions, because their gazes had naturally shifted toward me.
…No way. I got caught immediately?
They did seem to be priests, but the gray steel I glimpsed between their robes bothered me.
At a glance, they were clearly not ordinary priests.
It was already too late to run.
One of the priests strode over and spoke to me.
“Excuse me, are you perhaps—”
“Yes? Me?”
My body reacted first. When I swallowed dryly and asked back, the priest looked at my face for a while before quietly nodding.
His voice was calm, but there was an inexplicable weight within it.
“There is something we need to confirm regarding the incident that occurred in this village a short while ago… May we have a moment of your time?”
…Confirm, huh.
I hadn’t done anything wrong, but words spoken in that tone were still burdensome.
I swallowed a small sigh and nodded.
“A moment is fine.”
“Thank you. May I have your name?”
“I’m Liv.”
When I said my name, he flinched and glanced at the colleague beside him.
Then he turned back to me with a faint smile.
“Sir Liv, we heard that you dealt with the demonic being.”
For a moment, my body stiffened.
It wasn’t something I particularly needed to hide, but hearing it said so openly felt strangely uncomfortable.
I hadn’t planned on becoming famous.
“Well… it just happened that way.”
“We’d like to know the exact circumstances. Could you tell us in detail what happened at the time?”
He was more polite than I’d expected. The atmosphere wasn’t coercive either.
Still… that didn’t change the fact that something troublesome had begun.
I took another deep breath inwardly and spoke with as expressionless a face as I could manage.
“Yes. Where should I start?”
“First, please tell us in as much detail as possible from the moment you first encountered the demonic being.”
Demonic being.
So that was what they called that monster.
The priest took out a small notebook and gripped a pen.
The rustling sound of the pen scratching across paper was oddly irritating.
Paper was damned expensive too—did priests have a lot of money?
I put aside the useless thought and answered slowly.
“The day before, I received a request from the village chief to find a hunter named Kal. So the next day, I went to check the cabin in the forest… and the demonic being was there.”
“Hmm, I see. Was there anything else strange?”
“Mm… for some reason, the air felt ominous that day. Chilly, I guess. It felt a bit strange.”
“A strange aura… demonic energy, perhaps…”
The priest muttered to himself.
“Have you ever been baptized? Priests tend to be sensitive to demonic energy, you see.”
“No, nothing like that. It was just intuition, I suppose. Luck.”
He nodded, but his face remained expressionless.
I couldn’t tell whether he accepted it or was still suspicious.
“Did you face that demonic being alone?”
“Yes. There was no one around, and I didn’t have time to run.”
“Hmm… What weapons or techniques did you use during the fight?”
I hesitated slightly, then dodged the question appropriately.
“Yes? Do I have to tell you that too?”
“No. You don’t have to. It was personal curiosity.”
“Ah, yes. Well…”
It wouldn’t matter if I told him honestly, but if I said too much for no reason, it would only get tiring.
The priest asked several questions about the monster’s appearance and fighting style, wrote a few more lines in his notebook, then raised his gaze.
“Have you ever encountered a demonic being before?”
“…No. This was my first time.”
He nodded briefly and asked his final question.
“What happened immediately after you defeated the demonic being?”
“People came rushing from the village. After that, I informed the village chief of the situation. That’s all.”
“Did you notice any unusual signs, or find any strange objects nearby?”
“Nothing in particular, other than that stone.”
The priest wrote a few words until the very end, then closed his notebook.
Then he smiled ambiguously and said,
“Thank you for your cooperation, Sir Liv. That concludes our investigation. If you remember anything else, please inform us later.”
I nodded.
“Yes, understood.”
The priest turned and walked back to his colleagues, and I watched his back as I muttered inwardly.
‘I hope nothing comes of this…’
Contrary to my wish, it felt like this matter was not yet over.
***
That evening.
As usual, I was sitting in the dining hall, spooning up soup.
For some reason, Barrett, sitting across from me, was staring closely at my face.
…What’s with him? I’m going to get indigestion.
“Sir Liv, I can clearly see that your body has improved.”
“Yes? Really? It’s only the fifth day.”
Even as I answered that way, there was a sensation I suddenly became aware of.
Was it because of the training? Rather than slowly building muscle, it felt as if I had skipped a stage at some point.
As if… it was like how I felt when my stamina stat went up last time.
…Don’t tell me this is also the system’s influence.
“You have a subtle expression. Is something bothering you?”
“No, it’s just… the soup is spicy.”
Barrett laughed softly and nodded.
“By the way, you should prepare to go out for a short while tomorrow.”
“Go out?”
“Yes. Another person has come in person from the Sereon Church. They said they want to speak with the person who directly dealt with the demonic being.”
Again?
I set down my spoon and let out a small sigh.
“Who is it this time? I already met the person with the notebook asking questions.”
“This time… they say a ‘Watcher’ of the Order is coming.”
“A Watcher?”
“Yes. They are people dispatched by each branch of the Sereon Church when tracking strange phenomena.”
At Barrett’s words, I slowly blinked.
‘A Watcher…’
It was an unpleasant name.
It sounded like someone who would try to see right through me.
It seemed like the matter was gradually growing bigger.
…Should I leave the village?
“Haa, this is getting annoying.”
“Haha, people with ability are given work worthy of that ability. Doesn’t that mean you have ability, Sir Liv?”
I tilted my head and asked,
“…By the way, Mr. Barrett, do you believe in the Sereon Church too?”
He seemed to know more about the Sereon Church than I’d expected. It didn’t feel like mere hearsay.
“Most mercenaries tend to believe in a god. Among them, the proportion who believe in the Sereon Church is rather high.”
“Ah, that’s interesting.”
“I suppose it’s because we do work where life and death are decided every time.”
Hmm, true.
They say the closer people get to death, the more likely they are to believe in religion.
It was probably the same principle behind there being so many older people in churches.
“Even so, in my case, I’d say I simply believe. I’m not blindly devout. Believing doesn’t solve everything, does it?”
At those words, I nodded.
Believing didn’t solve everything.
But when I thought about it, this was a world where magic existed, so why wouldn’t gods exist?
Maybe everything really could be solved…
“When is the Watcher supposed to arrive tomorrow?”
“I didn’t hear the exact time from the village chief, but they should arrive around midday. And… they’ll probably want a private interview.”
A private interview.
Perhaps the annoyance showed plainly on my face, because Barrett smiled and said,
“There is no need to be frightened. It’s simply a matter of answering questions.”
…Would it really be as easy as he said?
I picked up my cooled soup again.
Now that I thought about it, did this mean I could skip afternoon training?
This might be better news than I thought.
***
When the sun had risen high in the sky.
I was collapsed facedown in Mr. Brigan’s yard.
‘That crazy old geezer…’
I didn’t know where he’d heard that I had to go in the afternoon, but the old man raised the intensity of the morning training by that much.
This was the result.
My arms were trembling, my legs didn’t feel like they belonged to my body… even breathing made my lungs feel resentful.
“Hekh… seriously… you’re going to kill someone…”
As I lay sprawled on the ground like dead grass, I suddenly sensed someone approaching and raised my head.
It was Barrett. With his usual neat expression, he was looking down at me.
“Sir Liv. Are you all right?”
“…I’m not sure. If I said I was fine in this state, that would be a lie.”
At those words, Barrett smiled and held out his hand.
“You need to get up. The Watcher has arrived.”
“…Really?”
“Yes. By now, they should be at the village chief’s house. The interview will begin soon as well, so you should prepare.”
I grabbed Barrett’s hand and barely managed to raise myself up.
My muscles pulled, and strange sounds came from my joints, but I endured it somehow.
‘Phew. Running out of stamina is scarier than magic…’
Brushing the dust from my body, I quietly composed myself.
What awaited me now was not training, but another kind of test.
Barrett walked ahead, and I limped after him.
Even as I groaned from muscle pain, the road to the village chief’s house was quite quiet.
Maybe too quiet.
Strangely so. The villagers’ gazes were calm too, and a slight tension permeated the atmosphere.
No one looked at me openly, but it felt as though gazes were brushing past me through the wind.
‘Looks like they really did come.’
The village chief’s house was always neat and orderly, but today, it looked even cleaner than usual.
On top of that, two large men in silver armor stood heavily on guard nearby with spears raised upright.
Just seeing that scene made me realize for certain that this was no “ordinary visitor.”
“Let’s go inside.”
Barrett said as he pushed the door open.
I nodded and followed him in.
The interior of the village chief’s house was not particularly spacious, but it was quiet and tidy.
In the center, in a small reception area, sat an unfamiliar woman.
Long white robes, dark navy hair, sharp half-lidded eyes, and a calm expression.
…She was quite a beauty with a cold, cynical air.
She raised her head slightly and looked at me.
A strange light lingered in her blue eyes.
“This is Liv.”
The village chief said cautiously. Barrett lowered his head slightly.
I looked straight at the woman before me.
She was the Watcher.
“Welcome, Sir Liv. I am Luna, a Watcher of the Sereon Church.”
Her voice was gentle, but it held a strange resonance.
Watcher Luna gestured for me to take a seat.
‘Hm, this feels strange… She’s less forceful than I expected.’
I swallowed a sigh inwardly and quietly sat in the chair.
It felt as though I were at an interview. For no reason, my back straightened.
“Then, I will ask you a few simple questions.”
The Watcher’s gaze fell upon my face as if piercing through it.
It had begun.
“Are you perhaps a mage?”
…!!
She struck a vital point with the very first question.
I tried to manage my expression, but even I could tell that my eyes had widened slightly.
How did she know…?
Could it be that mages had some kind of certification mark only other mages could see?
It was the same with Brigan, so there seemed to be some way to recognize it.
“…Yes. That’s right. I can use magic.”
Though I was surprised by the sudden question, I admitted it right away.
There was no particular reason to hide it. It wasn’t as if being a mage was strange.
When I said that, the Watcher’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
Rather than surprise, her eyes held acceptance, as if to say, “I see.”
Don’t tell me she already knew?
“Thank you. For telling me without hiding it.”
She wrote something on a memo pad.
I quietly waited for the next question.
Contrary to my expectation that the next question would be about magic, it was something entirely different.
“Did you handle that demonic being alone?”
I closed my mouth, then let out a small breath and nodded.
“Yes. Given the situation, I had no choice.”
The Watcher nodded again at my words.
I didn’t know what standard she was judging by, but for now, I wanted to believe my sincerity had gotten through.
“Were you injured?”
“A little… but, well, I survived.”
She smiled very faintly.
She said nothing, but her eyes seemed to say, “That’s a relief.”
The Watcher’s fingertips moved slightly. She was taking notes.
And after that hand stopped, she looked at me again.
“Thank you. For speaking honestly.”
Honestly?
“Then, allow me to ask just one more thing.”
She leaned forward slightly and quietly asked,
“That demonic being—did it seem, from the beginning… to be targeting you, Sir Liv?”
A chill ran down my spine.
This time, my breath caught despite myself.
How should I answer?
The truth was… that gaze back then had definitely been looking at me.
In a way, at me alone.
But should I say that here?
A brief silence.
In the end, I shook my head very slightly.
“…I’m not sure.”
The Watcher heard that and stared at me with her blue eyes, her face showing no expression at all.
Then, without a word, she quietly wrote something down.
The air in the room grew endlessly quiet.
And finally, she looked at me and said,
“Thank you, Sir Liv. That is enough.”
At those words, I exhaled.
It felt as though the interview was over.
Was it all right for it to end this early?
Well, it was good for me…
At this rate… did I pass? Or was I on hold?
I couldn’t tell at all.