“I was told it was Gren, the Sunday Priest and chief of the Clergy. He almost never took the initiative on anything by himself, so it made sense he was the last one left.”
Luminus’s ears perked up. “Oh? Old Granville was defeated? Nicolaus… That cardinal was infatuated with you, wasn’t he? How did he do it?”
“It wasn’t the most heroic approach,” Louis replied, “but he had a Disintegration spell set up in advance, and it was enough of a surprise move to do him in.”
“Ahhhh… Granville must have aged terribly, if he fell for a trap like that.”
She sounded sad about it, but my mind was on other matters. Unfortunately, it seemed that I would need to add a new entry to my mental list of people to watch out for. It might’ve been a surprise move, but I couldn’t let my guard down. Disintegration was lethal against most people. Cardinal Nicolaus… Let’s remember that name.
“By the way, Lady Luminus, by Granville, do you mean Gren?”
Hinata had a thoughtful expression. The name Granville must have rung a bell.
“That I do,” Luminus replied. “His real name is Granville. He was known as the Hero of Light in his glory days. He even fought me once.”
For a god, Luminus acted so oddly innocent at times. I might’ve been imagining it, but sometimes it felt like she was trying to act all high and mighty and not quite succeeding all the time. Was all this, you know…an act?
Then I felt it: her eyes, dead upon me.
Yep, I was just imagining things! So much for that suspicion.
“Did he…? I-I’m sure it couldn’t be, but…”
Hinata seemed to have an idea in mind, but she must not have been fully sure about it, because she went no further.
“He was pretty strong in the past,” she instead recalled. “Up to my level, in fact.”
“You could say that,” answered Luminus. “Anyone who calls themselves a Hero usually finds themselves bound by fate soon enough. Perhaps he resented me, somewhere deep in his heart.”
Perhaps, indeed. Just like Milim told me, Heroes and demon lords often intertwined. Granville was defeated by the demon lord Luminus, opting to swear his allegiance to her instead. Deep down, though, he might’ve had mixed feelings about her—feelings he couldn’t escape from, even after becoming a living legend who brought many champions in their own right into the world. But at this point, it was all just guesswork.
“Well,” I said, “that’s a relief, at least. It means that everyone who picked a fight with us—Clayman, Farmus, the Seven Days Clergy—they’ve all met their end.”
Benimaru and my other officials nodded their agreement. “All’s well that ends well,” Rigurd eagerly commented with a smile.
“You said it,” I replied, returning the smile as I felt the tension escape the hall. “We had to deal with a lot of dangerous foes, but at this point, most of the problems are safely behind us. But I sure don’t want anyone controlling me behind the scenes. If we hadn’t noticed these merchants scheming in the shadows, I honestly would’ve started to suspect Yuuki.”
Yuuki was pretty suspicious. When it came to humans in Englesia with deep ties to Hinata, Yuuki was the prime candidate. I felt bad about it, but I couldn’t take him off the list.
“Yuuki?” Renard asked. “Yuuki Kagurazaka, the guild master?”
“Yeah,” I answered with a nod.
Thinking about it impartially, it made sense. He was the prime suspect at the time. But Yuuki had no reason to have Hinata and me fight each other. If there was no motive, it was pretty hard to picture him as the culprit.
…
On the other hand, maybe someone was deftly scheming to frame Yuuki. The Eastern merchants could pull that off well enough, I thought—they’d proven more than capable of carrying out multiple operations remotely at the same time. If the Clergy were the main bad guys, the merchants would have a motive to take the heat off them a little. It made sense.
But:
“Yuuki, a suspect? Can’t say that’s out of the question, no.”
Right when I had convinced myself, Hinata threw me with that observation.
“Whoa, you’re doubting someone from your own homeland?”
“Hmm? I’m only considering every possibility. For that matter, it may be a bit early to assume the real mastermind is gone. The Moderate Jester that killed Roy is still on the loose, and those Eastern merchants still have deep roots all over the Western Nations.”
It felt like she was splashing cold water on me. She was right. It was too early to breathe easy. I braced myself anew.
“Yeah… I guess you’re right. It’s not over yet. We can’t afford to be too optimistic.”
“No, we can’t. We’d better inform everyone about this.”
Benimaru nodded, while the paladins facing him looked similarly convinced.
“As Hinata said,” I continued, “it’s very likely that the person or persons behind all this is still around. I know I said the Clergy might be the main bad guys, but that was just a passing idea more than anything. It’s no good to throw blame around without any conclusive evidence. Let’s keep a close eye on this as we go forward.”
Everyone murmured their agreement at this conclusion. No, it was a bad idea to cast judgment without merit. I was fairly confident in my supposition, but Raphael didn’t offer its agreement. It didn’t disagree, either, though, so I think the possibility was there; I just didn’t have the evidence to be sure. For now, I’d have to trust in Raphael—and with the paladins happy with this conclusion, I thought it best to leave it at that.
That wrapped up our recap of past events. We knew we had to investigate the possibility of another mastermind out there, but that could wait for later. Today, we were here to figure out how we needed to work together to bury the
