The maids were news, but they were aware that Jaldabaoth had a few immensely powerful demons under him.
From what they had gotten out of subhuman prisoners, he had at least three.
The demon controlling the wilderness where the subhumans lived.
The demon controlling the bay city Limun.
And the scaly demon leading the subhuman army.
“Oh, right! Could you give us the details on that scaly demon?”
“Yes, would it be possible for you to tell us what sort of abilities it has?”
“Sure. I can tell you more about the demon that Evileye and I fought.” Lakyus’s story about what abilities it had and how it fought ended with the demon being defeated by Brain Unglaus, a warrior said to be as strong as Gazef Stronoff.
“…That’s strange. After Jaldabaoth took the Sacred Kingdom’s capital, he didn’t make any further moves—the one leading the subhuman army was a scaly demon. Maybe it wasn’t really defeated?”
“Hmm… I’ve met Brain before, though; he doesn’t seem like the type to lie. Maybe it wasn’t a unique monster, but simply an upper-tier type?”
“You mean as long as some condition or another is met, Jaldabaoth could summon an unlimited amount of them? Or multiple copies?”
Neia didn’t use magic, but she had learned about it to some extent.
It was difficult to summon more than one monster at a time.
The issue was that if someone cast a summoning spell while they already had one active, the previous spell would peter out, returning that monster, and summoning a new one in its place.
However, advanced casters were able to summon multiple monsters from lower-tier spells—for example, using tier-four magic to summon multiple monsters that could be summoned with tier-three magic.
“I don’t know. His summoning method is a mystery. Given how powerful he is, I imagine summoning multiple demons would be possible, but…then we’re left with the question of why he didn’t do that in the kingdom. Supposedly, a rare handful of casters specialized in summoning can create monsters of more than one race at a time, but…”
“So if the scaly demon was defeated, maybe Jaldabaoth could have summoned it again right away?”
“That must be it. But that’s if he’s using magic to do the summoning. If it’s a skill, things might work differently.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“No, sorry. We haven’t confirmed much at all.” Evileye’s shoulders slumped in an obvious way.
“…Hmm, I don’t really get it.”
“…Commander, I’ll explain later.”
“No, explain now, even just a little. I can’t keep up.”
This is our leader, the one in charge of us all…
“So then, did he also summon that nasty bug maid?”
“I don’t know. I sure hope not…”
The Blue Roses began discussing among themselves.
“Ummm, may I say something?” Neia spoke up hesitantly. All eyes turned to her, and the pressure was so enormous she nearly regretted it. Maybe she could have just waited for someone else to bring it up. But the die was cast. She steeled her resolve and asked her question. “This might be a very basic question, but where did Jaldabaoth come from? Has a demon named Jaldabaoth been around throughout history?”
“It’s unclear. I looked through all sorts of books, but I didn’t find the name anywhere. I tried searching based on his appearance as well, but there weren’t any clues.”
“Could it be an alias? Like he wanted to go cause trouble under a different name?”
“That should be impossible. The name of a demon—and the same goes for angels—is an integral part of its existence. In order for a demon to appear, the wedge of its name needs to be driven into the world. Because of that, it’s apparently impossible for them to go by any other name. Some experiments have even shown that they’ll vanish if they even try.”
Neia knew next to nothing about demons and angels, but if a caster from an adamantite adventurer team said so, it must’ve been true.
“If he came from some remote part of the continent, it would make sense that we didn’t know anything about him…but at that point, anything is possible, so we just have no idea.” Evileye shrugged.
“…Hey, what if Jaldabaoth’s appearance was different? You looked him up based on the way he looks in that picture, but what if that’s a disguise?”
“Ohhh?” Evileye leaned toward Remedios. “Tell me more.”
“We had Jaldabaoth in that form in a tight spot, but then he revealed his true nature…” Remedios closed her eyes. “And we were utterly defeated.”
“Can you tell me the details?”
“That much is fine, right, Gustav?”
“No objections here. If by describing him we can gain more information, keeping it to ourselves would be our loss.”
“Really, I’d like to just tell them everything,” Remedios mumbled to herself. Then she began explaining Jaldabaoth’s true form to Evileye. Partway through, her face grew clouded with rage—she must have been recalling a battle no one in the room was present for.
“I see. I’ll try searching again based on that description. I’d like to let you know what I find out, so can you tell me how long you’re planning to be in town?”
“Right now we don’t have specific plans. But so, does that mean the description doesn’t ring any bells?”
“Lakyus, do you recognize it?”
She shook her head.
“What she says. Sorry.”
“Understood. We’ll inform you once we have a plan.”
“But now we have to consider the worst-case scenario. It’s possible that he held back in Re-Estize to spread false intelligence.”
“You mean…his true aim was in our country, and his goal in yours was something different?”
“Maybe. If his main objective was in the Kingdom, then it would have made sense for him to reveal his true nature here. Or maybe he was alarmed by Sir Momon’s strength and decided to save it for later to prevent his scheme from being ruined? I hope that’s not the case, but…”
Evileye’s comments left the room in a gloomy silence. It was so quiet that even faint breathing noises sounded loud. In the tension that followed, with everyone wondering who would speak first, it was Lakyus who proved her courage.
“So to back up a bit,
