Chapter 56 - Stalker vs. Stalker (11)

“First, let's stop the bleeding.”

Losing a limb generally incapacitated a person. In fact, it was more accurate to call it a potentially fatal injury than mere incapacitation.

Considering that the genteel method of suicide in this era involved a bath, scented candles, and slit wrists, it was easy to imagine how serious an injury it was to have your forearm hacked apart with an axe rather than merely cut your wrist with a kitchen knife.

That was why even a certain someone who had ruled the seas on distant Earth had, upon losing an arm, been reduced to bawling like a child and glaring into a big moray eel's eyes, unable to exert any actual force.

So, stop the bleeding before he died.

CLICK.

Ivan deftly uncapped a healing potion with one hand. The viscous red liquid swirled ominously. With a delicate touch, he exposed the wound and slowly poured the healing potion over the severed stump, which was still gushing blood.

Naturally, inevitably, a scream rang down the corridor.

“GAAAAAAARGH!!!”

“Now, now. I told you to save your breath.”

Ivan was a civilized man, so he admonished him gently. His junior was no youngster, but he did seem excessively prone to making a fuss.

“Tell me what you heard from Alexander. What did he want?”

“A man of Droan... will not... yield to torture...!”

“Torture? This is medicine.”

Shaking his head at the absurd accusation, Ivan capped the healing potion. He raised the axe in his other hand and rested it against the stump.

“Hngh...?!”

“The bleeding's more or less stopped. Good.”

He nodded coldly and began easing the axe forward. The blade sank another half inch into the stump, drawing beads of blood from flesh seared shut by the healing potion's remarkable efficacy. Quite literally, it had cauterized the entire wound closed.

“That was treatment. This is torture.”

“You... BASTARD...!!”

“Let's see.”

Ivan checked how much potion remained and gave the bottle a brief shake. Still full, it sloshed heavily.

“Enough for about five more rounds. So I'll keep this brief and ask just five times.”

“Kill... me...!”

“I intend to, Daionar Erickson. Your fate will be handled according to my orders, but the process is at my discretion. Answer me.”

What had Alexander hoped to gain from this chaos?

Where was Alexander now?

How many of them were there, and where had they begun infiltrating this country?

Methodically, without haste, one question at a time.

As a man with a modern ethical outlook, Ivan did not favor torture. It would be fairer to say he abhorred it. But he was also a man who had lived in this era for thirty years, a soldier who had spent his life on battlefields. Regrettable as it was, he had no choice but to sacrifice a measure of his ethics to carry out his orders efficiently.

Even Kim Seonwoo had agreed on this point, so without hesitation Ivan raised his axe.

Cut.

And put it back together.

Screams echoed down the corridor. An unlit corridor, on a rainy summer night.

Superhumans had keen vision; darkness like this hardly qualified as darkness at all. Thus, even through his excruciating pain, Daionar could see Ivan's face.

If only he had smiled, or shown outrage. Any display of emotion would at least have made him human. But the Ivan Daionar saw was as impassive as a woodsman chopping a tree. A fisherman hauling in a net. A farmer swinging a sickle.

There was work to be done, and he had the means to do it, so he did it.

That was precisely the level of emotion behind the mechanical actions repeating before him.

By the time Daionar's blood and sweat were evaporating, releasing the scent of fear—in other words, by the end of Ivan's second “treatment”—he had become a remarkably fluent, articulate, upstanding (and truthful) member of civilized society, explaining everything he knew.

Healing potions treated only external injuries (everyone who had attempted to use them for internal injuries had died), but compassionate medical care could, in itself, provide counseling and psychiatric treatment as added benefits.

Pleased to see this old truth proven yet again, Ivan listened closely to Daionar's coherent testimony.

* * *

Leaving behind the junior who might have proved troublesome had his ability matched his spirit and initiative, Ivan headed up the stairs.

He had used up all his healing potion. He would have no further need for it today, but it was a shame to be without an essential piece of armament he always carried.

Ivan was a cautious man, so he had needed to repeat the same questions several times, refining the details of Daionar's testimony to verify that his initial statement was true. Daionar had expired in the process. Fortunately, his testimony had proved truthful from the start, allowing Ivan to wish him peace in death.

THUD, THUD.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the empty corridor. With no sounds of hostile movement remaining, Ivan deliberately walked more loudly.

All he had to do now was rescue the abducted kids, and his mission would be complete. A fortunate outcome.

Having cleared the stage they were supposed to overcome themselves, Ivan felt obliged to train Esidisi, Isabelle, and Oscar personally.

As always, there wasn't enough time.

With a faint chuckle, he walked over and grasped the handle of the corridor's first office door...

“...?”

Then let go and stepped back.

There was no sign of anyone, but he could sense mana. Over there, in the office at the end of the corridor.

Not the mana of an enchanted artifact or a magical engineering product. It was the mana a living creature emitted—specifically, the kind a mage preparing a spell would give off—yet there was no sign of a living presence.

He drew a deep breath and circulated mana through his body. His nerves accelerated, slowing the sound of the rain. Even focusing on his hearing, the only signs of life he could hear in the corridor were the breaths of the tense students in the office directly before him.

A mage was preparing a spell while simultaneously concealing their presence well enough to escape even his notice?

That wasn't strange. It was impossible. Not even Veolgrin could do it. Magic was not a simple enough discipline to practice while regulating one's breathing and heartbeat.

A mage of that caliber would effectively be on par with the Demon King. And the notion that the Demon King, dead for four years, had suddenly resurrected and was hiding in Prizhenkaya's Foreign Ministry residence, of all places, made no sense.

“Ah.”

Ivan nodded with a faint chuckle.

A hidden bonus. Right, there had to be something like that.

Whether it was a special item or a hint about the story, of course a “main-story stage” ought to contain something hidden away, something you wouldn't discover by following the normal route. Seen that way, it felt perfectly natural.

Only someone who had reached the level required to sense mana would recognize and follow this blatant clue. Otherwise, the Hero's Party's children would naturally sprint for the ground floor as soon as they escaped.

Imagine a stage like that. They evaded Daionar's pursuit and defeated the mercenaries blocking their path, barely reaching the ground floor. If this chapter was designed to end with them fighting Daionar and successfully retreating to the safety of the city, they would have no reason to search the office at the very back of the fifth floor where they had been imprisoned. Hence the hidden bonus. A sort of Easter egg.

That made everything clear. Ivan strode unhesitatingly to the last office and grasped the handle.

[Foreign Minister's Office]

Foreign Minister Crown Prince Alexander couldn't possibly have conducted his business here, so Ivan surmised that the room held information about Alexander, or at least something of comparable value.

CLICK.

He turned the handle and opened the door.

“...!!!”

The instant Ivan saw the face through the open doorway, he hurled his axe at it.

WHOOOOSH!!

The axe flew straight through the face.

CRUNCH!

It smashed the chair, tore through a bookcase against the far wall, and buried itself in the wall beyond.

The man whose face the axe had passed through spoke with a faint smile.

“I don't believe I've ever seen that expression on you.”

“Alexander...!!”

“It's been nearly ten years since we last spoke. Come in, Ivan Petrovich.”

The tall, handsome young man with close-cropped silver hair beckoned him inside, flashing white teeth in a smile.

Astral projection. And from a distance too great to trace.

Ivan stood opposite him, grinding his teeth and glaring balefully.

Four years ago, the orders detailing the Extermination Unit's final mission had borne two official seals.

The royal seal of Krasilof.

And the seal of the commander-in-chief of the Northwestern Front, who had overseen the military on the king's behalf at the time.

Alexander Kirillovich Krasilof's seal.

“I'm sure you have many questions, but answer just this one for me.”

“... What?”

“If the Lord loves us, why does evil still run so rampant in the world, even now that the Demon King is dead?”

Ten years since their last face-to-face meeting. Four years since their last encounter in writing. And now this young man, wearing the same face he had ten years ago, had begun trying to enlighten Ivan as one of the masses.

Ivan clenched the axe blade in a crushing grip and ground his teeth.