Stray

Telaranea coughed and drank up the rest of his tea with excessive sugar. He sat in the lounge of the headquarters of the Mercenary Guild, looking up and down at the two uninvited guests. It was approaching noon and the clean and tidy lounge was filled with people and conversations. Surrounded by the rest of the fancy-dressed visitors, the three of them didn’t really stand out.

There was no flustered look on the old man’s face. The Sage of the Abyss put down the teacup and moved smoothly.

“We meet again, let me think about it… Nemo Murkos White and Oliver Borne. Oh, this reaction. Sure enough, you know my identity at Clementine Academy.”

Nemo’s expression twitched slightly, and before he could say a few words, the two of them were thoroughly tested by their cunning opponents. Long aware of Telaranea’s identity at the academy, and well aware that they had met, neither of them showed much surprise to the demon’s statement this time.

“Since you have a way to recognize ‘that me’, it’s not a strange thing to find ‘this me‘. I’m just a little curious. Apart from the hard-to-reach places like Clementine Academy, I still have a few bodies wandering outside— As far as I know, this is not the one closest to you.” Telaranea stared at Nemo with great interest as he pointed at himself with his thin fingers. “Why choose this?”

“You don’t seem to be surprised that we can find you.” Nemo hesitated for a moment and took a step forward. His tone was unfriendly. Even if Telaranea had lost all of the memories related to the Withered Castle and the Gatekeepers, once he considered Oliver’s miserable state back then, he couldn’t let it go.

He has improved, Nemo thought somberly. When they first met, he was still frightened by Telaranea. Now, this superior demon was within three steps of him, and he only had the urge to beat the other man up.

Considering that the two of them had to beg the demon in front of them, Oliver patted Nemo on the shoulder in silence, then quietly dragged his lover back to his side.

“I think we’re all aware that Mr. Light has the power of ‘that one’. I have never seen anything like it… If one is affected by the power of ‘that one’, it’s not uncommon for an incidental ability to appear. With a little skill and a little networking, it’s not difficult to find me.” Telaranea rubbed his chin. “You haven’t answered my question. Why is it ‘this me’?”

Another test.

But it wasn’t bad to let the other party think so. Nemo maintained an expressionless state and didn’t deny the demon’s guess. It seemed that Telaranea was very confident in its disguise of this identity, and it was sure they couldn’t produce any actual evidence that he was a superior demon.

“We have other things to do at the headquarters of the Mercenary Guild. This is just a side stop. As the Legendary Sage of the Abyss, I believe you should know about the ‘Butcher Shop’.” Oliver took over the conversation.

“That parrot is a superior demon, no? If you just want to find the Butcher Shop, why bother asking me?”

Oliver and Nemo looked at each other.

“Because we’re not looking for the Bucher Shop to trade, but for a past transaction record,” Oliver whispered.

“Oh—” Telaranea’s raised his tone, obviously his interest was pique. “Yes, I can help you. The price… I want to know what you are looking for. Do you mind if I join you?”

The “mind” on the faces of the two members of Tumbleweed was almost overflowing.

“What about other costs?”

“Other, well… If you or Mr. Light is willing to be dissected by me. I promise not to take any organs casually, and I’ll erase all those bad memories afterwards. How about that? What do you think?”

Nemo took a deep breath, and finally suppressed the anger on his face. Seeing that his lover’s hair was about to explode, Oliver put his hand on Nemo’s shoulder in a planned manner.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry.” Telaranea skillfully ignored Nemo’s anger. “It’s time for lunch soon. You two can think carefully and give me an answer after lunch.”

“Take a step back. Suppose we promise to agree to participate. You look like this… Are you sure you can keep up with our actions?” Nemo exhaled hard and spoke in a serious tone.

The flesh in front of them was terribly old, as if it had one foot stepped into a coffin. Nemo could feel that the magical qualification of this body was extremely ordinary, and because of the aging, its endurance was greatly diminished. Even if it was incorporated with the flesh of a superior demon, the power it could exert may not even reach 5%.

“I will follow when the time comes. I didn’t say which one of me will follow. Now it’s time for an old man’s nap. See you both in the afternoon.” Telaranea’s old man shell replied calmly, stood up slowly, and picked up his cane.

In order for mercenaries from all walks of life to find the taste of their hometown smoothly, the Mercenary Guild was never short of all kinds of restaurants.

After Ann’s mission, Nemo himself had a little savings, so he dragged Oliver to find a restaurant that looked a bit high-end. However, the Mercenary Guild was near the living and was also considered a hub for intelligence dealing, thus considering the things they wanted to talk about wasn’t suitable for this kind of crowded area, Nemo heartily packed a large pile of food and carried them back to the inn room with Oliver.

When they got to the room, the meringue on the dessert collapsed.

“Do you want to trade with him?” Nemo poked the peas on the plate with a fork in a distraught manner, pretending that each pea had the face of Telaranea. “After all, it’s about the past, it’s about the Butcher Shop, and it’s a bit difficult to find other sources of information… Ollie?”

Oliver was holding half a loaf of bread in his mouth, squatting in the corner with a serious expression.

“I don’t mind if it knows the past. After all, the past has passed. It probably won’t hurt just to it know everything that happened at the bottom of the Abyss and satisfy its curiosity.”

Ollie was still staring at the corner, but temporarily took the bread out of his mouth.

“Look, Nemo, the Tin Soldiers has a theoretical genius like Mr. Medes. As far as I know, my father isn’t a well-learned type. What he discovered was not a theory of destroying the world… but some kind of truth. Even if Telaranea jumped out and announce its discovery to the world, it needs to give evidence, right? All we have to do is destroy the possible evidence.”

Their thinking habits seemed to be drifting more in the wrong direction. Nemo smiled dryly, “That’s true, but Ollie, what the hell are you doing?”

Giving up on poking the peas, Nemo aggressively nibbled at the meringue that had fallen off the pastry aggrievedly and leaned into the corner.

Then he saw a pile of breadcrumbs and a small team of ants.

Nemo: “……”

“You just stepped on my archbishop.” Oliver said deeply.

Nemo almost dropped the meringue pastry to the ground.

“…I’m kidding.” Oliver threw the breadcrumbs on the edge of the ant. “Look, you turned Cat Whiskers into your dependent— If that can be done with a spider without magic, an ant without magic should be possible too.”

“That’s right, but…”

“I can’t transform them.” Ollie collapsed his shoulders in frustration. “To be honest, I still don’t know how I successfully transformed that horse.”

The horse with exceptionally deep eyes had been following Oliver. In order to avoid Gallagher’s army from discovering something weird about the horse and causing panic, Nemo and Oliver simply bought it. The fuller goat was taken away by Jesse. They originally wanted to take some luggage with them but as a result, no matter how much luggage they put on it, the horse calmly let it pass through its body and it leaked to the ground.

It didn’t refuse the saddle but unfortunately when Oliver sat firmly on it and tried to pull Nemo up, Nemo also passed through the horse and fell back to the ground.

It was a disaster

Oliver refused to ride his own horse and let Nemo run after the bastard so at present, the horse was almost useless except for them paying an extra care fee at the inn.

Recalling the horse for a moment, the faces of the two of them darkened a bit.

“Although your Lord Pope has an eccentric temper, creatures of the horse’s level are still okay.” Nemo sighed, carefully bypassing Oliver’s reserves of archbishops. They were happily crawling around the breadcrumbs. “Ants… you should reconsider.”

“Speaking of ‘my Lord Pope’.” Oliver straightened his waist and moved his shoulders. “Actually, I was thinking, this seems to be no different from humans raising animals— Giving them the food or strength they need to survive, and then taking away what they want. In this way, it can be recognized as a certain kind of ‘God’? Generally speaking, doesn’t ‘God’ need to gain the love, faith, or something from believers…”

“In the case of the two of us, there’s no need.”

Nemo looked calm. “Do you remember the spider dogs in the Border Forest? I don’t think they will have such a thing as faith. Dylan’s side is a better example— Most of the creatures living on the surface use surface magic and believe in all kinds of ‘Gods’ created by themselves, but there’s no doubt that Dylan is drawing on their power indiscriminately.”

“…I see, it seems that I don’t really need a Pope.”

Oliver stared at the group of ants very seriously and breathed a sigh of relief.

That was good. For the time being, he didn’t need to be linked to the word “God”. He could still retain his sanity so as not to fall into some kind of panic full of shock— Oliver could finally get rid of the night scene of “surrounded by a group of neighing horses”.

“Now it seems that you are harvesting power from powerful demons, and Jesse is drawing from relatively weaker creatures. If I want, I can pick up what you don’t want, right? But saying that… Nemo, why are you the Demon King, but Mr. Dylan is…?”

“I don’t know,” Nemo replied honestly. “Dylan’s character is indeed not pleasing, but he has helped us a lot. To be honest, I don’t think he meddled in these things. He doesn’t seem to like humans very much.”

“But he became a human.” Oliver imagined Jesse as a dragon for a few seconds and then simply erased that impression from his mind.

It would definitely be a dragon covered in golden scales that would happily blind people’s eyes. The leader of Tumbleweed was extremely convinced of this.

“…He may have his reasons.” Nemo took off the berries on the top of the pastry and stuffed them into Oliver’s mouth. “Regarding the transformation of my dependent, it may be more appropriate for you to ask him than to ask me. My approach is more instinctive. It’s difficult to explain.”

Jesse really took part of the species from him, and his only memory was the successfully transformed ordinary spider.

“Nn.” Oliver reluctantly glanced at the ants on the ground, chewed the berries in his mouth, and licked Nemo’s fingertips. “We will meet Telaranea in a while and give him an answer.”

Nemo blinked. He raised his eyebrows at the cream at the corner of Oliver’s mouth, and was about to kiss it…

When something slammed into the window.

“…” Nemo opened the window speechlessly and let the gray parrot whose feathers was a mess in.

“You guys take advantage of my absence to have a big meal!” The gray parrot glanced at the remnants of food on the table. Its eyes full of blood and tears. “When I was working hard, you two were full of eating and sleeping—”

Nemo seemed to have expected this development. He quickly took out a bag of almond biscuits, and the gray parrot closed its mouth.

“For me?” it raised its voice.

“It’s for you.” Nemo’s voice is gentle and firm.

“Oh, that’s more like it.” The gray parrot picked up a piece and spoke in a muffle, “Well, I inquired about it as you requested, but asking superior demons would be too exposing, so I can only ask intermediate ones who has some brain. Oh, this biscuit is good. I’ll tell you later. After all, it’s about the Butcher Shop so there’s still quite a lot of talk among demons.”

“Good.”

At this time in the territory of Alban.

“How boring,” Jesse complained bitterly. He was lying in an inn room, spreading his slender limbs and occupying the entire bed.

The Chief Justice, on the other hand, was bare chested and doing strength exercises without saying a word. He didn’t even care about the sweat running down his back, let alone paying attention to Jesse’s intention.

“It’s boring!” Jesse hugged the pillow and rolled around on the bed. “It’s been three days. The leader of the team said he’ll give us a vacation. Are you really just going to wait until he asks us for help again? Adri—”

Really unable to stand the other party’s long-pitched call, Adrian put down the heavy object in his hand, wiped his sweat, and habitually frowned. “If you want to go out, you can always do it yourself…”

“I want to act with you,” Jesse insisted. “Look, now you are free! That necromancer didn’t seek death, so you have nothing to do, right? Don’t you have any place you want to go?”

“No.” Adrian flattened his sweat-soaked handkerchief.

“You can go anywhere. I’ll pay for it. As long as it’s not here, I’m willing to accompany you to any corner of the world, my love. I’ve counted all the floor seams here. Think about it carefully. Especially far away, or a place where you spend a lot of your time you can’t go when you work— I don’t believe you don’t have a place.”

“…” Adrian sighed, suddenly approached, and gently pressed a hand on the top of Jesse’s head.

“If you insist, there is indeed a place. It’s very close to the headquarters of the Mercenary Guild and it’ll be convenient to meet with Mr. Ramon at that time.” The former knight’s long brows stretched slightly. “If you’re willing to go, you can pay for half the travel expenses.”

Jesse grabbed the hand and kissed the slightly moist fingers ambiguously. “Where? Even if it’s into hot magma, I will—”

“In the library attached to the headquarters of the Mercenary Guild. I have something I want to find.”

The largest library in the world is also one of the most boring places in the world.

“…” Jesse bit the knuckles of the knight on the side of his mouth and fell into contemplation. “Adri, do you want to think about it again? I think the magma is really good.”

“Forgive me for rejecting.” Adrian withdrew his hand, with a faint smile in his voice.

The author has something to say:

Nemo’s rice bowl: The upper, middle, and lower demons that fill the entire abyss, plus the demons active on the surface.

Jesse’s rice bowl: Full of surface races, very rich, even dragons.

Ollie’s rice bowl: There is currently only one horse. It has deep and melancholy eyes.

Ollie: …

Ollie: …Can I really beat Nemo……?