Having snuck in to scout the temple in secret, I was deeply moved. The temple was empty. Everyone save the bare minimum of necessary personnel had evacuated to safety.
As expected — the beloved faithful of the Goddess Repinal are a sensible lot. They don’t take the bait from a suspicious Demon Legion Commander’s provocations. How admirably, refreshingly reasonable.
The knowledge that my plan had worked kept me in high spirits all day. On a winter’s day that was surprisingly mild, taking Theo out for a walk through the village made my mood even better. A cheerful whistle slipped out of me on its own. Theo, walking with my hand clasped firmly in his, looked up at me with wide eyes.
“Lihen, did something good happen?”
“Mm. I’m just really happy to be out and about with you, Theo.”
I smiled broadly and swept Theo up into my arms.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go get a delicious dinner.”
“Yes, please!”
He beamed and wrapped his arms around my neck.
I fed Theo until he was well and full, we bathed together, and I was just about to read him a fairy tale before bed — when Theo made a sudden request.
“Instead of a story, I want to hear about Lihen.”
“Do you want me to finish the Snow White story?”
“No. Not a story Lihen made up — a story about Lihen.”
“I already told you my age and what I do last time.”
I tried to decline, in a roundabout way, but Theo wouldn’t budge.
“That’s not enough. I want to know more. Living together means that, doesn’t it — getting to know each other….”
It didn’t seem like he was prying because he was suspicious of my true identity. It felt much closer to pure curiosity born out of genuine fondness. I scratched the back of my head awkwardly.
“There’s nothing much to me. So I don’t really have anything to say.”
“It doesn’t have to be anything special. Anything about Lihen is fine with me.”
The child’s earnest, innocent gaze unsettled something in me. I simply couldn’t bring myself to refuse. I deliberated, then opened my mouth.
“Well… I really love games.”
“Games like chess? Or physical ones — like horse riding or ball games?”
“Both, actually. I love games that use your head, and ones that use your body. Either way, I used to play whenever I got the chance.”
Coming to this world in the first place was entirely because of that game, after all.
“Also… I used to sleep in quite a lot in the mornings, but that’s gone away recently.”
Since possessing Shane’s body, three hours of sleep a night left me perfectly fine. A demon’s body really was something.
“When I was young, my health wasn’t great, so I had to undergo a long course of treatment. Fortunately, I’m completely recovered now.”
Theo listened to my words with shining eyes. The warmth in that gaze made me inexplicably want to keep talking.
…No, this won’t do. Children need to go to bed early. More importantly, I need him asleep before I can set the temple on fire.
“That’s enough for tonight. Let’s sleep now.”
I gently swept my hand downward over Theo’s eyelids, coaxing them shut. Theo pouted his lips as if disappointed, then reluctantly gave a small nod.
“Good night, Theo.”
“Good night, Lihen.”
“…Right.”
Lihen. The name of a dead saint.
A name that could never truly be mine — somehow, it weighed on me anew.
Theo fell asleep quickly, fortunately. I watched his sleeping face for a long moment before carefully rising from my place.
This is the last time I’ll see twelve-year-old Theo. Once I complete tonight’s quest and collect the points, I’ll be meeting fifteen-year-old Theo.
Twelve-year-old Theo had been easy to be around — guileless and unsuspecting. Would he grow sharper with age? Would he start to look at me with suspicious eyes? I would have to steadily build on our bond of trust to make sure it never came to that.
I threw on a black robe that mirrored the night sky and launched myself off the roof. As I picked up speed, the wind tore fiercely past my ears. I leapt almost as if taking flight, landing on the roof across the way. Dark clouds veiled the stars and the moon, and the world was utterly black. A good night for committing evil deeds.
I hid myself in a tree near the temple and assessed the situation. Using my vision and hearing — far keener than any human’s — I estimated the number of people inside. Around a hundred knights, and one High Priest. The knights were fully armored with helmets and plate that resisted flame, and the High Priest, befitting a title with “High” in it, possessed considerable divine power. He could hold out to some degree even amidst fire. There were no problems.
Alright. Time to start the fire.
I conjured a small test flame at my fingertips. Shane’s innate skill — Flame. Even at a mere Level 1, it was remarkably powerful. And perhaps because of its color being black, it genuinely made me feel like a proper villain.
It had gotten quite a reaction when I’d used it at the altar just before destroying the statue. But there was still the problem that at such a low level, fine control was difficult. If the fire spread too widely, I wouldn’t be able to stop it at will. That was precisely why I’d made sure to clear the temple of every last priest.
Resolved to carry out a successful arson, I climbed down from the tree and concealed myself in the undergrowth.
* * *
“Fire!”
A rending shout split the air. The knights on patrol all charged at once toward the direction of the cry. It came from near the temple’s entrance. The clamor of armored bodies colliding rang out noisily. But there was no fire there. No smoke. Not even a trace of an ember.
The ground was cold. The air was still. As if the scream of a moment ago had been a lie.
“All clear!”
“There’s no one who cried out either!”
Just as a ripple of unease began to spread among the knights — from the innermost part of the temple, in the direction exactly opposite the entrance, a black flame bloomed. Not red, not orange, but a fire darker than the night itself.
The blaze, as though shadows themselves were burning, spread instantly across the walls and pillars. There was no wood, no oil in sight — and yet the fire kept growing, swelling in size. It looked set to devour everything in its path without leaving a single thing behind.
“Damn it — find him!”
The captain of the knights’ order bellowed, his cry dissolving into the smoke.
“The smoke is too thick! We can’t see ahead!”
“Follow the demonic energy — there’ll be a trail!”
But no matter how sharply the knights attuned their senses, no familiar presence made itself felt. The air was certainly thick with an ominous aura — but the demonic energy they knew was nowhere in it.
“Something’s wrong. It’s a demon, but there’s no demonic energy at all. I’ve never encountered anything like this.”
At those words, every face in the room went hard.
Until now, the method for tracking demons had been simple. Follow the demonic energy, and the enemy was always waiting at the end of it. But this opponent was different. The demonic energy was so faint it couldn’t be detected. An enemy that defied common sense — that alone was enough to strike genuine shock into the knights.
That was when it happened. Above a pillar half-collapsed in the flames, the silhouette of a tall man appeared. His face could not be made out, and a uniform as dark as night wrapped him from head to toe. But the red pendant on his left shoulder gleamed unmistakably bright.
The Demon Legion’s 13th Legion Commander.
He bowed at the waist with elegant grace, like an actor acknowledging his audience. Then he let out a deliberately exaggerated laugh, his black cloak billowing behind him, and vanished into the smoke.
“There — over there!”
The belated cry went up, but it was already too late. Where he had stood, only a jet-black blaze remained, relentlessly licking at the temple walls.
By what could only be called a blessing from the gods, there were no fatalities. But the fact that the temple had burned completely to the ground was undeniable.
The blackened pillars exhaled smoke, and ash drifted through the air. The temple that had honored the Goddess of Dawn, Repinal, was no longer a sacred space. Cloth burned to tatters, books reduced to handfuls of ash. All that remained there was helplessness.
The priests clung to one another where they stood. Their faces were pale, and eyes that had not yet escaped the grip of fear darted this way and that. Some had dropped to their knees and were offering quiet prayers before the altar that was now nothing but cinders. Others stood with their heads bowed, unable to say a word.
Off to one side, the knights had gathered and were talking among themselves.
“Doesn’t something feel off. It was clearly a Demon Legion Commander — he bore the Commander’s mark. And yet… he had no subordinates. No ambush. No backup whatsoever.”
“You’re right. There was only one of him. Setting the fire, creating the chaos — all of it was precise, calculated solo action.”
The atmosphere weighed heavy. The knights pressed on, still trying to make sense of it all.
“A Legion Commander of any standing would normally bring at least a handful of elite troops. Even if they weren’t visible, they’d be concealed somewhere. But why would he….”
“Doesn’t it just mean he’s confident enough in his own strength? If he’s powerful enough to do the work of an entire legion on his own, he wouldn’t need soldiers.”
The knights questioned and answered one another, scrambling to gauge the Legion Commander’s sinister intentions.
“He could have killed us. But he didn’t. Why not?”
“Isn’t it obvious. He’s planting fear, eroding our mental strength — so that when the time comes, he can offer our souls to the Demon King. Weaken the mind enough, and the soul can be extracted.”
Hearing their comrade’s conjecture sent a chill crawling across their skin. It felt like being livestock raised for the slaughter.
Suppression without killing. Controlled destruction. A traceless calamity that might even now be watching them from somewhere in the shadows.
The knights looked around instinctively. A deep and pervasive fear held them all in its grip.
* * *
A team with no ___s, followed by… a Legion Commander with no legion. That’s me, alright.
Doing everything from start to finish entirely on my own was no small feat. It had been all the harder given that I’d sent an advance warning to put the priests on maximum alert. I’d also had a passing worry about being looked down on as a Legion Commander without any soldiers to his name.
But I did it! I completed the arson mission without a single innocent casualty.
<Quest Complete>
Infamy points +700p
How should I divide up these precious 700 points? I sank into a delightful dilemma.
First and foremost, 500p goes straight to Theo — that had already been decided. With that settled, what to do with the remaining 200p became clear fairly quickly.
I spent 100p to upgrade Flame to Level 2, and put the remaining 100p toward raising my Magic stat from 3 to 4. Perhaps because of the human blood mixed in, my magic had always been on the weaker side.
Even so, thanks to having diligently practiced and used both Flame and my magic all this time, just 100p was enough to raise each stat by one. If I’d tried to force the upgrade without any practice, not even a thousand points would have been enough, let alone a hundred. The fact that the points required for a level-up varied based on how much effort one put in was one of the charms of this game.
I held my breath and drew close to Theo’s side. His deeply sleeping face looked even younger than usual. I took a long moment to commit twelve-year-old Theo to memory, then opened the window and spent the points.
Three years passed in the span of a few minutes. The small body rapidly went through the changes of adolescence and grew into that of a teenager. His height increased, and the soft roundness of his face sharpened into clearer lines. And yet, his sleeping expression remained as gentle and innocent as ever.
I gave the slightly broader set of his shoulders a quiet pat. In a voice small enough not to wake him, I whispered:
“Hello, fifteen-year-old Theo. I’m counting on you from here on too.”
The boy who had turned fifteen offered no reply — only sleeping on with the soft, steady rhythm of his breath.
