Rehabilitation (2)

Frondier cleared his throat once before speaking again, not forgetting to smile.

“Did you sleep well, Elysia? You seemed to have caught a cold.”

“Are you a psychopath?!”

However, the response he received was merciless as usual. Elysia, face flushed red, fumed.

Frondier tilted his head.

“Are you alright? Your face is red. It seems you still have a fever.”

“You think this is because of a fever!!”

Whoosh!

Thump.

Elysia threw a pillow, hitting Frondier squarely in the face. It was a rather fluffy pillow, sticking to his face even after the impact.

Elysia shouted at Frondier, who had become a pillow-man.

“Hey! I caught a cold because of you in the first place! cough Who was it that made me get rained on! cough cough!”

Thud.

Frondier slowly received the pillow as it slid off his face.

Then he asked.

“...Me?”

“Then who else would it be!”

“Well, you ran away in the first place. I didn't kick you out of the house, you left on your own and ran around in the rain. That's what you call reaping what you sow.”

“Reaping what I sow? Reaping, cough, what I sowwww?!”

Elysia’s eyes glowed blue. Not figuratively, but literally. It was the manifestation of Mana.

However, no matter how angry she was, she couldn’t use magic. Just because Frondier accepted the pillow doesn't mean he’d accept magic too.

Instead, Elysia shouted with all her might.

“When a stranger opens the window and enters a person's sleeping quarters, who would just stay still?!”

“Stranger? We know each other's faces. Besides, I'm the one who saved you. You should be thanking me.”

“Tha, thanking you?”

Elysia asked back, dumbfounded.

Saved me? When? Did Frondier ever save me?

“I saved you when you were about to be killed by the devils. If you had stayed there, you would have been sucked dry of your blood and died.”

“That's right! But one of them suddenly died, and the other suddenly knelt before you! In that situation, how could I possibly think of you as an ally!”

At those words, Frondier brought his hand to his mouth, going "Hmm."

He thought she would have seen the devil Kagris die. But she even saw him subjugate Bart. Elysia had been there longer than Frondier had thought.

After a moment of thought, with his hand still at his mouth, Frondier spoke.

“...You saw?”

“Y, y, you! Get out! You're scary! You're really a psychopath, what the...”

“Just kidding. I have no intention of harming you anyway. If I did, I would have done it the night you fainted. Why would I bring you all the way to this inn and ask for someone to take care of you?”

At those words, Elysia rolled her eyes for a moment and pulled the blanket. Seeing that she seemed dissatisfied with what she was hugging, Frondier handed her the pillow he had received.

Elysia snatched the pillow and pulled it into her embrace.

“...So? What's your purpose?”

Finally ready to listen, Elysia waited. Frondier nodded and briefly explained the situation so far.

The three-way war between the devils of each faction. The threat approaching.

“...Devils? You're saying there's going to be a war?”

“That's right. In the human territory.”

Elysia's jaw dropped. It was a difficult story for her to accept. Except for the devil she had just met, Elysia had never seen a devil before.

But to hear that devils were actually hidden in the Empire in significant numbers, and that their war was imminent...

“Is that story for sure?”

“The devils from the west have already launched a group attack on this side once. Elodie and I stopped them. Even if Satan's devils are just a possibility, the western devils are a definite threat. A very close threat, too.”

That's why Frondier, after the western devils' attack, informed Elodie and Lily of the situation.

Of course, even if he hadn't said anything, they already knew that their second and third attacks were inevitable.

Hitchcock's chairman, Arald, was the same. He would be able to detect the devils' attacks much earlier than the previous incident.

“...I understand the story, but what do I have to do?”

Elysia spoke with a slightly anxious face. The scale of the situation was more serious than she had expected, making it difficult for her to guess why Frondier had sought her out.

She couldn't be a powerful force like other magicians. Her combat magic was far behind Aten's.

“Elysia, alchemy was your specialty, right? And the magic that applies it.”

“...Well, yes, but I don't think it can be used in war.”

Elysia started to get worried at Frondier's words. Did he have overly romanticized ideas about alchemy because he didn't know much about it? She was afraid he would ask her to turn wood into iron or something like that.

Alchemy in this era was one of the major branches of magic. It involved extracting and combining the magically effective 'parts' from materials obtained from animals, plants, metals, monsters, and so on.

Therefore, it was impossible to completely transform a material into a different material. This was a tiresome question for Elysia.

“What I'm interested in is the magic you used.”

But Frondier talked about something else.

“Magic?”

“Yes. 'Rafflesia'.”

Rafflesia. Elysia's expression darkened at the word.

It was the magic Elysia had installed in Constel to induce the monster attack. A giant rune that lured monsters.

Naturally, it was not a good memory for Elysia. It wouldn't be for anyone.

“Why that? I won't use it anymore, so you don't have to worry.”

Elysia's tone naturally became blunt. To which Frondier replied.

“That's a problem. I want you to use it.”

“...Rafflesia?”

“Yes. It's a rune that lures, right?”

At those words, Elysia blinked and then opened her mouth wide.

“...Y, y-you don't mean... the devils?”

“Correct.”

Frondier smiled.

Elysia, flustered, said,

“That kind of thing won't work on devils. It's magic for monsters!”

“Low-ranking devils are practically no different from monsters. A high-ranking devil told me that himself.”

“Th, that's just a saying, it doesn't mean they're the same, right?”

“Even so, it's worth a try. War is ultimately a brawl involving many people. In other words, if there aren't enough numbers, there can't be a war. No matter how powerful an individual is, if the number of enemies is small, the fight will end small and quietly.”

War, if described in a crude and simplistic manner, is simply a brawl. Not all wars have grand reasons behind them.

It's just a hundred or a thousand people gathering for a fight, perhaps with reasons as trivial as kids squabbling. Conversely, if there aren't enough numbers, regardless of reasons or justifications, that cannot be called a war.

“Satan has left capable high-ranking devils in this land. It's easy for them to hide among humans, and their power will overwhelm most humans.”

Frondier predicted that the devils Satan had planted in the Empire would be much stronger than the devils currently hiding within the Empire. They would probably be on par with Mizonas, who had fought against his brother Azier.

However, war is not waged by individuals.

“War is created by the masses. If you want to wreak havoc in the Empire, you have to unleash the dogs.”

Ultimately, the biggest weight in this war lies with the western devils. They have a justification, an opportunity, and the signal to start the war.

But if most of them, the low-ranking devils, could be lured to a completely different location...

“If the dogs start to disobey, I wonder which side will become the mess.”