CH 115

Chapter 115: The Only False

Generally, the people you can encounter in the Innocence Academy are limited.

First, there are the students who can be called the protagonists of the academy.

The Innocence Academy is the name of an educational institution before it is a city.

Then, naturally, there are the educators who teach the students, or more broadly, the staff of the academy.

This was the category of an educational institution. What about as a city?

To form a city, you need people from various fields like merchants who distribute goods, chefs who run restaurants, herbalists, etc. There are countless. But they are gathered here only because they are needed by the city, that is, they have demand just by their existence.

After that, there are the families of these people. The son of the herbalist Rumbo, whom I met a long time ago to deal with Lycanthrope more easily, Ram, is a typical example of this case.

No matter how closed the academy is, they did not interfere with the freedom to form a family.

Of course, as I experienced in the public class before, the families of the students are an exception. They can’t see each other for up to three years at most.

There were many students who left their families for the first time when they came to the academy.

Most of them were nobles.

Those who are not included in those mentioned above are visitors who can enter the academy after passing a rather strict examination.

Well, I go out of the academy almost every day, but this is the normal route.

Tourism is naturally prohibited. You had to have a plausible reason for visiting.

Now, then, what about the saintess, Bernice, who is in front of my eyes? She must be seen as a ‘visitor’.

Anyway, she is a saintess, and the weight of the word saintess is not light at all.

She can visit as much as she wants as long as there is a plausible reason but looking at her expression, it seemed certain that she was waiting for me.

I had to keep it secret from the academy side that I joined the saintess’s knight order since it was impossible to belong somewhere as a student.

There is a problem here. Did she use a normal route or a somewhat ‘abnormal’ route?

It wasn’t a big problem to think about, but Bernice and Ecline’s outfits were not so common.

“…Zetto.”

Bernice whispered my name softly and … she was wearing a uniform.

‘Where and when did she get the uniform …?’

There was no other way for someone who was not a student to get a uniform than an abnormal route.

As Yorfang did before, stealing a uniform. That’s what I thought.

But it was imaginable that Bernice, who was not just anyone else but the immaculate saintess, would steal something. No matter how I thought about it, that wasn’t it.

I couldn’t ask her about her outfit. This was … a question that wouldn’t be easy to solve.

“Saintess and even vice-captain … What are you doing here?”

They weren’t surprised that I recognized them as soon as they saw me, or rather their aura.

Following my question, Bernice turned her head and looked at Ecline.

“Ecline, I want to talk to Zetto alone for a while. Is that okay?”

Soon after, Ecline nodded slightly and leaned against a nearby tree wearing a uniform.

It was my first time seeing Ecline wearing a skirt. She wore it quite naturally.

“Zetto, for a moment …”

Soon after she approached me and opened her mouth, Bernice trailed off and stopped walking.

When I nodded slightly, she closed her eyes and opened them again with a smile on her lips.

“… Shall we walk together for a while?”

“… Okay.”

I nodded and followed Bernice quietly.

Even though I knew through my Ki Sense that she was there beforehand, I was still in a daze.

“I’m sorry for showing up without any contact. Were you surprised?”

“Um … When I found out through your aura that you were here I was a little surprised.”

“I came here without any order because of the induction ceremony.”

“Oh …”

I had expected it to some extent.

I wondered if it was enough to move her feet personally, but judging by her slightly trembling voice, she seemed to be somewhat anxious in her own way.

She showed herself as a hammer without an inch of mercy for demons, but she also had a soft side that suited ‘normal’ saintesses.

She loves people. A selfless love. This was quite surprising considering her ability.

Distinguishing between truth and falsehood means that you can unintentionally see the bad parts of people.

For a woman who loved people like that, it seemed to bother her a lot that she couldn’t properly hold an induction ceremony for her subordinates.

“I’m fine as I told the vice-captain. Anyway, the induction ceremony was almost over.”

I tried to smile brightly and ease her worries but it didn’t seem to work, as Bernice lowered her head.

Judging by the atmosphere, it seemed a bit difficult to reveal Sierra’s existence.

****

“I’m fine as I told the vice-captain. Anyway, the induction ceremony was almost over.”

Zetto’s voice reached my ears and I glanced at him slightly but it was hard to look at his face properly.

‘If only it was a lie, my heart wouldn’t be so heavy …’

He, who was thrown out of the induction ceremony without knowing why, was telling me the truth with a bright smile.

People tell big and small lies as they live. Sometimes they lie for the sake of others but I hoped that his words that he was okay before I met him were like that.

However, that’s all useless now.

“… I’m sorry.”

I gave a short apology compared to the burden in my heart.

I didn’t ask for forgiveness. This was a one-sided apology.

I couldn’t lift my head since he would find out if I looked at him.

Did he know the end of this fate?

The probability was high. It was a fate he obtained by sacrificing himself.

Zetto suddenly stopped walking and then his mouth opened as his pleasant voice tickled my ears.

“Saintess, I swore to become the sword of the Immaculate Saintess Bernice. From that moment on, I was your sword. Hesitation and worry are unnecessary emotions when wielding a sword. So don’t worry and just swing it. I’m a much stronger sword than you think.”

It was a word that showed his loyalty as a knight, but when I heard it from Zetto, it felt very … sweet.

And without missing a single one, they were all true, which made my ears hot.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t spit out a simple answer like ‘Yes, I will do that.’.

I couldn’t think that I could swing it without worry when I saw his life force that had become a mess.

I hesitated even to heal him with divine power because I didn’t know how much his energy could be touched.

“…”

So I chose to smile brightly quietly.

Even though it was useless to him who had gone blind, I tried to smile as brightly as possible.

This was the only ‘lie’ I could utter right now.

****

Bernice smiled brightly at my words. It was a really beautiful…Bernice-like smile.

I didn’t hear the answer, but I think I was able to relieve her worries.

Soon we started walking through the forest again.

The cool morning air filled my lungs and made me feel clear and refreshed.

The moistness of the dew on the grass was so thick that I could feel it without touching my skin.

As we walked, Bernice spoke to me.

“…But what were you doing Zetto? The blood of the demons is thick … Are you on your way back from dealing with the demons? I didn’t mean you to overdo it when you joined the Knights.”

Bernice’s voice, which was somehow cold as if scolding me.

‘I didn’t change clothes …’

I didn’t have to bother to change clothes since I got Sheddie.

The saintess, Bernice, who was a subject of fear for the demons, would not miss the blood of the demons.

“…I didn’t overdo it. I just did what I had to do.”

As I said that and scratched my head, Bernice glared at me and closed her eyes.

“Are you doing this…because of the demons you’re chasing?”

“…”

I nodded quietly at her question.

The demons I was chasing, that is, the demons that were after Aizel, were not the ones I faced that day.

Maybe she thinks that I have a deep grudge against the demons.

‘Who in the Knights doesn’t have a grudge against the demons…?’

It wasn’t wrong to say that I had a grudge. They were the culprits who made me retry the game thousands of times, and they were the worst of the worst.

Soon Bernice grabbed my hand. She looked grim as she turned her head to look at me.

“It would be nice to take revenge on your own…but the opponents are demons so it’s not a personal problem. Now that you’ve finished your induction, it would be good to share some information. I was going to ask you after the induction ceremony…but now I’m bringing it up.”

Bernice’s eyes were burning as she tried to persuade me. She was very enthusiastic.

She wasn’t wrong either. If I can handle it, I have to do it quickly so that there are fewer victims because of them.

There were just big and small problems, such as timing issues or being an information that was hard to share.

‘Originally, there was no case where the saintess dealt with the demons herself …’

There was no such dialogue option at all.

It was impossible because it was a game, but if the saintess dealt with one of them with her power, things would be much easier.

Bernice was ultimately a saintess so she could be seen as a specialist for demons.

She had infinite divine power and saintess Bernice was more proficient in combat than healing.

The captain and vice-captain followed her around, but in fact Bernice didn’t need an escort. She was stronger than Ines.

Rather than a simple healer, she was an all-rounder character who could heal and had strong power of her own.

Well, she was a saint, and it was impossible to make her a companion in many ways.

I pretended to be thinking about what to say and rubbed my chin, wondering who’s information to pass on.

‘The ‘captain’ in the land of demons won’t do …’

Among those active in human land, even among those who had been infiltrating for a long time enough to say that I had been investigating information before, there were annoying guys who had to deal with alone.

The final phase, that is, ‘that day’, I could only touch him then.

It would be good to choose him who could be sent away together while dealing with the successor problem of the Terracia Kingdom in Yuri Clementine’s episode, but exile was the best. Execution was difficult.

He hid his appearance like that and reluctantly revealed himself on ‘that day’.

I don’t know if I’ll deal with him with the saintess or if she’ll deal with him alone, but this isn’t a time to worry about wasting experience points.

With my growth rate, there were plenty of ways to get experience points even without him.

I finished calculating which guy’s information to release and started explaining.

“This is about a guy I’ve been chasing by myself for a long time… but I think I might need your power to deal with him for sure. Please lend me your strength.”

“I’ll gladly accept.”

She answered before I finished speaking and listened attentively to my explanation that followed.

She must have felt that what I said about chasing him by myself for a long time was not a lie. It was true because I had been playing the game for a long time.

This would sound completely different to Bernice.

Bernice was fully focused on me so I asked her a question.

“Saintess, how much do you know about the Golden Lion Knights?”

****

“You’re here, saintess. Did the talk well …?”

Ecline, who was leaning against a tree, hesitated to finish her sentence.

Oh, I didn’t relax my expression.

I must have the serious face I often showed when facing the demons.

“…The talk didn’t go well?”

“That’s not it. The talk went well and I didn’t forget to deliver the crystal ball …”

I asked him why he was doing so hard while talking to Zetto.

He was losing his strength even without any movement, so I couldn’t leave him to overdo it because of the demons.

I wanted to lighten his burden as it was my mission to deal with the demons in the first place.

‘I did as much research as I could, but I didn’t organize the data separately, so it’s all information in my head, please understand that. You can check the details yourself.’

Zetto said that and scratched his bandage.

He didn’t need letters or pictures or anything like that.

At least his words were not lies.

As I listened to his explanation, I realized that the demon he was chasing was closer to me than I thought.

The person suspected of being a demon was someone I knew. That’s why when I compared it with his information I had, there were some parts that fit.

He didn’t show up at the regular report meeting of the coalition forces. I also felt like he was avoiding me for some reason so his suspicious behavior made sense if he was a demon.

“…Ecline tell me everything you know about the vice-captain of the Golden Lion Knights, ‘Delion’. According to Zetto’s information, he is a person suspected of being a demon. If that’s true, we need an urgent investigation.”

“Delion …?! The vice-captain of the demon-hunting knights is a demon … Does that make sense?”

“…”

I looked at Ecline, who was puzzled and soon he realized.

As Ecline thought …

… Zetto’s words were all true without missing a single one. Unless the testimony was false, an investigation was needed for this.

“He said it would be very difficult to catch him because he was very meticulous. Because of his status, we need to conduct an investigation secretly. Let’s avoid unnecessary conflicts.”

Delion. If he really is a demon, I will bring down the hammer of God with my own hands.

If I can relieve Zetto’s fate a little bit by doing this…

I would gladly do it.