Paerm, a city in the south of the Laican Domain. Sitting at the tail end of the Golden Range, most of the city is folded into the natural terrain, and flat ground is hard to find.
In the city's northwest stands a temple of the Church of Radiant Light, and a great many paladins had gathered there. Most wore white paladin uniforms, but here and there were people in black, like Moor and Ran.
"That's an awful lot of them."
Moor looked around the interior the moment they arrived and let out an impressed breath.
Here and there, people who recognized him offered greetings.
Ran and Moor found a suitably empty spot and settled in.
The great hall had clearly been cleared in anticipation of a crowd, and with nothing in it, people stood in loose clusters or sat on the floor.
"Right! It appears everyone is here, so we'll begin."
A stately woman walked up onto the platform at one end of the hall. Her vestments marked her as a cleric of considerable rank. Beside her stood someone in a white paladin's dress uniform.
"Greetings, paladins. I am Stea, head of this temple here in Paerm. And this is Knight-Captain Rom."
The two introduced themselves briefly. Then they went straight to the matter at hand.
"Two weeks ago, in the northwest near Lake Superia, extreme heat and a poisonous air — presumed to be sulfurous — spread outward. As a result the whole area was laid waste, and every living thing nearby that was exposed to it died."
The temple head spoke while pointing at the large map unfurled behind her.
"The Imperial Army, on learning of it, arrived at the site immediately and raised a ward around the area so the sulfur could spread no further."
At a signal from the temple head, the hanging map changed into a series of photographs. They showed the affected region, and the animals, plants, and people that had suffered.
The images were harrowing, and the traces in them followed no comprehensible pattern; the hall began to grow loud.
"The day after the incident, the ward the Imperial Army had raised was broken and the affected area expanded further.
"At the same time, every person in two small villages south of Lake Superia was killed by an unknown entity."
The temple head pointed at one photograph as she spoke. In it, the people who had died — horribly — were plainly visible.
"At that point the Imperial Army requested the Church of Radiant Light's aid for the first time. Paladins and faithful were committed to halting and purifying the poison spreading into the northwest. Meanwhile, most of the region's imperial troops pursued the entity that had killed the villagers."
"Was it not an attack by monsters?"
Someone in black — a paladin of the Order, by the look of it — raised a hand and asked. The question quieted the hall, which had grown somewhat noisy.
"We thought so at first as well. So the Imperial Army commissioned professional adventurers, and the conclusion was that it could not possibly be monsters."
"Why is that?"
Rom stepped forward to answer the paladin's question. At the same time he waved a hand and changed the display. The map returned.
"The reason lies in an incident that occurred one week ago."
Rom pointed at Lake Superia, marked on the map.
"Lake Superia here is one of the few lakes with a Tree of Life. It is a Great Wild. And a body believed to be its keeper was found."
At Rom's last words, the crowd stirred hard.
Keeper.
An ascetic who tends a Great Wild.
A being who receives the vital essence of a Great Wild and can wield its power.
Mana is normally difficult to use in a Great Wild, but a keeper can use mana with ease within the place they tend. The drawback is that once away from it, they lose that power.
Within it, however, they are near enough to invincible, and fighting a keeper inside a Great Wild is generally considered suicide.
And a keeper like that had been killed within their own domain. A mere monster would have been put down easily. There was no possibility this was a monster's doing.
The hall stirred all over again in an instant.
"After that these unknown entities began appearing in several places at once. On top of that, the ward our Church raised against the sulfur was broken once more, and the damage expanded. The ward has since been re-established."
"What is the total number of dead?"
Another paladin raised a hand to ask. Every eye turned back to the platform.
"Over these past two weeks, the confirmed dead number more than one hundred. Of those, roughly thirty were personnel committed by our Church of Radiant Light."
A great many people dead.
And with not even the cause established, the Order had summoned one team of specialists from each of its available fields to investigate and resolve it. Ran and Moor had been called up for exactly that reason.
"Right! That's all for today. The findings compiled so far will be distributed to all of you. Concrete operations will begin tomorrow morning."
A long round of further questions followed, and after Rom's closing words everyone dispersed to their lodgings under the clerics' guidance.
Moor took the documents he had been handed and walked with Ran to their room.
The temple was large enough to house every one of the many paladins present.
"Why so grim?"
Moor, looking through the papers he'd been given, glanced over at Ran as he spoke.
"It's nothing..."
"What? Because this isn't Sage work?"
Moor asked it with a faint smile.
The two of them passed down the temple corridor, reached their assigned room, and opened the door.
"That too, but it just struck me that there are a whole lot of things threatening the world besides Sages... And I feel bad for the people who got caught up in it and died out of nowhere."
Moor's eyes went wide at the answer, and he turned to look at him. He had thought Ran cared about nothing but Sage work. And that he would stay that way, unchanging and closed off.
'Right. He's fifteen.'
Moor felt it then: before Ran was the wielder of the silver energy, the same power as the hero Marcel, before he was a man who had lost everything to a Sage — he was a fifteen-year-old boy.
He was changing. He was growing.
***
The next morning.
Guided by the paladins who had come ahead as an advance party, Ran and Moor went to the area near the lake in question.
The original reason for founding the paladins was the protection of the clergy. Their first purpose, in other words, was to guard clerics. But that same purpose made it difficult to respond actively to a range of threats.
The Counter-Demon Order was created to overcome exactly that.
"The smell is foul."
Ran covered his nose, his face screwed up.
"Smell? You mean you're picking up a Sage's scent?"
Moor looked at him, slightly startled.
"Ah, no. Not that smell. I mean it actually stinks."
Ran caught the misunderstanding and corrected it fast. Moor focused on the air at his words, but couldn't detect any smell at all.
"This is as far as we go. Any further and the miasma and poison make approach impossible."
On a slight rise with a full view of the lake, the party of about twenty stopped advancing.
"Vicious."
Moor's face twisted the moment he looked down at the lakeshore. He crouched where he stood to study the situation more closely, scanning back and forth.
The place was already laid waste to the point where life was hard to find at all, and to anyone's eye it looked wrapped in poison.
"No question about it."
"Agreed."
Las and Leo, standing behind Ran and Moor, spoke as they took in the sight.
"Meaning what?"
Moor turned around at their words and asked.
"This vicious miasma. From where we stand, nothing short of mid-tier devil-kin or above explains it."
Las drew a portable telescope from his coat. He set it to his eyes and swept the surroundings.
"That lake is a Great Wild. Its self-purifying action is certainly still alive. And yet this miasma and poison persist — which means something must be contaminating it continuously."
"You think it's devil-kin?"
"Yes. The more I look, the more certain I am. Find that thing and this is solved."
Las spoke with conviction, telescope still up. Leo, beside him, indicated her agreement without a word.
"I see..."
"Is something wrong, Moor?"
When Moor took their opinion without enthusiasm, Las lowered the telescope and looked at him.
"Something about it doesn't sit right. Well, no matter — we'll know once we investigate further. Let's not fix too hard on the surface phenomenon."
"Sir?"
Moor brushed off his trousers and stood.
Fwoosh~ POP!
Just then a red flare went up to the party's right.
Las felt a question at Moor's words, but soon let it go.
"That's a distress flare. Let's hurry."
One paladin all but shouted it at the group. And with that, no one waiting on anyone else, they moved.
Near a Great Wild — and with no keeper besides. Teleporting or flying was effectively impossible.
"This is frustrating."
While the whole group raced through the forest at a steady pace,
Ran released his silver energy in a burst. And immediately pulled out ahead, leaving everyone behind.
"Whew~ that's incredible."
Las, running alongside, let out an exclamation at the sight of Ran tearing off.
"Oh, come on!"
Watching Ran sprint away alone left Moor uneasy, and it showed on his face.
But there was no way for Moor to match that speed.
CRASH—!
"Aagh!"
Just as the group was nearly at the flare's origin, Ran came flying back out of the forest ahead, howling, as if he'd been swatted.
"Ran!"
Moor ran toward Ran as he rolled across the ground, while the rest of the party readied themselves for a fight.
"Tch. I'm the idiot for getting my hopes up."
Ran, who had come flying in hard enough to look genuinely dangerous, got up perfectly fine, as though nothing had happened.
"Let me heal you."
Moor checked Ran over. Then he cast the Benediction Arts over his whole body. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries visible.
"Judging by that disappointed face — not a Sage, then."
"Right. Got my hopes up for nothing."
Moor snorted at Ran's answer. Nothing about the situation had changed. But with it now all but certain this wasn't Sage business, some of the strength went out of Moor too.
"Anyway, Moor, warn those guys. If they come at this half-cocked, a lot of them are going to die."
"What?"
The words had barely left Ran when something enormous and bipedal shattered the trees of the forest and showed itself.