Hold on, if I want to lure the demon bastards in, shouldn't I be the one washing my neck?
Anyway.
I was busy celebrating the double event of divine power and holy power both going up when I heard the sound of frantic running outside.
“Lian!”
“My son!”
My parents came through the door hard enough to break it and swept me up before they even checked the carnage in the room.
The time Aileen had actually spent breaking in and doing her business was very short. Which stands to reason, it being a surprise attack.
They had grasped that something was wrong in that tiny window and come charging into my room.
I was abruptly wedged between the two of them, but I didn't feel uncomfortable about it.
Is this what being loved by family feels like?
It's still unfamiliar and I haven't adjusted... but I think it feels good.
Once I complete the mission Elysian and the Sacred Flame laid out, and once Elly settles fully into this place. Then I could blend perfectly into this world and live alongside my family, couldn't I?
Maybe I get to have one of those happy families after all.
'Elly! Let's beat the daylights out of some demons!'
-Mm-hm, sure.
Just as Elly and I finished our vow, Mother's hands finished turning my body around in circles.
“Whew. Thankfully, he doesn't seem to be hurt anywhere.”
“More to the point, the state of this room...?”
Having confirmed I was in perfect health, the next thing the two of them did was inspect the room.
More precisely, they examined the demon that had been walloped (?) by the Demonbane Bottle, dispatched, and melted down.
To the naked eye it only looks like a black tar-like substance stuck to the floor.
Impressive that they recognized it as a demon straight away.
“Surely our Lian didn't do this? How on earth?”
Father was astounded.
“That's my son! He's clearly been born with the makings of an Inquisitor!”
And Mother was certain.
“Bweh?”
'Huh, an Inquisitor?'
No, I absolutely could not do that job.
Why in the world is the subject of Inquisitors coming up?
“This is unmistakably the Flame of Condemnation, which every Inquisitor can invoke.”
“However much of a genius our Lian is, wouldn't the Flame of Condemnation still be beyond him? To my eye it looks like the Light of Purification.”
“Oh, please. It's absolutely the Flame of Condemnation. The evil was annihilated completely and melted, wasn't it?”
Both their gazes turned to the thing that had been a demon, still giving off its filthy energy.
'Ummm... it's neither, actually.'
-Right? Neither! They've got it completely wrong.
The power I used was, strictly speaking, a vessel made out of holy power, with demon-breaking force poured into that vessel by Elly's divine power.
A force that shatters evil had torn a demon made of vile evil to pieces, and then gone past that and melted it.
And since it wasn't only holy power but Elly's divine power mixed in, it goes without saying that the destructive force was amplified.
All I did was squeeze out holy power as hard as I could and write letters on a bottle.
'Hang on. Haven't the letters gotten a bit fainter?'
I traced the letters on the bottle in my hand with a finger. They've definitely gone thinner, I can feel it.
-The amount of divine power in it has gone down a bit.
'Huh. This thing is consumable?'
-Talismans burned up once you'd used them too, didn't they.
'Nooooo, you cannot be serious.'
-Well, if the amount of divine power goes up, couldn't you use it for much longer? And write several sets of letters.
'To think my Demonbane Bottle was a consumable.'
I'm in shock.
Above me, frozen in shock, my parents were still going back and forth.
There's no way that I — so feeble that killing one measly low-grade demon faded the letters — could be using advanced techniques like the Flame of Condemnation or the Light of Purification.
“Heh heh... Whatever it was, our Lian being extraordinary is the one certain thing.”
“Being able to annihilate evil like this means he's handling holy power to some degree. And before he's even been baptized.”
“He mastered using holy power before he mastered crawling. Who does he take after, to be this brilliant?”
“We must have received a blessing greater than we can begin to guess at.”
Joy, contentment, pride and the rest were plainly written across both their faces.
'Ahem. Should I just leave it like this?'
I'm not actually a genius. But surely a misunderstanding this size is fine?
'This is the flavor of reincarnation!'
I decided to simply enjoy this misunderstanding-genre reincarnation buff.
***
Time passed, and it had already been two months since Aileen jumped me.
In that time I mastered rolling over and succeeded at crawling!
Once you manage it the first time, it gets easy.
Everyone around me was in an uproar about how I was barely six months old, developing beautifully, and already starting to crawl.
Obviously. It's my second run at life, everything should be faster. I spent twenty-seven years in a country where speed is a virtue.
That aside. Lately the way the household servants look at me has changed. Sparkling, you might say.
Between the earlier incident at the Naming Rite and then exorcising Aileen with the Demonbane Bottle.
It's because word had quietly spread to every servant in the house.
So, roughly speaking: I'm treated as the genius of the age who made the Sacred Flame react and struck down a demon!
“Our young master isn't merely holy in his countenance, he's a holy being in his very existence! I'm so happy to be your nurse!”
She doted on me plenty before, but after watching that whole series of events she just seems to revere me now.
Eyes glittering with a fervor that clashed with the dark, exhaustion-stained circles beneath them.
'Now that's the look of a good follower.'
I should keep coaxing her along and make her one of mine.
Setting aside Sonya's happiness, the reason her dark circles had deepened was Aileen.
After the incident, Father removed from the house everyone with even the slightest questionable element.
However much the demons had pulled their cheap tricks, an intrusion into a Cardinal's house was evidently shocking enough that security was tightened on a massive scale.
Elly, flying around out of boredom the other day, said she'd seen heavily armed paladins patrolling.
At any rate, this enormous mansion had a great many permanently employed servants.
Excluding the paladins brought in to reinforce security, the number of original servants had been cut nearly in half.
Which naturally meant the workload of those who remained had piled up.
'Those demon bastards are seriously useless.'
I crawled over and patted my nurse's leg to comfort her.
“Brbrbwah!”
'I'll kill them all for you soon!'
“Oh my... Young master!!”
Sonya covered her mouth with both hands, overcome.
'But... I really can't find any demons.'
-True.
After the Naming Rite and then Aileen's attack on top of it, I'd thought I could clear the Sacred Flame's demands in no time.
What I'd overlooked was that both of my parents in this life were far too competent.
Not so much as a demon's nose hair was to be found any longer, and the demon worshippers who'd been visiting (?) to see me had vanished too.
Thanks to which I have spent these two months genuinely doing nothing but crawling practice. Oh, plus bottle throwing.
I've gotten a bit stronger too, strong enough now to smash a demon's skull properly!
'And there are no demons.'
Isn't a stray demon going to drop out of somewhere?
This worry, however, was resolved before long.
.
.
.
“Bwah!”
'So this is a medieval fantasy carriage!'
“Bwakyaa!”
'So this is medieval fantasy scenery!'
The vivid medieval world unfolding outside the window had me utterly enthralled.
“Lian seems excited.”
“It's his first outing in his life.”
I am currently inside a carriage. Where am I going, you ask? Astonishingly, to see a demon!
Back when guests were flooding the house. Among the information Elly brought me was a story about demons being caught at the Mist Plains.
At the time my entire response was, huh, okay, but what's the Mist Plains?
Because a newborn baby can't go see demons on his own. Back then I couldn't even crawl.
'And now here I am on my way to see them!'
I have no idea how this came about, but my parents made a plan to take me to see demons.
Held in Mother's arms, from climbing into the carriage to passing outside the house. I could not stop marveling.
Why, you ask? Because the garden was so goddaaaaamn huge.
What I had seen up to now didn't even qualify as a garden.
We rode for a looong while before the main gate appeared, and past it a short, tranquil forest path.
And then the cityscape came into view, and it was another world itself, entirely!
'Elly, Elly! The world is white!'
-Woooow...
Even Elly went round-eyed and swiveled her head about at the surroundings.
The pure white, sharply pointed buildings stirred a reverence in me all on their own.
'A Holy Empire, they said. Ohhh, the name checks out.'
Once we left the city center and passed through the city gate, my excitement grew fiercer still.
It was uninhabited outskirts, so the road was rough, and yet the carriage didn't shake in the slightest!
'Why does this carriage ride so well!'
I rode in plenty of luxury sedans in my last life, and not one of them rode better than this carriage, hands down.
What kind of magic did they use? Magic? Wait, is it actually magic?
'This has definitely had some magical treatment done to it, right? There's no other way the ride is this smooth!'
-I can feel a force under the carriage that's a different type from holy power.
'Ohhhhh.'
Elly was unimpressed, but my eyes were shining.
'Magic! It's magic!'
“Abup! Kyaaa!”
“Oh my. If I'd known Lian would enjoy it this much, we should have taken him out more.”
Good. I'm going to hunt demons hard and learn every last bit of holy magic!
My fussing over the scenery lasted only so long. Before much time had passed, my feeble infant body dropped off to sleep.
I woke and slept a few times over. At some point the carriage had stopped.
“Cardinal Leilaik, Sister Lilliad. Thank you for enduring such a long road.”
“Ha ha, what enduring? We announced ourselves on short notice; it must have flustered you.”
“Hardly. I'm glad to see you after so long.”
A warm exchange of greetings followed with a plain-faced priest in white, holy vestments.
“I hear that besides the demons taken in the Mist Plains sweep, there are some caught recently while pursuing the Inferlim.”
“Yes, that's right. Not only lower demons — we took a higher demon this time as well.”
A higher demon? My ears pricked right up.
'A higher demon would be worth more points, wouldn't it?'
-Wouldn't it?
I'd love it if I could catch that higher demon too.
My eyes shone bright.
'Hm?'
I raised my head without thinking and met the eyes of Father, who had been looking down at me.
Weren't you in the middle of talking to the priest?
I lowered my head slowly, and this time my eyes met the priest's, watching me with an expression much like Father's.
'...?'
What's going on?
“There is something I must confirm. Lilliad and I, together with our son Lian, would like to see a lower demon.”
“Your Eminence's son as well?”
“That's right.”
“Ah, I see. Then I'll have it prepared so you may confirm it as soon as you've rested off the journey.”
Something was strange, but the conversation between Father and the priest ended simply.
And so we spent nearly a full day working the long-haul travel out of our bodies, and the next day.
We headed for the basement where the demons were said to be confined.
'Ooh... the passage down to the basement is pure white too.'
-Lian. This isn't just white, it's glowing? And I can faintly feel holy power.
It was true.
The place where the demons were caged was coated on all sides with holy power, as though to wall them in.
When we reached the bottom, black demons were visible beyond the bars, groggy and crushed under the holy power.
'These things are demons...?'
The way they flopped about, they were like stalks of seaweed.
Nothing at all like Aileen and all her swagger.
The moment he stepped inside the bars, Father carefully sat me down directly facing the demons.
'Huh? Why here?'
-He said there was something to confirm, so isn't he trying to see your power, Lian?
Ha! Is that it?
I turned my body slightly and saw three pairs of eyes brimming with expectation.
Ohoo... In that case, showing them is only human nature!
'But this won't run short on power, will it?'
I did briefly worry that the divine power held in a single set of letters might not be enough.
-It looks even shabbier than Aileen.
That's fair.
Then let's throw the bottle with an easy mind.
Grinning, I threw the bottle at the demon right in front of me.
Whoosh—
The bottle flies.
TONK!
“Kyeeeek!!”
Direct hit to the demon's skull!
And then it bounces back into my hand.
Again. Whoosh— TONK!
“Kyeeeeek!!”
Ohhh, a hit indeed!
The bottle slid back as though drawn in and landed in my palm with a SMACK.
“Well now...”
“How — how is this possible...”
“Ohohoho.”
Father marveled, the plain-faced priest could not believe it, and Mother was as proud as ever.
Heh heh heh heh.
This is the fruit of my relentless bottle-throwing practice!!
...is what I'd like to say, but there's actually a trick to it.
-Looks like you're handling holy power pretty freely now?
'The practice paid off.'
Besides the power inside it being consumable, the Demonbane Bottle I made had one very large drawback.
Namely, if I drop it, it can't be picked up. By whom? By me!
These days I can at least crawl, but back then I was a complete newborn.
Where in the world is there a single-use weapon? So I thought about it some more.
When I first made the Demonbane Bottle, I unconsciously gathered holy power at my fingertip and made it sharp and firm.
Without realizing it, I had changed the property of the holy power.
I managed it without even knowing. So now, of course, there's no way I can't.
What I wanted was a Demonbane Bottle that could come back like a boomerang.
So couldn't I draw holy power out like 'thread' and make it sticky, like a 'spiderweb'?
And the result of that is what you see now.
“Kyaaagh!”
“Kueek!”
Heh heh heh heh. Maybe I'm a little bit like Spider-X-Man?
The way they don't resist even once — these are an all-you-can-eat place that just gives it away. A real find.
My belly's good and full, isn't it?
'Buuu—rp.'
Thank you for the meal.
.
.
.
The plain-faced priest.
He left the basement and moved to another room together with Leilaik and Lilliad.
When the priest raised a hand and drew it down over his face, the features of that flat face came alive.
The ordinary brown of his eyes had become, at some point, an olive green that seemed to hold a whole forest's worth of leaves.
Now a handsome young man with deep black hair, he looked at Leilaik with a level gaze and opened his mouth.
“I believe Lord Lian is most certainly the prophet.”