As soon as Ompupus ended, the papal court personnel of Febrya stationed in Andis withdrew like a receding tide.

Kudkan twisted his lips and smiled silently.

Finally they’re leaving……!

It felt like having a painful tooth pulled, but that was only temporary.

What remained on Andis’s land after the crazy fanatics and hellish endemic disease swept through were generally dismal things.

For instance, from patients overflowing to a sickening degree to corpse graves rotting after being eaten by wild beasts, grotesquely huge Anaxionia statues, various wells undergoing purification work.

And…….

“Elder. Please lift your left leg. Left, left.”

Even the court pharmacist Jane with her unpromising attitude.

Kudkan wanted to say something to Jane, who was tapping his left knee with the hand holding a notebook.

But since it was quite awkward for him to deal with her for various reasons, he silently lifted his left leg.

“Your left leg goes up well too. Unfortunately.”

“……”

“From now on, you just need to take your medicine well. Treatment ends today. We won’t have to face each other anymore, so that’s one good thing. You can leave now.”

“……”

“What are you doing? Not leaving.”

“……Pharmacist.”

Why are you so unpromising?

That was the question stuck in Kudkan’s throat, but he couldn’t bring it out of his mouth.

Kudkan carefully asked Jane, who was looking at him with disagreeable eyes.

“……Were you left behind again this time?”

Left behind.

Jane, who had been smiling indifferently at Kudkan’s words, recalled what Mallen had left behind.

— Wouldn’t it be fitting for the excellent chief pharmacist to return on the ship that brought the medicine? Unfortunately, there’s no place for you on my ship either.

It was a barbed remark openly stating he would leave her behind.

But there was no problem.

As Mallen said, she could return on the ship that had brought the Malimahoni.

So the papal court’s ship departed, and Jane was left behind once again.

She was rather satisfied with this situation.

Good. Let’s finish this perfectly from beginning to end. So that no one from the papal court can stick even a spoon into this matter.

That was why Jane chose to stay in Andis a little longer, even though she could have immediately returned on the ship that had brought the medicine.

She shrugged her shoulders and answered.

“Well, something like that.”

Kudkan nodded and stood up leaning on his cane.

“……Then, thank you for your hard work.”

“Yes, yes. I’ll handle it myself. Hard work or whatever.”

“……”

“Go.”

Kudkan grabbed the door handle and thought regretfully.

I should have slapped her cheek then. That was the opportunity!

“Oh! But.”

It was when his wrinkled hand was about to grip the door handle tightly and pull.

Jane asked.

“Do you really think it was the pirates’ doing?”

On the day the ship full of Malimahoni medicine entered Andis, Jane had revealed the cause of Ompupus in front of the Andis people.

Even about the wells.

Just as she was about to speak about how the poison had spread, Cardinal Mallen Rendman of Febrya stepped forward and cut off her words.

— It’s definitely the work of pirates.

Pirates!

The Andis people, who had shown hostility toward Mallen until just before, stirred greatly.

Andis had been an island nation frequently invaded by pirates since ancient times.

The pirates who had invaded six months ago, in particular, had left Andis in ruins.

Mallen said they had probably put poison in the wells to make their next invasion easier to plunder, or to make Andis island a base for plundering.

Since that timing matched so exquisitely with when Ompupus had broken out, the Andis people present were all agitated without exception.

— Do you really think it was the pirates’ doing?

Kudkan, who had been mulling over Jane’s question, drooped his shoulders.

“……I think so.”

But his grip on the door handle was tight with strength. Kudkan glanced back at Jane in the treatment room.

“However, those pirate bastards might have had someone behind them.”

Click.

Silence followed the sound of the door closing.

The ash-gray eyes left alone gazed at the quiet scenery outside the window.

Pirates.

That was a move Jane couldn’t gauge at all.

That day, she had only intended to explain vaguely that ‘there seemed to be vermin that spread poison in the wells.’

It was dangerous to reveal the papal court’s scheme in detail when she only had circumstantial evidence.

But pirates.

Pirates were the main enemy Febrya had been wary of for a long time. They were also the justification for sending holy knight military units to vassal states near the sea under the name of protection.

Such pirate movements had covered up Febrya’s scheme…….

She could no longer gauge from where the papal court’s plan had been proceeding. No, it was something that shouldn’t be gauged.

Jane carved a modest goal deep in her heart that day. When she returned to Febrya, she would neither encounter nor get entangled with the papal court, let alone Pope Madrian de Kan.

Absolutely not.

***

In Lu’s residence lived a lower demon called Ratol and ghosts called Dekoto who served him as master.

Lu, who had returned from Andis, slightly narrowed his brow at the Dekotos’ behavior of hiding without casting even a shadow.

There were exactly two cases when Dekotos hid.

When humans were present, or when Ratol showed signs of nagging tremendously.

And now…….

“I heard you went to Andis.”

Unfortunately, it was the latter.

Ratol lifted his rimless glasses up and looked at Lu with an ominous gaze.

Lu smiled instead of answering while taking off his outer garment.

Ratol, who naturally received the outer garment, followed Lu heading to the bathroom and continued with words he hadn’t been asked.

“I went to deliver magic stones to Dhoamang Magic Tower and heard from Hoelriban. That guy said he was disappointed because your face didn’t look like you were going to kill.”

Lu filled the bathtub with water while taking off the rest of his clothes with light movements.

“You’re fortunate, Ratol.”

He continued in a leisurely tone.

“To be able to easily appreciate something so beautiful.”

Ratol sincerely wanted not to know what ‘something so beautiful’ meant. But unfortunately, he knew all too well.

Ratol spoke in a contemptuous voice.

“……Don’t talk crazy.”

Lu, who had become n*ked, laughed lightly and entered the bathtub. Soon he closed his blue eyes and leaned his head back.

Dark emotions like twilight rippled across his emotionless face.

Like the water filling the bathtub.

Seeing that sight, Ratol pressed his lips together.

While Lu had been away from home, he had mountains of things to say, but judging by the atmosphere, now didn’t seem like the appropriate timing.

Ratol let out a faint sigh, audible or not.

Why did you go to Andis…….

“Don’t sigh too much, Ratol.”

Lu continued.

“I did cause a bit of trouble, but I erased the Andis people’s memories before coming back, so it’s as if nothing happened.”

“Caused trouble……”

You did cause trouble.

It was when Ratol swallowed the words tickling his throat and was about to turn around after gathering Lu’s wet clothes scattered on the floor.

Thud.

Something fell from inside Lu’s robe that Ratol was holding.

“……What’s this?”

Looking closely, it was a hair tie.

As Ratol picked up the fallen hair tie and examined it this way and that, Lu’s right hand dripping with water extended in front of him.

“Give it here.”

Ratol obediently gave him the hair tie while making a most puzzled face.

“Did you also visit Febrya?”

“……Febrya?”

“The hair tie’s fabric, it’s only sold in Febrya.”

Ratol shook his head. That wasn’t the important thing.

“More than that, the ornament on the hair tie, it’s an imitation, isn’t it? Why is that……”

Coming out of your clothes?

Lu hated it more than anyone when someone called his gems or magic stones fakes, whether they were real or imitations. He would throw a fit and rage like no other. But for that to come out of Lu’s own possession…

Ratol sat there with a dumbfounded expression, unable to finish his words.

Then Lu smiled faintly.

“Someone gave it to me. Said they bought it for three hundred onts.”

“……That thing?”

You accepted it when they gave it to you? You, of all people, that thing?

Ratol muttered to himself.

“It doesn’t seem to cost even three periltz……”

“Exactly.”

What Lu thought was just a faint smile continued.

Ratol stared at him blankly.

“Isn’t it ridiculous?”

As if he couldn’t believe his master’s laughter, which seemed endlessly amused.

“It was so ridiculous that I kept laughing when I looked at it.”

Ratol’s face became deliberately serious. Something had seemed strange ever since the fake came out of Lu’s pocket. Lu, who dealt with magic stones and gems, regarded fakes like filth.

But not only did it come out of his pocket, he was laughing at it?

Rational question marks rapidly filled Ratol’s mind.

Has he gone mad? But…… could he become any madder than this?

Lu was already out of his right mind.

A very long time ago.

Ever since he made a pact with some Rezel from the heavenly realm who had lost his god and gone mad.

***

The primordial god sprouted a single seedling.

The seedling grew into bushes, trees, and a lush forest. As moss grew in the forest, insects and animals came into being.

Thus, the single seedling the god sprouted painted a world of fresh life and beauty.