An Invitation From the Demon – Part 05
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Translator: Kell
I dropped a piece of butter into the simmering pot. I gave the soup a stir and tasted it. All done. A soup that was not exactly exquisite, but not bad either.
Zero was already waiting with a bowl in her hand, saying, “Hurry up and serve me some.”
Gemma hesitated a bit before asking as well. “Can I have some as well? It smells good.” She held out a bowl gingerly.
A member of the Knights Templar eating a dish prepared by a Beastfallen was like a frail child eating a dish prepared by a filthy and poisonous creature with its bare hands.
I told her she didn’t have to force herself to eat, but Gemma stubbornly insisted on my cooking. Might as well go all the way, I suppose.
It took a lot of courage to take the first bite, but Gemma admirably finished my food.
“Surprisingly edible,” she said.
Her modest comment hurt my pride as a cook a little. Neverthless, her finishing the whole thing was praiseworthy.
With a civil salutation, Gemma returned to her troops. Not even seeing her off, I immediately started cleaning up, when I noticed Zero playing with an axe.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“The captain forgot it.”
I dropped the newly-washed pot. “Why didn’t you tell her?!”
“I noticed it only now. Besides, I thought it would be better for both of us if I did not go after her.”
I took the axe from Zero. The weapon bore the emblem of a wildcat and the sun. It definitely belonged to Gemma.
“You probably don’t know this, but a knight losing their weapon is a huge mistake punishable by whipping. With her personality, she’ll go half-crazy the moment she realizes she lost it.” I turned to go after Gemma.
“I wonder why she forgot,” Zero said.
I stopped and turned around.
Zero changed her confusion into a question. “If the weapon is so important, why do you think the captain forgot it?”
“Who knows? I guess people are just careless sometimes.”
I left the carriage in pursuit of Gemma. It had not been long since she left, so I should be able to catch up to her right away. There were a lot of people in the main troop, but it wasn’t impossible to follow her scent.
Then, a short distance away from the main camp, I found Gemma crouching under a tree. I almost ran over to see what was wrong, but stopped short.
She was throwing up. I almost burst out laughing.
How could Gemma forget the weapon that was more important than her life? The answer lay right in front of me.
Did I use spoiled ingredients? No. Was there something in the food that she did not like? That wasn’t it either.
Her body just couldn’t accept food made by a Beastfallen.
Zero probably didn’t want me to see this. She forced herself to eat the food a Beastfallen had cooked, felt sick, ran away, and threw up. In her desperate attempt to stay calm, she forgot her precious weapon.
Wiping her mouth, Gemma stood up, then turned around. The moment she saw me, she froze.
I realized one more thing. Zero didn’t want me to see this, and she knew Gemma wouldn’t like me seeing her like this either.
It was not good for both of us. Gemma was trying her best not to show her dislike of Beastfallen, while I was foolish enough to expose it.
“I-It’s not what you think,” she said. “I suddenly felt sick. I didn’t mean to throw up.”
“What are you talking about? You forgot your weapon, so I just came to give it to you.”
Keeping exactly ten paces away from her, I threw the axe to the ground. Gemma hurriedly picked it up, then stopped me as I turned away.
“Can you please not tell Barcel about this?”
“About the axe?”
“That too.”
“Well, that’s all I really know.”
“You’re lying! You saw it! Even if you didn’t see it, you should be able to smell vomit with your nose!”
“A young lady shouldn’t be yelling about her own vomit. Read between the lines, damn it. I’m saying I won’t tell anyone!”
I didn’t mean to stop, but she was so oblivious that I couldn’t help but turn around.
“H-How am I supposed to know if you don’t say it?!”
Wait, you’re mad at me? I had enough sense not to voice my thoughts.
“B-But I’d appreciate it if you’d keep quiet about this to Barcel.” She still cared about what Barcel thought.
“I know it’s none of my business, but why do you care so much about that underling? You’re the captain.”
“I-I don’t really care what he thinks!”
Says the one who told me not to tell Barcel what happened.
Gemma realized it as well, and chewed on her gloves restlessly. “I-I don’t want to disappoint him. After my father died, Barcel took good care of me. Even now, he prevents me from making mistakes.”
“So you just do what you’re told?”
“I came to you of my own free will.” She scowled at me.
“True,” I agreed.
But she always looked to Barcel for advice when making important decisions. Whenever they disagreed with each other, Barcel almost always ended up convincing her.
“It’s true that I rely on him a lot,” she said. “But I don’t have a choice. Everything goes according to what he says. When I was a kid, he told me it was dangerous to climb trees, but I ignored him. Then one day, a branch broke. I might have died if Barcel didn’t notice.”
“Really, now?”
“Not only that! He forbade me to drink, but I ignored him and drank anyway, and the next morning I found myself sleeping in the hallway, naked. I had no memory of what happened, and it was absolutely embarrassing. There was also the time I fell in love with a man in town that Barcel warned me about, and it turned out he was a criminal.”
I could easily picture it in my mind. Barcel cutting into the tree branches a little to make it easier to snap, mixing something into her drink, and giving money to some scoundrel to seduce her.
It was all my imagination, of course. I had no proof. But I was certain of it, strangely enough.
“I approached you despite Barcel’s objections, and this is the result,” she said. “You must have been dejected when I threw up the food you gave me.”
“Nah. I think putting the food to your mouth took some serious guts.”
“I didn’t know Beastfallen offered words of comfort.”
“They don’t.”
Gemma gave a vague smile. She really thought I was trying to cheer her up.
“I know I can’t keep on relying on him,” she continued. “I want to be a captain that he—no, that all my men can be proud of.” She sighed. “But it’s not going so well. Why did Commander Eudwright choose me anyway?”
I was about to say something unnecessary when a soldier shouted, “There she is!” He was pointing at us.
Barcel came running towards us. Gemma straightened her back and met the man like a captain.
“Captain!” Barcel called. “So you were here all along.”
“You seem flustered.” Gemma replied. “Did something happen?”
“You took too long to come back, so I went up to pick you up at the witch’s place. It looked like something happened. Did you throw up?” Barcel glanced at the ground and frowned.
Before Gemma could say anything else, I interjected. “Spoiled vegetables. The witch and I can stomach older ingredients, but apparently it was too much for the captain.”
“I told you eating with a Beastfallen was not a good idea,” Barcel said. “Oh, please don’t take it personally, my good man,” he added, turning to me, then faced the captain again. “Are you all right? Do you still feel sick?”
“No. I felt better after throwing up.”
“That’s good to hear. Anyway, the advance party returned while I was talking to the Lady Witch.” A hint of uneasiness appeared on Barcel’s face.
Tension flashed across Gemma’s eyes as well. “Did something weird happen?”
“Only one of them returned, carrying an invitation.”
The word invitation had never sounded so disturbing to me until now. Barcel handed a letter to Gemma, one sealed with a black wax that bore the image of a burning book.
“This crest… Niedra’s gold coin?”
The Niedra gold coin was famous for its worldwide value, worth as much as ten other gold coins. I had never seen one, nor did I know what kind of emblem it had, but it was familiar to a noble like Gemma.
“How did they get this?”
“I don’t know, but according to the lone survivor, a witch appeared. She asked them to come with her, and when they refused, they were apparently attacked by insects.”
“Insects? What did Lady Zero say?”
“She’s getting the details from the survivor at the moment. I thought I’d show the letter to the captain first before the witch.”
Gemma glared at the letter, her face hard, then with much determination, opened it.
As she read through the letter, her pale face turned even whiter.
“Tell the vice captain to get to the Lady Witch immediately,” Gemma said.
“What did the letter say?”
“It’s an invitation. A very polite one at that.” Gemma pushed the letter to Barcel.
I peered from behind and saw flowery words too difficult for my brain to read, written in gold ink on black paper. If I had to guess, this would be the translation:
This is a demon’s domain. If you wish to pass, you must come greet its lord.
Your friends are being treated as guests, but if you ignore the invitation, they will be deemed as trespassers.
In short, it was a very polite blackmail.
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