Slayers: Volume 7 (eBook)

Hajime Kanzaka (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021
1 Seiten
Distributed By PublishDrive (Verlag)
978-1-7183-7476-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Sheesh, when did adventuring get so complicated? All I'm after is the teensiest bit of ultimate power from the legendary Claire Bible in the Kingdom of Dils... but now I've got secrets I'm keeping from Xellos AND secrets I'm keeping from the rest of the group. And that's not even touching on the fact that Dils appears to be gearing up for war. Yes, Amelia, I know it looks shifty, and I'll admit that a demon COULD be behind it... But I've seriously got enough on my plate! Can't we just mind our own business for once?!

Textauszug

“Raltark...” I whispered, sweat rising on my forehead.

He may have looked like an ordinary old man, but he was a genuine demon... And from what I could tell, a pretty high-ranked one at that. I’d never fought him directly, but Amelia and I had caught a glimpse of his power in our last battle. That is, we’d seen him summon a horde of bottom-tier demons from the astral plane to possess the local wildlife. How much power did it take to do that? I shuddered to think...

Needless to say, no part of me wanted to tangle with this guy. But given the situation, I doubted he was just here to talk.

“I get it... That white thing was bait to lure me out here, huh?” I asked.

“Certainly not.” The old man shook his head with a slightly pained smile. “I was hoping he’d defeat you, and if he didn’t, we could strike at you together here... but he failed to notice the girl, and so that was that,” he said, momentarily turning his gaze on Amelia.

“But still... a surprise attack at the inn? I thought you were one for subtlety.”

“I haven’t harmed anyone uninvolved. There are circumstances, you see.” The troubled smile on Raltark’s face widened. “Nevertheless, I must be rid of y—”

Before he could get the words out, a chill ran through me. I could feel my hair standing on end.

What in the world?! A wave of some kind of alien hostility flooded the area. It was like pure darkness was pouring into me... But it wasn’t coming from Raltark.

“Huh?” Amelia perked up as well, craning her neck to scan the darkness around us.

Raltark did the same. “What?!” he cried out in shock, then withdrew into the night.

The wave of hostility likewise departed immediately, as if giving chase. That left only Amelia and me standing there, soaked in a fine sheen of sweat as we watched the demon flee.

“What... What was that?” Amelia whispered in a hoarse voice after some time had passed.

“I don’t know...” I said listlessly, shaking my head.

The truth was that I had a pretty good idea. The source of the hostility was most likely Xellos. He was the only being I could imagine capable of emitting malice potent enough to scare Raltark off.

Xellos was a tagalong to our group. He generally acted like your typical mysterious man of the cloth (you know the type—every family has at least one). In sooth, however, he was a demon—not to mention a priest in the service of Greater Beast Zellas Metallium, one of Ruby-Eye’s right hands. As I’m sure you can imagine, that was a little secret Xellos and I were keeping between us for now... Thems weren’t exactly beans I could spill to the rest of the group.

Unlike Raltark and his collaborators, Xellos was here to protect me. I wasn’t dumb enough to think he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart or anything. He clearly had some sort of agenda. But as much as I rued the idea of being someone else’s pawn... I didn’t have much choice about playing along for the time being.

“Well... I guess it’s over for now,” Amelia whispered.

I nodded in response. “Shall we head back to the inn?” I asked and turned, my cape swishing.

It was then that I heard Gourry and Zelgadis’s voices calling from afar, drawing nearer.

A little late, fellas!

“So, what exactly is the deal?”

It was Zelgadis who asked me that question the following morning as we set out on the main road the next day. As per his usual, he had most of his face covered with white cloth. Only his eyes peeked out from underneath.

“With what?” I asked, still walking.

“Xellos,” he prompted.

That brought me to a halt, but I managed to keep my voice calm and casual as I replied, “Same old same old, right? He’s always popping in and out unannounced...”

And as it just so happened, Xellos was currently “out.” He was with us for dinner the previous night, but when morning came... he was nowhere to be found. We even searched the inn high and low for him. I’d suspected that he’d gone off after Raltark... But since everyone present knew Raltark was a demon, I couldn’t just come out and say that. Instead, I’d suggested, “He probably left on some whim, and I’m sure he’ll return the same way.”

Amelia had bought it, and Gourry was the same blank slate as always. That left only Zelgadis to doubt me.

He looked at me dubiously for a few moments before pressing me, “Okay. What are you hiding?”

“What could I possibly be hiding?” I replied innocently.

Zelgadis stared at me a little while longer, then finally relented. “I don’t like this,” he grumbled to himself, though I could still hear him.

Hmm... he’s starting to catch on.

No matter how hard I tried to hide the fact that Xellos was a demon, the truth would come to light eventually. What would Zel do then? I doubted he’d turn on me in a rage, but there was a chance he’d leave the party on principle.

I mean, it wasn’t exactly like he was traveling with me because we were friends. The guy had been transformed into a chimeric fusion of golem and brow daemon against his will a while back, so his main purpose in life was searching for a way to regain his humanity. Such things were beyond the purview of regular sorcery, which forced him instead to seek out whatever answers he could find in obscure lore and legend. And since legendary trouble always seemed to find us whenever we hung out together, he was sticking with me out of pure convenience.

So, yeah, the whole state of affairs was annoyingly precarious. I only had one recourse—getting to the bottom of things. Why were Raltark and his goons after me? Why was Xellos trying to protect me? I still didn’t know, and even if I did, fighting guys on Xellos and Raltark’s level was way beyond my power.

I was hoping what lay ahead in the capital of the Kingdom of Dils, land of legends, would afford me a little leverage to regain control of the situation. Gyria City, here we come...

The city was lively as we walked through it that afternoon. There were people coming and going, rows of stalls lining the streets... All your typical big city sights. In that regard, the only unusual thing about the view was the higher-than-usual ratio of soldiers to civilians out and about.

Folks, I present to you Gyria City, the capital of Dils!

How come demons couldn’t get enough of me lately? What kind of infighting did they have going on? We were here in the home of demon legends to solve those mysteries! At least, that was what I’d told my team...

We’d arrived just a little before noon, secured an inn, and gotten a meal, after which we’d decided to start gathering info in earnest.

“But how exactly are we supposed to find all that out?” Amelia asked me as we walked down a large avenue flanked by stalls. “I doubt anyone in town is just gonna have the lowdown on the latest demonic schemes...”

“Hmm... Good point.” I thought for a minute. “Let’s see... For now, let’s keep an ear out for any rumors at all about demons. Talk to the guards who watch the Kataart Mountains and see if there’s been any movement on that front. Also, word is there used to be a manuscript in the area, so we’ll see if we can track down any remnants of that, and ask the sorcerers’ council for anything they might know. It’s not like I expect to uncover their whole plot immediately, but we might find some clue about what they’re up to or how we can fight them... I know it’s a slim hope, but it’s our best shot. You’re sick of just waiting for them to show up at our doorstep too, right?”

Those were my honest thoughts and feelings, but I could only share them now that Xellos wasn’t present... even though he’d agreed we should come here to Gyria City.

See, in addition to protecting me, he’d been tasked with bringing me to the location of a certain item: the Claire Bible, a book said to enumerate magical techniques from other worlds (though it was frequently regarded as nothing more than myth by society at large). Not that he’d told me what he was expecting me to do with it, mind you.

Now, as for what that had to do with our layover in Gyria... Xellos and I both knew we couldn’t just “accidentally” stumble upon the Claire Bible without the others getting suspicious. As subterfuge, then, I’d proposed to him the idea of first stopping in the city and having everyone do a little sniffing around. And when the time was right, Xellos would come up with “a hot lead” he just happened to hear, and then guide us all to the place in question.

Of course, this little proposition of mine was all just pretext. My real objective here, as I’d told Amelia, was to seek out something I could use against the demons. I wasn’t expecting it to just fall into my lap... but truth be told, I’d found the seeds of a certain legendary forbidden spell here once before. That is to say... passed-down knowledge about the Lord of Nightmares. Judging from Xellos’s behavior when I mentioned that name, I was hoping it might just be the key to what I was looking for.

See, back in the day, I’d tagged along here with my big sister. She apparently knew some big shot in the city, so we were shown around the palace for a bit and heard all kinds of things in the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.4.2021
• Reihe/Serie: Slayers
• Reihe/Serie: Slayers
• Illustrationen: Hajime Kanzaka
• Übersetzer: Hajime Kanzaka
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: action • Anime • Fantasy • female protagonist • Light Novel • Magic • Slapstick
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-7476-3 / 1718374763
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-7476-8 / 9781718374768