Chapter 79: Determination Set (Patreon)

A single lamp lit the room. Emilia sat at her desk, several notes spread before her, her eyes heavy with exhaustion though her posture remained perfectly upright — clearly she'd spent the whole night sorting through the latest intelligence.

Puck, whose daily waking hours had only just begun, had emerged from her hair at some point without her noticing. He lay curled at the corner of the desk, eyes half-closed in a pretend doze, his tail swaying lazily.

"Young lady, we have a visitor."

Emilia turned toward the sound, a little surprised.

"Mr. Russell?"

"My apologies for intruding so early, Lady Emilia. I have some rather urgent information."

Russell wasted no time on pleasantries. He pulled the documents straight from their folder and laid them out on Emilia's desk.

As she read through what was recorded there, Emilia's expression grew steadily more serious. Puck cracked his eyes open a little wider, and his tail stopped swaying.

After a long moment, Emilia finally spoke.

"Roughly how many of them are in the royal capital?"

"There's no way to confirm an upper limit." Russell shook his head, helpless. "None of the Beloved Children who turned themselves in had access to that particular information. What we've found so far may only be the tip of the iceberg."

"So we've picked up yet another unknown enemy."

Emilia raised one hand to cover half her face, fingertips pressed against her brow.

Russell didn't press her, and Puck said nothing either.

About a minute passed before Emilia slowly lowered her hand, a new resolve entering her eyes.

"Leave this to me, Mr. Russell. Please, do not let this news spread. Even with Iron Fang and the Royal Guard, tell only those who absolutely need to know. We can't afford to cause unnecessary panic."

Something flickered in Russell's eyes — her judgment matched his own almost exactly. Beyond simply wanting to avoid panic or spooking the enemy, he suspected those who self-destructed the moment they were discovered might be serving some deeper purpose.

A man like Petelgeuse couldn't have orchestrated so many Witch Cult operations over the past century by being a pure lunatic. And the fanatics under him — if their only goal was killing anyone who investigated them, they could easily have used far subtler methods. Instead they'd chosen this loud, deranged approach.

Could that be part of the enemy's design as well?

Buying time? Destroying evidence? Sowing panic?

Or steering everyone's attention in the wrong direction entirely?

"I'll begin arranging this immediately. In the meantime, I'll have my agents proceed with caution, to avoid provoking the fanatics still lying in wait."

Russell said.

"Actually, there's one more thing I'd like to ask of you, Mr. Russell," Emilia continued. "If anyone suspected of belonging to that group is found, please evacuate the surrounding crowd first and prepare a means of restricting magic before attempting contact."

"You want to try talking with them as well?" Russell caught her meaning at once.

Emilia fell silent for a moment.

"I don't know if it will work this time either."

She lowered her head, looking down at her own hands.

"But if they're still living, breathing people... if there's even the smallest chance they can still understand what someone says to them, I really don't want to treat them as monsters that must be killed from the very start."

Puck looked up at her, his eyes complicated.

Russell didn't answer right away either.

It was a high-risk decision. But if Emilia had already made up her mind, and given that he himself had decided to take his old friend Roswaal's advice and do the man a favor, he had no choice but to cooperate fully.

Besides, that kind of pure, guileless kindness was genuinely rare. Even a cunning old fox like Russell, who'd seen every corner of humanity's darkness, couldn't help but remember the righteous fire he himself had carried as a young man.

"Understood." Russell nodded. "I'll have elite members of Six Tongues assist you. Please proceed with the utmost caution — those people are all lunatics."

"Thank you, Mr. Russell."

After politely seeing Russell out, Emilia leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes gently.

Being swept into so many complicated affairs in such a short span of time was, for someone whose emotional maturity wasn't much beyond that of a fourteen-year-old girl, like having a tangled ball of yarn stuffed into her skull — countless threads of thought pulling against each other until her head throbbed.

"Looks like more trouble has come our way, Puck."

She said it weakly, opening her eyes to glance at the little gray cat sprawled on the desk, then patted her own cheeks to force herself back to alertness.

"If it were Subaru, I bet he'd solve this in some way we'd never even think of, and fast too. Compared to him, I still have so far to go."

At the sight of the worry on Emilia's face, Puck couldn't help but set aside his usual mascot-like cuteness and put on the composed, reliable air of a father figure, his small face turning serious.

"Lia, you're actually doing wonderfully already."

"...Am I really?" Emilia still sounded unsure of herself. "But I feel like I should be able to do better than this."

Puck shook his head, tail swaying gently, a note of wistfulness in his voice.

"Compared to when I first found you, you've grown so much. Even in a situation like this, you can stay calm without a hint of stage fright, and you can even think ahead to your next move. Honestly, it doesn't feel like you're that little girl who could only cling to me and whine anymore."

"Puck!" Emilia's cheeks flushed as she scolded him.

"Hehe, just teasing. But Lia really is starting to look like a dependable grown-up now, isn't she?"

Puck stood upright on his hind legs, arms crossed, wearing the expression of a proud father watching his daughter grow up — then, not missing a beat, glanced over at Meili, who sat idly on the edge of the bed.

"The gap between you and a certain little runt has really widened."

"Who are you calling a little runt? I'm not a kid!"

Meili hopped off the bed in a huff and scurried over to Emilia's desk, grabbing the floating Puck with both hands and hugging him tight while rubbing him all over.

"You're the small one here, and you're calling someone else little? All the kids Meili's made friends with lately are way bigger than you."

"Uh oh! Take this... my ultimate move, Kitty Kick Combo!"

Puck twisted free from Meili's embrace and struck her face repeatedly with his hind legs. The ticklish sensation made her burst out laughing, and watching this warm little scene, Emilia let out a breath of relief.

It seemed Puck had fully accepted that these two former enemies were now their new companions.

"Pfft, hahaha, that tickles, I give up, I give up!"

Reluctant as she was to let go of that soft, fluffy feeling, Meili finally released the gray-furred cat and turned back to Emilia, puffing out her chest with pride.

"Big sister, while you were all out hunting bad guys, I made a bunch of new friends too. It's a shame those kids can't come out of the sewers, but I've got them keeping an eye out for anything suspicious down there — no problem at all."

Meili's face practically screamed "praise me," and perhaps because her experience as Capella's adopted daughter had been so miserable, once she realized just how much affection this new "Mother" showered on her, she'd slid quite smoothly into her new life.

All she had to do was behave, and she got rewarded just for doing what she was supposed to do anyway?

What kind of dream job was this?

Compared to that, her days back in the assassin organization had been nothing but misery.

"You've done well."

Emilia patted Meili's head, and the girl purred contentedly under the touch. Beside them, Puck, watching Emilia in this moment, felt his heart grow even warmer.

Once upon a time, Emilia had been the one who needed comforting.

That naturally brought his thoughts to that strange black-haired young man. When they'd first met, the dangerous aura around him had made Puck think the man meant Lia harm. Yet who would have guessed that it was precisely because of her encounter with Natsuki Subaru that Emilia had grown more in this one month than in all the time before combined.

It left Puck deeply impressed by that young man, but it also made him wonder, uneasily, whether he himself had been too protective of Emilia all this while. Binding her power with a contract, sealing away her memories — all the things he'd done believing they were for her own good — had they instead been a ceiling that kept her from ever reaching higher?

In the old days, hearing something this strange and frightening, Emilia would probably have looked lost at first, then instinctively sought out someone to lean on, or perhaps shouldered it all alone rather than trouble anyone else, until in the end Puck would have had to step in and solve it himself.

But this time, she hadn't.

She could still get hurt, could still feel lost — but after reading that spymaster's harrowing report, she had calmly lifted her head, thinking through how many enemies remained, and what needed to be done next to minimize casualties and see the matter through to the truth.

And all of this change had happened in less than a single month.

The child who had always needed him standing by her side, who had always needed someone to shield her from the wind and rain, had — without either of them quite noticing — been inspired by another person, and walked, under her own strength, a very long way indeed.

Precisely because of this, a thought that had lingered hesitantly in his mind for so long resurfaced once more.

Should he... undo that seal?

Those memories, locked away.

The ones about Elior Forest.

The people she'd once known, the things she'd once lived through.

Why she'd been frozen in ice, why she'd forgotten the life that should rightfully have been hers.

And the trial of the Sanctuary, which only she could unlock.

That was a great trial she would have to face and complete herself, with no one to stand in for her.

Puck had always believed Emilia wasn't ready — not nearly. She was too kind, too sensitive, too easily hurt by things. Did a girl like that truly have the courage to face her past, to face the sorrowful memories buried deep within her?

Ever since he'd found Emilia and signed the contract with her, this question had never left his mind.

But today, watching how she had changed, he suddenly felt — maybe now she could.

Emilia was still kind, but that kindness no longer made her weak. On the contrary, she had begun learning to turn her own kindness into her sturdiest strength.

That was no longer the behavior of a child who could only be protected.

Puck's tail slowly drooped.

Just then, soft footsteps sounded outside the door — so faint that if Puck and Emilia hadn't long since grown accustomed to that particular person's presence, they might not have noticed anyone was there at all.

"Come in, Miss Elsa."

Elsa, who had walked Russell out, pushed the door open and stepped back inside. Uncharacteristically, she wasn't wearing her signature seductive smile; instead, her eyes carried a hint of worry as she looked at Emilia and said in a low voice:

"Young lady, are you truly certain you want to pursue this investigation? Regarding these lunatics — when Capella once took out her Gospel and read through it, she mentioned she didn't always act according to what was written there, but she did mention words like 'half-demon' and 'trial.'"

"Elsa's right, big sister. I've also heard there's a Sin Archbishop in the Witch Cult who's especially diligent about planning operations. That person is incredibly, incredibly crazy. Honestly, I really don't want to run into someone like that," Meili added.

"You heard her, Lia. This could run very deep. Are you truly certain you want to risk yourself over this?"

Puck's eyes turned cold at once.

"If this were the old days, I'd probably just tell you to give up on it. But now, I think it's time you made this choice for yourself. These Witch Cult members are nothing like any enemy we've faced before. Choose very, very carefully."

"Mm."

Without the slightest hesitation, Emilia gave a firm nod, the resolve in her eyes only growing stronger, her hands clenching into tight fists.

"This is a promise I made to Mr. Russell, and to Subaru as well. Once I've made a promise, I intend to see it through properly."

"Having that kind of resolve is good, young lady. But are you truly prepared for the thought of getting blood on your own hands?"

That dangerous remark from Elsa made Puck shoot her a sharp glare, but Emilia only drew a deep breath. Her tightened fingers dug into her palms, and after a long silence, she answered quietly:

"I... don't want anyone to die because of me. But if it truly becomes necessary, I won't hesitate."

Elsa gazed at her quietly and said nothing.

In the past, she would probably have found this laughable.

Why refuse to kill?

If you didn't kill others, you'd be the one left cold, tormented by hunger, trampled underfoot, and eventually forced to pick up the blade and cut open someone else's belly instead.

She had once believed the world offered only two choices: kill, or be killed.

Until she met Natsuki Subaru. That man never told her that her path was wrong — he simply showed her, with overwhelming, undeniable force, that everything she'd believed in was worthless.

And after that, she'd met Emilia.

This silver-haired half-elf girl had never demanded that she become good overnight, never tried to weigh her down with lofty morals. She had simply said she needed Elsa's strength, and accepted her as she was.

Elsa had always believed she could never change — just as she'd believed a hopeless do-gooder like Emilia would never change in her entire life either.

But now, not only had she herself changed — Emilia had too.

Now, her blade would swing to protect that very innocence and kindness.

Being alive, it seemed, always brought good things eventually.

"I see. So you've reached that kind of resolve, young lady?"

Elsa smiled faintly.

"Then allow me to accompany you. When necessary, I'll take care of those people properly."

"Of course." Emilia nodded. "But please be careful too, Miss Elsa. If things go wrong, please make sure to protect yourself first."

Elsa tilted her head slightly, as though she'd just heard something novel, and smiled.

"Is the young lady worried about me?"

"Well, obviously!"

Emilia answered as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Aren't you my knight now, Miss Elsa? If we're companions, then you can't just go throwing yourself around recklessly like before. You should treasure yourself more."

At that, something flickered in Elsa's eyes, and that soft, alluring smile spread across her face. She leaned in a little closer, nearly pressing against Emilia's side, and reached out to smooth the silver hair that had gone slightly disheveled from her sleepless night.

"The young lady always seems to say things that leave no room for refusal."

"Elsa! No fair! I want a hug from big sister too!"

Puck floated up to Emilia's shoulder, quietly perking up his ears, while Emilia, sandwiched between one grown woman and one small girl, found her expression growing subtly complicated.

Weren't this assassin and this Mabeast Handler getting a little too clingy with Lia lately?

Especially Elsa — the way she looked at Emilia these days seemed to grow more and more like she was gazing at something precious.

Puck found himself a little concerned about that.

This woman wasn't going to lead Emilia astray, was she?

In every sense of the word.

He let out a helpless little sigh.

"What's wrong, Puck?"

"Nothing, nothing at all."

Puck immediately tucked away his worries and nuzzled gently against her cheek.

"I was just thinking — Lia really has grown up."

"I still don't think I have, though..." she murmured. "If I really had grown up, I wouldn't be getting such a headache over all this."

"Getting a headache over it, and still knowing what you need to do next anyway — that's exactly what growing up means."

Puck answered softly.

Emilia stared at him blankly for a moment, then gave a self-deprecating little laugh.

"Compared to everyone around me, I'm still only halfway there."

"But even so, I'll do my best to become the kind of reliable grown-up that everyone can depend on!"