Hunting the Remnants

The battle between the God of Greed and the Golden Dragon Irina took an entire day.

It wasn't that it was such an intense battle… rather, it was because Irina tried to seal the God of Greed instead of destroying him.

Destroying him would have been much simpler, so why did she deliberately leave the evil god alive?

It came down to the dragons' stance toward the gods.

Good gods guide people toward goodness and consider the prosperity of the humanoid races to be a good thing.

Evil gods guide people toward evil and require them for the exercise of their own power.

It was all a matter of balance. Good gods love humans and cause their numbers to increase. So much so that the world cries out in distress.

Evil gods love human hatred and cause their numbers to decrease.

The culling that was once performed through the system of demon kings, they now sought to accomplish by using evil gods.

That was the current stance of the divine dragons, but as long as hero summoning continued, crises would continue to befall the world.

To prevent that, eradicating the good gods would be the most effective solution… but the humanoid races needed good gods.

"We should destroy Trado, the God of Space-Time, and make an example of him to the other good gods."

Rana nodded strongly at Teru's opinion, and Ouma nodded casually.

Irina had no particular opinion. Only Ria objected.

"Probably in another hundred years or so… humanity will obtain the means to travel between worlds on their own."

Considering her now-hazy knowledge from Earth and Nears' development, that was an inevitable trajectory.

On Earth, traveling to other worlds was nothing more than something from stories, but in Nears, there was proof that such means actually existed.

Heroes. Visitors from other worlds.

Perhaps there were people summoned from other worlds on Earth too, but at the very least, their existence had not been confirmed.

"Trado should be strictly sealed, and instead we should have him monitor humans developing inter-world travel."

"… I wonder what human-created inter-world travel would be like."

When Ouma spoke with interest, Ria shrugged.

"I can't imagine. But surprisingly, they might develop a method that doesn't lead to a Great Collapse. Conversely, if it does lead to a Great Collapse, we'll need to act immediately."

And unusually, Ria volunteered to take on that role herself.

"My followers will handle the monitoring. Of course, I won't be the only one."

"Until Laverna and Lieselotte are fully grown, I'll watch the Dragon Wing Continent and Dragon Claw Continent."

Ouma announced this with great interest.

"Then I'll take the Dragon Fang Continent."

Ria nodded at Irina, but quickly added:

"More specifically, the Nihon Empire. And I'll particularly watch Garhart and the Magic City."

The only ones likely to pursue inter-world travel would be those two nations, the autonomous Magic City, and perhaps Ogress. And Ogress was still under Ria's control.

"Is there a reason you excluded us?"

At Teru's question, Ria directed an annoyed look.

"You two have lived too long, and your sense of time is warped. It wouldn't be surprising if there were years of delay between noticing something and taking action."

Indeed, 1,800 years ago during the hero summoning, Rana and Teru's responses had been slow.

Because they thought in terms of years, they inevitably fell behind.

The previous Dark Dragon, Valis, had reacted quickly, but that was probably because of her alliance with the Militant Emperor and Leyte Anaia.

But Ria understood something.

Dealing with things on such short timescales would gradually wear away at one's soul.

That was precisely why Valis had sensed her own lifespan coming to an end and chosen Ria as her successor.

On the Dragon Fang Continent, hunting for the remnants of the evil gods was underway.

The targets were monsters whose levels had exceeded 100 due to the gods' influence, and humanoid races whose minds had been controlled.

The most active among them was the party of heroes who had primarily been fighting the followers until now.

Each of them possessed powerful close-combat or magical skills, and they apparently had some kind of trump cards that were hard to understand.

"It's certain that Absolute Detection is among them, but the question is what the other six have…"

Since the railways had been severed during the battle with the evil gods, Sei and company were traveling across the continent by carriage as usual.

Of course, they used Lavi's teleportation on plains with clear sightlines, but the front lines were still far away.

"From what I've heard… I think Magic Destruction, Wrath, and Universal Barrier are there…"

As far as Mako knew, those four were almost certainly confirmed.

Magic Destruction, as the name suggested, destroyed the formulas of magic that had already been cast or was about to be cast, nullifying them. It was unclear how effective it would be against forbidden spells, but it had reportedly worked on high-level magic.

Wrath apparently increased one's stats for the duration of combat, proportional to the damage the allied party received from enemies.

Universal Barrier could create all manner of barriers. Even barriers that blocked the enemy's attacks while allowing one's own attacks through.

And Absolute Detection could determine exactly which direction and distance away a sought object was located. It was an ability similar to Sei's Map.

In other words, if the enemy was still searching for heroes, they would likely detect Mako's approach.

Still, there was enough distance remaining to have time to gather information.

"Well, if they get close, we can definitely get the first strike… hm?"

While casually checking his Map, Sei noticed a response rapidly approaching them.

Kobolds. Three of them. Based on their composition, probably a family group.

And chasing them, about ten human soldiers. Mounted.

(Bandits? No…)

They were listed as mercenaries. The kobolds being chased had no criminal record.

Conversely, the mercenaries had criminal records including robbery and murder.

"Kukuri, change our course slightly to the right. I don't know the reason, but a kobold family is being chased by mercenaries."

Having said that, Sei himself leaned out of the carriage.

"It doesn't look dangerous, so I'll go on ahead. Don't rush to catch up."

Among the vampires, only Rui was accompanying them, but he was useless during the day. He could fly at night, though.

Deploying his black wings of flight, Sei launched himself forward.

What Sei saw from above was a freight wagon driven by a male kobold. In the cargo bed were two kobolds and meager personal belongings.

Judging by their clothing, they were probably ordinary commoners. At least they weren't filthy.

The ten mounted soldiers chasing them were a group clad in mismatched, grimy equipment.

He considered what to do, but decided that asking directly would be best.

Sei banked and flew parallel to the kobold wagon.

"Excuse me, you seem to be being chased—what happened?!"

The wife and son kobolds in the wagon looked at him in surprise.

The father driving also looked shocked, but he cried out in a pained voice:

"They're ex-mercenary bandits! Because we were doing business in the evil god's city, they're attacking us under the pretense of hunting remnants!"

Right, he understood the broad strokes, if not the fine details.

Looking back, the bandits were almost upon them.

(I think I read in a book about mercenaries doing bandit-like things…)

That was during medieval times, if he recalled correctly. Criminal records aside, the kobold family didn't look like bad people.

"My companions are just ahead, so please join up with them! I'll deal with the bandits!"

Sei shouted to the wagon racing across the ground. Then he cast an explosion spell at the ground behind them.

Dust clouds rose, and the bandits' horses reared up. In the meantime, Sei landed on the ground.

What the bandits saw after regaining control of their horses was therefore a single girl of about fifteen.

"The hell are you?!"

"I won't allow bandits who attack innocent beastkin families."

"What'd you say?! Those guys are the evil god's followers! There's a bounty on them!"

"That's a lie! Their criminal records are clean. Rather, you're the ones with murder, robbery, rape… even arson on your records."

Once he said that much, the bandits must have realized he had the Identify skill.

"Grab her! This brat's worth more than kobolds!"

Whatever logic that was based on, the bandits decided to make an enemy of Sei.

In response, Sei also made his decision.

The bandit charging at him on horseback held a sword. Some had bows, but their skill level wasn't very high.

(If you're on horseback, use a lance, you idiots.)

He severed the right arm of the first charging bandit, then severed the right arm of the next.

Using the momentum of the charging horses against them, Sei spun and incapacitated the bandits one after another.

"Damn it!"

And what the one who appeared to be the leader pointed at Sei was unmistakably a gun.

But even with that gun barrel aimed at him, Sei didn't hesitate. On the contrary, it was the bandit who hesitated.

Still, one shot was fired, but it flew past Sei without even grazing him.

Sei knocked out the last bandit with a punch to the jaw.

"I can't say we had no choice… but our livelihoods were also at stake…"

After subduing the bandit group who were mercenaries in name only, Sei and his companions were hearing the kobold family's story.

The God of Greed was an evil god. But gods, whether good or evil, existed by feeding on the faith and fear of the humanoid races.

In other words, even under the God of Greed's rule, humanoid social life was maintained to some extent.

The evil gods relied mainly on monsters and demons as their main fighting force, but there were also humanoid races they had subjugated by force. Of course, there were also those who had been brainwashed.

Now that the God of Greed had been sealed and the humanoid races who had actively become followers had been defeated, the remaining humanoid races were no longer a threat, but it was difficult to join hands with those who had once been enemies.

And the bandits—who were merely mercenaries and volunteers in name—had looted the cities that had been under the God of Greed's control under the guise of hunting remnants.

The kobold family had apparently been running a general store as servants of the evil god in the city, but they had been raided. Fortunately, they had sensed the danger and escaped north in their wagon, but they had been spotted by bandits raiding the area.

"By the way, what about this bounty?"

"The Demon King-sama's regular army is fine, but there are heroes who made great contributions in this war…"

Those heroes were apparently placing bounties mainly on demon races. Kobolds were technically demon race, so they were worth a modest sum.

"Is there somewhere you can rely on if you go north?"

"We have relatives in the Kobold Autonomous Zone, so we plan to depend on them for a while… Once the Demon King-sama's army has the leeway to maintain order, the bandits' comrades will lie low too."

Having heard all this, Mako crossed her arms in thought.

"Are the Demon King's army and the heroes on bad terms?"

"No, the heroes were initially treated as mercenaries, but they should have been incorporated into the regular army by now…"

"Are they going rogue, or can they not control their subordinates properly, or do they fundamentally misunderstand the demon races…"

"That's strange. If Chi-chan is there, there's no way she would put bounties on kobolds or beastkin…"

Chi-chan, apparently, was a girl with the Universal Barrier Gift who was a big animal lover.

"Well, we'll just have to go to the city directly and investigate more."

At Sei's decision, the group headed south.

They restored the worn wagon for the kobold family, received thanks, and parted ways.

"Well, things have gotten a bit complicated, haven't they?"

"Well, we'll just have to go and see."

Kukuri responded casually to Sei's murmur.

The carriage rattled along through the wasteland, eventually disappearing beyond the horizon.

As for what became of the bandits who had lost their horses and had their equipment stripped, that was up to their luck.