The Hero’s Mentor is a Demon (King) Witch

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The appearance of the missing livestock. We rushed to the location where the livestock was found and discovered them left in a serious state.

“…This is bad.”

There’s no head.

The neck is crudely severed, leaving only the torso, and there’s nothing inside the belly of the torso.

Looking at it normally, it’s like a human has butchered an animal for convenience, but this is the opposite.

It’s like when eating fish, one only eats the flesh and discards the entrails, head, and bones.

This is as if they collected only the entrails and discarded the rest, which is useless, in the human domain.

“Hmm…”

I pushed through the crowd and approached, wrapping my hands in mana to check the condition of the corpse.

“Thorough, to say the least.”

“What do you mean…?”

“They made it impossible to recycle. No need to look inside. Village Chief, I’ll burn this.”

“…Yes. Please.”

The Village Chief and the villagers already knew the state of the livestock.

The parties who suffered from the livestock damage accepted it calmly, so Lucius and Rosmas were composed too, but their expressions were full of doubt.

“Do you need an explanation?”

“Can you summarize…?”

“This is poisoned. There are poison bugs inside the flesh.”

“……!!”

Lucius and Rosmas turned pale.

“If people start to eat things in a famine or war situation, it would be a huge disaster.”

“Isn’t poison destroyed when heated?”

“What if it’s not that kind of poison?”

“…There’s such a poison?”

“There is.”

The Demon King’s army had truly tried various ways to attack humans.

“Do you know how the Demon King B… first attacked humans?”

“First?”

“Yeah. It’s written in the Adventurer Guild’s records, but it was very briefly noted.”

Everyone listened intently to me.

Something was crawling out of the burnt goat’s corpse, but before they could escape into the world, my flames blackened them to ashes.

“The Demon King first attacked humanity by spreading poison. Poison on the grains, poison in agricultural channels, or maybe adding poison powder to the large quantities of military soup made.”

At first, they intended to use chemical warfare.

“When one attempts to detoxify with Divine Power, it’s already too late. But soon, people began to notice the actions of the Demon King’s army and started to be cautious. As long as they avoided suspicious raw food like this, they could endure a certain amount of poison.”

Later, when I crossed into the Demon World and studied poison with Beelzebub, I learned about it.

It causes ‘food poisoning.’

“Originally, one just had to be careful of poisonous plants or mushrooms, right? But this poisons things unrelated to poison.”

“…So, Master, does that mean these actions…?”

“Demon King’s army.”

In an instant, the atmosphere darkened.

“…It could be remnants of them, or terrorists trying to attack an unspecified number of people based on that. Or maybe just a madman who wants to see the world burn.”

“What do you think it is, Master?”

“Of course, it’s Asydia.”

There are peculiar points, but discarding poison bugs from animal corpses is something only a significant amount of trash could do.
This is the specialty of Belphegor’s Demon King army.

“Because it splits humanity.”

“Village Chief, you need to explain this in detail. Otherwise….”

“What on earth are you doing!!”

A loud voice rang out from afar.

I thought the worst had come, but I calmly welcomed another guest approaching us.

“Everyone gathering here to burn the goat, are you doing dark magic or something?”

A man with black hair, looking like a knight, yelled with veins bulging in his neck.
The villagers panicked and waved their hands, and I needed to calm them down before the confusion escalated.

“May the Moon Goddess guide us. I am an adventurer visiting this village, Sorceress Bel.”

“Uh, um…?”

You’re stumbling and politely greeting while invoking the Moon Goddess?

The knight, looking bewildered, scanned me and then dismounted gracefully and greeted me.

“Nice to meet you, Lady Bel. I am the wandering knight ‘Rapid Forinlove.'”

“…Nice to meet you, Forinlove.”

The term “Lady” was somewhat shocking, but I shouldn’t be flustered here.
Even if he claims to be a wandering knight, he looks just like a knight of this territory.

“I should hide the emblem on the saddle and not speak about it.”

Wandering knight?
Nonsense.
Both this man and the black knight over there are knights of Count Odrone’s Territory.

Clearly, they set out under the guise of being a wandering knight.

“We were hearing about strange occurrences in this village and taking initial action.”

“Strange occurrences?”

“Yes. According to what we’ve received at the Adventurer Guild, the missing livestock returned as corpses bearing a ‘curse.'”

“…Curse?”

Rapid’s expression turned serious in an instant.
He looked like someone who had just jumped into a troublesome and difficult situation after patrolling.

“Yes. There was a similar entry in a book called ‘The Most Despicable and Malicious Demon King’s Tactical Strategies Vol. 9’ at the Adventurer Guild. Though it’s more about using poison bugs than a curse….”

Swa-swa!

Suddenly, the knight in black armor swung his sword at me.

Lucius immediately jumped out next to me to protect me, but….

Bang-!

“Thank you for helping, but could you at least give a warning?”

Rosmas’s arrow pierced the poison bug flying at me from behind.

The bug that jumped out of the burning goat’s corpse lunged at me while the black knight was about to slash it with his sword.

“Lucius, he wasn’t trying to attack me. Don’t misunderstand.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Sir Knight.”

“…….”

The black knight quietly retrieved his sword that had brushed close behind my neck.
The glint slightly visible beneath his helmet seemed to be glaring at me or maybe getting angry at Lucius.

“That can be understood.”
He was merely trying to rescue me as quickly as possible, but it looked as if he meant to attack.

It would make sense for Lucius to feel annoyed at him.

“Sorceress, should we completely eliminate that?”

Rosmas aimed her bow at the goat’s corpse.
Whenever a poison bug jumps out, she was ready to kill it with a wind arrow.

“…Perhaps we should first deal with the cursed goat, and then discuss the situation. We’ve only just arrived in this village a day ago and were gathering information.”

“Uh…yes, understood, lady. That….”

At that moment, I noticed Rapid was glancing at the black knight.

While I presumed the black knight had a higher standing in terms of skill and intuition, it seemed all choices in the situation rested with the black knight.

“…Let’s head to the Village Chief’s mansion.”

“……?”

A woman’s voice.
It was surprising to hear a female voice from within the black knight’s helmet, but the familiarity of the tone made me a little flustered.

“!!”
“Lucius, what’s wrong?”

“For, for Master, that….”

Lucius, who was bewildered for a moment while sheathed his sword, glanced back and forth between me and the black knight, then closed his eyes tightly and shook his head.

“…It’s nothing.”

“Really? I thought something might be bothering you.”

“What’s bothering me….”

Lucius kept casting sidelong glances at the black knight as he continued speaking.

“…Whoever that black knight is, it seemed like they were trying to attack Master.”

“That’s not true.”

“Th-that’s a bit….”

Lucius’s voice sank low.

“…When I blocked to protect Master out of misunderstanding, there was such a will behind the clash of swords in that instant.”

Someone who tried to help me, then Lucius blocked it, and now it seemed he intended to harm me?

“…It’s hard to believe. But okay, I’ll be careful. Since you said so.”

“Thank you, Master.”

As we made our way to the Village Chief’s house, Lucius openly displayed his hostility toward the black knight.

*

A little while later.
Inside the empty room at the inn, the black knight, Black Lotus—

Kaang!

No, Droniel Odrone roughly threw his helmet and mask onto the bed.

“……Damn it.”

Droniel thought of the sorceress who had stood calmly before him.
“How could Lucius have rotted that quickly…!”

Droniel knew what the sorceress experienced in the Hero’s Village.

He had been present at the scene where the Holy Sword awakened, and he had an idea about what kind of being she was.

So he wanted to help.

After all, he was a hero acting for humanity.

But….

“Lucius…!”

Lucius threw himself protectively in front of the sorceress like a puppet on strings.

He drew his sword and clearly displayed hostility toward Droniel, which he found terribly displeasing.

It was a misunderstanding, but Lucius had shown animosity.
Moreover, the fact that the sorceress seemed to have an unwavering trust as if she were completely safe from any threat made him significantly frustrated.

Seeing her confidence that Lucius would rush to save her regardless of when or where she got into trouble was infuriating for Droniel.

No.
What frustrated him the most was….

“Lucius…!”

His childhood friend with whom he had spent over ten years in the village couldn’t even remember his voice after such a short time.

Although their faces had never met, it angered him that the perceptive Lucius was so captivated by the sorceress and elf that he didn’t recognize him.

“…Hoo, hoo. Alright…. Let’s see how this goes.”
Droniel adjusted his mask back on.

“Let’s have a little competition and see who wins. I’ll show you—completely changed me… Droniel Odrone.”

*

“Arthur.”
Rosmas approached Lucius, who was alone taking in the breeze.

“Hey… wasn’t that someone you knew?”

“Yes?”

“The black knight earlier. You seemed to react immediately when you heard their voice….”

“…Did you hear that?”

“Oh, no! I wasn’t trying to listen; it’s just that I have elf ears….”

“…Rosmas.”
Lucius grabbed Rosmas’s shoulder.

“Please consider them a stranger.”

“…But the person is someone I know, so it’s fine, right?”

“From the same village. Someone who knows the identity of this.”

Lucius pointed to his ring with his eyes.

“I don’t know why they’re wearing that appearance, but since they chose to hide their identity, there must be another reason.”

“…I see. Understood, Arthur.”

“Please, Rosmas.”

Lucius gazed at Rosmas intently, his face extremely serious.

“If Master finds out that woman is someone I know… She’ll surely make her way into this party—”

“That woman? Woah, Rosmas doesn’t know anything at all.”

“…….”

“Why is that, Sorceress?”

“Oh, just… I got chills up my spine.”

What is this?
Is it the wind?