The Devil Does Not Need to Be Defeated
chapter-61

"Old Demon Faction?"

Within the room, Shien muttered the term that Vivian brought up.

"…"

On the other side, Diere, Lumia and Melika all turned serious at the appearance of the term. One sat up straight, one took a gasp of air, and one stiffened up her expressions. All three of them gave off a heavy aura.

Just from that sight alone, Shien new that it was definitely not something good.

The true of the matter was the same.

"The so called Old Demon Faction refers to an extremist faction within the demon race." Vivian started explaining as if she understood Shien's confusion, "Their manifesto is that the current demon race lives have become distorted, that they aren't as pure and correct as they were in the past. They consider the current demon race to have lost the form they should have. Therefore, their goal is to correct these distortions and take the demon race back to their origins."

If that statement had entered the ears of others, perhaps they wouldn't have understood.

However, Shien who now understood the demon race's current situation understood full well just what it meant.

"Return the demon race to their origins?" Shien grimaced, "That is to say that they believe that demons shouldn't have made peace and maintained it with the mortals and gods, right?"

"If you put it simply, then it's basically that." Vivian gave a bitter smile at that, "They believe that he origin of the demon race is the Demon King, and that the gods and mortals who slew their king should be their foes. Yet, the current demon race ended up wagging their tails at the gods and mortals after the death of the Demon King, they abandoned their pride as demons for the sake of their own lives. Therefore, all of them are traitors. Therefore, with the stance of wanted the demon race to return to how they should be, they are very hostile against the gods and mortals."

Vivian's explanation reminded Shien of that poser.

"Indeed. That poser constantly kept an attitude like he hated all on this world, as if all humans and everything they made are dirty trash."

Shien basically understood now why that guy showed such an attitude.

Only…

"That poser?"

Vivian showed her non-understanding. She didn't seem to understand just what the term meant.

"Don't mind the details." Shien gave a dry laugh and continued, "Then, just what did he show up in Lamdrion for?"

Shien who brought up the question actually already knew full well what he came here for.

That's because it was already quite obvious.

"You also saw the portrait he had, right?" Vivian so stated, "His goal was to find the person on that portrait."

Indeed, that was that person's goal.

Or, to be more accurate, it should be called the Old Demon Faction's goal.

Only, there was one thing that Shien still didn't understand.

"Why would the Old Demon Faction want to find the person on the portrait?"

That was the real question in Shien's mind.

As problem children who wanted the demon race to return to their original form, why would they then end up infiltrating a human city that they hated so much just for the sake of finding "that person"?

Also, given what "that person" had already mentioned before, Shien felt like there should have been some important details hidden away.

Even the other members of the party also said as much.

"I heard that the Old Demon Faction was always trying to shatter the balance between the three races, so they would often do things just like terrorists and ended up causing a bunch of incidents." Melika raised her hand and spoke fearfully, "Did they have the same goal this time too, and they were planning something in Lamdrion?"

"I-it couldn't be…" Lumia also spoke timidly, "It couldn't be that the huge thing yesterday was also something done by the Old Demon Faction?"

Shien's mouth twisted at that.

With how that conversation just developed, why did it kind of feels like someone else was going to be helping him take the blame?

Just as Shien was thinking that, Vivian gave Shien a glare for some unknown reason.

"At the present, the adventurer's guild and knight brigade are indeed leaning toward the explanation that it was all the fault of the Old Demon Faction." Vivian spoke with some annoyance, "After all, they didn't know that someone ran over there yesterday for skill training, or the fact that the person teaching him also lived at a ranch nearby."

"Cough… !" Shien's eyes bulged and he couldn't hold himself back from a cough.

"… As I though, it couldn't be hidden." Diere seemed as if she had seen this result coming some time ago, and quietly sighed.

"Eh?" Lumia and Melika leaned their head though. At the time, they didn't seem to have understood what Vivian meant.

Vivian only seemed a bit annoyed too. Then, just like she said earlier, decided not to pursue it further and continued her explanation.

"Currently, the adventurer's guild and knight brigade ares still investigating this matter. The identity of the Old Demon Faction infiltrator had also been basically confirmed. If nothing went wrong, then he should have been one of the three main culprits behind the large scale assassination incident at the capital before."

Vivian so explained.

"His name is Jillian. In the past, he was a subordinate under one the six great demon lords who currently leads the demon race, the Dragon Demon. He was the direct subordinate of one of the Dragon Demon's four cadre, the tyrant dragon. His level is 77, and he had been highly regarded in the past and considered to be a talented individual with the potential to become the fifth cadre of the Dragon Demon. It was only ten years ago that he planed the capital's large scale assassination incident along with two other demons, which resulted in a loss of lives among the nobility and even within the royalty. Then he vanished without a trace. No one imagined that he would end up resurfacing here in Lamdrion, so the higher ups are all in a complete tizzy."

As she said that, Vivian also looked toward Shien and rolled her eyes at him, "Someone so terrifying was actually subjugated by a level 10 newbie adventurer using a so claimed self defense magic item. The knight brigade seriously got one heck of a scare from that. This morning, they came to me to confirm it. They said that hey needed to confirm the entire process by which the even developed, but really, they just wanted to confirm just what such a powerful magic item really was, and why it was given to a newbie adventurer for self defense."

Shien nearly started sweating right there and then.

Shit. The lie got blown.

Don't panic?

Sorry about that, but Shien was completely panicked.

He didn't know of the other person's identity, nor did he consider the plausibility of his lie. Thus, Shien thought, he was seriously done for this time.

What Shien didn't know however, was that Vivian had already covered for him.

"Actually, he's a newbie with a lot of potential. That magic item didn't belong to me either. Rather, it was something that guildmaster Leili gave him as support to make sure he didn't end up dying during his beginner's period."

Vivian gave such an explanation to the people from the knight brigade.

After all, Vivian herself was only level 50 you know?

If she had a magic item capable to defeating someone at level 77, then why wouldn't she be using it for herself?

Therefore, it she claimed that she was the one who gave away the magic item, the knight brigade would probably still be suspicious.

Therefore, Vivian just pushed it all onto Leili.

Given Leili's identity, it shouldn't be that strange for her to have such a powerful magic item, right?

Plus, Leili did go out of her way for newcomers with potential. Even though just giving away just a powerful magic item was a bit of a stretch, so long as Leili also firmly maintained that story, the knight brigade would have no choice but to believe it.

Thankfully, Vivian had already let Leili know. The two of them had already decided to help Shien hid his identity and background, so it should be fine over on Leili's side too.

Of course, because of this matter, Leili did still say the following to Vivian.

"For him to be able to subjugate Jillian, and to be able to cause an anomaly like that. I really am curious now."

That is also to say that Shien really had the guildmaster's attention now.

All that can be said is, that was just the price for that.