"Elma was kidnapped!?"
Upon returning to the dwarven village, we heard the news that made us doubt our hearings.
It said Elma was taken away by the demon who had shown up in the minotaur village.
"I-I'm terribly sorry!? Everything was because of my carelessness!?"
The one rubbing his forehead against the floor and apologizing was Porco-san.
Apparently, he had requested Igniver-sama to bring him over, insisting that he must apologize to me.
"P-please raise your head for now. What happened?" I got down on my knee and asked.
"Sorry…" Ophir answered instead. She explained with a sour face, "It's true that when you boil down to it, the main cause of this incident is the fatty getting' himself taken hostage, but I kinda just let it happen without tryin' to save him. I mean, compared to me or Igniver-sama, he practically held no value as a hostage, and we could just ask you to revive him later anyway, right? So, I'm partly at fault in this matter."
"No, please don't blame yourself…."
Well, honestly, a part of me couldn't help but agree with her decision.
I mean, it was Porco-san we were talking about here.
"Mhm. I, too, told the demon that her threat was futile, but then she tried to push her blade into the throat of that child of dwarf. Almost immediately, however, the girl asked the demon to let him go and offered herself in exchange. There was nothing we could do to stop her.
"I'm truly sorry," Igniver-sama apologized.
"No, please don't be," I shook my head before looking back at Porco-san, "I see, so that's why you're apologizing, Porco-san…"
"I'm terribly sorry… sob… It was… it was all because I fell for that person's cowardly trap… sob…" Porco-san cried regretfully.
I softened the corners of my mouth and said, "Please stop blaming yourself. The other party was an elite of the elites sent by Elysium. It's not weird for her to use one or two underhanded means."
"Exa-sama…"
Sob, sob… Porco-san's face became messy from tears. I gently patted his shoulder, but—
"No, sorry for breaking the good mood, but the truth was, that fatty got bewitched by the demon's erotic figure, but he immediately fainted after she took the form of a hag and showed him her saggy breasts, y'know?"
"…Mm?"
Huh?
Porco-san?
◇ ◇
Anyway, the problem was why the demon had kidnapped Elma.
If she simply had wanted a hostage, she could have just taken Porco-san away, regardless of whether he had value as one.
Yet, the demon had gone out of her way to kidnap Elma specifically.
Judging from Ophir and the others' account, the demon evidently had been aiming for Elma from the very beginning. The only possible reason that I could think of was that she hadn't yet been engraved with 'Phoenix Seal'.
The only thing that could possibly allow us to go up against Elysium who had now become a genesis god was the ultimate"Superior Arms", which required me to unite with the seven saintesses.
Considering that, taking one of the saintesses out of the picture was the best countermeasure against it—that might be their reasoning behind it.
Moreover, because she didn't have Phoenix Seal, I couldn't take over the damage inflicted on her remotely, and I couldn't teleport over to her side.
I must say, we had been completely 'outmaneuvered'.
And.
"Sob, they must be doing all sorts of unspeakable lewd stuff to Saintess-sama at the moment, all because of me, sob…" Porco-san, sitting in dogeza, held his head in his hands, still blaming himself.
However, the girls all responded with negative opinions.
"I dunno. I mean, she neither has any breasts or sexiness to speak of," said Ophir.
"Hm. Zana's one thing, but I doubt it would be the case when it came to Elma. Or rather, I'm simply unable to imagine the figure of her going through that sort of thing. Well, given the situation, it may be a fortunate thing…" said Arca.
"Mm. So stop crying, Mr. Pig," consoled Tirna.
How should I put it? They were kinda harsh…
Well, let's set aside the question of whether or not Elma had sexiness for now.
The enemy must have found out how Kitezh met his end. Taking that into consideration, I didn't think they would take the risk of provoking my anger by doing something dubious to her at the moment.
I mean, they probably thought that the 'saintesses' were all my women.
With that being the case, I doubted they would do lewd stuff to her as Porco-san imagined, and they would surely not kill her, as I could just revive her with"Complete Resurrection", anyway.
That being said, it was possible that they'd hurt her a little as a form of revenge for their friend that we had killed.
Though she had journeyed with Porco-san, Elma had been living a life where she practically had never felt physical pain until I had left her, for better or worse.
So, yes, she was very weak to 'pain'.
If someone so much as raised their hand to her, she'd be rendered unable to even use healing magic properly, her heart would break in an instant.
If that happened, she might not be able to regain the will to fight, ever.
As such, we had to rescue her as soon as possible.
Mm, with a nod, I started a strategy meeting to rescue Elma with everyone.
◇ ◇
Meanwhile.
"By the way… fuhi, it may be presumptuous of me, but may I take custody of this girl? Playing around with a saintess is a very rare opportunity to come by, so this Tougen would very much love to experiment with her body… fuhihi."
――Glance.
"Eek!?"
Elma was about to be used as a guinea pig.