"Valon… Why are you here…?" Patty asked upon the sudden entrance of the man he had called Valon with a serious face, a rare sight coming from him.
It was evident that he was very wary of the man.
Seeing Patty's caution, Valon said with a possibly warm tone, "Please, you need not be afraid, Patty. I'm not here to eat you."
"Well, can't help it. A certain someone did try to eat me before, after all," replied Patty with a strong tone. But it was clear to Elma that he was merely putting on a brave front.
She had no idea who that man named Valon was, but Patty evidently was quite afraid of him.
At the same time as Elma sat up, Valon drew closer to them.
"I really am sorry for that time. You smelled so delicious, so I lost control of myself," said Valon, showing no signs of being apologetic at all.
Patty held out his hand as if to cover Elma and said, "So what, you planning to eat this girl this time?"
"—!?"
As Elma widened her eyes in shock, Valon stopped in front of them, leaned forward, and peered at Elma, "Yes, she looks very delicious. Saintess, saintess, saintess, saintess…. Ahh, I wonder what she tastes like…I wonder what wonderful power would I acquire if I eat her…"
"…Who knows. But can you move back now? Even if you are the 'first-ranked', Lord Creator has left the decision on how to treat this girl to 'all' of us. Not to mention, you didn't even attend the meeting, in the first place." said Patty with a nervous look.
Hearing that, Valon quietly pulled his face away from Elma and said, "Yes. When I heard you all had captured a saintess, I got a little angry. I was feeling like eating not only the saintess, but also you guys, so I went to get some food to calm myself."
"Hm~m. So, you 'stuffed' now?" Patty asked.
"Haha, you jest, surely. The superpower I received is"Grattor (Extreme Hunger)"—I would never be satiated no matter how much I ate."
"I see~. How can you be so calm right now, then? In front of you is the saintess we caught you know?"
"Indeed. But she isn't the saintess I'm acquainted with." With that, Valon turned his back on the two and started walking away, "A shame. If you were, I would have—consumed you then and there."
""—!?""
Truly, what a shame… Valon left those words behind as he disappeared out of the room.
"Haa~…" Patty, drained of strength, said, "That was close~. I'm so glad you're not the saintess he's acquainted with~."
"It's not like I wanna be acquainted with a clearly dangerous guy like him, either…"
Who in the world is he acquainted with anyway? Elma wondered, her face spasming.
◇ ◇
Along with the six saintesses and also the six goddesses, I crossed through the wall in space and arrived at"World of Oblivion: White", the upper layer of "World of Oblivion".
Porco-san had wanted to follow us saying it was his fault that Elma had got kidnapped, but we couldn't lower the defense of the world further than it already was, so although I'd felt bad for him, I'd had him stay behind.
The same went for Iris and her sisters.
But as it was dangerous to carelessly disperse them, I'd decided to have Iris and her sisters, for the moment, return to Berqua and concentrate solely on protecting the citizens of their country, which naturally included the king and the queen.
Needless to say, I'd had Porco-san go back to the minotaur village to work on the reconstruction work with Nazarie-san.
"So this is"World of Oblivion: White", huh…"
Anyway, "World of Oblivion: White"was quite different from my imagination.
I'd thought it would be a dark space where you couldn't tell up or down because it was called "World of Oblivion", but it actually had land that you could set foot on and a full moon that hung in the sky.
Just that, the moon was red, like the color of fresh blood, and on the land where we stood, flowers, whose surface was scarlet, were in full bloom. Rather than calling it"World of Oblivion: White", "World of Oblivion: Red"would be a better fit for this world.
"—I see you are finally here."
『!』
On that land, she was standing all by her lonesome.
A beauty in a black and red dress with wide open shoulders, like the one used by courtesans long ago.
"Welcome to "World of Oblivion: White". We're sincerely delighted to have you visit us."
――Ryugu.
The demon specialized in anti-close-quarters-hand-to-hand combat that Tirna and the others had faced before.