"Scientia wouldn't know Munin's location. That old man knows how much Sophia and her subjects want to get their hands on his intellect, and he hides accordingly, never staying in the same place for too long."
With his chin and the front of the clothes completely drenched by the greenish-blue gore, Zane returned to his base shape and pointed out with a shrug.
"You clearly did that on purpose, boss! What the hell!? We could have detained and interrogated him!"
Rose complained in disbelief, glancing at Zane through the spaces in his fingers only to look away as if physically repelled by the sight.
"...you believe you could detain a being that becomes immune to most phenomena it understands? Are you serious right now?"
Zane furrowed his brows and asked, taking out a handkerchief to wipe his face, only to discover it was completely drenched with the demon's blood like everything else.
"Wire bombs worked on it… I'm sure that I would have figured something out eventually…"
Rose looked away even more, twisting his body so much he was almost turning his back on Zane, and grumbled.
"Wait…"
Ignoring his comrade, Zane focused on the maid that Rose was supporting.
"...huh…? Miss Adrianna…?"
"You know her?"
The monstrous man gasped, taking the albino human by surprise.
"Of course I do! She's Mel's personal maid and my former coworker!"
Zane scoffed, hurrying over and kneeling by the weakened girl.
"Miss Adrianna? What are you doing here…? Don't tell me Mel's somewhere around, too?!"
The white-haired man asked before gasping and looking around wildly.
But the only people he spotted beside the three of them were the two dead bodies of the ambassador of the Diamondium Kingdom, as well as an elderly mage.
"...fh"
"...gh..."
Correction: as it turned out, none of the last two were actually dead yet! Both of them were breathing shallow, about to expire due to either the gaping hole in one's side or a fragment of the demon's body stuck inside the brain.
Nonetheless, they were clinging to life.
"The message we got was about the Diamondium Kingdom Ambassador's guard being infiltrated by a demonkin…"
"...as for why the ambassador was in the Jade city… since her maid is right here, then it is not a bad guess to say that Young Lady Fenrioette was in the center of the attention."
Without Adrianna being able to answer properly, Zane and Rose were the ones to piece together the fragmented evidence to come to a conclusion.
As if to give them the confirmation, a door to the building in the back of the teleportation array opened, and a certain gold-haired girl slowly emerged, looking the most concerned she ever let herself be seen.
"Mel!"
"Wait."
Zane called out, about to rush to her side, but Melinda raised her hand and stopped him in a troubled voice.
With the eyes of the two church officials focused on her, the gold-haired girl approached the gravely wounded ambassador and crouched by him.
"...hgh..."
Staying silent for a moment, Melinda hugged her knees and watched the man draw what seemed like his final breaths as his blood must have been about to be completely drained.
"Speaking about using force to take me back but still telling me to run the moment you realized I was in danger. I'm a shallow person, and I deem your behavior a favorable one. I do not wish for this world to lose such a person."
"...?"
Melinda spoke up with a rather pitiful expression, sounding as if she was about to cry, making the wounded man's eyes tremble as they turned his gaze at her.
"He's in no shape to accept a duel, but if I just poke him, an encounter should start auto…"
"Sacred…"
Zane was in the middle of offering his aid but Melinda already had one hand up, speaking words of an incantation.
"...Heal."
*^%$#@@#$%$^\(*w*)/%^&%$#@##$%*
*WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM*
When she lowered her hand pointing it at the ambassador, the entire area got engulfed into the overwhelming golden light concentrated like a laser beam swallowing all.
None of the beings present could tell what was going on. Their vision turned golden, and closing their eyes made no difference.
From the outsider's perspective, things seemed even wilder.
With the Teleportation Array as its center, a golden pillar a quarter of a mile in diameter pierced into the sky so high that a human naked eye couldn't see its end.
What was clearly visible, though, was seven golden haloes spreading outwards away from the pillar.
The smaller one, the closest to the earth's surface, was roughly half the diameter of the entire Jade City.
The middle one was equal to the outer walls.
And the largest one was hovering over the surrounding monster spawning grounds, basking them with its glory.
The entire Jade City came to a halt as the shockwave of gold blew past them.
In the wake of the phenomenon so beautiful yet so fearsome, the humans were faced with the dreadful reality of their own insignificance.
Many were mistakenly believing that the reason behind the appearance of the pillar of gold was the feedback resonance of the improperly managed Teleportation Array, and that the destruction followed by a mana fallout was imminent…
…only for the entire spectacle to be over within the next minute…
"That was a bit much for just some high-rank healing spell…."
Melinda, still crouching in the very same spot, muttered to herself while looking at her palm as if what she just did was something trivial.
"...! Wh… HUH?! I…! I'M ALIVE!?"
The man who moments earlier was embracing death trembled and cried out on the verge of panic, tearing up his clothes and clawing at the spot where the demon ripped open his body.
"..."
After looking at him for a moment, Melinda nodded to herself with a solemn expression and stood up without a word.
"Ha? Huh?! What…? Huh…?! H-how…?!"
The next person to start speaking up, although in mumbles, was the old mage who sat upright and began to touch his face frantically.
The entrance wound in his forehead was gone!
His eye was back in its socket with no sign of ever popping out on a tentacle-like nerve.
And even his mouth wasn't split apart by the vertical slit used by a demon lord to speak...!