Chapter 39: The Truth Behind the Disappearance of the Teller

After passing that heart-pounding mess of threads, the distance between Katy and Gray widened slightly.

Gray was certain his body odor had offended her, and he secretly resolved to check if he had packed his fragrance spray every time he left the house from now on.

Katy, following behind, pressed her hand to her chest to steady her disobedient heart while her small nose twitched, her brow furrowing slightly.

“Mr. Gray, do you smell that?”

“Check! I’ll shower and use fragrance as soon as I get back! I won’t let it happen again!”

“I’m not talking about that! I mean the smell of something burning in the air!”

Startled by his sudden apology, the girl’s voice instinctively rose a few decibels.

Immediately after, she heard the sound of sharp objects whistling through the air.

Before she could shout a warning, the broad back in front of her moved.

A burst of azure Lightning Light erupted, illuminating the pitch-black cave as bright as day.

Perhaps dazed by the previous incident, she only saw the afterimage of his blade.

More than a dozen crossbow bolts flying toward Katy’s face were precision-cut in mid-air, their severed tips clattering to the ground.

The only bolt that had been flying toward Gray because it missed its mark was casually caught by his bare hand, stopping just short of the pale gold, spherical shield Katy had instinctively manifested.

The tip of the bolt was less than 5 centimeters from his eyeball, but he didn’t even blink.

“As expected of Miss Katy, you’ve already mastered the Holy Light Shield. To think you can generate it in such a short time — many veteran C-rank Priests can’t even manage that level of proficiency.”

As if he had no awareness of just being ambushed, Gray’s first reaction after blocking the arrows was to praise the trembling little Priest behind him.

“This is no time for that! Watch out, Mr. Gray!”

The young man shrugged and turned around, facing the silence of the darkness ahead.

“Gray…?”

A weak, incredulous voice drifted from the shadows.

Guided by the Lightning Light, a figure stumbled out.

It was a girl, struggling to hold a heavy Military Repeating Crossbow.

Her black hair, usually kept neat and tidy, was currently a mess, and the Guild uniform she always kept pressed was covered in dust and dark red stains.

“If I were to rank your ways of greeting me, Lily, that welcome ceremony would definitely be top-tier.”

Gray’s grip on his hilt loosened slightly.

Lily’s voice was as dry as two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

“Why… why are you here?”

“We were worried about you! The Association said you had been missing for 3 days. Mr. Gray and I were both afraid that you might have — “

Katy took a step forward, but before she could finish expressing her concern, Lily abruptly interrupted her.

“Stop! Don’t come any closer!!”

The piercing, almost wretched scream startled Katy.

She instinctively raised her hands and retreated behind Gray like a frightened rabbit.

“That smell… are you injured?”

Prompted by Gray’s words, Katy finally distinguished a faint scent of blood amidst the smell of char in the air.

A few meters away, Lily’s body shuddered violently, and her right hand tightened its grip on her forearm.

“Most of it… isn’t mine.”

Gray frowned.

Just as he was about to step forward, Lily raised the empty heavy crossbow and aimed it at him again.

“I said don’t come any closer! I’m a dangerous person right now!”

“That crossbow alone won’t stop me, Lily. Even if you include the Holy Grenades you’re hiding.”

Gray didn’t stop.

He ignored the dark muzzle of the crossbow and softened his tone, as if soothing a frightened cat.

“Your wounds haven’t been treated properly. You’ll lose consciousness in 2 hours at most. When that happens, you won’t be able to protect whatever is hidden in the depths of this cave.”

Watching Gray suddenly transform into a reliable adult in front of the injured Lily, Katy felt a strange, subtle emotion welling up in her chest alongside her surprise.

“She’s right, Sister Lily!”

To break the strange atmosphere between them, she quickly shouted, “No matter what happened, let me heal you first!”

“I… I can’t.”

The tears that had been welling in the black-haired girl’s eyes finally spilled over.

“I killed people from the Military Department. If you help me, you’ll not only get your hands dirty, but I’ll also implicate you…”

While Katy hesitated on how to comfort her as a proper Priest by saying ‘The Goddess forgives all,’ Gray simply took the heavy crossbow from Lily’s hands and tossed it onto the ground.

Clang.

The heavy metal impact echoed through the cave.

“It doesn’t matter. My hands haven’t been clean for a long time anyway.”

Gray looked at Lily’s tear-stained face, his tone as calm as if they were discussing the weather.

“Ever since I first held a sword at 12, these hands have been stained with blood.”

‘!?’

At that moment, not only Lily, but even Katy was shocked to her core.

‘Wait… I’m a member of the Demon Race and I’ve never even killed anyone. You’re a Human Hero, yet your past is this dark?’

“Katy, I’ll leave her to you.”

“Huh? Oh! Right!”

Katy quickly snapped out of it and ran over with her staff.

As the gentle glow of Healing Magic lit up, the gruesome wound on Lily’s side began to close at a visible rate.

“Thank you, little Katy. Your Healing Magic is very skilled.”

Lily forced a smile as she watched the girl focus on her spell.

She then turned her head toward the young man who was guarding the perimeter.

“I didn’t expect you to see me in such a pathetic state, Gray.”

“If you’re not happy about it, find an opportunity to get back at me next time. Like replacing my water with lemon juice or something.”

Seeing the two of them sharing an atmosphere that suggested 10 years of unspoken understanding, the alarms in Katy’s heart went off again.

She quickly cut in.

“So, Sister Lily, what exactly happened? Why did you suddenly go missing and hide in this cave?”

The light in the black-haired girl’s eyes dimmed, and the corners of her mouth tightened.

“You probably saw the newspapers on my desk, didn’t you?”

Gray and Katy exchanged a look and nodded.

“The person who went missing… was my father.”

Lily’s voice trembled.

As it turned out, her father was a researcher for the Military Department’s Tactical Armament Department.

Due to confidentiality agreements, the father and daughter had rarely met while she was growing up, but his weekly letters had never stopped — until half a month ago.

In those final letters, her father, who usually filled two pages with rambling advice like “it’s getting cold, remember your thermal underwear” or “do you have a boyfriend yet,” suddenly became brief.

His tone turned strange and stiff, as if he were being watched while writing.

At first, Lily thought he was just busy with work, until she saw the news of his “disappearance.”

Beside it, a bright red headline read: [HEAVY REWARD FOR ANY CLUES].

That was no missing person notice; it was a wanted poster from the Military Department!

“I followed the code he left behind and found this abandoned cave.”

Lily bit her lip and pointed toward the pitch-black depths behind her.

“There’s a door at the very end. I hadn’t figured out how to open it before the pursuers from the Military Department arrived… I had to use the traps my father left behind to deal with them, and the result was…”

She choked up and couldn’t continue, but the bloodstains on her and the two bodies in military uniforms Gray had seen earlier explained everything.

Katy stepped forward and gently patted Lily’s trembling shoulder.

“Let’s go, Sister Lily. We’ll open that door. The Black Crow Squad will protect you.”

“But… what did your father do to get targeted by the Military Department?”

Lily looked at the two concerned people before her and bit her lip hard.

***

5 minutes later, in the deepest part of the cave.

A stone door carved with runes blocked their path.

The Alchemy Lock on it had already been halfway destroyed by Lily.

Cutting through the remaining part was child’s play for Gray.

With sparks flying, the heavy door was slowly pushed open by Gray and Katy’s combined effort, releasing a grating sound of friction.

A foul stench mixed with the smell of preservative fluid wafted toward them.

The three of them cautiously entered the stone chamber.

It looked like a makeshift laboratory.

Documents and shattered test tubes were scattered everywhere.

In the center of the room, several massive glass jars had been broken, and several small creatures emitting a faint glow were floating in the air.

They were only about the size of a palm, with translucent bodies containing a ball of light blue light.

They looked like fish, yet they possessed long, thin tails.

“What are… these?”

Lily looked at the creatures in a daze.

“I’ve never seen them before.”

Gray frowned, searching through his memory of the Monster Encyclopedia and finding nothing.

“At least, they aren’t any Magic Monster or beast recorded in the reference books.”

However, Katy, standing behind the two, froze in place.

Her trembling blue eyes almost shifted into demonic vertical slits as she stared intently at the floating Fluorescent Creatures.

As the creatures swam through the air, several clear, childish voices echoed in her mind:

“Friend! Friend!”

“A new friend!”

“Save us… hungry…”

Katy gasped.

These things were talking?

And it was the language of the Demon Race!?