A quick glance across the room revealed no demihumans.
Shizu raised her chin to signal to Neia, and Neia silently approached the cabinet before opening its doors. Of course, Neia opened it from the outside and stayed out of its way in case anything happened, while Shizu pointed the muzzle of her spell gun at the interior of the cabinet. “…Not here.”
After that, the two of them looked to the bed.
They checked that there was nothing underneath it, and then they approached the bed.
Part of it was bulging up.
Neia looked to Shizu before nodding to show she understood, and then she flipped up the blanket.
There was a pretty-looking lump of lustrous purple meat there. No, it would be better to say it was a huge maggot. It was about 90 centimeters long, and it did not have hands, but stubby feet.
Shizu pointed her gun’s muzzle at it without any hesitation, and Neia hurriedly called out to her.
“Wait! That’s the target we were sent to rescue, the prince of the Zern!”
“…This?”
That was what the Zern envoy had told Neia. However, she could understand Shizu’s doubts, because Neia had been quite confused herself when the Zern had given her the description of the Zern prince.
The Zern were a species of demihumans whose royalty looked very different from other individuals of their species. In addition to that, they ought to be sexually dimorphic too.
“Er, can you hear us, Zern prince-sama?”
“―Mm. Speak. It seems you are not my food.”
He sounded like a teenager. Neia was curious as to where his voice was coming from and examined him, whereupon she saw that his maggot mouth was opening and closing.
“That’s right. We’ve been asked to rescue you. Let’s start by getting you out of here.”
He was still a prince, even if he looked like this, so she had to abide by the rules of etiquette. In addition, she would need his race’s help when finding the Sorcerer King. Therefore, she ought to do him a favor now, instead of offending him. “Was it a request from my eggmates (comrades)? Who asked you to do this?”
“It was a Zern called Beebeebee. Do you know her?”
“Beebeebee, you say? Ah, her, then? Hm… But if I leave this place, Jaldabaoth… — sama will be angry. This will place the Zern people and particularly the King in danger.”
“While I’m not too sure about the details, it seems the King has passed away, so we must rescue you at the very least. That is why the Zern made this request of us.”
“What!?”
It was impossible for a human like Neia to read the expressions of the Zern prince, who could not be anything but a gigantic maggot. However, she could clearly sense the profound sorrow in his voice.
“Oh, Father was actually… I see. That bastard Jaldabaoth… In that case, can you get us safely out of here?”
“Your Highness’ underlings will be guiding us out, so I think it should be fine.”
“I see… oh human heroes, who have come this far to aid me, I have a shameless request for you. Can you pretend that you carried me off by force while I was resisting you?”
That request was probably just in case.
“I understand. We shall pretend it is so.”
“Thank you very much.”
The prince raised his head. While it looked just like a maggot raising its head, this was probably how his species expressed their gratitude.
Neia wrapped the prince up in the sheets like a baby ― if he had been a baby, he would have been scared to tears; she had experienced that twice now ― and carried him on her back.
She firmly tied the blanket around her chest, so it would not loosen even when she was moving vigorously.
The weight on her shoulder made Neia hurt. She wiped away the sweat beading on her forehead and used the necklace’s magic.
Her wounds healed instantly. Now she would be fine even if she had to run with the prince on her back.
“Are you feeling alright? If it hurts, please tell me right away.”
“No, I am not uncomfortable… but you smell delicious. It makes me hungry.”
Hearing those words spoken from the vicinity of her neck made Neia shudder.”
“…What do the Zerns eat?”
Shizu asked a question which Neia did not want to ask.
“The bodily fluids of living creatures, be they alive or dead.”
A chill ran down Neia’s spine.
“…I’ll get angry if you do anything weird to my junior.”
“There is no need to worry. I am not hungry enough to do such a thing to the heroes who came to rescue me. While I have not been allowed to leave even once since the day they brought me here, they took care to feed me, at least.”
If she knew exactly what they fed him with, she would probably have dropped him like a ton of bricks, so Neia hurriedly stopped listening. Fortunately, Shizu did not ask further.
“…Alright, let’s go.”
“Okay.”
“Please do.”
After that brief exchange, the two ― three of them began to move. There was no time to waste on idle chatter during a clandestine infiltration.
Fortunately, they managed to return to the larder without incident. This was when Shizu raised her hand to stop them.
“…There are people inside.”
“I’ll leave them to you.”
Shizu readied her spell gun and forcefully opened the door.
Then, she stopped. Shizu looked back.
“…Not sure who they are. Zerns. Many of them.”
They ought to be the recovery team. Specifically, they were the Zerns who had brought Neia and Shizu here.
They had probably arrived first because Neia and Shizu had been later than they had said.
After entering the room, the five Zerns inside turned as one to them. The sight of these monsters with unreadable faces doing the same thing together generated a feeling inside Neia that was either fear or revulsion.
Neia undid the sheets on her back, and revealed the Zern prince within.
“Ohhh! It’s the Prince!”
It was Beebeebee. Neia would not have been able to tell them apart if they did not speak. However, if they were as different from each other as the prince was from them, she might not even have been able to tell if they were fellow Zern.
“Oh eggmates of mine. I hear my father has passed on. I know that he ― Jaldabaoth ― does not intend to keep his word. But where will we flee after betraying Jaldabaoth? He has already conquered our lands, and installed his trusted demons as their rulers… are we not destroying ourselves by choosing to rebel?”
“Your Highness is correct to be worried. But to him, the Zern are no different from livestock. Our hero Boobeebee was a little late to arrive before him, yet it was judged enough reason to have the flesh torn from her shoulder.”
“What! Boobeebee, you say!?”
The Prince’s shuddering told Neia that said Zern must have been of quite some status.
“Once everything is over, will the Zern find a place under Jaldabaoth’s rule? We have determined that the answer is no. My Prince, there is no time, let us save these words for―”
“―You fools. Can we leave that question until after we run? This is the turning point. Once we cross it, we must follow our course to its very end. Now is the only time we can turn back. Tell me, once we go back to our hive, once we go back to our hills, how do you intend to live on?”
“That… that land is vast. Surely there will be a place where we can hide.”
“You think so? Do you intend to have the species walk the road to destruction for this fleeting, wavering chance? Give me a more concrete, more practical solution.”
“In, in that case, not everyone is in service to Jaldabaoth, we could form a resistance…”
“You fool. That will only invite destruction from Jaldabaoth. An ant swarm draws more attention than a single ant.”
Beebeebee fell silent as the prince shot down each and every proposal. It would be bad if this went on. Neia and the others had carried out this dangerous operation to this stage. If the prince now went, “We can’t do it after all”, their efforts would have been wasted.