Vol 1 Chapter 37 – Words Left Behind

“I need your help with something.”

Hearing those words in Noah’s voice, the three immediately leaned forward.

“I knew if word got out that I’d died, Tail would definitely come rushing back. With that in mind, I left this golem behind. I set it to activate when Tail came to my shop and appear before you at the appropriate timing.”

“To me…!!”

“…”

Tail, whose name had been called, showed a hint of joy, while the two who hadn’t been called shot pointed looks in Tail’s direction.

“Tail. I’m going to crush the Witch Cult. A certain grudge developed… so I decided to crush them. My actions are for that purpose.”

“…”

The three fell silent. They recalled Noah’s corpse… even in death, he wanted to crush them.

“…Why?”

What grudge could make him want to crush them even in death? When… where? Ryshia, who had spent so much time with him as a childhood friend, let the words slip out.

“This golem has the locations of Witch Cult hideouts recorded in it, and more will continue to be recorded. Tail, I want you to crush them one by one.”

The golem’s eyes glowed, projecting a large map into the air. On that map, numerous red lights were scattered about. It was immediately clear that these red dots must be Witch Cult hideouts.

“H-how much does Noah know?”

The records of Witch Cult hideouts, casually recorded as if it were perfectly natural. These were hideout records that no country had been able to find during the Witch Cult’s long covert operations. How did he compile this many records?

The three were astounded.

“This is my request. You’ll do it for me, won’t you, Tail?”

While the three remained stunned, Noah’s words continued to be relayed matter-of-factly from the golem.

“…Yeah, leave it to me. I’ll definitely carry out your request.”

Swallowing and grinding through various emotions, Tail nodded to Noah’s words echoing from the golem.

“…I’ll help too.”

“I’ll help as well. After hearing his words, I couldn’t possibly do nothing.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. This is something I was asked to do, but… I won’t push you two away here. We’re companions who share the same grief, after all. Noah’s request… if we do that, surely… this heart of ours…”

Might clear up a little. That’s what Tail said with bravado.

It wouldn’t clear up. All three of them knew that. Even so, the three began moving to fulfill Noah’s request, partly as a way to escape from their own pain.

Vol 1 Chapter 38 – Hideout

The information provided by Noah was perfect. Witch Cult hideouts definitely existed at the red dots marked on the map.

Simply attacking them in sequence was destroying hideouts that had been hidden in darkness throughout long history, whittling down their forces.

It was an unbelievable, hard-to-believe situation.

“…Even so, they’re awfully weak.”

The number of hideouts they’d already crushed exceeded ten. They’d been entrusted with Noah’s wishes.

The three, conscious of that fact, took only minimal breaks and had been crushing hideouts in a short period. Ten hideouts in two days—an incredible pace.

“That’s right… is this, this level, really the Witch Cult?”

“…That shouldn’t be the case. At the very least, the Witch Cultist who appeared once in the northern wastes possessed genuine ability, even though Noah defeated them easily. They shouldn’t be this weak.”

One factor in being able to obliterate ten hideouts in two days was that the three had been moving around with only minimal rest, but the biggest factor was probably that they didn’t sense much strength from each individual hideout.

Crushing hideouts that seemed to have only minimal personnel was an extremely simple task.

“Perhaps we’re just, by chance, hitting the weak ones.”

“Even so, there were some fairly large hideouts… Could it be the Witch Cult is actually a fiction?”

“That can’t be. The damage they’ve caused is immense. And they have this many hideouts. It can’t possibly be fiction.”

As a long-lived elf who had been dealing with the Witch Cult for years, Tail rejected Tiara’s words. The Witch Cult being fiction—she declared flatly that wasn’t the case.

“…Is this also something Noah left behind?”

“If so… just how much did Noah accomplish?”

The Witch Cult’s terrifying nature. Their strength. Tail, who had faced Witch Cultists as a hero, knew it well. That’s why, if this situation was thanks to Noah, just how great had he been?

That’s why, that’s precisely why—

…

……

Few personnel at the Witch Cult hideouts? That was only natural.

“…Wh-what’s happening? Why did you betray us!?”

At the Witch Cult’s main hideout headquarters, they were now suffering unprecedented damage and had been gathering large numbers of personnel from other hideouts.

“Hehehe, I wonder why?”

At the Witch Cult hideout headquarters, a woman who had cast off the mask and robes that Witch Cultists should wear, exposing her original beautiful form, smiled before the other Witch Cultists.