Unruly Summon Chapter 58: Seed of Suspicion (Patreon)

Stone cracked and flowed under the unrelenting heat of my assault as the entire arena floor burnt. The audience members that hadn't already been rushing for an exit certainly were now, especially among the front few rows, but it wasn't the first time I'd used the spell. I knew the range. Even if the seating areas got a bit toasty, I was sure they were safe. Reasonably safe, anyway.

Safer than they were from the mindless monster the demon had become, certainly. Safer than I was, too, given that I was in the arena and needed a constant stream of shields to keep the flames away from me.

The beast roared, the sound itself imbued with miasma that pushed away the flames, but despite its efforts, its skin blistered and burnt, unable to completely erase the inferno that surrounded it. Alas, the spell expired before the beast perished.

Not that it mattered overmuch.

"Maius Conflagratio!" I repeated, causing the raging inferno to start right back up again.

The pained monster struggled, but whatever strength boost it might have gained from the transformation, it wasn't a match for me. "Maius Ventus Ferrum," I chanted, sending a blade of wind carving through flame and beast alike. The weakened monster failed to evade or disrupt my spell, which carved deeply into its skull. With a final whimper, it fell amidst the flames, its skin rapidly consumed by them now that it was no longer alive to resist.

The mass of miasma inside the corpse pulsed.

As if it was a seed, the thing sprouted. Hundreds of tendrils of miasma—visible only to my mana sight—burst from it, passing through the corpse like mist. They reached for the nearest demons, grasping. One of them reached for me.

"Miraculum!" I repeated, casting the spell for the second time, and this time, unprotected by its evil host, the spell ripped the miasma apart, destroying tendril and seed alike.

The last of the flames died away, leaving a monstrous skeleton in the middle of a sea of glass, glowing red but clinking as it rapidly cooled. "Well, that happened," I mumbled, in the absence of anything better to say.

The panic drained from the stampeding spectators as they realised the threat was over. "Please, remain calm," begged the announcer. "The danger has passed. Either return to your seats, or, if desired, leave the arena in an orderly manner. There will be further announcements as we investigate this matter."

Something went ting among the dead bones. An odd little noise, nevertheless audible above the gentle clinking of cooling and cracking class.

"What happened?" asked Minoru, dropping to the arena floor behind me. "He was suddenly poisoned in the middle of the match?"

"No, he was poisoned to start with, but it was disguised by an illusion. There was something inside him. Some sort of miasma seed."

"A seed?"

"Yes, and when he died, it tried to spread."

"... If Wendy hadn't said exactly the same thing, I'm not sure I'd have believed you. I'm still not sure I do. I've never heard of a miasma seed before, but even if such a thing existed, who in the hells would do something so insane as plant it? Not only that, but to disguise the fact until he was in such a crowded area..."

"Shall we see if we can find it? There might be something physical left over. It was buried behind his heart."

Minoru nodded.

"Allow me to help," said a third voice as a tiger-headed demon dropped from the stands. "I'm Talon Larxx, captain of the guard here in Vaynx."

"Please do," agreed Minoru.

"I was aware of your identity before the match, but it's certainly not common knowledge. The Claw that governs the city and the manager of the arena, and that should be it. That makes it unlikely this was a targeted attack. More likely, this was an attack against the city by human saboteurs, and your presence was a coincidence."

"... Humans have never deployed miasma as a weapon," pointed out Minoru, completely incorrectly. I'd been there when they'd used it, after all. It was just that they'd used it against their own side.

"There's a first time for everything. What motive would anyone else have for this?"

"The war is over, and having met the new human king, I can assure you he has no intention of rekindling it," I said.

"I agree, but not every human obligingly bows down to their king's decrees. I imagine there is much resentment among those who lost family and loved ones."

"How the heck did you make it to captain of the guard?" I snapped. "Unless you have evidence you aren't mentioning, you're passing judgement based on nothing but racial bias. You say only a few demons know I'm here? I've cast Miraculum on every settlement we've passed through. It's not exactly hard to track, or, from our course, work out where we're going. From what Minoru has described of the local geography, us stopping here was more or less a guarantee."

"And I'll add that anyone aware of the arena battle in Vence would have seen the sudden change of participants here for what it was," said Minoru, reinforcing my point.

"But what motive would anyone have? What sort of idiot—demon or human—would want to kill a summoned hero? If you'd sided with the humans in the war, maybe, but you didn't."

"Who knows? The point is, we don't have sufficient information, so stop arguing and let's go find some."

"Actually, I already did," said Minoru, who had indeed been poking around the giant bones while we argued. She held up a transparent ovoid gem, about the size of a grape. "You said the seed was behind his heart? I found this on the floor in about the right place."

"It's the right size, too, but there's no mana or miasma in it now," I said. "We should have Wendy take a look at it. She knows about this sort of thing."

"We will not be handing important evidence to some random human visitor," flatly declared Larxx. "It will be processed properly."

"He has a point," said Minoru. "This is the job of the city guard."

"... Fine," I reluctantly agreed. Despite Larxx's opinion, it was hard to see this as anything other than an attack on me, which left me with a strong desire to involve myself personally in any investigation. Particularly given that Larxx seemed, at best, biased. He'd already admitted he had advanced knowledge of my arrival, so, at worst, he could be involved, in which case turning evidence over to him was a huge mistake. If Minoru was going to back him, though, I had little choice.

The only upside was that if it was an attack against me, my opponents had greatly underestimated me. Even in his full monster form, the demon hadn't been a threat, and with my ability to neutralise miasma, I'd been uniquely placed to purge the seed.

In turn, that led to other possibilities. Maybe Larxx was right: it was nothing to do with me, the seed was intended to spread, and I'd spoilt the plan. But it would be one hell of a coincidence for it to happen here and now, where I was here to stop it. Perhaps the same seed had been planted elsewhere? Had this same scene played out in a dozen arenas across the empire tonight, except without the happy ending? Something to check, for sure.

But what if he was wrong? Neither demons nor humans should want to spread miasma, so perhaps they only used the seed here because they knew I'd stop it. But why? The best answer would be to destroy it, but if so, they could simply have asked me. There would be no need to subvert the arena battle. Then perhaps the purpose was to see me fight and get a measure of my abilities? It was possible: I'd never really gone all out before, even in the first arena match, and if not for the corruption, I wouldn't have needed to here, either. But again, why? Some higher-up trying to get a handle on what sort of threat I posed? Perhaps it was someone who wanted to kill me, but this first strike was only to take my measure rather than my life?

... I'd cast Miraculum twice, along with a bunch of other high-cost spells. I hadn't merely shown what I was capable of, but I'd also used up half my mana capacity. I'd need to drink a mana potion as soon as I got the chance, in case my guess about it being a first strike turned out to be correct. Now that I thought about it, it made a lot of sense. The miasma seed was a damn good way to force me to cast Miraculum, because anyone who knew me would know there was no way I'd let the miasma spread to the spectators, and no outsiders had a good grip on my mana capacity. No-one had seen me cast Miraculum twice in a row before, so they may well have thought the battle would cost me more than half my capacity.

Not to mention that the reason I'd needed to cast it twice was because the first casting had failed, revealing to any watchers that it had limitations. Hopefully that part didn't matter, because its limitations would already be known to anyone paying sufficient attention.

Perhaps Larxx hadn't come down here to investigate, but the fact I'd cast Miraculum twice without so much as breathing heavily had caused him to abort his plan, having failed to drain me as much as expected. The problem with thinking things through without sufficient evidence was that if I tried hard enough, I could find reason to distrust everyone.

"Let's get out of here," I said to Minoru.

"Yes, let's. Unfortunately, you've announced to the entire city who you are. Returning to the inn now might be difficult. You will attract crowds, possibly in sufficient numbers to affect the stability of the city."

"We need to leave?"

"No. I don't want to camp outside, and some members of our party couldn't make it to the next settlement if we depart now without resting. As an important state guest, you should really be accommodated by Claw Bryklynt in his manor. Now that your secrecy has been blown, we might as well take advantage of his hospitality."

"Claw Bryklynt? The governor Larxx mentioned? One of the ones who knew in advance I was coming? How predictable is this change of sleeping arrangements?"

"That I would choose to move our party there is foreseeable, but Claw Bryklynt is a good man. He would never deliberately infect someone with miasma. He certainly wouldn't be involved in a plot to kill you."

So she claimed, but as I'd already thought, with how little information we had, everyone was suspect. It was possible the purpose of the seed was to force me to use Miraculum and hence reveal my presence to the public, forcing me out of our public inn and into the home of another, in the midst of a private army of their loyal guards. Conversely, maybe they didn't intend for us to move, and an assassin was hoping to hide in the crowds.

Once again, I was trying to draw conclusions based on almost no information. I needed to consult with the rest of the party, but at the end of the day, there was only one thing I knew for certain; tonight was not going to involve much sleep.