CHAPTER 4:

THE ATTACK ON CARNE

Harry and his friends had a working breakfast in the guildmaster's office. Momonga didn't need to eat anymore, and indeed couldn't. Then again, it was just as well. Harry was telling him the truth, about his past as a wizard, his long life, and Momonga might have choked on food otherwise.

Momonga was staring at Harry, before he returned to trying to get the scrying mirror to work. "I'll be honest, Harry, that sounds like the sort of story a chuunibyou would make up about their life. I'm not saying you're lying, but it's hard to believe."

Harry was, admittedly, a little miffed about Momonga's words, but he could understand them. "I have a Pensieve back home. I managed to figure out how to recreate it. It allows me to show people my memories."

Momonga nodded. "But I do believe you. In fact, it makes some sense. All those little comments that I couldn't quite figure it out without context. And I remember reading in history in school about terrorist attacks in Britain spiking during the 1970s and 90s. My education wasn't always the best, but I do remember that much."

"Harry has shown us his memories," Antilene said, even as she lazily bit into some toast. "I could have killed Voldemort easily…well, at least his main body. Unfortunately, that guy had a bunch of phylacteries that made him immortal until they were dealt with. Seeing him and the Death Eaters in action helped me realise why Harry isn't fond of the Theocracy. Then again, those leading the Theocracy are relatively reasonable for fanatics. My sperm donor is closer to Voldemort in terms of character, from what I know."

"I shudder to think," Momonga said, before returning to trying to get the mirror to work. "Harry, are you sure you've never used this yourself?"

"No, sorry, otherwise, I'd help. Sebas is right outside, though. Do you want him in, even as moral support?"

"No, I should be able to…ah-ha!" Momonga yelped in triumph. "I've done it! Here, Harry, come take a look!"

Harry hurried around, followed by Antilene and Leinas. Momonga was managing to manipulate the image on the screen. "…Untouched wilderness…you said few nations are industrialised, aren't they?" the Overlord asked.

"Yeah. We won't let this place go the same way as Earth. Even if we introduce technology, we'll make sure it can work with the environment," Harry said, before he frowned when they came to an overhead view of a village. "Is that Carne? Lot's of activity and…oh no…"

Leinas scowled. "Smoke…Momonga, you can zoom in, can't you?"

Momonga did so, and Harry's eyes widened when he saw men in familiar armour attacking the villagers. "…Shit, that's Baharuth Empire armour! Leinas, I thought Jircniv promised me he'd cut back on the border raids, that he'd restrict it to the annual wars."

"It doesn't mean some idiot commander, greedy for loot, hasn't decided to do this himself…or that someone's doing a false flag operation," Leinas mused grimly.

"Then I'm going," Harry declared. As the others looked to him, he said, "I want to find out if that is the case. Besides, Touch Me wouldn't let this slide, and I certainly won't. We just need to ensure the attackers don't figure out who we are. Disguises, anti-divination magic, and so on."

After a moment of staring at him, Momonga chuckled. "…You've got it. Just let's give Sebas some orders first, and then get going…"

Sebas had stayed behind to give orders, though Albedo would be along presently, along with a force of Eight-Edge Assassins. Harry did make sure to have Sebas tell them that their purpose was to save Carne Village from an invading force: Albedo and the Eight-Edge Assassins were as insurance in case something stronger came along. Momonga knew from Harry that this was highly unlikely, but it paid to be prudent.

Leinas would be wearing different armour to her usual armour, with a face-concealing helmet, as would Antilene. Harry merely donned a hat, an item from Yggdrasil that could conceal the face and had a mild anti-divination effect. Momonga opted to wear gloves and a mask to conceal his skeletal features.

He reflected on the fact that he felt little when he saw those villagers being slaughtered. A side-effect of his new undead body, he wagered. And yet, he couldn't help but agree with Harry. Touch Me and Harry both thought that "Saving people in trouble is only natural".

Besides, he finally got to see Harry's magic in action.

When they emerged from the Gate, it was near a pair of girls, one badly injured from a sword, who had fled the village. A pair of knights were approaching them, preparing to slay them. And then, they witnessed the quartet emerging from the Gate.

"Accio," Harry said in a cold tone of voice, and one of the knights flew through the air towards him, only to be caught by the throat. "Legilimens." The knight stiffened, before he convulsed and emitted a strangled noise, before going limp, vile liquids dripping from his leggings showing that he had soiled himself. Harry then flung him contemptuously against a nearby tree.

"They're Slane Theocracy," Harry snarled, more angry than Momonga had ever heard him. "You were right, Leinas, this is a false-flag operation, carried out by the Sunlight Scripture. I'll tell you the details later. Take out the trash. I'll help the kids."

Momonga felt like testing his spells on these cretins, and he turned to Antilene and Leinas, who both shrugged. "Be my guest," Antilene said. "I want to see what you can do."

Momonga nodded, before turning to the remaining soldier, who seemed set to flee. "You were all set to murder these children in cold blood, and yet you cower before your own demise? Grasp Heart."

A phantom effigy of the man's heart appeared in his hand, and Momonga crushed it. The man's mouth gouted blood, and he keeled over, flopping bonelessly like a puppet with its strings cut. Antilene whistled, impressed. "Nice. Bit too quick, though."

Momonga nodded (though he winced at wasting a Ninth-Tier spell on someone who could have been taken out by something much weaker), before turning to Harry, who had persuaded the eldest of the two girls to drink a healing potion. Eventually, Harry said, his voice thick with anger, "I'm going down there, Momonga. There's no Divination Magic being used on us yet, though that may change when the Sunlight Scripture shows up. But I'm going to deliver the leaders of this outrage to their intended victim."

"Victim?" Momonga asked.

Harry didn't answer, instead extruding a sextet of magnificent, raven-black wings, and then flying off. Antilene sighed. "I'd better get going, or he'll have all the fun." She dashed off, at astonishing speed.

Momonga shared a look with Leinas, who shrugged. "She's a battle-junkie. Plus, even though she looks too young, she fantasises about having children with a strong opponent-turned-lover."

"…I know she's decades old, but legal lolis aren't my thing."

"…What do lollies have to do with anything?"

Antilene had to remember to disguise her fighting style somewhat. True, the Theocracy wasn't using Divination Magic to try and watch the battlefield yet, but even if disguised, there was the possibility that someone watching on might recognise the style of Zesshi Zetsumei, their rogue Seat of the Black Scripture. Then again, fighting with a scythe was already pretty distinctive. She had a halberd that she was using instead of her favoured weapon.

Killing these weaklings gave her little pleasure, other than the satisfaction of knowing these fools were no longer polluting this world. Then again, the terror she and her father, her true father rather than that rapist monster whom she shared genes with, sowed was a delight. And the fact that she was striking a blow against the Theocracy helped.

She heard a rather porcine squeal that for a moment confused her. At least until she realised it came from a human rather than a pig's throat. And the voice sounded familiar. A grin split her features when she recalled a certain incident, on one of the rare occasions she walked abroad, away from the vault she was made to guard.

"Help! Help! Protect meeee!" squealed Belius.

Antilene merely sauntered towards him. She remembered the insults he had hurled at her, even his attempt to rape her, insults she had repaid with a beating, only to get chastised for attacking a noble. True, he got punished too, but not enough. She would never be the object of someone's rapacious desires like that, and not repay it, anyway. One day, when she had a more mature body, she would seek out someone strong to have a child with in earnest, but it would be someone of her choosing. Harry had helped bring her desire into perspective. Hell, she would have bedded him eventually, but he proved a far better parent than her own parents, she didn't want to ruin that.

Besides, with Albedo in the picture now, that was prudent. That Succubus was all kinds of crazy.

Just as Belius broke into a run, she used her speed to get ahead of him, causing him to run into her, and fall on his armour-clad arse. "Heeeyyyy," Antilene drawled out. "You wanna try running again? C'mon, get up already, I ain't got all day."

Belius squealed, and tried to get up and run. Antilene sighed. He didn't even try to fight back. "Really?" she groaned, before sweeping his legs out from underneath him. And then, with lightning speed, even as he was toppling to the ground, she drove a vicious axe-kick into his spine. She had to be careful how much strength she applied. She tried this during a bounty on some bandits she and Harry undertook with Foresight once. Instead of breaking the bandit's spine, she bisected him. That was messy in more ways than one.

Thankfully, all she did this time was break Belius' spine, and he screamed briefly in agony, sounding uncannily like a stuck pig, before he passed out from the pain. Antilene sniffed, only to grimace. "Goddammit, did you have to soil yourself? At least the other guy had the excuse of having his mind torn apart…"

Albedo wasn't sure why they were saving this village, though by the time she had donned her equipment, it was a moot point. Lord Harry and the Antilene girl had put paid to the attackers. She supposed, given what Sebas relayed, that it was what Lord Touch Me would have done, and Lord Harry and Lord Touch Me were apparently quite similar. And who was she to question the Supreme Beings?

They escorted the children they had saved back to the village. Albedo regretted not being able to witness and participate, but she noted the bodies of those knights, with only a few left alive. Honestly, she expected them to be all wiped out. What did the others plan?

Lord Harry had beckoned them over, and then he waved his hand in a particular pattern once the girls had rushed to the village leader. "Privacy Charm," Lord Harry explained. "Momonga, we just disrupted the plans of the Sunlight Scripture of the Slane Theocracy."

"And who are they when they're at home?" Lord Momonga asked.

Antilene scoffed, crossing her arms. "The Six Scriptures are the special forces wings of the Slane Theocracy's military. My unit, the Black Scripture, specialised in taking on the strongest opponents, and any other risky mission. The Sunlight Scripture specialises in extermination of demi-humans and weaker, sentient monsters for the most part, though they have been used for false-flag missions before. I'm guessing this is one of the latter?"

Lord Harry nodded. "According to the info I ripped from that bastard's mind with Legilimency, they've recruited soldiers from the main part of the Theocracy's military to act as Baharuth Empire soldiers, attack and raze villages to the ground, all to draw out one man, Gazef Stronoff."

Leinas' eyes widened in shock. "The Warrior-Captain of Re-Estize? But how could the Theocracy hope to beat him?"

"Firstly, they had nobles working for them persuade King Ramposa to not allow Gazef to have his best equipment, citing the danger of them falling into bandit hands. In truth, they wanted him to die like a dog out of jealousy for his skill and position, despite the fact that he was born a commoner."

Leinas shook her head. "Stupid, spiteful bastards. No better than many of the nobles back home, and unlike Emperor Jircniv, Ramposa is blind to so many of the daggers at his back. But Gazef is still formidable even without his equipment. His Martial Arts abilities make him deadly even without it."

"True, but the head of the Sunlight Scripture is Nigun Grid Luin," Antilene said. "He's an arrogant little brat who hates that he got spanked by the Blue Roses, but he has an innate skill that allows him to strengthen summoned monsters, and the Sunlight Scripture can summon Angels to attack. That being said, I don't think they'd be a problem for us."

Lord Momonga asked, sounding oddly anxious, "Why is that?"

The impudent half-Elf smirked. "Because I know for a fact that, unless they've summoned something better since I left the Theocracy, the best Angel they can summon is a Dominion Authority," Antilene said. "Lethal to most, true, but it'd probably only leave a bruise on any of us barring Leinas."

"…A Dominion Authority?" Lord Momonga asked, his tone flat with sheer disbelief. "What."

"Yeah. What seems like trash mobs to us is their trump card," Lord Harry said with a smirk, before it fell from his face. "Still, it wouldn't hurt to be prudent. For all we know, they have something stronger. If they show off a sealing crystal, I'll snatch it with magic before they can use it."

"The same way you snatched that soldier? I hadn't seen a spell like that in Yggdrasil. One of your wizarding spells, along with what was presumably a mind-reading one?"

"Yeah. I wasn't gentle. Well, I was initially, but when I saw what he wanted to do to the girls, I decided he wasn't worth my being gentle. Turned his brain into porridge," Lord Harry said with a scowl. "I got the info we needed in the end. And Momonga? Should I use a Resurrection Wand on the dead villagers?"

"Why would you ask that, Harry?"

"…On the one hand, I want to revive them. There is Resurrection Magic in this world, even if it's stuff only the top mages can use. On the other hand, if they're too low-level, or they don't want to return, they won't be able to. I don't want to get their hopes up."

Albedo frowned behind her helm. "Lord Harry, forgive my temerity, but…why waste such a thing on these humans?"

And that was when he looked at her, with a sad, disappointed look in those beautiful emerald eyes, and she knew she had said the wrong thing. "…Albedo…an old friend of mine told me a long time ago that I have a 'saving people thing'. I can't save everyone, that way lies madness, but…if I can do something to help these people, then I will. For many, this was the worst day of their lives. If I can make it a little better…keep in mind, I'm not going to be doing this to everyone. Just here and now."

"…Talk it over with the village elder," Lord Momonga eventually said. "They're his people."

Lord Harry nodded. "We'll also have to figure out what to do with Gazef. If nothing else, helping him out will have him put in a good word with Ramposa…and be a kick in the balls to the Theocracy and their puppets in Re-Estize…"

CHAPTER 4 ANNOTATIONS:

The raid on Carne has happened…but has Albedo damaged her chances with Harry?

No numbered annotations this time.