So this time, it would probably be the same as most cases, relying on the residual phenomena to determine the direction of its escape, the girl originally thought.\ However, when she arrived at this small town, she found that the apostle's aura still lingered in this place. Normally, this situation should be impossible. While investigating with a mix of puzzlement, the girl and Arastel discovered three strange points.\ The first is, as mentioned earlier, the apostle still remained in the place where the torches were made.\ The second is that the apostles' presence and scale, which indicate the strength of their aura, seemed very weak.\ The third is that the torches remaining in this small town were extremely scarce.\ An apostle could not possibly fail to notice the aura of a Torch Fog Warrior. If it noticed it and still stayed, it should have the strength and confidence to not be easily destroyed, and such an apostle would have to consume the life force of more humans to sustain itself.\ Yet, in reality, the sensed aura was very weak, and traces of humans being devoured were almost nonexistent.\ After spending most of the day from early morning to evening, they finally found a torch near this small town, and it was Da Shang Junzi. Due to the world distortion caused by a large number of humans being devoured, nothing could be felt at all.\ From this, including the previous American man, the victims amounted to only two people. If it were a competent apostle that knowingly stayed despite the arrival of the Torch Fog Warrior, it would be impossible to consume such a small amount of life force.\ (There must be some special reason for it staying here.)\ The reason the girl decided to intervene in Da Shang Junzi's existence, gathering information as a local resident, was because of this series of reasons.\ If she investigated the surroundings of the devoured as a visitor from outside, it would be impossible to avoid arousing suspicion from others. Even ignoring that, most Torch Fog Warriors are either lacking common sense or deliberately ignore it, and hitting dead ends in the investigation is a common occurrence. If too much time and effort were wasted in this step, it would become an obstacle to fulfilling her mission (all of this she had heard from the person who taught her this method).Compared to this, if one uses the human torch that naturally holds its own place there, even if one behaves a little strangely in words and deeds, it will not raise the alert of others. Moreover, doing so can also naturally secure a headquarters to use as a base for investigations. As long as the torch is erased when leaving the place of stay, all traces and memories related to oneself, including relatives and friends, along with any disturbances that occurred, will completely disappear. This is indeed very advantageous. This method can be considered a relatively safe plan explored by the Vapour Warriors.
The girl also understood this very well and, in fact, did exactly that.
However, even so,
("Dealing with humans is really troublesome.")
She still had such a thought.
Like other Vapour Warriors, she believed that any connection with humans holds no real value and will not bring reassurance. What she possessed was a strong sense of duty, or one could say, a mental structure specially reinforced for this aspect.
Generally speaking, Vapour Warriors are avengers.
This is natural because the Red World Demon King specifically selects humans who have had their loved ones eaten by apostles and those with clear reasons to fight, using them as vessels. Every avenger harbors intense hostility and hatred toward apostles.
However, conversely, for ordinary Vapour Warriors, the priority of their mission does not surpass revenge. Fundamentally, they are just very ordinary, common humans.
Humans are beings that gradually grow accustomed to all phenomena. Relying solely on hostility and hatred is difficult to sustain for long. The intense emotions initially held will inevitably fade with the passage of time—this might be called fate. Moreover, Vapour Warriors never age. Passing through such long years is not easy for those who were originally just ordinary humans.
Some of them, having lost the will to fight, abandon their contracts and ultimately meet their demise. Some, feeling fatigue in endless battles, are eliminated in semi-suicidal ways. Although there are extreme differences in the duration of their individual activities, Vapour Warriors are beings that always harbor a risk of elimination.Even if they didn't meet such an end, some who were lucky enough to successfully achieve their revenge became empty shells of souls, while the most common fate was death in battle. In any case, the path they walked was a valueless one, a path of Asura strewn with corpses.
Those who could cross this threshold, continuously sustaining intense burning emotions like a superhuman, and those who could break free from emotional constraints to develop a pure sense of mission like a saint, are not to be found even among a hundred people. So when the Apostles of the Red World despise them as mere tools for punishment, it's not without reason.
Because as ordinary humans, they use their inner anger and hatred as power.
Tracking and punishing the Apostles that run rampant and cause havoc in this world.
Avengers who exhaust their body and mind until they die in battle.
These are the so-called Fire Mist Warriors.
However, the girl is one of the very few exceptions outside this range. She is not a typical Fire Mist Warrior who, as a human, has something taken away by an Apostle and seeks revenge. Since infancy, she has been a special human, a perfect Fire Mist Warrior who dedicates everything to carrying out her mission, receiving elite education in a closed environment.
She was raised to exist solely for her mission, so she neither questions it nor grows weary of it.
Tracking and exterminating Apostles is as natural to her as breathing and walking.
She is a Fire Mist Warrior girl without even a name.
Conversely, because of this, she is different from the Fire Mist Warriors who were originally humans. She has no interest in interacting with humans and even tries to keep her distance from them.
In the closed environment where she grew up, the only people she could see were three teachers. And only one of them had a normal human form. The worst part was that this person had an extremely cold personality and taught her nothing beyond what was necessary to accomplish her mission. Therefore, it was impossible for her to naturally develop the ability to communicate normally with humans.
Though her elite education as a Fire Mist Warrior can be said to have achieved a very high level of results, she is unaccustomed to human life, and during searches she tends to rely on direct questioning and forceful use of her powers.Because she had never really encountered any particularly difficult situations because of this, she herself had no plans to improve in this regard. In the past, she had once revealed her beliefs to a figure who taught her a method of intervening freely in such convenient existences through the church.
(To track apostles and wander the world is the fate of a Fire Mist Warrior; it's impossible to stay in the same place for long, so there is no need to have more contact with humans than necessary.)
After she said this, the other person showed a sad expression and remained silent, but the girl did not take it to heart at all.
Now, she only felt that her current position was uncomfortable.
(Let's find the apostles quickly, and then leave.)
Thinking this way was natural for her. Apart from her mission, she had no doubts or expectations. This path of life, which had never encountered hardship, was so straightforward that it was hard to imagine.
There seemed to be only this one related report.
The girl folded the newspaper while speaking to the pendant on her chest.
Hmm.
The reason why such an extremely strange incident was treated so lightly was that most of the Torch's existence power, which had been discovered, had already been consumed. Soon, with the disappearance of the Torch itself, the related report would also vanish from the newspaper and be forgotten by people.
In contrast, another Torch she was currently involved with, Oogami Junko, still retained enough existence power to maintain a will no different from that of an ordinary human.
What does the difference between these two Torches really signify?
Suddenly, the girl sensed a certain presence approaching her and looked toward the lifted sliding door.
It was not an apostle.
It was a human, Junko's mother.
She was quietly walking up the stairs.
However, for some unknown reason, her mother stopped midway. She hesitated for a few seconds in the middle of the stairs, or rather, stood there exuding an aura of hesitation for a few seconds before walking back down.
The girl once again felt weary of dealing with humans.
(Could my actions really be suspicious enough for her to doubt me like this?)
She recalled her own actions.Then, she immediately thought that this was a meaningless matter and stopped thinking. She was not making some kind of superficial disguise that could possibly be seen through. Whatever she did, it was merely suspicious behavior of Junko Ōgami; no one could possibly doubt her identity.
However, there was also something quite concerning to her.
(What exactly happened just now?)
Junko Ōgami's mother was holding something in her hand.
It was something connected to this torch with a powerful bond.
That kind of bond was similar to joy, happiness, and also included astonishment, sorrow, and even anger, containing extremely complex emotions.
Yet, the girl thought
(It doesn't really matter anyway.)
and once again abandoned her thoughts. She had no interest in anything outside of her mission. What she was interested in was the place and time where Junko Ōgami was to be consumed.
Starting tomorrow, I plan to walk around the range of action of this torch instead of questioning at school first, right?
A while ago, while investigating around this small town, she had already confirmed that there was only one high school nearby. And Junko Ōgami's uniform matched that school.
Alastair had no objections either.
Well, apart from home, that would be the second place with close connections. She should start by her colleagues—
He referred to the students at the school in this way.
and then walk around to ask clearly whether there were any suspicious phenomena or actions around this torch.
Understood.
The girl nodded and reached out to one of Junko Ōgami's relics she possessed, the school uniform. It was a deep blue outfit with a soft, curved design. She unfolded the clothing and compared it to her own body.
The size was too big. The original owner of the clothing was neither fat nor particularly tall; in other words, the girl's body was very petite. Tonight, she would go to the school and take a properly fitting set from where the clothes were kept.
That's it.
The two talked about this act, which violated human laws, as if it was perfectly natural.
Next,
The girl did not like to waste time. She immediately opened her school bag and began checking whether there were any clues in Junko Ōgami's possessions that had contact with the apostles.
Several hours later, the girl walked from her room down to the living room.Nominally, it was to have dinner, but in reality, she intended to extract the necessary information from Junzi's family members. Then, she noticed the figure of a man there.
Aside from having slightly more white hair, he had no other remarkable features; he was a very ordinary middle-aged man. Since she felt a strong bond similar to when she saw her mother, it could be judged that this was Junzi's father (though there was a certain inexplicable sense of distance and slight avoidance).
That sense of closeness, although not truly her own, made the girl feel quite uncomfortable. Setting aside her mission, her personality was naturally one that disliked others stepping into her domain.
The father casually greeted her:
"I'm back."
"Welcome back."
The girl hesitated for a moment before responding, then sat down at the dining table, which had been set with the utensils.
