The information Raiga and the others shared was entirely beyond anything Neimu could have anticipated.
Demon King Aldebaran of the Four Great Demon Kings had suffered defeat at the hands of an allied monster army in Northground. On top of that, the one leading those monsters was Gilbert Loto Amelia. A prince of the Holy Amelia Kingdom, he apparently ruled even the Crimson Demon Nation as General Chairman of the Monster Nation Fiesta.
Had that evil army truly fallen to humans?
(Preposterous! There is no way that could happen!)
That was the one sheer impossibility. Those entities were not something humankind could ever overcome. If they were so weak that a mere human prince could defeat them, her king, Lord Ashu, would have been more than capable of handling them. Neimu wouldn't have been crushed by such utter despair from the start.
If that was the case, what did this all mean?
"Well, they say that person is behind the founding of Fiesta, so it ain't all that surprising, really."
Sipping his fruit wine, the middle-aged hunter voiced a thought that struck Neimu as profoundly shocking.
"Yeah! That's it exactly! That guy is unreal! He even took down one of the Four Great Demon Kings!"
Shifting gears entirely, Raiga clenched both fists in excitement and raised his voice.
"Wait just a moment! Do you know who defeated Demon King Aldebaran?!"
"Yeah, any high-ranking hunter in Balse knows him! He's the world's strongest hunter!"
Raiga boasted with immense pride, as if bragging about himself.
When it came to the world's strongest hunter known by all, that was Isaac Gizdoor. Isaac was investigated even by the Dark Country's intelligence bureau as the strongest existence in the human realm. Because of that, Neimu had witnessed his battles before. He was undeniably monstrously strong, yet he still remained within the bounds of human capability.
To all appearances, it was impossible for the human species to subjugate the transmutated Aldebaran. In other words, that "world's strongest hunter" could not be Isaac.
"Wh-What is the name of this world's strongest hunter?"
Pressing a hand to her chest to calm her racing heart, she asked for his name.
"Kai Heinemann. Princess Rosemary's Royal Guard, and the strongest creature among humanity—no, in the entire world."
At Raiga's words, the others chimed in.
"The world's strongest creature, huh... True enough, no words fit him better than that."
"Come to think of it, when I was drinking with my guildmates from the Babel headquarters the other day, I caught wind that Mr. Kai pulled off quite a mess during Babel's entrance exams too."
"No, no, that guy taking an entrance exam in the first place is straight-up cheating! It makes zero sense!"
"Right? It really doesn't. Apparently, some suicidal idiot picked a fight with Mr. Kai and pissed him off for real."
"Pissed him off...? Are you serious?"
"Yeah. The Chief Headmaster got caught in the crossfire and had to retire, and as for the vice headmaster who truly enraged him, well, it was curtains."
She drew a thumb across her neck in a slicing gesture.
"Aah, man, figures that's how it'd end up. Seems like the guy doesn't show an ounce of mercy to scumbags."
"On top of that, Mr. Kai's subordinates effortlessly wiped out disaster-class monsters, too."
"Haha, well, no wonder the folks in Babel—hunters included—hardly believe it. Nine times out of ten, Babel Academy will clamp down on information about that incident anyway. The only ones who know are the hunters, and the only ones who'd actually believe it are us Balse hunters who've witnessed his absurd strength firsthand."
The hunters animatedly traded stories, but for Neimu, this was no time for casual banter.
"The Chief Headmaster... You mean the Inea Renren Lorelei?! And vice headmaster Crab Einstein died because of this Kai Heinemann, too?!"
Neimu blurted out her questions in a frantic outburst. And understandably so. The sheer terror of Inea and Crab, who stood at the absolute pinnacle of human power, was well known even to Neimu. Forcing the simultaneous departure of those two was something not even the Hero Mashiro could accomplish. Which meant this Kai Heinemann was—
"Hey, wasn't there a gag order on this stuff?"
"Oh yeah, that's right. It's common knowledge to us, so I completely slipped up. Sorry, just forget everything we said."
Looking sheepish, Raiga dropped the subject, and from then on, he didn't utter another word about Kai Heinemann.
Neimu resolved to join Raiga's party. Her objective, of course, was to meet this Kai Heinemann. A festival was scheduled in Babel at the end of the month, and Kai Heinemann would reportedly be attending.
If what Raiga and the others said was true, then Kai Heinemann had transcended the realm of humanity. If he was truly such a monster, perhaps he could even subjugate the modified Aldebaran.
Furthermore, if Kai Heinemann served as kin to a godlike, transcendent existence, and that great god had lent power to the monsters of Northground to push back the forces of evil and birth a new nation... Viewing it through that lens cleanly explained the entire sequence of events.
A god who, even nominally, lent power to the demon race and monsters. Perhaps that deity might extend a helping hand to Neimu and the Dark Country as well.
She had already resigned herself to ruin anyway. She might as well wager on this lingering possibility.
"I'll be in your care."
Harboring a final ember of hope in her chest, Neimu extended her hand to Raiga and the hunters who were to become her new companions.