"So he really isn't coming back."
"Yep." Helena nodded, "Just checked. Not just Haddock but the entire church is just gone now."
"Hm. They usually come back." Momo mused, "Even when Haddock himself doesn't want to be brought back."
"Well, something must've changed then." Helena agreed, "Anyone have any ideas?"
Kaguya sat down among her peers, doing her best to look nonchalant in her silence. Not well enough though as Helena seemed to immediately zone in on her as she asked,
"Any ideas, Kaguya?"
"...Who knows?" Kaguya said, trying to retain her cover, "Could be anything."
"Now now." Helena nodded, "Let's just all agree that only Roko gets to hold secrets from us. At least when it's information on any on-going incidents anyway."
"Did you find something out?" Momo asked Kaguya directly.
"...Am I really that bad at acting?" Kaguya sighed.
"It's that aura of smug knowing." Helena smirked, "The kind of aura one exudes when they obviously knows something that others don't. Knowing Roko for a long as we have, you pick up on that sort of aura coming from him since he hides it really well. So when other people try to do the same thing, you can easily tell."
"...I'm not sure how much of that is true but..." Kaguya sighed, "...Roko did seem to have made some sort of slip up last time."
"Roko slipping up?" Helena raised an eyebrow, "That's rare."
"Well, I think it had to do with this new spell he, or rather, his demon friend learned." Kaguya nodded, "Something called zone?"
"Zone? Haven't heard of that." Momo frowned, "What does it do?"
"Makes people tell the truth from what I can tell."
"Ooo, that's a scary spell." Helena's eyes widened, "So...what, did he admit if he was evil or not?"
"No, of course not." Kaguya rolled her eyes, "No, it was actually around something he didn't say. An admission by silence that interrogating Haddock was his only option."
"An admission by silence." Helena nodded, "That sounds like something Roko would do."
"He did try to say that interrogating Haddock was his BEST option but..."
"Yeah, that does sound like he's trying to save face." Helena smirked, "But I guess with Roko you never really know."
"So...Haddock isn't coming back because Roko would try and force the truth out of him and not coming back would mean Roko's at a dead end."
"Pretty much."
"...Damn. Sucks for Roko I guess." Helena grinned.
"Well, depends on how good his not-best options are I suppose." Momo smiled.
"Maybe if this wasn't EVIL Roko." Helena scoffed, "We all know normal Roko is better than Evil Roko."
"You seem pretty convinced that Roko is evil now." Momo chuckled, "Why are you so sure now?"
"Heh. Follow me."
With a confused look towards each other, Helena's friends all followed her to the back of the inn, to the backyard that was always open to the public.
"67...68...69...70..."
There was Roland, doing one handed pushed ups with a strong determination in his eyes. So focused on his training, he didn't even notice the girls who showed up at the entrance to watch him. He just continued to commit to his training oblivious to anything else.
"This isn't even his first set." Helena said almost smugly.
"I'll admit, I didn't think I'd ever see Roland taking his training seriously." Momo smiled.
"Exactly! And as his best friend, how could I not support him?" Helena grinned.
"Well, that's great and all but..." Kaguya chuckled, "Are you saying you're only saying Roko is evil to support Roland's idea of beating him?"
"Exactly." Helena replied without hesitation.
"...So does he know a couple of push-ups won't get him on Roko's level at this point?" Momo said, trying to hide a small laugh from everyone.
"Don't ruin his dream like that." Helena said, almost giggling to herself as well.
"H-He's doing his best, that's all that matters." Corissa said with a pitying smile.
"Yeah, if Roko doesn't do something soon, he'd going to be in serious trouble." Kaguya smirked.
"Yeah! Wherever he is!" Helena laughed.
"Oh! Hey guys!"
"Oh hey, Lydia!" Helena greeted the timid innkeeper casually, "Haven't seen you in a while."
"Err...yeah, I've been busy."
"With what?"
"Well...actually...have you guys seen a girl named Morgan?"
"Morgan?" Helena blinked, "No, haven't even met a girl named Morgan. What does she look like?"
"Well, she's around my age..." Lydia sighed, "Her disgui-I mean, she has like...long black hair..."
Everyone turned to look at Kaguya.
"Guys, you know me." Kaguya sighed.
"And she has like...blue eyes..."
Everyone turned to look at Helena.
"Guys, I don't have black hair." Helena smirked, "Also, you know me."
"This isn't going to work." Lydia sighed.
"Well, does Morgan have distinguishing features?" Helena laughed, "Anything noteworthy?"
"Well...she does have big breasts."
Everyone turned to look at Corissa.
"Is that all I am to you all?" Corissa sighed.
"Look, do you just have a picture of her you can use?" Kaguya asked, turning back to Lydia.
"Umm...no, I never did get a picture of her." Lydia replied.
"You never took a picture of her?" Helena raised an eyebrow, "Even incidentally?"
"Well, I never got a picture of her disg-I mean, she's very camera-shy."
"Hm."
"Also I don't have a phone."
"Really?"
"Neither does Morgan."
"Hm. I guess you type of people do exist." Helena blinked.
"What does that mean?" Lydia growled.
"Nothing. Well, we'd love to help since we got nothing better to do but without anything more solid to go on, I don't know how much help we can be."
"Yeah, I figured." Lydia sighed, "I'll just keep looking."
"Why are you looking for her anyway?" Momo asked.
"She's my best friend."
"Okay. Is she like...missing or something?"
"I...don't know quite yet."
"Okay. Well...we'll keep an...ear out, I guess."
"Okay, thanks." Lydia nodded before running off to look for her friend.
The girls watched her disappear around the corner for a moment before Helena spoke up again,
"So what are we thinking?"
"Lesbian maybe?" Kaguya suggested.
"I mean, she could be bi." Momo added.
"Wait, what are we talking about?" Corissa blinked, "I thought she was just looking for her friend."
"Come on, Corissa, think about it." Helena grinned, "She broke up with her husband and is now looking for her best friend."
"Are...they divorced?" Corissa tilted her head, "I thought they just got into a fight or something."
"Yeah. Because she's in the closet!"
"Or trying to come out." Momo nodded.
"Shame we don't know anything about this Morgan person." Kaguya nodded.
"...But...she's still married..." Corissa said.
"Ooo, cheating?!" Helena rubbed her hands together hungrily.
"She would never!" Corissa gasped.
"Who knows what's going on in her head?"
Okay, Roko, let's go over this one more time.
You're the only one who needs the recap but sure.
We think Morgan is the culprit because…
Physical transformation has not been demonstrated by this eldritch parasite before and given the idea that they share spells through a hive mind, her illusion spell could be the basis for hiding all the parasites from common view.
And we know it must be Morgan's illusion because…
I mean, I can analyze the illusion spell on you and compare it with any spell that could exist on any random passerby, but with how much you adjusted your illusion at this point, the only real proof I'd have to connect it to Morgan would be with your prior experience with Morgan's illusion spells.
...Wait, you haven't checked?
Like I said, it'd depend on you.
…
You want to check?
Morgan's gotta be around here somewhere.
Olivia jogged through the town, looking for the street she had checked with her boss on. Unfortunately, despite being here for several months, Olivia had not bothered to memorize the street names.
"Pallas Street. Pallas Street..." Olivia muttered to herself, doing her best to remember the street name as she searched.
You could ask for directions.
From WHO?! Everyone's been parasitized!
And if Morgan is the one behind everything, they'd be aware enough to not direct you to Pallas Street.
Exactly!
So I guess if you wanted to prove Morgan is behind this, you could ask for dire-
Roko shut the fuck up!
Finally spotting a sign denoting her entrance into Pallas Street, Olivia began running down the street until she recognized the run down hut in the shadows that Morgan's human disguise was "working" at. Bursting through the door, she had hoped to find her friend then and there but the place was eerily empty.
"A potion shop." Roko remarked, emerging from Olivia's shadow to look around the place himself, "Haven't been in one of these for a while."
"Roko shut up." Olivia scowled as she ran down the aisle to behind the counter.
"I was just talking to myself." Roko replied as he picked up a potion and sloshed it around curiously, "Am I not allowed to talk anymore?"
"NO! Not until I prove Morgan's innocent!"
"I guess that possibility does still exist." Roko remarked, "Even if it's easily determinable at any given momen-"
"No speaking until spoken to!"
Olivia was practically tear appearing stacks of sales record for anything to tell her where Morgan was. Or at the very least anything that could prove her innocence.
"Nothing...nothing..." Olivia bit her lip as she continued to search for anything, "There's nothing here!"
"..."
"ROKO WHY ARE YOU QUIET?!"
"Because you told me to?"
"If you found something then say something!"
"Can you be nicer then?"
"Roko!"
"Fine." Roko sighed, "It's not much but you are searching in the wrong place."
"What?"
"Check this out."
Roko held out the potion he was examining.
"What is it now?" Olivia scowled as she paused her search to walk over.
She reached out to take the potion for herself but Roko very suddenly just dropped the potion onto the ground. Shattering the glass as the fluid inside suddenly turned into a writhing mass of flesh that began to try and jump towards Roko only to be shot out of the air by a quick fire spell from Olivia who looked a little shaken by the discovery.
"...That doesn't prove anything." Olivia growled.
"It sure doesn't." Roko nodded.
"Stop agreeing with me!"
"I just can't win with you, huh?"
"Shut up! I'm doing this alone! Go away!"
"..."
Roko just leaned against the wall as Olivia returned to tearing apart documents for the proof she wanted. It was strange. Any of the princesses he normally worked with would've swallowed their pride and accepted the overwhelming proof or accepted to take any of the definitive tests Roko offered. Perhaps it was their position or training that made them more aware of betrayals and the need to look at things objectively that would've made this sort of exercise much easier for them to confront. Meanwhile, Olivia was here desperately looking for any way to prove her friend's innocence. A demon pretending to be human was acting perhaps more human than the humans Roko normally worked with. An odd sort of advantage that Roko had never considered in his history working with them. Even Corissa, the most emotional of them all, was well put together enough to confront the betrayal of Alec properly though his betrayal wasn't quite on the same level as this.
"Roko did you find anything yet?!"
"Nope. Been staring off into space."
"Why aren't you helping?!"
"You said you were gonna do this alone?"
"Well...if you have any proof, then share it!"
"So remember the goddess that Haddock said he worshiped? What was her name? Zaffira...something?"
"Dammit, Roko, not that kind of proof!"
Roko sighed. This wasn't going to end until they somehow find Morgan herself. Her disappearance itself was already super suspicious though not quite strong enough as evidence to warrant mentioning. It was true that all the evidence was circumstantial but it was pretty overwhelming. Seeing Olivia like this wasn't fun but the only thing Roko could do was continue to view the situation with as fair a logic as he could offer.
"Roko..." Olivia's voice came across the shop weakly as she finished pulling out all the drawers and scattered papers everywhere, placing her head in her arms as she leaned on the table to try and rest her body and psyche, "Where is she?"
"...We could search the entire town but that could take a while." Roko noted, "And we've done a bit of searching already. We can't quite conclude she isn't in the town but if she isn't there's only really one other place she could be."
"...Let's go."
Olivia stood up and stormed out quickly, dropping her human disguise to raise her wings, letting Roko fall back into her shadows as she stepped out and took off to Driftwood.
"Saba, we have another new face!"
"Who is it this time, Elly?"
"Hello there." A black haired woman with blue eyes and large breasts covered by a small shawl stepped up to him while carrying a wooden basket, "I heard about this small settlement and came to offer my support."
"Again?" Saba scoffed, "So people only care about us now that the rich have discovered us."
"I wouldn't say that." The woman giggled, "I simply didn't have the resources to spare until now."
"Sure lady. Who are you?"
"Just a humble lady with some minor donations." The woman reached into her basket and pulled out a fruit, "Would you like an apple?"