The search continued for a few days with no notable events. The inquisitor had already started to move by himself too. Apparently he had finally got annoyed that nothing was found.

On that day, something did happen.

----

Around midday at the estate owned by Erral, a package was being delivered. While Erral was still busy with the search, it was his wife and daughter who were at home.

Erral’s wife answered the door.

“Ah, this is the delivery of herbs my husband ordered, yes?” Erral’s wife asked.

“It is”, said the delivery man. “Please sign here.”

Around at this time Erral’s daughter came to see. She was relatively young.

“Pretty flowers?” She asked her mother.

“With these we will help you grow stronger”, Erral’s wife said and signed the delivery. “You are almost at the age.”

Then she picked up the box and opened it. There were carefully placed herbs inside. They were properly arranged so they would not be damaged or cause any reactions with each others.

Erral’s wife picked up a few carefully and then she noticed something just under the herbs at the top. It looked like a metal box for stronger herbs to contain their effect better. She picked it up and looked at it for a moment?

“What is it mother?” Asked Erral’s daughter.

“Its probably one of the stronger herbs”, Erral’s wife said and unlocked the box to check its contents.

She opened the box and looked inside.

*skweeeEEEEEEEN*

---

*KABOOOM*

The explosion was heard across the fourth layer.

Everyone in the fourth layer turned to look at the smoke cloud rising up. This included everyone doing the search.

“Hehe, things are now in motion”, Kaden thought to himself and smiled. “Erral should be going crazy right about now.”

As Kaden expected, at this time Erral was trying to make calls with his phone. He knew the explosion was at the direction of his home. He was worried. No one would answer to him when he tried to call home. Soon he started rushing towards his home.

In fact, large portion of the people in search did so. Explosion was clearly something unusual and they needed to check it out. Kaden was among these people. There was no way he would miss Erral’s reaction. Not only that, he wanted to see which way the chaos was going to initially go to.

Would Erral collapse and do nothing? Perhaps he would go berserk? Some things needed to happen.

If the demon had managed to arrange everything they had agreed to, this was all just a start. Single person’s torment was not enough for the demon, so Kaden was pretty certain it surely arranged everything perfectly. Otherwise it would not get what it wanted.

Erral’s estate’s front had been blown up. There were a few fires, but Kaden had not put in any of that. Just explosion. Fire mana could possibly be traced. Kaden had even charged the explosive formation with mana crystals and not his own mana.

At the time Kaden reached Erral’s home, Erral was already there raging at people to let him go in. All this while everyone else was trying to tell him to let people investigate rather than have him going around in a state where would make situation worse.

Erral was having none of that and continued struggling.

Kaden watched the situation unfold a bit.

The inquisitor had come too. He was giving orders that search should continue and that the explosion was just a distraction. Around at this time Erral finally gave up trying to get in, but instead threw caution to the winds and started questioning the inquisitor.

Apparently everyone of the officers were generally aware what they were looking for, but now Erral was asking all the details that the inquisitor did not share before. Erral wanted to go after the demon by himself. The inqusitor eventually told Erral something and that made him leave and get out of everyone’s way.

“This is fine”, Kaden thought to himself as he watched Erral rush out. “It might make things even better once the main part of this starts.”

----

For obvious reasons the explosion concentrated large part of the investigation there at Erral’s house.

Weils was feeling something was odd. This isn’t the demons usual way of doing things. Too much attention. Was it truly just a distraction or intent to cause as much damage as it could before it was found?

As the inquisitor was pondering these matters a soldier came to him.

“Lord inquisitor, there is something you must see”, said the soldier. He was slightly nervous. “As we searched the explosion site for any clues, we found something.”

“Lead the way”, Weils replied. Perhaps this would shed light on the situation!

Weils followed the soldier to Erral’s house. The explosion had been relatively powerful, the building had two stories and a cellar. The entire front portion had collapsed and there was also some other structural damage around.

“Lord inquisitor”, said the soldier again and pointed towards a doorway going down. “To continue search for the clues we needed to see, if the place would collapse on us. Some of us went to see the damage on the cellar level. We found something in there.”

Weils did not reply, but continued following the soldier down to the cellar. On the first look, there was very minor damage visible and generally the place looked normal. Yet, back of the area next to some barrels there were a few more people looking a bit unsure and somewhat scared.

“Please see for yourself, lord”, continued the soldier and pointed towards the barrels.

Weils went to see what had rattled everyone so.

At the moment Weils saw it, his train of thoughts stopped. This made no sense.

It was an altar. Specifically to God of Lies. Such an altar was in the cellar of Erral, a well known military officer!

“Guard this place!” Weils said. “We will destroy it eventually, but right now we need to have it as evidence.” Then Weils pulled out his phone cursing slightly. With it he sent out new orders. “Find Erral. There are some questions we need to ask him.” To think he had sent Erral away!

Weils also called some priests to purify the place and seal the altar.

Even Erral was sent some orders to come back, but he did not reply nor did he come.

----

Kaden also received the message to find Erral. He was not going to do such a thing. The bigger this got, the better.

“They must have found some of the arrangements”, Kaden smiled and put away his phone. “This is the part that the demon needs. All I need is Erral to get tied with some questions well enough that they aren’t easily solved. Whether he lives or dies, his life should collapse and his name stained. He should suffer a bit.”

The demon had a lot of people within its influence. Perhaps some worked for it and were aware of it. Some it manipulated to do something. Some even without their knowledge. Some just happened to do things in some kind of madness. The demon could get things happen, if it wanted to. Staining Erral was something it could do with some effort.

----

Before Erral was found, something else came up. People went to look for him from the place where soldiers under his command trained and stayed. Some more dark idols and small hidden altars were found.

Kaden even heard that there was actually someone who shouted praises to God of Lies and died fighting back among the soldiers. He wasn’t sure, if this was the demon’s doing on such short notice. Where would it have found an actual cultists and arranged him to perish? Still, Kaden didn’t think it was completely impossible. The other option was that one was actually infiltrated among the soldiers and was merely found.

This also stained the reputation of Erral’s troops. The entire place was put on lockdown by the military.

“Haha, this is good”, Kaden laughed to himself as he listened for more information coming in one after another. “Those under Erral must suffer too.”

Kaden guessed Erral must have heard of everything by now and was hiding. He wasn’t sure why he ignored the original orders to come back for questioning. Perhaps he was just still so enraged and only wanted to find the culprit himself and saw everyone else as mere hindrances?

It was good that Erral had chosen to do so. It would make him look more suspicious.

With such matters going around. A huge scandal with military and God of Lies cultists having infiltrated elite troops and seemingly the leader was their commanding officer. Who could trust who? Distrust. Paranoia. Fear. The demon hand ample oportunities to gather all the negative emotions it wanted and also to fan the fires.

----

“We should be looking for the demon!” Nelsen shouted. “This is obviously a malicious set up!”

“Captain Nelsen, please calm yourself”, said inquisitor Weils to him. “Nothing was found from your team, but you have been closely affiliated with Erral for a long time. I will allow you stay here, but this might be too personal for you.”

“I was investiaged too?” Nelsen asked with some shock, but then calmed down. “Yes, of course, I understand why, but Erral is clearly wrongly accused! Someone must have set up those horrific altars to smear his name and divert our attention!”

“The search still continues”, Weils pointed out. “Make no mistake, the demon will be found. As for the possiblity of set up, we will see about that later. As it happens, this demon was originally summoned by some cultists and as far as we know the demon was not a willing party. This is what I was informed when I asked more information from church. This is clearly a motive! It might have just attacked its enemies at the time it saw its time running out!”

Nelsen had nothing to that. If it was a set up, it was good enough to not be cleared immediately!

“Whatever is the truth, this has exploded out into much larger incident than was originally thought”, Weils continued. “Even I cannot act freely anymore. This is a stain upon the military of the Holy Saint Empire! Church is also involved in this matter and some of that stain spills upon us also.”

A moment of silence.

“Lord inquisitor”, Nelsen started and stood up. “Erral has been my friend for a long time. This is too personal and the matter too important. I cannot be in this meeting.”

“Then leave”, said Weils with a nod.

Nelsen started to walk out.

“Captain Nelsen”, Weils continued just as Nelsen was about to leave. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I understand”, Nelsen said with gritted teeth.

----

Kaden spent the following days in glee as he watched city look like a disturbed ant nest. City guards, military, church personel. All of them were going around. Some more actual cultists were found and Kaden assumed these were legit cultists.

Yet, with all this, Erral remained at large. It would make sense that veteran like Erral who had been in leading position was able to hide.

What surprised Kaden was that the demon was not found either. That or the news about its banishment back to hell did not reach wider audience.

Nelsen had stepped out of the matter too. This annoyed Kaden slightly, but it was to be expected. Still, it cut out major portion of Kaden’s paths of information.

Still, everything he needed to be visible, was. He only needed to hear what happaned to Erral at the end. Kaden was happy to torment Erral. Whether inquisitors would wrongly judge him, just like failures of deceptive gods they were, it was acceptable. If Erral was cleared, his life would be already ruined. This meant Kaden would have more oportunities to attack and finish the deal.