The moment Yuna passed through the mirror, she opened her eyes in the collapsed café. Tables and chairs lay strewn about, and corpses were mounted like specimens on the walls and floor. There, she tightened her grip on her staff. The staff, carved from wood, answered her will and scattered a faint light around her.
Whoooom.
The light slowly expanded its reach until, at last, it brightly illuminated the interior of the café. Revealed in that light, the café looked as though it had been abandoned for long years; not a single place remained intact.
No matter where she stepped, obstacles crunched beneath her feet, and corpses that had died in horrific ways hung everywhere like decorations. Yuna studied one of them closely and let out a low groan.
“……Don’t tell me that’s the Godmother? Because time flows differently here, she’s already dead?”
“Unfortunately, I’m still alive.”
“Eeeek!”
Yuna screamed at the voice that should not have been heard.
Whether she did or not, Eunha, who had been resting behind the half-destroyed counter, poked out only her head and met Yuna’s gaze.
“You arrived safely. What a relief. I heard something strange in the middle, so I thought you might have crash-landed.”
“S-something strange……?”
“Mm…… If I had to compare it to something, maybe the sound of glass breaking. Well, I only heard the sound and there was no other reaction, so I’m sure it wasn’t anything serious.”
Eunha answered like that and tore open an instant coffee packet rolling around in the corner. At some point, she had already taken off her gas mask.
“It’s fine to take off the gas mask. I checked briefly with magic, and I didn’t detect any radioactivity or radiation in particular.”
“R-really……? Then the food too……”
“Yes. It’s fine to eat.”
Drip, drip.
Eunha poured the coffee powder into a paper cup and added hot water. Then she stirred it with a teaspoon she had gotten from somewhere. Sugar, coffee, and water mixed together, and cheap coffee was completed in an instant. She took a sip and nodded in satisfaction.
“It’s good. Personally, the coffee I like is Americano, but this isn’t bad once in a while.”
“Wh-what about mine……?”
“There isn’t any. I only barely found one.”
“Th-then let’s share. I like c-coffee too……”
“There’s too little to share. Wouldn’t it be better to find another one? There was a department store nearby, so if we search that place, we’ll probably find some. Shall I help you look?”
“……Haa……”
Yuna let out a deep sigh and took off her gas mask. The air that had only felt hot turned cold again, and the stuffiness vanished completely.
She did not suddenly stop breathing or cough up blood. Fortunately, it seemed the Godmother had not lied.
“Wh-where is Ian……?”
Yuna asked as she sat in a nearby chair. Eunha tilted her head.
“Mr. Ian hasn’t arrived yet. Weren’t you the second one to come in?”
“H-huh? No? I-I was last. Ian went in five seconds before me.”
“What?”
“Huh?”
Their gazes collided in midair. A cold silence split the space between them. Cold sweat ran down their backs.
Bang!
Before either of them could say anything, Yuna and Eunha rose to their feet at the same time. The paper cup that had been set down for a moment tipped over and spilled the coffee, but Eunha paid it no mind.
“How many seconds apart did you enter?”
“Five seconds. You went in, and five seconds later Ian went in.”
“And then you came in another five seconds after that.”
“R-right.”
“I arrived here roughly an hour ago. That means thirty minutes in this place equals five seconds in reality.”
“Th-then after Ian came in here……”
“It means thirty minutes have already passed.”
Thirty minutes.
It was short if one considered it short, and long if one considered it long, but at the very least, it was not enough time to guarantee safety while exposed to a Mystery. Both of their faces twisted grimly.
“……Mr. Ian isn’t that weak, but even so, if the reptilians trusted in their numbers and swarmed him, even he wouldn’t be able to defeat them easily.”
“H-he wouldn’t have died or gotten hurt.”
“I think so too. But he may still be in danger.”
Eunha muttered with a grave expression. Lemegeton, which had been hanging quietly at her waist until now, quietly added,
[Eunha, that bastard has two grimoires of the Outer Gods. There’s no way he’d be taken down easily in a place like this.]
Strictly speaking, it was three, but because the Blue Shackles and Book of Contracts specialized in concealment, even Lemegeton had not noticed its existence. Even so, Lemegeton knew very well that the two Ian already possessed were more than enough to break through the current situation.
[I don’t know exactly what kind of magic is recorded in the grimoires he has, but the magic of the Outer Gods is not so ordinary or peaceful. What I mean is that even if hundreds or thousands of lizards rush him, he won’t fall into danger so easily.]
“You never know.”
“H-huh? What?”
Yuna tilted her head, thinking Eunha had been speaking to her. Eunha waved her hand.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
[Eunha, the most useless thing in the world is worrying about a mage. Most mages are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. And that man has outstanding talent as a mage. He may even be stronger than you.]
“Even so, he hasn’t even been a mage for a full year yet. His ability to judge accurately may be lacking.”
[No, that cannot be. Do you think a grimoire of an Outer God is such an easy thing? Do you know what extraordinary mental strength and will it takes to possess one and still maintain your sanity—]
“Solomon.”
Eunha exhaled slowly and looked down at the grimoire hanging from her waist.
“I don’t care about any of that. I’m simply worried about him. Without any conditions attached.”
[……Eunha.]
“So don’t add anything unnecessary and just help me find him. You gathered a lot of ether, didn’t you?”
[……Tch. Yes, there is plenty stored.]
Unlike other grimoires, Lemegeton had magic built into it that could store ether.
It was a magic created personally by Solomon, and among the ritual-type spells that made up the grimoire’s magic, it was the only spell that took intent-type magic as its core.
Its effect was, as stated, the storage of ether. And through that, the immediate activation of ritual magic.
“Our Father in heaven. As Your faithful servant, believer, and daughter, I beseech You. Grant me the strength and wisdom to punish the hordes of evil.”
A spell composed of a devout prayer to God. Radiant light flowed from Lemegeton and gathered before Eunha like a bead. Without hesitation, Eunha grasped that bead in her hand and closed her eyes. Yuna read the situation and voluntarily stood guard over her.
“O Eye of Light. As one favored by God, I command you: become my eyes. Thus, find my person.”
Bzzzt.
Originally, it was Catholic-type magic that used bread and wine, fine soil, salt, and holy water as materials, but she boldly skipped all of those processes and called forth only the result. The light dwelling in the bead gradually diminished, and in its place, her eyes were dyed gold.
[Aaaaaaaagh!!]
Belial, the great demon contracted to her, screamed at the divine power seeping into her eyes.
She ignored it. Eunha focused her entire mind on her vision, which had turned blurry for an instant before beginning to reflect somewhere else.
“……”
And so she saw.
A ruined city. A broken and collapsed asphalt road. A massive beast of ash gray and blood red sprinting across it at high speed.
“Ugh!”
Pain surged up, as if merely gazing at it made her head reel. Because it was an eye of insight, it reacted all the more sensitively. But Eunha did not close her eyes; instead, she opened them even wider and stared fixedly at the beast.
‘She said there were only reptilians here. A monster like that exists in the city too?’
For a moment, that thought crossed her mind, but after thinking it through a little, she realized it made no sense.
Eunha had explored this space through lesser demons. And those demons had conveyed to her what they had directly heard, seen, and felt.
Demons were beings who basically lived with lies and mockery at their side, but those contracted under the names of Solomon and the Lord could not give Eunha false information.
Perhaps if they were among the Seventy-two Demons, it might have been different. But the lesser demons beneath them could not recklessly touch so much as a strand of her hair.
And such beings could suddenly lie just because they had stepped into this place?
Nonsense. There was no way such a space existed, and even if it did, there was no way Lemegeton or Eunha would have failed to notice the demons changing.
Therefore, there was a high possibility that that being was a creature that should not originally exist in the mirror world. If so, just what had flown in from where—
“……?”
The moment she thought that, the beast’s figure began to come into clearer detail in her vision. Thanks to that, she could also see someone lying on top of the beast.
A face full of ennui. An expressionless yet languid look. It was hard to find reason in the half-closed eyes, and yet the irises were like beautiful obsidian. A fluttering coat. Three grimoires strewn across his chest.
There were a few differences from when she had last seen him, but Eunha realized at once who he was.
“……Mr. Ian?”
The words slipped out before she knew it. As if responding to them, Ian, who had been lying on the beast’s back, met her gaze, wore a faint smile, and waved his hand.
At his gently swaying hand and his decadent gaze, Eunha’s heart pounded for an instant.
*
For twenty minutes now, Ian had been traveling while lying on the Circulator’s back because walking was a bother. Sensing Eunha’s familiar magic, he waved to her.
“Godmother, I’m over here. Where are you? Can you hear me? Hello? Oh, Donghun. Eunha, what are you doing right now? Are you asleep? Are you outside……? Yeah, I’m outside.”
Words spilled out according to the flow of his consciousness. The grimoires that had been huddled together cozily clung to his hand like magnets, as if telling him not to look at another woman.
[Grrrrr!]
The Circulator roared.
The Circulator was hella super strong, so it wuz the strongest of all Circulators.
It beated the reptilians and the cultists too. It beated them even when they all came at it.
[Kreeeeek!]
Anyway, that thing roared.