Her light brown hair sparkled in the sunlight like ripe barley.
It was a color closer to gold than brown, yet it was difficult to call it perfectly bright blond like Cecilia’s. It was a color with plenty of room to appear as a different hue depending on the angle from which one gazed.
“…….”
The ends of her hair, rolled up in a bun-like style curled like a croissant, swayed lightly in the wind. Ian tilted his head and looked down at her for a long while.
*She mentioned Walter. A woman connected to Laplace.*
This was the second time he had encountered a member of Laplace. The first had been Eddy, and though it had been somewhat difficult, he had succeeded in cutting off the bastard’s head. Even now, he was still making thorough use of that head, wasting nothing.
Adding one more here wouldn’t matter much. Rather, since he hadn’t been able to pluck out Eddy’s eyes, if he captured her and extracted her eyeballs, he would be able to verify the proper effects of a dying eyeball.
Or, it was possible to put a collar around her neck through a contract. The conditions were somewhat tricky, but it wasn’t entirely impossible. Even with just the Cycler he had summoned, he could easily bring someone of her level to the brink of death.
*Well then, shall I subdue her first and think later?*
Kill or capture. In any case, now that he had realized she was a mage of Laplace, he couldn’t simply pretend not to see and move on. It was right to knock her out first and then decide what to do with her.
Having organized his thoughts, Ian summoned the Abyssal Chronicle and conveyed his will to the Cycler.
Telepathy that could only be used when utilizing a grimoire. Even if listening to the Cycler’s thoughts was impossible, one-way communication was more than feasible.
*The human before your eyes. Capture her and knock her out. Don’t eat her.*
[Grrrr!]
The Cycler nodded and immediately charged at Mariang. Mariang, who had been guessing at Ian’s true nature, let out a snort.
“So you were a mage after all. Your type is the summoning class—”
CRASH!!
Before she could finish, Mariang and the Cycler collided head-on. Mariang’s body flew back without resistance and smashed into a wall.
It was an impact force that would have caused an ordinary human’s body to explode. Yet no blood remained on the ground, and her voice did not disappear.
“—is what it seems. However, I do not know what it is based upon. A marine creature? A monster derived from one?”
From the collapsed building, a calm voice flowed from where Mariang was embedded amidst a cloud of scattering stone dust and concrete debris. At that echoing voice, as if she were using a microphone, Ian let out a faint smirk.
“Your voice changed like a monster’s. Don’t tell me you transplanted a monster’s vocal cords?”
“……You remain unperturbed even after hearing this. You must possess tremendous mental strength.”
Rumble…….
Between the falling chunks of the shattered outer wall, Mariang walked out perfectly unscathed, her clothes only slightly torn.
The only injury was an arm twisted halfway around. She was far too intact to have collided with the Cycler. Ian immediately realized the reason was thanks to the magic cast on her clothes.
It was likely a type of spell where the clothing absorbed the impact force alongside her.
Because magic was intricately woven into every single thread, defending against simple physical force was entirely possible. Had the Cycler been a specimen with unique abilities like other creatures of the outer sea, it might have been different. But as a type that brute-forced with sheer weight class, it was inevitably vulnerable to such defenses.
The Cycler grew larger each time it died, losing the abilities it possessed when it was small.
But no matter how outstanding the defense, if one kept hammering at it, it could eventually be torn apart.
Her arm had been wrecked by a mere body slam; could it truly remain intact in a proper fight?
Not a chance.
“Go. Tear her apart.”
Ian spat the order as he dismounted from the Cycler’s back.
The Cycler tore the corners of its mouth impossibly wide. Dripping black seawater, blood, and saliva mingled to create a reddish hue with an ashen tint. Mariang gazed at that sight and sprayed her shattered arm with a canister.
“So it is not a monster. Now that I have made contact once, I can tell.”
Hiss.
The red liquid from the nozzle of the spray soaked the wound. Then the blood, flesh, and bone began to regenerate. The sight of tissue recovering from nothingness was horribly grotesque, but seeing its prey recover on its own, the Cycler let out a low laugh.
[Grrrr……!]
“……Is it laughing? Does it possess the intelligence to hold laughter? That is another interesting fac—”
Before she could finish, the Cycler moved at high speed, bit down hard on her regenerated arm, and shook its head violently. Saw-like teeth instantly severed bone and muscle, and the Cycler gulped down the arm in its mouth.
[Grring!]
Even if she was a mage with a modified body, it was still flesh that had once held ether. The Cycler, tasting mage meat for the first time in its life, spewed blood-colored steam from protruding blood vessels all over its body and drooled like a rabid beast. Ian sat on a nearby bench, watched the battle, and placed a cigarette in his mouth.
“Don’t kill her. I have things to try.”
Instead of answering, the Cycler scraped the ground with its feet and glared down at Mariang pinned beneath it. Mariang clicked her tongue and bit off her own tongue with her teeth.
Crunch!
Blood spurted. The blood spreading in all directions wrapped around Mariang’s entire body. At that moment, her torso changed like red paint and flowed downward. The blood-colored liquid seeping into the ground quickly crawled and moved, approaching Ian’s side.
The sight of ignoring the Cycler and targeting the mage first.
It was the standard method of dealing with a mage who commanded a summon. Mariang converted the liquid back into flesh and swung her fist at Ian.
“I’ve got you.”
A fist containing enough force to easily shatter ordinary rock. If he remained still, his head would explode like a watermelon, but Ian did not even look back at her.
Instead, he pulled the trigger.
BOOM!!
With a massive roar, a hole was pierced through his coat, and the flying lead slug penetrated Mariang’s hand. Unable to overcome the momentum, her body spun along the bullet’s trajectory, bones and muscles pulverized and scattered in all directions.
“Mage secret technique. Fireball.”
Huu.
Ian exhaled smoke and smiled smugly. Mariang, who had never imagined he would use a gun, violently twisted her face.
“You damned mongrel mage……!”
“This is absurd. It’s magic legitimately passed down from America.”
BANG BANG BANG!
Ian secured the cigarette between his front teeth and fanned the hammer at the falling woman. The hammer struck the cylinder violently in succession, and the muzzle spat fire continuously.
With a puh-buh-buh-buk sound, massive bullet holes appeared one after another across Mariang’s body. But Mariang did not die; rather, she swallowed her own blood and chanted a spell.
“Mystery’s idol. I command you as your master—devour the living beings here!”
A spell spat out in French. One of her eyes melted away, and a giant eyeball drifted emptily into the sky.
An eyeball that seemed to replace the sun. Feeling intense PTSD, Ian commanded the Cycler.
“Get that out of my sight.”
[Grrrrrr!]
The Cycler immediately leaped and tore the floating eyeball apart with its claws. Transparent vitreous fluid burst with a pop! and rained down, and the Cycler swallowed the pouring blood and chewed up the torn pieces of the eyeball.
“Hah?”
Mariang, who never imagined her magic would be destroyed by such a crude method, bled profusely from her eye socket and twisted her face in disbelief.
Because she had offered her own body as the price, the power of the magic she had used was truly immense.
An instant-death spell where the moment one gazed at the eye, the witness’s eyeballs would be shredded and their brain transformed into a giant eye. Because it was a magic that affected humans, animals, and mysteries indiscriminately, she had used it to finish things quickly even at the cost of harm to herself. But the magic perished without demonstrating any ability whatsoever.
“I, I’m Mariang! I did not permit magic to be countered in such a manner!”
She spat this out indignantly in French.
It was none of Ian’s concern. He stomped on Mariang’s head as she bled profusely, pressed her face into the ground, and pointed at her knees and shoulders with his fingers.
“Cut this one. Cut that one.”
[Grring!]
The Cycler immediately moved its muzzle according to his will. Having devoured all four limbs in an instant, the Cycler let out a satisfied burp, and she, having lost her arms and legs, trembled her sole remaining pupil in the fear that had finally arrived.
*Dangerous……!*
Mariang, who had naturally expected to win the battle, clattered her teeth and poured blood from her severed stumps.
Mariang was an elite who had always maintained top-tier grades at the Clock Tower. She had never once experienced defeat in combat, and such a record had been maintained continuously ever since she left the Clock Tower.
But today, that record was broken for the first time.
“W-why didn’t the magic activate!”
She thrashed about in desperation.
Guns? They could be used. There were a few mages among them who used guns in the first place. She even had experience fighting them.
But none of them had ever torn her skin and clothes with a gun. Guns were merely a supplementary tool in combat. There was no way they could leave such decisive blows—
“Ah.”
The moment her thoughts connected, she realized why the guns had worked and vomited a gush of blood.
“The magic…… disappeared. It was destroyed……?”
It had not been destroyed by the guns.
Before that.
Most of it vanished when she first collided with that monster, and what little remained was blown away when her arm was torn off.
That was why the guns had worked.
To think that a mere two attacks had caused the magic she invested billions to create to vanish.
“…….”
It was absurd. The magic cast upon her dress was a veritable national-treasure-grade spell personally woven by a famous mage, possessing such tremendous power that it could withstand a collision with an airplane at least once. And that summon destroyed it alone? Did that make any sense?
“……*Kuh-hack.*”
But reality was speaking.
It was saying that what she thought was absurd had already become established fact.
“Ah, aaah……!”
Fear settled upon her face.
She, who had lived forgetting death, felt her own demise for the first time. Feeling her blood drain away in real-time, pain rising through her severed limbs, and her body temperature dropping cold, she somehow moved her lips pressed against the asphalt and screamed.
“S-save me! Save me! I’ll do anything! Please! Don’t kill me!”
At the completely unexpected words, Ian tilted his head as if intrigued.
“Is it all right for a noble mage to act like that? I don’t think I would.”
“Save me! Save me! I’ll suck if you want me to suck, I’ll spread if you want me to spread! Please……!”
“Now that I see, you’re not noble at all, but a vulgar mage.”
Ian clucked his tongue and stubbed out his cigarette on the crown of her head. Mariang groaned in pain, and Ian stopped the Cycler, which was trying to flay the skin off her back with its claws.
“This is enough. Torment her more and she’ll die from bleeding out.”
[Grrrr……]
“It can’t be helped, even if you want more. You’ve already eaten plenty. Delicacies are meant to be savored in small portions. Understand?”
[Krrk.]
The Cycler nodded, stepped back, and sat down like a puppy. Ian crouched beside Mariang’s head and rummaged through her belongings.
There was little worth taking. At most, one packet of drugs, two canisters of recovery spray, and three blood regeneration pills that Yuna used were all there was.
Ian put the spray in his bag and forcefully poured the regeneration pills into her mouth to make her swallow them.
“Eat this if you want to live.”
“Urp!”
Mariang frantically chewed and swallowed the medicine. Ian looked down at her, so wretched that she appeared almost pitiful, and spoke.
“Choose. Will you remain as nothing but a head and become my material? Or will you pass out? Though if you wake up after passing out, your personality will be slightly adjusted.”
“…….”
Mariang’s vigorous chewing came to an abrupt halt.
Whichever she chose, it was nothing but the worst possible option.
It was a dichotomy from hell.