Rrrr.
A man in a suit drills through the lock on the door. He throws open the door that has been breached without resistance, and they charge into the empty room. Anna, who has five short spears floating around her, tilted her head as she stared into the dust-filled room.
“Fuck, another bust.”
They were already raiding their second room, but both had been empty. They had found nothing remotely related to magic. Only ownerless dust and insects tumbled meaninglessly across the floor.
Fortunately, there was only one room left. Louise’s ability had been so remarkable that Anna had never once doubted its performance. The remaining room was probably the mage’s residence.
“Ha-ha.”
Anna grinned, slipped her hands into her pockets, and left the room. Then she looked at the group that had followed her and pointed toward the firmly shut door of Room 1303.
“Drill it open.”
At her command, the man holding the drill nodded. He immediately switched it on and pressed the tip against the door’s lock. The moment it began to spin, a chain shot out from beneath the door and pierced straight through his heart.
Crack.
A red heart was fixed upon the tip of the chain that had thrust upward like a spear. The body, deprived of the source of its life, collapsed limply to the floor, and the chain that had impaled the heart crumbled into light and vanished. Anna silently watched the scene, tapping the floor with the sole of her foot.
“Hmm… They even put defensive magic on it? No, I suppose that’s only natural.”
“…Anna, if this is how it’s going to be, couldn’t we have just tested each door one by one with the drill from the start? Was it really necessary to kill him?”
The speaker was Hans, a boy who looked to be around Anna’s age.
His only superpower was that he never grew tired, but that made him the most suitable person for tasks that demanded immense stamina. Considering that fighting a mage was essentially a battle of attrition, he was a fairly decent choice. Wounds could be regenerated with medicine, after all.
“Mages usually travel alone. Even so, once they’re prepared, each one is as strong as four or five superhumans. We’re entering the lair of monsters like that. Do you think we can afford to act this carelessly? Aren’t we in a situation where we need every person we can get?”
Hans spoke with an expression of incomprehension. His gaze remained fixed on the corpse, which was steadily growing cold. Anna gazed fondly into his eyes and folded her arms.
“Hans, our Hans. You’re still young, so you don’t understand?”
“What do you mean, young…?”
“People are always most beautiful when they die. Do you know how beautiful that brief moment of futility is, when the life they’ve accumulated over so many years disappears?”
“What a strange thing to say.”
“You’d have a hard time understanding. But did you know? Sister Laura doesn’t care whether we live or die, either.”
“That’s because her ability—”
[Anna, Hans.]
Their conversation was cut short by the sniper’s voice coming through the intercom. Those who had been in the middle of planting bombs for mages also stopped dead and focused on the voice.
[The elevator is coming up. Currently on the seventh, eighth, and ninth floors.]
Click.
The members of Florence each drew their weapons. Anna gave a vicious smile and gripped a spear in each hand, while Hans pulled the shotgun from his back.
[Eleventh floor. Twelfth.]
Whiiiiir.
The sound of the elevator rising faintly seeped into the silent corridor. The elevator arrived at the thirteenth floor, and the moment its firmly closed doors opened—
Boom!!
The steel short spear Anna threw pierced through the half-open doors and slammed into the wall. The members of Florence also aimed their muzzles at the elevator and pulled their triggers frantically.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!!
A deafening roar filled the corridor. After pouring bullets into the elevator for some time, they changed magazines at Anna’s command. In the meantime, Anna swung her spear, clearing away the dust.
“…There’s no one here.”
No one was inside the completely torn-apart and wrecked elevator. Instead, a grotesquely grinning ghost leaned against the wall, bobbing its head from side to side.
[You idiots. You idiots.]
The ghost, its face drenched in blood, let out a cackling laugh.
[You’ll all die. You’ll all dieeeee!]
Ssshhh…
The ghost turned to dust and vanished.
In the spot where it had been sitting, a half-drunk beverage can lay abandoned. Anna stared at the can for a moment, then turned to the woman beside her and gave an order.
“Go check that.”
“…Me?”
“Who else? Hurry up.”
Thud.
Anna kicked the woman in the back. After hesitating briefly, the woman cautiously approached the ruined elevator and examined the beverage can.
There was no particular reaction when she touched it. Nor did she sense anything unusual when she peered inside the open top.
It was exactly what it appeared to be: an aluminum can. An ordinary piece of trash with nothing but liquid filling half of it. The woman let out a sigh of relief and carefully lifted the can.
“It’s an ordinary can. There doesn’t seem to be anything—”
“It is far too narrow a place to contain the body of God.”
At the same time the woman opened her mouth, a low voice rang out from the direction of the emergency exit.
In that brief instant—less than a second—the mercenaries reacted.
And faster still, the liquid inside the can surged backward. Black seawater that reeked of fish filled the can, causing its volume to swell.
“And so I first make the blood descend. Overflow, and rule.”
Gurgle—
The moment the incantation ended, the can in the woman’s hand exploded, and black seawater spread in every direction like a bomb. Screams erupted from inside the elevator, which was instantly submerged.
“A-ahhhh!! Kyaaaahhh!!”
Scritch, scritch.
Amid the screams came the sound of something chewing through flesh.
The screams were so intense they seemed to shake the human brain, and the mercenaries’ movements froze for an instant. From within the black water that had risen like a barrier, a blood-soaked arm burst out.
It was severed from the elbow and fell away. The arm, covered in black droplets, was devoured and vanished in the blink of an eye with a dry scritching sound. The seawater, deprived of its prey, pooled on the floor and snapped its jaws.
Then the emergency-exit door, which had been shut, opened, and a man in a black coat walked out. He held a black grimoire in one hand and silently looked at Anna and the other mercenaries.
Hans gulped at that emotionless, razor-sharp gaze. Anna, on the other hand, smiled as she stretched out her hand to retrieve the spear embedded in the elevator.
“So you’re the mage? Nice to meet you.”
No answer came. The man swept his eyes over them, roughly judging their numbers, then clicked his tongue and tapped his face with the grimoire.
“Cover them. Eat them. Enjoy the feast.”
Ssshh.
Black water flowed from the grimoire and covered his face. In an instant, the Outer Sea covered every inch of skin except his eyes, writhing like the shell of an insect.
The spell normally controlled the plankton floating within the Outer Sea that flowed from the grimoire, making it gnaw away at everything. But with the right application, it could also be used in this manner. Protecting the body was impossible, but making the Outer Sea devour anything that touched the skin by corroding it was hardly difficult.
The sensation of insects crawling across his face was unpleasant, but it was nothing worth worrying about.
“…Hah. Cheap tricks.”
Anna clicked her tongue and tightened her grip on her spear.
Yet the spear inside the elevator did not return, no matter how long she kept her hand extended. Only then did Anna realize that something had happened to it.
*It’s a spear made from metal capable of withstanding almost any impact. Something happened to a spear like that?*
A special weapon forged to a length precisely two-tenths of her height. A spear made from metal refined through the alchemy of ancient Greece, which had drunk the blood of hundreds of mages and had already undergone every kind of occult treatment. It had been damaged simply by being submerged in water.
Impossible.
And yet it was reality.
“Tch.”
Her judgment was quick, but her actions were quicker still. Without hesitation, she abandoned the spear, drew a spare short spear from her waist, and shouted,
“Kill him by any means necessary. Don’t even think about taking him alive.”
He would die.
She was just about to continue when the man opened his pale, lidless eyes and stepped forward. A silver kitchen knife had appeared in his hand.
“I’ll spare one.”
Ssshh.
The grimoire turned its pages according to the mage’s will. Hans felt an instinctive unease at the sight.
A mage’s fatal weakness was when they revealed themselves and fought openly. There was no such thing as a mage who did not chant a spell. And unless they were hidden, there were countless ways to prevent them from being given the time to cast.
It was no different now.
No—more precisely, it had to be now or never.
Hans drew a deep breath, placed his finger on the trigger, and shouted,
“Fire!”
Rat-a-tat-tat!!
At his command, the mercenaries immediately pulled their triggers.
“Didn’t you realize it when I came up the stairs?”
The man watched the dozens, even hundreds, of bullets pouring toward him and stepped forward without hesitation.
“I had plenty of time to prepare.”
Plop.
The man dropped a cube-shaped piece of flesh from his pocket onto the floor.
The next moment—
Craaaack!
The cube grew in size, blocking the man from view. Then its center split open, revealing a maw.
[Ah.]
All of its internal organs were exposed inside the maw, which had spread open in every direction. The eyes attached to its writhing heart split into hundreds of fragments, capturing each individual bullet in their sight, while teeth shaped like tentacles sprouted in every direction and stretched toward whatever they saw.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
The teeth, bristling with blade-like ridges, seized the bullets they caught and ground them to pieces. The bullets they failed to catch were stopped by muscle. Yet the thick muscle was not pierced; at most, it suffered a few scratches. Even so, a grotesque amount of blood burst from the wounds.
[Ah.]
Blood flowed from top to bottom. In an instant, it filled the entire corridor and pooled on the floor, dyeing the world red.
A field of vision filled solely with black and red.
As though it had completed its role, the cube that had blocked the attack shrank back into its tiny form, and the man caught it in his palm.
“Schemer.”
The man murmured as he looked down at the cube in his hand.
“That is the name of the monster that will devour you. Remember it.”
Behind the man, the blood-red windows gleamed fiercely. His entire body was covered in black seawater, and only his eyes were visible between his blood-soaked strands of hair. His lips moved.
“Tear them apart.”
The moment he spoke, the top of the cube split open, and a tentacle shot out. It wrapped around the head of the nearest mercenary and ripped it away together with the spinal cord.
It happened in one second—no, barely half a second.
Cold sweat poured wildly down Anna’s spine. Hans trembled as his companion’s blood drenched him. The mercenaries changed magazines and pulled their triggers frantically.
Craaaack.
In time with the thunderous roar, the cube expanded and took every bullet.
Blood flowed.
The cube closed. Tentacles sprang from both sides and split and tore apart the body of a new prey.
Blood flowed.
The mercenaries screamed as they retreated. At the same time, Anna charged toward Ian, manipulating six spears at once.
The cube opened. Just as it had caught the bullets, its teeth pierced every opening in Anna’s body and burst out through her entire form.
The cube closed. A wet crunching sound rang out with obscene clarity.
Blood flowed.
The mercenaries fled. But both the emergency exit and the elevator were behind the mage. The only place left to escape was the window, and consumed by terror, they threw themselves through it.
Blood burst. It flowed and overflowed.
The sniper waiting in the opposite building took precise aim at Ian and pulled the trigger. The cube opened and moved its teeth to devour the bullet.
But the heavy round shattered five teeth before finally coming to a stop.
[Ah.]
The cube groaned in pain. Tears of blood flowed from its enraged eyes, and it stretched its teeth toward the place from which the bullet had flown. A tentacle shot out like a spear, pierced the sniper’s scope, and crushed his brain.
Blood flowed.
The cube pulled the sniper’s body back by the tentacle and stuffed it into its maw.
Only Hans remained. Until the very end, he sprayed his shotgun wildly and screamed at the top of his lungs.
The cube opened.
It closed.
His legs vanished.
“Aaaaaaaahhh!!”
Blood flowed.
Blood flowed.
Blood of unknown origin consumed the corridor. It seeped into the severed ends of his legs as he lay sprawled on the floor.
Splash, splash.
The mage approached, stepping through the pool of blood. He set the cube, which was devouring both of Hans’s legs, down on the floor, then erased only the Outer Sea covering his hands and picked up a nearby pistol.
The gun was caked in sticky blood, but there was nothing wrong with its firing mechanism. The mage immediately emptied all three remaining rounds into Hans’s intact thigh, then discarded the pistol without regret. He grabbed Hans by the hair and hauled his head up.
At that moment, one of the mercenaries who still had breath in him gave a violent twitch. The mage’s indifferent gaze turned toward him. But soon, his expression changed as though disappointed.
“Your lungs are ruined? Then you can’t even speak properly.”
Dragging Hans behind him, he approached the man. Then he slashed the man’s arm with the kitchen knife.
The man’s breath cut off with a soft pop, as though it had all been a lie. The mage checked his pulse to confirm his death, then severed his carotid artery as well before looking down at Hans.
“You seem to be the last.”
His inorganic gaze pierced through Hans.
“Ah, aah…”
Hans trembled all over, overcome by the warmth of the blood clinging to his body and by terror.