The night in the island nation was beautiful.
The full moon that rose where the sun had set shone brightly upon the earth, but that alone was not enough to breathe life into the city. With not a single streetlamp to be found, the city had long since sunk into darkness.
By contrast, the sky was nothing but bright. Constellations drifted leisurely through the night, their light reflected on the sea and scattered in every direction.
The starlight glittering on the surface looked at times like the eyes of deep-sea creatures, and at times simply like beautiful colors. Ian sat on the rooftop of a building and quietly gazed at those lights.
A false world created by a false god. No matter how one looked at it, it was not a space beneficial to humans, and yet the world was beautiful.
To those who followed Dagon, it was no different from paradise, so it was hardly strange for it to be beautiful.
Ian watched a shooting star fall, slicing obliquely across the night sky, and placed a cigarette between his lips.
“……”
Chik.
When he lit it, acrid yet sweet smoke surged into the air. He closed his eyes for a moment and drew in the smoke with all his might. The scent of apple spread thickly through his mouth.
‘Kill a god.’
A sentence that carried weight from the mere arrangement of simple words. The feat of godslaying, which no one with a properly imprinted sanity would ever even attempt.
Even in the novels written by Lovecraft, all Outer Gods were often portrayed as beings against whom resistance was impossible.
It was true that, by now, the weight carried by the name Outer God had been considerably diminished by various forms of media, but even so, a god was a god. Even if it was a fabricated god that had been created, the power it possessed exceeded the bounds of common sense. It was not something an ordinary human could easily kill just because he set his mind to it.
It was not for nothing that Laplace’s primary objective was to slaughter Lovecraft’s Outer Gods. If godslaying were easy, the world would have fallen into their hands long ago.
‘He only has one grimoire written by an Outer God, so it must be impossible for him alone. No matter how much he has a grimoire, unless he builds up a force, there’s no chance of realizing it.’
On the other hand, he—
“Phew……”
Ian exhaled smoke and looked down at the three grimoires placed beside him.
Grimoires scattering pure white, pitch-black, and blue light, respectively. Of them, the one with the most refined design was the Hand of Re-creation, while the crude one was the Travelogue of the Deep Sea. The Blue Shackles and Book of Contracts was relatively ordinary.
But their appearance did not matter. With a faint smile, Ian quietly stroked the grimoires the Outer Gods had poured their heart and soul into writing for him. The books, which had been squabbling among themselves, all clung tightly to his body the moment Ian’s hand touched them.
It would be a lie to say they were not bothersome, and yet they had now become such a part of his daily life that he would surely feel their absence if they disappeared. Ian did not push them away, instead stroking them one by one in turn as he looked down at the sea.
A sea in which starlight had sunk and drowned. Between the lights, gazes flashed—surely belonging to creatures created by Dagon.
No matter how one looked at them, they were not friendly stares. But Ian paid them no mind and gazed back at them as he tapped the ash from his cigarette.
“You bastards who’ll be dead soon sure have vicious eyes.”
He gave a small laugh, quickly drew in the remainder of the cigarette until it burned away, and tossed the butt carelessly over the railing. The cigarette traced a red arc through the air before striking the ground and scattering ash in every direction.
“What are you doing here?”
At that moment, Kim Yul’s voice suddenly came from the ladder leading up to the rooftop.
At the unexpected sound of a woman’s voice, the grimoires lined up side by side as if forming a barrier and flapped about. Ian turned his head.
“Did you suddenly feel like getting sentimental?”
At the end of the ladder, Kim Yul peeked out with only her head showing, a smile on her face. Ian smiled back and made a little space beside him.
“I just can’t sleep. Dagon is scheduled to show up today, so it’s not like I can sleep peacefully.”
“Hmmm…… That’s true.”
Kim Yul climbed onto the rooftop. Then, skillfully avoiding the twitching grimoires, she plopped down beside Ian.
[Woooong.]
[Woong! Wooooong!]
[W-Waaah!]
The grimoires threw a fit. Whether they did or not, Kim Yul stuck out her tongue at them and turned her head toward Ian. Like him, she gazed at the sea reflecting the constellations.
“Wow…… It really is pretty…… You’d have a hard time seeing something like this even on Earth……”
“It may be pretty precisely because it isn’t Earth. Any skilled painter can paint a beautiful picture.”
“Tch, boring. At times like this, you’re supposed to say, ‘I’ll take you somewhere similar on Earth.’ This is dating advice, so make sure you remember it!”
“Should I take you?”
“Yeah!”
“……Haha. I’ll think about it.”
Ian laughed softly and bent his upper body forward. Kim Yul’s eyes widened at his unexpectedly compliant answer.
“What? Why are you just accepting it instead of reacting like I’m talking nonsense?”
“When have I ever only reacted so sharply? I may not look it, but I’m quite a gentle person.”
“Bullshit!”
Kim Yul shouted. Ian neatly ignored her and rose from his seat.
“What time is it now?”
“Probably around three in the morning. Dagon’s descent is at five thirty.”
“Then let’s start getting ready. You know your role, right?”
“Yeah. Capture the high-ranking priests alive and kill every bastard who comes after us. While I do that, you fight Dagon. I stay out of the way so I don’t interfere!”
“……The wording is crude, but it isn’t exactly wrong.”
Ian smiled wryly and took a pen from his pocket.
“That grimoire you had is a replica, so you don’t need to worry too much about it. If anything, it’s just something like a Bible; it has no function as a grimoire at all. It seems to be because this isn’t reality and you’ve never read it even once. Thanks to that, I don’t think we need to worry about you being enthralled by the grimoire. But that doesn’t mean you should open it. If you do, there’ll be no turning back.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Don’t get hurt, and don’t die. I came in here to save you, so if you die, there’s no point.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best to survive!”
Kim Yul nodded vigorously. Ian almost stroked her head as he did with Amelia, but soon withdrew his hand and gazed out at the sea.
“Then……”
“Yeah.”
The sky was still nothing but dark. The moonlight hanging at an angle shone upon the city, and a portion of it fell over the faces of the two.
“Shall we get ready?”
“Yeah.”
Rustle.
A grimoire settled into his grasp. Kim Yul left to inscribe magic circles near the cathedral, and Ian moved his pen while checking the spells written in the grimoire. Then he placed magic circles and the necessary materials throughout the rooftop.
About twenty minutes later, a single magic circle large enough to fill the entire rooftop was complete. He stretched his stiff back once, then opened the Travelogue of the Deep Sea and recited an incantation.
“The repetition of life signifies opportunity. Yet no opportunity has ever been granted to you. Sorrow and helplessness weigh down upon your shoulders. But the opportunity meant for you has been delivered to me, and so you shall dance beside me.”
The moment the incantation ended, a blue butterfly flew in from somewhere. Ian glanced at the butterfly, then lightly scraped his palm with the blade of an axe, causing blood to flow.
Drip, drip.
Blood fell. Ian clenched his fist tightly to draw a little more blood, then walked across the magic circle himself, sprinkling blood little by little where it was needed.
Gurgle……
The blood pooled at the center writhed on its own and formed a blood-red butterfly.
With this, the magic circle’s preparations were complete.
However, no creature of the Outer Sea was summoned. The method was somewhat different from ordinary summoning.
It was an entity that did not appear immediately, but could reveal itself according to the summoner’s will. Ian poured the blood flowing from his palm onto the back of his other hand, then tapped the rippling surface of the blood with his finger.
At that moment, the blood that had been dripping down flowed backward, forming on the back of his hand the same butterfly pattern engraved at the center of the magic circle. It soon turned blue.
A butterfly that looked as though it were made of water.
Ian stroked the butterfly as it slowly fluttered its wings, then let out a long breath and poured a healing potion over the torn wound. With a stinging pain, the bleeding stopped.
The wound had not healed, but for now, this much was enough. He roughly wiped away the medicine and blood on his hand and picked up the pen he had set down for a moment.
“Let’s keep going.”
This was not the only spell he had to lay in advance. He had to set up other spells as well. The more insurance, the better.
And it was not only insurance. He also had to spread auxiliary spells throughout the city to deal with an Outer God.
There were roughly two and a half hours left until the appointed time. It was a lot, if one considered it a lot, but because he had to move here and there, it was not simply a leisurely amount of time either.
And so Ian moved busily to finish his work quickly.