Lycoris (2)
Near the summit of a certain hill in Bangladesh.
A man in a ghillie suit camouflaged with grass lay prone, steadily controlling his breathing.
Then he brought his eye to the telescopic sight of the large sniper rifle in his hands and activated his ability. ‘There.’ His mind moved as though being sucked in beyond the scope.
It extended to a place that even the scope at maximum magnification could not properly observe, soon illuminating a location more than ten kilometers away in perfect clarity.
Ruuumble—
—Kwang!
It was not merely a matter of seeing it with his eyes.
As if he were actually there, the sounds from that place were transmitted to him in full as well. ‘Is it already over?’ Buildings collapsing with a thunderous roar, smoke curling upward.
The area around them had been turned into a wasteland, as if it had been bombed.
And at the center of it all, the sniper found the target he had come all this way for, walking out slowly. ‘What a monstrous bastard.’ It had not even been that long since he’d received word that the bastard was approaching the base.
Thanks to having been on standby in advance, it had not taken him long to finish all his preparations, yet it was already over—did that make any sense?
“Whew.”
Regulating his heartbeat, which had begun to pound harder from agitation, with a deep breath, he calmly settled his mind again.
For a sniper, excitement was no different from poison.
“Target acquired. I’ll begin the operation immediately.” [Are you sure you’ll be all right? He’s dangerous. Not a single warrior who has stepped forward to eliminate him has returned intact.]
“Hah! No matter how you look at it, he’s still just a living creature. If his vital activity stops, he dies all the same.”
Exchanging words with the person connected to him by telepathy, he took something palm-sized from his coat.
A large bullet with a strange black sheen, its body densely inlaid with golden patterns.
The sniper stared quietly at the object, which would have been better called a grenade, then slowly pushed it into the large sniper rifle in his hands.
Of course, that firearm was by no means an ordinary object either. ‘The Gigant Slayer, which shattered the skulls of countless giants the size of buildings. And the highest-purity instant-death bullet that even brought a giant champion to his demise. I wonder if you can withstand this?’ Because the materials required to make it were exceedingly rare and the process was difficult, bullets of this level of purity were items that, even in his home dimension, were only taken out on truly important occasions.
Peerless artifacts that had allowed humanity to somehow establish its own domain amid the waves of giants that covered the world.
And the sniper was a hero who had saved a nation by sniping the giant champion called a being of terror with them.
He looked into the telescopic sight once more and confirmed the target. ‘…What an immense pressure. Even though I’m only observing him from this distance.’ The target point more than ten kilometers away.
There stood a giant of a man with a massive build, sauntering out with a completely destroyed building behind him.
The being who called himself “Lion Mask.”
His bare upper body was packed with muscles that made one’s breath catch just by looking at them, and tattoos that doubled his viciousness adorned them.
On top of that, with the unidentified beast’s head he wore over his own.
Against the backdrop of the collapsed building, he looked as though an incarnation of destruction had descended to earth. ‘…Maybe I really might fail.’ Even he, who had overcome every kind of battlefield, could not help but think that.
But that did not mean he intended to quit now.
The place he was currently in was more than ten kilometers from the target point.
He was confident he could get himself out before the bastard reached this place.
Thump—
—Thump
—His heartbeat gradually slowed.
At the same time, the information about the target point began to feel even clearer.
From the temperature and humidity to the flow of the atmosphere and the target’s movements.
And at last, the moment the sniper’s heart stopped completely.
A bullet was fired from the gun enhanced by his ability.
The bullet, likewise affected by his ability, took less than a second to reach the target point.
Thwack—
Lion Mask’s body staggered with a shockwave.
His upper body bent far backward, as though it would topple over from the powerful external force.
He could not see properly because of that, but the sniper was certain. ‘It hit!’ His shot had struck the target’s head squarely.
Once it hit, it was over.
The power of instant death, spreading out from the brain, one of the most important organs in the human body, would immediately seep through the entire body, and then, no matter how close to immortal the bastard’s regeneration might be…
“Huh?”
But that thought did not last long.
In his field of vision, as he slowly let go of his tension and exhaled.
The target was slowly raising his bent-over upper body back up.
Crunch—
—Crunch
And with a bullet that was extremely familiar to him.
Held between the teeth visible beneath the beast mask, chewing it to pieces.
A pair of radiant odd eyes stared directly in the direction where he was.
Though it was a distance at which their eyes could not possibly meet, the sniper felt as though their gazes had locked, and a cold chill ran down his spine.
“…Operation failed. My position has been discovered.” [Damn it! Pull out immediately! That thing is a monster. From that distance, for him to reach where you are…]
A series of noisy voices came through from the other end of the telepathy, but the sniper had no room to pay attention to them. ‘He blocked that? By biting it with his teeth, no less?’ A bullet fired unexpectedly from over ten kilometers away had flown in at more than thirty times the speed of sound.
The destructive force contained in it should have been enough to pierce even a lump of titanium alloy like a sheet of paper, so where had all that tremendous energy gone?
But apart from his confusion, his body had already finished all its preparations.
In an instant, he stored all his equipment in subspace and got to his feet.
Then he activated the custom jetpack on his back and glanced toward the direction of the target. ‘He was a monster far further outside reason than I thought. It can’t be helped. I’ll withdraw for now… Hm?’ The next moment, a green radiance filled his vision.
Puhwak!
His consciousness went dark then and there. […#%$@$?!]
The signal of the telepathy connected from somewhere urgently called out to him, but it could not be maintained for long and soon scattered faintly.
After all, a corpse that had lost its head could not receive telepathy.***
“Hmph! Did it hit?”
Harley, who had been holding a splendid pitching form with his eyes narrowed, scratched the back of his head.
It was all well and good that he had spat out the chunk of metal he had been crunching in his mouth and hurled it with all his might, but because the distance was so great, he could not be certain whether it had hit.
“Well, I’m sure it did. I sent it right back to where it came from.”
“Jewel Eyes: Coercion,” which manipulated surrounding energy to manifest mystery.
It was a power difficult to use on Earth, where there was no special energy to speak of, but because the energy contained in the bullet was so great, it was actually even easier to turn it against its owner.
He had also chewed hard and crushed all the properties that had originally been imbued in it. ‘Still, this is the last place, but the gains aren’t as good as I expected. Those guys really do react fast.’ Harley, who had been heading in the direction the sniper shot had come from to confirm the result, rubbed his chin.
He was currently making the rounds through Southeast Asia, smashing the remaining branches of Beoncheonhoe one by one.
Unlike the other avatars, who were diligently engaged in productive activities, was he not only capable of breaking things?
So he had been visiting the exposed locations in order, but… ‘In any case, when it comes to running away and hiding, they’re damn impressive.’ Most of the branches had already withdrawn long ago.
Even the ones that remained were mostly chaff, people used like bait and thrown away.
As expected, to properly uproot them, it seemed he would have to strike the head first.
The being above the branch managers who oversaw each region, who decided Beoncheonhoe’s overall course of action. ‘Oracle…’ Harley’s gaze turned west.
Toward India.
A large country adjacent to Bangladesh, and one that ranked among the very top in the world by population.
“Tch, anyway, everything I needed to do right away is finished… What should I do now?”
There was no urgent need for him to return immediately.
Unlike the other avatars, every position he held was only symbolic; he had no obligation to necessarily do anything.
Besides, after he had already abruptly disappeared and returned several times, his acquaintances had come to accept it as just how he was.
“…Hmm, then should I try a part-time job for a bit?”
After falling into thought for a moment, he grinned.
As it happened, there was one matter he was paying the most attention to right now, was there not? ‘If I want to be sure, it’d be best to watch from right next to it.’ Deploying Harley for something like that felt a bit excessive, but since he had no work anyway, it did not matter.
He could think of it as inspecting the territory he had been protecting all this time, while also preventing any accidents caused by terrorism.
“Khahah! Then let’s go… Oh, right. I should check the place the sniper shot came from first.”
And shortly afterward.
Harley, having gathered up an unexpected bundle of surprise gifts left unattended after losing their owner, vanished as cleanly as if washed away.***
“Wh-what in the world is this…”
Jin Soran’s eyes twitched, and she could not bring herself to continue, only opening and closing her mouth.
Because, as someone who had once seriously aimed for this path, she could tell at once just how incredible the song she had just heard was.
“What do you think? This is much better than the previous one, isn’t it?”
“Better? This isn’t just better…!”
Still caught up in the melody lingering in her ears, she answered loudly without realizing it, then clamped her mouth shut.
Her reason, which had briefly gone missing, returned, and she suddenly realized who the person before her was. ‘Where on earth did he get something like this? In such a short time, no less? Was it already complete? But this…’ Jin Soran, her expression confused, stared blankly at Heinz.
Then she looked down at the magical tool in her hand, then back at him, repeating the motion several times.
It was not at all her fault that she was showing such a dumbfounded side of herself. ‘How? It’s like… it was perfectly tailored to our girls’ voices!’ Right after she had played the recorded song for Heinz, he had worn a stiff expression the entire time, only to appear a few hours later and hand her this magical tool.
A magical tool with voice recording and playback functions.
Since there was an alternative called a recorder, it was not a particularly favored item even among Howard Industries’ products.
Though it was not entirely without demand, as it could be used even in environments where electronic devices were rendered useless by radio jamming, EMPs, and the like.
But the problem was the music contained within it. ‘Ha, this is really…’ A beautiful melody that seemed not of the mortal world flowed along a bright, K-pop-like rhythm.
Yet within it coexisted a darkness that could not be hidden.
A shadow existing behind the bright musical ideas, as if singing of hope.
From within the sweet scent of blood faintly felt just by listening to the music, a fatal temptation that one knew was dangerous yet could not bring oneself to refuse reached out its hand.
Like the seduction of a beautiful vampire. ‘It’s possible to express this with the performance alone?’ Jin Soran swallowed dryly.
It did not simply emphasize decadent beauty.
At its foundation was a meticulously tuned design, so that it would not feel burdensome and could seep into people of all nationalities, genders, and ages without resistance. ‘This is it. There’s nothing but this that fits as Lycoris’s debut song.’ The song they had previously prepared had already vanished cleanly from her mind.
Since it had been received from a famous composer for a high price, she had thought it would not fall far behind even compared to the song currently number one on the domestic charts…
But it could not even be compared to this.
“Who is it?! Who on earth made a song like this! Ahh! If I’d known there was a composer like this earlier, I wouldn’t have wasted all that useless time. As expected of you, Lord! As expected, I still have a long way to go. Could you introduce this person to me? I’d like to entrust them with other songs as well…”
At that, Heinz slipped one step back and slowly stroked his chin as he waited for her to calm down. ‘The effect is better than I expected. Well, Jin Soran is a vampire too, so it must have been easier for her to empathize with the song.’ This new piece did not simply contain the musical tendencies of the Elven Kingdom.
Since their earlier cultural invasion had already given them a foundation for understanding Earth’s music, the process of removing the sense of foreignness between the two and blending them into one had not been all that difficult.
And on top of that, Harris, who could sense the disposition of Heinz II whenever he wished, had personally overseen the entire process…
“Well, he’s never done any public work, so it’s only natural you wouldn’t know him. Composition is just a hobby for him, so it’ll be hard to assign him any separate jobs.”
It was not particularly strange that a song like this had popped out in a single day.
“…Phew, I got too excited. He seems to be an acquaintance of the Lord… Ah, then what should we put down as the composer’s name?”
As if she had noticed something from Heinz’s reluctance to explain in detail, Jin Soran asked carefully.
Of course, he merely had no intention of taking on separate work; he had never meant to hide his identity. So he answered casually.
“Harris.”
“Harris… is it?”
“Yes, Harris.”
A faceless genius composer who embraced mystique—
It was the moment Harris made his debut on Earth.***
Since the most important song for their debut had been changed, everyone had to move busily.
Naturally, the members of Lycoris were worked even harder than before, but not a single one of them complained.
They, too, had already fallen completely in love with the new song from the moment they heard it.
“Hmm, would it be better to swing my arm wider here?”
“Unnie! Let’s match it up one more time.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
Unlike the previous song, which they had been forced to fit themselves into, this one clung to them perfectly, as if it had been tailored for them.
There was nothing lacking and nothing excessive.
As long as they simply sang joyfully however they wanted, everything blended together in harmony, so there was no need to feel stressed about learning the song from scratch.
“Filming done! Move, move! We’re editing immediately, so we have to finish the rest today too!”
“What? The reservations are backed up? Then pay double… no, just give them whatever they ask for! If that still doesn’t work, tell me. I’ll speak separately with the people who reserved before us.”
With Heinz, the master of the Blood Alliance, personally stepping forward, everything proceeded quickly, as if carried by a fair wind.
With every connection mobilized and talent and money poured in without limit, there was no way anything could be blocked.
Any drop in quality that was inevitable due to time constraints was covered by overwhelming financial power.
“Okay! Thank you for your hard work!”
“Phew, good. Check carefully and make sure nothing’s missing!”
And so, time passed.
One day, with D-Day right around the corner.
An additional manager was assigned to the Lycoris team.
And despite being a newcomer, he came with the title of chief.
Anyone could see it was clearly a parachute appointment, but not a single person showed any dissatisfaction with it.
“Wahahaha! Glad to meet you! You may call me Chief Hal.”
“Hal…?”
“Ahem! My pronunciation slipped. It’s Chief Ha. I look forward to working with you!”
He wore jet-black sunglasses and a suit that looked ready to burst around his hulking, muscular body.
After all, no one was bold enough to say anything to the newcomer, who looked far more suited to being a gangster than a manager.