Raban counted prime numbers to steady his mind.
‘2, 3, 5, 7….’
This task, which required a moderate level of concentration, helped one quickly recover from mental shock and view the situation objectively—
“No, seriously, what the hell is this!”
…It did not help.
Because he had never expected his hidden slush fund—no, his slush mana—to vanish like this.
Raban kept rubbing the back of his neck.
‘First of all, the situation isn’t all bad.’
Most of the familiars he had worked so hard to create by cutting off his wrists had evaporated, and on top of that, the mana stored in each familiar had disappeared with them, but the situation had not plunged completely into the abyss.
There were still plenty of negative thoughts in the herbal tea grown with eco-friendly compost made from pulverized erosion bodies, and the mana accumulated in Raban’s own body, though small, remained intact.
He would have to repeat the wrist harvest for several days, but it was not that great a loss.
He had already achieved the result he had intended when setting up the board.
As that insane, gigantic crocodile magical beast went on a rampage and Salamandine countered it with flames, the Black Forest was burning in real time, turning into black charcoal.
Charles’s wicked scheme to use Na Ihyeon as a sacrifice had practically collapsed already.
The problem was the crocodile magical beast.
The crocodile bastard, having sucked down the blood vessel familiars as a nutritious snack, was now going, “Oh, I smell something delicious,” and trying to scrape up and devour every remaining familiar.
Apparently, while eating the blood vessel familiars, it had even detected him, the main body. First it would devour the nearby blood vessel familiars, and then it would charge at Raban’s own body, saying, “With gratitude for all the black mana in this world, thank you for the meal!”
‘If I leave it alone, it’ll probably clash with the magical girl.’
But he did not know whether that would be enough to resolve things. That crocodile, having bulked up through rapid growth, was steadily chewing down the Black Forest’s black mana and regenerating even after taking the magical girl’s mana bombardment.
No. It was not merely regrowing new flesh; the more it was burned and beaten, the larger its body became.
‘Considering how it absorbed the blood vessel familiars, does it have some kind of adaptive predation ability toward the very element of mana itself?’
At that rate, the only things that would work were pure hand-to-hand combat, or a grand spell that concentrated firepower exceeding its regenerative ability in a single instant.
Since the magical girl’s mana was practically inexhaustible, if she gritted her teeth and kept beating it, it would die eventually, but….
‘If things go wrong, it might chew up every attack and use them to increase its mass even more.’
As long as she had the mascot backing her, the final victor was likely to be the magical girl, but in the aftermath of a drawn-out battle, Raban himself might be discovered.
‘What the hell was Charles thinking, developing a magical beast like that?’
It was truly an emergency.
And in extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary measures were needed.
Raban raised his left hand. He saw a hangnail trembling at the tip of his index finger.
“Haa….”
After hesitating for a few seconds, he raised his snow-white right hand and tore off the hangnail in one go.
The skin stretched endlessly, taking the shape of a telephone.
***
[We love you, dear customer. This is Ramasuit Holdings Co., Ltd., always and forever striving for trust and sincerity. What may we help you with today?]
“Hey. Put on your rank badge and let’s have it out.”
[Could you please repeat that, dear customer?]
“It’s been quite a while since we agreed to a ceasefire. I’ve diligently carried out the subcontracted jobs you threw my way, too. But what was it you gave me?”
[…?]
“A big, beautiful middle finger! I wanted to come to my home Earth, not this chimera Earth!”
The current president of Ramasuit Holdings, Inian, twitched her hair made of snakes. Her feet, resembling the legs of a bird of prey and armed with sharp talons, swayed as though craving blood.
Inian pondered.
‘That man isn’t the kind of black magician who would act so impulsively.’
But in a contract with a demon, one could not speak falsehoods. Even if one used magical trickery to tell a lie, the loss would inevitably return to the magician.
Raban was a seasoned black magician. He should have long since mastered the penalties incurred when writing falsehoods into a contract.
The discernment authority Inian possessed as a grand duke of the Demon Realm also testified that Raban’s anger was genuine.
[Very well. Then what do you intend to wager?]
“My soul. If you win, I’ll give you my soul. If I win, cough up your mana.”
[Reasonable enough.]
Inian grasped the black magician’s scheme. First, there were about two ways he could play tricks right now.
One was that he had not specified exactly what kind of contest this “having it out” would be. The other was that he had not defined the outcome in the event of a draw.
These were gaps clearly left there on purpose.
‘No. He didn’t say he’d give me his entire soul, either. Hasn’t he thrown tantrums like this before to avoid full collection?’
Inian, who had once had an ancestral castle seized because of Raban, ground her teeth.
That damned black magician enjoyed desecrating contracts with cunning scams—for example, by suggesting they decide the match with some bizarre card game.
Even now, Inian sometimes could not forget the horrific memory of that card game, in which sentences like incantations had echoed—whenDrawStandMainFieldMagicActivation?OnSummonEffectActivation?SendToGraveyardOnEffectActivationFromGraveyard?—
This time, she had no intention of being humiliated by the contract clauses. Having returned for the first time in a while from the relationship of prime contractor and subcontractor, or producer and consumer, to that of a grand duke of the Demon Realm and an inscrutable black magician, Inian smiled chillingly and added a condition.
[Fine. We’ll negotiate the detailed terms once I get there. Everything, including the percentage of the soul to be transferred, the conditions in case of a draw, and so on.]
“…If your side covers the mana expenditure until the negotiation of terms.”
Inian tilted her head. It seemed he was truly lacking mana to an extraordinary degree. That dimension was either suffering from a worldwide mana depletion phenomenon, or it was a dimension that discriminated heavily against black magicians.
Looking at pan-dimensional statistics, the latter was more likely.
‘It seems to be a dimension ruled by people with their heads screwed on properly.’
[Very well, Raban. As per the contract we made then, since you were the first to propose breaking the ceasefire, I, Grand Duke Inian, shall come to confiscate your soul.]
A door opened.
***
And Grand Duke Inian of the Demon Realm found herself facing a crocodile that came rushing in, jaws wide open and drool dripping, straight toward her.
“Graaaaaaah!”
She could not understand the situation, but one thing was certain.
[You black-magic monstrosity!!]
That bastard Raban had scammed her again.
***
Magilist sensed something ominous.
Kakakakak.
The sound she had heard during Avon’s resurrection ritual—the sound of the boundary between their world and the outer world collapsing. Papirune looked at Salamandine.
Salamandine hurriedly shook her head. She truly had no idea what was going on!
A strange fissure opened in the center of the Black Forest. The scenery of trees and earth rippled, drawing a pale violet horizon.
The crocodile magical beast turned its head toward the crack in the world.
“Fortunately, its advance toward the city has stopped. While we have the chance, gather as much mana as possible and—”
Rumble—!
A roar like the bellow of thunder echoed out. Tearing open the fissure engraved into the forest with its hands, something crawled out from the far, far beyond.
“Medusa…?”
Magi Black murmured blankly. It was because the thing that emerged from beyond the fissure had countless snakes attached to its head.
But that was not all. Feet reminiscent of a harpy’s, crow wings sprouting from its back. Something like a boar’s tusk jutted from its left arm, while its entire right arm was covered in fur, and in place of a hand there was a wolf’s maw.
“An abomination from another dimension!”
The instant Salamandine, tense, drew up her flames, the crocodile magical beast charged at the new monster.
“Huh?”
While the magical girl and Salamandine were bewildered by the unexpected scene, Papirune stared at the fissure with a stiff expression.
This was bad.
Mother was waking.
***
[Raban, you son of a—]
Lightly ignoring the thought wave that shot straight into his head, Raban snorted.
“Hmph. This is your karma for ignoring me when I asked you to exchange pumpkin seeds for gold bars.”
The plan was a success. The crocodile magical beast currently recognized his mana as a nutritious snack.
And ordinarily, the influence of a contract between a demon and a black magician went both ways. In other words, the longer one contracted with a particular demon, the more deeply that demon’s lingering trace remained.
Naturally, the flavor emitted by Inian’s mana could not help but resemble Raban’s mana.
Raban estimated the timing. Inian would probably tear apart the magical beast that had attacked without knowing who stood before it, then begin searching for him in order to divide him into about twice as many pieces as the beast.
However, Hikarius was currently covered by a barrier that rejected interference from other dimensions. Inian, who had crossed over after agreeing to cover the mana cost herself, would be unable to leave the Black Forest and would have to return home.
The good thing about this method was that, for a while, he would not have to make any effort to hide his mana.
Any remnants left after he used black magic freely would be taken as traces left behind by the demon that had tried to invade Hikarius.
“Then shall I watch the Demon Realm grand duke’s magical beast disassembly show…”
The black magician’s intuition warned Raban.
‘A black magician’s scheme is working properly. Doesn’t that mean something has gone wrong?’
“Hm?”
The barrier trembled.
***
Gaiaheart gazed at the uninvited guest that had come from beyond the dimension. Hikarius shuddered.
That uninvited guest existed outside the rules of this world. It was a being that could “truly” harm this land, these mountains and rivers, and its people.
That could not be allowed.
The Mother Fairy blinked, and her authority descended upon the Black Forest.
***
At the end of Inian’s right arm, the wolf’s mouth bit into empty air.
The flesh near the crocodile magical beast’s nape evaporated. Along with the beast’s scream, mana flowed down like blood.
[I did not come to see some mongrel like you. Begone, lowly creature.]
Inian’s hair-snakes stared at the crocodile magical beast. She intended to petrify at once with her mystic eyes this thing that had lost the integrity of its flesh.
At that very moment, the sky turned pale pink.
A pink radiance stabbed down toward Inian. The grand duke of the Demon Realm felt an intense pressure as if it would crush her flat.
She could not even scream. An overwhelming power swept over the grand duke of the Demon Realm.
Where the light faded.
“My body has become strange, I say!”
There stood not a mythic monster, but a Gothic Lolita-style girl with crow wings.
“Why has my manner of speech become like this, I say!”
Every time the girl flapped her wings, the wolf ears on her head perked up. Unlike her jet-black wings, they were covered in golden fur the same color as her hair, giving them a fluffy texture.
“That damned ‘I say’ will not come off, I say!!”
***
“A beam that turns you into a magical girl if it hits you…?”
Raban shuddered in fear.