In the quiet after-school hours, once most of the students had gone home, Raban was leisurely brewing tea.
The tea he drank was always the Black Forest’s special blended herbal tea, but he could hardly serve that to a guest.
Tap. The black tea was set down before the guest.
Dine Ifrit had been tapping the table in the inner room of the counseling office with her index finger—tap, tap—before finally picking up the teacup.
“What is it? Wasn’t it supposed to be once a week?”
The agreed-upon interval for counseling between Raban and herself. Did he intend not to count the conversation on the day of the contract as counseling? Dine glared at the young man with deep blue-black hair.
“Today.”
“Hm?”
“Today, the Luncheoner will move.”
“What?”
“The expected point of appearance is the outskirts of the Black Forest. I suspect it will come to retrieve the fragments torn apart by the magical beasts.”
Dine looked at Raban with suspicion. How in the world could this Mascot vanguard grasp the Luncheoner’s stirrings so quickly?
“You people knew this situation would come?”
Unless they had been certain that the Luncheoner would revive someday, it would have been impossible to establish such an early-warning system.
Raban answered with an inscrutable smile.
“There is nothing I can tell you officially.”
“I’m sure there isn’t.”
Hmph. Dine rose from her seat. She could not trust this man. The Mascot’s sinister nature was already well known.
But conversely, that very “sinister nature” could be trusted.
If the Mascot meant to deceive them, it would never drag the Ivory Tower into such an ambiguous situation. It would wait until several transactions had been repeated and a minimum level of trust had been secured—until betrayal would prove far more fatal.
At this point, the expected profit from a con was far too small.
“…Fine.”
Raban did not stop Dine as she stood. Only after watching her move far, far away from the counseling office did he send a thought-wave in a satisfied tone.
[Grand Duke. There’s a job to run tonight. Prepare yourself for night duty.]
Inian did not get angry at Raban’s flippant sentence. She had spent too long dealing with that damned thing to be roused to anger by this much.
Instead, she checked the plan.
[You have everything ready to funnel the credit to me, yes?]
[They’re relatively strong against physical attacks, but I’ve made their magical defense weak enough that even a graze from your Magic Eye will wreck them. Don’t waste mana trying to raise your output for no reason.]
Raban cautioned Inian once again. She had to conserve mana.
That great demon had been born as the legitimate successor to Lamashute himself, the first president of Lamashute Holdings, and had lived with everyone around her indulging her every whim—or so Raban personally believed—so she was surely a stranger to the words “mana conservation.”
Inian let out a hollow laugh, dumbfounded.
[Worry about yourself.]
Usually, the ones who gathered up too much mana and did strange things were not demons, but black mages.
***
Salamandine clicked her tongue as she walked. The conclusion reached at the Four Heavenly Kings’ meeting had not pleased her.
Sargasso’s judgment was that they could not deploy two or more of the Four Heavenly Kings for a warning of the Luncheoner’s appearance when the only evidence was the Mascot’s statement.
For that reason, they had concluded that Inian would sortie, while also allowing them to measure the guest member’s abilities more precisely. Up to that point, she could understand.
Grata had been groaning sickly for some reason all this time, and Sargasso, too, seemed not to have fully healed from his internal injuries after taking a proper blow from the Luncheoner.
But.
“Why are you sending Dunamis instead of me!”
If they attached that pervert to her, wouldn’t it only tarnish the Ivory Tower’s image for no reason? Salamandine truly could not understand.
Sargasso looked up at the ceiling. The starlight of the vast dimension where Avon must have vanished was flowing in through the transparent walls.
There were many answers he could give to Salamandine’s question.
For instance, that they were deliberately attaching Dunamis to check Inian’s organizational cooperation. Or that Salamandine’s flames might obstruct Inian’s field of vision and halve the effect of her Evil Eye.
Or that, in the unlikely event Inian launched an attack, Dunamis possessed the ability that would make escape easiest.
But Sargasso could not bring himself to say any of them.
The true reason was….
“Dunamis has been causing noise pollution for forty-eight hours straight, begging me to send him….”
“Ah.”
“You go out to the school under the pretext of reconnaissance, so you probably don’t know.”
As Sargasso looked up at the ceiling, the corners of his eyes—though they were originally liquid—seemed especially damp.
“He kept barking even after I twisted his neck. I couldn’t endure it anymore.”
***
“Hoo↗hahahaha→ha↘ha! A pleasure to meet you, mademoiselle. Today, at last, I should like to see your wing feathers!”
Inian wanted to grab the back of her neck. But she was the manager of Lamashute Holdings.
Thanks to a certain black mage, she was more than familiar enough with how to make use of troublesome organization members.
“A pleasure, Dunamis. Would you explain the mission to me once more?”
Assign them work they can do simply.
“Oho, to make up for a comrade’s shortcomings is a gentleman’s delight! In our Ivory Tower, out of concern for the Luncheoner’s stirrings….”
“Indeed. I thank you for that clear and orderly summary.”
Raise their initiative with praise for their results.
“Then, let us begin the reconnaissance in earnest.”
“This body shall take the lead! Please watch the rear!”
And put them into more substantial practical work.
‘Phew.’
Inian let out a sigh of relief. Thank goodness he was a sensible opponent who moved exactly as intended.
Once they arrived at the point Raban had designated, the aforementioned “hands” would begin to move. If she moderately burst the familiars with her Evil Eye and earned the Ivory Tower’s trust….
“…What might that be?”
***
“What is that?”
Strangely enough, Raban was feeling the exact same bewilderment as Inian.
He had been slowly moving blood-vessel familiars around the Black Forest, preparing the stage. It was not something that required all that much effort. All he needed to do was create a large number of familiars that looked plausible on the surface, then lose in a convincing way.
On Raban’s Earth, it would be a formalized affair called WWE, but compared to actual pro wrestling, the difficulty of directing it was actually lower.
There was no need for meticulously calculated agreed exchanges or a proper storyline; it could be summarized as, “Hawawa, the super-duper strong Demon Realm Grand Duke roared,” and “Aagh, this won’t do, let’s run.”
But now, beings outside Raban’s stage direction were crawling toward the Black Forest.
No, the reality was different.
What had crawled into the Black Forest were Raban’s familiars, and those things had already been lurking in the forest.
[Hey! What in the world is happening right now?!]
Inian’s urgent thought-wave struck Raban’s ear. Raban rubbed his ear with his palm and replied.
[Whatever it is, it’s Charles’s fault! Damn it!]
***
What rose from the Black Forest had the shape of an ox. But it differed from the form of a common bull. It was as though all the skin had been flayed from a living bull, displaying every strand of muscle fiber and every pulsing blood vessel exactly as they were.
The torn-off hide had been tanned thin as thread and clung around the bull’s nape. It looked almost like a lion’s mane.
The fluttering mane lengthened and shortened as it pleased. Each strand of the mane, which looked thinner than a spider’s web, possessed enough mighty strength to wrap around a tree trunk and smash it apart.
If one compared it to body parts possessed by life on Earth, it was similar to adding the flexibility of a jellyfish’s tentacles to the suction power of cephalopods. Though it possessed a far more ferocious aggression than even the fiercest species of those two categories combined.
One strand of the mane extended. It pierced Raban’s familiar, which had been clacking its fingers as it moved, and sucked its blood.
The flayed bull moved strangely. What practically served as its legs was the mane. It clung to charred branches and lifted the bull’s body into the air. The four legs attached to its body moved as though treading upon empty air.
And the moment the flayed bull’s hoof struck the air, a shockwave spread out beneath the hoof. Since the mane could rotate the bull’s body freely, the hooves, too, could press down in any direction—up, down, left, or right.
The mane, numbering in the tens, hundreds, or perhaps thousands, moved busily as though seeking to devour everything alive around the Black Forest.
From tiny ants, to moths drawn by the embers, to birds rebuilding their nests.
A strand of mane stabbed into the heart of a creature crushed by the shockwave. The corpse drained of blood dried up like a mummy.
Its grotesque appearance was far closer to Raban’s familiars than to a magical beast called by some name like Evilping.
Inian realized it by instinct.
That was the Luncheoner.
The real Luncheoner had appeared.
***
Resheph felt deep disappointment.
When his lord dispatched him to this land, he had revealed that there “had been” one here who resisted the Mother Fairy.
But that black mage had made a foolish choice. He had borrowed power from outside and drawn the Mother Fairy’s gaze. Having heard the kindly teaching bestowed by his master, Resheph felt truly sorry.
For the Mother Fairy’s gaze would have erased the black mage from the world.
But there was another possibility. A compatriot of his who sensed the black mage’s remains might descend upon this land.
His lord had permitted him to accept a qualified compatriot as Resheph’s successor, so perhaps the number of comrades joining the glorious holy war would increase.
And indeed, it was so. Resheph felt a familiar presence. He felt dark black mana of the same quality as his own. He immediately dispatched his shadow to the Black Forest.
However, the appearance of that “compatriot” was quite shabby. It did not possess intelligence as he did, nor had it reached a level where it could be chosen by the master. It was the fallen dregs of those who had once been the Mother Fairy’s kin.
With the minimum of mercy, Resheph decided to absorb their bodies and take them into his shadow.
***
Raban thought.
He had no idea what that thing was.
“How dare it challenge me to a fight of absorption?”
The worst black mage in the history of Lamashute Holdings, the supreme master of stealing only the results without putting in any effort, ground his teeth.