Ravan wanted to weep tears of blood.
How many magical nutrients must have been contained in Charles-molecular cuisine? But the Predatory Ecosystem had already exceeded its maintenance time, and even the leftover scraps that had barely remained were being diligently set ablaze by that birdbrain and that arsonist.
“Kh… To think I must be satisfied with merely preventing Charles from recovering his magic. My dreams are vast, yet the wall of reality is far too high!”
In its own way, it was a tragic scene, full of resentment and a promise for the future, but since the one saying it was sprawled on the floor, wriggling and twisting his whole body, it only sounded like nonsense.
Inian sighed and nudged Ravan with the tip of her foot. Her posture was casual, but the force was not, and Ravan’s body rolled over and over.
“It seems draining magic is out of the question, so please retreat quickly. If they find us, matters will become most troublesome, will they not?”
“Wait… With these things, the final presentation is important.”
Ravan focused his mind once more on the blood-vessel human and raised its body.
It was showtime.
***
Salamandine and Dynamis covered heaven and earth in all directions with fire-laden winds. The strange, round, hardened remnants, and the sea of flesh that had been squirming and pulsing, all returned to ash.
As the horrific contamination blanketing the factory district was being purified by flame, Magi Black was facing off against the shadow mage.
‘Strange…?’
Judging by the atmosphere—not merely the mood, but the sum of things like the magical wavelengths felt by instinct and the similarities in magical structure—it was certain that the shadow mage had been the one to create that sea of flesh.
And yet, even while watching his magic being dismantled or cremated in real time, he made no particular response.
In truth, the very fact that he had appeared again now was strange in itself.
Hadn’t he been devoured and vanished by the crocodile magical beast sleeping beneath the Black Forest?
And then there was Magi White’s reaction. When Magi Black arrived here, Magi White had not been fighting the shadow mage, but was recovering behind him.
‘It’s almost as if they had fought together against something….’
But to say they had truly fought together, the magic he had unfolded was far too bizarre. The sight of the factory district covered in rotten meat and strongly acidic bodily fluids was nothing short of grotesque.
“You arrived at an appropriate time.”
The shadow mage murmured in a gloomy voice.
“Now, take your comrade and tend to her wounds. Today’s calamity has passed, yet the storm may not have truly ceased.”
“Huh…?”
Black turned her gaze toward White. White, too, wore a puzzled expression like Black as she nodded.
“He isn’t an enemy. …At least, not today.”
At that cautious addition, the shadow mage recited as if in sorrow, or perhaps frustration.
“Did I not say so before? I have no desire to oppose the guardians of proper providence. My enemies are only those who disturb order.”
Magi Black frowned. Though it was difficult to put into words, she felt something unpleasantly suspicious.
“Hey. Isn’t releasing a crocodile into the forest something that disturbs our city?”
***
Thanks to Ravan sharing his vision, saying, “Now I shall show you true art,” Inian was able to receive a live broadcast of the great magical-girl scam. She admired Magi Black’s sharp intuition.
It was a comment that struck at the heart of the matter: if he truly were a being who served order, then rather than charging at the magical beast alone and driving the situation out of control, he ought to have shared information and fought together.
Unfortunately, though, criticism that sound and reasonable would never pierce Ravan’s iron mask.
Even Inian could think of a simple countermeasure. He could settle the situation with a response along the lines of, “It could not be helped, because you attacked me.”
As magical girls, there was no particular room to refute that logic. Ravan had avoided making the first move against the magical girls, and had limited the targets of his attacks to the Four Heavenly Kings alone.
They could defend their position by saying something like, “We could not stand by and watch you try to destroy those who could become our friends,” but in turn, they would have to accept Ravan’s claim as well.
At this very moment, the shadow mage had thoroughly upheld his own claim. Had he not fought the Luncheoners together with the magical girls?
At the very least, it was a solid argument with enough basis to make the magical girls hesitate before attacking the shadow mage—more precisely, Ravan wearing that mask—from now on.
But once again, Ravan surpassed Inian’s expectations.
“Originally, there should have been no chance for the magical beast to be released.”
“What?”
“Do you still not understand? The crocodile magical beast appeared, and I needed time to recover my strength. During my absence, what came approaching?”
After spitting out those words, Ravan looked at Inian and raised both arms as if to say, Applaud. To Inian, it was absurd, but as a Grand Duke, it was a piece of political maneuvering that made her want to clap.
“You’re saying…”
“The Luncheoners prepared a trap in order to eliminate you?”
The magical girls continued as if singing a round.
“I will not deny that I and they use a similar kind of power. However, remember this. My will is not the same as theirs, and my actions are even less so.”
Borrowing the shadow mage’s mouth, Ravan artfully avoided answering the truth while reinforcing their preconceptions.
No one knew what the reality behind the crocodile magical beast’s appearance was. Ravan, for his part, was certain it had been Charles’s vile trap, but it was possible that the trap had been aimed not at him, but at some other being.
‘For instance, to be used to devour Na I-hyeon once he had absorbed enough negative thoughts.’
Therefore, he would not say anything careless. If he put into words something that was later revealed to be false, how would he clean up the mess?
He would slander the Luncheoners and Charles solely through implication and nuance.
‘Are you watching, Charles? This is the political game of a professional dark mage!’
“And…”
Ravan manipulated the shadow mage into pretending to look at the Four Heavenly Kings.
“I shall reserve my judgment regarding them.”
The shadow mage’s body scattered. Amid the faint voices of the magical girls crying, “Wait!” and “Hold on!” Ravan burst into laughter.
“Behold! This is the power of presentation! Now I am a suspicious third faction who might actually be a good guy!”
“…Is that the kind of ‘new warrior’ bait the mascots sometimes prattle on about?”
“That’s right. Now, let’s go home—oops.”
Ravan shoved the memories up until just now into his hair. More precisely, only the memories of “pain.”
As some novel or comic had once said, pain had freshness. Pain one already knew lost its sharpness. It was a principle similar to how a blade dulled the more it was used.
Thus, Ravan compressed and extracted the pain the Predatory Ecosystem had inflicted upon him. With this, his body cleanly forgot the memory of having suffered.
Even if he used it next time, the efficiency would likely be similar to now.
Watching him, Inian clicked her tongue.
“Even if the pain remaining in the body has been removed, it is fundamentally pain that reaches even the soul. That is not resolved, is it?”
“No. There’s no need to worry about the soul.”
Ravan snorted. After all, the most intense pain dwelling within him was something else entirely.
“Still, what a waste. If I’d had the artifact I used to use, the Predatory Ecosystem’s maintenance time would have been much longer.”
There would have been no need to store the pain separately in his hair like this, either. He could have fed it directly to the artifact.
Inian recalled the hideous object Ravan had cherished most and shook her head. That artifact, which could be called an external expansion circuit for the Predatory Ecosystem, was so sinister that merely taking it out would make the Mother Fairy put on a drone show with beams of light.
“If you take that out, you will immediately become a magical girl too.”
“No, why? I made it rather prettily, you know.”
As Ravan grumbled, he collapsed with a cry of, “Kruagh!”
“What nonsense is it this time?”
“I can’t move….”
Thinking about it, it was only natural. His body had already been wrecked by the collapse of the Predatory Ecosystem. He ought to have immediately put the shadow humans and everything else into dormant state and rested, but instead he had poured in additional magic to deliver a lengthy speech, saying, “Now I shall show you an insanely awesome famous scene!”
It was like wringing out a dry rag. Inian clicked her tongue as she looked at Ravan, whose extremities had come undone down to the muscle-fiber level.
“Grand Duke. Please help me.”
“I truly am going to lose my mind.”
Inian lifted Ravan.
Since Ravan’s collapsed physical durability was almost that of a mollusk, she neatly folded the ends of his body in layers.
“Kraaaagh! The one thing I can never tell you is that our base is in the north!”
“This is not the first or second time this has happened, so please endure it. If I had my way, I would cut off only the part above your head and take that.”
“Hey, you can’t. You know very well how much difference there is in magic consumption between fixing me with my body still there and regenerating everything below my head from scratch, don’t you?”
“That is why, even though it is bothersome, I am folding you neatly like this and carrying you.”
After gathering Ravan up piece by piece, Inian hoisted him near her shoulder just as he was. It was a posture mainly used in manual patient transport.
“If we return straight to the room, the mascots will notice us, so we shall wait on the outskirts of Hikarius until you have recovered appropriately, then return.”
Ravan obediently nodded. In the past, in situations like this, he had run his mouth a few times and ended up having even his spine folded.
Surprisingly, dark mages were creatures capable of learning.