“Leo.”
“......Yeah. I know.”
Ria felt her heart in her throat.
The mid-boss standing before them now—‘Deculrain’—was no mere professor. He was a demon hunter whose lineage stretched back to ancient times. The head of a clan that annihilates demons (魔).
Their best option was flight. As long as they had Kalros with them, there was no way to defeat a member of the Ukrain clan.
“Run!”
Ria shouted and hurled a dagger at Deculrain. The throw and the impact were almost simultaneous. The dagger embedded itself squarely in Deculrain's arm.
It was the trait, ‘Bizhong (必中)’.
Without so much as flinching, Deculrain moved the metal. Dozens of steel fragments responded to his will and swarmed like a horde of bees.
Ria released her mana to deflect them, but the metal stakes embedded in the road surface vibrated via ‘Niandong’ and overturned the entire tiled floor.
Kugugugung───!
Her body buoyed up together with the floor. But it didn’t fall all the way to the end, stopping midair.
Only, it was not a good sign. Her right arm dangled limply—hanging in the air.
Deculrain had seized her artifact bracelet with ‘Niandong’.
“......I didn’t come here looking for you. I have no taste for killing children.”
A voice as cold and cutting as though slicing skin.
Ria looked back at Leo. Hanging upside down by his right foot, he flailed “Waa— Waaa—” like a monkey.
“Take only him.”
Deculrain pointed at Kalros.
A child thrown haphazardly by the explosion. A half-human, half-demon of a clan afflicted with demonic qi and fever.
“No!”
“No way!”
Ria and Leo answered instantly. At that, a vein bulged at his temple.
“Do you even know who you are protecting right now?”
“I know. Better than anyone.”
Ria answered at once.
Deculrain’s expression turned impassive. It was a composed killing intent.
He spoke in a low voice.
“Then that is an even greater problem. You who protect demons are also guilty.”
He pronounced it as though delivering a verdict and once again activated the metal stakes. The metallic resonance violently exploded.
Kugugugung───!
Countless steel fragments shredded the surroundings in every direction and surged toward Kalros.
Ria threw off the bracelet binding her wrist. She enveloped her entire body in Hushen Gangqi (護身罡氣) and dashed toward Kalros. She was using her own body to block the barrage of raining metal stakes.
“Grrragh──!”
Fortunately, the Hushen Gangqi was not destroyed, but it was barely enough to keep her alive.
Ria’s robe was torn to shreds. Blood gushed from wounds across her entire body.
“......You’re doing something utterly worthless.”
Deculrain looked down at her as if scorning her. Ria gritted her teeth and whipped her body around. She glared at him with venomous eyes.
“It’s not worthless!”
“Foolish. The very thought of harboring a demonic bloodline is half-baked......”
At that moment.
Deculrain’s words stopped. The tension taut in the area snapped with a thud. Suspicion settled in his eyes, which had been filled with killing intent.
“......You.”
The resonance of the metal stakes stopped, and the light gleaming in his eyes like a demon faded.
Like green tea leaves spreading through a teacup, a strange emotion bloomed in his heart.
A ripple formed.
......It was an opening that would not come twice.
Ria showed resourcefulness.
The bedsheet.
She lifted the bedsheet high and covered Leo and Kalros with it. Then she changed the sheet’s properties to metal.
She had turned the inside of the bedsheet into a ‘closed space.’
Deculrain manifested his magic belatedly, but it was already too late.
Hwiing─!
By the time Ria lifted the bedsheet, it was a different space.
“Hooah...... We barely survived~”
Her whole body was dizzy from shouting with such vigor. She swayed from anemia and thudded down onto her seat.
“......Wow. Ria! I couldn’t move my body! What was that?! So cool!”
Leo, on the other hand, bounced around excitedly.
Well, whether it was Deculrain’s Niandong...... No, it probably wasn’t Niandong. There was no Niandong of such power in this world’s setting.
In any case, that magic was tremendously threatening.
“Who was that just now?!”
Leo asked. Ria answered while staunching the minor wounds all over her body.
“......Deculrain.”
“Deculrain?”
“Uh-huh. He’s a bad noble.”
“Wow! But that was amazing! There are really so many masters in the world~ besides Ganesha.”
Leo chattered away with a bright smile as if overjoyed, but his words didn’t reach Ria’s ears.
She was thinking about Deculrain.
“Right. Too, too...... strangely strong.”
Deculrain’s strength was abnormal. The one they had just met was on a different dimension from the original setting.
Of course, even taking into account that the Ukrain bloodline grew unusually stronger when facing demonic kin......
“......Could it be the butterfly effect?”
“A moth?”
“Nooo. It’s a thing.”
Ria recalled a small easter egg she had added once, long ago.
Deculrain’s first fiancée. A setting that would have no bearing whatsoever on the game’s progression.
She had breathed into him the emotion called love, and that fiancée’s death had made Deculrain stronger......
It was a plausible inference. This world was reality, not a game, and the characters moved three-dimensionally according to their own emotions and memories.
“......I suppose it was thanks to that?”
Yet, ironically, it was thanks to that added setting that they had survived.
Ria remembered the face Deculrain made while looking at her. She recalled the moment when the demon-slaying instinct devouring his body was consumed by some ‘pure emotion.’
An impressive scene that would remain in her mind for a long time.
“Because I resemble that fiancée......”
Words once spoken by Yeriel, Deculrain’s younger sibling.
—The child named Ria resembles that fiancée. Very much so.
—The first...... fiancée?
—Yes. That woman Yulli has a passing resemblance too, but that child is truly a spitting image. Her eye color and hair color are different, but she’ll probably grow to look even more alike the older she gets. I’m quite good at reading faces, you see.
“......”
Ria pressed her lips shut and looked at Kalros. She placed her hand on his forehead. Fortunately, the fever had subsided somewhat.
“Hey! Leo!”
She clapped her hands together deliberately, smiling brightly.
“Let’s get moving again! He might come find us again, so we have to move quickly, okay?!”
“Yeah!”
This time, it was Ria who carried Kalros on her back.
They only needed to hold out like this until Ganesha arrived. No matter how much Deculrain’s specs had been amplified, he wouldn’t be able to defeat Ganesha......
* * *
......Somewhere in Ghost Castle.
Sizzle, sizzle— Fish was cooking, but for some reason the atmosphere was as awkward and precarious as walking on thin ice. Amidst it, Jackal glanced at Kalla.
“......”
“......”
Kalla was looking at someone. Her gaze reached Ganesha on the opposite side. Ganesha met Kalla’s eyes with a composed face.
“Long time no see~ for someone who’s escaped my dear sister’s ‘hell.’”
“......”
At Jackal’s words, Ganesha shrugged her shoulders.
“Mhm~ It was pretty tough. I admit it. Respect.”
Kalla the Authority. Her trait, ‘Quanwei,’ was to imprison targets within her ‘Xinxiang.’ That landscape rivaled Wujian Diyu [無間地獄], and no target designated by Kalla could avoid it.
The only escape was to break through that hell head-on.
Of course, since it was an extremely forceful supernatural ability, a penalty existed.
Until the person trapped in her Xinxiang died or escaped, Kalla herself could not use mana. However, Jackal would protect her during that time, so it was practically a nominal weakness.
“Then I’ll be going now~?”
......But to think there would be another monster who broke through that hell.
“You don’t plan to fight anymore, right? I’d be willing to take you on, though.”
Ganesha stood up, fluttering her twintails. Jackal pouted but added a word to her as she left.
“But Ganesha-noonim. I saw somethin’ interestin’, I did.”
“......Interesting?”
“Yeah. Look.”
Jackal swished his sword with a fwip. Then a scene was projected. It was the final memory of his subordinates who had been killed by Deculrain.
Kalla said.
“It seems Deculrain found that child.”
In that instant, Ganesha’s eyes widened. Kalla continued in a soft, sweet voice.
“The Ukrain are a bloodline that annihilates demons. I doubt he would tolerate a child born of demonic blood.”
“......Why are you only telling me this now?”
Clicking her tongue, Ganesha quickly ran out. Jackal, watching her back, muttered in a tone mixed with laughter.
“Noonim. Ain’t it interestin’? They say money comes all at once.”
The Altar wanted Kalros. There was no other bloodline as rare as someone half-human, half-demon, save for the giants.
Moreover, the Altar also wanted Deculrain’s brain. That head filled with the knowledge of runic language was no different from ‘the most expensive treasure chest in the world.’
The bounty the Altar placed on those two targets was enough to establish nearly an entire nation.
“There be two whole big targets now......”
Jackal grinned and wiped his sword. The smile reflected on the crimson blade was cold.
* * *
The second floor of Ghost Castle. Deculrain’s group’s quarters.
“......!”
Ifrin woke from her sleep. She stared at the ceiling with wide eyes.
The bed was soft, the blanket smooth, and the pillow comfortable, but it was because of the thud— thud— footsteps echoing bleakly.
“Another nightmare......”
She was practically developing a complex at this point.
Slowly rising, Ifrin crept along. Wondering whose ghostly footsteps these were this time.
Thud— Thud—
The sound led to Deculrain’s room. Ifrin glanced at Allen, who was sleeping soundly.
She considered waking him, but...
If this were a nightmare, Allen would surely turn into a ghost.
Left with no choice, Ifrin moved alone. The first rule of a horror play: acting alone.
Thud—
Then the footsteps stopped. Ifrin hid behind a wall and looked.
“......Huh?”
It was Deculrain, not a ghost. Meaning, this was reality.
“What the.”
But for some reason, his appearance was strange. There were scratches around his arm, and his eyes were serene as if lost in thought.
“A lookalike...... I won’t miss twice, no matter who......”
Suddenly, fragmented words flowed from between his teeth. Sentences that couldn’t form and scattered. A sigh that spread like sorrow.
......Is that man really Deculrain?
It was a side she had never seen once, so Ifrin simply stared blankly.
“Ahem.”
Then Deculrain let out a small cough. Black blood flowed from between his lips. It was a side effect of overusing his mana, but Ifrin’s eyes, unaware of that fact, grew wide like a startled rabbit.
“!”
Blood. Deculrain was bleeding. Hemoptysis, even.
That simple yet unmistakable scene replayed in Ifrin’s head—words that Ruina had once tossed out like a joke.
Maybe he caught some terminal illness...... They say people die if they suddenly change......
Thud!
She had stumbled without realizing. Her big toe hit the doorframe.
“Urk!”
A pain truly hard to endure. At the scream that slipped out, Deculrain turned to look at her.
“......”
“......”
A battle of silent eyes. Ifrin fidgeted with her toe and gulped down her saliva.
Deculrain asked.
“Did you have a nightmare.”
His blue eyes had settled again as usual.
It was the look of the flawless noble, the perfect professor.
Ifrin scratched her cheek and answered.
“......No.”
Then she gauged Deculrain’s reaction. He seemed to have no particular interest as he sat in a chair and pulled out a book. [ The Case Files of Goreshi Island ] was the title.
“Professor. But, you see......”
Ifrin spoke haltingly. Deculrain listened while turning the pages of the book.
Rustle— Rustle—
The sound of pages turning was peaceful. The night’s chill wafting through the open window was refreshing.
However, Deculrain’s answer was nowhere to be heard.
Ifrin quickly added.
“I, I don’t remember a single thing, really not~ a single thing.”
“......”
Finally, Deculrain turned to look at her. Ifrin avoided his gaze at an angle, troubled.
“It’s nothing, really......”
If, someday, in the not-too-distant future, you were to die.
I don’t know where or how you would die, but if it is definitely not a peaceful natural death.
“......I’m just asking.”
What will you do, Professor?
If I tell you of that death, will you try to change the future?
No—will you even believe me?
Or, perhaps...
Do you already know of your own death?
“I remember.”
Deculein answered.
That was all.
Tick—tock—went the second hand.
Rustle—rustle—turned the pages of the book.
Epherene stood primly in the middle of the night wind drifting in. For no reason, she wriggled her fingers and toes.
“...Um.”
Then, all at once, a phrase came to mind.
The single sentence Deculein had written when he sponsored her.
—I am rooting for you.
Drawing courage from those words, Epherene spoke again.
“Professor. You know, don’t you? That I overheard you back then.”
At that, Deculein’s hand, which had been turning a page, stopped.
“You said the completion of the research was up to me.”
Those indifferent eyes came to rest on her.
“Why... did you say that?”
Epherene met his gaze and asked. She did not like how pitifully her own voice trembled.
“......”
Deculein said nothing.
For a long while, he only looked at her, until at some moment when starlight seeped through the gap in the window.
He answered with a single sentence.
“Because I cannot do it.”
“...!”
At that moment, Epherene’s breath caught. The back of her head throbbed as though she had been struck with a hammer.
That was how complex the meaning contained in Deculein’s words was. And at the same time, how clear.
It felt as if the final piece of the puzzle had snapped into place like the jaws of a beast.
“...Yes.”
Epherene clenched her fist tightly. She bit down hard on her lip.
“Then I’ll make sure to do it. In your place, Professor, and in my dad’s.”
“......”
Her voice trembled as she conveyed a resolve more determined than anything in the world. Her posture was firm, like that of some knight.
Watching her, Deculein let out a hollow laugh. He remained still for a moment, as though dumbfounded, then said,
“Do that.”
“Yes. So, about that.”
Epherene took a bundle of papers from the inner pocket of her robe.
A thesis she kept on her person twenty-four hours a day, and among it, a document organizing the parts she had managed to understand.
“I wrote this in my own way. Could I ask you to grade it?”
Epherene wanted to know whether her direction was correct, whether she was walking the right path.
She asked Deculein for guidance and instruction.
“...Very well.”
He nodded weakly. The gesture was so unlike his usual self that it bothered her for no reason.
“Hmm.”
Instead of his book, Deculein picked up Epherene’s thesis.
Epherene gazed steadily at him as he read it line by line.
“......”
Her father’s enemy. An insufferable professor.
A mage far too strange—one who had nearly had the headship stolen from him by the Luna family, and yet still said he would accept her as his disciple.
“Tonight’s a full moon. Do you know the legend of the full moon?”
Epherene chattered on for no particular reason.
The full moon had risen into the sky. Its gentle moonlight seeped softly inside and shone upon Deculein. Resting her chin in her hand, she watched that haughty face of his.
“......”
Then, in the midst of that.
His eyes slowly slid shut. At first, she thought his condition had suddenly worsened. Startled, Epherene sprang to her feet, but soon the strength left her entire body, and she sank back down.
It was the “slumber fog” Hesrock had spoken of.