Fog. (1)
“Leo.”
“……Yeah. Got it.”
Lia felt tension rising to her chin.
The mid-boss right before her—Deculein—was no mere professor. He was a demon hunter passed down through the ancient oral traditions, the head of the clan that exterminated demons.
The best course was flight. With Karos in tow, there was no way to beat a Yukline.
“Run!”
Lia shouted that as she hurled a dagger at Deculein. The throw and the hit were nearly simultaneous. The dagger lodged straight into Deculein's arm.
It was the Must Hit trait.
Deculein didn't flinch as he manipulated the metal. Dozens of steel shards responded to his will, swarming like a hive of bees.
Lia blasted out mana to deflect them, but the wood-steel embedded in the pavement vibrated with Telekinesis, flipping the entire tile floor.
Rumble—!
Her body floated up with the ground. But it didn't plummet all the way—it halted midway.
Not a good sign, though. Her right arm dangled limply in the air.
Deculein had seized the artifact bracelet with Telekinesis.
“……I did not come seeking you. I have no hobby of killing children.”
A chilling tone that sliced into the skin.
Lia glanced at Leo. The kid, dangling upside down by one foot, was flailing and wailing like a monkey.
“Take only that one.”
Deculein pointed at Karos.
The child tossed aside amid the explosion. A half-demon tormented by demonic energy and fever.
“No!”
“Don't wanna!”
Lia and Leo answered instantly. Veins bulged at his temple.
“Do you even know whom you are protecting now?”
“We do. Better than anyone.”
Lia shot back immediately.
Deculein's expression sank indifferently. A calm murderous intent.
He murmured low.
“Then it is a greater problem still. You who protect a demon are guilty as well.”
He declared it like a verdict, then activated the wood-steel again. The metal's resonance exploded roughly.
Rumble—!
Countless steel fragments shredded everything in all directions, surging toward Karos.
Lia tore off the bracelet binding her hand. She wrapped her body in protective aura and charged at Karos, shielding him with her flesh against the onslaught of wood-steel.
“Urgh—!”
Fortunately, the protective aura held, but she was barely alive.
Lia's robe shredded to rags. Blood poured from wounds across her body.
“……A futile endeavor.”
Deculein sneered down at her. Gritting her teeth, Lia whipped around, glaring at him with feral eyes.
“It's not futile!”
“Foolish. The very notion of harboring demon blood is immature……”
That instant.
Deculein's words cut off. The taut tension in the air snapped. Doubt flickered in his murder-filled eyes.
“……You.”
The wood-steel's resonance halted, and the demonic glint in his gaze faded.
Like green tea leaves unfurling in a cup, a strange emotion spread through his mind.
Ripples formed.
……A lapse he wouldn't repeat twice.
Lia seized the opening.
The bedsheet.
She yanked it up high, draping it over Leo and Karos. Then she transmuted its property to metal.
Turning the space inside the bedsheet into a “sealed realm.”
Deculein cast a spell belatedly, but it was too late.
Whoosh—!
When Lia finally pulled back the bedsheet.
It was a different space.
“Hoo…… We barely survived~”
Her whole body spun with dizziness as she cried out. Anemia made her stagger and collapse in a heap.
“……Whoa. Lia! I couldn't move at all! What was that?! So cool!”
Leo, meanwhile, bounced around in excitement.
Well, Deculein's Telekinesis…… No, probably not. No Telekinesis in this world had that power.
Anyway, that magic had been incredibly threatening.
“Who was that guy just now?!”
Leo asked. Lia staunched her wounds as she replied.
“……Deculein.”
“Deculein?”
“Yeah. A bad noble.”
“Whoa! But he was so cool! There are really so many masters in the world~ Not just Ganesha.”
Leo chattered happily, but it fell on deaf ears for Lia.
She was thinking about Deculein.
“Yeah. Way, way…… abnormally strong.”
Deculein's strength was unnatural. The man she'd just met was on another level from the original specs.
Even accounting for the Yukline bloodline's freakish power against demons……
“……Butterfly effect?”
“Moth?”
“Nooo. There's this thing.”
Lia recalled a small Easter egg she'd added once.
Deculein's first fiancée. A setting irrelevant to the game's progress.
She'd given him the emotion of love, and that fiancée's death had made Deculein strong……
A plausible theory. This world was reality, not some game, and characters moved in three dimensions based on their own emotions and memories.
“……Probably thanks to that?”
Ironically, that added setting had saved her life.
Lia remembered Deculein's face as he stared at her. The moment the demon-exterminating instinct possessing his body was devoured by some “pure emotion.”
An impression that would linger long in her mind.
“Because I look like that fiancée……”
Something Deculein's sister Yeriel had said once.
—That kid Lia looks like your first fiancée. A lot.
—The…… first one?
—Yeah. Julie kinda resembles her faintly, but that girl is a spitting image. Eyes and hair color differ, but she'll look more alike as she grows. I have a good eye for faces.
“……”
Lia clamped her mouth shut and looked at Karos. She placed a hand on his forehead. Fortunately, the fever had subsided somewhat.
“Alright! Leo!”
She forced a bright smile and clapped.
“Let's move again! He might come back, so we gotta hustle?!”
“Yeah!”
This time, Lia piggybacked Karos.
Just hold out until Ganesha arrived. No matter how amplified Deculein's specs, he couldn't beat her……
……Somewhere in Ghost Castle.
Sizzle— The fish meat cooked, but the atmosphere felt precarious, like walking on thin ice. Amid it, Jakal glanced at Kalra.
“……”
“……”
Kalra stared at someone. Her gaze reached Ganesha across from her. Ganesha met her eyes calmly.
“Long time no see~ Escaped from sis's ‘hell,’ huh.”
“……”
Ganesha shrugged at Jakal's words.
“Yeah~ It was pretty tough. Respect.”
The authority Kalra. Her trait Authority imprisoned targets in her “mental image.” A landscape akin to Avici Hell, inescapable for anyone Kalra designated.
The only escape was to bulldoze straight through that hell.
Of course, such a coercive ability came with a penalty.
Until the imprisoned escaped or died, Kalra herself couldn't use mana. But Jakal protected her during that time, rendering it nearly meaningless.
“Well, I'm off then~?”
……Who could've guessed another monster would break through that hell.
“No more fighting? I'd welcome it.”
Ganesha flicked her twintails as she stood. Jakal pouted but tossed one last line at her departing back.
“But sis Ganesha. I saw somethin' weird, y'know?”
“……Weird?”
“Yup. Look.”
Jakal swung his sword—whoosh—and a scene projected. The final memories of his subordinates slain by Deculein.
Kalra said.
“Deculein seems to have found the kid.”
Ganesha's eyes widened. Kalra continued softly.
“Yuklines are demon exterminators. He won't tolerate a child born of demon blood.”
“……Why tell me now?”
Ganesha clicked her tongue and dashed off. Watching her go, Jakal muttered with a chuckle.
“Sis. Weird, right? They say money comes all at once.”
The Altar wanted Karos. No rare half-demon bloodline except giants.
And the Altar wanted Deculein's brain too. That head full of rune knowledge was the “world's priciest treasure chest.”
The bounties on those two goals could buy a whole nation.
“Two big prizes right here……”
Jakal grinned chillingly as he wiped his sword. His smile reflected coldly in the red blade.
Ghost Castle's second floor. Deculein party's lodgings.
“……!”
Ifrin woke from sleep. She glared at the ceiling with wide eyes.
The bed was plush, the blanket soft, the pillow comfy—but the eerie footsteps echoed: thud-thud-
“Another nightmare……”
She was getting sick of it.
Ifrin rose slowly and crept along. Wondering whose ghost footsteps this time.
Thud-thud-
They led to Deculein's room. She glanced at soundly sleeping Allen.
Should she wake him? But if this was a nightmare, he'd turn into a ghost for sure.
No choice—solo action, rule one of horror theater.
Ifrin moved alone.
Thud—
The steps stopped. She hid behind the wall and peeked.
“……Huh?”
Not a ghost—Deculein.
Meaning: reality.
“What the……”
But his appearance was off. Scratches on his forearm, eyes serene as if lost in pallor.
“A lookalike…… No matter who, I shan't miss twice……”
Sudden fragmented mutter from his gritted teeth. Words scattering without forming sentences. A sigh spreading like sorrow.
……Is that really Deculein?
A side she'd never seen—Ifrin just stared blankly.
“Ahem.”
Deculein coughed lightly. Black blood trickled from his lips. Overuse of mana backlash—but unaware, Ifrin's eyes widened like a startled rabbit.
“!”
Blood. Deculein bleeding. Hemorrhage, even.
That simple, stark scene replayed Ruina's old joke in her mind.
Some terminal illness…… People change suddenly before they die……
Thud!
She stumbled unwittingly. Big toe smashed the doorframe.
“Ow!”
Pain too much to bear. Deculein turned at her leaked cry.
“……”
“……”
Silent staring contest. Ifrin fiddled her toe, swallowing hard.
Deculein asked.
“Did you have a dream?”
His blue eyes sank back to normal.
The flawless noble, impeccable professor.
Ifrin scratched her cheek.
“……No.”
She eyed him cautiously. He seemed indifferent, sitting and pulling out a book. Titled The Goreci Island Incident Files.
“Professor. Um……”
Ifrin stammered on. Deculein listened while turning pages.
“……That thing in Lokralen. Remember?”
Flip-flip-
Peaceful page turns. Cool night chill from the open window.
But his reply was elusive.
Ifrin quickly added.
“I, I don't remember a thing. Not ~one single bit.”
“……”
Finally, Deculein looked at her. Ifrin averted her gaze sideways, pondering.
“It's nothing big……”
Someday, in the near future, if you die.
No idea where or how, but not a peaceful natural death.
“……Just asking.”
What will you do, Professor?
If I warn you of that death, will you try to change the future?
Or even believe me?
Or…… maybe.
You already know your own death.
“I remember.”
Deculein replied.
That was it.
Tick-tock- Tick-tock- The second hand moved.
Flip-flip- Pages turned.
Ifrin stood demurely in the night breeze's midst. Fidgeting fingers and toes needlessly.
“……Um.”
Then a phrase popped into mind.
The line Deculein wrote supporting her.
—I support you.
Emboldened by it, Ifrin spoke again.
“Professor. You know, right? I overheard back then.”
His page-turning hand paused.
“You said the research's completion is my role.”
His impassive eyes met hers.
“Why…… say that?”
Ifrin asked facing him. She hated her quavering, pathetic voice.
“……”
Deculein said nothing.
He just stared long, until starlight slipped through the window cracks one moment.
One word.
“Because I cannot.”
“……!”
Ifrin choked. Her nape throbbed like hammered by a mallet.
His words' meaning was complex—yet crystal clear.
The final puzzle piece clicked perfectly.
“……Yes.”
Ifrin clenched her fists tight. Bit her lip hard.
“Then I'll do it. In your place, Dad's place.”
“……”
A trembling voice conveying the world's firmest resolve. Knight-like rigid stance.
Deculein gave a hollow chuckle watching her. As if exasperated, he said quietly.
“Do so.”
“Yes. So, about that.”
Ifrin pulled a paper bundle from her robe pocket.
The thesis she carried 24/7—her compiled accepted contents.
“I wrote this my way. Could you grade it?”
Ifrin asked Deculein to check her path, if she walked right.
“……Very well.”
He nodded weakly. His uncharacteristic motion nagged at her.
“Hm.”
Deculein took her thesis over the book.
Ifrin watched intently as he read line by line.
“……”
Her father's enemy. Annoying professor.
Almost lost his headship to Luna house, yet still took her as disciple—such a weird mage.
“Full moon tonight, huh. Know the full moon legend?”
Ifrin chattered idly.
The full moon overhead. Soft moonlight filtered in, illuminating Deculein. She propped her chin, gazing at his haughty face.
“……”
Then.
He slowly closed his eyes. She first thought sudden illness worsening. Startled, Ifrin jumped up—but soon slumped powerless.
Hessrock's “sleep fog.”