The Black Magician's Skin Mask
For a moment I wondered who they were calling. Oh right, Yesugei was my alias. Using a fake name isn’t always convenient.
I gave a bitter smile and hurled a Kaiser Phoenix at the black magician.
Kieeeeeeeeeeek—!!
Hmm?
The robed man twirled his finger in a lazy circle.
—Swish!
The immortal bird that had been soaring with confidence split cleanly in two and died in mid-air.
As I closed the distance, Primor loosed three arrows at once and whispered under her breath.
“Yesugei-nim, the black magician’s skill is beyond anything I imagined. He is still holding so much in reserve even while matching our family’s greatest holy knight.”
“It certainly looks that way.”
I spoke while activating Odin’s Eye for three seconds before switching it off again. The situation matched my expectations from beginning to end. It was by no means favorable. The boss’s ability appeared to be at least Platinum Class, and Primor’s guards had already spent much of their strength subduing the other families’ executives. Still, it was not entirely bad.
I gathered my mana.
“From this point on I will devote every ounce of my concentration to killing Matei Rossi. I consumed a great deal of mana on the way here, so may I withdraw once that is finished?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. Henry, hold the line until I unleash my true ultimate technique.”
The taciturn man gave a single nod.
I patted Larilura’s shoulder, then charged straight at Matei Rossi.
The boss of the Corbona family watched me with a perfectly trained combat stance.
“Flies keep swarming without end.”
“Well, flies are drawn to filth. Especially when that filth is a corpse.”
Matei Rossi’s face hardened.
—Boom!!
A punch that tore the air flew at me, identical to the technique Temurgul had used before. I wiped all expression from my face beneath the mask and spread the flames wide, reshaping them.
The flame wave that engulfed the tenth floor surged upward with a dragon’s roar.
Matei Rossi moved as though he would simply brush the flames aside and shatter my mask, yet the flames of the Blood Hand Demonic Art possessed physical substance like a mana coating. They could not be torn so easily.
“Hup—!!”
I stopped the fist that flew without feeling pain behind a wall of fire.
“Even at its best this is second-rate magic. The weakness is obvious. It looks like it’s still a work in progress, doesn’t it?”
I formed the seals. Like a flower bud closing, his entire body was sealed inside my mana.
—Thud!
Without even increasing the output of the Blood Hand Demonic Art, Matei Rossi’s body froze in place. I burned the now-empty shell like a sheet of paper. The corpse curled into a fetal position as its muscles contracted from the heat.
“Hah—in one blow?”
“...This is madness. We should have used a pincer attack.”
The guards who had been catching their breath gaped, stunned that the fight had ended in five seconds.
I staggered briefly from exhaustion.
“No, I didn’t win because I’m strong. That was a corpse being controlled by magic.”
“...A corpse?”
“A corpse manipulated by threads of magic. Because of that trait, if you blanket the area with another person’s mana the connection is severed. …Isn’t that right, black magician?”
When I spoke, the black magician—who had been locked in a fierce contest of strength with Henry—opened his mouth with leisurely composure.
“For a barbarian shaman of the wilds, your skill is impressive. Could the face beneath that mask belong to the Mongolian high monk I know?”
“Who can say? This appears to be the first time I have seen you.”
“Even on a first meeting, surely I can at least hear your name?”
—Grind!
“Urk!”
The moment the man clenched his fist, Henry vomited blood and collapsed.
Having watched their comrade fall so easily and grasped the meaning of my words, the guards and Primor pushed their tension to the breaking point.
The female rogue ground her teeth.
“...You killed the boss, turned him into an undead, and controlled him? Not only our young master?”
“Correct. That he noticed my identity was outside my calculations. Thanks to the funds diverted during that time, the organization in Lucregens has flourished, so the young master of the Armaals family did not simply die a dog’s death—”
The black magician who had been running his mouth moved his arm like lightning and caught the incoming arrow. It was one Primor had fired, blocked using the very martial art Matei Rossi had employed.
“Shut that mouth.”
Primor’s eyes widened as though she would shed tears of blood.
“—I will kill you here without fail. I will lay that head upon my husband’s grave.”
“Grave? Hehe. That holy knight’s divine magic left not even ashes. What exactly did you bury that you call it a grave?”
“The lady told you to shut that filthy mouth, you son of a bitch!!!!”
Hans traced a cross along his blade. The mana he released sliced across the floor, but the black magician drew forth darkness and negative mana and countered with the exact same technique. His proficiency was clearly higher. The female knight who tried to block the returning strike had her arm sliced open along with her ruined shield. The limb was not severed, yet blood poured freely.
“Ah, ugh…!!”
“Lias!”
Hans supported her while roaring.
“This bastard even stole the young master’s technique!!”
“In any case, aside from that Cross Slash there was nothing else worth taking. The Senate families are nothing special. How disappointing.”
The black magician shed his robe, revealing a masked face. For those whose bodies were being ruined by darkness and negative mana, a covering was only natural.
—Swish!
The guards shifted into a protective formation around Primor.
Primor poured mana into her composite bow and declared,
“Yesugei-nim. This is our fight and our revenge. We will capture him alive and make him pay the price, so please watch over us.”
“Understood. With what mana I have left, I will at least protect your guards.”
“You trust us?”
The female rogue smiled and struck my chest. She meant she had no intention of doubting me now.
“—Kill him!!”
The four guards charged in formation.
The black magician spread his arms and wove a bizarre flow of mana between both hands. It seemed to be magic that forged weapons from mana, much like my own Blood Hand Demonic Art.
Four people racing forward, ready to give their lives to claim the price for their lord, and a woman who had severed her own left ring finger to comfort her husband’s desecrated soul, all took aim.
It was the instant when murderous intent collided and the line between good and evil blurred.
And in that fleeting moment—
we moved.
Whoosh—!
Larilura yanked the arm of Primor, who had been drawing her bow.
The young white-haired lady was startled and pulled along helplessly while I twisted my body and slammed a burning ram kick.
Straight into Henry’s skull.
The flaming kick smashed into his head.
—Crunch!!
His helmet shattered and Henry spun like a boomerang. The holy knight’s body flew away like a broken marionette while the guards who had been focused forward turned back in horror.
All color drained from Primor’s face; her lips trembled.
“You damned old bastard!! You were in league with them from the start!!”
Hans was the first to swing his sword at me with a face twisted like a vengeful demon.
I caught the blade with the flames of the Blood Hand Demonic Art. His arm was exhausted to the limit, so stopping it was easy.
When his attack was blocked, Hans tried to launch a kick, but the moment I pointed a finger without even glancing at him he seemed to sense something wrong and suppressed his hostility.
“Huh?”
Perhaps it was not my gesture but Lias’s startled cry that made him turn.
Either way, he looked back and saw it.
The black magician’s corpse collapsed as though its strings had been cut.
“...What… what is this?”
“...Sigh. I went through all that trouble to land this one blow by deceiving even them, yet it was all wasted effort.”
I tapped the floor with the toe of my shoe.
“The foot I kicked with hurts like hell. Did you replace your skull with solid mithril?”
Henry, who had punched a gaping hole in the wall, rose while feeling the cold wind from outside. His skin peeled away like a Skin Mask. The corpse had been disguised with transformation magic to resemble living flesh.
A cold, expressionless handsome face coldly distorted beneath Henry’s torn features.
“...Since when did you notice?”
“Hmm. Well.”
While gazing at the holy knight’s corpse skin that shimmered like a mirage, I brushed Hans’s sword aside.
“From the moment you pretended to struggle alone against the corpse?”
A lie. It had been from the very first time I saw him—when Odin’s Eye pierced the corpse puppet wrapped in two or three layers of magic. How could I fail to recognize it when he sat there so boldly?
The reason I had stood dazed before Primor for so long was not simply because hers was a face I knew. The words I had given Larilura before entering the building had not been only about the ambush plan.
The holy knight Henry who served the Armaals family had been murdered upon reaching Lucregens and replaced by the black magician wearing his skin.
Because only Henry could have seen through the undead control technique and realized that Primor’s husband was a fake.
“From what I hear, you were driven out before for impersonating someone else’s husband. Were you that desperate to infiltrate the Armaals family?”
I spoke while forcing strength into my numb foot to endure the pain.
“A shame. That brilliant plan of yours is now completely ruined.”