Is He Dead?
A proper wife? What the hell kind of nonsense is that?
He had listened only because the words were delivered with such grave weight, and all he got for it was bizarre drivel. A child's clumsy feelings, maybe. She was still in high school; it was easy enough to misread one's own heart. The world had no shortage of idiots who mistook an arrhythmia for the pounding of love…….
No. Is it the other way around?
If the man behind that mask truly had tastes in that direction, he might have been leading the girl on purpose.
What, am I supposed to pray they love each other well?
The brat was roughly high-school age. In three years at the latest, they could be properly bound.
They could be bound even sooner.
Setsuna had seen plenty of lunatics pawing at children younger than that. He deleted the remark from his memory at once.
Phantom set a hamburger down in front of Setsuna and asked, quietly.
"Why's the mood like this?"
Setsuna shoved the mask aside with one hand.
"Figure it out yourself. I don't know."
"......? Understood."
Puzzled, Phantom accepted it and sat. He took the half-eaten hamburger and pushed it into the mask. The burger was swallowed by the mask and vanished.
Setsuna snorted, as if he'd seen something curious, and bit into his own. A Korean hamburger was not so different from a Japanese one.
An interrogation room, somewhere.
In the place the Dan Clan had prepared in secret, a hollow-eyed man had his head planted on the table. Before him, Hwang Seokgu and Elder Wildflower watched with cold eyes.
"Still don't feel like talking?"
"........."
The man—Scientist—trembled at the lips.
"Kill me."
"You've already died hundreds of times over. Kill what, exactly?"
"Kill me."
"Sorry, but that wish can't come true. All we've got the right to do is press this button."
Hwang Seokgu slammed the button down beside Scientist. Scientist's pupils jerked wildly.
"You can't go mad. You can't kill yourself. Bleaching your own mind is the same. There's one thing you can do. Cooperate, and spill every last thing in that clever head of yours."
When the growl ended, a somewhat softer voice cut in, as if it had been waiting.
"We have no wish to waste an informant we went to such trouble to obtain. Scientist, cooperate properly, and you may spend the rest of your life in comfort. You will rot in prison for all of it, of course."
Elder Wildflower smiled, grinding his teeth as if to break them. He stood just where Scientist's eyes could not quite reach.
"...Heh heh.... Blue Wildflower of the Plain. You think I don't know you?"
"I was rather famous, in my day."
"Your name was in the screams of the howling wolf pups. I wondered who you were. To think it was a fool like this."
"........."
"No wonder you were bound to die. Getting killed for nothing under a stupid leadership—that's a natural death."
"You maggot, I could chew you to pulp and still not feel clean...!"
"Compose yourself. It will not do for you to be the first to rage."
"Let go of me. He cannot die in any case, so I may thrash him to my heart's content!"
Elder Wildflower's nails honed themselves to points. Hwang Seokgu stopped him in a hurry.
Scientist cackled.
"Hwang Seokgu. You're hardly in a position to say that, are you? A man who couldn't even protect his own family."
"What did you say......?"
Hwang Seokgu froze.
"When we collected ability users with the Dan Clan's help, a great deal of material was supplied. Quite a few of them were beastkin."
"........."
"Ah, that cramped little peninsula, crawling with animal brats. And they bred so filthily that sorting them one by one and putting them to use was a real chore......"
Scientist barely managed to straighten his folded back. He leaned it against the chair. At that sneer, heat climbed Hwang Seokgu's neck, and his breath came ragged.
"There was a pregnant woman among them...... Dog ears or fox ears, I don't quite remember. But one thing, I do."
The baby in the womb—ears and tail all mottled, tiger-striped......
"I don't know whose child it was, but it held up surprisingly well in the experiments. If it had just pushed a little harder, that little dragon might have been the second success......"
A shame. Truly.
"We kept pumping wholesome water and medicine into it, squeeze after squeeze, and then, all at once—"
Pop.
"It came apart like a balloon. Flesh and brains, raining down. And it had to be right in front of my face, so the shower afterward......"
"————!!!"
Hwang Seokgu drove his claws into Scientist's throat. Blood poured from the windpipe, and still Scientist did not stop lifting the corners of his mouth.
"Stop, Seokgu! You'll truly kill him like that!"
Elder Wildflower hung from Hwang Seokgu's arm and tried to hold him back, but it was not enough to stop a tiger running wild with rage.
"Guhk...!"
For all the brilliance of his mind, Scientist's body was that of an ordinary person. A hole nearly a third the width of his neck had been torn open. Death was only a matter of time.
With a violent lurch—
"Elder! Please, calm yourself!"
In the end Dan Miryu, who had been watching from beyond the magic mirror, rushed in and restrained Hwang Seokgu. The necklace was already open. It hauled Scientist back by force from the hell he had been sinking into.
"Hah. Hah."
Hwang Seokgu panted, unable to crush his rage. Bloodshot eyes glared at Scientist as if to kill him where he sat.
"Keh, heh! Heh!"
Dragged back from death, Scientist still did not stop sneering.
His face gone hard, Dan Miryu sent the tiger and the wolf outside. Neither of them could master what he felt.
"So this is the head of the Dan Clan. Exhausting work, wiping old men's asses? When did you fall so low?"
Dan Miryu said nothing. He pressed the button on the table.
Grind. Crack.
"Gyaaaaaaaah!!!"
Bone became skin, skin became bone, muscle became blood vessels, fiber became blood vessels, the large intestine became the heart, the heart became the large intestine, the pupils became testicles, the testicles became pupils—. The components of a human being changed places. They were kneaded together like paints of every color. Scientist was becoming what had once been Scientist.
"Stoooop...... li......ve......"
A warped plea from a lump of meat. A blasphemy against life crawled along the floor.
"———."
The vocal cords were crushed beneath flesh. A beast's cry sounded, low.
A human being, voided at random.
"Scientist. If you wish to speak, blink."
"——!"
A long, wet blink. Then another, thick and dragging.
"Answer the questions properly, and mind and body will be at ease."
But.
"Should you prove uncooperative again—"
You will never return to being human.
"I have no wish to waste any more time."
Click.
"Kuhehhhhk!!!"
Restored to what he had been, Scientist clutched his throat and retched. Sour water fell, drop by drop.
"What is the name of the organization you belong to?"
"......Another."
Had the threat taken? Scientist opened his mouth, docile.
"How many executives are there in all?"
"......Seven, including me."
"Their identities."
"Names and abilities. That's all I know. One of them, only the name."
"That is fine. Tell me everything you know."
Scientist rambled on about the executives.
"Do you know of Anastasia?"
"Sword's daughter? He brought her when she was young, and Minder raised her herself. Beyond that, I don't know."
"......Another's purpose?"
"The coming of the Ideal World."
"The Ideal World? Do you want heaven itself?"
"Well. Do the hands and feet question what the head is doing?"
Dan Miryu kept the questions coming without a break. He asked what he had already asked, dug in again and again, and gave the man no room to think.
After quite a long time, he put forward the question he had deliberately avoided.
"Who is he, exactly?"
"........."
Scientist's eyes tore into long slits. Dan Miryu felt that something had gone wrong.
"......Heh."
With a short breath, Scientist dropped his head. Dan Miryu opened Life at once, but it was already too late.
"......He's dead."
He could not stop it. The death of a vital informant ached in his bones.
"Hah."
Too clean a death. And Terra would be waiting with such desperate hope......
"Is he dead?"
Hwang Seokgu came in, his feelings pulled back into order.
"I'm sorry. I was too hasty."
"No need for that with me. It was something that had to be done anyway."
Hwang Seokgu looked Scientist over carefully. Breath and heart had both stopped.
"Tsk. He went out easy."
"What can we do?"
"What else. We'll have to let Terra handle the corpse, at least."
We're going to catch hell for this.
Dan Miryu and Hwang Seokgu sighed at the same time......
"Scientist is...... dead."
"He was a clever man."
"Eccentric, though."
Britain. Buckingham Palace, a suite—a room only foreign dignitaries were permitted to use. There Asura, Warrior, and Magician grieved a comrade's death.
"Well, the dead can have a funeral later. We ought to do what we came to do, no?"
Magician clapped, wiggled his hips, and approached the woman bound at the center of the room.
"Kh—kill me!"
Arthur, hero and leader of Britain's Round Table, ground her teeth.
"Take you, and Britain is finished."
"Try it if you dare! It will never go as you wish!"
"Her Majesty's daughter, is that it? Even the last struggle is the same."
Magician set his palm against the forehead laid bare before him.
"Go on, hold out. Think you'll last even ten seconds?"
"The spirit of Britain is......"
"Yes, yes. Control complete."
Arthur crumpled, limp.
Magician wiped the blood running from his lips.
"Whew. That took a while. Hard work, taking over this tiny country."
"Once the Crown of Mind acknowledges us, is it over?"
"We'll have to commune with it, won't we?"
"Then that will do."
Asura lifted Arthur and glanced at Warrior.
"We'll be going. Hold on. I'd rather not lose another."
"Please endure, Magician."
Thud.
Magician took the hat from his head. A white silk top hat, the thing that might as well have been his emblem—and the Crown of Mind, assimilated into it.
"Our little troublemaker. Shall we finish this quickly with your big brother?"
With a mischievous smile, Magician called the Crown of Mind. The silk hat flew up and covered his face.
Khahahahahaha!!!
A madman's laughter echoed through Buckingham Palace.