8. Curse Plague (15)
8. Curse Plague (15)
Unraveling something didn't erase the target completely, like rubbing it out with an eraser.
Only the core structure built from Devolut was destroyed.
The skeleton, unable to bear its own ten-meter span, collapsed. The tightly-bound muscles tore themselves apart as they exceeded their tensile limits.
The substance of its body was nothing more than ordinary human bone and flesh.
Without Devolut's power, it couldn't sustain that form.
Mantula's Blade, stripped of its high-rigidity framework and high-ductility muscle, was just a giant sausage.
Watching its body disintegrate, I carefully pulled my hand free of the tentacle.
That was enough.
Chasing total destruction was a fool's errand.
Destroying part of it was sufficient to neutralize the trait entirely.
"Kerrk?"
"The, the Devolut..."
"Must... eat...?"
The hundreds of faces on its body stared at their ruined tail with expressions of bewilderment, watching their strength drain away.
The faces of the survivors around me were etched with shock.
They hadn't expected this outcome either.
A mage who wasn't even a knight had taken that monster's attack head-on, then dealt a devastating blow in return.
Blood poured from my side where the blade had run me through.
I clutched my waist with one arm, fighting to stay on my feet.
With 5.0 Regeneration, just staying upright was enough—the bleeding stopped quickly.
"Mister Wonderstein..."
Valentina ran toward me.
I flashed her my most confident grin.
"See? I told you not to worry."
"How can you say that in your condition?"
She took in my wound, her face crumpling with distress, and stamped her foot.
"There's nothing I can do for you... Holy Needle treatment would only harm a body like yours, Mister Wonderstein, a Madosa..."
The Holy Church's priests had a technique: they shrank Sacred Stakes to the size of needles and inserted them into the body's acupoints to promote healing.
But a Sacred Stake was still a Sacred Stake. Against anyone who wielded a Demon God's power, it acted as a weapon.
"It's the thought that counts."
I bowed politely, then put distance between us as fast as I could.
Even if I weren't a Madosa, accepting her healing was something I'd have to think long and hard about.
Even six or seven years later, when she received the title of Saintess, her healing skills were still terribly clumsy.
She couldn't size a Holy Needle properly. When she did manage one, it was as likely to hit the wrong acupoint as the right one.
It wasn't rare to see her patients recoil in terror and refuse treatment outright rather than accept it gladly.
It was no empty joke that she'd punched her way to becoming a Saintess.
"Sister Valentina, step back. This isn't over."
I assessed my remaining Devolut.
Name: Frank Wonderstein
Age: 27
Occupation: BioMancer
-Devolut: (1372/1966)
-Muscle Strength: 5.0 (A gym-going gorilla)
-Tissue Hardness: 5.0 (Tough as granite)
-Cell Regeneration: 5.0 (A lizard tail with ointment)
Trait
: [The Smiling Man]
I'd destabilized about half of the trait it had constructed.
That alone had consumed roughly a hundred Devoluts.
Working backward, that meant its tail had been built using around four hundred Devoluts in total.
Four hundred.
It was undeniably impressive.
The thing had punched straight through the cathedral's heavy doors.
A human body, no matter how rigorously trained, could never reach that threshold.
It was a physique that had touched the apex of evolution.
But that was all it was.
Right now, I was Frank Wonderstein.
A BioMancer who ruled over Devolut.
No matter how powerful a biological ability was, before me, it was powerless.
"Kreee! Must increase Devolut!"
"Must... eat!"
"K-kill!"
Bloodshot eyes glared at me.
The confusion they'd felt had curdled into rage.
Thud.
A massive hunk of flesh, like a burst blood sausage, rolled across the floor.
The creature had severed its own useless tail.
The Flesh Mass began requisitioning bone and muscle from the three hundred humans within itself, forging another Mantula's Blade.
Crack. Snap.
Bone sprouted. Muscle layered over muscle. A tower of blood and meat rose from its back.
Bigger than the last one. Eight stories high—at least twenty meters.
The grotesque, blood-red pillar of flexing tissue loomed behind it.
Had this one burned through a thousand Devoluts?
If I took a hit like that again, my body wouldn't hold together. I was sure of it.
I opened my Status Window, consumed 150 Devoluts, and boosted each of my basic abilities by one more point.
Name: Frank Wonderstein
Age: 27
Occupation: BioMancer
-Devolut: (1222/1966)
-Muscle Strength: 6.0 (A tiger on breakfast cereal)
-Tissue Hardness: 6.0 (Bulletproof glass)
-Cell Regeneration: 6.0 (A weed patch after rain)
Trait
: [The Smiling Man]
I considered pushing it to 7.0, then decided against it.
That would require another 240 Devoluts.
I had no idea how many more of its traits I'd need to unravel. Best to conserve resources as much as possible.
The moment its tail was nearly complete, I lunged at the creature without hesitation.
I had no obligation to stand there and take a hit from something that brutish.
If I smashed it before it could swing, that was the end of it.
"Kiiiik!"
"K-kill you!"
It hadn't expected me to charge first. The creature scrambled to swing its tail, but the finishing touches weren't complete. It only produced stiff cracking sounds, refusing to move properly.
I didn't let the opening slip. My hand found its tail.
"Unravel."
Crunch. Crackle.
The sensation of bone grinding to splinters and muscle fibers snapping traveled up my arm.
After consuming about two hundred Devoluts, I pulled my hand away.
"Groooaaar!"
The Flesh Mass bellowed.
Its freshly-formed Mantula's Blade met the same fate as the first. It collapsed into a bloated, blood-soaked heap of meat on the floor.
"Dangerous..."
"Wh-what do we...?"
"I just want to eat..."
With two attacks nullified in quick succession, the creature shifted into a defensive stance.
It scuttled back toward the cathedral entrance with a quickness that belied its bulk, then fixed its array of eyes on me.
Its size had shrunk considerably since the fight began.
Yet it was still the size of an elephant, cowering in fear—the sight was almost comical.
I was approaching it with a smile when it suddenly shrieked.
"Don't... come closer!"
"Kill you... from a distance!"
Part of its body squirmed, then extended toward me.
A multi-meter-long spear bristling with barbs tore through its own flesh and emerged.
It was one of Wonderstein's signature techniques: the Bone Hog Spear.
A ranged attack—extend the arm, fire a spear of bone from the palm.
Apparently proud of this inspiration, it let out a confident cackle.
I answered with a smile of my own.
The moment it had retreated, I'd known a ranged attack was coming.
And I'd already prepared a countermeasure.
Trait: Mucus Vomit
Application Site: Mouth
Effect: Fires a sticky, viscous substance in a radial burst.
Required Resource: [Devolut 8]
If I layered it thick, like webbing, it could slow a projectile enough to neutralize it.
The idea came from a TT1 strat: if you collected the spiderwebs from the Spider Woman boss stage beforehand, they were incredibly useful against Wonderstein himself.
But firing this from my actual mouth was inefficient.
It blocked my vision, and the limited articulation of a human neck was a major drawback.
Producing comparable power from a different body part, however, multiplied the modification costs several times over.
Solution?
Simple.
Just make another mouth somewhere else.
Trait: Palm Mouth
Application Site: Hand
Effect: Creates a mouth on the palm.
Required Resource: [Devolut 6]
The skin of my palm split into a crescent-shaped gash, baring teeth in a wicked grin.
This, too, was one of Wonderstein's specialties.
Palms forward, arms crossed, the mouths on his hands baring fangs while his own face grinned between them—that was the cover art for TT1.
I glanced down. The mouth on my palm had its tongue lolling out, panting like a dog.
When submitting the request to the Evolution Lab, the fine details were shaped by my vague expectations and subconscious.
Maybe, without realizing it, I'd projected the idea of a companion animal—a dog or a cat—onto a limb I'd never had in my entire life.
"Die! Graaah—ptui!"
The creature fired the Bone Hog Spear.
I countered by unleashing Mucus Vomit from the mouth on my palm.
Unable to gauge the power, I fired ten volleys in rapid succession.
Purple slime shot out like bullets.
The sticky, web-like substance enveloped the Bone Hog Spear. A second and third volley coiled around it.
Because they'd been sprayed in a radial burst, the ends of the mucus strands anchored themselves to the walls and yanked the spear sideways.
The spear's velocity dropped sharply.
By the time the seventh volley hit, it had lost all momentum, wobbled in midair, and then the last three blasts slammed into it and plastered it against the wall with a wet smack.
"Aaaahhh!"
"I'll eat you!"
The Flesh Mass, reeling at the failure of this attack too, flew into a frenzy and launched a second Bone Hog Spear.
It looked shoddier than the first—thrown together in a rush from whatever scraps of resource it had left.
This time, I fired five strands of the purple webbing.
The spear wobbled through the air and embedded itself in the floor, inches short of my feet.
"Th-this can't be..."
"I... Devolut..."
"Must eat. Must get more."
I walked toward the creature as it scrambled backward, its faces slack with terror.
Its body had now shrunk to the size of a bear.
At this size, I might be able to beat it bare-handed, with the strength of a tiger.
The moment I reached toward the thing as it clawed feebly at the floor—
A searing pain punched through my shoulder.
"Kikiki!"
"Got you!"
"Idiot!"
I spun toward the sound.
A fragment of the second Bone Hog Spear had separated itself and was lunging at me, barbs extended.
In that instant, I understood exactly what it had done.
The creature was a fusion of hundreds of personalities.
It could implant autonomous will into any body part it separated from itself.
The second Bone Hog Spear hadn't just been a mass of biological material—it was a fragment carrying consciousness and Devolut.
My trembling hand closed around the barb impaling my shoulder, trying to pull it free.
But small barbs sprouted from within like thorns, anchoring themselves firmly into my flesh.
"It's over!"
"Die!"
The main body, which had been cowering in feigned terror just moments ago, rose.
It bloated its fist to an enormous size and sprouted spikes across its surface.
I scrambled to improvise a defensive trait.
Then the spike pinning my shoulder erupted with searing heat, burst into flame, and crumbled into white ash in the span of a heartbeat.
"Kee-yek!"
"Hot!"
The second creature blazed with brilliant light.
Several cross-shaped spears had been driven deep into it.
The monster collapsed with a pitiful shriek.
Standing before it was a woman in a white habit, her hair pink.
She shouted at me.
"Now, Mister Wonderstein! Finish it!"
I caught the incoming fist with both hands.
The barbs tore savagely into my palms.
It hurt. I smiled anyway.
After all, I was The Smiling Man.
"Ngggh...!"
The creature, terrified by my smile, tried to pull back, but I locked my grip around its fist and held it fast.
"Unravel."
One entire side of its arm blew apart.
Its body, having thrown all its momentum into that punch, tipped off balance and tumbled end over end across the floor.
I walked up to where the thing lay prone.
The faces embedded in its body stared up at me, weeping.
"P-please..."
"M-master..."
"We... only followed orders..."
A bitter smile crossed my face.
My suspicion had been right.
My desire to increase my Devolut—that had influenced the Devolut still undergoing Subordination inside me.
Spilling that infected blood had spread it to the villagers.
Who could I blame?
That woman who bit my leg?
I didn't see her inside the cathedral.
Most likely, the monster had already devoured her.
All I could do was speak to the people trapped inside that weeping Flesh Mass.
"I'm sorry."
I placed my hand on one of their faces.
"Unravel."
Hundreds of people screamed their dying screams at once.