10. Demon in a Bottle (30)
10. Demon in a Bottle (30)
Maya reflexively tried to summon her telekinesis.
Her magic refused to respond.
The Papilax still hadn't worn off.
Without her magic, she was quite possibly the most fragile person in this entire banquet hall.
She was pulled helplessly into Arno's arms.
At the same instant, something splattered behind her with a wet slap.
She spun around.
A viscous red liquid, like blood, was dripping down. The way it stretched all the way upward made it clear it had poured from the ceiling.
The substance oozed over Professor Phairen's entire body, writhing like a living creature.
"Wh-wha— gah! Wh-what is this, i-it's— blub, hrrk... hurgh!"
The sticky liquid sealed her throat, then her nose and mouth. The more she thrashed, the tighter it constricted around her.
Had Arno not yanked Maya back, she would have been caught in it too.
Screams erupted from every corner.
"What the hell is that?"
"Oh no, the professor's going to die...!"
"Someone do something!"
The crimson slime was now forcing its way into her mouth, nose, and ears. Phairen's eyes rolled back, and her whole body shuddered violently.
"Stay back."
Arno nudged Maya aside and strode toward Phairen. Illusions of scissors and cleavers materialized around him.
He possessed the skill to confer physical force onto his illusions. He didn't strictly need to visualize scissors and cleavers to exert that force, but the clearer the image, the stronger the Mystery of Image became. He intended to fight this slime monster with that power.
Maya looked up at the ceiling. The slime's tail still stretched back toward it.
A bucket-like mass dangled from the end of the strand, swaying back and forth. The crimson substance had streamed down from that point. It must have been what dumped the slime in the first place.
Then the thing swinging from the ceiling suddenly dropped.
"Look out!"
At Maya's shout, Arno glanced upward and tried to lunge clear.
The slime monster shot a tentacle at him. Even while still restraining Phairen, it lashed out with a free tendril and snared his ankle.
A massive shadow swallowed him.
A deafening crash shook the hall, billowing dust and splinters outward. The shockwave reached Maya.
"Ngh!"
She reeled backward, losing her balance.
The stage was higher than a person's height. A fall from that distance could easily break bones for someone who had no breakfall training, like her.
Luckily, she wasn't hurt at all. Someone had rushed over and caught her from behind.
"Hah... hah... hah... a-are you okay?"
It was Karen. Gasping for breath, she stared down at the friend in her arms. She'd been on the opposite side of the hall; when things turned strange, she'd sprinted to the front of the stage.
Karen offered an awkward smile at Maya, who was staring up at her with a blank expression.
"Thank goodness..."
"Let go."
Maya shoved her away. Karen could have easily held her ground against that weak push, but she stepped back without resistance.
Guess she'd find it unpleasant. Being held by someone like me.
The dust settled, revealing the stage. The wooden floor had collapsed completely. Arno was nowhere to be seen.
There had been no time to dodge. It looked as if it had crushed him on the spot.
Each time the monster squirmed, the floorboards groaned. The thing that had fallen was the size of a carriage and seemed to weigh as much as a boulder.
Screeeech. Scr-screee.
The slime churned, dragging the mass with it.
What Maya had taken for a bucket looked like a fusion of a conch and a crab carapace. The crimson slime had gushed from a hole in it.
The slime twisted its body upward.
A monstrous snail. The description fit it perfectly.
Professor Phairen was now completely swallowed by the slime, and Arno was dead.
Terrified screams filled the room.
"What's going on?"
"What is that monster?"
"Someone call the police!"
Then a single shout cut through the chaos.
"Inspira won't activate!"
It was one of the professional acrobats who'd been invited as a freshman's guest. He was bouncing in place, staring at his legs with a baffled look. His technique, which amplified his jumping power by bending and extending his knees, wasn't responding.
Voices echoed his panic all around. Everyone was frantically checking themselves for something wrong.
Maya dredged up her knowledge of magicology from the academy.
There were two cases in which a Madosa couldn't invoke a Demon God's authority:
When impaled by a Stake of Light used by Orthodox Church priests.
And the other...
Gurgle. Blub-blub.
The slime monster expelled bubbles of air from within itself and began to change shape.
Antennae emerged. Segmented, jointed legs typical of arthropods grew and planted themselves on the floor. A tail burst from behind the snail shell and began to form something large at its tip.
Click. Click. Click.
Hard plates spread from the shell on its back, covering the slime's surface like armor.
A scorpion, a snail, a spider — the creature was a grotesque blend of them all.
Maya recalled an illustration from her magicology textbook. The Demon Gods were conceptual beings, but when manifesting in the mortal realm, they assumed a form observable to humans.
She remembered one of them.
People were still clamoring that their Inspira wouldn't work. Attempts to flee the hall were blocked by some invisible force; the doors wouldn't budge. The windows had gone pitch black, the view outside vanished.
The entire hall had been severed from the outside world, centered on that creature.
"M-Maya, let's get back. It's dangerous..."
Karen grabbed her shoulder.
The monster had almost fully assembled its form. The tail now bore a rigid exoskeleton. At its tip, a large claw hand clicked open and shut.
"Why can't we get out?"
"Why won't Inspira work?"
The implication of both conditions was clear. They were now inside the domain of a Demon God other than Kirkeus.
Maya stared at the colossal hermit-crab-like thing creaking as it rose on the stage. Only one being could cause this phenomenon.
An Avatar. When a Demon God descends into this world through its apostle. The apostle burns their own self to use it — a final secret technique.
When an Avatar manifests, the Demon God's domain automatically envelops the area. No other Demon God's authority can function within it. Only one being can act: that Demon God's apostle.
Why such an Avatar would appear here, Maya had no idea.
Then a voice rang out, as if hundreds of people were murmuring at once.
"You've gathered quite the crowd. Followers of that jest-loving clown god."
Bubbles seethed in the air, and a sound like thousands whispering together burst forth. People clapped their hands over their ears.
This was the Garden of Whispers — the domain of Sinepekus. Translucent coral reefs in every color flickered in and out of existence around the hall.
The Avatar of the Demon God Sinepekus had descended upon the Rekachev banquet hall.
***
Wonderstein and Reina were on the roof of the banquet hall building. They were alone.
That meant Reina could act as spoiled as she wanted. She buried her face in his chest and whined.
"You're so mean. Really, so mean. How could you do that."
Her childish behavior would have shocked anyone who knew her usual self — that cold, haughty arrogance of a queen who never bent for anything.
But in front of Wonderstein, she turned into a little girl every time.
He patted her back as she nestled against him.
The noise from below still pounded against their ears. Shrieks and laughter.
After the party king and queen had been chosen, it was free time. Everyone seemed to be having a blast.
Wonderstein checked his Status Window. If something happened, a Member Quest would pop up.
***
Clara felt like she was about to faint. The moment the slime had dripped from the ceiling, she'd known what it was.
That was the original owner of the body and name she was now occupying.
'Wasn't it supposed to be sealed in a glass bottle? No, if the Demon God himself came to make a mess, it's possible.'
The sorcery she'd devised was a kind of fraudulent identity swap — a trick to make the world recognize her as "Clara," and the other as the "Demon in the Bottle."
She'd never imagined the Demon God would choose that girl instead of her. She'd assumed keeping herself as the apostle would be more advantageous to him in every way.
The question was answered when she saw the slime's massive bulk and how it was reshaping itself. How could a mere human woman's soul, without any accumulated karma, possibly bear a Demon God's divinity? The thing had been using the Devolut Phairen had collected — and with a Fragment of Trill on top of it, the temptation to rampage as a Demon God must have been irresistible.
She'd messed up. She should have done a full seal... Getting out of that bottle had made her too giddy.
The monster, now fully formed as an Avatar, waved its dozens of antennae as it scanned the banquet hall — and quickly found her.
"There you are, cunning little thief. Calling yourself my apostle without permission... you've even stolen my body and my name!"
Two voices tangled together. The first was his as the Avatar, and the second came from the original Clara's personality.
Of course, the crowd had no idea whom he was cursing. Each of those dozens of antennae ended in an eye; it was impossible to tell what he was actually looking at. And the whispers filling the room from every direction made it hard to even understand his words.
Even the noises they themselves made blub-blubbed like shouts underwater, ringing with bubbles.
Everyone was fleeing in terror to the edges of the hall. Everyone, except for one person running toward the stage.
Hobbs, the leader of the Papael Circus.
"Karen! What are you doing? Get back!"
He shouted with all his might, but his voice didn't reach his sister. The moment the words left his mouth, they turned to churning foam.
Karen stood frozen in place. Maya beside her was the same.
Around the two of them, bubbles were bursting and spilling whispers. The voices inside had locked them in place.
Hobbs looked at the hermit-crab monster. Its underbelly, from chin to abdomen, lacked an exoskeleton. The crimson slime still writhed there, and inside it, a woman was trapped.
"Phairen...!"
Hobbs glanced at his motionless sister and her friend. He didn't know why they were like that, but for now they were safe.
The priority was rescuing Phairen.
Just as he threw himself forward and reached the front of the stage, bubbles swirled around him. The same phenomenon that had engulfed Karen and Maya.
"Do you think this wench is worth saving? Allow me to tell you something you don't know."
The Avatar let out a mocking laugh and exerted its authority. Malicious gossip, rumors, and misunderstandings that stabbed at a person's sorest spots boiled up and spilled their contents.
It was Phairen's voice.
- Hobbs! Will you be my partner at the Freshmen Welcome Party?
- Of course it's because I like you.
A conversation from a full twenty years ago. The story of Hobbs's first love, burned into his memory forever.
But then another voice followed.
- Ahh, aahhhn! Y-yes, more, professor, haaah! Deeper, deeper! I love you. You're the only one I have.
- Someone I like? No one. I only need you, professor.
And then came the story of when that first love shattered.
- Hobbs, I'm sorry. I invited you as my partner to the Freshmen Welcome Party just to repay you for being so kind to me. I'm sorry, but I've never once thought of you as a man.
Another time, another conversation partner.
- Don't try to brush this off. Forget each other? You coward. I'll expose everything. That one of the famous Five-Person Gang slept with a student and threw her away!
- If you don't want that, then declare me your sole disciple!
Disbelief and revulsion flickered in Hobbs's eyes. It was the thing Demon God Sinepekus savored most.
Bwoooom.
The shell on the Avatar's back let out a low, mournful horn note. Papilax swallowed the entire banquet hall.