The Boy Who Cried Wolf
"Kahk—kehkh! So you did show yourself!"
For reasons unknown, Abyss hurled that shout in a voice that sounded almost delighted. Then he gave the empty air a single flourish of his hand, and before I knew it, he had slipped clean out of my grasp.
In his place, my fingers now held nothing but a rift. He'd escaped straight through it.
Troublesome bastard, no two ways about it.
An ability to warp space however he pleased was flat-out broken. If his opponent had been anyone other than someone packing an even more broken power—namely, me—that thing would've been running wild wherever it liked.
"Khuh… First, allow me to express my gratitude for showing yourself like this."
"Hmm?"
What was this? Did he actually have business with me? For the moment, I figured I'd let him spew whatever he wanted, so I lent him my ears.
"So you, too, have decided to hear me out… O Pioneer of Time…"
"I'll get straight to the point. You, who dangled me as a bargaining chip to jerk a magical girl around, irritate me immensely. My advice? Cut the useless chatter."
"Is that so, is that so… I see. You mean to say you'll cut out my tongue should it wag too long… Very well, understood."
Abyss, having parsed the exact point of my words, launched straight into his explanation.
"Then I, too, shall be direct. Pioneer of Time, I hereby propose that you join us—"
"Us? Join you?"
"Indeed… You appear to have transformed relatively recently, so allow me to explain: even among us monsters, there are those who retained their reason and built an organization. We strengthen ourselves to see our respective goals through, and we wish to recruit you, the Pioneer of Time—"
"…"
The moment I heard him out, I knew I was fucked.
No, fuck's sake—that was information he wasn't supposed to spill yet.
This bastard had just blasted out a spoiler for a reveal that wasn't due until mid-story. The way it was supposed to go: Comet dispatched monsters like on any other day, then one day noticed they were moving with alarming coordination—and while she investigated, a comrade got hurt in the monsters' pincer maneuver, and only then did she learn the organization existed.
You absolute lunatic.
This could not stand. Let that information loose now, and my very own little magical girl—weak as weak could be, still—would be crushed under the terror of a monster organization. Worse, if she went hunting for that organization in her current state, she'd genuinely die a miserable, pointless death.
While I was buried in all the trouble his spoiler would cause, Abyss apparently mistook it for agonizing over his proposal, and pressed on with a faintly excited air.
"If your trust in the organization runs thin, then ponder it at leisure and answer later. Or, should you prefer not to join at all—why not simply cultivate a personal friendship with me…?"
"With you, you say?"
"Yes. I regret summoning you here unbidden… but you proved harder to find than even that magical girl. So in the end, I laid hands on the magical girl you seemed to treasure. That much, I do apologize for…"
As if to prove his sincerity, Abyss dipped his head toward me in a shallow bow.
"I am Abyss, Pioneer of Space. I trust conversation will flow freely between us, Pioneer of Time…"
"Because of the whole time-and-space thing?"
"Just so… A monster's 'concept' takes root in what they craved before their transformation… So I, bearing the concept of 'Space,' and you, bearing the concept of 'Time,' are certain to get along splendidly."
Abyss extended toward me a hand like a dried-out dead tree.
"Come, Pioneer of Time. You and I, unlike the rabble, bear the qualification to be called 'Pioneers.' Our very concepts stand dimensions apart from the other monsters, do they not? Take my hand, and together let us achieve a grand ambition—with this world as the price—"
"…I see. So that's how it is."
Yes. I had decided what to do.
Just as he'd claimed, the space monster and the time-stop monster did cut quite the friendly figures in the original story.
Perhaps because their territories never overlapped, the two never once appeared together—but right before Comet and her friends were to kill Abyss, he would glance at empty air, chuckle, and vanish on the spot.
A long while later, upon resurfacing, Abyss explained that a friend of his who handled time had spirited him away.
And when the time-stop monster finally appeared in the later arcs, Abyss himself called the fellow a kindred spirit.
So I clasped Abyss's outstretched hand, just as it was offered. Because I'd settled on what to do.
"Oooh… I knew it. I had a feeling you and I would see eye to eye—"
"Quite the convincing lie, that."
"…What?"
I seized the flow of time—and then, in one fluid motion, chopped the man into fine mince with the edge of my hand.
Shhk! Shhk!
Then I released the flow of time once more.
Thud. Splat-splat.
Abyss's pieces dropped straight to the ground. His head, being made of rifts, hadn't been sliceable—a genuine shame, that.
"What… in the…"
Only the rift serving as his head bobbed in midair as Abyss's voice cracked with panic.
"Why… would you do this…!"
"A monster organization? You do go on when you lie. Spouting nonsense that outlandish, when you're really nothing special… You must have been utterly terrified of Miss Comet."
"What nonsense are you…"
I had made my decision. From this moment on, I was going to make a liar out of him.
"In truth, your little 'one death every three minutes' act was a bluff as well. I know perfectly well what you can't do."
Total bullshit. In the original story, that bastard's body count was north of thirty thousand at the bare minimum.
But unless I set the stage like this, there'd be nothing stopping Comet from getting herself killed pulling a reckless stunt.
Discovering the truth could wait a good long while. Trail the monster organization now, and she'd die screaming.
As I drove him deeper into the liar's corner, I watched life seep back into Comet's eyes, bit by bit.
"R… really…?"
"What nonsense! My power is real! Behold!"
Abyss immediately conjured a rift at the person hiding behind the car. Sharp-eyed, I pinned its location and seized the flow of time without a beat's delay.
With time frozen, the rift hung half-open. I ambled over at my leisure, nudged the man standing right before it a step to the side, and returned to my original spot.
Release.
And when the flow of time resumed—
"Gwahk! Huh? I-I'm not dead…?"
"Are you all right?!"
And just like that, a new spectacle entered the world: rifts erupting—but people merely shoved aside.
"?! Wh-what in the…"
"Hmm. It appears your power has no real lethality—it just shoves people a step or two. The rifts themselves look plenty sturdy, I'll grant you… but so long as they're fixed in place, crushing a person to death is out of the question."
Abyss was too flustered to manage a coherent sentence. I smirked to myself at the sight of him, then turned toward Comet.
"Ahh, Miss Comet. What am I to do with you, getting taken in by an opponent this pathetic? At this rate, the title of Korea's one and only magical girl will weep."
"I-I didn't know! It clearly crumpled a car just now…"
"Must've been some cheap trick. This is a monster that'll lie about monster organizations and what have you—crumpling a car? Child's play."
"I see…"
At the realization she'd been duped, Comet's face flushed crimson with shame and fury. And fury, mind you, makes excellent fuel.
"Tch…! You tricked me! I won't let this slide!"
Will you look at that.
"I can scarcely believe you're the same person who was slumped on the ground bawling her eyes out a minute ago."
"Quiet! Once I'm done with Abyss, you're next!"
Comet leveled her staff at Abyss. As if such a thing were even conceivable, he tried his rifts once more.
Not a chance.
I snapped hold of the flow of time and repeated the exact same routine as before.
"Aaaagh! Huh? I-I'm alive!"
"What is this…! Dammit! Dammit!"
By now, Abyss had graduated to firing them off in full-auto.
Block. Block. Block. Block…
Every single time, I matched his rhythm, caught the flow of time, and yanked the people clear.
"Aaaaargh! What in the world is going on!"
Abyss had boiled over to the point of outright screaming. The composed figure from minutes ago was well and truly gone.
"Die! I said die!"
"Telling people to die with a power that can't even wound them? Nobody's going to oblige."
"No! I have already killed hundreds with this—!"
"That's hardly convincing, coming from a gentleman who's nothing but a head."
"Blast it…!"
Abyss swiveled his head—such as it was—scanning the area, and before long his gaze settled on me, as though something had just clicked.
"…Yes! It was you! You did this!"
"Cloak… did?"
"You are the Pioneer of Time! Beyond all doubt, you are interfering with time and nullifying my attacks one by one!"
"Oh ho?"
To think he'd catch on. But I had zero intention of confirming his little theory.
"What a convenient ability that would be. Against a monster like you, whose power simply manifests on the spot rather than flying at people like a projectile, I'd have to stop time with split-second precision, over and over, for every single attack, just to save the bystanders. That's what you're claiming?"
"Yes! You—"
"Do you actually believe that's possible?"
"Wh-what…?"
"However much of a monster one may be, every ability has its limits. If I could pull off something like that, I'd have conquered the world already—why would I be standing here chatting with you? Or does my power strike you as capable of all that?"
Right on the money.
Er—actually, I can do all of it. Every last bit.
But there was no way in hell Abyss would ever know that.
"Th-that is…"
"And if that were possible, couldn't you simply fold up the space called Earth and be done with it? Why can't you?"
"Ghk…!"
Unable to dredge up a single word of rebuttal, Abyss simply hung there in silence—
"J-just you wait! You damnable time monster!"
—and with that, he tore open a rift and swallowed himself into it.
That one, I'd best let go.
Granted, I could have caught him even then—but with him gone, some other incident would only brew in his place. So off he went.
"Farewell, Mr. Boy Who Cried Wolf."