A Word Like Magic
Listening to a melody like a funeral song made one’s eyes open.
The first thing that came into view were the two Apostles. Unlike their usual attire, they wore plain black gowns.
Rubshi held a staff adorned with transparent gems, while Claude gripped his familiar wand, gazing down at Sugar with solemn gravity. Both wore pendants featuring multiple overlapping black stars, their hollow centers strikingly prominent.
Behind them loomed a massive oil bowl. Peering slightly downward revealed the low ceiling; from the floor where they sat, a modest leap would have sufficed to touch it. It appeared they stood upon the altar that had risen high earlier.
Sugar sat there in layered garments, her hands and feet bound. Listening intently, the melody drifting from below sounded like the disciples chanting.
While assessing the situation, Rubshi lifted her staff. With Sugar’s eyes now open, the moment had arrived.
A baptism rite.
She placed the staff’s crystal upon Sugar’s head and began the incantation, the words difficult to discern. The more she chanted, the more overlapping sounds emerged—nothing but a vacuum hum that made the air tremble, like a distant ho-ho, yet it echoed as if someone were singing.
Following Rubshi’s spell and the disciples’ chorus, the vacuum sound swelled, growing louder.
The unholy magic power that had been swirling in this space since earlier began to inflate and expand, devouring Sugar’s form with indulgence. It rejoiced and sang. As the Apostle’s incantation deepened and the disciples’ voices peaked, the phenomenon intensified.
Watching everything unfold, Sugar closed her eyes. It had come. She steadied her breath and steeled her resolve.
It wasn’t as dire as she had feared.
Claude, watching from afar with his face masked, might not have known, but Rubshi appeared strained. Eyes closed, cold sweat beading, she poured every nerve into the chant.
This was a place already saturated with the Evil God’s dense magic power. Disciples who struggled even as they worshipped.
Only Sugar could draw breath here.
Phew. She offered a helpless smile at the ironic twist.
She immediately released black magic power. The moment she regained her senses, she had gathered it all.
What exactly had been the order to hide until the baptism? Regardless, the time had come.
Rubshi flinched. She continued the incantation and glanced slightly at Claude, who stood behind Sugar to guard against any sudden moves.
Claude felt something thicker than the surrounding magic, which struck him as odd.
First, he aimed the wand at Sugar—basic countermeasures. While pondering neutralization, he observed.
Whoong— whoong—
“…?”
Vibration emanated from the spot where he stood. It differed entirely from the song laid beneath them.
As if it might collapse at any moment.
“…!”
He chanted immediately, but it was too late.
Even neutralizing Sugar now could not stop the corrosion that had already begun.
The altar supporting the three. Sugar’s target.
In an instant, the altar’s color faded to white, corroded, and crumbled. The oil bowl’s contents spilled and plummeted, carrying the three downward with the natural flow of gravity.
An act no eleven-year-old girl could have performed. She had done it despite the danger to herself.
How had the magic power of that person…
Claude shouted “Rubshi!” in that thought, but Rubshi shook her head vigorously, as if truly unaware.
Could she not have known? Or had that person granted it to the girl?
While pondering, Sugar surveyed her landing spot and headed toward the floor.
The two Apostles immediately cast flight magic and soared toward her, but the bold girl kicked off the falling debris, defying their intent and plummeting.
During the descent, she corroded the iron chain around her wrist and fired it at one of the disciples. For the cult, it was unfortunate—a torch-bearing disciple. Sugar had aimed with care.
Holy oil was scattered across the floor. After losing balance and falling, the consequences were inevitable.
In the chaos of fire and confusion, the girl fell like an angel and slowly rose, body aching.
Her heart pounded. The disciples’ singing and incantations faded into the distance, yet her nerves sharpened to a razor edge.
She felt capable of anything. Her heart raced with unfamiliar sensations and fear, as if everything would unfold exactly as imagined.
This was the true beginning.
She gathered the remaining Evil God’s magic power and severed the iron chain binding her ankle.
With physical freedom restored, she infused magic power from her thighs to her feet, into her lower body, and kicked off the ground with explosive force. Cracks spiderwebbed across the floor, dust billowing where she passed.
The same trick she had used to save Rubshi from the explosion—instaneous movement. Though her breath came short from the explosive consumption, she had to escape.
She veered right, then sharply curved to dodge a magic bullet. She lowered her stance and slid beneath the rope, accelerating before speed faltered to leap high over the magical net.
She had never concentrated so intensely. Even panting, she could almost grasp the flow of every surrounding magic current. It was simply reading and avoiding.
If surrounded, she would unleash Evil God’s magic to scorch the area.
It was the power of the one you loved so deeply. Then the disciples would perish happily.
Perhaps two more times…
Checking her reserves, she ran toward the stairs’ exit.
Boom!
Crash!
Explosions echoed from somewhere. Not here—the sounds came from outside. Everything intertwined, her heart racing relentlessly.
[Turn off the lights! Block the entrance!]
She tore off the accessories clinging to her clothes and fired them at the noisy cawing crows. It was satisfying to watch them crumple lifelessly.
Immediately, a wall of crows formed, blocking her path. Sugar threw her body like a cushion and unleashed Evil God’s magic. The crows turned white instead of black, scattering into dust with a whoosh.
Finally, she reached the stairs.
Naturally, the disciples blocked the way, but retreat was impossible.
She leaped high, stomping on a disciple’s head. Before losing balance, she stepped on another and advanced with clank-clank toward the front.
Peeling away the layered clothes one by one, using them as shields to block the disciples’ eyes, and pouring Evil God’s magic into her feet, no one could catch her. Their hands corroded before they could grasp.
“Sugar.”
While running, a familiar voice reached her. He had been waiting.
She turned slightly. Rubshi, somehow smiling, placed the key in her mouth. Truly unpleasant.
“Sleep.”
Again with that spell!
But it wouldn’t work three times in succession.
Sugar had foreseen the angle and thrust her body forward. She had measured the distance since earlier to slip among the disciples at any moment.
The sleep magic missed Sugar and struck an innocent disciple.
Immediately, the disciple collapsed asleep. In the chaos, Sugar snatched the dropped wand and aimed.
The aim targeted the neutralized disciple.
In an instant, she fired the floating human bullet toward the back of the stairs. “Oh my,” Rubshi leaped aside, but behind her, the empty-eyed disciples took the hit and tumbled down in a heap.
Suddenly, the entrance loomed ahead.
Yet all efforts seemed in vain; the exit appeared blocked by something muddy. Had it been pre-blocked? Sugar knew no magic to remove it. The Evil God’s magic was nearly depleted.
Boom—
Even so, the explosions from outside urged her onward, as if someone kept prodding her to run.
So she ran. No matter who chased or what unfolded, she pressed forward without thought.
“Don’t let her escape!”
A sharp voice rang from behind.
Rubshi, caught among the disciples who had emerged earlier, aimed her staff at the stairs and chanted the explosive spell.
But just as she prepared to spit the key, her plump body swayed violently.
Accordingly, the staff’s aim veered toward the entrance instead of the stairs’ end.
Crash—!
Light poured from the entrance.
Coincidence or fate—it mattered little.
Without further thought, Sugar pushed through the gap.
Afterward, she simply ran through the mountains. Rocks, branches, and grass tore at her feet until they bled, yet even with her head spinning from rapid magic use, she continued.
Torches and magic lights dotted the path. Disciples of the cult pursued from behind.
It didn’t matter. To escape the dark future, one must run forward, forgetting fear and terror.
While doing so, she thought only one thing with all her heart.
I hope the future awaiting me is a warm one where I can laugh and chat with friends.
She ran, shouting to herself, this world, and the god who might exist.
Then, someone burst from the grass.
Unexpected, yet she had secretly hoped for this.
Sugar’s magic teacher.
A cheeky boy who knew far too much.
That dirt-haired child blocked her path, panting.
The emotion that had been pounding on the floor surged with joy and relief.
So many words she wanted to say, she didn’t know where to start. After all, they had reunited—how wonderful.
But as she approached with that feeling, something caught her eye.
The book the friend held felt familiar, as if she had seen it many times.
A sinister pattern. An ominous aura.
“…!”
The moment recognition hit, her heart dropped.
Joy, happiness, every emotion vanished. Only one question erupted.
“Why do you have that?”
A wave of betrayal wrapped around her.
The unexpected object left her bewildered.
Why. Why did you have it, the one I trusted and cherished.
Her expression furrowed beyond words. She had once trusted a woman whose thoughts she couldn’t read and ended up here.
But you too?
She had always sensed something wrong. Judging by the magic knowledge, it was impossible for an eleven-year-old orphan to possess.
Decisively, that day in the underground passage.
When asked how she escaped the fusion monster confrontation, the boy had said, “There was a small passage we hadn’t seen, so we slipped through.”
Did I discover the small passage while injured and dazed?
It was suspicious, but she hadn’t wanted to probe further. It was normal to hide a few things, so she let it be.
In truth, it wasn’t a normal escape. With that book, it would have been easy. After easily handling the monster, he would have lied.
“Why do you have that…”
She asked again, unwilling to believe, but the sentence wouldn’t form properly.
Why you of all people.
Why is the black villain of this world you.
Her heart ached as if torn. She wanted to think she misread, but that unique pattern was unmistakably the grimoire of that man.
It surpassed the shock of facing Rubshi, and tears welled.
Betrayal was one thing, but facing this child in battle felt too terrifying.
Just shaking her head, the boy spoke.
And the words that emerged were a magic-like phrase denying all this sorrow.
“… I came to save you. Sugar.”
The voice was softer than expected.
When she flinched and stepped back, he approached without hesitation, took her hand, and placed the wand she had dropped into it.
That hand was damp with sweat.
Looking at the wand in her palm, then turning to the boy, the sight finally registered.
She had been fixated on the grimoire and now truly saw him.
Sweaty face. Scratches everywhere, traces of magic soot. A tired face full of exhaustion from panting.
Just to find her, to save her. The child who had wandered the mountains ragged until reaching here.
The voice calling “Sugar” was so warm.
What kind of thoughts had I had?
“Ah, ah…”
I said I trusted you most, yet when asked why I didn’t trust myself, I scolded that then who do you trust.
Looking into the boy’s eyes, it was worry. The look of not knowing what to do as Sugar cried.
This child couldn’t betray.
Not a cold human who killed and greedily collected magic.
A warm child who worried when she did dangerous things, overcame shame, and gave gifts.
Just knowing magic well, cheeky but kind, my precious childhood friend.
Sugar rushed straight into his arms.
“Hic… Sorry. Sorry…”
“W-why are you apologizing all of a sudden…”
“I’m sorry for doubting you… Sorry…”
Gratitude for the friend who came to save her. Guilt for doubting such a friend and relief of not being alone. Emotions intertwined, tears flowing.
Ryly didn’t know where to put his arms, waving them in the air, but eventually, as if deciding, he hugged Sugar.
As Sugar always did to him. Firmly.
“… It’s okay.”
I hid the book because I feared you would be scared of me. Even though you wouldn’t.
With that feeling, Ryly whispered softly, and Sugar dug deeper into his embrace.
Small, warm body. Sweet scent.
Even though it wasn’t properly resolved, it made her feel safe. She hugged tightly, unwilling to let go again.
It would be nice if time stopped like this.
Amid the mournful singing voice spreading low through the mountains, they enjoyed a brief reunion.