Chapter 20
Hide and seek, hide and seek, hair’s going to show.
Hide and seek, hide and seek, now the hair’s showing.
Hide and...
The lively song came to a stop.
As I wandered through the sky, I turned my head.
“Found you at last.”
Among the blood bugs scattered across South Korea, I’d spotted the one bastard flying around with space magic. He was over the sea south of Jeju Island.
That had taken longer than I expected.
“Maybe I couldn’t see him because he was bald.”
Clap.
With that stupid remark, I clapped my hands together.
Grrrk. The world flipped inside out.
Before even a second had passed, the blood bug that had found him and I had switched places.
A dark shape shot toward me, so I checked first whether this really was the guy I was after.
“Hi there, friend. Are you by any chance Eraser—”
Boom.
The upper half of the body that had been waving so casually vanished without a trace.
I flew past the lower half as it dropped into the sea glittering under the moonlight.
Ha. If that was him, he could have just said so. What an asshole.
“And if someone greets you, you should at least answer. That’s basic manners, you piece of shit.”
“....!”
Like a bug shedding a chrysalis, I tore out of another blood bug’s body and smiled as I brought my face right up to Eraser’s nose.
The bald middle-aged man looked startled for an instant, then disappeared from sight.
“So you really are just running away.”
Clap.
There were blood bugs everywhere around here, so what did he think he was doing?
“I’m not much for hide-and-seek. Would you mind dying quietly?”
“G-go away!”
Eraser shouted through his stutter and vanished again.
Clap.
“Hey, you bald bastard. If I’m this beautiful girl chasing after you, shouldn’t you at least flirt a little? Quit running, you idiot!”
Boom.
An attack came flying in and took my head off.
So now he wasn’t even answering?
I regenerated my head and frowned.
I’d killed plenty of space mages before, but this was the first time one had done nothing but run.
“He’s got weird taste, all right.”
Hm. Wait. Taste?
A bright little idea flashed through my mind, and I grinned as I clapped my hands.
In an instant, my view flipped and I appeared in front of the fleeing Eraser.
He had reflexively moved his mana to teleport, then froze mid-motion and stopped dead.
Meeting those trembling pupils, I flashed a grin.
“Where do you think you’re going, mister?”
My body had shrunk down small.
And along with that, the girl’s voice had changed as well, shaking Eraser’s mind to the core.
“S-So-hyeon. My So-hyeon. So-hyeon!”
So-hyeon? Ah. That must have been the daughter he’d said had been killed as a sacrifice.
Just because I’d gotten younger, he was mistaking me for his daughter. Strange.
Had I not had the Unyielding trait, would I have ended up like that too?
I couldn’t even afford to lose my mind, and remembering those old days when I’d grown more broken every day without even knowing the reason, I let out a bitter smile.
“So-hyeon!”
While I was lost in thought for a moment, Eraser suddenly teleported and hugged me.
The voidification wrapped tightly around him, and my small body began to disappear.
But that wasn’t a problem.
“Dad, I’m here.”
Because I could just refill it.
“Daddy.”
“Here, here.”
“Don’t go anywhere.”
“Play with me.”
I was the brat you kept looking for.
Go ahead and hug me all you want.
Fourteen-year-old versions of “me,” blank-faced and innocent, crowded around Eraser and came up to him, asking to play.
Each time, he hugged them gladly and killed them off without leaving even a drop of blood behind.
Chabak.
I stood on the sea’s surface and looked up at the serial hugger.
“You filthy pedophile. Stay right there.”
There were plenty of ways to break through the voidification that was the trademark of space magic, but my stupid way was always simple.
No matter how you twisted space, it was still magic. It was still a law that functioned through mana.
Then all I had to do was crush that law with even stronger mana.
Clang.
I drew Ex-calibur from my hip.
The sword’s name, enough to stir the heart, lovingly licked along the blade.
The blood trickling from the slight cut stained the purple blade in a lewd sheen.
“Hoo.”
Mana release.
Full concentration.
Compressed layering.
From the mana-boosting sword I gripped with both hands, a black-red current poured out in a dense surge.
Before long, a mass of mana shaped like an inverted cross blanketed the sword itself, writhing nonstop and sending waves through the air around me.
My hands split open, white bone showed, then healed, then split again.
Blood ran from the corner of my mouth, and my eyeballs and skin began to melt away.
An evil sword that gnawed at its user.
Even though it had excellent performance, that was why I had only ever used it for dramatic effect.
“Kihihihi.”
Maybe it had been a while since I’d used it. Holding this toy-like weapon made me giggle to myself.
I looked down at the bald middle-aged man, still completely absorbed in hugging things below me.
“You’re dead.”
I raised the sword high over my head.
Having never learned swordsmanship of any kind, there was only one attack I could make with this blade.
And that was enough.
With all my strength, I brought the sword down and cried out into the middle of the Pacific with all the romance I could muster.
“Ex-ca-li-buuurrrr!!!”
―――Kwaaaaaaaak!!!
A mass of mana with an absurd density slammed into the atmosphere.
The clouds that had covered the night sky like a blanket split in two, and the full moon shyly showed its face.
The thick black-red rope of mana that lasted for several seconds flickered once like a dying light, then scattered and vanished.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
“Fuck?”
With my stress blown out of me, I’d been grinning with relief, but a moment later the sight before me made me spit out an oath out of habit.
“The glasses guy. That bastard lied.”
Eraser, whom I’d naturally assumed was dead, was still flying around completely unharmed.
A black vortex circling his body was distorting space around him.
The shape looked unstable, but that was unmistakably a black hole.
“You said you were an 11th-rank master. Why are you using 12th-rank magic?”
The highest stage in the lineage of magic.
Before the war, I’d only ever seen that supreme realm a dozen times or so, and now it was right in front of me.
Pop.
Eraser vanished with a teleport, his face pale.
After sheathing Ex-calibur again, the blade still hot from the strike, I ran a hand through my soaked hair and clicked my tongue.
“Tch. What a pain.”
Looking through the shared eyes of the blood bugs, Eraser wasn’t heading straight for Korea; he was detouring toward the West Sea.
Ah, just die nicely already.
“Gather.”
I sent every blood bug covering Korean territory toward the West Sea.
The crimson fog moved, dragging a gigantic shadow along with it.
“That bastard really has nothing in mind but running.”
Maybe because the swarm of blood bugs like a tidal wave was blocking his view, or maybe because he’d strained himself by using 12th-rank magic, but Eraser’s blinking movement began to jerk and stutter.
Then the power of the voidification wrapped around his body grew thicker.
At a glance, he was clearly planning to force his way through the blood bugs and teleport no matter what it cost him.
“Not happening.”
Clap.
I switched places with one of the blood bugs forming the crimson fog and looked down.
The blood bugs touched by voidification were bursting like pus, opening a path through.
That black hole from before too; space magic really was a nuisance.
One drop of blood should have been enough to finish him, but since that wasn’t possible, dealing with him was a pain in the ass.
That’s what happens when you’re stupid: your body pays the price. If it had been my master, he would have handled this ages ago.
“I really didn’t want to pull this out, but you brought this on yourself, didn’t you?”
Whoosh.
I shoved my hand into my chest.
I pulled out my heart, still beating fiercely.
Licking up the blood at the corner of my mouth, I casually tossed it downward.
“Domain Reversal.”
Thump!
The heart, falling while tracing a red line, suddenly unleashed a massive pulse.
The wave that spread in all directions froze my field of vision in that instant.
“One Heart, Two Blood Prison World Chart.”
The heart swallowed the world.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
With a shriek like a hideous beast, Eraser, no, Ma Hyung-seok, jerked his head up.
“W-where am I...”
Screeeeech.
“Hiiik!”
When a creepy, shrieking wail echoed out, his deathly pale face screamed in response.
He instinctively tried to teleport, only to flinch and start shaking.
“M-my mana won’t move?”
Not only that, but his trait Movement was impossible to use as well.
Fear surged up inside him; he twisted his body around.
No, had he twisted it?
“A-ah?”
The world turned upside down.
It reddened, warped, and shrank.
Every sense lost its bearings.
Chalrang.
At some point, red water had risen up to his waist, and now it was slowly closing around his neck.
No, no. I hate this. Don’t. Please!
He cried out at the top of his lungs, but not even a sound came out.
No, maybe it had come out, and he simply couldn’t hear it?
He didn’t know. He was scared. Save me. I can’t die.
I, I have to find my daughter...!
So-hyeon.
Crack—
Gulp.
A chunk of flesh slid down his throat and vanished.
Holding the heart marked with bite marks, as if someone had taken one bite out of a piece of fruit, I looked ahead.
The giant heart floating on the sea also bore the same bite mark.
Its pulse thudded and spilled blood that stained the blue sea red.
Grrrurrr...
At last, as both hearts melted down into blood, Eraser, with his lower body torn apart as though eaten away, plunged into the sea with a splash.
Walking over leisurely, I stopped by his head. The face rocking on the waves twisted in agony.
Tears welled in his eyes, then slipped out from the corners of his fading pupils.
“So... hyeon...”
Was he that desperate to see his dead daughter?
Even in this state, he still called her name and searched for her.
I felt a little sorry for him.
“Do you miss your daughter?”
“I... miss her... so m-much...”
“Then I’ll let you meet her.”
This was a gift for the road ahead.
“But the price will be yours to pay.”
He had no strength left to speak, so all he could do was move his lips soundlessly.
But the light in his fading eyes suddenly flared.
I took that as an unspoken yes and stretched out both hands.
Crackle.
A huge red magic circle spread across the sea’s surface.
Intense sparks flew as an enormous amount of mana was sucked away.
More mana vanished than when I’d used Ex-calibur, and for once I felt a deep, draining fatigue.
I’m not usually this kind of woman.
Maybe it was because we shared the common point of having a daughter.
I’d gotten needlessly emotional and was making trouble for myself.
I stepped back from the range of the magic circle, which was gradually filling with clearer light.
With a lazy wave, I spoke softly to Eraser.
“Since you’re on your way out, send my regards.”
Tell him not to lick his lips if he’s thinking of coming back, because I have no intention of ever going there again.
Ma Hyung-seok opened his eyes.
His mind was clearer than it had been in a long time.
“Where is this?”
He wasn’t stuttering, and his body felt perfectly fine.
He looked around, but all he could see was a pure white world.
There was no boundary at all, no way to tell sky from ground.
Still dazed for a while, he suddenly drew in a deep breath.
“Daddy.”
His daughter’s voice, left behind in a blurred memory, reached his ears.
He whipped around, and a huge door stood before him.
It was as if it had always been there from the start.
“S-So-hyeon?”
Creak—
At the call, the thick black doors opened to either side.
From within, a small black figure walked out.
Crackle.
The moment the little foot stepped out through the door and turned human,
“Huh?”
Ma Hyung-seok’s foot lost its shape.
“Daddy. Why did you only come now?”
The closer his daughter’s voice came, the more her body shed its blackness.
His own body started to come apart piece by piece.
“S-So-hyeon. So-hyeon!”
He tried desperately to hug her, but the hand he reached out with vanished.
He had no feet left to move forward.
Then his daughter’s mischievous face nearly finished forming.
“Daddy. Now we’ll be together forever. You’re happy, right?”
At last, Ma Hyung-seok reunited with his daughter, though only one eye remained.
He wept at the sight of her, finally holding her in his gaze.
Even that soon disappeared.
“Ah. I thought it was that guy, but it wasn’t.”
That was tasty. What a shame.
Ma Hyung-seok’s daughter laughed grotesquely, her mouth stretching wide.
Then she walked back through the door.
Creak, thud.
The white world fell asleep in silence, as if nothing had happened.
Morning came under warm sunlight.
As promised, I did get back before school, but I only realized afterward that it was the weekend.
So now I was out in the city with Lee Seo-ah and my retainer, heading out for breakfast.
I didn’t know about the retainer, but Lee Seo-ah never got enough to eat, and she was smaller than other girls her age, so I’d successfully argued that we needed to feed her something nutritious and good whenever we had the chance.
We were waiting for the food I’d ordered after finding a place famous for healthy dishes when the sound of the news drifted from the screen of a medium-sized Device set up in one corner of the restaurant.
They were showing satellite photos, and Jeju Island had been split clean in half, grotesquely transformed.
“Wow, what kind of explosion was that?”
“Who knows? No idea.”
As I laughed and played innocent, the retainer seated across from me looked at me with narrowed eyes.
What are you looking at, punk? Hah! Yeah, that’s right!
Grrrk.
The eye contact we exchanged carried a familiar little conversation all its own.
Lee Seo-ah still couldn’t take her eyes off the news and let out an exclamation.
“Still, I’m glad it was an uninhabited island.”
“Right. Truly. I’m glad.”
“Master. You’re bad at acting.”
“What? Acting?”
“Ahaha. It’s nothing. This one is just spouting nonsense.”
Grrrk.
You little goblin bastard. Just you wait.
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