The Black Crystal's Deception
“That kind of petty trick won’t work on me.”
Yet Anak did not stop. At his gesture, more and more spirits continued to appear, hurtling toward Raje. Dozens, hundreds of them swarmed from every direction, but each one vanished with a single motion from Bagloros.
“I told you it was useless……”
Just before Raje could finish his leisurely remark, he noticed a dark-red sigil forming on the floor beneath his feet. He hurled himself toward Bagloros, and a black tentacle shot up from the ground, piercing the chair he had been sitting on by a hair’s breadth.
The tentacles, following Anak’s will, immediately gave chase, but Bagloros severed them before they could reach their target.
“You’re really starting to annoy me!”
At Raje’s shout, a curtain of night erupted from Bagloros’s body and swallowed the entire room. Anak could no longer properly control his spirits; his vision was completely obscured. He tried to summon higher spirits or even a Frost Ghost from Niflheim, but another layer of the barrier shattered under the impact.
“Enough with these pointless attempts. I don’t know how many layers remain, but it can’t be many.”
Anak hesitated at those words. When yet another shockwave cracked the barrier, he finally dismissed the sigils hovering in the air.
“Good. That’s more like it.”
The veil of night lifted. Raje reappeared in the center of the room, looking triumphant, though he now stood noticeably closer to Bagloros than before.
“We can’t end this so boringly. Let’s have a nice, leisurely chat first.”
Anak turned his head and quietly looked at Bagloros. The eyes that had been wavering only moments ago were gradually regaining their composure, yet a trace of doubt still lingered in their depths.
“Oh dear. You still can’t bring yourself to believe it? I suppose I couldn’t either, at first. Who would have thought that old man was the creator of the world’s strongest assassin, Bagloros?”
“…Did you see him yourself?”
“Yes. I was the one who captured that old man and brought him to the creature. He kept screaming about who he was, boasting that he was the one who created the strongest assassin, even though he had no real skill to speak of.”
Anak’s gaze flickered at the mention of “that creature,” but Raje paid it no mind and continued with growing excitement.
“Don’t you think it was fate that I, of all people, was given this mission?”
Receiving the mission had been pure coincidence. The order had come directly from the leadership: capture a mage hiding in an underground laboratory. Even for a high-ranking assassin, it was not the sort of task usually assigned to someone like Raje, who had only been promoted to fill the massive vacancies left after the last great war. But the matter was urgent, and he had been the closest available operative.
He had captured the mage and learned not only that Bagloros was a chimera, but that the old man was his creator. In that instant, a certain desire had risen within Raje, fueled by his past experiences.
“I brought the old man directly before the creature. Then I begged to be included in the plan, insisting on my own usefulness.”
In the end, Raje became a direct subordinate of the masked man because of that mission, and was promised that he would one day be allowed to control Bagloros.
“The crystal was completed long ago. The only problem was locating Bagloros. Even the guild’s information network couldn’t find him.”
“So you used me as bait?”
“Yes. I figured that even you would move if it meant avenging a comrade’s death. I’ll admit it—I underestimated you.”
Anak nodded. He had wondered what meaning his own death could possibly hold that would make someone risk turning the hero and the rest of their companions into enemies. Now he finally understood.
“…Indeed. Even if it meant sacrificing the entire High Assassin Guild, obtaining Bagloros would be worth it. I would have done the same.”
The name Bagloros carried weight far beyond the entire High Assassin Guild. Moreover, the current leadership was fractured, with each executive holding only limited authority while constantly checking one another. Losing the guild would mean losing only that restricted power, while simultaneously stripping the other executives of theirs as well. Far from a loss, it would be an unparalleled gain.
“Anyway, I thought we had failed and was feeling disappointed—until you personally drew him out for us. I’m truly grateful.”
Raje spoke with open mockery, yet Anak showed no reaction whatsoever.
“…Then who is he? The one who took the mage through you, lured Bagloros out through me, and tried to eliminate his rivals by using me and my companions?”
For a moment, Raje’s expression hardened and he fell silent. Anak’s calm demeanor seemed to have ruined his mood.
“…That isn’t important right now.”
Refusing to answer in a noticeably colder voice, Raje soon broke into a wide smile, as though something had just occurred to him.
“Rather than that, shouldn’t you be paying more attention to our current situation?”
Raje raised his hand and pointed toward the door behind him.
“Let me propose an amusing game. I’ll give you a chance to escape.”
Even at those words, Anak showed no reaction. That lack of response finally irritated Raje.
“…What are you doing? Are you trying to save face just because you’re the hero’s companion?”
The crystal glowed, and black light gathered in Bagloros’s hands.
“You already know you can’t defeat Bagloros. That pathetic barrier won’t protect you for long, either.”
“So you want me to run?”
Anak sneered at the blatant deception right in front of him.
“Even if I fled this room right now, you’d start chasing me before I could even leave the mansion, wouldn’t you?”
“Then do you have another way?”
“Another way?”
Objectively speaking, Anak had no options left. As Raje had said, he could not defeat Bagloros, and even if he tried to seize the crystal, the narrow space severely limited what he could attempt.
Therefore, moving to a wider area would not have been a bad idea for Anak either—yet he instead stepped deeper into the room.
“Did you really think I would need some special method just to deal with the likes of you?”
He reached into his coat. Sigils of various colors and shapes appeared throughout the room—on the floor, the walls, even the air—until the entire space was covered in dizzying patterns. Raje’s ever-confident expression twisted with sudden bewilderment.
“You’re right. I can’t defeat Bagloros. But did you really think killing you would be difficult?”
“K-kill him!”
Raje screamed desperately. Bagloros immediately lunged at Anak. Every time Bagloros’s hand moved, another layer of the embedded barrier shattered, yet Anak never stopped summoning.
Finally, with a crack, the air inside the room changed. Alien cries echoed as the summoned creatures began to manifest—only for the last layer of the barrier to break, allowing Bagloros’s hand to seize Anak by the throat.
“……!”
Caught in Bagloros’s grip, which seemed ready to snap his neck at any moment, Anak’s summoned sigils slowly faded. The presences and cries that had filled the room grew distant, then vanished as if they had never existed.
“…Ha, hahahaha!”
A moment later, a smile returned to Raje’s face, which had been frozen in fear. He laughed like a madman for a long while, as though trying to erase what had just happened. As his laughter gradually subsided, fury and madness filled his expression instead.
“Serves you right! You said you’d kill me? That you didn’t need any special method? Go on, say it again!”
He strode quickly toward Bagloros and the captive Anak.
“All that arrogant talk, and this is how it ends. Ah, don’t even think about trying anything foolish.”
Standing directly in front of Anak, still held by Bagloros, Raje looked him straight in the eye. Though Anak’s neck was gripped, Bagloros was not choking him—only restraining him to break his spirit. Anak’s expression remained relatively calm. Still, it seemed he truly had no options left.
“Well then, tell me. How do you feel right now?”
“……”
Anak said nothing.
“Frustrated? Humiliated? How does it feel to be brought down by someone you looked down on?”
Anak had no choice but to close his eyes against Raje’s deafening shouts. When the yelling finally stopped, Anak forced out a single sentence.
“…It wasn’t you.”
“What? What did you say?”
Raje asked again, even though he had clearly heard.
“I said it wasn’t you who defeated me.”
Anak met Raje’s eyes directly as he spoke.
“Ah, yes, of course. But right now, the one controlling Bagloros is me.”
Raje placed his hand atop Bagloros’s head in a show of dominance. Anak, however, remained completely unfazed and continued.
“That may be true now. But in the end, you’re nothing more than a puppet yourself. They’ll make as many new control devices as they need, and soon enough you won’t be able to control Bagloros anymore.”
“That’s nothing but your and that arrogant fool’s delusion!”
Despite his bold words, Raje suddenly turned and walked toward the center of the room, where the broken chair lay—as though deliberately avoiding something he did not want to face.
“Once I find out where that man hid the old mage, I’ll eliminate both of them! If I can do that……”
“Without even knowing his true identity?”
“……!”
At Anak’s words, Raje whipped his head around, his eyes burning with pure rage.
“Such impressive composure. Even with your reputation in tatters, you’re still one of the heroes who saved the world, aren’t you? Or perhaps, like that ridiculous title of yours, you simply don’t understand what truly matters right now?”
The black crystal in his hand shone at its brightest, as though resonating with his emotions.
“I’ve had enough! I wanted to see you thrash in pain, but if you insist on keeping up this pathetic act of dignity, then I’ll grant that wish! Die by your comrade’s hand!”
Raje ordered Bagloros to kill Anak. Anak had nothing left he could do.
“……”
But Bagloros did nothing. Anak’s neck, which should have snapped with the slightest pressure, remained intact. Silence fell over the room as though time itself had stopped.
“What are you doing, Bagloros?! I said kill him!”
Raje raised the black crystal and screamed, yet nothing changed. At that moment, the corner of Anak’s mouth, still held by Bagloros, curved upward ever so slightly.
“That’s enough, Bagloros. It seems this is all he knows.”
At my words, Bagloros finally released his grip. Even though he had held back, the pressure had been strong enough to leave my neck aching.
“Sorry. I thought this would be much easier for getting information than torture.”
Well, he was a top-tier assassin with that kind of personality, so this approach was definitely more effective than torture.
“We went through all that trouble and didn’t get much out of it, though.”
Honestly, the results were rather meager compared to the effort we had put in.
“It had to be confirmed. Besides, hearing it directly is easier for you too, isn’t it?”
No, Bagloros. That’s not really what “easier” means.
“What… what the hell is going on?!”
The man still seemed unable to grasp the situation. Or rather, he simply refused to believe it. All he could do was keep waving that useless black crystal around.
“…A spell and sigil to suppress and control a chimera. Did you really think we wouldn’t have dealt with something so basic in advance?”
The sigils and spells once placed on Bagloros had been removed the moment we learned his true identity.
“Th-that’s impossible! Sigils are carved into the soul, and only the caster who placed the spell can remove it……!”
“Do you truly believe such crude sigils and security spells would mean anything to the Yellow Sage Medrup or Saintess Lauti?”
Before Lauti’s holy power, any sigil carved into the soul could be erased with ease, and before Medrup, even the most complex security spells or curses were merely a matter of time.
We had already fought countless mages, necromancers, and shamans from the Demon King’s army, not to mention the archmage-level lich Denatel. There was no way we would have left any opening for Bagloros to be controlled.
“Th-then it never worked from the beginning……?”
He stared down at the black crystal with a hollow expression. Even the madness that usually filled his eyes had vanished, leaving them empty.
“…So you came here already knowing everything?”
Why bother hiding it?
“No.”
