Found You
After a stretch of time, the mouth of the girl under its control began to twitch and writhe in a grotesque rhythm.
"N-negotiations are over. I'll— I'll make you regret that choice. Th-the hostages won't escape my control even if they die. Th-this is all your— your fault."
The instant those words left her, the hostages lurched into motion as one. Slender threads erupted from the floor, writhing in perfect concert as they seized hold of every body. And yet, for all the dazzling frenzy of those threads, the people themselves barely moved. They couldn't take a single step — nothing more than a faint, helpless twitch of muscle.
Han Mir gazed down in silence. Then his lips peeled back, baring his gums in a wide, sharp grin.
Light flared from his body, and in an instant he was gone from the rooftop.
The place Han Mir reappeared was a basement storeroom, choked with dust and drowned in dark. Every breath drove grit into his lungs. In that nauseating space, he fixed his eyes on the thing standing before him. An ordinary person would have struggled just to adjust to the dark, unable to make out what was even in front of them. The boy's eyes, however, saw everything as clearly as if it were high noon.
From the waist down, a spider. From the waist up, a woman. Eight huge, repulsive eyeballs — matching the number of its arms — locked onto Han Mir in a single, unified stare. Grotesque webs blanketed every corner of the storeroom, spun from her thick hindquarters, and the black fur covering most of her body stood on end like a cat bristling in alarm.
She staggered, coughing thin streams of blood from her mouth, but never once dropped her guard.
Han Mir looked her over and let out a cold snort.
"You look like you're hurting pretty bad."
"Kieeek!!!"
Unable to form human speech, it gaped its mouth wide and roared, spraying spit mixed with blood.
Han Mir approached as if the whole display were a joke, slicing through the nearby webs with the edge of his hand.
"You've got some brains, sure. But aren't you being way too sloppy? To control them, you've gotta stay connected by those threads, right? You were dumb enough to let me get close, so I just pumped mana through the strings and found you. Easy."
"Kie, kieeeeek!"
It staggered, vomiting rage. The ominous energy that had suddenly traveled up its own threads had not only shredded its insides at random, but dealt a fatal blow to the very organ it used to control humans. On top of that, the boy had pinpointed its location and even demonstrated the ability to fold space and appear at will.
That thing was no human. It wasn't the bizarre power it wielded that gave it away. Humans, by their nature, feel compassion for their own kind. But when it had spoken with that boy, the emotion behind his words had been unmistakable — he truly did not care if the hostages died.
The unspeakable killing intent and malice radiating from behind that innocent face. The terror of not knowing what thoughts moved behind that mask screamed through the Anomaly.
Kill it. Kill it right now.
Countless threads erupted from the Anomaly's rear. Like a furious tide they wrapped the entire storeroom, then poured down onto Han Mir. Webs wound tight around his body, and in the blink of an eye he was sealed in a cocoon, like a caterpillar waiting to emerge.
Inside the pure white shell, Han Mir watched the threads move as if they had a will of their own, binding his limbs. The rest of them struggled to pierce his skin and hook into his nerves, desperate to seize control — but the sharp tips bent against him, failing to inflict so much as a scratch.
"The massage is nice and all, but this isn't really my thing."
With that, Han Mir simply walked, moving his legs as if nothing were holding him at all. The threads binding him snapped in a single sharp crack, and the cocoon crumbled like a sandcastle as the boy stepped free.
"Kieeeek!!"
The Anomaly roared as if seized by a fit, then grabbed its own jaw with all eight arms and pulled. The jaw stretched endlessly, like rubber, widening far enough to swallow a person whole. Han Mir's brow furrowed at the grotesque sight. It was the kind of visual you'd only ever see in a horror game — an appearance that genuinely made you want to throw up. Inside its mouth were only two sharp fangs, and beyond them lurked a darkness so deep you couldn't see an inch ahead.
Then something glittered in that dark.
A jet of green acid erupted like a fountain and drenched Han Mir from head to toe. White smoke hissed into the air, carrying the acrid stench of something burning. The Anomaly returned the hands that had been stretching its jaw and narrowed all eight eyes, watching.
The sticky acid flowed down the contours of Han Mir's body, melting the floor and carving a pit that only grew deeper with every passing second. It wanted to keep vomiting acid until that dripping figure finally collapsed — but it couldn't. Its organs were wrecked throughout its entire body. All it could do was hope this one attack would bring him down.
The Anomaly's eight eyes flew wide. As if mocking that desperate hope, Han Mir stepped out of the flowing acid without a single wound. Even his clothes hadn't melted, as though some invisible barrier had been shielding him the entire time.
"Ugh. Gross."
Its eight eyes flashed. There really was something thin and translucent wrapped around Han Mir's body, protecting him.
The Anomaly's mind raced. Its abilities weren't working at all. Its primary power had never been meant for one-on-one combat to begin with — it was for dominating others. Its own fighting strength was far below even that of the puppets it controlled.
There was something about that monster that sent a chill all the way down to the bone. Even if it seized every other human here, made every possible preparation, and then attacked — it was certain it could never win. Just as the blood flowing through its body harbored a deep, instinctive fear of the being called Han Mir, its flesh convulsed in response to every movement, every breath, every glance.
"Kie, kieeee!!!"
In the end, the Anomaly chose the best option left to it. It climbed the webs scattered in every direction and smashed straight through the ceiling, fleeing.
It had to lie low for a while. Somehow avoid that thing, grow stronger, and wait for the right moment. The school was already in the Anomaly's grip, bound in her webs from end to end. For a creature that could glide along those threads like water, slipping out of this place should have been as easy as breathing.
If her opponent had been anyone but Han Mir.
Han Mir stretched a hand toward the spider receding through the shattered ceiling.
Zrauk
At that single, clipped incantation, his hand flared with black light. The Anomaly, a heartbeat from smashing through a window and escaping the school, suddenly felt an invisible force constrict around its entire body.
"Kiek!?"
An irresistible power seized her and began to drag her back. The Anomaly slammed her thick legs against the wall, trying to anchor herself — but the wall tore free in a shower of rubble and was sucked down into the basement along with her.
"Ke, keeeek..."
The Anomaly's slender neck was caught in Han Mir's hand. Through his fingers, the boy felt the life force in her throat writhe — a life so frail and thin it seemed it would shatter if he squeezed even slightly.
The terror of death welled thick in the Anomaly's pupils. It let out a scream-like wail, as if begging someone, anyone, to save it, and scraped violently at Han Mir's body with every arm and leg. It was like throwing a child's fist against solid steel. He didn't even flinch.
Han Mir stared at her, then tilted his head.
"Hmm. You're way weaker than I thought. Did I get this wrong?"
He'd taken it for a servant of the Demon King of Dominion, but he couldn't feel that aura from it at all. No — more precisely, it was ambiguous. He thought he could faintly sense Degrance's nauseating energy, but it was mixed with some foreign power, making it impossible to pin down. What's more, when he'd first felt this thing's presence, he'd judged it executive-class in the Demon King's army. Seeing it this close, it was as insignificant as a bug.
"Ki, kieeek..."
The Anomaly gave up resisting. She understood her fate — that her neck would snap, and she would die here. If she had known the school was his territory, she would have made her nest somewhere else a long time ago. With that regret, the Anomaly quietly closed her eyes.
"Kiek?"
A sudden, blinding light poured down over her tightly shut eyelids. The Anomaly flinched and slowly opened her eyes. Sunlight. Blinding, sudden sunlight. She had been in the basement only a moment ago, but the world now filling her eyes was, beyond any doubt, the outdoors.
She had spent so long hiding her body in the dark that her vision refused to adjust. She blinked hard, over and over, wincing against the glare, until the world finally snapped into focus.
All around her, a sea of humans leveled their guns. Unidentified cords bit into her arms and legs, binding her fast.