Chapter 152
First option. An eternal farewell between head and body.
Needless to say, when a person's head and body are separated, they die. They might keep their consciousness for a few seconds, but the result is still death. Even mages couldn't ignore the laws of life.
Was the second option any better, then? Not really.
For a mage, what mattered wasn't the body but the bloated self, including the soul. A mage with a small self could never become strong, and one had to possess a certain amount of arrogance to reach a higher plane.
That didn't mean they should just act recklessly. A mage was only complete if they could be arrogant while still knowing their place. And Mariang was already a top-class mage, complete for years now. Her achievement of being undefeated in a hundred battles wasn't something she had won at poker.
She chose her battles carefully, fighting only opponents she was certain she could beat and avoiding clashes with enemies she couldn't as much as possible. By surviving that way, devouring the defeated, and then fighting those she would normally have had to look up to and winning again, that was Mariang's method.
This time was no different. At a glance, it looked like she'd charged in headfirst recklessly, but beneath that was meticulous calculation.
A gigantic summon. An entity whose physical might was exceptional, but nothing more. The moment she judged that she could win by ignoring it and going for the mage instead, she didn't hesitate and put her plan into action.
And this was the result.
She had lost, and the man controlling the summon had won. The summon's strength was stronger than she'd expected, Ian's calculation skills were excellent, and his improvisation was superb—those were the reasons for her defeat. In short, her judgment had been wrong.
But it was too late for excuses. The battle was already over.
With victory and defeat already settled, the only thing she could do was beg for her life. Her limbs had already been cut off; what else could she possibly do?
Mages were the sort who treated other people's lives like ants, but they were also the sort who valued their own lives above all else. Mariang was no exception. Even she, who reveled in devouring enemies she'd defeated in battle, trembled before her own death.
In the end, there was only one option she could choose.
“……I.”
Mariang muttered, blood streaming from the corner of her mouth.
“……I’ll choose the latter.”
“Knockout, then personality adjustment.”
Ian's impersonal voice drilled into her ears.
Even hearing it again, the combination of words was terrifying beyond measure, but she had no other choice if she wanted to stay alive.
She had killed countless people without a second thought, but she wanted to prevent her own death somehow. Even if the price was a change in personality, Mariang didn't want to die.
“……Do whatever you want. Just don’t kill me. Please, save me.”
“Hearing you say that makes me sound like the bad guy. In reality, it’s the other way around.”
Ian stood up and looked down coldly at Mariang, whose limbs had been blown off.
In truth, Ian had been the one to attack her first, and the one who had unilaterally beaten her down, but that sort of thing really didn't matter.
After all, his opponent was a mage from a criminal organization, wasn't she? Even if he'd smashed her skull right there and then, no one would have blamed him. They might even have applauded.
Anyway.
Ian placed a foot on her back as she wriggled like an insect and flicked the grimoire. Mariang moaned in pain, but he paid it no mind.
“Deep-Sea Chronicle. Like at the hospital last time, can you knock her out without killing her? You broke Cecilia’s skull then, remember.”
[Wuuung!]
The Deep-Sea Chronicle vibrated briefly, as if to say it could. Ian nodded and gripped the grimoire tightly upside down.
A position that made it easy to smash someone with the corner. Mariang, who hadn't expected that being knocked out would happen through physical means, hurriedly opened her mouth.
“W-wait a second. No matter what, if you hit me with a grimoire, my skull—”
“It’ll regenerate anyway. Judging by the way the severed limb stumps are bubbling and slowly healing, a broken skull won't kill you.”
Ian cut her off and let out a small laugh.
“So just focus on regenerating.”
“……Ah.”
“Goodbye, First Mariang. Next time, I guess it'll be Second Mariang standing in front of me. Thanks for making it this far.”
Ian didn't wait for a reply and brought the grimoire down like a hammer, striking Mariang on the head.
BWAK!
With a rather loud bang, her head slammed into the floor. Blood dripped from the struck head, but he didn't care and checked the limp Mariang's pulse.
“Luckily, she's still alive.”
He'd worried she might croak on the spot, but her heart was still beating just fine. Ian nodded and turned to the Circulator.
“Let's load her onto your back. You can do that, right?”
[Grrr.]
The Circulator answered as if it were obvious, raising one claw and hooking it into Mariang's clothes like a grappling hook. Then it flung her onto its back. Blood splattered everywhere from how hard it threw her, but since she'd been given medicine, there was no need to worry about her bleeding to death. With the Circulator's help, Ian climbed onto its back and switched grimoires.
[Blue Shackles and the Book of Contract]
The book with its vivid blue cover and silver chains glittered in the sunlight. He settled into a comfortable position and, securing Mariang's body with the Circulator's veins, read through the grimoire.
He already knew how to make a contract with an intelligent life-form. Keep the target bleeding, on the verge of death, and unconscious; place the sacrifice beside it; then make physical contact with the body, and that was all. Simple enough, though admittedly a little more complicated than the magic of the other two outer gods.
Well, it had only recently come into being as a grimoire. I suppose I can cut it some slack.
The sacrifice needed for the contract was ten intact corpses of the same species as the target of the contract. In other words, ten human corpses.
It was an amount that would be unthinkable unless this were an apocalyptic society. If Ian were a psychopath, and a mage who treated human lives as worthless, it probably wouldn't have mattered even in reality, but he wasn't that kind of antisocial person. The idea of kidnapping passersby, cutting their throats, and offering them up as sacrifices was impossible.
He had no desire to turn his back on human decency. Probably never would. The moment he touched a civilian, it felt like something essential to being human would break. If they weren't tied to the supernatural, he wouldn't kill or hurt them.
But the cult fanatics in the apocalypse were an exception.
You couldn't exactly call guys who execute people just for not believing in a god civilians, could you?
Besides, this place wasn't reality to begin with, but a virtual space created by mystery. It was fair to think of it as a kind of simulation.
If it had nothing to do with reality anyway, there was no need to hesitate. He had originally intended to look for the reptilian horde first, but since things had turned out like this, he would probably have to visit the cultists first.
Having decided on his destination, Ian patted the Circulator's back and ordered it.
“The place nearby with the most people. And the place where the smell of blood is strongest. Can you take us there?”
[Grrr!]
At his command, the Circulator nodded vigorously. Sniffing at its tiny nostrils, it soon began racing swiftly to the left.
It was the place the head-crushed fanatic had told him about—the cult's headquarters.
*
“Now then, let us all pray.”
On the first floor of a collapsed abandoned building, everything above the third floor had been blown away, but inside the relatively intact lower portion of the building, an elderly man in a pure-white robe spoke. His voice boomed through the cramped chamber via a Bluetooth speaker.
“In the name of our Father, the Lord, and our spiritual pillar, Buddha, we shall not yield to the lizards' tyranny and will save this world.”
The room, thickly coated in pure white paint, had no windows. Instead, crosses, goat heads, prayer beads, moktak, and Buddha statues were hung on the walls like decorations.
It was an absurd coexistence of Christianity and Buddhism, but no one there found it strange.
Rather, everyone gathered in the room had their heads bowed and their hands clasped tightly as if in prayer. Some were even in tears.
The man leading the prayer was also shedding tears as he clutched prayer beads and recited the Lord's Prayer.
“Our Father in heaven, may all the world revere You as God, may Your kingdom come, and may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Srrrk.
As the prayer was being recited, the door at the back of the room opened carefully, and two burly men dressed as priests slowly walked out.
Each of them held a burlap sack, and blood leaking from inside ran along the edges, leaving dark stains on the floor.
What was there to hide?
Inside the sacks were living human beings. Live sacrifices with their eyes, ears, and mouths all blocked and every finger severed. They had originally been priests loyal to the sect, but now they were being disposed of as expendable sacrifices.
“Mmph! Mmph!”
“Kheh, mmmph. Mmph.”
The sacks twitched, and faint groans leaked from inside.
But not a single person paid them any mind. Everyone was focused only on prayer.
The priests dragged the sacks right up in front of the old man, then stood on either side of him as if guarding him. At that moment, masked monks came over holding sharp knives and heated the blades over the flames of the candles used for prayer.
“The flame of sanctity has touched the blade of reincarnation.”
The old man said as he watched.
“Once again, we place our brothers and sisters on the wheel of reincarnation. Father, Buddha, please free them from hell and save them from evil. Amen. Namu Amida Butsu.”
“Amen. Namu Amida Butsu.”
“Amen. Namu Amida Butsu.”
The believers repeated the old man's words. The priests and monks chanted hymns and sutras at the same time, and the monk holding the knife walked over to the sack and stabbed the blade deep into the center of the writhing bag.
“WOOOOOOB!!”
“Ughhhhh!!”
The sacrifices inside the sacks convulsed from the hot, piercing pain. The sacks slowly turned red, and the monks stomped on the knife hilts while striking the moktak. The old man took the microphone again.
“Look. Our brothers and sisters are returning to the other shore. We celebrate their reincarnation and swear to feast on their flesh and blood. Thus, we earnestly hope that one day we too may complete enlightenment and climb onto the wheel of reincarnation.”
The convulsions gradually stopped. The blood pouring out soaked the pure-white floor, and the old man's mouth twitched as he looked at the followers bowing before him. As if he were a god, dopamine surged through his brain.
Thirty years of living as a cult leader. The apocalypse he encountered for the first time in his life wasn't an ending but a new opportunity. Though money had become useless scraps of paper, there were still plenty of other things to extract from the believers.
Men were for blood, flesh, and labor.
Women were for bodies and milk.
The madness formed under the name of faith felt to him like the sweetest wine.
'I hope the apocalypse lasts for the rest of my life. At least until I die.'
That was the moment he thought that and absentmindedly let a grin show.
KWA-AAAANG!!
Suddenly, the outer wall of the room was destroyed and a massive ash-gray snout thrust out. It opened its jaws wide and crunched through the praying followers and the rocks together. Blood mist spread, and the survivors stared blankly, mouths open, at the suddenly appeared 'something'.
“Domo. I am a mage.”
And behind that.
The black-haired man sitting behind the enormous head waved the blue book and smiled brightly.