Chapter 154
Memory manipulation had worked properly. Ian looked down at her, flailing around with her arms and legs blown off, and crouched nearby. Mariang gave an awkward smile even though he approached openly.
“My arms and legs…… got blown off. Did I overdo it again and end up like this?”
“Don’t remember why they were cut off?”
“Yeah…… I remember fighting some kind of monster at the end, but beyond that I don’t really…….”
Mariang said, flailing her limbs about.
Apparently, the memory manipulation hadn’t been especially meticulous. Well, since it was something he already knew, it wasn’t particularly disappointing.
Ian tapped the grimoire’s cover with a finger, thinking over Mariang’s treatment.
‘It’s good that she’s joined our side, but that doesn’t mean I plan to get attached to her. She isn’t even a fully formed mage, let alone a complete person, and there’s no reason to shoulder the risk and take in a woman I already have a personal grudge against.’
Mariang was a mixed blessing to Ian. Nice to have, but not a big deal if she wasn’t there. Being able to squeeze information out of her and get one-sided loyalty was nice, but not enough to keep her around all the time. The best method was to leave her be for now and call on her whenever needed.
There was a limit to taking her along every time, anyway. If he was going to bring along Mariang, whose face was already fairly well known, it would be better to call Cecilia, and better still to call a creature of the Outer Sea.
‘For now, it’d be best to let her keep operating as Laplace and use her as an informant.’
After sorting through his thoughts, Ian nodded and looked down at Mariang’s bright blue eyes.
“You just lost to a monster, and I saved you. That’s all.”
“……As expected of you, Master. You saved me again.”
“It’s nothing. More importantly, how long do you think regeneration will take?”
“Hmm…….”
Mariang darted her eyes around as if thinking it over, then answered cautiously.
“About three days……? I think it’ll take about that long.”
“……That’s too long.”
“I’m sorry…… I did transplant werewolf bones, but since the bones themselves were blown away, recovery has to be slow…….”
Werewolf.
Like vampires, they were aberrations born in Europe, called werewolves in Eastern countries including Korea.
Their traits were tough skin, growing stronger the more blood they spilled, and regenerative power. But no matter how many bones with regenerative power he transplanted, they could never be as efficient as Cecilia, who had been born with regeneration from the start.
Of course, Cecilia’s regeneration also required various conditions, but in terms of speed it was outstanding. Comparing her with Mariang was almost insulting. Mariang as she was now was nothing but dead weight.
‘Maybe it’s fortunate she’s light since she has no limbs. No, if she still had limbs, she wouldn’t be baggage in the first place.’
Ian let out a deep sigh and grabbed Mariang by the collar.
“I’m dragging you along. Bear with it if you get scraped up.”
“Ah, yes. ……Ugh…….”
Drag, drag, drag.
Ian dragged Mariang out of the ruins. Blood streamed from the bubbling stumps, and her skin was torn by stone dust and shards of glass. But Mariang only let out stifled groans and didn’t struggle.
The sky outside the ruins was still bright as ever. Glass shards scattered inside the collapsed building reflected the sunlight and glittered in every direction.
The total amount of light was still lacking compared to when civilization was intact, but the scenery was beautiful all the same.
“.........”
Whoooosh.
The wind, shredded as it collided with the buildings, blew fiercely with a sharp whistle. Ian let his hair whip around and turned his head toward the Circulator sitting in the middle of the road.
At the Circulator’s feet lay dozens of reptilian corpses that hadn’t been there before, torn to pieces. They must have come running after hearing the commotion, and the Circulator seemed to have handled them on its own.
There were almost no intact bodies. Given the Circulator’s fighting style, that was only natural.
Well, he didn’t particularly feel like saying anything about it. Reptilians were fine as long as he harvested a few corpses. He planned to simplify them with re-creation magic and take them with him, so a little damage to the bodies wasn’t a problem. Ian gave a faint smile and walked toward the Circulator, which was gnawing on a Reptilian corpse.
[……Krrk!]
The Circulator spotted him and tossed away the corpse it had been chewing on. Ian stroked its forepaw.
“Good job. They attacked out of nowhere, right?”
[Krrk!]
“Yeah. Let’s load this up. Help me out.”
The Circulator nodded, hooked its claws into Mariang’s clothes, and flung her hard onto its back. Mariang rolled a few times over its bumpy back and let out choking coughs.
It was probably because her chest had been compressed a little on landing. Ian took it in stride and climbed onto the Circulator’s back.
“You okay?”
“Yes, yes…… I’m fine…… cough…….”
“Then good.”
Ian fixed Mariang’s body in place with veins as before and, sitting on the Circulator’s back, loosened his stiff shoulders and wrists. Maybe because he’d been cleaning up so hard, his joints ached a little.
‘Now then, I guess it’s time to deal with the Reptilians.’
He had exterminated the cultists first, so now it was time to exterminate the lizards as originally planned. Even if he couldn’t wipe out every Reptilian on Earth, he intended to kill every last one in Incheon at least.
Of course, it was work he didn’t really need to do. Escaping would just mean passing through the mirror, and once the matriarch made a contract with the demon, there’d be no more business here…….
But in any case, he had nothing to do until the matriarch arrived. It was better to fill the Circulator’s stomach than to sit around killing time.
Having sorted out his thoughts, Ian settled into a relaxed posture and patted the Circulator’s back.
“Shall we go eat?”
[Grrr!]
The Circulator let out a happy cry.
*
[You damned successor of Solomon!]
Snort!
A tiny horse racing through the city roared toward the sky.
The great demon of hell, with black hide and a red mane. Gamigin, fourth among Solomon’s 72 demons, kicked off the ground as he glared at the two women riding on his back.
[I did not answer your summons just to be used for riding! I can teach you manners, and I can teach you spirit conjuration and necromancy too! But what is this! Horseback riding! Treating me like a horse instead of a demon! What exactly do you take me for?!]
“A fine mode of transport. Quiet down and run faster.”
Eunha replied coldly, tugging on the chain. When the golden chain around Gamigin’s neck, like a bridle, was pulled, he ground his teeth and sped up even more.
[I am Gamigin, the great demon of hell!]
Gamigin, the infernal marquis who, once summoned, would casually devour an entire village.
As one of Solomon’s 72 demons, he was someone even the Vatican watched closely, but unfortunately, the Lemegeton was a grimoire that gave its wielder the upper hand over all demons. To Eunha, the rank of great demon meant nothing.
“Here, to the right. Turn properly. It’s wobbling.”
[Puhihihihing!]
Gamigin followed Eunha’s instructions and pulled off a dazzling drift on the broken road. The drowned souls flowing from his shadow helped him make the sharp turn.
“W-whoa……! Isn’t this too, too fast……?!”
Yuna shouted, gripping Gamigin’s mane tightly with one hand. Eunha answered without concern.
“This is the slow side. About…… 200 kilometers per hour, I think.”
“Th-that’s fast……! I can barely hear you……!”
“I can hear you just fine. You’re a contractor, after all. And you should be able to hear me fairly well too. I’m helping you with magic a lot, so just bear with it.”
“Iiiik……!”
Yuna lightly tapped Eunha’s shoulder with one hand. Eunha casually ignored her petulant touch and took out the looted national map, spreading it open.
The map wasn’t in very good condition, but it was enough to roughly confirm their location. She took a gold pentagram from inside her clothes and held it beneath the map.
“I seek to proclaim Your will, so please grant all-seeing sight to this blind one.”
As she chanted the spell, the pentagram glowed and formed a golden dot on the map.
It was a Catholic-style spell also known as God’s Compass. Since it could be used anywhere, it was fairly useful.
[Ggghk! I can feel divine mana……! Take that thing away, you rotten bitch……!]
Gamigin shouted in displeasure at Solomon’s magic. Eunha snorted.
“Stop talking nonsense and just keep running. We need to veer left here.”
[Horses aren’t creatures that can run for long……!]
“You’re a demon, not a horse. Stop whining and run.”
[You only call me a demon when it suits you, you bitch……! You’re exactly the same as Solomon……!]
Gamigin sped up even more, hurling out a blustering insult. Yuna shrieked, and Eunha’s expression hardened coldly as Incheon finally came into view. The broken mirror she’d brought rattled in her bag, but she ignored it and gripped the map tightly.
‘Where are you, Mr. Ian?’
The last place she’d seen him was on a ruined road in Incheon.
At the time, he hadn’t seemed to be injured, but enough time had passed that things might be different now. She needed to find him as quickly as possible.
“Please be safe…….”
It was the very moment Eunha murmured that and turned the national map into an Incheon map.
KWA-AAAAANG!!
Suddenly, a tremendous explosion rang out from deep inside the city. The ground shook from the impact, and along with the gusting dust, the upper section of a large building flew over and slammed into the ground.
“Ugh……!”
Stone dust flew up from the shattered ground, and a shockwave burst forth. Eunha narrowed her eyes and checked the debris from the building that had come flying over.
Inside it was packed with reptilian corpses chopped into tiny pieces. Corpses brutally blown apart, torn apart, and dismembered. They had died with expressions swallowed by fear, unable even to close their eyes.
Needless to say, in a world where mystery no longer existed and had already fallen to ruin, there was nothing that could hunt down and kill Reptilians. So there was no need to think about who had done this.
“Mr. Ian……!”
The moment Eunha muttered that absentmindedly, something like a beast’s roar came from the direction the building debris had flown from.
A massive howl, almost like a wolf’s.
Eunha immediately grabbed Gamigin’s chain and shouted.
“Run quickly toward where that sound is coming from!”
[I can sense a terribly ominous aura, though……. ]
“Hurry!”
[Fine, fine. You damn bitch. Here we go.]
Gamigin kicked off the ground, grumbling.