Chapter 155
The reptilian stronghold was located in Namdong District, Incheon, at the site where the old city hall once stood.
In the past, it had been land ruled by humans, but now it was a byproduct of civilization completely occupied by lizards. Rather than tear down that byproduct as something sacrilegious, the reptilians had remodeled it into a form befitting themselves and were using it efficiently. The place that had once been a parking lot became a training ground, and a nearby building became barracks for the stationed soldiers, warming the lizards' backs.
[This feels good…….]
[Thank goodness the sun's out. It was cloudy until just a few days ago.]
Reptilians were draped over the building's railing like laundry. Ian let out a low groan as he stared at them from a fair distance away.
He didn't have any urge to retake South Korea from the reptilians, either. It was true that the blood of ardent independence fighters flowed in his veins, but even that Resistance blood couldn't influence him in a place like this. He calmly ran the numbers.
‘The building they're using as a dormitory should probably just be bulldozed... the problem is the city hall building.’
In effect, it was the city hall that the reptilians were using as South Korea's Blue House. It wasn't just reptilians inside. Human beings, whom they kept as slaves, lived there as well.
[Move quickly! Keep dragging your feet and I'll throw you into the breeding pen, so remember that!]
“Damn those lizard bastards.”
“I don’t care if they all die; I just wish a nuke would drop on them...”
[What? You two there. What were you just talking about? Come here and repeat it exactly.]
“Ah, ah!”
“S-sorry! Sorry!”
Reptilians were lizards at heart, but not lizards in terms of knowledge. Over many long years, they had blended into human society and acquired fairly convincing intelligence. Thanks to that, they also knew very well how to deal with the natives of the countries they had conquered.
Just as Britain had once enslaved the Native peoples of the Americas, they were now carrying out enslavement on the entire human race. The other countries, with the exception of the fiercely resistant United States, were practically already in their hands.
There had occasionally been people who still had the spirit of free independence fighters, but they all ended up either as reptilian food or as breeding-pouch replacements. And so only those whose free will had been castrated remained. They complained, but no one openly resisted anymore.
That, for Ian, was all the same. What mattered was that there were living 'humans' inside city hall.
If they were openly filthy scum like cultists, Ian would have crushed them without a second thought, but they weren't, so using brute force with the Circulator alone was impossible.
Of course, if he didn't care about them, he wouldn't need to think twice. If he gave the Circulator the sortie order and just watched from behind, the situation would end on its own. It was the simplest and most effective solution.
But it wasn't a method he wanted to use. If he had no other options, Ian would have just made a quick decision, but there were more methods available in the present situation than he had expected. There was no need to lump them all together and throw them to the Circulator as food.
“Let’s try using some proper magic for once after a long time...”
Ian muttered that and rose from the Circulator's back.
Come to think of it, he had barely used any magic that felt like a proper mage's magic lately.
Well, there had been some. But more often than not, he had simply blasted things away with the summoning magic of the Deep Sea Travelogue. It was simple, and it was effective, so there had been no reason to use another method.
So it wouldn't be a bad idea to oil up his rusted magic skills after a while.
“All right, let’s go.”
Ian loosened his stiff body and opened the grimoire.
The grimoire that had spent the longest time with him.
The Hand of Re-Creation turned the pages, spilling pure-white light over his hand.
*
It was a peaceful morning. At least, that's what the General Secretary of the reptilian Korean branch thought.
He strode down the city hall corridor, his coat billowing, a coat made by a German reptilian comrade. Shoes tailored to fit his massive feet produced crisp footsteps.
[Ah, Comrade General Secretary of the Korean Peninsula.]
At that moment, a reptilian walking toward him from the opposite side spotted him and bowed his head deeply.
General Secretary.
Originally a term meaning the title of a supreme leader in a communist state, among reptilians it was used to mean a party member in charge of that country. But the word 'General Secretary' itself carried such an imposing air that most reptilians treated a general secretary with deference. The Korean Peninsula General Secretary was no exception.
[Hmm. Good morning, comrade. Nothing special happened last night, I take it?]
The General Secretary said. The reptilian-specific slit eyes beneath his hat, pulled low over his face, flashed fiercely. But the reptilian official didn't so much as stir and shook his head.
[Nothing much happened. The remnants of humanity that were left in Pyongyang made a fuss, but we suppressed them quickly.]
[Were they captured alive?]
[No. They were used as food right there on the spot.]
The two lizards walked on together. Sunlight pouring from the windows pleasantly warmed their scales.
[I was even thinking of bringing them back as livestock, but I thought it would be better to toss them out as a sort of reward. Fortunately, the soldiers liked it too.]
[Human flesh is a delicacy. It's not for nothing that the human religion settled around here craves human flesh.]
[That's right. Well, the fact that they are still alive is thanks to us, after all.]
A cult that bizarrely fused Buddhism and Christianity. The reason they could keep worshipping unscathed after taking root in Incheon was because they periodically offered believers up to the reptilians. If not, they would have been torn apart and used as slaves long ago.
Of course, even if they offered sacrifices, the amount wasn't much, so it would have been fine to just ignore them and kill them all.
But the very idea of sacrificing their own kind in order to survive was amusing, so he left them alone. Then they happily offered up even more believers.
What a ridiculous bunch they were.
The General Secretary snickered at the face of the sly-looking old man, then suddenly turned to the official as a thought came to him.
[Come to think of it, I heard a monster was rampaging around here a few hours ago. What happened to that?]
[Ah... we haven't managed to subjugate it yet. They say that because it moves so fast, it's not easy to capture or kill.]
[Is that so?]
[Yes. The unit that was patrolling this area has also lost contact now. It was near the place where that religion is, so it seems...]
[They were all taken out, I suppose.]
The General Secretary clicked his tongue.
[It's a creature the size of a large bus, fast, strong, and with sharp teeth... An absurd life-form. Does it really exist?]
[I've only heard about it too. But it's probably real. Uh, hold on, Comrade General Secretary. My vision is getting a little strange—]
The moment the official said that and adjusted the position of his monocle, his figure suddenly vanished from the General Secretary's eyes.
[……!]
The General Secretary's eyes flew wide open. He immediately sharpened his claws and kept watch on his surroundings.
Having seen a comrade vanish before his eyes in an unprecedented incident, he did not panic; instead, he calmly contemplated the situation. As if to say the title of General Secretary wasn't something he had picked up by chance, he widened his pupils and snorted hard through his nose.
But... everything that met his eyes was normal. His sense of smell was fine too.
Sound? Only a quiet silence lay there. The heat-sensing sensors were working normally as well.
No matter how he looked at it, there was nothing strange to be found. That only made it feel even stranger. The General Secretary slowly walked down the corridor, his sharpened claws held out in front of him.
[……? Is there no one nearby?]
He shouted loudly.
There was no reply. Instead, the sensor that detected threats rang sharply.
[……It doesn't matter if it's a human! Anyone, answer me!]
He shouted in an even louder voice.
Still no reply. Only the voice striking the walls returned like an echo.
[……We're fucked.]
The General Secretary spat out the curse and drew in a deep breath.
Needless to say, reptilians had no ability to teleport all of a sudden. But the official had vanished somewhere, literally as if he had simply 'evaporated.' Unless something from outside had intervened, it was impossible.
Or maybe he was seeing hallucinations because he was high.
[No, I'm perfectly normal.]
The General Secretary dismissed the assumption that had come to mind. He had never touched drugs, nor had he ever eaten anything that caused hallucinations. If he had, he wouldn't have been able to stay sane like this.
Then.
If that was the case, what on earth had happened for the official to vanish?
Just as the General Secretary swallowed hard at that thought.
[……? What is that?]
The lower-right corner of his field of vision. The very end of the corridor.
Where there should have been nothing, a single pure-white flower had suddenly bloomed.
A faint hyacinth fragrance rose from the full-bloomed flower. But it wasn't a hyacinth.
Lycoris radiata.
Also known by all sorts of names: the death flower, funeral flower, ghost flower, fox flower, and others.
Its most famous name, however, was higanbana.
The beautiful red flower that blooms on the far shore, now bleached white, bloomed on the corridor floor. The General Secretary, as if bewitched, walked up to the higanbana and plopped down beside it.
[……Ah.]
A faint hyacinth scent drifted from the pure-white higanbana. And within it, a faint smell of blood spread.
An unbelievably beautiful fragrance. The General Secretary slightly parted his lips and lightly touched the higanbana petals with the tip of his sharpened claw.
The petals trembled without resistance. The slender pure-white leaves spread wide to both sides quivered, making a strange resonance. It sounded like something crying, and like a scream.
At the same time, it was a sound with a subtle allure.
[……More. I want to hear more.]
The corners of the General Secretary's mouth trembled as he kept poking at the higanbana's petals.
A long while passed.
He absentmindedly lifted his head, then let out a sigh upon discovering a field of higanbana that had dyed the entire corridor white. Those were flowers he hadn't been able to see until just before, yet instead of discomfort, the General Secretary felt inspiration so intense it made his heart tremble.
[How beautiful...]
The official who had vanished from his mind was erased. In its place was the pure-white higanbana. Smiling brightly, the General Secretary carefully walked through the flower field so as not to crush them. The higanbana, with no green stems at all and petals blooming on their own, responded to his cautious movements by singing a bizarre a cappella.
[P-please spare me, Comrade General Secretary!]
[From now on, you will be the General Secretary responsible for the Korean Peninsula. I'm counting on you.]
[Please accept this. It's a uniform personally made by the German General Secretary.]
[I don't want to die... I don't want to die....]
[A, aaaaaaagh!!!]
A beautiful a cappella gently caressing the voices in his memories.
The General Secretary smiled in ecstasy and lay down as if collapsing onto a flower bed. As though it were a bed, the higanbana didn't break and fully supported his body. In turn, it sang even more fervently notes that did not exist in this world.
Then, all of a sudden, the lower edge of a fully bloomed petal came into the General Secretary's sight.
The spider lilies, born without stems or roots, were blooming atop green-tinged scales. Because reptilians identified one another through the fine patterns on their scales, the General Secretary could tell at once whose scales those were.
[Cadre....]
The old comrade who had vanished before the General Secretary's eyes. He had become fertile ground for the higanbana, scattered all over the place.
It wasn't just the cadre.
The one who ran the breeding pen, too.
The one in charge of the dining hall, too.
Those working in administration, military affairs, law, and so on. People from all manner of fields were sleeping here as well.
The moment the General Secretary realized it, he felt a surge of intense anger.
[How dare you! How dare you become one with this breathtaking sight by yourselves and leave me out! Ridiculous! I want in too!]
The General Secretary immediately tore off the uniform he was wearing and began hacking wildly at his upper and lower body with his claws. Red blood sprayed everywhere, dyeing the white higanbana crimson. In response, the higanbana sang a beautiful song as if in delight.
[Hahaha! You're happy too, aren't you! Good, I'll burn this one body and become one with you in particular! More! Sing even more beautifully!]
Riiip!
His abdomen split open, and his organs spilled out in a heap. Along with them, he too collapsed onto the floor. The higanbana that had been still until then burrowed into his split-open body and devoured the flesh, muscles, and bones that remained.
[Take it! Take it all! And turn me into music—!]
Before he could even finish speaking, the moment the higanbana that had invaded his body absorbed his brain without leaving a trace, his movements stopped as if nothing had happened.
With his voice cut off, his heavy body went limp. The higanbana left only the scales behind, sucking up everything that kept the body alive as nourishment.
In the end, only green scales were left.
……creak.
A moment later, under the sunlight streaming through the windows, pure-white higanbana burst into bloom in an instant over the glittering scales. The flowers that had only just dyed themselves red returned to pure white as if nothing had happened.
And at the same time, someone appeared at the end of the corridor.
[……? Was there a flower here?]
Kya-ha-ha-ha-ha!
The flowers made a spine-chilling harmony at the arrival of new nourishment.