Chapter 9
The monkeys used the knives in their hands to flay the woman alive. They sliced her skin into thin strips, stuffed them into their mouths, and cut open her abdomen to drag out what was inside.
“Guh…… Hrrk…….”
The woman no longer screamed.
No, she couldn’t. Her facial skin had already long since been peeled away, and her tongue was rolling around on the floor. She was still alive, but probably not for much longer.
'……The next one is probably the man on my right. After that, the one across from him is most likely next.'
For the first time in his life, Ian was seeing such a cruel sight firsthand, and his heart was pounding madly, but he kept his thoughts as calm as he could.
There was no doubt the current situation had been swept up in a bizarre phenomenon.
The ghost story was probably Monkey Dream.
In the original, it wasn’t monkeys but small dwarves that appeared and killed people, but the creature in front of him now was unmistakably a monkey. It looked closer to a chimpanzee, but it was still one of the primates.
Then the primate-slaying knife should work properly.
According to the grimoire, the instant a primate touches the knife, it dies before it can even do anything. A mere light prick of the skin would be enough to butcher them.
That said, he couldn’t just leap to his feet and charge at them right now.
For one thing, there were too many of them. Worse, every single monkey had a blade. If he launched a surprise attack, he might be able to kill a few, but wiping them all out would probably be impossible.
So he would wait for an opening.
When they came at him to kill him, he’d remake two of them and slash the remaining three down with the knife. Then he could get rid of all the monkeys in this car.
He didn’t know what was happening in the other cars. But he couldn’t afford to be optimistic. It seemed best to move while assuming the worst.
Killing these bastards to end it would be best, but if that didn’t work, he might have to make it all the way to the driver’s cab.
His head was already aching, but Ian steadied himself inwardly and waited for the monkeys to come closer.
“Aaaah, aahhh!!!”
The woman was dead. The man was next.
The dazed man came to his senses the instant a knife thrust into his body and immediately started screaming. Ian silently made the sign of the cross and prayed he’d go to a good place.
He didn’t feel guilty watching the man die.
'I’m not a hero. I’m a mage.'
If he could save them, he would, but in a situation where he couldn’t, there was no point in letting his heart be shaken by such thoughts.
That way, his odds of surviving would only go up.
[Ukkik!]
After the monkeys neatly sliced the man apart as well, they snickered and turned their heads toward Ian. Ian narrowed his eyes and calmly watched them come closer.
……Clench.
His hand gripping the grimoire and the knife tightened on its own. Ian felt the soft touch of the grimoire’s cover as he waited for the monkeys to thrust their knives at him.
And the instant they slowly reached out their hands.
Whoosh!
Ian widened his eyes and violently swung the grimoire in his hand. With a thwack, the leading monkey’s head snapped backward.
[Ukkik?!]
[U, Ukkik!]
The other monkeys were flustered by the sudden turn of events. Ian didn’t miss the opening, casually tossed the grimoire aside, tapped two of their bodies with his fingers, and carved knife slashes into the other two.
The two monkeys cut by the knife died on the spot.
The monkeys Ian had touched with his fingers finished sizing up the situation and twisted their faces, but Ian was faster than they were with their knives.
“Be reborn.”
Krrrk!!
As soon as he said it, the monkeys were compressed on the spot. Looking down at their forms, now turned into tiny cubes, Ian wiped the sweat from his forehead.
[U, Ukiiiik…… Ukkik……]
A monkey that had been sent flying by the grimoire still hadn’t come to its senses and was flailing on the floor. Ian cleared away the knives scattered around it and jabbed the blade into its leg.
That was the end of it. Ian roughly shook off the thick blood from the blade, then picked up the compressed cube and stuffed it into his bag.
'So I got two more materials. Not bad.'
Without even deliberately seeking out a bizarre phenomenon, he had already gathered three materials. At this rate, it seemed like he could try even more alchemy at the workshop.
Ian nodded inwardly and picked up the grimoire from the floor.
Fwoosh.
The grimoire opened its pages on its own the moment Ian grabbed it.
[Caution!!]
[This grimoire is not a weapon. Never use it to physically strike anything or as a tool.]
Ian read the words on the page and let out a wry smile.
Apparently it hadn’t liked being swung around as a weapon.
“Sorry. I won’t do it again.”
After Ian sincerely apologized, the grimoire trembled once and opened to another page.
[Once you become a mage, being caught up in bizarre phenomena from time to time becomes inevitable. One way to deal with it is to calmly examine the nature of the mystery and solve it, but there is one more primitive and simple method.]
[Extermination.]
[If you kill more than half the beings that make up the bizarre phenomenon, the phenomenon will eventually lose its power and collapse. So if no solution comes to mind, wiping them out first while you think things through is also a good option.]
Apparently its anger had cooled, and the grimoire offered him a way to escape the current situation. Ian quietly read the text, let out a low groan, and closed the grimoire.
“So basically, kill them all first.”
It was, as the grimoire said, the easiest method. The problem was that Ian’s physical ability wasn’t all that impressive.
There were no monkeys left in the car he was standing in. Even so, the bizarre phenomenon hadn’t ended, which clearly meant something similar was happening in the other cars too.
Going around and killing them one by one would be a tough job.
If he just brazenly walked down the passage, surprise attacks wouldn’t work as they had before, so he’d have to face at least five monkeys head-on…… and that didn’t seem easy. Even if he succeeded, he suspected he’d end up with slashes somewhere on his body.
Still, what else could he do? If he wanted out, he had to do it.
From the outset, the original Monkey Dream story didn’t include an escape method. If this were a dream, he would have tried something somehow, but this was unquestionably reality. The classic solution of waking up from the dream couldn’t be used.
So extermination was the only solution. Ian casually swept back his sweat-drenched hair and opened the grimoire, looking for any usable magic for the current situation.
The grimoire understood its owner’s intent and immediately showed him one of its recorded spells.
[Magic to Lull Mysteries to Sleep]
[It imbues a specific object with fragrance. A Mystery that smells the fragrance feels an overwhelming urge to sleep and falls asleep on the spot.]
[Materials: a magic circle drawn with the blood of an aberration, an object to be imbued with fragrance, a scented candle or at least 25 ml of perfume, 100 ml of a woman’s blood, ether.]
The materials were rather complicated, but its effect was perfect for the current situation.
The problem was how to get the materials…….
“……Ah.”
At a sudden thought, Ian moved and stood before the dead woman.
A horrific sight. The way she had died without even being able to close her eyes was nauseatingly grotesque.
If she hadn’t gotten caught up in a bizarre phenomenon, she would have lived a peaceful life. What a pity.
'I hope you’ve gone to a good place.'
Ian silently prayed for her soul and carefully opened the backpack she had been clutching so tightly.
“There it is.”
Fortunately, there was perfume inside.
Just a little more than half a bottle’s worth of perfume.
The bottle’s total capacity was 100 ml, so there was more than enough for the spell.
Ian immediately took the perfume, found a corner, and drew a magic circle with monkey blood on the inside of the padded jacket he was wearing.
He poured the perfume over it. Following his intuition, he adjusted the amount, then filled the now-empty perfume bottle with the woman’s blood and carefully dripped it around the magic circle.
That completed the preparations. Ian held his hand just above the magic circle and chanted the spell.
“I bestow peaceful rest upon you, and pray that you may enjoy a joyful, happy sleep.”
The incantation ended. A strong perfume scent began to waft from the padded jacket.
Ian immediately put on the spell-soaked padded jacket and let out a breath.
'No one saw me using magic, right?'
Even though he had moved rather noisily, the people still sitting in their seats remained unmoving. Apparently the monkeys had to physically stab them before they would move.
Still, just in case, Ian moved into the next car and shouted at the top of his voice.
“Hear me, vile byproduct of evil! The servant of the great God shall judge you, so rejoice and receive the spear of judgment!”
They had already been exposed to the mystery. If their ears and eyes were open, they would have realized that ghost stories were real.
Then it wouldn’t be strange if an apostle acting in God’s name existed either. It was excellent as a cover identity.
Ian dredged up the paltry Christian knowledge in his head and made the sign of the cross like a believer dispatched from the Vatican.
Sensing his intent, the grimoire scattered pure white light around him.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen! Crusaders, follow me!”