Chapter 27
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“Luck has favored you twice.”
“......”
The clown casually tossed out a remark.
It was strange.
The Director had not made a mistake just now.
The distance had been impossible to miss from, and the strike had been impossible to fail to hit.
But it had missed.
As though someone had altered the trajectory of his fist.
“W-what?”
“Who knows?”
The grotesquely smiling mask.
All the clown had done this time was casually wave his hand once.
“......”
Only then did the Director's smile begin to fade.
How had he done it?
What sort of trick was he using?
He had definitely checked every possible danger.
There was no aura to sense, and not a muscle showed on his frame.
‘He deflected an attack coated in blood manipulation with that feeble body of his......?’
Could that really be possible?
Whether he believed it or not, it was impossible by any reasonable standard.
But it was the reality before the Director's eyes.
“W-what did you do?”
“Would you like to know?”
The smiling mask tilted its head.
Its mouth seemed to be mocking the Director.
An unfamiliar situation, an opponent he could not gauge, and murderous intent that grew thicker by the moment......
Once mockery entered the mix, the Director could no longer maintain his composure.
“Y-you bastard, using some cheap trick like that......!”
The Director charged once more.
This time, he even forged a weapon with blood manipulation.
Bright-red blood condensed into a massive hammer.
He intended to turn the clown into minced meat with one blow.
Whoooosh-!
A louder crack of splitting air rang out.
The heavy hammerhead descended over the boy.
The mask, however, remained silent.
“Do you have no ability to learn?”
“......!”
Click-.
It missed again.
This time, the hammer struck the hapless floor instead.
A sizable crater appeared in the corridor below.
“Th-this is impossible......!”
Only then did the Director become certain.
His opponent was not ordinary.
He did not sense sorcery, magical power, or demonic energy...... Not even the presence of a ghoul.
Just a human.
An ordinary person.
And yet he was performing such an absurd feat.
All while looking completely at ease, as though it required no strength at all.
“Fuck, f-fu, f-fuck......!”
The Director was beginning to break down psychologically.
He had completely lost the leisurely air he had possessed before.
“Guh!”
He simply charged forward without thinking.
He intended to overwhelm the boy with sheer bulk.
The result was the same.
“You're slow. I'm practically yawning.”
“You f-fucking, f-fucking, f-fucking bastard......!”
“When are you going to catch me?”
“Shut uuuup!”
“I don't know how many chances I should give you. You have had more than ten opportunities to kill me, even at a minimum.”
“Ugh, aaargh......!”
Click-.
Click-.
Click-.
Click-.
He charged again and again, and missed again and again.
The ticking of the clock's hands bored into his eardrums.
The Director only grew more exhausted.
“Huff, huff......!”
Though he swung with all his strength, the hammer was deflected every time.
After failing dozens of attacks, his breath burned all the way up to his throat.
Cold sweat drenched the Director's back.
“D-damn it...... This is, this is impossible!!”
For the first time in his life, he was feeling fear toward a human.
To the Director, humans had merely been material for the works he created.
Inferior creatures.
Trash that had to be reborn as art at his hands.
Yes. That was how it was supposed to be......
“I'm getting tired of waiting. I was going to let you hit me at least once.”
“G-get away......!”
“I've waited long enough. I can move now, can't I?”
“Eek......!”
The trash that should have been beneath him was driving him into a corner.
No, it was doing more than cornering him. It was trying to kill him.
The Director writhed like a worm.
“D-don't come closer! I said stay away!”
Shuffle-shuffle-.
As he swung the hammer wildly and unconsciously backed away,
Crack-.
the boy, who had been taking quick little steps in place, disappeared.
A silhouette flickered like a wavering mirage, then scattered.
The Director looked around in confusion.
“W-what? Where did he disappear......?”
Stab-.
Just as he was about to turn around, something pierced his right arm.
Pain like lava flowing through his veins.
His flesh burned with a sizzle loud enough to hurt his ears.
Sizzle-!
“G-ggaaagh!!”
The Director let out a scream.
His arm crumbled into pieces as though all its moisture had been dried out.
As tears streamed down his face, a voice came from behind him.
The clown who had disappeared was standing behind the Director.
“Your reactions are rather intense.”
In his hand, he held the gleaming fragment.
The Director fell backward in shock.
Crash-!
“Ghk, haaah......! Huff, huff......”
“Vampires and ghouls continue to regenerate as long as they are supplied with blood, or so I hear. Unfortunately, the wounds I gave you will not heal. The weapon I am holding is rather special.”
“Graaagh!”
Whoosh-!
He swung his remaining arm in an attempt to shake it off, but once again, all he tore was the innocent empty air.
The boy was no longer standing there.
“What do you think?”
“......!”
Behind him.
When had he moved there?
He had been too fast for the Director's eyes to follow.
Before the Director could flee, a stake was driven into his right thigh.
Stab-!
“Ggaaaargh!!!”
“Does it hurt?”
The leg likewise burned, then crumbled like ash.
A groan leaked from his now-hoarse throat.
The boy disappeared again.
He appeared behind the Director once more, but......
“Are you afraid?”
Stab, stab-!
This time, the clown did not hesitate.
He stabbed the remaining forearm and thigh once each.
The Director lost both arms and legs, leaving only his torso behind like a caterpillar.
Crunch-.
The boy's shoe heel came to rest on his fallen body.
“You can't run away anymore. Are you desperate?”
“Ah, aag......”
The Director denied reality.
No, he wanted to deny it.
“H-how could this happen......? This can't happen, ugh, ah, it can't happen!!”
“Shut your mouth.”
Smack-!
When the Director shrieked, the boy seized his jaw.
Then he clenched his fist and struck him in the mouth again and again.
His teeth shattered and fell in a shower.
Looking closely, it was not a fist, but a lump of stone.
He was swinging it with enough force to break every fang.
Smack! Crack, crunch-!
Each time the boy brought his fist down, wounds opened on his own hand as well.
Despite the pain, the boy showed no sign of it and remained merciless.
The Director was not even allowed to scream.
“Ugh......”
“Quiet.”
“Th-those evil eyes......”
“Quiet.”
“Ghk......”
“Quiet.”
“......”
“Quiet.”
“......”
Sizzle-
He pressed the stake against the flesh and slowly seared the living tissue.
By the time burns had spread across his entire body and not a single tooth remained unbroken,
Smack, thud-!
“S...... S-save meee......”
The Director began to beg.
“I was w-wrong...... I’m s-sorry......”
“......”
“Save me, please......”
“......Heh.”
The clown gave a short, hollow laugh.
He lowered the weapon in his hand.
Then he leaned, mask and all, close to the Director.
Could he be going to grant his request?
Hope glimmered in the Director's mangled eyes.
“There is a line people often use at times like this. It is rather cliché, though.”
The mask.
The smiling mask.
“You ask me to let you live. But you......”
Huh.
That mask,
Had
it
always
been
smiling
like
that
before?
“The people who begged you to spare them—did you ever spare even one?”
The Director's gaze contorted wildly.
The corners of the mouth on the mask tore all the way to its ears, making it difficult to call it a face any longer.
Only then did the Director realize that he had said something he should not have.
“Ah......”
The next moment.
The mask's eyes and mouth turned bright red.
The torn corners of its mouth split open all the way to the ceiling.
A gaping maw opened wide.
Deep within.
An abyss.
A world that should not exist.
The Director fell into a scarlet space.
“......”
Tentacles writhed all around him.
A sea of blood, exudate, and pus rose to the very base of the sky.
Things writhed within it, alongside phenomena he could not comprehend.
A sun hung in the sky.
A gigantic sun.
No, it was not a sun.
It was an eyeball as vast as the sea.
“......”
Tentacles wrapped around his body.
It.
It looked down at him.
His own reflection appeared in that writhing pupil.
And yet he could not tell what color the eye was.
Perhaps his eyes had burned away the instant their gazes met.
“Aah, aaaaaah......”
A shrill breath.
The Director sank.
He choked on blood, exudate, and pus.
The entity continued to gaze down at him.
“Aah......”
He heard a sound.
A sound that should have been impossible to hear.
.- - -... .- ... .... -.-. .. .--. .... . .-. .-.
It.
It was speaking to him.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”
The moment when one second was perceived as a hundred years.
A language that must not be understood seeped in.
The Director's body convulsed in a seizure.
And, before long......
The Director's brain burned away.