Episode 92 – The Lord of Despair and Hatred (2)
“Hyung said there’s no problem. Still, I could endure it because you were here.”
“…”
Walking down the street together, Park Tae-jun spoke flatly.
Ever since I uncovered my identity, his previously unstable demeanor had mostly vanished. This was definitely the kind of appearance I had wanted.
“Is it okay for just the two of us to hang out without the director?”
“Director Jang can’t pay attention to me anymore. And you’ve got me here. Ahem.”
He cleared his throat unnecessarily. As he said, we were out after school, thanks to Park Tae-jun’s strong request.
Even Director Jang Woo-seok, who had always been with us, was absent.
This didn’t feel like hanging out with delinquent types as before. It was pure leisure among innocent kids.
“It’s definitely chaotic.”
In the midst of all this, I blankly looked up, sensing something strange ahead.
The peculiar energy I felt there was definitely laced with faint magical power.
Ever since the activities of monsters infiltrating from the outside world increased and the competition between the Awakened Special Task Force and Magical Girls began, it had become a common sight.
“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”
Park Tae-jun paused, looking at me with a trembling voice. After all, he could sense something that ordinary people wouldn’t.
We were still quite a distance away.
“There’s a battle happening far ahead. I don’t know if it’s Magical Girls or the Special Task Force. But isn’t the direction we were headed over there?”
“Magical Girls?”
When I told him, his eyes widened.
Originally disinterested in Magical Girls, he seemed to have developed a dramatic fondness for them after that day and discovering my identity.
“Shall we go see? Though it might be dangerous?”
“I trust you.”
“Hah.”
Park Tae-jun giggled.
In the end, we didn’t turn back. After all, our destination was that way, and apart from the Mamute incident, the culture of enjoying battles between Magical Girls like a sport still prevailed.
“It doesn’t seem like an ordinary incident.”
However, as we got closer, the energy became clearer, and Ren, sitting above my head, murmured in a tense voice.
“Should we hurry and get into a building?”
“Is there a problem?”
“Yeah. It’s a bit of a troublesome issue.”
Frowning, I glanced around. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where the trouble was.
The intense energy mixed with the atmosphere here was sharply noticeable even to me. For now, it seemed the Magical Girls hadn’t arrived nearby yet.
“Did you just hear that?”
“Run. Quickly.”
As the faint sounds of screams and shouts reached us, I clicked my tongue, regretting the unnecessary delay, and started pulling Park Tae-jun along.
We came to see Magical Girls hunting monsters, but we miscalculated the timing. The hunting time still belonged to the monsters.
“That’s gunfire!”
Even Park Tae-jun, who’d never been in the military, recognized the sound of gunshots. As the surrounding crowd began to flee, I noticed the flow heading directly towards us.
“This way.”
We were sprinting alongside the culprit monster, blocked by a line of buildings.
Understanding its intent, I led Park Tae-jun straight to the underground parking lot of the adjacent building.
“Is it coming for us?!”
“More precisely, it sensed me once I came within range.”
Ren, too, realized it was aiming for me.
“Are you going to transform? Here?”
“You, turn around right now.”
Before it crashed in, I hid Park Tae-jun in a corner of the parking lot. Then, after a long while, I activated a spell.
With the magic that triggers explosive electrical discharges, I could create an electromagnetic storm that would destroy all electronic devices in the area, including CCTV and vehicle black boxes.
“Have… you transformed?”
“Yeah. Don’t look back. Absolutely. You’d regret it.”
Having destroyed the parking lot’s cameras and vehicles without leaving any chance of exposure, I transformed. The monster was now right in front of me.
From the rapidly approaching energy of that thing, I sensed something and clicked my tongue inwardly.
Intense anger and hatred. And sadness. Although it was a monster, it could be called a demon.
“What… what is that?”
What descended into the parking lot with a splat was a kind of beast.
Wrapped in bulging black slime, this creature had retained only the most rudimentary human traits: babbling language and bipedal movement.
Even Ren was momentarily speechless at its horrific appearance.
“It’s not like the simple monsters we met last time.”
My voice turned cold instinctively. Knowing what kind of being it was, I couldn’t help it.
“Do you want to eat? All this overflowing magical power?”
“Grrr, argh…”
As I spoke, the big creature, with claws protruding, gasped while gripping its own head.
Blood was already soaking its claws and mouth as it struggled.
“…It’s fine, so come at me. I’ll make it easy.”
“ARAAAAH!!”
In the end, it couldn’t hold back, and, with its claws, it charged at me, shattering the ground.
“Keheh.”
“Very unstable and fluctuating magical energy. It’s the power manifested by transforming wealth into fuel for despair. Its principle is similar to Yggdrasil.”
I used shadows to wrap around the monster that was rushing at me and pulled it closer.
Its inflated muscles struggled, but it couldn’t escape my grasp.
I paid closer attention to the nature of its strength and traced back its loathsome origin.
“That can’t be…”
“Of course, compared to Yggdrasil, it’s filthy and low-level, resulting only in this rampaging monster. Coming towards me, glaring with crazed eyes, it’s probably trying to consume my magical power to maintain its collapsing body in real-time.”
I scoffed at Ren, who was in shock.
Unlike how Yggdrasil draws out magical power based on the emotions and potentials of Magical Girls, this was merely using those emotions and souls as fuel, driving it to madness.
“And personally, I deeply despise such nonsense.”
I wasn’t feeling great.
During the unification war, I had witnessed irksome necromancers who would rampage their troops against me.
Each of those rampaging soldiers was a precious resource from the Demon Realm, yet those bastards used them as mere expendables.
I could commend them for using whatever means necessary, but power attained in such a manner was not true strength.
“Kahak!”
“Relax. Let go of those feelings; spit them out, put aside your resentment.”
I completely wrapped the immobilized monster in shadows. I crushed and decomposed the rough magical power that made up its physical form as if detoxifying poison.
Then, the dark, swollen body of the monster quickly collapsed, revealing its true identity.
“It was truly an ordinary human. Still young-looking.”
“If we know the identity of this guy, we’ll know what happened.”
Ren gently brushed aside the hair of the sacrificed person. Inside the black slime-like body was an ordinary, youthful-looking man.
Though he had already burned his life force as fuel, having seen his face would make it easy to identify who he was.
“Is… it done now?”
“Yeah. Let’s get out of here quickly.”
The sound of sirens echoed from outside. I released my transformation and calmly guided the still-turned-around Park Tae-jun out of the parking lot.
*
“Are you going to step out?! You said you would stay quiet for a while!”
“Right. I definitely said that.”
That night, after an unexpected commotion in the afternoon, I stood on the roof of the Facility, having exited my room. The city gleamed under the night sky, still bright.
“With an unidentified entity stirring human despair and anger to turn them into demonic wraiths, it seems our esteemed Awakened Special Task Force is just stumbling around. I wonder if they even care?”
“They’re utterly trash.”
“They’re just like the Magical Girls obsessed with results.”
As Ren chimed in, he fell silent at my remark.
“The reason I was reluctant to step forward was partly due to inconvenience, but also because it wouldn’t benefit us.”
“Y-Yes. That’s definitely true.”
“But to leave those insolent fools, daring to challenge me in their arrogance, unchecked, was unacceptable.”
I transformed right there. My hair lengthened, and the short skirt with frills fluttered violently in the night wind.
“I’ve grown a bit upset at their antics. That’s the entire reason I’m moving.”
The uniform draped over my shoulders transformed into great shadowy wings, launching me into the sky.
It seemed like I needed to give a strong warning to those who had been complacent lately.
To a few humans, intoxicated by a tiny bit of power they stumbled upon, to the overly cautious and complacent Magical Girls.
And to the disgusting, loathsome entity that dared to taint the land where I was recently living a satisfying and cozy second life.
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