“Wh-Who are you?” Reiji asked, bewilderment clear in his voice.
“Hm? Me? A magician. I suppose that’s the best way to answer? Well, that works. Not much of a point to classifying things.”
“A magician? Then you’re the same as Suimei...?”
“Oh? What’s this? Do you know Suimei-kun? I see. Is that so? That’s great.”
It seemed this strange man knew Suimei; upon hearing his name, he nodded with glee. So was this blindfolded man an acquaintance? More importantly, what was he doing in this world to begin with? At the very least, Suimei hadn’t brought him here.
“Ummm, who exactly are you...?” Reiji asked.
“Me? I’m Suimei-kun’s fan.”
“H-His fan...?”
“Yup. His fan. I’m like a degenerate chasing his favorite idol. I took it a bit too far and ended up in this weird place. Oh man, Suimei-kun really is endlessly fun. I’ll never get tired of what he does.”
“Uhhh...”
A simple question had led to a flood of words. The man’s cheer was entirely out of place on the battlefield. What was more, the blindfolded man was spinning around on the spot and dancing with bombastic gestures. That only made things more confusing, but now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that.
“U-Um, more importantly—” Reiji started, trying to cautiously urge the man to get to the point.
“Hm? More importantly? What’s more important than this?” the man said, cutting him off. “Is there anything in the world worth interrupting me for?”
“Guh?!”
The blindfolded man’s face was suddenly right in front of Reiji’s eyes, blocking his entire field of vision as if to say Reiji only had to look at him. A terrifying pressure bound Reiji’s limbs from moving, as if a titan were pinning him down with its stare alone.
What’s going on? What the heck is going on? The question repeated in Reiji’s head, when suddenly, he saw the grotesque demon standing up behind the blindfolded man.
“Oh, it’s already moving?”
The blindfolded man turned toward it. Reiji was released from the pressure binding his body, his heart hammering in his chest. He gasped for breath as the grotesque demon charged and swung its arm. There was no time to run away.
And just as Reiji expected to be bulldozed right alongside the blindfolded man, the man used one hand to stop the demon.
Yes. He simply held out his hand.
“Wha—?!”
The grotesque demon possessed terrifying physical strength. Reiji knew this intimately. But the blindfolded man stopped the demon with the ease of catching a feather. No shock wave spread to the surroundings. Not even the faintest tremor ran through the ground.
Still holding the demon at bay, the blindfolded man turned his neck with an eerie twist to look back at Reiji.
“Why so surprised?” he said. “This is simple with enough power. Need body weight? Height? Strength? Those are trivial matters to us magicians. Mana makes up for everything. Just like this!”
Unable to escape the blindfolded man’s grip, the grotesque demon was blown away. It tumbled across the ground, carving a ditch as it went. It couldn’t even put up a fight.
“Why are you helping us...?” Reiji asked.
“You need to ask? Do people need a reason to help others?”
“Huh?”
“Just kidding! I’m sure he’d say something like that, but I’m different. I just felt like it. I had a feeling that if I saved you guys, things would be more fun.”
“More fun...?”
The blindfolded man stared long and hard at Reiji’s bewildered face. What did he see? And just as Reiji pondered that thought, the man stopped and gave a creepy smile.
“I like you,” he said. “You have a dream. You’re trying desperately to achieve it, aren’t you? You aren’t satisfied with being useless. You’re trying to surmount all the enormous walls around you. Good. Very good. No matter how disgraceful it is to struggle, it’s so boring to stop. It’s no fun to watch someone give up.”
“Wha?!”
“No need to be so shocked. I can see that much with ease. You’re gonna have to grow up to trick me. You’ll manage a bit better that way. Well, both you and Suimei-kun seem like the type to die before growing old, though.”
Reiji heard a wet crunch. The entire area around the grotesque demon had caved in, as if crushed by something heavy. Was this also the blindfolded man’s power? Reiji had a feeling it was.
“How hideous,” the man said, glancing at the demon. “That kind of being doesn’t match my tastes at all. Having to look at it for even a second will ruin my wine and blood. So...”
With that preface, he began what sounded like a chant.
“Tell the living. About a purgatory of blood. About a festival of blood. About a requiem for the dead. Bring joy to the deceased. Scream, shriek, dye the world in red. It tastes of iron. It smells of iron. This cup is always filled with blood.”
The blindfolded man walked forward. He did so casually and defenselessly, still holding a wine glass in one hand. A chair took shape in front of him, a hideous piece of furniture made of meat, bones, and entrails. He sat down in it calmly, crossed his legs, and held up his wine glass.
The grotesque demon closed in on him. There was no way he could do anything in time now. Despair bubbled in Reiji’s mind, then popped as the blindfolded man uttered a short phrase.
“To your unhealth.”
He lightly tapped his wine glass against the grotesque demon. It really was the lightest of taps, as if clinking it in a toast.
“Bloody Crisis.”
The moment he spoke that keyword, a red magic circle took shape around his chair. It gave off a crimson light as what looked like a flood of blood surged out toward the grotesque demon. It coiled around the demon as if to bind it before invading its body.
The demon’s skin bubbled like it was boiling from the inside. Its joints started bending in random directions like a marionette being jostled around. After letting out a jarring scream of agony, the grotesque demon collapsed on the spot as pitch-black blood burst from its every orifice. The black blood hardened on the ground like the blood extracted from a poisoned snakebite. The blindfolded man burst into laughter at the sight.
“Hahahahahahaha! Oh man! What a riot! Such a hideous scream. Nothing really beats a human’s scream, after all. Don’t you think so too?”
“I don’t—”
“You don’t think so? You really don’t? Hahaha! I guess not! I get it! I get it! I figured you were that kind of person too!”
“O-Of course I am!”
Despite his bewilderment, Reiji glared at the man, whose expression turned to one of pure joy.
“So you are. That’s the spirit. Such are the sensibilities of an upstanding person. You must stay that way if you wish to remain human. Don’t get drunk on screams of agony. Don’t feel ecstatic at the sight of conflict. If you do, you’ll become a beast. Isn’t that right?”
“...?!”
Reiji’s breath caught in his throat. Why did those words resonate with his heart so strongly? It was as if a truth he didn’t want to know had been gouged out of his mind and put straight into the mouth of this strange man.
As that went on, Titania started walking toward them.
“Allow me to offer my thanks for—”
Before she could finish, the blindfolded man twisted toward her.
“I’m speaking with him right now,” he said, cutting her off. “Can you not get in the way?”
“Huh...? Ah...”
Titania came to a sudden stop as if bound in place. She stiffened up and couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even lift a finger. At this, the blindfolded man smiled in delight once more.
“That’s the spirit,” he said. “It’s a virtue, it is, to listen to your betters.”
“What’re you...? Wait, no, forget that. Tia!”
“Whoa there. You’re talking to me, remember?” the man said to Reiji. “Isn’t it rude to be so fickle? It’s alright. I simply made it so that she can’t move. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”
The blindfolded man had no intention of yielding this conversation to anyone. He maintained his grin as he lowered his gaze to the Ishar Cluster—which had returned to being an ornament.
“You’ve got something awfully interesting in your hand,” he said.
“Huh? Oh—”
Reiji lowered his eyes too, then realized the Ishar Cluster he’d been grasping so firmly wasn’t there anymore. He reflexively looked up. The blindfolded man was sticking out his tongue, waving the Ishar Cluster about in front of Reiji’s eyes. When had he taken it?
“Wha?! H-How did you—?!”
“How? Do you even need to ask? This is a simple matter for a magician. It’s our calling to steal from those who possess power, after all. Aah, don’t worry. I’ll give it back. Here.”
“Huh? Ah...”
The blindfolded man casually tossed the Ishar Cluster back to Reiji as if it were a cheap trinket. This man just continued to toy with him, and Reiji couldn’t hide his utter confusion.
An awful stench suddenly assaulted Reiji’s nasal cavity, as if the stink of iron had been amplified several times over. It was the stench of blood. It was an unbearable mix of coagulated and rotten blood. Reiji resisted the urge to vomit, and seeing this, the blindfolded man gave him another eerie smile.
Compared to the man in front of him, the grotesque demon seemed like nothing more than a baby. This man was evil—the total embodiment of evil. While the grotesque demon had no will of its own, this man killed others purely by choice.
Reiji had heard of evil that could be so sick it was nauseating. And now, he had in front of him a prime example of such a thing.
“You’re not really bothered if this gets stolen from you, right?” the man said. “If I’m going to steal anything, it’s them.”
“Wh-What—”
“You’re not desperate enough, you see. ‘Things will work out one way or another. Someone will do something about it.’ You think you have to do something yourself, but somewhere in your heart that’s what you really think. That’s because you’ve never lost anything. Even now, you’re being saved by ‘someone’ and ‘something,’ right? That’s why you don’t panic. That’s why you’re not scared. No matter how dangerous things get, you’re never frightened.”
“That’s not...”
“Can you really say I’m lying? You can’t. You just don’t get it. People like you are dense when it comes to themselves. What’s more, unless you correct this, all you do is misunderstand things. Even when overcome by emotions, you mistake them for your own. Isn’t that right? Don’t you think people who are more frank about everything are so much better?”
The blindfolded man paused there, then grinned as if he’d come up with a great idea.
“Very well. This is a present from me to you. Have a taste of real fear.”
“Huh?”