The clamor of the Academy Festival was cut off three blocks away.
This was the most remote dead end in the academy.
Unknown black water flowed on the ground, smelling of rot and rust.
Horn crouched by an overflowing trash can, clutching the mana crystal he had just used to detonate fear.
He was still trembling.
It wasn't fear; it was the withdrawal symptoms following his peak of excitement.
Like a junkie who had just overdosed, he was currently in a state of extreme emptiness.
“Hey.”
Cecilia leaned against a moss-covered wall.
She lifted her skirt with distaste, doing her best to keep the expensive fabric from touching the filth on the ground.
“Have you had enough fun?”
Horn looked up and pushed his crooked glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.
In the eyes behind the lenses, the fire of madness had not yet completely died out.
“Not... not enough.”
Horn grinned, revealing yellowed teeth.
“That sound... it was wonderful.”
“Those souls screaming, trembling, collapsing...”
“It was simply the most beautiful symphony in the world.”
Cecilia let out a cold sneer.
She reached out and pointed a finger at Horn’s forehead from across the space.
“The old fogies over at the Society don't have much patience.”
“They didn't stuff you into this academy to be a perverted voyeur.”
“If these ‘fireworks’ don't satisfy them...”
Cecilia's voice was gentle, as if she were whispering to a lover.
“...your skin, and the tens of thousands of trash souls packed inside it...”
“...will become my experimental materials.”
“As it happens, I've been researching how to extract a living soul and turn it into a rose that never withers.”
Horn shuddered.
He knew this crazy woman meant what she said.
In that asylum known as the White Tower, Cecilia Lucas was a monster who made everyone's blood run cold.
“Don't... don't be in such a hurry.”
Horn hurriedly pulled a stack of crumpled data sheets from his coat.
They were covered in dense feedback from the soul fluctuations he had just collected.
“The data is good... very good!”
“It's three times stronger than I predicted!”
Horn pointed at the core array on the blueprints that Bell had modified, his fingers shaking.
“If it weren't for your brother...”
“If it weren't for that ‘diode’ theory...”
“I would never have been able to build something like this in my entire life.”
Horn swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing violently.
His gaze changed.
It was no longer the technical fanaticism from before.
It was a more primal, greedier desire.
Like a starving wolf seeing fresh meat.
“Bell Lucas...”
Horn stuck out his tongue and licked his dry, cracked lips.
Saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth onto his oil-stained collar.
“Truly a genius.”
“A mind that can perfectly fuse reality's rules with magic runes...”
“A soul that has crossed the boundary of life and death...”
Horn raised his hand and made a grasping motion in the air.
As if Bell's soul were right before his eyes.
“I wonder what it tastes like?”
“Is it sweet? Or spicy?”
“If I could pry open his skull, dig out that glowing soul, and take a sip while it's still warm...”
“Giggle... giggle...”
Horn let out a string of neurotic laughter.
His drool pooled on the ground.
“Smack.”
A crisp sound rang out.
The laughter stopped abruptly.
Horn was lifted off the ground.
His feet dangled in the air.
Cecilia had one hand clamped around his throat, pinning him firmly against the wall.
That hand, which had been so well-maintained, slender, and delicate moments ago, was now like an iron vise, nearly crushing Horn's cervical vertebrae.
“Cough... cough, cough...”
Horn struggled desperately, his hands clawing at Cecilia's fingers.
They didn't budge.
He saw Cecilia's eyes.
In those black pupils, there was no hint of a smile.
Only a bottomless abyss of darkness.
It was something purer than killing intent.
It was the primal rage of a beast whose territory had been crossed.
“Who do you want to eat?”
Cecilia tilted her head, her voice as light as a feather.
But Horn felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.
“I... I was jok—”
“Is he even something you can think about?”
Cecilia's fingers tightened.
Her nails pierced the skin of Horn's neck, and blood flowed down her fingertips.
It stained her white cuffs red.
“He is mine.”
“From every strand of hair to his heels.”
“From his flesh to his soul.”
“Every drop of blood, every piece of bone, even the air he exhales.”
“They are all mine.”
Cecilia leaned in close to Horn's face, which had turned the color of a pig's liver.
Their noses were almost touching.
“Even if he were to be chopped up and fed to a dog...”
“...that dog could only be me.”
“Do you understand?”
Horn's eyes rolled back, and his tongue lolled out.
He nodded frantically.
That suffocating fear was more real than any excitement he had felt.
This woman.
She really would kill him.
Right here.
She would crush him like a common bedbug.
“Thud!”
Cecilia let go.
Horn collapsed onto the ground like a pile of mud, clutching his neck and coughing violently, greedily sucking in the foul-smelling air.
Cecilia pulled out a handkerchief with disgust and wiped the blood from her fingers.
Then she tossed the handkerchief onto Horn's face.
“Watch your mouth.”
“And your stomach.”
“If I ever see you drooling over him again...”
“...I will stuff you into that cannon and fire you out as fuel.”
Horn grabbed the scented handkerchief and scrambled up from the ground.
He didn't dare look at Cecilia again.
He hunched his shoulders like a stray dog with a broken back.
“Yes... yes...”
“I won't eat him... I won't eat him...”
He tremblingly put his glasses back on.
It hid the flash of resentment in the depths of his eyes.
“Now, back to business.”
Cecilia smoothed her skirt, returning to her posture as a high-and-mighty young lady.
“This cannon—besides scaring a few students...”
“...what else can it do?”
At the mention of this, Horn's back straightened slightly.
The technical fanaticism of a geek overrode his fear of death.
He pointed at the distant Black Stone Tower that pierced the clouds.
It was the symbol of the Royal Magic Academy.
It was also where all the instructors worked.
“Scaring students?”
Horn grinned, revealing a cruel smile.
“That was just a test shot.”
“As long as the power is cranked to the maximum...”
“...and the fear frequency is adjusted to a lethal level...”
Horn reached out toward the tower and made a grasping motion.
“Leovet.”
“Griffin.”
“And all those old fogies who think they hold the truth from their high pedestals.”
“As long as they have souls.”
“As long as they have desires.”
“This cannon can boil their brains into a pot of bubbling porridge.”
Horn turned his head to look at Cecilia.
His lenses reflected the cold light.
“This is the Mage Slayer the Society wants.”
“No forbidden spells needed, no invading armies.”
“Just a single switch.”
“The entire Royal Magic Academy...”
“...will become a graveyard filled with walking corpses.”
Cecilia arched an eyebrow.
She looked at Horn.
Then she looked at the tower standing silent in the night.
“Interesting.”
She smiled.
She smiled like a child who had just received a new toy.
“What's even more interesting is...”
Horn added, his tone carrying a bizarre sense of irony.
“...this knife, intended to slaughter every mage in the school...”
“...was handed to me by your genius brother himself.”
Rate on N.U.
