Chapter 62: A Melodious Night (4)
“I thought I was lucky enough to find someone with opened ears, but that must have been a mistake.”
“…”
“This is a place where people with their hearts aligned, gather and listen to music. I don’t know who you are, but it’s hard to welcome uninvited guests.”
Hasegawa’s aura changed. The middle-aged man’s eyes became tainted in red.
“Here to kill me?”
“Yeah.”
“I see. Then you should’ve said that from the get go.”
A crack appeared in his indifferent expression.
“Why meaninglessly interfere in someone else’s performance?”
Yu Jitae frowned, as Hasegawa raised his voice, seemingly frustrated from the bottom of his heart.
“A performance is sacred. If you had a business with me, it could have been any other time – I had time in the morning as well. And yet; out of all the times it could have been; in the middle of a time that I value more than anything; in this place where I’m sharing music with my precious ones; you dare, interfere with my performance! That, is an insult against me!”
The Regressor did not respond, but Hasegawa bellowed by himself.
“In Ancient Egypt, they cut off a noble’s ears for interfering with the palace musician’s performance, because ears that can’t hear, are worthless.”
“Must have been inspired by that?”
“What?”
“You wandered around, and cut lots of ears, didn’t you. Saying that them having ears were pointless.”
His voice came to a stop. Hasegawa’s gaze looking down at Yu Jitae was that of a cat gazing down at a mouse. However, with that one sentence from Yu Jitae, Hasegawa realised that there was a tall wall standing before him.
His enemy was aware of his actions, despite him having the least number of actions as a disaster-level demon.
“This is going to be rough.”
As soon as his words came to a stop, the demonic aura of the abyss came soaring up from the surroundings.
“Haha… Lim Chul-o, Wei Yan were creating so much fuss about the whole thing…”
Suddenly, the puppets started running into Yu Jitae.
In an instant, one of the puppets lost a head. Hasegawa realised that the man’s arm had moved, a second after it happened.
“…!”
Killing intent gathered and formed a shape. With his hand holding onto an invisible handle, the killing intent extending from it lengthened itself like a stick, while sharpening itself into a blade.
[Shapeless Sword (SS)]
“Bastard! So you were the enemy of the ‘undetectables’ huh!”
There was no need for a long conversation.
Immediately after, his body disappeared. The sword slashed sideways as he closed the distance and passed by Hasegawa’s neck.
Drop…
The head rolled on the ground, and his body fell behind after a split second onto the carpet.
Silence befell the room in an instant, but this was still the beginning.
Yu Jitae opened his mouth.
“Yu Bom.”
“Yes.”
In response to his words, Bom closed her eyes. Then, she interlocked her fingers and focused. The heart of a green dragon containing the power of mother nature started fluttering. Although a dragon, she was still a hatchling and it thus took some time until she successfully pulled up all the necessary mana.
Her body was embraced by nature’s mana and floated in mid-air.
Meanwhile, tentacles emerged out from Hasegawa’s decapitated neck and carried the head back to its place.
“How dare you–!”
Hasegawa stood up with a struggle and scattered the demonic aura with his two hands. From his hands, it travelled thinly like a cloud before reaching the puppets.
“Move!”
They then started moving as if in a seizure.
After noticing the difference in power level, Hasegawa would be acting in order to prioritise his own survival. Some of the puppets would halt Yu Jitae, while some would escape.
Like cockroaches.
Yu Jitae thought back on the strategy meeting last night.
– If, if the humans there, really weren’t humans…
Bom had spoken while biting on her lips.
– Hasegawa might’ve been extricated already…
She had clearly seen through the situation.
A few weeks ago, Ha Saetbyul had gone through [Extrication] and had entered a monster form. It had happened because she had seeked for a strong physical prowess after becoming a demon.
But extrication wasn’t only limited to physical changes to the body. Although rare, there were occasions where they would be separated into different individuals.
Hasegawa had already been revealing his true body as a demon.
In the form of a ‘performer’, and the ‘audience’.
– They used to have their own providence and fate.
– Originally, they must have been different people.
– Most likely, they were made to listen to Hasegawa’s performance, and had suffered from it.
Even during several regressions, he hadn’t checked up to that point.
– That’s why Hasegawa made those people, who couldn’t understand the value of his music, into puppets.
Now, was the time to confirm Bom’s deduction.
Pat–!
Like an exquisitely formed flash mob, the audience scattered to all directions in an instant. They were trying to break the walls, windows and ceiling for their escape.
In that instant, Bom, who was halfway up in the air, opened her eyes. Her heart with an accumulation of mana, started resonating itself with the surrounding area and thumped.
That was an authority which could only be used by a dragon. As the ruler, it was their right to force all creations with words alone.
[Dragon’s Voice (S+)]
Everything halted in an instant, including the puppets.
Within that world of stillness, Bom opened her mouth.
[Rotten existences with destined dooms, remain here and obey your providence]
The words of a green dragon contained a mighty power. Those living had no choice but to obey, and the dead could not dare disobey its words.
All the puppets in the area, that had been encroached by the dirty mana of the abyss, stopped their feet. Them, including Hasegawa, had been dropped to the [providence as a mortal]. They could no longer regenerate, nor live forever.
“…This…”
Even the disaster-level demon was unfamiliar with something like this. Hasegawa’s eyes shot wide open.
And meanwhile, Yu Jitae moved his body.
Slash–
There was a puppet that had raised its arm up in order to break the ceiling. Its arm was slashed along with its head and dropped on the floor.
Swoosh.
Near the window, there was one that had thrown its body to break through the glass. Soon, its body was divided into two from the head down, and dropped on both sides.
Stab–
There was one that was about to raise its weapon from the waist in order to buy time for other puppets to escape. But, it’s upper body soon dropped on the floor.
“…”
The Dragon’s Voice had gone through, but Bom’s mana wasn’t infinite. When the power suppressing their movement disappeared, the puppets slowly started to move again.
However, they still were not allowed to run away.
Changing their objective, they crouched down and stood with their four legs on either the floor, or on the tabletop. From their bodies, tentacles covered in blades reached froth.
Those weren’t normal blades – they were compressed forms of demonic auras, and could destroy the skins of world rankers with a scratch.
“…!”
“…!”
The puppets simultaneously dashed in towards Yu Jitae.
It all happened in an instant, as if they had planned it from the start. Their attacks were sharp and on point, with not a single gap between their movements. They attacked while surrounding Yu Jitae, and their pin-point movements were the best form of a joint attack.
He could dodge it if he wanted to, but didn’t bother.
Instead, he twisted his waist to the side.
Soon, he twisted his upper body with his waist resembling a wringing towel. The power gathered at his feet travelled up the upper body and the spine before being conveyed to his shoulders. The resulting circular slash contained a clear path.
It was so fast and fierce, that the dozens of incoming attacks from the puppets were all ignored. The puppets were immediately crushed from the strike and bounced off to the sides.
He had required that much killing intent in order to kill these monsters. The killing intent that slashed past a few of its targets continued on through the outer walls and the windows of the building.
Kakang!
Kwagwang–!
Along with a thud, everything that supported the building flew off. The walls, windows, the pillars of the hotel that were protected by all sorts of devices, as well as the ceiling were all broken.
They could hear the crumbling sound coming from a different side of the hotel floor. A portion of the top floor had started crumbling down.
The puppets that were still alive threw their bodies in at Yu Jitae. His body became hazy as the running puppets had their heads explode.
When he finally revealed himself again, he was right in front of Hasegawa.
[Shapeless Sword (SS)] was slashed at his body. A bluish-black light of demonic aura seeped out from Hasegawa’s body in an attempt to block it, but it was futile.
Kaaaang–!
In front of a killing intent that was at a different level, his dense demonic aura was crushed, and Hasegawa flew to the side after being slashed until he crashed into the wall.
Only then did a stream of black blood leave the middle-aged man’s mouth.
Kugugugung…!
Though the crumbling started from the other side of the hotel floor, distant from the room they were in, it slowly started to reach them. He could sense the ceiling collapsing right outside the room.
An immense flow of mana started approaching them from underneath. It was the [Emergency Warp (A)] trying to evacuate the customers to a safer location.
Thus, Yu Jitae walked up again and stood in front of Hasegawa. He then watched and waited for his decision.
“…What are you waiting for. Are you going to follow if I leave?”
“…”
“I’m not going.”
Hasegawa let out a hollow laughter.
Normally, those puppets weren’t easily broken or killed. To be exact, it was close to saying that those could not be killed. They were individually as strong as a local ranker of a country, and they used the mana of the abyss to regenerate even if they were broken.
But due to the magic of that green-haired bitch, the regeneration had been blocked, and the ‘monster’ in front of him was crushing them like they were sugar canes.
“You would need to stab quite deep, if you want to destroy this body of mine!”
Hasegawa shouted after realising his doom.
“You want to die, it seems.”
“Die? Kuhuh. Me? Kuhuhu…”
He, who had been quietly laughing, soon crazily bursted out into a loud laughter.
“…Me, dying? Why? I sold my soul to a devil and wrote songs, and performed with my life as mortgage. As long as my song remains in someone’s heart, I will not die even if I die. I will not disappear.”
The Regressor’s lips formed a wide crescent.
Right, that was the answer.
***
In the previous iterations, Yu Jitae had tried something in order to kill Hasegawa.
If there was no audience, wouldn’t there be no meaning to the performer? Thus, he had cut off all the ears of the puppets.
However, that had been in vain. Hasegawa did not die, and although his head had been cut off, he came back to life again.
But last night, Bom had said something during the strategy meeting.
– In order to kill Hasegawa, we can’t kill him.
– What?
Bom had not sensed through the puppets before he told them. How was Hasegawa able to deceive a dragon, the ‘owner of mana’, and create a falsified world?
– Hasegawa’s power does not come from mana.
A strength that had been received from the lord of the abyss – quite strangely, it had a deep connection with music.
– So if we really want to kill Hasegawa…
His flashback came to an end as Hasegawa lifted his head up.
The demon who had fainted after getting smacked on his head by Yu Jitae, glanced around the surroundings before turning to him with a crimson pair of eyes.
He then smiled with a precarious look.
“Not a bad atmosphere…”
They were now at a certain cathedral of Mongolia, which had been partially destroyed, and therefore abandoned, due to the horde of monsters that attacked straight after the Great War.
Underneath the half-crumbled ceiling of the building, there was a grand piano covered in dust.
Around 15 years from now, Hasegawa would be killing lots of humans at this place. Since it was a fitting end for him, Yu Jitae had brought Hasegawa to this place.
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“…Who knows.”
While carrying the killing intent in one hand, the Regressor slashed at Hasegawa’s left wrist.
“…!”
Due to the aftermath of [Dragon’s Voice], his physical body would not regenerate. It’s because he was made to forcibly belong to ‘Providence’.
As if to prove that, a crack appeared on Hasegawa’s face which had been full of leisure till now.
He predicted the future that would approach him.
“You…”
Ignoring his words, the Regressor cut off Hasegawa’s right hand as well.
“Kuaaaaaaak—!”
It wasn’t a scream rising from pain, or a sense of loss.
He would not die – Yu Jitae would not allow it.
He would not regenerate – it’s because his current physical body was in the jurisdiction of Providence.
Therefore, Hasegawa right now, was not able to play the piano ever again as a musician.
“T, this can’t be…!”
Wearing a clear smile, the Regressor opened his mouth.
“Play it.”
With a body that could no longer play the piano, the condition of his contract as a demon lost its light. The first one to react in this situation wasn’t Yu Jitae, and nor was it Hasegawa.
“W, wait…”
The red aura slowly dispersed from Hasegawa’s eyes.
“Wa, wait! I can still play!”
Looking into nothingness, he screamed as if there was someone in the air above him.
“So what if I have no arms! I can still play the piano—!!!”
Hasegawa was abandoned by the lord of the abyss he had followed.
He was no longer able to regenerate, nor play the piano. And now that he was unable to die as well, Hasegawa could not follow his contract.
But, even then, Hasegawa did not give up. Crazily, he screamed and blabbered on about how he could still perform music.
“Now– Amurbarka! Listen! Listen!! This was the first song I gave you while offering you my soul!”
And then, he started bashing on the keyboard with his arms that had no fingers, and smacked his head down on the keyboard. A lump of random notes in an uneven rhythm continued.
Blood oozed out from his body, that had lost support from the demonic aura of the abyss, and painted the piano in red.
Yu Jitae did not find Hasegawa to be pitiful. Emotionlessly, he watched the final end of the half-assed devil.
A stage which no-one would ever listen to, and a melody running astray flowed through the night.
But it did not continue for long.
Leaving behind the cathedral burning in black flames, the Regressor turned his body.