Crack!
Blue-white lightning streaked across the sky.
"Colin!"
Holt descended from the sky amidst the wind and rain, his expression grave.
He scrutinized Colin carefully and, seeing that he appeared unharmed, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"You're okay?" he still asked.
"I am," Colin shook his head, his face very pale. The rain soaked his hair and dripped down his fair face, making him look somewhat haggard.
He glanced again at the mess of yellow, white, and red flesh to his front left, feeling a surge of nausea.
Tentacles within the pulp were still trembling as if they were alive.
This was all that remained of Catherine.
Just moments ago, he had been contemplating how to break through Catherine's defenses when she suddenly transformed.
Catherine's entire body swelled like an inflated ball, her dark red skin marked with countless light yellow pus-filled bumps like those of a toad.
Of course, what shocked Colin the most was the numerous slick tentacles that inexplicably sprouted from her body, thick and thin.
Then there was a loud bang, and flesh flew everywhere...
"Don't look that way; pay attention to your mental state!" Holt warned.
Colin was highly intuitive, but his soul was not strong, making him most susceptible to contamination by such bizarre entities.
He still remembered the first time he saw Colin, how he had been haunted by the radiation he had inadvertently leaked.
Heeding the warning, Colin shuddered slightly, nodding with some fear.
In this world, it was often best to neither see nor hear too many things... He had heard too many stories of contamination.
But soon, he reconsidered; he had seen such sights many times already... Apart from feeling disgusted, he had experienced no other sensations.
Yet he had not forgotten the incident when Holt had slightly leaked radiation that haunted him.
'It must be thanks to the Golden Four-leaf Clover,' he speculated silently.
Then he raised his head and asked Holt with a puzzled expression,
"Captain, how did you happen to come here?"
Holt began to explain:
"After you left, it wasn't long before I went to find Catherine... But when I got to Catherine's residence, there was no living person there.
Moreover, 'Detect Evil' indicated a strong presence of evil there."
"So I followed the evil presence all the way here, just in time to see Catherine turn into a pool of flesh... This must be contamination by the Evil God!"
Holt's face grew solemn, and then he patted Colin's shoulder, sighing,
"Thank goodness you're alright. This time, it was my oversight that failed to detect the abnormality in Catherine."
He was truly apologetic; many had already died. If his negligence had led to Colin's death as well, he might not face severe punishment, but he would have still felt some remorse.
Moreover, he once again felt foolish for his previous narrow judgment.
'When did my thinking become so rigid?'
'...It's not the first time… Why couldn't Catherine just let Orlando and his three men die under the falling rocks? And why couldn't Colin tell the whole truth?'
"Don't underestimate others…" he cautioned himself inwardly.
Judging from the battle traces at the scene, both Catherine and Colin were much stronger than he had imagined.
Especially someone like Catherine, a Polluter, who was usually either very weak or, due to bizarre contamination, very strong.
Catherine was clearly the latter, and Colin, being able to fight her and remain unscathed, was certainly no weakling.
Had there not been similar cases before?
During the Second Class Apprentice period, spending too much time practicing witchcraft often led to slow progress. But once advanced, their strength was usually formidable.
He thought of Colin's exceptionally strong Defensive Witchcraft... Perhaps it was precisely because Colin had practiced this witchcraft that his promotion had been so delayed.
Understanding dawned on Holt; he glanced at Colin beside him and said:
"If you have no other matters, you should head back first."
"This matter involves the Evil God, I need to report it to Wizard Lap."
"Yes," Colin nodded solemnly, taking a slight step to the side.
The rain poured down heavily, and the collected water washed Catherine's remains away, spreading the blood to his feet.
Holt noticed this and frowned with a thought.
Immediately, the scattered remains and blood were covered by a semi-circular transparent protective shield. The water on the ground and the rain from the sky were all blocked out.
After doing this, he continued to urge Colin.
"Alright, you should head back and rest... um, remember to come for your shift in West City tonight."
"...Yes."
"We need to work a bit harder recently, after all, seven Second Class Apprentices have died, and we're short-staffed for night duty in West City," Holt explained and comforted, then added, "This situation shouldn't last too long. Lord Red Flame has already reported this incident to Wizard Lap."
Holt glanced at the distance, and then said somewhat meaningfully,
"...Perhaps, in a while, there will be significant changes in West City."
Colin was puzzled, but Holt just shook his head.
"Then I'll be going," he reluctantly bade farewell to Holt and turned to leave.
As he was leaving, Colin inadvertently glanced into the distance.
The curtain-like rainstorm blurred everything, making it unclear, but there seemed to be no one there.
Looking at Holt again, he seemed not to have noticed anything unusual.
'Perhaps it's just my imagination?'
Colin stopped pondering and turned to hurry home.
...
In the distance, under the eaves,
The black-robed Wizard sighed and said,
"Let's go, there's nothing to see here, and we can't resolve Holt instantly... Hurry back and report to the master."
"Ah, that's the only option, luckily Bekeley had some brains to use a flesh and blood curse..." his companion also sighed.
The figures of the two gradually disappeared in the rain.
The rain pattered down, forming long columns that hit the eaves, splashing large water droplets that then slid down the corner of the eaves, merging with the puddles on the ground.
Tap, tap, tap—
Barely audible footsteps came.
Colin slowly walked out from around the corner of the house, scanning his surroundings.
'The place I felt the gaze just now is right here.'
He had intended to go straight home.
But as he walked, the more he thought about it, the more he felt that the sense of being watched wasn't just his imagination.
The Golden Four-leaf Clover gave him extremely sharp senses.
Even if Holt didn't seem to have noticed, he shouldn't doubt his own senses.
After all, theoretically, his senses might now be stronger than Holt's, so being more sensitive was quite normal.
So, he took a detour, planning to investigate a bit.
Just to be safe, he first secretly spied from a distance, and after confirming no one was around, he walked over.
Now it seemed there were no traces here... perhaps they were there before, but the heavy rain had destroyed them.
But more likely, the observer here had just been an ordinary passerby.
He carefully observed the surroundings once more, and after finding nothing, he decided not to think further.
However, just to be safe, he planned to mention this later to Captain Holt.