Chapter 75: Don’t Leave Me

I stood in a clearing, one I’d reached after winding through several gloomy alleys.

The only light source was a flickering, half-broken streetlight that no one maintained, in a space where the remains of a half-demolished house, covered in dirt and withered grass, lay abandoned.

I have no particular connection to this place.

I wasn’t here to wallow in melancholy, wishing to dissolve into the pitch-black night sky while wandering the dark back alleys.

Nor was I here to soak in joy, feeling the cool night air and reminiscing about the warmth of happy days.

I was simply here for a game—one I was once passionate about, but now only enjoyed occasionally.

“So, you’re seriously telling me we’re doing it in a place like this?”

A grating voice, like scraping metal.

The lighting was too dim to see his expression clearly, but I was face-to-face with a man who was undoubtedly wearing a vulgar smile.

I couldn’t tell his age.

He didn’t seem that old.

The man, who had followed me with vile expectations, seemed to get slightly angry when I didn’t respond, then his eyes widened in shock.

It was dark, but when I looked with my vision augmented by magic, his astonished face was perfectly clear.

Of course, he’d be surprised.

He must have been thrilled to be lured here by a charming, long-haired woman offering a cheap price, only for her eyes to suddenly turn crimson and for her to transform into the celebrity whose name appeared several times a day on TV, radio, and in newspapers.

Until this very moment, seeing her missing an arm, he would have just assumed she had some story and never suspected a thing.

Such vulgar creatures are rather unpleasant, but because they are more beast than human, they react in fun and lively ways when you cut off their limbs in a dark alley, and show you a beautiful expression as they die.

“Don’t scream.
Your voice is unpleasant to listen to.”

Truly, I have heard the voices of countless victims, but this man’s was the worst.

In a corner of these ruins, so barren that there were hardly any mosquitoes or flies, the man must have understood that no one would come to help even if he screamed, so he didn’t open his mouth.

Still, he might become a nuisance, so I should shut him up.

The man, his mouth gagged by a dark red mist extending from my right arm, now wore the face of a crying newborn.

While his voice was the worst, his expression was excellent.

I, too, found a smile forming on my face.

Ah, what a delight.

An exhilaration.

My spirit, my consciousness, my heart—I feel them floating up.

It was a pleasure I could no longer deny, a pleasure I had lost all reason to deny, flowing through my very being.

Perhaps because this was the first victim I’d sought out in a long time, it felt all the more special.

What should I do?

To deny the pleasure and end his life in an instant, as I had in the past, would be a waste, but there was no reason to prolong it.

I had to go back before it got too late.

The thought that Yujin’s feelings for me might be damaged in the slightest if I returned home late…

“Mph, mph…!”

Aah…

I clamp my left hand over my own mouth.

My hand is trembling.

Not even a scream escapes.

The man tries to cry out from the pain of his severed left arm, but the mass of magic gagging him only allows muffled sounds.

But whether he wanted to scream or shed tears no longer mattered.

Calm down.

She would worry about me.

Just like before.

Like that day I was hunted by the magical girls and barely escaped.

She would worry about me with pure sincerity.

She wouldn’t even ask why I was late, just embrace me and share her warmth.

Yes, she already knows everything, doesn’t she?

The stories of my past that were once a secret.

The trembling in my hand ceases, and my racing thoughts come to a gentle stop.

What a stable and sweet state of mind.

Driving out the unconscious, habitual, and irrational fear, I fill my mind with a clear love for her, and with her, and my trembling lips curve into a faint smile.

Once again steeped in bliss, I look back at the wretched man.

He is trembling convulsively, showing me a variety of expressions.

Thanks to a little manipulation of his blood flow, the bleeding from his severed arm has stopped, and it looks quite healthy.

Once I cut off his remaining limbs one by one, I would get to see every expression he was capable of making.

This will be quite amusing.

Thinking so, I created a blood-red blade, floated it in the air, and—

Hah,

The sound of a sharp intake of breath.

Faint.

So incredibly faint, a low breath that would have disappeared if mixed with the occasional breeze of the back alley.

But I definitely heard it.

There’s no way I misheard.

The anticipation of the coming pleasure shattered, and my consciousness instantly turned cold.

The sound came from deeper inside the alley, from the direction of a wall of an even more dilapidated building within the completely abandoned residential ruins.

Someone is here.

There is a person.

A witness.

They saw me.

My black-haired form, the form of Lee Seoa.

Someone other than the man about to die saw Lee Seoa become Sanguine Obsidia.

I was careless.

If this witness is a magical girl, if she escapes and takes that information to the Association, if it’s revealed that the person named Lee Seoa, who sometimes appears at the Community Support Center, the same Lee Seoa who has encountered magical girls, is Sanguine Obsidia, and if the Magical Girl Association’s reach extends to Ahn Yujin, the person by her side…

She drifts away from me.

She, she drifts away.

Her brown eyes, her smile, they melt away and vanish.

Perhaps forever.

Whether it would be under the pretext of saving her from the hands of a criminal, or punishing her as a suspected accomplice, I do not know, but she will be taken from me, regardless of my will.

Taken by the magical girls, by the state, by the world, by someone I do not know.

I must protect her.

No, that’s not it.

It’s not me protecting her.

She, she must be by my side.

In this peaceful daily life, she must stay with me, by my side.

She must be within my grasp.

Shhhhk—

A high-pitched sound cutting through the air.

By the time I registered the sound, my subconscious had already fired a blade in that direction.

My mind, bleached white, returns to focus, and my vision clears.

My eyes tremble, my gaze, stained by the night’s darkness, wavers.

My hands are shaking again.

Fear.

The fear I had postponed, the fear I had ignored to indulge in a peaceful, tranquil life by pushing the existence of the enemy known as the Magical Girl Association to the back of my mind, now seeps out from the depths of my nerves and infiltrates my fingertips.

“Tch.”

This time, with a clearly audible click of the tongue, a black shadow leaps up onto the wall that was destroyed by the blade of blood-red magic.

I glance sideways to confirm that the man’s neck has been severed by the blades shot in various directions, and then turn my gaze back to the black shadow.

A figure clad head-to-toe in black, the kind you’d imagine when thinking of a ‘ninja,’ standing as if melting into the pitch-black night sky.

And, a magical girl.

I hadn’t felt any presence just a moment ago, but now I can feel her drawing up her magic.

As I perceive this ninja-like magical girl’s power, the worst-case scenario invades my thoughts.

What if the Magical Girl Association already suspected a woman named Lee Seoa, a woman with an unclear history and origin?

What if they had been watching me, in a way I couldn’t even perceive, to get confirmation?

Or what if, from the very beginning, they knew Sanguine Obsidia’s true identity?

No.

That’s not it.

That can’t be.

Because that just doesn’t make sense.

I found my prey in a completely different neighborhood, at least 50 kilometers from my home, and not even in a bustling downtown area, but in a crumbling ruin.

And in a new place I’d never once visited.

So how on earth could the Magical Girl Association know and find me?

And if those idiots knew anything about ‘Lee Seoa,’ the police would have come to my house long ago.

A coincidence.

It has to be a coincidence.

Perhaps it was a mistake to come so far out of an abundance of caution because of all the recent noise about a new fallen magical girl committing serial murders.

I should have at least considered that patrols would be strengthened.

No, whether it’s a coincidence or not doesn’t matter.

I just have to kill that magical girl, like I always do, and bury her in the back of my memory.

In any case, killing that magical girl will solve the problem.

It’s not that uncommon for a magical girl to go missing after being attacked by a monster.

Seeing as Spooky is keeping his mouth shut, this must be the truly right, just, and perfect solution.

If I play my cards right, I might even be able to capture and interrogate her.

From the fingertips of my right hand, a mass of magic, I draw out threads of black magical power.

To prevent her from escaping, to keep the magical girl from getting away, I surround all directions with the threads, ready to close in and shred her to pieces in an instant.

“…An illusion?”

The silhouette, like a victim from an old slasher movie on TV, was sliced into dozens of pieces, then dissipated into the night sky, leaving behind a residue of magic instead of blood.

Tch, I click my tongue and kick off the ground, leaping up.

Focusing all my magic into my eyes, I search with enhanced vision.

I have to find her.

I can’t let her get away.

If she was a magical girl with the ability to return to headquarters the moment she spotted me, she would have fled already.

So she must be hiding in the back alleys, concealing herself as she runs.

Surely, from the spot where she just jumped, a place where she could hide would be…

“Found you.”

I shoot out dozens of spiked chains, destroying a wall covered in graffiti and vines.

I definitely felt the sensation of cutting.

The feeling of deeply slicing one of her legs.

“It’s no use running.
If you stop now, I’ll make it painless.”

Not that she would listen, but I speak provocatively.

The night air stills, and the dust settles quickly.

I see an illusion dissolving just like before.

But on the pavement and the wall, a clear trail of blood continues.

I leap up, stepping on concrete chunks and a diagonally collapsed utility pole.

The bloodstains are spattered intermittently on the ground, the walls, and the ruins of the rooftops.

I’m heading deeper and deeper.

Into the depths of a place destroyed 20 years ago and completely abandoned, a place without even the slightest trace of human life.

Slowly, the distance between the bloodstains narrows.

She must be having trouble moving due to blood loss, unable to even properly administer first aid.

It seems she’s trying her best to run as far as possible, but it’s useless.

If I just phase ahead one step, take my position in the clearing, and set a trap with these chains and blades…

“Over here.”

A low, whispering voice.

I heard it just as I was about to deploy my chains, and I carelessly turned to look in that direction,

And felt a hot sensation in my side, my arm, my leg.

It seems my opponent had the same idea.

From countless directions in the clearing, blades came flying towards me in the center.

I have no idea when or how she set them up, but sharp, shuriken-like objects fly in.

I spread the blood flowing from my wounds to block the second wave that flies in with a roar that tears through the air.

Just as I had destroyed her illusions time and again while chasing her, I tear apart the silhouette before me.

This too is an illusion.

That magical girl must have decided she couldn’t run any further.

So she set a trap here and prepared for a decisive battle.

Soon, with the blades I’ve prepared, woven from my power and that woman’s blood, I will slaughter the entire surrounding space, every place she could be hiding to launch a surprise attack, and victory will be mine.

Now, the blades and threads of magic—

“Ah…?”

An impact from behind.

My stomach, it’s hot.

So incredibly hot.

The memory of that night, the night I was chased and hunted by the magical girls, the memory of the pain that tore my body apart, comes rushing back.

I lower my gaze to see a long blade protruding vertically from my abdomen, and from where it emerged, a warm, vivid stream of blood gushed out.