Chapter 113: Demon Floetta (5)
The Spero crew was thrown into confusion at the sight of their jesting comrade disappearing in an instant. It was an unprecedented situation for them.
A comrade vanishing out of nowhere?
Calix urgently turned to Sercia.
“Sercia, was that magic just now?”
“…Hold on. Let me check.”
Sercia’s face was visibly flustered. Her pale purple eyes scanned the spot where Gale had been, meticulously analyzing it.
She was likely examining the magical residue left behind.
“At first glance, it seems like magic, but… it’s somehow not quite magic?”
Sercia covered her mouth with her hand, bewildered. Her pupils shook violently.
“How is this possible? No, how can it be? It’s different from the basic formulas and structures of magic! Can magic be condensed and manifested without the Magia formula?”
Muttering rapidly to herself, Sercia drew a frown from Calix, who looked displeased.
“Stop spouting gibberish and explain. What’s going on…!”
Just as Calix, unable to hold back, was about to press Sercia—
Whooosh—!
A portal-like rift, tinged with dark crimson energy, appeared just like when Gale vanished, and something dropped out.
“You…!!”
“Mr. Gale?!”
It was Gale, groaning and writhing. Had he been tortured in the brief time he was abducted?
Concerned, they moved to check on him, but—
“No!”
Elwin suddenly shouted like a thunderbolt.
His voice, laced with faint shock, suggested he’d realized something urgent.
“That’s not Gale! That person is…!!”
Even while unconscious, he seemed to retain some awareness, groaning and drenched in cold sweat.
Unlike before, a black Deadman’s Flower was tucked behind his ear, and a bright yellow one was pinned to his chest.
“It’s Mr. Nero!!!”
---
“Urgh?”
Gale, abruptly dragged to a strange place, blinked dumbly.
A dark, musty place with no light.
“Achoo!”
Dust swirled as if the place had been abandoned for centuries.
“Where the heck am I?”
He tried to move his limbs instinctively, but only the clanking of chains echoed.
That’s when Gale realized his limbs were tightly bound.
“Huh.”
Displayed in an ‘X’ shape, no less.
‘I’m not some slab of meat in a butcher shop.’
“Kidnapping, huh.”
A quick glance at his surroundings and condition allowed Gale to grasp the situation.
“Hey~ Come out here, will ya?”
He let out a short chuckle before speaking in a lackadaisical tone.
“Kidnapping a broke, scruffy guy like me to a gloomy place like this… The culprit must be one idle bastard. With nothing better to do, you’ve been watching me from the shadows, haven’t ya? All creepy-like.”
Of course, he didn’t actually believe that. He was provoking the unknown culprit who’d brought him here.
Though Gale usually acted slick and easygoing, his true nature wasn’t so docile.
“Hey? Answer me, will ya?”
Gale had a rebellious streak, a tendency to resist any situation or person trying to suppress or control him.
Honestly, it wasn’t his turn to be lectured by Elwin.
“What, you deaf? Can’t even talk properly? Never learned to read or write? My bad~ Guess you never got a proper upbringing either!”
With no trace of remorse, Gale taunted snidely.
Elwin once said his mouth could float even if he were thrown into water, and that mouth was now in full swing.
“Hi, hi! You’re awake?”
A bouncy presence approached.
“I’m Floetta! Nice to meet you! As expected! Seeing you in person is way better than that fake disguise!”
A stunning woman with crimson hair, wearing a dress like red petals.
“And to answer your questions… My ears are still working fine! I think I speak pretty well too! Heehee!”
“Huh?”
“Writing… yeah, I can’t do that. Oh well.”
The crimson-haired woman grumbled about something incoherent: ‘The world changed, and so did the writing. They gave me the privilege of speech as a dimension traveler, but… they could’ve at least given me literacy too.’
“Lastly! I’ve never had a proper upbringing! Don’t know my dad, and my mom abandoned me!”
“…”
“Amazing—! How’d you know?!”
One new piece of information: the kidnapper was absurdly cheerful.
“So, like, I almost died without a trace! The Azure Hunter… ugh! I didn’t know there were monsters like Imrasu here. I was so scared all this time…!!”
Gale wasn’t the least bit curious, but the woman rambled on with a beaming smile.
Yet, as a storyteller, her tales lacked coherence, jumping between topics and timelines without context.
As if she hadn’t spoken to or been listened to by anyone in a long time.
Rustle.
“Hm?”
Suddenly, she checked a sandglass on the floor and stood up without hesitation. The sand had fully settled.
“Whoops! I was having so much fun I lost track of time? What a shame! Time’s up.”
“…Huh?”
The woman folded her spiderweb-like eyes into a pretty smile.
Floetta and Gale’s eyes met. Red and blue eyes locked, peering into each other’s depths.
“Did you think I was just blabbering for no reason? No way! I have zero interest in you!”
A chill ran down Gale’s spine. Her eyes were filled with blind fanaticism.
The eyes of someone who worshipped another.
“…Then why kidnap me? Weren’t you interested in me?”
Every human action has a reason, a purpose.
If not interest in Gale, then at least some use for him should’ve prompted the kidnapping, right?
“Hm? Do I need to know about you? Why bother?”
But Floetta tilted her head innocently, as if she had no such intent.
“The one I know and care about isn’t you.”
“Then why the hell did you kidnap me!”
“Because it’s not you…”
Floetta playfully poked Gale’s chest with a long finger.
“…It’s the One inside you that I wanted to meet!”
Suddenly, Floetta grabbed his collar. The distance between Gale and Floetta closed instantly.
Close enough for their breaths to mingle.
“When I saw you on the Viewing Orb in that city I stumbled into… how overjoyed I was!”
Floetta’s smile stretched wide. Her eyes, gleaming with madness and ecstasy, traced an elegant curve.
The LAMPAS Hunter Exam, the third practical test, was broadcast worldwide.
LAMPASians were always intensely interested in the Hunter Exam, passionately invested in its outcomes each year.
In cities of any notable size, massive Viewing Orbs were set up in plazas.
The World Hunter Association then manipulated these orbs worldwide to broadcast the exam in real-time.
—This year’s hunter candidates seem pretty skilled, huh?
—Wonder how many will make it as hunters this time!
Amid the chattering crowd, Floetta’s gaze fixed on one spot.
In the footage, a man with ash-gray hair. Gale Garav.
—Ah, aahhh!
Floetta knew. Even without meeting face-to-face, she knew.
‘It’s Him.’
My joy, my breath, my garden!
—My everything!
He must have crossed into this world too!
But He had been careless, trapped within that human by some vile force.
—What a powerful seal! To so mercilessly suppress His freedom!
Had she not been the sixteenth ‘Apostle,’ she might never have realized!
—Poor One! How stifled He must feel inside that human!
As an Apostle, Floetta had a duty to liberate our great One.
Now was that moment!
“I’ll apologize in advance. Vessel, you’ll probably die!”
…Vessel?
“No, no! It’s a noble act to restore His freedom, so be grateful! Die with gratitude!”
“What?! What nonsense… urgh!”
But Gale had no time to question or protest. The next moment, their tongues intertwined.
“Mmph!”
Gale resisted fiercely, but bound as he was, it was futile.
Through their joined mouths, a sinister, malevolent energy seeped into Gale.
It felt like flowers blooming inside his mouth, a ticklish sensation.
Like petals slowly burrowing into him… his breath, faltered.
Gale felt his consciousness sinking.
—So it’s you? The human He said He brought here. He treasures you dearly, doesn’t He?
In the final moment as his consciousness faded, a voice reached his ears.
—Human friend, what’s your name?
It was… Gale’s own voice.
---
Meanwhile, Hake and Zeraphe were escaping the Depicio hideout with the Gnaude tribe children.
“Hurry!”
“Zeraphe! Can’t you go any faster?!”
“Damn it! This is max speed—!”
Using Zeraphe’s abilities to their fullest, they moved through the underground.
Knowing the Gnaude tribe adults had been taken by some woman—likely a Depicio collaborator—they judged it best to evacuate the children first.
“…!! What the?!!”
But then, Zeraphe, who had been tirelessly manipulating tree roots to dig through the earth, cried out in shock.
He gathered all the moving roots to form a protective barrier.
“Kyaa!”
“Mommy—!”
“Argh! Hey, what are you doing!? Can’t you drive safely?!”
The sudden jolt shook the wooden platform carrying Hake and the children.
Hake reflexively scolded Zeraphe, but as a skilled operative himself, he quickly sensed something amiss.
“Ugh. So loud…!”
BOOM! BAM!
They were under attack!
‘…How did they know we’re underground?’
The relentless whirlwind raging above ground drowned out most sounds.
Moving underground in this ‘closed’ space fulfilled the conditions for Hake to activate his unique magic, ‘Daydream.’
It briefly stole one second of perception from those above, masking their presence.
Zeraphe alone might’ve gone unnoticed, but moving with Hake and the children en masse would’ve surely been detected.
‘So how?!’
Hake’s question was soon answered.
“…Sorry. This is my limit!”
Zeraphe grimaced as the attacker’s roots kept luring his own toward the surface.
Alone, he might’ve managed, but with the children behind him, he couldn’t cope further.
Whoosh!
Finally, Zeraphe used spare roots as a foothold to surge upward. The cold surface air brushed against his face.
And before them appeared a familiar man, standing silently.
“Well, well, some very welcome faces.”
The leader of Depicio, the Mountain Elder.