Black Victory (3)
Emotion Sickness case, number 4-312.
In the low mountain range surrounding Tormia's royal castle, a vicious monster lived.
"Huff! Huff!"
A monster called human.
"It hurts. It hurts—I'm going crazy."
Richela the murderer had abducted and killed twenty-three women over four years—a heinous criminal.
But even he, who had driven so many into suffering, could not bear his own pain.
"Arghhh!"
The moment his foot caught on a rock, a shock like his toe bones being crushed surged through him.
"It hurts! Damn it!"
At mid-stage Emotion Sickness, pain could reach as much as two hundred times normal.
If he gave up what he loved, he might be able to postpone the agony for a while…but—
"Sob! Sob!"
All that remained for him, weeping, was his own body.
'I'm hungry.'
Hunger, too, felt two hundred times worse, but he couldn't descend to the city under martial law.
He crawled up the mountain and slipped into the cave that was his hideout.
"Please… help me… I beg you…"
The last emergency ration, designated food, trembled, bound in rope.
"Shut up."
The blade clutched in the stump where his fingers had been severed ended the hostage's life.
Any pleasure from killing had long since vanished.
"Eat. I have to eat something…"
As he bit into flesh and let hot blood pass into his starving stomach—
"Gyaaaah!"
His throat felt like it was on fire.
A memory flashed of having given up human flesh to endure the early stage of Emotion Sickness.
"No, no!"
Feeling pain was proof he still loved human flesh; if that was true, the sickness's threshold would surge.
"Uaaah! It hurts! Please stop!"
His screams rolled through the cave, echoing like drills against eardrums.
"Eek! Eek!"
The pain exceeded his endurance; he gripped the knife and sank to his knees.
'Rather…'
The tip of the blade at his throat trembled, then hot tears streamed down.
"I don't want to die."
Being indifferent to other lives didn't make his own life worthless.
"Huff! Huff! You bastards! I'll kill you all!"
Richela brought the knife down to his remaining finger joints and snapped them off like a guillotine.
....
The pain was so intense that he could no longer even scream; his head lifted, then a howl tore out of him.
"Arghhh!"
But the Emotion Sickness did not vanish.
He was already so deep into the severe mid-stage that losing a single finger could not return him to incubation.
"I don't want to die!"
One joint, then another—Richela repeated the brutal self-mutilation.
"Arghhh!"
Three days later, the World Health Organization, with the cooperation of the Tormia patrol, collected the body.
When Seriel examined it, she said Richela's corpse was too grotesque to look at with open eyes.
A scream burst from Son Yujeong's mouth as she was flung off the lunar surface and plunged toward the planet.
"Gyaaaah!"
Anger made Son Yujeong's face so feral she resembled a monkey rather than a human.
Nane looked down from the moon and gave a faint smile.
"Go and attain enlightenment."
As Son Yujeong entered the atmosphere, her body flared like a match and ignited.
Her clothes began to singe.
"I'll kill you! If you save my friend, I'll come back and kill you!"
She had meant to go to Hell in the first place, but the fight with the Buddha had left her reeling.
Nane wiped the blood from his mouth.
"You still haven't come to your senses."
He shook his head and turned away, and a flame lit in Son Yujeong's eyes.
"You…."
Kukukukukuku!
At that moment the sky changed, the blue overlapped with clouds of flame.
"Hell."
The sermon-sword planted in her chest shattered like glass, and a golden band fastened around her neck.
"Krrrgh!"
From a distance, Son Yujeong falling kilometers looked like a meteor.
Kraaaaang!
Residents who heard the roar saw a sudden blaze on the horizon.
"Owww."
Lying face-up at the crater's center, Son Yujeong couldn't move a finger.
'Buddha. That bastard.'
The shockwave was enormous—even the stone-monkey avatar, famed for supreme endurance, could not withstand it.
'I want to fight again.'
As that thought crossed her mind, a human head poked up over the crater rim.
"People. They're people."
It was Richela's demon—the one that had died in the real world.
When Son Yujeong looked up, a group had appeared behind Richela.
Someone whistled.
"What's with the fashion?"
A naked woman wore only a single golden ring on a thin neck.
With a single strand of hair she could have made clothes, but raw instinct carried no shame. Only the faint pressure of familiar metal against her throat grated on her.
'This damned Buddha bastard! Why is he screwing with me again!? What did I even do to deserve this!' — Go and attain enlightenment.
Among the group, the biggest man kicked Richela in the butt.
"What are you doing? Hurry up and come down."
"Eek!"
Richela tumbled down the slope, and the onlookers burst into laughter.
"Hahaha! You dumbass."
Face in the dirt, Richela clenched his fists and swallowed his rage.
'Calm down.'
Even Richela, who had been called a monster in the real world, was a docile lamb among these far greater monsters.
'If I pick a fight with them, I'll suffer something horrific. I might even be killed—not in any ordinary way.'
He had seen what happened to a thug who crossed his seniors—limbs cut off, crawling for three hundred years.
"Hey, pretty lady. Want a little help from us?"
Before the sentence finished, Son Yujeong kicked up both feet, did a tumble, and landed in a sitting pose that carried no human dignity.
"You all look ugly. I'm not in a good mood—let's just fight. If you win, I'll do anything."
A hush fell.
"Heh, fun woman. So where—"
Before the words finished, her thighs bulged and split along the lines of muscle.
"What the—?"
Before anyone could react, her body shot forward like an arrow and crushed a man's skull.
"One down."
Shirone pointed ahead.
"That's Raviette."
A city far larger than any other structure on the horizon came into view.
"A city of arcane engineering. It's enormous."
"Mm. Hell's society is broadly divided into two: the military and internal administration. Most of the demonkind who invaded the human world are soldiers. Of course the supreme commander is Satan."
"Then internal administration is different?"
"No. Satan's power is absolute. It's just that on the practical side there's not much for him to do, so the nobles of the Otherworld's internal administration govern its territories." Shirone spread his hand.
"Barons, viscounts, counts, marquises, dukes—each rules a larger domain. Among them, a duke who governs a capital-level city is called a grand duke."
"So Raviette is—?"
"It's a grand duchy ruled by a demon named Magrite. As far as I know, his arcane engineering is the best in the Otherworld. People say there's nothing about the craft he doesn't know."
Rian felt a sense of unease.
"Strange to hear you praise demons."
Shirone was only stating facts; it wasn't praise, but Rian's reaction made sense.
"It's different from Hell's army, I suppose. Those guys invaded us, after all. The residents here are just living under a different system; they have lives in this hellish society."
Shirone continued.
"Of course that doesn't make them good. They're demons. But Grand Duke Magrite understands Hell best, so we might get information about Gehenna's chains from him."
"If it's because of me, that's fine. It's my burden—I'll bear it. But…"
Rian looked up at the sky.
"It's getting dark soon."
Just as water in reality evaporates into clouds, here the sky was formed by hellfire rising.
When night falls the flames scatter, and what follows is a terrible cold.
"Resting in the city for a day might be good. If we overdo it, our mental strength could be affected."
Shirone worried.
As the two quickened their pace toward Raviette, Rian asked again.
"But what is arcane engineering? We haven't really seen any machinery on the way here."
"You saw the Wailing Wall, right? The logic of the Otherworld differs from reality. Different forms—like card games and chess—mean different systems. To be blunt, there is engineering here too. But…"
Shirone hesitated.
"You probably won't like it. Maybe."
When they reached Raviette's gate, Rian understood what Shirone meant.
"What is this?"
A massive barrier similar to the one at the Wailing Wall encircled the city.
"Gatekeeper, humans have arrived."
But this one was far more standardized; the faces stamped into its pattern looked machine-made and uniform.
Rian felt dizzy at the sight of the arch—shaped like a certain human organ.
'Disgusting.'
On either side of the gate, withered legs were bent into place as ornamentation.
'Still over ten meters. Are these really humans?'
Arms wrapped around the arch, and at its center a wizened old woman's face sat with closed eyes.
'From a distance it looked like an old person crouching, clutching their head. But the way the limbs were arranged—as if severed and positioned apart—was profoundly disturbing.'
"Yahweh."
The gatekeepers, recognizing it with demon instinct, leveled spears and lowered their voices.
"How dare you come here? Piss off. Get out now before we gut you."
"We're on our way to the Pyrotechnics Guild, and we have business with your lord, Magrite."
"Kukuku."
A scoffing laugh.
"So what? Who asked? I don't get it—regardless of your reasons, you can't enter."
"We can enter."
The gatekeepers' shoulders twitched.
"There are no small forces in Hell—that's Satan's doctrine, isn't it? I'd rather send you away quietly than break you by force."
"Kuh!"
No matter what, if Yahweh clashed with them, Raviette would be the one to suffer.
'My role is to minimize damage to the city. Let them through and follow orders from above later.'
That there was life here—this separated the Otherworld's residents from Hell's military.
"Open the gate."
The old woman's tiny face at the arch's center snapped her eyes open and bared her gums.
"Kroaaaar!"
Her arms came down like clock hands and began to pry the gate's fingers apart.
The image of the arch tearing at its own body made Rian's brow crease.
"Kroaaaar! Gaaaah!"
Flesh split; dark red blood gushed clumsily through the gap in the gate.
Grasping the fingers, the arms pulled left and right, and the gate yawned open with a cracking sound.
A gatekeeper spoke.
"There are no small forces in Hell." Either everyone is an enemy, or no one is.
"But Yahweh—you're the exception. You won't be treated kindly even inside."
"...Let's go, Rian."
Shirone walked on calmly. Rian followed, wearing a bitter smile.
"Now I really feel it."
He finally grasped where he had fallen.