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Chapter 51
🕑 Added 2025-08-15 16:32:41 +0000 UTCNo bounded fields. No traps. No hidden security.
This 'capo' person we were supposed to meet was either very confident, or very naive. I was inclined towards the former. As an organisation with magi among their ranks, I doubted he or she became a head without any strength to boast.
That said, it really did warrant a certain level of caution that these people were aligned WITH the church instead of against it for that very fact. The Mage's Association and the Holy Church had a very long, and a very bloody history. The only reason their never-ending conflict was slow right now was because they'd crippled each other during the last major confrontation some decades ago.
How were these people freely enlisting and aiding magi then?
I shook my head, pushing away those thoughts. If things turned sour, I was just going to resort to my usual answer to this society's such predicaments. That was, violence. Copious amounts of violence.
Inside the empty warehouse, a single person awaited us. And, truly, the moment I laid eyes on him, I realised why there was no need for security.
My hair stood on end.
My breath hitched.
My words caught in my throat.
Every single part of my body screamed at me to rip out his throat and his heart, to kill that man right there and then, even though he had done nothing to me at all.
A seemingly professional man in his 30s or some such, with blonde hair combed neatly to the back and detached yellow eyes framed by a set of round aviators. He wore a lined black suit, and his hands were tucked behind his back.
But, what stood out was that face. That utterly detached look. That gaze that didn't recognise anyone as 'anything' at all. It was worse than any magus I'd ever encountered.
"You are going to attack me?" He spoke with an inhuman voice, distant and dry.
Calmly, he brought a hand to his chest.
Caren suddenly locked my hand in an iron grip and yanked it roughly, forcibly pulling me from my strange stupour. She gave me a glare, and a nod.
"I'll help."
Well... if even the priest decided she wasn't going to be against what I was thinking about, then there really was something fucked up about him. Cautiously, I raised two fingers.
"I'd rather not for the memories Executors bring up within me, but I will." He said, straightening his collar. "Bazdilot Cordelion. My boss wishes to remain amiable with the Holy Church. Do not force my hand."
The confidence was insane, but honestly, yeah, I saw where it came from.
I lowered my hand. "Spit it out then, I guess. Where's our target?"
"At 6 pm every day, he sits in the Manhattan Park, feeding pigeons. Without fail. I do not know what his intentions are but he has killed two dozen people since moving here. He is yours, and we... want him gone. Or I will do it myself."
From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to punch myself in the fucking face for being afraid of him within a second of our meeting. But, I pushed down that sentiment, and the disgust that came with it too as I turned to leave.
Our target awaited us. Sancraid Phahn. A serial mass murderer. A former Executor sentenced to death for loving murder to a sickening degree. Honestly, the intel on him made me think he did his job as their hunting dog and when they didn't need him anymore, the Holy Church abandoned him. Whatever the case was, he was just the kind of person I'd feel no remorse over.
Bazdilot didn't speak further. Instead, he wandered over to a side door with slow steps, hands behind his back. Abruptly, he punched through the sheet metal wall and ripped... a person through? It was a trembling man in a beige trench coat, clutching a... camera?
A very cliche detective, judging by the smell of beer and the unkempt stubble. The man futilely struggled against his grip, punching and kicking as he was raised into the air by the skull.
"Apologies." Bazdilot offered. "The Department of Justice has been a growing nuisance as of late. I only came here to meet our leader and they've already... It doesn't concern you."
As he spoke, the mafioso put more and more strength into his grip, and I saw the man's eyes bulge out of his skull. He fully intended to crush his head, I realised. That shit was about to explode like a watermelon.
What the hell kind of menace was this man that the literal DoJ had someone tailing him?
"I-...I have a daughter! Please!"
"Perhaps you should've thought of that before following me."
Honestly, I shouldn't have really cared. This sort of thing was very normal among magi. Yes, I really shouldn't have cared.
Yet, I felt as if I'd lose something important to me if I-
"Caren..." I glanced at my partner.
Maybe she'd have something to stop me from the absolutely idiotic course of action I was about to take for a stranger.
Instead, she looked at me with those dead eyes of hers and then nodded.
That was enough.
I proceeded to do the dumbest thing ever.
"Yo lil bro!" I shouted suddenly, shoving down the alarms my instincts were raising. For each warning, I grinned further and further, "What's with that corny ass line?! 'PerHAps yOU shOUld'VE thOUGHt oF thAt befFORE'? The fuck are you? Ten? Grown ass man."
Caren smiled. I didn't even know she could. "Look at him. Grown ass man, indeed. Dear Lord, please make this man grow the hell up."
Bazdilot tilted his head, face betraying no emotion whatsoever as I raised two fingers. Mana swirled, and the world shifted.
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue."
Negative space spilled into the real world, space rushed to fill abnormality and all distorted following the massive blue orb I lopped his way. It ripped asunder the very earth, tore the very air, and even Bazdilot had the intelligence to-... The fucker remorselessly tossed his hostage at the blue orb instead.
I dismissed the technique immediately and covered the distance between us via Raven Flight, grabbing the man by his collar before tossing him aside.
"What is the meaning of this?"
I pocketed my Mystic Eye Killers.
"Exactly what it looks like."
"Those lines went out of fashion two decades ago, along with your kind of villain. Get outta here."
Bazdilot narrowed his eyes and just... blipped. One moment, he was standing a hundred or so meters away from me. The next, his fist was inches from my face and rapidly covering even that meagre distance.
It wasn't that I couldn't see him coming, no, it was difficult to miss anything with these eyes of mine, and while they weren't as geared towards analyzing everything at the level they did the flow of mana, it was enough that I saw him coming... The issue was, despite that, my body was nowhere NEAR fast enough to react to him.
In the time it took me to move a centimetre, he... well, his fist was definitely about to connect.
As I mentally prepared myself, he stopped. The sheer force from his movement kicked up a storm of dust and rapid air currents that almost blew out my eardrums. But, he did stop. He stopped and straightened his cuffs, fixing me with that same emotionless gaze he'd held since the very beginning.
"Killing you isn't worth the trouble."
I grinned, "Who said you'd be able to kill me?"
Confusion played across his eyes. As a kind and benevolent person, I answered him by gesturing downwards with my head, at the miniscule blue orb a hair's breadth away from his chest. The second it connected, it was gonna make the sort of hardcore love with his heart that even redditors would be awestruck by.
Blue functioned by distorting the very fabric of space, I sincerely doubted he was going to tank it point blank.
"...How?"
Yes, how indeed.
My body had no chance at keeping up with him. The same could not be said for my brain or the processing power it boasted when aided by my insane amount of magic circuits and my eyes.
The mafioso backed off calmly, and spoke with a glare. "You can keep him. I expect his memory of events to be altered. And... be certain, I will remember this."
"Yeah yeah," I scratched the back of my head. "I'll beat your ass again."
The people of this world really were a little too reasonable when it came to this stuff. I was genuinely expecting him to get pissy and die fighting or something along those lines. Instead, he'd decided to bide his time and get payback at a more ideal time. That said, I couldn't afford to murder him either solely for the fact that killing one of their leaders was going to actively make the Scladio hunt me down instead of just putting me on their naughty list.
Well, I was pretty sure I'd just made enemies of the New York mob in record time.
"Huh. I've outdone my usual record this time if I do say so myself."
"That's not... something you should be proud of." Caren deadpanned, crouched and... poking the unconscious detective in the back.
-
"Are you sure that was smart?"
Caren sat on the single bed, feet kicked up on the shitty side table that came with the shitty motel we'd found in Brooklyn. The only place close and disconnected enough for the purposes of our task in this city.
Unlike the near-exorbitant Brooklyn I remembered as William, this part of the city was pretty cheap at this point in time and the people minded their own business a lot more. On top of that, it was the only place that didn't give me weird stares for being with the weird church girl and was willing to ignore the absolutely vile shit she randomly spouted as easily as she breathed.
The silence came at a cost though.
The small room was cluttered, there was barely any distance between the attached kitchen and the bathroom... with the bed also having a direct view of the latter, tucked under a cracked window with broken shutters. The dry wall was marked with blots and large stains from only God knew what, and the people in the room next to us were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs, something about child support or whatever.
The window gave a glorious view of... another even shabbier room in a hotel across the road littered with homeless people and crackheads.
"Ah, glorious New York. I love you."
I took a deep breath, inhaling vehicle smoke and the nasty of stench things that were not to be named, hands held out to the sides.
"...If you love this place, I dread to think what you make your family suffer through in place of a home."
I put a hand to my chin. "Huh. You're right. We should probably move out of Norwich."
"Again, was it really smart to antagonise the Scladio Family for a stranger?" She returned to her earlier question. "They have... influence. Influence that could be dangerous for you."
"Dear Caren, I'm not particularly known for being smart about how I approach established power dynamics."
Her lips curved into a barebones smile. "Really? I couldn't tell at all by the way you threw a tantrum. Why would you go so far for someone you didn't even bother asking for a name? Aren't you supposed to be a magus? This should've been nothing."
I pulled my gaze away from two crackheads engaged in mortal combat to eyeball the priestess. Why had I done that anyway? It was of no advantage to myself, accomplished nothing, and made me an enemy of someone who'd genuinely scared me with mere presence.
"When someone scares me, I attack them."
"Are you a badger?"
I chuckled and gave her an honest answer. "I admit I don't really know, just felt like it."
"I guess... I expected too much from a person that thinks crayons are edible."
"Don't act like you didn't help me with it."
"I-... never said that was a bad thing..." She lowered her gaze.
Like a true man, I did the manliest of things... I put both hands on my cheeks and squirmed.
"Oooh? Are you touched by my heroism? Enthralled? Getting butterflies and falling in love like a maiden? Well, I apologise, I'm taken~"
She threw a pillow in my face.
"You did a stupid thing. Nothing about you is admirable. In fact, I truly pity the one who got stuck with you. I pray the Lord gives her strength."
"Why are you deflecting me with insults if it really doesn't matter? Hahahaha..."
I pointed and laughed.
"MAN SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU GAY BITCH! I'M TRYNA GET SOME SLEEP OVA' 'ERE!"
...
...
Why did every place I went to have one of these people?
-
Hope you enjoyed.
