When he realized Phasis wasn’t calling him, McGillis used astral projection to fly to the brothel.
“Tonight, petting won’t suffice!”
Rayos, in his astral body, was furious with the attitude of the referral office director (Guild Master) and the other guild leaders. He felt he had no choice but to take his anger out on the brothel girls with lewd acts.
He became worried that the brothel girls were in danger.
“Ngh!”
Adventurers who had escaped their forced requests and were living their usual lives had been forcibly drafted into a subjugation force. They barely returned to town alive from a horde of monsters. Not only were they not being worried about, but they were also being hit with exorbitant penalty fees. They were getting bashed by the guards and soldiers. Rayos saw such a group of miserable adventurers arguing in front of the brothel. Thinking it couldn’t be true, he went to the brothel’s playroom. His worst fears were confirmed. Not a single customer had entered the establishment. The girls were idle, either by the sidelines or in the back room behind the counter. The concierge was annoyed by the commotion outside the shop but was checking the sales in the ledger to ensure no sparks would fly their way.
“Ngnngh…”
This made Rayos even more displeased. He had come to vent his frustration, but there was no situation to vent it on. If he were to attack the idle girls, it would cause a disturbance and reveal his own existence.
“Grrr, you just wait!”
While it was impossible for the adventurers squabbling in front of the shop to hear him, Rayos spat out a parting shot and flew out of town. It was past dinner time, the hour when the night was just beginning.
Rayos decided to attack the adventurers outside town as his target for venting.
“Where are they… Am I in the wrong direction?”
Unable to use magic in his incorporeal astral body, he couldn’t figure out where the adventurers he wanted to vent on were camping. He wished there was a campfire, but monsters were also drawn to them. Therefore, there was no light source on the ground.
“Irritated. Irritated…”
Rayos, veins bulging on his forehead, glared at any movement on the pitch-black ground.
“I’ll settle for monsters… Possession.”
Rayos possessed the ground. He focused his consciousness on the monsters moving on the surface and attacked the moment they came directly above him. He was like a mimic, a creature that disguised itself.
Mimics are monsters that disguise themselves as treasure chests in Labyrinths and Dungeons, preying on those who open them without caution. Their size ranges from a maximum of 60 centimeters to a minimum of 4 centimeters, depending on the size of the treasure chest. Their weight is unknown, depending on the size and material of the treasure chest. Their characteristics include disguising themselves as anything that an intelligent being can “open” or “unlock.” They can also remain in place for a very long time after catching a prey. When they grow, they emit a divine aura. They are like anglerfish, with treasure inside the box. They snap up prey attracted to the treasure. They are masters of space magic. Scholars have imitated space magic based on the way mimics move.
“It’s a hassle to find magic stones.”
“Kyuuuu—”
The unfortunate small monster was caught in Rayos’s pincer-like grip. Although it cried for help, nearby companions fled far away. With a gulp, Rayos widened his range of control, not wanting to let them escape, and drove the monsters trying to flee the area inward, slowly crushing them. This way, the magic stones would gather in the center, making collection somewhat easier.
“—!?!!”
The monsters, unable to use magic detection, were crushed while screaming in confusion at the bizarre crushing from the ground.
“Fuhahaha! Raise your voices louder, you weaklings!”
Rayos performed this massacre several times, feeling a little better. He decided to return to the inn and pulled himself up. He formed the ground into a spherical shape, attached magic stones to its surface, and lifted it. The sphere flew towards the town, blending in with the shining stars in the night sky. Those who saw the magic stones (like grains of sand) stuck to the surface, unaware of the monsters’ dying screams, would say,
“Ah, a shooting star!”
“Are you going to make a wish for it?”
and smile fondly. If customers didn’t come to the brothel tomorrow, they might see shooting stars like today’s. The monsters in the hunting grounds specified by the referral office would decrease, and the danger to the town would lessen. For the adventurers, their income would decrease, and for the guards, the scale of battles would decrease. If it were unknown, the monsters would be scarce. Rayos still didn’t realize that in the residents of this world, beings in an astral body—ghosts and souls—existed, other than undead. Phasis, an accomplice in his dream, was uncooperative. He had to improve that, but Rayos was solely focused on the pleasure of a woman’s body—the immediate gratification.
In the place where Rayos had departed, the remnants of souls who had transferred to this world together were constructing a single, distorted soul with the dispersed magic power of the monsters.
Hatred for life. Hatred for being killed unreasonably and unilaterally. Undead-like thoughts. It possessed a small monster as an evil spirit, gradually overwriting the small monster’s consciousness. Because the magic stone was small, its resistance was only at the beginning; afterwards, the soul invaded.
“Guh…”
The distorted soul-shaped, black mist body transformed. It had human legs and the front paws of a beast. The head was half human, half beast. Its movements were slow, but it gradually adjusted to its body, gaining movement performance far exceeding that of the small monster it once was.
“Gufufufu.”
Once it could move its body as it pleased, the next step was strengthening. It would kill other monsters, absorb their magic stones, and incarnate. It would evolve its existence into a medium-sized monster. For now, it was still black mist, with a clear outline, but unstable, prone to collapsing if blown upon. Once stable, it could kill the living. It could kill more and more. If it kept killing, it could reach the one it wanted to kill. The monster, hijacked by the distorted soul, was a revenger. These were the victims who were being torn apart by Rayos’s unreasonable artificial stone projectiles. Well, the spirits who had thrown and twisted into Rayos’s transfer array were the root cause. But the monster, now a revenger, didn’t care about that. Its goal was to kill the living, to keep on killing.
“Gao—nnn!”
