Chương 118: Once Again, Familiar Patterns...

The man-goat bled profusely as he twisted the blade in his own wound, his face contorting in agony as a large portion of the carpet was incinerated. The circle the beastfolk had activated was at least three times as large as the previous one–I could just smell how expensive that particular one had been to set up, that was definitely the best he had prepared… Though I don't understand what he saw with his glowing eyes that suddenly made him panic so strongly.

"Be afraid! Very afraid! This array can summon a greater devil, so you better-" The array was shining brightly, but it could begin to manifest a silhouette. I broke through a few barriers, allowing me to get close to it and puke my 'Machine Blood' all over it, covering the circle written upon the ground. It stopped shining. Huh… I didn't actually believe this would work. Those things are more sensitive than I expected. It looks like the beastfolk also found this to be unexpected.

His eyes trembled with pure sorrow as he looked at what had probably taken him an excessive amount of time, work, and money to create was ruined by a most simple action… The sorrow quickly turned to fear, however. He pulled out the dagger stuck through his palm and waved it in my direction, sending blood all over the place.

"You vile… Creature! What are you?!" I continued to make my way through barriers, and he continued to cast more and more of them, but there was a limit to how many he could maintain at any given time. Not to mention that casting spells at such a rate was putting a strain on him. Not just on his mana reserves, but a general fatigue as well. One could liken casting spells to exerting a muscle in a sense.

Only that, instead of feeling weak in a particular spot, a caster who didn't manage their spell slinging properly would start to feel dizzy, and potentially even experience nausea. The goatman was clearly a rather experienced caster, but he was weaving these barriers in a hurry. He was overflowing with fear, panic, apprehension, dread, and many more negative emotions hailing from the family of fright. It was safe to say he wasn't being very conservative or efficient with his mana usage.

He was exerting his 'mage muscle' way too hard. Not to mention that he was bleeding a considerable amount as well.

"W–What's up? I'm just–just a pre–pretty little gal" I brought my palms to the underside of my jaw, posing into a very cutesy pose that definitely did not work in the least in my 'Base Form'. The goat recoiled in horror, his back hitting the wall behind him.

"Don't play dumb, you monster! Why… Why does your soul look like this?! What are you?!" I tilted my head to the side. What's wrong with my soul? Is it weird because I am half curse, therefore, half a being who shouldn't have an actual soul? Any ideas, Nara? You can explain while I continue to mow down his annoying barriers. Hold on, I need to do a deep dive to check on things like that… Alright then… Mister Goat continued to run around the room–For some reason, never even considering taking the exit to run away…

I don't even think that he was being silly. It looked like he genuinely didn't want to escape despite doing everything in his power to otherwise get away from me. He did everything he could to keep me away, manifesting barriers of varying strength, including some that could actually take a head-on blow from my hydraulic-enhanced right arm. He even tried to cast a variety of offensive spells at me, but it was rather obvious he was more talented in barriers and devil summoning than anything else.

His mana bullets dealt no damage to me whatsoever, and that was his strongest spell available. The mana blades and whatever else he threw at me were even less effective. Oh, hey. My 'Intermediate Energy Resistance' went up by one. That's pretty nice. The horned fellow ended up backing himself into a corner. He hadn't even tried to summon any more devils since the second attempt. Probably because the rest were on the same level as the incubus, and he knew very well that they would rather leave than deal with me.

I'm not sure how I feel about literal devils being afraid of me–Actually, scratch that, what I don't like is that a freaking incubus took one look at me and preferred to run away. I know my 'Base Form' isn't very alluring, but seducing women is an incubus's purpose for existing! He could have at least tried.

"S-Stop right there! I don't care if you're immune to spells! Take one step closer and-""Quiet. You mu–must be delusional to assume I am immune aft–ter spraying me with water droplets… Why don't you en–entertain me? Scream as loud as you can as I dismember you!"

"Even devils haven't been sadistic in their language with me…"

"... It doesn't matter! I have enclosed myself behind five-layered barriers! Each of them is the most powerful I can possibly make them! And I can actively maintain and reinforce them through physical contact! Barriers are cheap to maintain, as long as I focus and circulate my mana, I can recover more than I consume, keeping them up! I still have lots of reserves as well! You should leave before my allies get here, and you are pincered!"

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. I tilted my head a full ninety degrees to the left, my dot-like eyes glowing brighter for a moment as I stared him down.

"Allies? You?" I laughed in a distorted voice. How foolish. I just needed to use 'Embodiment Of Negativity' hard enough to reduce whatever focus he had to nothingness. He had already proven himself susceptible to it. Where would be the fun in that, however? He wants to play? Good! I love to play! Who doesn't enjoy having fun and doing some challenges? My 'Hydraulic Limb' might not have enough power to blast through his barriers, but I believed I had something else with the means to do so.

I unhinged my jaw to its maximum capacity, to the point that the upper portion was in the way of my vision, and the lower portion scraped against my metallic ribcage. I reeled my head back as far as I could take it, stancing myself up to basically swing my own head and jaw forward with maximum force available. The beastfolk, who was stuck in place with his arms outstretched to maintain his barrier, trembled, but he did not budge, trusting in his barriers was all he could do right now.

Nonetheless, he overflowed with negative emotions, enough to make me delay my move to feed upon it… In terms of brute force, I was in a pretty good place. I outclassed the average knight by a noticeable margin, but not every portion of my body was equally as strong, and thus, there were ways of attacking that were significantly more powerful than others for me. Currently, my 'Crushing Bite' upgrade was at the 'IV' stage, and coupled with the recent addition of 'Hydraulic Bite'...

With all of my strength, I lunged, my jaws closing as they made contact with the first barrier–The sound of shattering glass echoed throughout the hall, followed by a scream of pain and two effusions of blood. The goat was now armless. Below, the elbows, anyway. The mage fell to the ground writhing in pain like a worm burning in the sun. His blood was spraying all over the place until I brought out my wires, wrapping them around what remained of his arms, stopping the flow of blood.

"N–Now… Don't die on me j–just yet" I delivered a small shock, stirring him into a more conscious state.

"Girls" My phantom troop phased out of the ground, much to the horror of the man-goat.

"Today, I will tea–teach you how to properly interrogate so–someone…"

"Please…" I shocked him again.

"The f–first step is to make sure–certain that your prey can not fight back or run away" I raised one foot, bringing it down onto the goatman's ankles, squashing them in a single blow.

"That… That is a gen–genuine scream of pain. You nee–need to be able to recognise one from a fa–fa–fake" My adorable little assistants listened carefully to each of my words…

"Master, I thought we were going to be practising long-distance spell casting today?"

"Forget about this, Kiddo. I need some action, and Lord Nebulo has been mentioning some curious cases lately, hasn't he? I am known for my investigative spells, so I figured it would be a good occasion to demonstrate these to you""I see… Miss Binibelle, I must admit that I do not know much about what those 'curious cases' are… Isn't this the place where that old diner stood before burning down a while back?"

"Correct. Listen, you've been focusing on training and on that purple-eyed monster, but even after it left, it seems like things have not returned to normalcy. Take a look at these images I created of the crime scenes" The halfling mage handed Jupo several pictures, and the apprentice mage-blade almost instinctively dropped them immediately after looking at them. He felt like something wanted to emerge from his stomach.

"How… How did I not hear about this? This is worse than what the purple-eyed monster had been doing… This is… Brutal""You didn't hear about this because you've overly focused on learning, and also because everyone else wasn't mentioning it to you so that you wouldn't be distracted… The connection between these murders and the steel monster is easy to make, considering that the former only became active after the latter left the city""The modus operandi looks completely different, though.

The metal monster would usually leave next to no evidence of its crimes… But this? This is a carnage" Not a single one of the pictures wasn't extremely graphic. The bodies of the victims had been torn apart and seemingly partly devoured… But what was worse was that the choice of victims seemed almost… Deliberately heinous. Elders who couldn't defend themselves at all, children, widows and widowers struggling with loss… Even children and… Jupo couldn't bring himself to look at the bloodied crib. It was too much.

The iron monster had not been picky in its victims either, but its attacks had been more obviously opportunistic and planned out. Not to mention that the lack of evidence at least indicated that it truly was feeding. These crimes were far more erratic. Some of the victims had not been alone in their homes, but the killer had only targeted them specifically, leaving everyone else alone, as though it wanted people to find out what had happened.

"In particular, the younger victims were found because the parents would hear someone singing in the room, or due to some other noises. The killer lured them over so that they could see. I would assume so that they could watch the reaction in real time""This is twisted, but… What does this have to do with this place, exactly?"

"Listen, my investigative spells I talked to you about? I am well-known for my accuracy, and they pointed me here. I looked through the archives, and two bodies were found amidst the smouldering remains of this place. They had been buried by debris before being completely burnt to a crisp, so their families were able to identify them…"

"... Long story short, I was able to get them pulled out of their graves to run some spells. These guys were killed by the purple-eyed monster, I strongly believe that it originated from here, somehow…"

"... Before you ask, yes, it also has to do with the recent murders. My spells are surprisingly cryptic about those two cases, but one thing is certain: The purple-eyed monster and our new killer? They may not be the same thing, but they are definitely linked""How do you know for sure, Master?"

"It will sound crazy, but I am letting my instincts speak on this one""... Right""Hoi, don't you want to know more about the monster who tore off your arm and gave you endless nightmares? I know you look into it on every occasion you get!"

"Of course I want to know! But… How can we figure things out? If your spells can't lead us to the killer, then what can we do?"

"Idiot. We do some regular investigating, obviously! Are you getting that mage-brain? Not everything needs to involve magic. Let's go, we have some witnesses to speak to!" Jupo found Binibelle to be way too excited about this ordeal…