Hermit Wizard

The Second (7)

In New York at a small campus not far from Central Park…

Anthony King, a light brown-skinned young man, was looking at the direction of the building he had just walked out of.

An upright building stood overbearingly under the cold autumn sky. The most notable thing about the law school building facing West 116th Street was the bronze statue. Like a rooster flapping its wings on a perch, the statue stood breathtakingly on a pillar about five stories high.

The statue that Anthony was looking at took the form of a naked human trying to pull down a winged horse that was several times larger than himself.

“Hey, Anthony! What are you staring at?”

Anthony turned his head towards his friend, who called him.

“Oh, that reminds me of something.”

“It’s already been a month since you entered school, right? I thought you got used to that ugly statue now?”

Anthony smiled awkwardly when he heard his friend, Bill.

They both entered Columbia Law School in September that year. A month had passed since the semester started, and they were getting used to living in a new environment. However, there was an incident that was never trivial in the middle.

Fifteen days ago, when the Channel in New York was opened, both were worried that they would have to take a leave of absence as soon as they entered the school. However, the opened Channel’s location was in the southernmost part of Brooklyn, more than 30 miles from the Columbia University campus. Although the beaches, amusement parks, and nearby shopping centers were entirely closed, the aftermath didn’t reach Manhattan. As a result, Columbia Law School closed classes for a few days right after the Channel broke out and soon resumed its original academic schedule.

“That winged horse. It was called Pegasus, right?” asked Anthony.

Bill responded as if he wasn’t interested.

“I think that’s what I heard. Honestly, I didn’t pay attention to information about the school building and history at the orientation.”

The two continued their conversation as they walked toward the subway.

Anthony said, “I think it’s a Pegasus. I remember.”

“So what? Are you suddenly interested in Greek mythology?”

“I thought this while looking at the statue. Maybe the animals in myths or legends, which we now regard as delusions, really existed in the past? Races like Pegasus.”

“Huh?”

Bill suddenly looked at Anthony as if he’s talking nonsense. Anthony continued, then shrugged.

“Since the Channel opened, each of the creatures is showing up. The monster from last year’s Barcelona Channel is called Wyvern because of its appearance, right? Until two years ago, the name Wyvern was only heard in games and novels.”

Bill replied, scratching his chin.

“Hey, that’s too much of a leap. It’s a monster from Barcelona, isn’t it? They named it like that because it coincidentally looked like the Wyvern that humankind imagined.”

“Is that so?”

The two walked without saying anything for a moment. It was Anthony who broke the silence again.

“Anyway, after the world becomes like this, I think it changed my mind. I was originally an outright realist. I thought that something like a winged horse was just a product of fantasy, but as it turned out, I wondered if there might be such a creature somewhere in the world or somewhere in another dimension.”

“… Well, yeah, that’s understandable. Who knows? It turns out in the world beyond the Channel in Brooklyn, white horses with wings are chewing carrots and wandering above clouds instead of pastures.”

Anthony threw his eyes at Bill, who responded cynically.

“No, there is no ‘such thing’ beyond that.”

Bill responded with a grin.

“Why are you conclusive? Well, the only thing that was seen coming out of there was pink smoke.”

It had been the 15th day since the Channel appeared. The whole nation, including New Yorkers, was tense, but nothing changed. There was a testimony that only on the day the Channel was created a strange pink smoke was seen around it. The U.S. government was only repeating that nothing had been confirmed yet.

Anthony continued, “And I used to be a thorough atheist, but now, I have come to believe in God. I think the Channel is also influencing my changes.”

“Really? Oh, that’s a big deal. Are you going to go to church this weekend?”

“No, I don’t think that’s going to happen, but…”

There, the two briefly changed the subject and exchanged school stories.

Bill said, “By the way, does the school seem to be continuing the semester? Even in today’s class, one-third was absent.”

The government was persuading citizens to continue their daily lives with peace of mind, but the public’s reactions varied according to their personal preferences.

The United States had yet to ‘officially’ suffer direct human casualties due to an alien, but there had also been some city-wide destruction cases in foreign countries. Therefore, the number of citizens who evacuated from downtown New York and escaped to other cities after the creation of the Channel wasn’t small. Even if there were no noticeable abnormalities that time, it couldn’t shake their anxiety.

“Alexia was also absent today, right? She was definitely present until last week. I asked other students who are taking classes with her, but they said they didn’t see her this week.”

At Bill’s words, Anthony replied, saying ‘ah,’ and nodded.

Alexia was a female student who shared a property law class with the two. Bill fell in love with her at first sight and told her as soon as the first class got over, but her reaction wasn’t good.

“Anthony, didn’t you say you live close to her? Have you ever met her while passing by in the last few days?”

Anthony shook his head.

“No? Not at all.”

Bill sighed.

“Hey, no matter how close you are, it’s unlikely to run into each other like that. I should’ve asked for her number. Did she really leave New York? Would she come back when things settle down? In other cities where the Channel was opened, refugees tend to return after time without any other incidents.”

“… I don’t know.”

When the two arrived at the subway station, the two broke up on the line in their home direction.

After getting off at a station near his apartment, passing through several stations, Anthony loaded himself into a tram and walked slowly down the alley. The autumn sky was so clear. He hummed and moved his steps before arriving in front of his house. He then raised his head instead of climbing the doorstep.

“Hi?”

He put a gentle smile on his face. Instead of opening the apartment door and entering directly, Anthony greeted a neighbor on the second floor. The old lady who opened the window and watered the pots looked down at him and opened her eyes wide.

“Oh my goodness! You’re the law school student living on the third floor?

“I’m Anthony King.”

“Oh, ho-ho. Sorry. It’s not easy to remember names these days. By the way, I thought the student was moving.”

“Well? No. I have no plans to move.”

The old lady tilted her head and said, “Ah… I see. There was a thumping sound upstairs these days, so I thought you were packing things up again.”

There was a strange thorn in her words. Anthony replied with a bitter smile.

“I’m sorry for making the noise. After I moved, I kept getting distracted, and then I arranged the furniture this week. I plan to stay in New York because the school continues the lectures. Furthermore, it’s a bit uncomfortable to take a leave of absence as soon as I enter the school.”

“Is that so? As you know, everyone is upset these days because of the Channel. I don’t see that ugly old man living on the fourth floor these days, so he must have moved. He has been drinking and screaming and making a fuss every night. I don’t hear that at all these days.”

Anthony asked, looking into the eyes of the old lady.

“What about you, Mrs. Webber? Are you planning on staying in New York?”

“Where am I going at this age?”

After muttering something, Anthony greeted Mrs. Webber. He then stepped inside the front door.

‘Well, that old lady is also planning to stay in New York.’

Anthony walked into the apartment and climbed the stairs leading to the third floor. He opened the front door of Room 302 and entered the living room.

-Click

He locked the door.

Anthony opened the bedroom door and put the bag he was carrying down on the chair.

He took off all of his clothes that he was wearing and became naked. He folded his gray checkered shirt, beige cotton pants, inner and socks neatly and put them on the bed.

After wearing his slippers, Anthony walked to the kitchen. He opened the drawer on the sink and pulled out what was inside. He gently rubbed the tip with his finger. The blades didn’t stand well and were dull enough. It was a kitchen knife abandoned by the tenant who lived there before. After that, he used it several times.

Holding it, Anthony headed to the bathroom.

-Criiieeeeck

The old wooden door of the old apartment opened with a nerve-scratching sound. The unpleasant noise seemed to awaken someone inside.

“Um… uuum…!”

A suppressed sound flowed from the bathtub beyond the shower curtain. Anthony took a leisurely step and walked up, and pulled up the opaque plastic curtain.

“Uuum…!”

Inside the bathtub was a young woman who was naked like Anthony, was tied to the chains. The chain that tied her whole body was connected to the faucet. One eye, which seemed to be appealing for something, stared at Anthony. The mouth was sealed with tape so that no proper words could come out.

Anthony greeted her in a gentle voice.

“Hi… Alexia.”

Hearing his voice, the woman in the bathtub began to struggle. The man laughed as he looked down at her luminous gestures.

“Okay, that’s enough now.”

Pink smoke flowed lightly from Anthony’s mouth. He was smiling brightly as if he were lucky. Anthony knelt on the floor of the bathroom with a knife in his hand.

“Great One, I would like to praise your dignity by offering sacrifices, even if the Lamb is insufficient. May you be pleased.”

He recited the prayer for a while in that state. After the recitation was over, he raised his head again. When he opened his eyes, Anthony’s two eyes, which were revealed, were eerily dark pink.

“Eum… Eum…!”

Anthony got up again and approached Alexia. The woman in the bathtub struggled like crazy. The chains that tied her wrists tore her flesh and started bleeding.

However, she had a lot of scars and blood spots on her body beside her wrist. Anthony slowly said as he looked at the cuts on her whole body and the ointment and bands applied over them.

“This is only my third time, so I’m not very good at it yet. I understand. If I had a little more experience, I might have been able to keep you in the same state now without passing a day.”

“Eump!”

Alexia’s eyes, looking up at Anthony, distorted in horror.

“You know what? It was a big failure at first. The first attempt was a drunken old man on the fourth floor of this apartment. I just stabbed his body here and there for a few hours, but he suddenly passed out and died. The priest who baptized me rebuked me for it. ‘You cannot please God in this way!’… Because the old man died after he lost his consciousness. He died without faithfully feeling the fear that he was being killed.”

Alexia burst into tears.

“Next was the girl I met at the club… What was her name? Anyway, Alexia, I’m sure she was about the same age as you. I brought her to this apartment and then tied her up in the bathroom like now. It wasn’t much different from the process of bringing you here.”

He giggled and laughed for a moment and then said, “After being locked up here, I cut her body little by little for a few days. Little by little, very little so that she doesn’t bleed too much. Her heart was stronger than the old man, and she was still alive. She was scared enough that she might be killed at any time, but… damn it, I failed the second time.”

Anthony’s eyes glistened with madness.

“Because I was too greedy. I could feel the fear of women building up in my body one by one during those days. Like the balance of my bank account is increasing. That’s why I got greedy. A little more, a little more here!”

He lowered his head for a moment.

“… But it was too much. The woman eventually went crazy! She wasn’t really aware of the most important ‘fear of the moment she was killed’ she should have felt.”

“Eump… Eeeeeeump!”

Alexia began to howl with a terrible sound in her mouth. However, her voice was stuck on the tape and couldn’t flow out.

“When she died, her brainwave was like a pig-like animal. It wasn’t a sophisticated and beautiful brainwave that the higher humans made when they were killed. So, the priest rebuked me again. ‘You cannot please God if you do this!’ …Hufufu!”

The man said with a smile, “You know what, Alexia? The God I’m serving favors unique offerings. It is completely different from the traditional gods we have known until now. This God accepts the brainwaves of higher organisms as a sacrifice. Yes, higher organisms mean ‘humans’ after all. That’s what it wants. The brainwaves that occur when humans are trembling in fear ahead of their death… and the brain waves that are generated at the very moment when they are killed!”

Anthony held the knife in both hands and lifted it. Seeing it, Alexia shook her head desperately and moved her body.

“Now is the right time. Your fear has risen to the right level. If I torture you more here, you might give up life or go crazy. Now that you haven’t let go of your obsession with life, you will feel the greatest despair when I kill you. The priest with me is telling me!”

He took a deep breath then pushed his body into the bathtub. He kneeled on Alexia’s body lying on the bathtub floor and lifted the knife in his hand.

“It sounds like a lie. Why me? Why me of all the people? You won’t be able to believe it. You want to live, don’t you? Do you hope that someone will run to this place and save you right now?”

“Hump… Hump…!”

“You will regret it. Why did I answer Anthony King’s phone that day? Why did I agree to his suggestion to have a light drink? Why did I follow him to this apartment that day?”

“Huuuuuump…!”

A stream of tears flowed down Alexia’s right cheek.

As he looked down at her, Anthony asked.

“You don’t want to die, do you? You don’t want to die, do you? You don’t want to die, do you?”

Under his gaze, Alexia wept with her pale blue face.

“You want to live, don’t you?”

She shivered and nodded. Anthony laughed.

“Bitch. There are no miracles.”

Anthony brought the tip of the kitchen knife to the tip of Alexia’s uvula. He put the weight of his whole body and pressed her.

“Uuuuuuuuuuuump!”

Her body was fluttering. It took about 12 seconds to pierce the neck with a knife that wasn’t properly sharpened. It took about 148 seconds for Alexia’s body to twitch and finally stopped breathing.

During that time, Anthony felt the fear of Alexia seeping into his body. To be precise, it was the brainwave from her brain at the moment of her death. A deep fear that couldn’t be compared to before. It was only then that Anthony understood the meaning of the priest’s words.

“Fufu… Fuhuhuhu…!”

That sensation was being presented to God by using his own body as the medium. Even though he had tasted it for a while, it was no match for any joy and pleasure he had ever felt in his life.

Yes, the most important thing was that ‘killing’ moment. He understood why circumstances didn’t allow it. It was okay to skip the intermediate process and kill immediately. It was a delicacy that was incomparable to the brainwaves of the last minute emitted by the old man on the fourth floor who died after losing his consciousness or the woman who died after she went crazy.

Anthony now understood. From the day before the opening of the Channel, he understood perfectly and completely why the name of the great God he was serving was the ‘Joy of Slaughter.’

The moment Antony was shivering with joy, an unfamiliar voice was heard behind his back.

“… Ah, that’s true. I followed a place where it smelled delicious.”

“W-who is it?!”

Anthony’s body jumped out of anger. Strangers were looking at him from behind his back, two white-faced men who looked like dead bodies.

Anthony asked himself. ‘I didn’t even hear the door open. How?’

The taller one of the two men talked while looking inside the bathroom.

“… He threw away everything he could waste, huh?”

His gaze was staying in the bathtub. Not exactly at Alexia’s body, but the pool of blood filling the bathtub.

“You… who are you…!”

The shorter one looked up at the taller man and asked, “Can I kill this guy, too?”

“No. Eugene said to bring him alive.”

“… Ah, It’s really troublesome. Why are there guys like this in the city where the headquarters is located?”

While grumbling irritatedly, the short man raised his hand.