"I was startled and placed my hand on the left side of my chest. As I frowned and clutched my chest, Andrea stopped fanning me and crouched in front of me. Looking at me with a concerned expression, he asked.
'What's wrong?'
I didn't know either. As I looked at Andrea with such a face, the chest pain had already disappeared without a trace. Somehow, his worried expression made me feel relieved.
"No, I'm fine. Let's just go. We need to find that dark magic place or whatever as soon as possible, this tiresome journey will come to an end."
I said so and stood up confidently.
"...Yes."
Andrea, belatedly agreeing with my words, stood up after me. He gently put a hat on me and tied the hat strap under my chin. A perfect ribbon dangled below my chin.
After answering Andrea's question about whether I was really okay three times, he lifted me onto the horse. The horse neighed unpleasantly, but it didn't run wild like before and didn't ignore Andrea's control. Thanks to that, we could move comfortably and arrive at our destination a little faster than Andrea had predicted.
***
I had imagined a terrifying and ominous human as the dark magician, but the one who appeared before us was a young woman with thick glasses. If she took off her glasses, she would have been quite the beauty, but her eyes were popping out through layers of the compressed glass inside the glasses, she looked a bit strange.
"What is this?"
The dark magician lifted her glasses and muttered.
"Quite attractive young men. Have they come to be my sacrifice by their own will, hehe?."
Rolling her eyes and babbling to herself sounded very strange. However, the word 'sacrifice' was unsettling, so I took a step back cautiously.
Andrea moved forward a bit. Naturally, my body was hidden behind his back. Is he intentionally hiding me? I had that thought for a moment, but soon, the dark magician made a loud noise, saying "Eek!" and moved away into the distance with a loud noise.
"It's like light is pouring out of my face! It's hard. Could it be a light magician?"
"Haha, not a magician. Sorry if you were expecting that."
Andrea said with a friendly smile, startling the dark magician. Not knowing how to respond to his words, she started running away in even greater fright.
"Oh... you're quite scared."
Andrea said in a pitiful tone and then moved towards the direction where she had run. It didn't seem like she was walking very fast, but in just a few steps, he caught up with the dark magician.
The dark magician, who was turning the key in the lock of a modest single-story brick house, screamed again at Andrea's shadow looming over her.
"What do you want? You wicked handsome man!"
"I came for a request. Are you the dark magician Otakia?"
She hesitated for a moment, glanced at Andrea and me standing a bit behind him, and then asked in a mumbling tone.
"What request did you come to see me for?"
"Can we discuss it inside?"
Andrea asked with a grin. Otakia seemed utterly surprised, as if walls or furniture were talking to her, but she soon turned and opened the door with the key. The doorknob vibrated as her hands trembled.
The inside of the house she led us into was extremely messy. It resembled Cain's room, but there were even more unsettling things. Frogs, snakes, crows, and other creatures were eerily encased in liquids of unknown origin inside large glass jars. There were also parts of monsters, with eyeballs, tentacles, and claws.
All the windows were closed, and thick blackout curtains made the inside of the house as dark as night. Overall, it felt cool and dry, not uncomfortable, but still...
I shuddered as my eyes met those of an eyeball in a jar submerged in liquid.
It's scary. Too scary.
"Shall we go over there and sit, Del?"
Andrea subtly blocked my view and asked.
I sat quietly on the sofa in the living room. There was a lot of stuff on the sofa so I had to squeeze my butt to find a space amidst various items on it.
Otakia sat across from us, shifting her wary eyes from side to side.
"What kind of request brought you all the way here? How did you know I was a dark magician?"
Rather than asking us, it seemed more like she was speaking to herself. Andrea spoke as he noticed her discomfort in communication with others.
"We heard from an informant. It seems the right person for this job is a dark magician. Dark magicians usually hide or live pretending to be ordinary magicians, so we had no choice but to inquire from information dealers. Sorry."
"Hmm. Well, no need to apologize. So, what is this request that brought you here?"
In response to her muttering, Andrea looked at me and answered.
"The person here is..."
His pink eyes were deeper than usual. It might be because we were in a dark place, but something seemed different. He seemed to hesitate, and just as I was thinking that, he spoke in a low voice.
"He's a possessed individual. The owner of the body and the soul are different. So, I want to send this soul back to its original place and reclaim the owner of this body."
He spoke very clearly as if he was casting a spell on himself. His gaze remained fixed on me. I met his eyes directly, captivated by the dazzling and radiant colors even in the darkness.
If I were to collect eyes, it would be Andrea's eyes, not any of the monsters or beasts. His eyes were so beautiful that I had shameless thoughts.
"I heard that you can separate the soul with dark magic. Can you do it, Otakia?"
Finally, Andrea turned his head towards Otakia. Otakia, chewing on her fingers, scrutinized me from head to toe.
"A possessed individual? What's that? I don't see any signs. Do people think dark magicians can become gods or something? Ridiculous and frustrating, really."
"Is it impossible?"
Andrea asked with a sullen expression. In response, Otakia snapped and stood up.
"What do you take this great dark magician Otakia for? Funny! Impossible is not in my dictionary!"
She stomped her foot and went into the room, coming back with something. It was a very thick book, with weathered, wrinkled leather on the cover and a long knife slit horizontally on the front cover.
"While soul separation magic is challenging, for a skilled dark magician like me, it's as easy as eating monster eyeballs while lying down, if you will. Hmm. Quite easy, I must say."
Her speaking sound was as if she were stuck in her own world. It was a bit odd, but in any case, it meant she could do it. She put the finger she had been chewing back into her mouth.
After a squelching sound, a tiny stream of blood dripped from her mouth. I gasped in surprise, but she casually took her finger out and pressed it against the book cover. Her blood dripped down. Suddenly, something amazing happened. The knife slit on the book cover slowly opened, revealing a bright red tongue emerging from within.
"Ah!"
Startled, I jumped up from the sofa, but I seemed to be the only one surprised. Otakia was gazing affectionately at the book with the tongue as if she found it adorable, and Andrea had raised one eyebrow and extended one arm to block in front of me as if reflexively protecting me. Despite his profession, he seemed like a caring and decent guy.
"Hey, the person claiming to be a possessed individual might need to show some blood. That way, we can learn more about this person."
Otakia muttered. She was squeezing her thumb, almost completely stained with a deep red color, to extract blood, and her hand was trembling.
"Do I need to extract that much too?"
Seeing her squeezing blood like milking a cow, I asked, and she nodded.
"Is extracting blood a big deal? This is why non-magicians are..."
Her words slightly hurt my pride. Even though I was an apprentice to Cain, a Grand magician and apprentice magician myself, I was still a magician!
"I'm a magician too, you know? I know a few spells."
Unintentionally, my voice sounded angry.
"A few spells? Hm, talk is cheap. Novices are brave because they are ignorant, as usual for beginners, hmm."
"I beg your pardon? Your voice is too low, I can't hear you"
In response to my words, Otakia muttered something in a grumbling tone with a smirk. The conversation seemed to revolve around me being an apprentice to a magician and what kind of magician I was, all while occasionally inserting strange expressions like "hm" and "hehe." It would have been easier to understand without those odd remarks.
Anyway, since it was obvious that she was insulting me as an ignorant mage, I decided to bite my thumb strongly. Perhaps due to the emotion involved, blood flowed easily. I proudly took my bleeding thumb over the book cover. Even my thumb dripped blood, and the tongue that emerged from the cover licked up every fallen droplet.
And then, something unexpected happened.