Chapter 38 (Patreon)

“It looks like I’m not getting any sleep tonight.”

In a rare move, Ragnar Kagenou put on a set of golden armor and stood atop the highest point of the hotel, looking down at the thick mist swallowing the streets of London.

Within that fog, Cursed Spirits were rampaging through the city, slaughtering people in the streets without restraint.

Screams rose one after another through the chaos.

“H-Help me!!!”

A man was being devoured alive by a Cursed Spirit that had appeared out of nowhere, while the woman beside him could do nothing but scream.

The city’s familiar streets were stained a vivid red, completely different from their usual appearance.

After tearing away and swallowing half the man’s body, the Cursed Spirit immediately lunged toward the woman, who had collapsed to the ground in terror, unable to move.

“Please... someone... anyone... I-I don’t want to die here...!”

The Cursed Spirit was already within arm’s reach.

The cold breath of death closed in on her.

Just as those sharp fangs were about to rip into her—

A streak of golden light flashed before her eyes.

A golden Noble Phantasm pierced straight through the Cursed Spirit’s body and slammed into the ground beside her.

As the Cursed Spirit dissolved away, a glittering golden figure stepped into view.

“Hmph. Filthy vermin.”

The woman looked around blankly, then pointed at herself.

“Vermin... are you talking about me?”

Crimson eyes glanced toward her.

“Eek—!”

She instantly looked away and shuffled backward on the ground in panic.

“If you don’t want to die, get inside a building and stay there.”

Even if she was still afraid of him, that fear was far better than facing the monster from before.

“C-Can you take me with you?!”

Seeing Ragnar about to leave, the woman hurriedly scrambled to her feet and shouted after him.

Ragnar didn’t even stop.

“Find somewhere quiet and hide properly. No Cursed Spirit will come looking for you.”

The moment he finished speaking, he left.

From this point onward, staying close to him was actually the most dangerous option.

After all, this was almost certainly Kenjaku’s work.

And that mist had to be Jack’s doing.

Several figures of different appearances suddenly emerged on the street.

But every single one of them held a knife in hand.

“Ripper, huh...”

Golden ripples spread out behind Ragnar, and a barrage of Noble Phantasms shot forward.

In the blink of an eye, those Jack the Rippers collapsed to the ground, their bodies skewered through by Noble Phantasms.

“It makes no difference how many of you show up. Human-wave tactics are a joke to me.”

As Ragnar stepped onto another street, several screams echoed from deeper within the mist.

At the same time, he sensed a familiar flow of Cursed Energy.

That familiar presence was coming from across the river.

Which meant someone he knew was probably over there.

“Hm? Why is she here? That’s unexpected...”

Ragnar opened his system and confirmed it.

It really was someone he knew.

The London Museum.

The museum, once bright and lively, had gone dark under the influence of Cursed Energy. Thick mist had flooded the entire interior.

It was as if London had been dragged back into the nineteenth century in a single instant.

Inside the vast exhibition hall, only a few suppressed sobs could be heard from time to time.

At least several dozen people were huddled together in the corners of the museum, trembling nonstop. Faced with something this bizarre, all they could do was cling to each other and pray.

And that wasn’t all.

Many people inside the museum had already had their abdomens ripped open and were sprawled across the cold floor, dying in agony.

The thick smell of blood filled the air.

The fear in the room was enough to crush a person’s mind.

“H-Help me... please...”

A woman crawled across the floor, clutching at her own internal organs, dragging herself forward through sheer instinct to survive.

The people hiding in the corner were so terrified that not a single one of them dared make a sound.

A short-haired woman quickly rushed to her side and pushed the displaced organs back into place.

“Hang in there. You’ll be okay.”

A green glow lit up in her hands and flowed into the woman’s abdomen. Bit by bit, the organs returned to their proper place, and even the bacteria contaminating the wound were eradicated.

After some time, the wound on the woman’s abdomen finally closed.

It could still reopen if she moved too violently, but surviving at all was already a miracle.

“Th-Thank you...”

“Don’t mention it.”

That woman was none other than Shoko Ieiri, who had come abroad for a vacation.

She had originally come to London to celebrate passing her medical exams.

From her perspective, there were already plenty of Cursed Spirits back home. Foreign incidents were supposed to be much rarer, so going overseas to relax had seemed like a perfectly smart decision.

Who would’ve thought that only two days after arriving, London would be hit by a Cursed Spirit incident on this scale?

“I hate this kind of thing. That’s exactly why I went abroad.”

She really hadn’t expected her luck to be this awful.

She was medical support, not a combat sorcerer.

If she ran into a Cursed Spirit here, there was a very real chance she would just die.

Then, in the silence of the museum, someone suddenly shouted from the crowd.

“Who screamed just now?! Don’t you people know to stay quiet?! If you want to die, other people still want to live!”

Shoko’s expression darkened immediately, and she walked over to the corner where the survivors were hiding.

“She did. She’s the one who screamed.”

A man in the crowd pointed at a young woman nearby.

“No, it wasn’t me! Don’t frame me!”

Seeing everyone’s eyes turn toward her, the woman instantly denied it. At a time like this, even if she wasn’t the one, she knew the blame would fall on her anyway.

“Quiet,” Shoko snapped in a low voice. “Do all of you want to die? I don’t care who it was. From now on, nobody makes a sound.”

The woman’s face twisted with even more dissatisfaction after hearing that, because to her, it sounded like she’d already been labeled the culprit.

Although, in truth, it actually had been—

“You’re not a police officer. Who are you to talk to me like that?!”

There was always one idiot in every crowd.

Shoko’s expression shifted slightly.

Then—

Footsteps echoed through the hall again.

This time they were very light.

Soft.

Measured.

Almost elegant.

It sounded like a dancer stepping across the floor.

Gulp.

The entire room fell silent in an instant.

The woman immediately rushed back to the edge of the group and clamped her mouth shut.

Because the mist was too thick and visibility was almost nonexistent, Shoko could only press herself against the wall and inch along it little by little.

For some reason, the footsteps seemed to be coming straight toward them.

Closer.

Closer.

Shoko’s entire body tensed.

Had this Cursed Spirit heard that scream from before?

Or had it sensed the Cursed Energy she used when treating the injured woman?

As the seconds dragged by, Shoko finally saw the figure of the Cursed Spirit through the mist.

It was a woman dressed entirely in black.

And with every step she took, her body moved in ways no human body ever should.

It looked like dancing—

But the angles and distortions of her limbs were far beyond anything a normal person could achieve, making her resemble a marionette being twisted by invisible strings.

Inside the vast museum, that Cursed Spirit danced alone, graceful and grotesque at once—

Like a death dance performed for the doomed.

The Cursed Spirit before them was none other than the Serbian Dancer, though why she had appeared here was still unknown.

What made the situation even more hopeless was the fact that the Serbian Dancer seemed to have already noticed Shoko’s side.

The ordinary people pressed against the wall felt their scalps go numb with terror.

Then, in the silent museum, faint and ethereal music began to drift through the air.

“W-What’s happening...?”

Some of the people suddenly found their bodies beginning to move against their will.