Chapter 029. The Child Chosen by a Failed Work (1)
“Fathers!!”
Yeonhwa screamed as the uninvited guests barged in.
Crack! Crack-crack!
A disturbing sound of bones twisting came from deeper inside the room.
Boom—! Boom—!
The footsteps grew louder and louder.
When Yeonhwa’s father finally appeared, he was even bigger than he had been the day before. It seemed that the personality possessing him also affected his physical body.
“Wow. He’s freaking huge.”
Mikael stared in amazement at the man, who looked well over two meters tall.
The muscles covering his entire body had also grown far bulkier. Fighting something like that barehanded looked like a terrible idea.
Clack!
Mikael extended the collapsible baton hanging from his waist.
Before their surprise attack, Heesong had practically forced him to bring some equipment with him. Mikael just hadn’t expected to use it so soon.
“I didn’t want to use something made by Moneybug, but I guess I don’t have a choice.”
Moneybug.
It was a nickname Mikael had invented for Heesong.
At Mikael’s mockery, Heesong immediately turned his head.
“What’s wrong with my stuff?!”
Huff! Huff!
Heesong seemed more offended by the insult toward his handmade equipment than by the nickname itself.
His cheeks puffed up in annoyance, but his hands continued placing small crosses around the room.
Sia sighed.
“Seriously, stop chatting and focus on the demon.”
She had been sighing a lot lately.
Apparently, she was worried that they would get distracted by another pointless conversation and somehow let the demon escape.
“Don’t worry.”
Before coming here, Mikael had told Sia that he currently couldn’t use his power, just in case something happened.
—I already knew.
The fact that even someone as slow on the uptake as Sia had noticed came as a shock to him.
Still, thanks to that, he had managed to get his hands on a useful piece of equipment.
Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Hmmmm!
Mikael pressed a small button on the baton.
Electric currents slowly flowed along its body.
A moment later, aura spread across the entire baton, wrapping it in a faint glow.
It was a weapon that released stored aura from inside itself and coated the weapon with it.
One of Heesong’s inventions.
“Behold! The Manners Injector!”
Heesong looked extremely proud as he admired the faintly glowing aura.
The aura inside the baton had been artificially applied.
It could cause pain to a demon, but it couldn’t actually purify one.
That meant a demon beaten with it would simply suffer over and over until it eventually fell to its knees.
For Mikael, who currently couldn’t control aura himself, it was the perfect weapon.
“Uwooooooh!”
Perhaps instinctively sensing a power that opposed its own, the demon charged first.
Whoosh!
A thick fist came crashing down toward Mikael.
But fitting its enormous body, its movements were slow.
Mikael easily dodged.
BOOOOM!
Instead, the innocent wooden floor took the hit.
The fist punched straight through it, sending fragments of the tiles beneath the floor flying in every direction.
Clatter!
The demon looked down at its empty hand and shook its fist.
Bits of debris fell from its knuckles.
Everyone’s gaze naturally moved toward the floor.
A clear fist-shaped hole had been left behind.
Sia’s mouth dropped open.
“Wow... If that hits you, you’re dead in one shot, aren’t you?”
“Sure. If it hits me.”
“So I just won’t let it.”
Mikael lowered his body and pulled the baton back toward his waist.
Then he kicked off the floor.
His baton swept toward the demon’s head in a crescent-shaped arc.
CLANG—!
“GRAAAAAH!”
The demon covered its head and sluggishly stumbled one step backward.
But Mikael suddenly twisted the path of his baton.
Smack!
It slammed straight into the demon’s knee.
“Damn. You really are tough.”
He hadn’t expected to cut it in half with a blunt weapon, but he had at least intended to knock it down with one strike.
Instead, all he got was a few steps backward.
“You! I kill yooou!”
The demon pointed angrily at Mikael with its clumsy speech.
Mikael answered without hesitation.
He casually raised his middle finger.
“They say, ‘The worst cockroach is always the loudest.’ That fits a bastard like you perfectly.”
He even threw in the French equivalent of an empty cart makes the most noise.
Tap—!
Apparently, both insults worked.
Without either side needing to make the first move, both Mikael and the demon rushed forward at the same time.
At some point, demonic energy had gathered around the demon’s hands.
Every time it threw a punch, another hole appeared in the floor or wall.
What a freaking mess.
Smack! Smack! Swish!
Once Mikael became familiar with the demon’s attacks, he started exploiting the openings.
He repeatedly stabbed and slashed at the demon’s knees with the baton, trying to destroy its balance.
But none of the attacks caused serious damage.
“GWAAAAAAAH!”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
If anything, the repeated attacks only made it angrier.
Its already crude punches became even wilder.
And although Mikael himself remained calm, the demon’s stress only grew as Mikael darted around like a rat, avoiding every single attack.
Its eyes became bloodshot.
“Annoying! Stop running! Coward!”
“Would you let yourself get hit by that? Idiot.”
While Mikael kept the demon occupied, Yeonhwa saw her opportunity.
She slipped through the living room and entered the bedroom.
“Fathers! Now!”
Only then did the demon seem to remember its actual role.
It immediately stopped attacking and switched entirely to defense.
“Behind! No go! Me! Protect!”
Its enormous body blocked the entrance to the living room, preventing anyone from getting near Yeonhwa.
It was like staring at a castle wall.
“...We’re not getting through that easily.”
The demon was so huge that even squeezing past it would be difficult.
And there was no way it would quietly stand there and allow them through.
While the group tried to figure out what to do, a shout came from the bedroom.
“Fathers!! Drive them away!”
Inside the room, Yeonhwa had turned the mirror toward the group.
The mirror reflected Mikael and the others.
But inside that reflection, countless demons were surrounding Mikael.
One of them suddenly rushed toward the surface of the mirror.
FLASH!
The same light Mikael had seen the previous night burst from the mirror.
Back then, he had only seen it briefly from a distance, so he hadn’t been able to tell exactly what had happened.
But now that he was close, he saw it clearly.
“Looks like you’ve really made yourselves at home in there. You sure packed yourselves tightly into such a tiny place.”
A soul flew out so quickly that it was almost impossible to follow with the naked eye.
It entered the demon’s body.
The numerous demons inside the mirror had been taking turns possessing a single physical body.
Crack. Crack-crack!
As the new soul entered, the demon’s muscles twisted once again.
Mikael adjusted his grip on the baton.
Behind him, Sia and Heesong nervously arranged the crosses in a line.
Then—
“KRAAAAAAGH!”
The demon suddenly screamed.
It clutched its head as if struck by an unexpected migraine and repeatedly smashed its forehead against the floor.
