"Yare yare," at the edge of a forest somewhere on the island of Britain, Beryl Gut stretched his body with textbook precision. "As expected of the Animusphere family's secret arts—it's able to perform true space-time transfer. In a sense, isn't this already brushing the edge of the Second Magic, Pepe?"
Pepe heard Beryl's voice and snapped out of the daze that followed spiriton transfer. He frowned slightly; he didn't particularly like this sociable man. As someone with telepathy, Pepe could easily sense the malice in Beryl's heart.
"You've adapted pretty quickly," Pepe adjusted his tone, trying to hide his dislike. "Even though it's near the end, this is still a remnant of the Age of Gods. You can adapt to the high density of magical energy here so fast?"
"That's thanks to my dear old mom~," Beryl replied in an unserious tone. "Her lineage is a bit special... It gives me the ability to quickly adapt to this environment. By the way, did you see the locator Mystic Code that Hinako left?"
"No... Wait," Pepe took out a Mystic Code and glanced at it, surprised, "That Mystic Code seems to be moving toward us... Could it be little Hinako?"
Beryl paused, stopped stretching, and drew a dagger, his expression tense as he looked toward the depths of the forest, apparently very cautious about this approaching signal.
Though Pepe was a bit surprised by Beryl's reaction, his experience allowed him to understand Beryl's professionalism. In other words, even if he disliked the man, he acknowledged his abilities.
The two of them stared at the dense forest ahead, watching closely for a while, but saw no sign of anyone. Only the sound of wind rustling through the leaves could be heard.
Yet neither Beryl nor Pepe let their guard down. Their instincts kept warning them—something very bad was approaching, even though the signal from the Mystic Code had inexplicably vanished.
"Hey, this isn't looking good..." Cold sweat had already appeared on Beryl Gut's forehead. His sharp intuition sensed a deep malice—so heavy that even he, a cheerful killer, found it unbearable.
"We'd best retreat," Pepe said, "As expected, nothing's simple in the Age of Gods. We—"
Halfway through his sentence, the impossible happened. The wolfman who was usually fearless and calm in any situation, suddenly clutched his chest in pain, his face twisted in terror.
"..."
Beryl let out a strangled sound as if his throat was being squeezed and his breathing was becoming difficult, but Pepe couldn't find any trace of an attacker. He could only use his abilities to hide himself.
"Hahaha, you really can hide, wolfman." An echoing, youthful female voice came from all directions. Though he was hearing it for the first time, Pepe felt an inexplicable familiarity…
"I've been looking for you on Alice's behalf for a long time, but you're always hiding in some sewer corner, or your filthy, ugly old mom hides you away…"
The woman's voice drew closer, and Beryl's pain grew worse. He fell to his knees, struggling to breathe, but to no avail.
Suddenly, Pepe's eyes widened. At the forest's edge, a figure appeared—a person who absolutely shouldn't be here. It was someone he'd seen in Chaldea's command room before the spiriton transfer: Chaldea's largest investor and shareholder.
"Ao—Aoko Aozaki... Wh-why...?"
Drenched in sweat, Beryl Gut looked at the slender figure with long red hair, his heart full of confusion and resentment. He hated that he'd been outplayed, and was confused as to why someone so important would target him, especially since he'd been so careful not to leave any loose ends...
"Ah, you want to know why I'm killing you?" Aoko Aozaki maintained her spell, a phantom heart pulsing rhythmically in her hand with a clear thumping sound. "Honestly, there's no special reason. If you want to blame someone, blame your mom for having such a foul mouth and never thinking before she speaks, okay?"
Huh?
Beryl's mind went blank. What kind of reason was that? Did his mother say something to anger a Magician?
"And..." Aoko suddenly squeezed the phantom heart tightly, and the persistent thumping was forcibly cut off. "...And because you might harm some innocent people in the future, I decided to take you out early. How's that? Sounds reasonable, right?"
"Reasonable, my ass!" Beryl raged inside. He admitted he enjoyed love and pleasure from hurting others but paying the price for crimes he hadn't even committed yet—how could that be fair?!
But no matter how angry or frustrated he was, Aoko's magecraft had already pushed him to the brink of death. For humans, once the heart stops beating, life quickly ends.
Beryl's vision darkened, his thoughts blurred, and finally—the wolfman, who would have brought pain and tragedy to many, lost his life beside this nameless ancient British forest and fell to the ground.
"Cardiac arrest. Not a bad feeling, huh?" Aoko stepped next to Beryl's corpse, kicked him twice, and said, "Technically this is from a rival school, but this spell is a by-product of my recent research... Looks like the limitations of rival schools aren't completely unbreakable after all?"
Seeing Beryl's end, the hiding Pepe was drenched in cold sweat. There had only been Beryl and himself in the transfer pod—so how did Aoko Aozaki reach 7th-century Britain? Could it be...?
"Come on out," Aoko snapped her fingers, and blazing fire turned into a shroud, incinerating Beryl Gut's body until it was nothing but ash drifting in the wind. "Taking out that wolfman was just my scheduled plan. I have no ill will toward you, Arou Myourenji."
"Oh my, as expected of the Witch of Destruction, the Fourth Magician," Pepe dispelled his concealment, revealing himself. "In front of you, my little tricks are completely useless."
"Enough talk," Aoko said, tossing him a scroll of self-binding contracts. "Sign this. We've got a lot of work to do next."