Drip, drip, drip—
Rain fell.
A dingy, moisture-soaked old bar built of wooden planks.
Creeeak—
In the neon-lit gloom, a man wrapped in a tattered black cloak crossed the room and took a seat at the bar.
“Can I order?”
“......Ah, yes.”
“Vodka, cut half with water.”
“......”
The woman behind the bar barely seemed to answer at all, her gaze fixed solely on the room.
The man started to urge her on, then gave up and turned to look out into the room himself.
The atmosphere here was markedly different from usual.
A low silence hung in the air, and where everyone's eyes were fixed stood a blond man in a suit who looked utterly out of place in the slums.
Pacing about, he read aloud from a document.
“Uh, so, since it seems you didn't understand, I'll explain again. As of this morning, the Logan Group has acquired development rights for all of Asle. This is a lawful authority approved by the federal administrative authorities. Accordingly, as the acting representative in charge, I hereby demand that everyone in Asle District B evacuate as of this moment. Immediately.”
After finishing his long-winded speech, the man caught his breath, looked around, and continued.
“What I'm saying is, get the hell out right now, you pieces of trash.”
A murmur spread through the crowd.
Most shrank back, and some were frightened, but there was always someone willing to step forward.
“Well, now I've heard enough.”
Someone strode out from the crowd.
“You've got a pretty damn cheeky mouth on you, don't you?”
He was a giant who looked twice the size of an ordinary man, and where his left arm should have been was a crude, massive metal claw.
“Hey, you corporate lackey bastard. You barge in here out of nowhere and what? You think this is you corporate bastards' front yard?”
The man bent down threateningly in front of the suited blond.
The blond man lowered his head. Taking that as fear, the giant grew even more smug.
“Looks like you downtown bastards have been away from the outside world so long you don't have a feel for the place anymore. This isn't your little coward's shelter, runt. Want to disappear without even leaving a word for your family? Huh?”
The blond man in the suit let out a deep sigh, then raised his head again.
He was smiling.
“You're laughing?”
Without a word, the suited man lifted a hand and crooked his finger.
At that, the man in a hoodie who had been standing silently behind him the whole time moved.
The stranger walked forward and stretched out a hand toward the giant.
“What are you......?”
And then—
“Voltaris, Minar Openil.”
A murmured chant followed, and blue sparks leaped from his fingertips.
It happened in an instant.
“Aaaaargh—!”
The giant toppled backward.
“Stop! Stop! Aaaagh! Help, help me!”
The giant's mechanical arm lost control, jerking wildly before it began to spew smoke.
“Hhk......”
The people froze, scarcely daring to breathe.
The red-haired woman at the counter muttered under her breath.
“Fucking mage......”
Her tone was laced with fear and disgust.
A mage.
A tool of the corporations and a terror to the masses, an object of hatred willing to throw himself into filthy work and stain his hands with blood for money.
The suited man spat sharply at the convulsing man on the floor and shouted.
“You pieces of trash! When someone talks, try fucking listening. Huh? Pack your things and get out right now! Ten seconds!”
“Then where are we supposed to go?!”
At that moment, it was the red-haired woman at the bar who shouted through gritted teeth as she watched the scene unfold.
An old man who had been hiding in the kitchen rushed out and grabbed her by the shoulder.
“Stella, you foolish girl, what are you doing! Please, just keep quiet......!”
But the woman called Stella showed no sign of stopping despite the old man's attempt to restrain her.
“These are people you drove out of the city center and pushed right to the edge! And now you're telling them to leave here too?!”
“That bitch's got a death wish.”
“If we get driven out, we'll die anyway, you son of a bitch!”
The suited man raked a hand through his hair, his face twisting with irritation.
“Don't go easy this time. Make an example of her. Every last one of them seems too stupid to get it.”
The mage nodded and walked toward the bar.
Stella clenched her teeth and glared with wide eyes. But she couldn't bring herself to hide the trembling in her hand.
A murmured chant followed.
When the incantation ended, blue sparks leaped from his fingertips again.
People split left and right, making way. Not a single person tried to stop the mage.
“Hhk......”
The closer those sparking fingers came, the more Stella's hands trembled.
She backed away until she struck a shelf.
Several plates fell, clattering loudly through the silence.
The fingertips nearing her throat felt like a blade. Tears Stella had been holding back spilled down her face.
The old man sprang out from behind the bar and threw himself in front of the mage.
“She's still just a child. At least spare her life, pl— urgh!”
The mage kicked the old man aside with brutal force.
Then he reached out toward Stella again.
The moment the mage's hand crossed over the bar—
“I can't watch this anymore.”
Someone caught his wrist.
“......?”
The mage turned his head.
It was the man in the black cloak, the one who had crossed the room without a clue and ordered vodka.
“......And what the hell is this now?”
When the man pulled back his cloak, black hair and pale skin were revealed.
He looked like someone who had gone three days without food.
But his indifferent eyes held an ominous air that couldn't be put into words.
“I'm no philanthropist, but I don't want to smell somebody frying right in front of me either. So, uh......”
The pale man rolled his eyes around for a moment, then scratched the back of his head with an irritated look.
“I can't think of anything that sounds impressive, so I'll just get to the point. All of you, get lost. Ten seconds.”
The mage turned his head and looked to his employer.
The blond man stared at the scene as if he couldn't believe it, then let out a disbelieving scoff.
“You've got to be kidding me.”
The mage asked in a flat voice.
“May I kill him?”
“Kill him. No, wait. Don't. Leave him alive. Cut off his arms and legs and sell him to the Underblue brothels.”
The mage nodded.
Then he raised his other hand.
“This is going to hurt...... huh?”
The mage faltered.
He looked down at the wrist that had been seized.
“Wh-what......?”
It was withering.
Like the branch of an old tree in winter, the hand lost all color, turned bluish, then black, shriveling dry.
Then it fell to the floor.
Thud—
“......Uuugh!”
The mage screamed and staggered backward.
That expressionless face was instantly smeared with confusion.
The pale man rose, nudged the severed wrist on the floor with his foot, and said,
“Ten seconds are up.”
“You're a mage too? This is magic......? No, this is supposed to be magic......?”
The mage wavered in confusion, then quickly pulled himself together.
I can't panic.
If this man really was a mage...... then this was a fight between mages.
And in a fight like that, the most important thing was striking first.
The one who panicked was the one who died.
Because he knew that, he swiftly drew up the lightning mana within himself.
But then he realized—
“......There's no mana?”
There was no mana inside him.
There was only a dry, empty void, like a reservoir run dry.
And then......
He saw the lightning mana that should have been his, whirling in another person's hand.
Unable to understand the situation itself, the mage stared blankly at the man and muttered,
“Why is my mana in that bastard's......?”
“I borrowed it for a moment.”
“Borrowed it? What kind of nonsense is that......?”
“I'll give it back now.”
Without any incantation or magic circle, the sparks were launched at once.
“Aaaagh!”
The mage collapsed, smoke billowing from him.
The pale man briefly looked at the smoke rising from his own hand. The lightning mana was no longer there.
As though mana were some kind of consumable.
The pale man, who had been looking down at his own hand, raised his head.
His gaze was now on the corporate man who had been throwing his weight around.
“Hiiik!”
The suited man dropped to his knees at once.
It was the kind of snap judgment one expected from a corporate man.
“I am sorry, sir! I never imagined someone like you would be in a place like this......! I will return at once and make sure to speak properly with my superiors again!”
The pale man walked up to the suited man and placed a hand on his head.
The corporate man raised his head, his jaw trembling violently.
Right in front of him was the pale man's face.
The instant he saw that smile, he sucked in a breath.
“You were saying something interesting, weren't you?”
“Y-yes?”
“I like business talk. It sounded very interesting. Where did you say you were going to sell whom?”
“Th-that, I am truly sorr—”
Dark crimson smoke began to rise from the hand resting atop his head.
“That......”
A murmur ran through the crowd.
The color rapidly drained from the suited man's face.
“Uh, uh, uuurgh......!”
Something blue was seized by that hand and dragged out.
「Gwooooooah—!」
Everyone was seeing it for the first time, and yet they knew what it was.
It was the suited man's soul.
The soul was sucked into the man's palm, turned into a small bead, and then scattered away into nothingness.
“Uuugh......”
The suited man's empty shell exhaled once and collapsed to the ground.
“What...... was that?”
“What kind of nonsense is this......?”
In this age, magic was not a mystery.
This was an era in which even that had been absorbed into science, founded on proof and evidence.
But was that magic?
Magic was supposed to be the art of artificially imitating the forces of nature.
Was that a force of nature?
After dusting off his hands, the pale man headed back toward the counter.
People parted before him like the Red Sea, making a path.
The man calmly sat back down at the bar and said to the red-haired woman,
“Did you say your name was Stella?”
“......”
“Excuse me.”
“Ah, y-yes. I'm sorry.”
“I don't want to hear that you're sorry.”
“You don't? I, no, I mean I wanted to thank you, to offer my gratitude......”
The man waved his hand dismissively as he spoke.
“Where's my vodka?”
“What? Ah...... I'll prepare it right away!”
Beginning with the clatter of dishes, the silence that had been stretched taut like a rubber band gradually began to loosen.
No matter how the others reacted, the man sat at the bar and calmly waited for the attention and tension to thin away.
Soon, food was set before him.
A lavish feast that looked absurdly out of place in a dive like this, along with a bottle of liquor that was clearly of quite high quality.
“No, my vodka was......”
“We ought to show our sincerity, ought we not? We cannot settle this with a single cup of trash that smells like gasoline.”
The old man stared fixedly at the man who had just saved his granddaughter.
“A mage who helps people...... you're quite an oddball yourself.”
“There are no mages who help people.”
“What do you mean?”
The old man said that and let out a hearty laugh.
“I'm looking at one right here, aren't I?”
The man looked at the old man for a moment, then simply picked up the bottle and poured himself a drink.
The old man let it pass, assuming he had merely made a silly joke.
No one could have known that it wasn't a joke.
Evan.
He was a black mage.
The only black mage in this bizarre cyberpunk world.