Run.
The blond young man's instincts were screaming at him.
He didn't hesitate for even a heartbeat. He trusted that instinct at once. He stopped trying to fight, spun around, and bolted back toward the burial chamber like a madman.
Adrenaline hit hard.
He moved so fast the murals on either side blurred together in his vision. And yet, even after sprinting dozens of feet, the blond young man still ran straight into an attack he never could have seen coming.
"You hit Lord Iain and thought you could get away with it?"
Iain appeared directly behind him.
The distance between them, dozens of feet a moment ago, vanished in what felt like a blink, as if the frames showing him closing in had simply been ripped out of existence.
He even had one of the wall torches in his hand now.
"Down on your knees! Show some respect to the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Hemisphere!"
The flame dragged an orange-red arc through the air as Iain swung with all his might and brought the torch crashing down toward the back of the blond young man's head.
He was still too kind. Even though he had a strong feeling his eyes could fire off spells, he hadn't done it. He was only teaching this intruder a lesson the old-fashioned way.
Thunk!
That was one solid skull.
A crisp crack rang out. The young man's body froze for an instant in mid-motion, then went limp as if someone had yanked all the bones out of him. He collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Iain didn't stop.
He strode forward and smacked the back of the man's head a few more times. Then, still fuming, he lifted his foot and stomped on the hand that had been holding the wand.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The finger bones gave off a series of tiny clicks under his shoe. The wand slipped from the loosening grip, rolled away, and slid to a stop near the doorway of the burial chamber.
"Mr. Corpse!"
Ariana's voice came from the corner of the chamber, trembling.
"Hm? Miss Succubus?" Iain looked up and saw her crouched beside the stone coffin, both hands clamped over her mouth, eyes full of panic.
Her shoulders were shaking. "Please stop hitting him. He's my brother's friend. If my brother finds out, he'll definitely yell at me..."
Having witnessed Iain's violence firsthand, the succubus girl was clearly scared too.
"Your brother's friend?" Iain looked down at the unmoving blond man at his feet, then back up at Ariana.
"So he's a succubus too. That explains why he looks decent. He was almost as handsome as me."
He nodded in sudden understanding.
Then he lowered his eyes again and brought the torch down once more on the swelling lump on the back of the young man's head.
The iron butt of the torch knocked against bone with an even sharper crack than before.
"Don't worry. If I hit him, I won't go hit your brother."
Of course Iain was still annoyed. The man had landed two spells on him in a row.
One of them had even been an Unforgivable Curse.
"Please, don't, don't..." Ariana darted out from behind the coffin.
She threw herself to Iain's side and grabbed the arm holding the torch with both hands.
"Mr. Corpse, I'm apologizing for him, all right? Please stop. You're really going to beat him to death."
Ariana truly was worried about the blond young man.
Iain looked at her hands gripping his arm, then at the blond man on the floor with a whole row of swelling bumps across the back of his head, and finally relented, softening enough to lower the torch.
"I'm telling you, with demon punks like this, the ones who open with dark magic, the only proper answer is to beat them senseless. The fact I haven't beaten him dead already proves how merciful I am."
His voice still carried anger, but it was quieter now. The red glow in his eye sockets had gone out, fading from deep scarlet back into that black, abyss-like darkness.
Ariana crouched down and reached out to brush the hair away from the back of the blond young man's head.
"He's almost dead already." Her fingers touched the swelling lumps. One, two, three. The biggest was already the size of an egg.
"Not even close. I studied medicine. You're a sickly little succubus. You can't fool me." Iain propped the torch against the wall and crouched beside Ariana.
"Trust me, if you hit the back of the head here, that kills someone." He pointed at one spot on the blond man's skull, then pointed at another.
"But if you hit here, it won't."
Iain sounded completely certain. He might have trained as a self-taught veterinarian, but people counted as animals too, didn't they?
"Uh..."
Ariana looked up at him.
Iain understood the doubt in her eyes immediately. He shoved the torch into her hands. The flame danced between them,
lighting both their faces.
"If you don't believe me, try it yourself. Practice is the only real truth. That's what my teacher taught me."
His tone was dead serious, serious enough to sound like he was proposing a scientific experiment.
"You've got to train at this. Learn it. A frail little succubus like you, if you ever run into some evil succubus like him bullying people again, you'll never beat him in a straight magic fight."
"But if you sneak up behind him and slam it right here..." Iain pointed at the blond young man's skull, a little to the right.
"Then it doesn't matter how strong his magic is. He still goes down. That's called the Principle of Equality Before All Living Things. It's sacred knowledge from Lord Iain."
To make his argument more convincing, Iain even invoked the name of All-Things-Iain.
He was straight-up trying to corrupt the girl.
But Ariana was still too soft-hearted.
Even though she disliked the way this man had led her brother astray, she still couldn't bring herself to do it. In the end, she just tossed the torch aside.
"It was my fault. I wasn't careful, and he followed me in here." Her voice was quiet, like she was admitting a mistake.
"I warned him not to leave your bedroom. I told him it was dangerous outside. He wouldn't listen. He had to come out and study the murals, and then you caught him in the act." Ariana lowered her head to look at the blond young man still unconscious on the floor, sounding utterly helpless and frustrated.
At that, Iain waved a hand.
"I don't blame you. Miss Succubus is kindhearted, just like me. That makes people like us easy targets for evil creeps."
He was still bothered by the fact he had been attacked with dark magic. He had almost been scared stiff. Thinking of that, he gave the unconscious blond man another kick.
The toe of his shoe thudded into the man's ribs.
The young man's body jerked once, then went still again.
Watching that limp body twitch and settle, Ariana honestly couldn't see where exactly Iain's kindness was supposed to be.
Still, she didn't think he was the problem. After all, he and her brother's friend had both trespassed in here. The only difference was that Mr. Corpse hadn't beaten her like this.
The thought made Ariana swallow hard. Without thinking, she touched the back of her own head. She had a feeling it probably wasn't as sturdy as her brother's friend's.
"I'll take him out right now."
Afraid someone might actually die down here, the girl bent over at once, grabbed the blond young man by the hair with both hands, and started dragging him toward the hole she had dug.
His body was heavy. She had to strain with everything she had, teeth sinking into her lower lip as she hauled him inch by inch deeper into the burial chamber.
"You heading out? Take me with you. I want to see the outside too."
Iain followed right alongside her, kindly taking hold of part of the man's hair to help.
The blond young man's hair was now effectively tied into pigtails.
"Mr. Corpse, you finally don't want to stay shut in at home anymore?" Ariana stopped for a moment. She turned back, mild surprise and curiosity all over her face.
"What changed your mind?"
She was genuinely curious.
And Iain, for once, didn't hide anything. A real man faced his own cowardice head-on.
"The outside is the spirit realm, right? I get it. That's where all kinds of spirit creatures live. I only stayed in before because I was a coward."
"But just now, I suddenly realized something. This spirit body of mine is incredible. I can cast magic just by striking a pose. I'm basically the Sorcerer King of the spirit realm."
That was what Iain had discovered while chasing the blond young man.
As if to prove it, he casually raised one hand toward the wall some distance away.
Then, with a slight clench of his fingers in midair—
RUMBLE!
A stone statue on the wall, which had done absolutely nothing to anybody, shattered on the spot.