When Otto stopped moving, there was a small figure standing in front of him.
There was a stone bridge over a canal just ahead, and on the other side was a plaza, where the small figure was standing. There were actually several figures in the plaza, but in the moment, Otto's attention was focused on a single one standing in the midst of them.
The world grew quiet. Painfully so. He could not hear anything at all. The voices of living creatures fell silent as they desperately tried to hide their presences and blend into the background.
Otto Suwen knew that feeling. And because he recognized it, his heart was surprisingly, truly, astonishingly calm, even as the figure before him slowly lowered its arms and its long mess of brown hair and turned around. "—Hello, mister."
The figure's lips cracked sinisterly as it flashed a terrifying grin.
"—I am Lye Batenkaitos, the Witch Cult Archbishop of Gluttony.
Welcome to my feeding ground!"
His red tongue danced inside his toothy mouth as the Archbishop who should not have been there cackled.
—Another unexpected life-and-death battle begins for a noncombatant as well.