"Catch him! Call the police! Right now!"
The bar owner, the pot-bellied middle-aged man, pointed at Darius with a face turned bright red with anger. The upscale bar he had painstakingly managed had turned into a garbage dump in just minutes.
Several burly security guards immediately surrounded him, trying to apprehend Darius.
Yukino's heart pounded. Reflexively, she tightened her grip on the broom in her hand. Although she strongly disagreed with Darius's actions, her body still reacted seeing her companion about to be ganged up on.
However, Darius looked very calm instead.
Rather than resisting, he actually passed through the scattered tables and chairs, then walked straight toward the cashier's desk. There, a thick ledger lay open.
He grabbed the ledger, ignoring the complicated rows of numbers and entries, then raised it high.
"Want to destroy evidence? Too late!" He issued a declaration of justice before the bar owner whose face turned blue.
The bar owner was stunned. His movement to call the police halted.
The ledger? It recorded the shop's actual cash flow, and some... manipulations done to avoid taxes. Does this kid...
"Don't talk nonsense! Give that book back to me!" The bar owner's voice contained a hint of panic that was difficult to hide.
"Give it back?" Darius opened the ledger, his finger tracing page after page randomly while muttering, "Let's see... using the pretext of procuring high-class liquor and food ingredients to falsify thirty percent of operational costs. This money didn't go into what you call the 'company account'."
Cold sweat began to seep on the bar owner's forehead.
(This kid... how does he know in such detail? Is he an emissary from the tax office? No, tax people wouldn't act like this. Is he a competitor's agent sent to cause chaos?)
"What exactly are you trying to say?" He asked while trying to remain calm.
Darius closed the ledger hard, then slapped it against his palm making a heavy sound.
"What I'm trying to say is, your sacrifice fund flow is incorrect!"
His voice suddenly rose, carrying authority like a judge.
"This fund with serial number 7568, totaling three million two hundred thousand, according to the provisions of the Necronomicon Chapter 13 Article 4, should have been used to purchase Deep Sea Black Goat kids to appease the Figure sleeping in R'lyeh. But you, instead transferred it to a private account in the Cayman Islands!"
Darius made up numbers and logic at random, yet every word he uttered sounded very convincing.
"Do you think your petty actions can deceive the great Cthulhu? You have embezzled offerings for the Great Old Ones! Aren't you afraid that when He awakens, the first person He'll devour is a god-blaspheming traitor like you?!"
The bar owner's pupils shrank to pinpoint size upon hearing the numbers "three million two hundred thousand" and "Cayman Islands."
That was a secret known only to him and his accountant.
(This raincoat-wearing person... no, he's not a madman.)
(He's not from the tax office, nor a commercial spy.)
(He is... someone from "that world". One of those hiding in the city's shadows, operating by their own rules... a "Cleaner"? Or a "Punisher" from a certain organization?)
"R'lyeh", "Cthulhu"... those must be their internal secret code terms!
Fear, like cold seawater, instantly submerged his heart.
He's not a madman... he's a demon who came to claim his life.
The bar owner's anger and fierce face transformed into extreme fear and a fawning attitude in just seconds.
"S-sir... this is a misunderstanding, all a misunderstanding!" He forced a smile worse than crying toward Darius, while waving his hands repeatedly, "I... I'll handle it immediately! Immediately!"
He turned toward Saki who was still stunned and shouted: "Saki! You don't need to work today! Go home right away! The losses here... you don't need to compensate! Let me bear it!"
Then, he bowed repeatedly to Darius: "Sir, all consumption in the shop today... no, all consumption by you and your friends in this shop in the future, everything is free! Everything!"
The entire room fell back into deadly silence.
The security guards who had looked fierce earlier could only gape at their boss's attitude, standing rooted to the spot not knowing what to do.
Yui opened her mouth wide, her eyes sparkling with admiration: "Commander... with just a few words directly made the mastermind surrender... amazing!"
Meanwhile, Saki who had been hiding under the bar counter, now slowly stood upright.
She saw the usually arrogant bar owner now humbling himself before Darius, then she stared at Darius's mysterious profile covered by the raincoat hood.
At first she thought Darius was just a hopeless madman. But now...
Being able to make a slippery person who had long navigated society so frightened, he clearly wasn't just a madman. The nonsense words he uttered... could all that just be disguise? Or, is that the "reality" from another world she couldn't understand?
The way she looked at Darius changed, from initially "seeing a madman," becoming "seeing a monster," and now, added with a bit of respect and curiosity like "seeing a sage."
Only Yukino.
Only she was the sole person who witnessed all this from beginning to end. She knew very well that every word Darius uttered was nonsense made up on the spot.
Darius didn't understand how to read ledgers at all.
All the numbers and terms he mentioned were just garbage data randomly generated by his chaotic brain.
However, it was precisely that garbage data that, through extremely absurd coincidence, accurately struck the opponent's vital point and ultimately achieved victory.
Yukino stared at the magical realism scene before her, her hand holding the broom trembling slightly. She felt the logic, rationality, and worldview she had firmly held for seventeen years being hammered into pieces by an invisible sledgehammer.
"Problem solved. Let's go."
Darius threw the ledger back as if he had just done something trivial, then turned toward the exit. Yukino and Yui followed him mechanically.
The three of them walked out of the devastated bar, returning to the cold streets. The night wind blew, bringing a cool air. Yukino felt her brain finally starting to function again.
However, before she could voice her protest, hurried footsteps were heard from behind.
"Wait a moment!"
The three of them turned around.
Saki chased after them out. She had changed back into her school uniform, her face still flushed red with complex emotions. She didn't look at Yukino or Yui, but walked straight to Darius and stopped.
She took a deep breath, staring sharply at Darius with a gaze mixed with vigilance, confusion, and a bit of respect.
"You... who exactly are you?"
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