Chapter 14
-Thud.
As I carefully placed my hand on Shion's shoulder, her slightly trembling body flinched and froze.
"Meow? W-What is it, meow?"
Shion began to look at me with an expression that asked what I was suddenly doing. She looked confident on the outside, but her rapidly beating heart clearly betrayed her anxiety.
"There's no need to fear me, thief. I don't have a hobby of eating a cat."
"W-What! When did I ever say I was afraid of a crow, meow! This is so ridiculous, meow!"
Even if she said that while shivering, not even a passing dog beastman would believe her.
You could say that Shion was currently looking at the ghosts of her past reflected through the mirror that is me.
Before getting into the main task, I first had to help her regain her concentration on the present me.
Like this.
'Light.'
-Click.
I turned on the Flash Red Eyes! light, one of the utterly useless features of the plague doctor mask.
Eyes flashing!
A red light appeared on the pitch-black lens. It gave off a mysterious yet threatening atmosphere.
"...Meow?"
Shion flinched at the sight and began to stare at the red dot as if possessed.
Perhaps because she was a cat, her gaze toward the red dot was incredibly intense.
'The eyes of a demon that pierce through fear.'
-or so I hoped she would feel, as I lowered my voice as much as possible and began to act.
It was time for my regression back to my days as a sherpa, ripping off newbies while pretending to be a special NPC.
On the Air.
The surgery begins.
"Do not dare try to hide your fear from me, thief. I am the demon of fear, the source of primal terror. No being can hide their terror in front of me. Even if it is a god...."
'Ah, was bringing up a god a bit too much?'
I got a bit too absorbed in my madman acting after such a long time and went a little overboard, but fortunately, Shion's reaction wasn't bad.
"...Is that true, meow?"
Nope.
As if she completely believed my words, the pendulum-like movement of her bright yellow pupils showed no sign of stopping.
"The demon of fear. If that's the case, everything makes sense. Your hideous appearance that's different from other demons, the thick scent of blood that stimulates terror, and Lady Regina's reaction of secretly showing fear despite being a demon herself. Come to think of it, a crow is also an animal that symbolizes war, death, and a curse. All of those are related to fear.... "
"...."
"...."
My contractor had fallen into a delusion and was rapidly muttering something without even breathing, but that wasn't important right now.
The priority was to provide psychological therapy so that this cat-eared veteran, who would lead us down the path of the filthy rich, wouldn't suffer from phantom PTSD every time she looked at me.
I may not look it, but I'm a doctor.
Of course, I'm not a real doctor but a plague doctor cosplayer, yet you could say I have plenty of treatment experience.
Even though the majority of my patients have just been myself.
"You are afraid of me. Are you not?"
"...."
With her gaze fixed on the red dot as if possessed, Shion nodded her head to express affirmation.
"The reason is probably because I look similar to that phantom. However, I am a demon. And a fresh demon that hasn't even stepped foot into this world for a single day at that."
"...I-I know that too, meow. Of course I know that a crow isn't a phantom. But..."
Her eyes were confused, a mixture of fear and anxiety.
Shion herself must be very well aware that I am not some kind of phantom.
However, just like how someone who has experienced being bitten by a wolf would have a seizure if shown a pit bull terrier.
Even if she knows it in her head, a body engraved with terror has no choice but to shrink back instinctively.
'...This is a severe case. And yet, she still came to us despite all that?'
Thinking about it, it was strange.
Leading a normal newbie party would surely be much easier and safer than one with a middle schooler cosplaying as a black magician alongside a tall, crow-headed monster.
Why on earth did she choose us?
Was it some sort of effort to overcome her fear?
A veteran's sense of responsibility? Her convictions?
Well, only Shion herself would know the answer to that.
Anyway.
As you can see, this thing called PTSD has the trait of forcing its host to turn away from reality and face the darkness of their past.
But it's fine.
Sinking those dark, sticky specters of the past into the river of oblivion isn't as hard as you might think.
You just have to forge a belief out of lies that seem like the truth, and truths that seem like lies.
Accompanied by a very slight shock.
I am an observer.
A minimalist observer who feels sorrow in the subtle curves of wood grain and soothes his loneliness by naming floating specks of dust.
A pioneer of social maladjustment who prefers waiting over action and delusion over conversation. The demon of shut-ins.
However.
For the sake of the kind veteran who reached out her hand to a pathetic newbie party.
For the brave soul who risked her fear to approach me first, the very pinnacle of impurity.
I won't just simply observe.
I will take a step forward, reach out my arms, and personally snip away the buds of your anxiety.
Even if it means becoming the Demon of Fear.
-Swoosh!
I confidently spread my arms wide, like a crow spreading its wings.
Her gaze was drawn to the performance of this crow-headed phantom standing over two meters tall.
"That's right. And a very powerful demon at that. The kind of terrifying demon that could tear apart hundreds or thousands of phantoms in an instant if they came at me."
I exaggerated my gestures and emphasized my tone even more, spitting out the words as if I were chewing on them.
"You're exaggerating too much, meow."
Shion smiled ever so slightly at seeing me use such an unfitting tone, acting as if I had suddenly become a clown.
The atmosphere seemed to have lightened a bit, but this was only a temporary phenomenon.
What's needed right now isn't a jester who makes people smile with wordplay.
Something more impure than anything else. And dangerous.
Chillingly terrifying.
A demon.
I need to reveal the power of that mysterious mythical being. I must thoroughly engrave the fact that I am a demon into that little head of hers.
So that she can't even think about a phantom, so that those beautiful golden pupils reflect the present me, not some specter of her past.
"Does it really seem like an exaggeration?"
"Me... meow?"
If you don't believe me, look closely with your own two eyes and judge for yourself.
And then.
Fall into terror and despair!(?)
I will personally show you what true fear is.
'Deployment.'
-Swish swish swish!!!
"Meo... w?"
Tearing through my back, black branches began to grow.
Yes. It's the same wings I took out this morning.
However, the original wings were a bit too dull to leave a strong impact.
So, I'll add a little variation.
-Crinkle!
Suddenly, fruits began to form on the bare branches made of black arms.
Tantalizing fruits known as the dead.
-Kieeeeeeeeeeeek!!!
-Aaaaaaaaagh!!! Aaaaaaaaaaagh!!!
-Mea... t.... I'm hun... gry....
-There.... is.... no salvation....
The bodies of madmen and mutants tangled together, hanging in the air with their arms and legs flailing weakly. As they let out agonized screams, they instantly painted a picture of hell in reality.
At this moment. I was a stage, and also a stage prop.
Since I couldn't find any professional actors, I had no choice but to use the friend card (madmen, enhanced humans, and other meatball clusters).
Perhaps the makeup worked exceptionally well, because the audience's reactions weren't bad.
"Ah. Ahh. Ahhh."
"Goddess! Please protect your little lambs!!!"
"A demon... It's a demon! A real demon...!"
"Oh primordial fear, please... please have mercy..."
Perhaps moved by the harmony of the dead shrieking while hanging from the cross-shaped black branches, adventurers began dropping to their knees on the cold floor one after another, frantically begging for their lives.
Among them was the cat-eared veteran who was going to take care of us.
-Thud.
"Meow.... Meow-meow...."
Had she devolved from a cat beastman into a mere kitten? Shion had her head pressed against the floor, unable to even speak properly.
"This is Sir Raven's power. It's truly amazing. As expected, a terrifying authority befitting the demon of fear...."
Meanwhile, my contractor was quietly marveling at the sight with sparkling eyes. I became a little more afraid of my contractor.
'Is this enough? '
Judging by how Shion was lying flat on the floor and shivering, it seemed I wouldn't need to go as far as cutting open the actors' stomachs and making their organs rain down.
That's good, it saves energy too.
For the record, that little stunt just consumed enough bio-energy to easily last two hundred years without predation.
But it's fine. Thinking of it as an investment for the future makes it feel a lot less wasteful.
Along with treating our sherpa's PTSD, I could also send a 'warning' to any unknown dangerous seeds that might threaten my contractor and me in the future. In a way, it was killing two birds with one stone.
With this level of crazy bullshit, no one would dare mess with us.
I absolutely did not just throw a tantrum because I was pissed off about the goddess taking away my inventory.
'Dismissed.'
"Go back."
There was no need to say it out loud, but I deliberately opened my mouth to firmly establish that I was the one controlling that cluster of corpses.
Ah, what I just did might have been a bit embarrassing.
-Snap!
With a brief snap of my fingers, I withdrew the bio-energy of the meatpie tree.
-Rustle.
Like a midsummer night's nightmare, the fragments of death crumbled in an instant, turning into ashes and scattering away.
Only the faint scent of blood lingering in the air and the dying screams of the dead silently proclaimed that this fabricated hell had been real.
I pulled my eyes away from my contractor, who was gazing ecstatically at the ashes falling from the sky like snow, and carefully reached my hand out to Shion.
-Flinch.
Her whole body trembled as if struck by a massive earthquake. In her pupils, dilated to their absolute limit, resided an emotion that went beyond fear and bordered on awe.
"Can you see me now?"
"...."
Nod.
She nodded her head in silence.
However, unlike before when she was staring at the floor in terror.
Her two glowing golden eyes were glued to me, refusing to look away.
Do you see it? That pure belief (fear)?
This is me.
Now that her belief has been established, it was finally time to drive in the wedge known as the 'placebo' and dot the eyes of the cat.
Talk about dotting the eye of the cat!
It didn't really have a nice ring to it.
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