Something licked at me, over and over.

Feeling my cheek being licked, I slowly blinked awake.

"..."

I could see the hotel ceiling—the last thing I had seen before falling asleep. Fortunately, it seemed no one had attacked me in my sleep and abducted me somewhere else.

Well, I had summoned Grizzly into the room before losing consciousness completely, precisely to guard against that.

At the touch of the invisible tongue licking my cheek, I turned my head slightly to the left.

"Gyaaa."

Grizzly, crouched under the bed licking my cheek, gave a delighted cry when it saw I was awake. I stroked its head and spoke quietly.

"Good job. ... You ate plenty yesterday, so I'll feed you later."

"Gya-gya."

I dismissed Grizzly, then rustled about as I sat up in bed and turned my head to the right this time. Perhaps because it was a double bed, Sua was curled up asleep a little distance away.

"Mm... mmm..."

... Well, she had been abducted yesterday and seen plenty of terrifying things. She probably hadn't wanted to sleep alone in another room.

Then I touched my forehead to check the sensation there and found gauze over the cut. I looked again at Sua's sleeping face beside me.

... Had she fallen asleep while nursing me?

If so, that was rather sweet of her.

Perhaps the rustling as I got up had woken her too. Sua shifted and opened her eyes, meeting mine.

"Mmm...?"

"Oh..."

She stared at my face for a moment.

"... You're awake?"

"Just woke up."

She looked cautiously at my forehead as she asked,

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. Thanks for the gauze."

"..."

Sua abruptly turned away, then rustled about as she sat up. Smoothing her tousled hair, she asked,

"So... um, what are you going to do now?"

I scratched my head and swept my hair back, thinking over her question.

'Good question. What now?'

No, to be precise, there was plenty to do. Honestly, though, there were so many things to worry about and think through that I had no idea where to start.

So, for now...

"How about we wash up and get breakfast first?"

GRRR...

Our stomachs growled at the same time. We'd been through a lot yesterday, after all. A meal would help us recover our strength.

* * *

While washing up, I peeled the gauze off my forehead to check. It hadn't been a major wound to begin with, but the cut had healed completely.

'... Did some of the healing magic linger and help it heal?'

Anyway, on to the hotel's breakfast buffet.

Of course, the selection was meager compared with the dinner buffet, but really, there were simply fewer greasy dishes. Was this what you got at an expensive luxury hotel? There was a wide variety of foods suited to breakfast, and they looked quite delicious.

"Hmm..."

Plate in hand, I walked along, looking over the neatly arranged buffet dishes. I wanted to head straight for the meat, but...

Not this time! I went over to the vegetable dishes and put a little seasoned mushroom side dish on my plate first.

I'd fallen asleep on an empty stomach, and this was my first meal while still tired. Starting with a vegetable side dish would put less strain on my stomach.

I returned to my seat and picked up a mushroom with my chopsticks.

"Hm?"

There were scorch marks on it. These weren't merely seasoned mushrooms—they were stir-fried.

I put the stir-fried mushroom in my mouth and tasted it.

'What's this...?'

My eyes froze for a moment, then narrowed. It didn't taste strange or bad.

... Quite the opposite. It was delicious.

'What is this rich sweetness?!'

Butter? Had they fried the mushrooms in butter? ... No, it wasn't butter. That savory flavor afterward...

It hit me.

... Oyster sauce. They'd stir-fried the mushrooms in oyster sauce, giving them that smoky wok flavor, then finished them with sesame oil and sesame seeds.

'Damn... this is good.'

"Ha."

My mood lifted, and I gave a small, quiet laugh. They hadn't used any extraordinary ingredients or complicated techniques, but to put this much care into a mushroom side dish nobody paid any attention to...

That had caught me off guard.

... Meanwhile, Sua sat across from Yohan. After enduring the cannibals' horrific human-flesh party yesterday, she stared incredulously at his faint smile.

'... Is he seriously enjoying stir-fried mushrooms right now?'

Anyway, after eating until we were comfortably full, Sua and I settled into seats toward the back of the hotel lounge to chat over coffee...

Or rather, to discuss what to do next.

First, Sua reported what she'd done while I was asleep.

"Mister, the blood on your coat really stood out, so I sent it home to be cleaned. I put everything from the inside pockets in the hotel room's drawer."

... True, red stains stood out all the more on a white coat. The hotel might have assumed it was paint and paid little attention, but since it was blood, sending it to Sua's house rather than using the hotel service was a good choice.

"I told Dad's secretary you saved me when they were about to take me away, so I never got abducted. ... Is that okay?"

"It's better if we agree from the start that we never went to the building. ... Though that lie will fall apart as soon as someone checks the building's CCTV."

I didn't particularly regret what I'd done yesterday.

... But I'd been angry and caused trouble far too openly.

What bothered me, though...

I checked my phone. No calls.

A dangerous woman with black hair and a calm, still youthful face.

'Shin Sion...'

Cannibals or not, an entire building's worth of people had disappeared. This was a large-scale uncanny incident.

... Yet the Special Response Section was far too quiet. Silent.

I'd thought that, at the earliest, around the time I finished breakfast, Sion would have checked the building's CCTV footage and come with the Special Response Section operatives, each carrying a weapon, to fuck me up.

'Mr. Yohan, you're coming with us.'

'... Can't you at least give me time for a cup of coffee?'

CLANG!

'Hah! Don't try to pull that on us! Everyone, beat the hell out of this bastard!'

'YEAH! Kill him!'

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!

I checked the entrance to the hotel lounge.

... Fortunately, nothing like that had happened yet.

My eyes narrowed. Had they not even discovered the incident yet?

I should have done this before losing consciousness, but should I go to the building now and erase the evidence?

Or had Chairman Kim deliberately turned off the CCTV so it wouldn't leave evidence, since he'd been holding a cannibal party that day?

It was possible, but too optimistic.

As I mulled it over, <The Lesser Key of Solomon> fluttered open on its own. Sua flinched at the sight, startled, but since she already knew magic existed, she didn't pester me with questions or make a fuss.

I frowned at the open pages. The book had opened to Paimon, the ninth of Solomon's seventy-two demons. There was writing on the page that clearly hadn't been there originally, nor had I written it.

[A complimentary service, Your Majesty~]

An unpleasant little note... whose sender needed no introduction.

"..."

I could guess why the Special Response Section was keeping quiet instead of coming to arrest me immediately. Paimon had probably done something to the building to erase the evidence that Sua and I had been there.

Was he trying to put me in his debt?

I decided to use Solomon's method of dealing with demons: take the benefit and run.

SNAP.

I closed <The Lesser Key of Solomon>.

Thanks for the service. Let's not see each other again.

I'd already made up my mind, but I reaffirmed it.

No more summoning demons.

Sua looked at me and asked cautiously,

"Mister, what's wrong? Do we need to run? ... Would you like to come to my house for now?"

"No, it's fine. I don't think there's any problem for the moment."

I knew she was offering out of courtesy, but I was grateful that she would hide me at her house.

It was also rather absurd.

I chuckled and took a sip of coffee.

"You should get some rest too. When will the coat be ready?"

"Oh, I'll call and ask."

Somehow, it seemed I'd managed to resolve another incident.

* * *

The dinner gathering hosted by the cannibal magician Chairman Kim—the Table of the Great Ones—had been designated an uncanny incident. But when the Special Response Section operatives raided the building that served as both the gathering's venue and Chairman Kim's magical workshop, they sensed something strange.

"...?"

It was a magician's workshop. Naturally, they had planned the operation expecting all manner of strange, dangerous things.

... But this was a different kind of strange.

There was nothing here.

More precisely, there wasn't a single person in sight. Neither Chairman Kim himself nor his private soldiers could be found.

The building was clearly well maintained, yet an eerie silence hung over it, as though it had stood empty for years. The implements used to cook human flesh remained, but not a single drop of blood was left.

The only things that might qualify as evidence were a single broken window—all the others were intact—and a few broken pieces of furniture in the party hall that appeared to be signs of a fight.

They checked the CCTV, hoping it might reveal what had happened, but...

BZZZT.

Only black static appeared on the screen. The electronic devices throughout the building had been completely destroyed.

The Bureau of Anomalous Phenomena Countermeasures' firing range.

BANG! BANG! BANG, BANG!

Sion stopped her shooting practice and read the building investigation report her subordinate Lee Hyeeun had hurried over with. Then she spoke in a calm voice.

"It's a blackout phenomenon."

"Um... you don't mean a power outage, or the medical term for your vision going dark, do you?"

With the situation as it was, the operation would have to change. Sion checked her equipment as she replied,

"I'm using the occult term. This sometimes happens in uncanny incidents. Just as light illuminates darkness, darkness can, conversely, obscure light. It destroys electronic devices."

But it would take more than an ordinary uncanny entity to destroy them so completely.

... What on earth had happened in that building?

Meanwhile, the criminal they had been hunting all along—the only person with evidence of what had happened in the building—had lost his forces and was on the run.

An uncanny being who had devoured countless people.

The cannibal magician, Chairman Kim.

Fully armed, Sion addressed the Team Three operatives.

"Effective immediately, Team Three will also join the operation to pursue Chairman Kim."