Morning came upon the seaside town as the second day of the Magician troupe’s first mission began. This was the first time Rossa and Sylvester ever saw their roommates with them in the morning since the other two tend to go for a jog and thus wake up earlier.

It didn’t help that the relaxing and comforting atmosphere of the place sedated them to a degree that they almost felt too lethargic to get up. However, that was the last thing on Sylvester and Artian’s mind, for their folly during the night has finally caught up as both felt an intense piercing headache.

“Oh god why!” Sylvester weakly complained as he forced himself to get up, struggling to make it towards his baseball cap to bring out the items they will need for today’s investigation.

“The word is spinning, help me.” Another voice of pain came through, and it was Artian.

Sadly, the two had to suck it up and force themselves to get ready. After taking a quick shower the two went down stairs and saw the two women already there waiting for them. However, the two men immediately noticed something weird about Estelle.

She was now wearing a face mask, covering her nose and mouth. Given that she was already wearing goggles all the time, she looked like a suspicious thief or someone who was feeling sick.

“Yo, good morning ladies.” Sylvester greeted the two. “And why are you wearing a mask?” He asked while pointing towards Estelle.

“Ugh, I think there’s something wrong with my nose.” Estelle complained. “I keep smelling something awful ever since I woke up. And it won’t leave!”

“What kind of smell?” Artian asked in a perplexed tone.

“I can’t explain it but it smells like a closed off closet that’s damp and moist, while at the same time there’s this really weird unexplainable pungency to it, like something has gone bad.” Estelle explained.

“I think that description just cured my headache and killed my appetite. How long has she been like this?” Sylvester asked Rossa.

“Ever since she woke up. She even shook out of my sleep just to complain about it.” Rossa replied while letting off a sigh.

Without trying to think much of it, the four then proceeded to eat breakfast in order to prepare for the day. After a few gulps of coffee, Artian and Sylvester’s headache started to disappear while Estelle could barely eat due to her mask.

Sylvester then took out four small round lenses and handed one each to his teammates. These lenses were called “portable mana detector lenses” and were a creation of his mother Claria Farsight. In essence it is just a very simply magical device that allows those who use it to see the world like they were using a thermal camera.

Any sort of mana abnormality will easily be detected by these lenses as sharp and vibrant colors in contrast to a normal bluish hue.

“Oh I see, what nifty little devices these are.” Rossa declared as she looked through the lens and saw the world as a mostly blue image with varying shades.

“Any reason why you didn’t bring these out yesterday?” She asked with a very scary smile on her face as she looked at Sylvester.

“They need to be calibrated towards the environment, otherwise all we would see is one uniform shade of blue. It's part of why we needed to walk around yesterday.” He explained. Thankfully, Rossa didn’t seem to mind that explanation too much and let it slide. After all, she did enjoy the inspection yesterday.

The four then finished their breakfast and left the inn. Sylvester then declared that they would be going in pairs once again, but this time Rossa had more things to demand.

“No, you are not playing around with Mr Artian this time. You are coming with me.” Rossa immediately declared.

“But whhyyyyy!?” Estelle complained while Artian himself just silently watched in amusement.

“Aw come on Rossa, don’t be such a grouch.” Sylvester interjected. “I’m sure those two don’t just play ar-”

But before he could finish his words a dark violet colored smoke then then shot out from somewhere within the town, covering it in a dome like structure and blocked the sun just enough to make it look like there was an incoming storm.

All of a sudden, Sylvester and the others could feel multiple large mana signatures suddenly appearing from the source of the smoke. It was like there were a multitude of things crawling out of a hole.

Sylvester immediately knew what these things were.

As screams of panic began erupting left and right, Sylvester’s mind went into overdrive as he took off his cap and pulled out a large black cloth and covered him and his friends with it.

“Everyone listen to me! We don’t have much time so I will make this as brief as I can. Firstly, give me your hands.” He said in an urgent tone as he bit his thumb causing dark red liquid to trickle out.

Without questioning it the three did as they were told and Sylvester drew a symbol that looked like the capitalized letter Y with the line in the middle extending upward and leveling with the two other angled lines.

It was the runic symbol for protection; Algiz.

“This will hide your presence from the enemy for a little while. Sadly this is the only extent of my runic magic knowledge, and even then this is laugable.” He explained.

“Hide? Why? What are you planning to do?” Rossa asked in a distressed tone, it seemed she had an idea of what Sylvester was thinking.

“All three of you, save and gather as many people as you can and bring them down to the beach. Afterwards I want you to open this.”

Sylvester then pulled another object from inside his cap. It was an Japanese scroll tied up with twine. But despite its humble appearance, Rossa and the rest could feel a great amount of mana stored in it.

“This is a protection scroll I got from the time I was in Japan. Just remove the twine and it will create a large barrier that will protect everyone inside from ghouls and other nasty things. This was given to me by a very powerful onmyouji that I personally knew so I can attest to its effectiveness and strength.” He explained as he took out his ID and pressed the panic button.

“And what are you going to do?” Rossa asked with great concern.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to distract the big bad as you gather everyone to safety. Since there are so many ghouls suddenly popping up, we can assume the ring leader is present.” He explained.

“Are you crazy?” Artian yelled in opposition. “That’s suicide!”

“Look, like the report said this is most likely perpetuated by a Lich and I’ve dealt with one or two of them before. Granted I wasn’t fighting it alone but still.”

“But Sylvester!” Estelle now joined the conversation, opposing Sylvester’s commands but he simply stood firm and continued.

“Our main priority now is to secure the lives of the innocent people in this town. If I can make it focus on me you will have ample time to just deal with saving as many people as you can. This is a situation we cannot just run away from.” He explained.

“I know you guys think that we should just kill it quickly but even if we did the ghouls will only go rampant and kill much more indiscriminately. More lives will be lost, and believe me, even if we gang up on it now it will still take a while to kill it.”

“But-”

“Among all of us I don't think you can deny that I’m the one hardest to catch.” He said confidently. “Don’t worry about me, I can tango with a Lich just fine.” He said with a smile as he removed the black cloth.

“NOW GO!” Sylvester yelled as he ran deeper into the town. He could feel that there was a large source of mana radiating from there.

With a heavy heart the rest of the team had no choice but to do as they were told.

“May the goddess watch over you, Sylvester.” Rossa said as she and the rest began their mission.

---

The strange metallic box that everyone seemed compelled to ignore suddenly opened, shooting out a dark violet jet of smoke into the sky, covering the entire town. Soon, malformed and grotesque humanoid monsters with disproportionate limbs came squeezing out of the box like a horrifying cartoon.

People who were around the sudden event ran for their life as these abominations started chasing after them. Finally, once the last monster has exited the box a figure that looked like a walking dry corpse came out at last. The metallic box then shook and folded into itself, growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared.

He looked up at the sky, and despite his empty eyes sockets, shielded his eyes from the dim light that was able to pass through the dome of violet smoke.

“Ah the sun, how I’ve missed it. Have I been in the dark for too long that I could not stand to welcome its soothing warmth?” It asked as the ghouls around him started to destroy the houses, killing people who were unfortunate enough to be in their path.

Slowly but surely, through the vitality being stolen by his legion of monsters, the unnamed lich could feel his strength slowly return.

“Ah that’s it my minions. Feed and feed and in turn, give me back the life that I had lost oh so long ago!” He screamed in a dry raspy voice.

As he watched the chaos engulfing the town, the ghouls in front of him suddenly plopped over and died. A fast moving projectile made of energy blasted through and pierced their heads, killing them in one hit.

All of a sudden, his minions started falling over one after the other.

Looking towards the direction of the fallen monstrosities, he saw a young with black hair wearing a baseball cap on his head. The man smiled towards the lich and began a friendly dialogue.

“Hello there, aren’t you undead only supposed to come out at night?” The man asked in an insulting tone. “Anyway, since you’re brazen enough to show up during the freakin morning, that saves me a lot of time trying to track you down.”

“Hmph, what an insignificant pest!” The lich scoffed in retaliation. “My minions, dispose of him.”

Soon a horde of monsters ran towards Sylvester’s position, but Sylvester remained calm as he revealed two cards that he was holding in his hand.

“Well, it’s not fair that you have friends fighting with you, so how about I call some of my own?” Sylvester said as he threw the cards into the air.

“Come, Shikigami assistants!” Sylvester yelled, and with a puff of smoke, two armed warriors answered his call.

A knight with heart motifs and a Samurai that bore the symbol of the spade. The Jack of hearts and the jack of spades.

Despite the overwhelming numbers the two warriors easily fought off the ghouls that came to the offensive.

“It looks like you are plenty skilled. Killing you will be enjoyab-URK!”

Distracted by the strength of the opposition, the Lich did not see the attack that was aimed at him. The projectile made of energy pierced its head and blasted off half of his face causing him to reel back and almost fall over.

It let out a pained yell as it regenerated the damaged parts of its head.

“Ugh, you Liches are really annoying to kill. It’s too bad I’m no exorcist or something.” Sylvester said in a taunting fashion. “I should have really tried to learn more onmyouji spells, but sadly I didn’t really have the aptitude for them. Think of this as your advantage so our fight will be a bit fair.” He continued.

“You damned brat. Who do you think you are!?” The Lich screamed as it let out a blood curdling growl.

“Me? Well, my name is Sylvester Clearsight.” Sylvester then took off his baseball cap and pulled out a swallowtail coat and a pair of white gloves, donning all of it in one swift motion all while walking towards his opponent. He then flicked his baseball cap to transform into a top placing it on his chest.

“And I am nothing but a humble magician, that was simply passing through. Didja get all that?” He said with a smile as he made a small bow.

“Damn you! Let’s see you try to run your mouth when I feast on your beating heart!” The lich screamed as it conjured a large fireball above his figure.