SECOND-CLASS SAINT

Trickster

Allowing the dust to settle, Cyril calmly approached the man groaning at the tree's base. The chalk-white bark supporting Victor's back was dyed in the color of his innards, a horrific splat resembling some kind of kitchen accident.

"You...just what kind...of power do you have?" Victor croaked, his expression twisting from the agony.

Cyril didn't respond, he stopped a few steps short of the wheezing man and took aim with his right arm. A swirl of white flames materialized before his palm, and he unleashed the spray of flames without hesitation, too quickly for the dying man to even get a word in.

Cyril had aimed for his lower body, the flames enveloped everything up to his midriff almost immediately, catching along the ground and spawning trails of frost in the process.

"I'll ask you one more time, Victor," Cyril said evenly, his eyes hard and unrelenting. "Where is Carissa? Drag this out, and I'll freeze you piece by piece."

"Do your worst..." Victor replied with an anguished groan.

Both of his legs had already been consumed by the white blaze, frost seeping into his every nerve. In response to his challenge, Cyril manifested another fireball and targeted the same area as before. Now that he'd been struck twice, the already subzero chill plunged even lower, ripping a scream from Victor's throat.

As he howled in despair, his wails abruptly halted once he heard the dreadful sound of ice breaking. Pausing in horror, Victor slowly glanced down to see that the sound had come from his lower body. One of his legs—literally frozen to the bone —snapped off right above his knee, as though it had never even belonged there in the first place.

Victor watched in horror as his limb rolled across the dirt and shattered as though it were a racked figurine, crumbling into useless, jagged fragments.

His despair peaking, Victor howled again.

"I warned you. Keep this up and you really will die, you know."

Before the silence could fully settle, Cyril produced another fireball above his palm. The glimmering light flickered into Victor's down casted vision, he swiftly raised his head, lips quivering as he tried to proclaim his cooperation.

"W-Wait! I'll talk! I'll talk!" Victor yelled and raised both arms in submission.

His interest roused, Cyril quickly dispelled the flames swirling above his palm.

"Start talking."

Victor took the lead once more, preparing to speak between his consciousness slipped away.

"That woman...Carissa is—"

"For god's sake, can't you people do anything properly?"

A third voice interrupted them, and strangely enough, Cyril recognized it for some reason. The atmosphere froze almost instantly, muted by the approaching footfalls, and the dreadful presence of their owner.

Appearing from the side, it was someone Cyril knew—a young man with neatly combed blonde hair and green eyes. His sharp features were further accentuated by thick-framed glasses and an extravagant robe. He looked to be around Cyril's age, perhaps a bit older.

Percy Barrington—the man behind the name—Cyril felt nothing in particular toward him.

At best, he considered him an oddball.

As the young man drew closer, Cyril gradually realized what he was witnessing. The veil of his own preconceptions was lifting before his eyes.

The usual succinctness and restraint he had always associated with Percy were nowhere to be found. That voice, that presence, that baleful expression—none of it was anything he had ever expected from Percy.

"W-wait, please! I can still fight!" Victor cried, directing the words at the young man.

Cyril watched on in sheer astonishment as terror began filling Victor's face. His complexion was slowly being discolored due to the blood loss he'd suffered, but this was something entirely different.

Victor cried out again and again, as if pleading for his life before Percy—someone who, in Cyril's eyes, should have been no different from himself, just another low-ranked hunter.

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No, that couldn't be it, Cyril thought.

Victor had once been the second-in-command of a well-known terrorist organization; men like him had no reason to fear low-ranked hunters—certainly not to this extent.

As the seconds ticked by, marking Percy's dreadful approach, Cyril firmly convinced himself that he was looking at an entirely different person.

It was...

"Percy...?"

Cyril tried to speak, but the most he could do was mutter Percy's name. The massive implication looming at the back of his mind was making it hard to think in the moment.

Percy scowled at him as he extended his arm and tightened his fist. Cyril's senses were primed, warning him of imminent danger, he leapt backwards without thinking but his efforts were in vain.

"AAAGH!!"

A massive column of compressed air came shooting down from the heavens, smashing Cyril into the dirt with enough force to topple the surrounding oaks. In the blink of an eye, the blast hit Cyril with enough force to crater the ground and tunnel past the surface like a drill, burying him with its impact.

Percy brushed aside the lingering plumes of dust with a sweep of his hand and advanced on Victor with a fearsome gaze. He didn't spare so much as a glance to see whether the man he had buried in the several-meter-deep crater was alive or dead.

"Wait, Scarecrow! Our fight isn't over yet! I was just waiting for him to drop his guard!" Victor shouted anxiously, his eyes quivering as he returned Percy's gaze.

"What are you rambling about? I told you not to call me that unless I have my mask on."

"Yes, Well, I was saying that I can still fight."

"Really?" Percy quizzically raised a brow. "It looks to me like you failed. Cyril clobbered you half to death, and had I not arrived you would have probably been dead by now."

Percy took another step, prompting a small shriek from Victor. Stooping to Victor's level, he made an exasperated sigh and removed his glasses.

"Let me tell you what's really going on here since you still don't get it. This was never a competition between us, killing Cyril Severin under these conditions was just a test to see if you could assume the title of 'Scarecrow' on your own, and you failed. There was no plan to reinstate you as the second-in- command."

"...What?" Victor muttered, his eyes widening in shock.

"I'm sure you've figured it out by now—the only reason you ever rose to that position, despite barely managing a half-decent spell every five seconds, is because the boss was an old friend of yours. Truth is, you're a failure, and everyone knows it. The boss knows it too. He's realized we need to cut off the dead weight if we want to move forward, and that's why I'm here—to evaluate you."

Percy delivered the words in a cold, almost sarcastic tone. He watched with a slightly amused expression as the despair began to settle in Victor's mind.

"Evaluate me...? You mean to say that I've failed to meet your expectations then?" Victor's voice sank a few octaves, his lips trembling as he spoked the words.

"I never expected much from you to begin with, and you've proven me right—you failed. The only purpose you might have served was as a stand-in scarecrow, since our magic is similar. But even that's no longer possible." Percy sighed, gesturing toward Victor's shattered right leg, frozen at the stump.

"B-But I can still—"

"You heard me," Percy cut him off sharply. "Silas did you a huge favor by getting all these therianthropes in place, and what do you have to show for it? Pathetic. We don't need dead weight like you around anymore."

The white flames clinging to Victor's body suddenly flared alight, as though they attesting to Percy's claim.

Then, Percy himself had a thought.

Why haven't these flames gone out yet? Cyril should be-

An explosion erupted behind him as something burst from the nearby crater, hurling a massive wave of debris into the air.

Percy clicked his tongue and effortlessly took control of the airflow, blasting away the storm of debris with a casual swipe of his hand.

"Well, well, well, Percy. So that's what's going on here?" Cyril's voice rang from above—the very same tree Percy was keeling at the base of. The silver-haired boy stood atop one of its branches, glaring down at them with a steely expression.

Percy produced a cynical smile upon returning his glare.

"You're tougher than you look. I could have sworn I broke at least a few of your bones with that last attack."

Cyril responded with a casual shrug. "I wonder what the Chairman will think when he finds out you've been hiding your true power." Cyril said, raising his voice in mock amusement. "This whole time you had us playing cat and mouse, thinking we were about to catch Scarecrow when you've been here the whole time—that's a bit too ironic, don't you think?"

"Heh, well, I've been told I look different without the mask." Percy countered swiftly. "And besides, I'm pretty sure the Chairman has been onto me for a while now, he's insisted that I take part in this mission even after I refused it several times, there was no real point in keeping up the act any further."

"That so? I-"

The word caught in Cyril's throat, unable to form. His vision suddenly flipped, and his body lost all sense of balance, as though the world itself had tilted. After tumbling through the air, he finally registered the sickening impact of hitting the ground several meters below.

One single, prudent thought dominated his mind—powerful enough to override the searing pain from the fall.

Can't...breathe....