Not-so coincidentally, the house which had been built over the wide empty space where the Glown costume had been buried, was uninhabited. Its inhabitants had gone missing not too long ago… Obviously, the black and white clown had killed them to feed.

  When Binibelle and Jupo got here, accompanied by both regular city guards and some elites of the city lord, the hole in the ground was still here. The halfling had been finding the strange interferences and blockage when seeking out information lately to be quite annoying, but with the place of the monster’s birth as both catalyst and conduit in casting a spell? She greatly doubted this mysterious ability could interfere meaningfully.

  “Master… If we do find the clown… What are we going to do exactly again? I mean, what will we do if it's stronger than we can handle?”

  “Get killed or mangled, I guess. We can’t really leave a monster roaming around the city, can we? So we’ll have to try to do something about it regardless…”

  “...Anyway, we have a bunch of adventurers and mercenaries on the case as well. This is a city lord-approved extermination mission. The reward is hefty, and you wouldn’t believe what people would be willing to do for far less–I’ve seen some literally jump into a bear’s maw for a fraction of the promised money. You believe me, these mercenaries and adventurers? They will be so blinded by greed, they’ll stare death in the eye without even realising it”

  The halfling mage laughed as Jupo raised an eyebrow.

  He did not see how people being reckless beyond belief was a good thing. Didn’t it just mean that a lot of people were likely to die? Mercenaries obviously knew how to fight, but adventurers? They do lots of fighting only in stories. The real kind spends more time doing odd-jobs than anything else…

  “In any case. Stay close to me, Jupo. I am a fairly powerful mage, I would say… Hehe”

  “Master, you have a talent for inspiring very little confidence, even when I know your credentials are real…”

  Binibelle laughed heartily before approaching the hole, rubbing her palms together as her expression suddenly turned frighteningly serious–Jupo was honestly scared of this halfling lady sometimes.

  She circulated her inner mana, making it speed up in preparation for casting a spell as powerful as she could manage–Prior to the actual spell, she placed onto herself augmentation spells to maximise the strength of the upcoming investigative spell. Augmentation was far from her area of expertise, but every little thing that could help was welcome.

  This was the same philosophy that led the powerful mages and warriors to learn a bunch of other ways of power. Not to actually use them fully, but to just get enough from them to further intensify their power in their main area of expertise–Mages tended to focus on just adding their other inner energies to the mix.

  It was a frankly crude method of doing things. Basically, brute-forcing additional potency. It would be akin to Jupo tying a crowbar to his sword to ‘make it heavier’ and ‘hit harder’... But if something worked, why bother fixing it?

  She bent down near the hole, pressing both of her palms against the cold, hard dirt… Temperatures had been dropping lately. She could see her own breath every time she exhaled–She channelled her spells, and her mind was soon overflowing with images, sounds, smells, and all sorts of sensations–Being experienced with this, she was not overwhelmed, and quickly rearranged everything…

  Here, she was not seeking to view memories of the past. She was tracking down the one who had crawled out of this small grave. The one who had been animated by the negative energy of a tragedy that had resulted in several victims. In broken families. The one who had turned a place of wonder into a place of horror. The one born from a costume worn by someone who had killed at least seven people. The Glown suit wasn’t just infused with the suffering of the many victims of the events of Harvey’s Diner.

  It was soaked to the bone with the sheer malice and evil of the one who had worn it.

  This was why the black and white clown was a natural-born killer. She had taken after the perpetrator. Despite taking in the negative energy of the victims, she is in no way sympathetic to them. She had simply fed on their sorrows.

  …And judging by how she seemed to admire the ‘real’ Glown, this taste for the misery of others and this utter, nonchalant brutality were traits of the one she admired.

  Binibelle couldn’t help but wonder if the original killer was still around today. More than twenty years had passed. Many things could have happened since then… They could have died in many different ways, they could have left the city… Or they could still be roaming. Still delighting in what they had done while sitting in the front row.

  The images and sounds stabilised.

  She saw where the clownish spawn was. In fact, the mage was looking through the eyes of the killer…

  “She’s here!”

  There wasn’t time to say any more than this, the clown descended from the roof of the house, landing directly behind the group of regular guards. No one could react in time, and certainly not the guards who spent most of their time roaming around without actually doing anything.

  The clown’s body burst into a collection of black and white tendrils, the guards were grabbed and pulled in. The monster’s body reformed into its humanoid appearance on top of them, the sound of their body and equipment being ground down and compressed, made even the elites back off in horror.

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  The violence was unseen, but the sounds alone froze everyone in the area in place momentarily, allowing the clown to proceed unimpeded… Following one final, sick crunch, the false Glown twirled and struck a cute pose.

  “Uh oh~ Looks like something bad happened! Teeheehee!”

  She smiled. In a weirdly, off-puttingly charming manner.

  The stalemate was broken when Binibelle launched a series of mana bullets at the colourless clown. The jolly creature contorted and stretched to evade the hail, right on time as the elites gathered themselves, and rushed at the creature.

  “Hold on, wait a second, I can’t cast spells if you crowd around her like this–Jupo, get behind me!”

  Thankfully, Jupo was too young and inexperienced to not still be horrified by what had just happened, so Binibelle was able to keep him within arm’s reach–The elites had been briefed on what to do, but it seemed like their hard-earned style of fighting won over in the face of such a monstrosity.

  Normally, Binibelle wouldn’t doubt that they would be able to at least deal severe damage to the monster, but the clown… She was armed. Armed with the results of the killings she had just committed.

  Her body bloated and contracted simultaneously, before she erupted with shrapnel made from the shattered weapons, armour, and bones of the guards she had just squashed into paste. The elites were showered by a wide net of countless projectiles of varying sizes.

  They all crumbled to the ground, either dead on the spot when the shard got right through the gaps in their visors or severely injured to the point of being put out of combat.

  The shrapnel headed toward the mage and her apprentice was stopped by a barrier. The magical wall shuddered, but held strong. These were just regular, physical projectiles. The clown’s negative energy had barely even rubbed off on them.

  Their opponent did not seem to mind their resistance. She hugged her shoulders and swung from side to side like a mad pendulum.

  “You two… Oh, you two!”

  “I wasn’t expecting you two to discover my place of birth! Ooh… The tragedy! The humanity!”

  “...I know it isn’t much, but I hope you like it. I never felt happier than when I crawled out of this hole, breathed for the first time and realised: I am alive! Oh… How good it is to be alive! To see the lifeless bodies of my victim while I still live? How… Satisfying! Does it not make you appreciate life more when you see the mangled remains I leave behind? No one would want to take their place, right? Everyone must be so grateful to be alive thanks to me! Ahahahah!”

  “Right… I see that you are a complete fucking lunatic. Is that indicative of the personality of the one who wore the Glown suit?”

  The clown girl clicked her tongue in rhythm as she swung her index finger from side to side.

  “Now… Don’t think I will ramble about anything just because I like to talk at length. I only speak useless nonsense, and I tell jokes! I am a clown, after all… Want to hear a joke?”

  Rather than answering, Binibelle brought a small, carved crystal–Courtesy of the city lord to help track down a killer connected to something very personal to him–It was a communication crystal, and when Binibelle channelled mana through it, all of the guards, elites, mercenaries, and adventurers positioned around town knew exactly where to go.

  “Wow… Are you trying to start a party, half-miss? Or are you calling a buffet for me?”

  Binibelle maintained her barrier.

  “I don’t think you understand. Being able to launch some shrapnel very fast won’t be enough. If you want to live a little while longer, you should surrender. You told me you loved living, right?”

  The clown rolled her eyes, beginning to walk toward the two mages.

  “Alright… Even I won’t let myself fall for this. Trying to buy time by speaking, are we?”

  The clown’s form morphed, shifting from a pretty girl, to an abominable… Well, still a girl.

  Her hands grew in size and expanded, claws tearing through her malleable skin. Her face remained mostly the same, only that her mouth became much wider, becoming filled with countless, razor-sharp teeth.

  Her limbs looked as if they were being pulled thinner, as her legs, in particular, reversed their joints. She stood on her toes like some sort of beast as her oddly nice-looking shoes seemed to meld into her feet, revealing the chalky paleness hidden beneath.

  With a blood-curdling scream, both Binibelle and Jupo felt a surge of fear arise within them. Jupo struggled to breathe, but he soon felt his master tap him in the back with force.

  “Channel your mana. Let it flow. Cleanse yourself, Jupo. She is infecting us with something–The fear isn’t real”

  The clown smiled wildly with all of her teeth. Her voice was the same, but it sounded as though there were two of her speaking layered atop one another.

  “Heheh… Great! I like it when my prey struggles. Show me how good you can fight back!”

  The abomination made a sudden motion to the right, only for her to stretch out one arm to the left and pull herself there instead. Binibelle kept her cool, conjuring several more barriers, while simultaneously casting mana bullets in droves at the creature–But the clown had the perfect traits to dodge everything. Not only was she agile and dexterous, but her body would literally fold, compress, extend, bend… It was malleable beyond belief.

  Nonetheless, Binibelle was no amateur spell caster, even if she only used the most basic spell of all, she was capable of casting it rapidly. She could cast several at the same time, both with her internal energy or by manipulating ambient energy.

  The spell cost very little, and she had deep reserves of mana to spend. The sheer quantity and speed at which they appeared were enough to prevent the clown from getting closer.

  Her malleability was useful, but it was all controlled by her. She couldn’t think fast enough to keep up the dodging and move closer at the same time–So she just let herself be hit to close the distance.

  As Binibelle would have expected, even when struck, the clown didn’t really seem to be hurt. It was only natural. She had crawled out of the ground as nothing but an arm and a discoloured, old suit.

  Some bullets weren’t going to scare her.

  “...Master, what should I do?”

  “What else? Focus and aim carefully, we’re going to do our best to keep that bitch here until the cavalry shows up”

  “I can hear you planning, you know? I will be long gone by the time they show, the question is only whether you’ll live, or leave inside of my belly! Ahahah!”

  “Jupo. Think that this thing is related to what took your arm and killed Benait. Picture it, and then… Cast your spells at her. I need you to express yourself through your spells, alright? Give her a dose of how you feel about her”

  “...I understand, Master”