Occult Romantic Comedy! Chapter 14

“…”

“I am a person who willingly takes what I want. And only those like me deserve to have power! Humans like you should respect me!”

He really is an annoying man. The contempt in Timothy’s gaze grew deeper, now layered with genuine sincerity. He didn’t feel like discussing grand ethics or philosophy with such a person, nor did he feel like debating the responsibilities that come with power, or representing the common citizens who were just trying to live their lives like he was.

As always, he had questions, but he couldn’t stop David while he was excitedly rambling on. He had to stall for more time. Timothy bit the inside of his cheek subtly.

“Occult? Are you proud of dismissing a great power as mere occultism just because you don’t understand it? This is power! Even with such power, all people want to do is make someone fall in love, wish for health, or carry out petty, personal revenge…”

“…”

“The M.C.E.E., who tries to hide this power, is the pinnacle of pathetic! So, on behalf of those of you who will live your entire lives without tasting even the edge of this authority, I am going to achieve a great feat!”

I have to endure it. I must endure it without snapping.

“Lowest-tier vermin like you, who try so hard to deny this power,”

“I’m asking because I’m curious…”

I can’t stand it.

“You don’t really have… any abilities either, do you?”

Timothy forgot all about his bluffing and ended up attaching a question mark to the end of his sentence. David, who had been delivering his passionate speech while literally spitting, stopped talking as if he had been slapped.

“I heard there’s an excellent medium in NT, but that’s not you, is it? If I’m wrong, go ahead and possess me with something right now.”

“…”

“Demon summoning, magic, hypnosis, necromancy, possession, alchemy, animal whatever… You didn’t know how to do any of that, so you’ve been instigating other people this whole time, haven’t you? Was it money? I don’t know if you’d recognize the name… Clubbers? There were more of those demon worshippers, weren’t there? Is that why you lured them to LA? Even if we assume you did the apps and the hacking yourself… is that even difficult?”

That last question truly wasn’t asked with the intent to get under his skin. He had been taught at home from a young age that one should always maintain a humble attitude toward fields they don’t know well.

It seemed David had never received such questions from the other people whose cooperation he had sought. His face turned red and blue, rendering the LED lighting irrelevant. Unfortunately for him, Timothy had more questions left.

“I don’t really understand your grand goal either. Why is someone who says they aren’t afraid to die tomorrow drawing up something like a ten-year development plan for California? A presidential election isn’t a task that can be solved with a flash of popularity, is it?”

“…”

“And I’d really like you to answer this, but what is your actual job? Do you… have a job? No matter how much I search the internet, no information comes up. There’s no one who mentions you. You don’t have friends, ugh… At first, I thought you deleted the information on purpose, but after listening to some advice, I started to wonder if you were just a person who never left a footprint anywhere. Maybe you’re just someone who really needs attention,”

“Timothy O’Welly.”

“You idi… hm.”

“Is that your own story?”

David twitched his nose several times. Thinking it was a sudden expression of intimacy, Timothy looked closer and realized it was a collision between unquellable rage and the sense of victory from having landed a counter-punch.

It was an utterly unpleasant sense of commonality, but it made sense for David to feel that way.

He, too, must have found it difficult to find Timothy’s personal information online. How ridiculous must the status of an occult reporter have seemed? Even that wouldn’t have brought him this far without the help of Max and the M.C.E.E. Above all, since Timothy had been sitting on this altar acting so foolishly until just a moment ago, it wasn’t unreasonable for David to mistake him for the same kind of human.

Timothy replied blankly.

“I am… different from you. I’m an occult reporter.”

Since he makes a living off it, it’s a proper job. A very steady one, at that.

Only after David remained silent for an awkwardly long time did Timothy realize he had once again thrown out questions without considering the situation. It was to the point where the other person’s mood wasn’t just ruined, but rotten. By the time he decided he should try to calm him down with subtle appeasement, it was too late.

David pulled a handgun from behind his waist.

That bastard, I told him to come at me fairly with the occult…

“…”

Once the war of words ended, the sound of a single water droplet falling echoed particularly loudly. David feigned a composed expression as if this had been his plan from the start, but given that his fingertips were trembling as he released the safety, he was undoubtedly seized by fury. It seemed he had no room to care about anything other than shooting the Timothy in front of him. Truly…

“…”

Truly, truly, what a relief.

Timothy let out a heavy sigh, stood up from his seat, and turned around.

“Actually, this worked out better.”

Then, he scooped up the items piled on the altar as if gathering them in a large armful and approached the water-submerged passage. He kept his gaze fixed on the foul water on the floor, fearing his voice would tremble if he saw the muzzle moving to follow him.

Timothy began to hurl the items in his hands down from the platform one by one.

“It would have been a big problem if you had some complicated circumstances.”

Splash.

“Like bringing about an ice age to save polar bears.”

Splash.

“Or making a fortune through alchemy to care for the starving.”

Splash.

“Or summoning a demon to save a sick family member!”

Splash. Splash.

“Or at the very least, manipulating the Governor! To reduce taxes! To abolish discrimination! And then running for president! To pursue world peace!”

Timothy raised his voice and threw everything in his arms. When he picked up the animal carcass, he screamed at the top of his lungs. All sorts of emotions that couldn’t escape the underground corridor grew louder and louder, echoing ringingly.

“Because you aren’t that kind of person! Because I don’t have to struggle with it! It’s really! A relief!”

He even went as far as throwing the lantern against the wall, shattering it. When everything turned pitch black, David burst into loud laughter. It must have looked foolish.

To break the possession, the blood patterns drawn on the walls and photos had to be removed, and decisively, an exorcism—which Timothy knew absolutely nothing about—had to be performed. Thus, Timothy’s current behavior was no different from a madman making a final struggle in the face of death.

“Do you think I’ll miss you just because there’s no light?!”

He hoped he looked like a madman. He had to. Only then…

“Hahaha, my god, O’Welly! You must know by now! A mere non-occult reporter scrap like you,”

Bang!

A gunshot rang out.

There wasn’t even time to cover his ears. His body, which tried to curl up reflexively, only bent awkwardly. In the narrow, echoing space, the gunshot hit his eardrums like a ringing tinnitus. Through that, he heard the moisture and smell filling the underground corridor, followed by a voice that was utterly refreshing, as if irrelevant to this chaos.

“It’s Occultam.”

And a final splash sound. It was a noise so large it couldn’t be mimicked by dropping a few items. Even in that turmoil where his ears were muffled and the water surface was fluctuating, Timothy was certain of the voice’s owner.

“You can also call me Nono.”

It was Jonathan.

“…I almost got shot.”

“No way. I grabbed his arm and hit him.”

A flash—a flashlight turned on from the direction of the passage, and soon Jonathan, holding the back of the unconscious David’s neck with one hand, and Lio standing behind him, were visible.

Jonathan, with a merciless attitude, placed David’s limp body on the corner platform. Lio pulled out a stole—which Timothy still had no idea where he got it from—and began to bind David’s body. It seems that really is something he carries around for tying people up.

It wasn’t intentional, but the fact that David got so excited he pulled a gun worked out in Timothy’s favor as a result. The reason he was able to make a commotion before the sound of splashing footsteps approaching from afar reached David’s ears was all thanks to that pathetic murderous intent.

It was a bit of a shame he didn’t get the chance to hit him with his own fists, but thinking back to how David had used a porcelain bowl to divert attention before, it was a fairly satisfying Hammurabian revenge.

“You’re perfectly fine, so why did you leave a voice message like that? That’s a death—”

“I know, I know.”

Though he said he grabbed the arm first to ensure no one got shot, Jonathan approached Timothy immediately after letting go of David to check if he was hurt anywhere. Other than a centipede stuck to his back, he was perfectly fine. While Jonathan paused, saying “Hmm” at the sight of the centipede, Timothy cleared his throat, which had gone hoarse from the sudden shouting.

“So, what happens to this guy now?”

Lio replied while taking out David’s belongings one by one, including the gun.

“What else? Is the Governor going to sue? The moment he mentions he was actually possessed, his political career is over.”

“…”

“If we dig deep enough, criminal acts will surely come out… but who knows. At the very least, the M.C.E.E. surveillance will be tightly attached now.”

True to his M.C.E.E. membership, Lio was the same as the others in only vaguely guessing the aftermath. It wasn’t Lio’s fault, so Timothy didn’t criticize him. It was something that could be guessed to some extent.

The acts of supplying and delivering illegal materials needed by NT were likely handled by low-level grunts who knew nothing through the app. Even then, for several incidents, the Governor had already identified targets and named them as the culprits, so even if unexpected occult evidence were introduced here, the court wouldn’t take it seriously.

That said, Timothy didn’t want the M.C.E.E. to use a magical truth serum on David or send him to a prison in some other dimension. No matter how much anomalies existed, a human in reality had to be dealt with through the methods of reality.