—Inside a lavish, magnificent room within the Tower of Babel.
"Failed? Eliminating the Spear King did?!"
Thick blue veins bulged across the forehead of Vice Headmaster Crab Einstein, a massive elderly man draped in emerald-green robes. He glared down at his sharp-eyed confidant—dressed in identical green robes—who stood before him, entirely devoid of emotion.
"Ye...s."
This sharp-eyed man was Vice Headmaster Crab's right hand, a subordinate normally insufferable in his boundless confidence. Even in failure, he was never one to turn as pale and bloodless as a corpse.
Narrowing one eye at the man looking so utterly unlike himself, Crab pressed, "What became of that girl, Lumine?"
"It failed."
Just as before, the man simply tucked his chin and answered with a face completely drained of life.
"And Somni Barrel and the useless weakling?"
"Everything failed."
Faced with his sharp-eyed aide answering instantaneously without a flicker of expression, Crab bellowed, "You absolute fool! My own reputation is on the line here! This will impact my bid for the next headmaster! A simple 'it failed' is not going to cut it!"
Despite the roar, the man merely let out an eerie, snickering laugh. "Reputaaation? Not gonna cut iiiit?"
Murmurs of unease broke out among the other staff members at the bizarre behavior of Crab's right hand.
"What is so damn funny, you bastard?!"
The aide's blatant mockery struck Crab like a tempest of rage, tearing a furious shout from his throat.
Still, the aide kept laughing.
—Kek-kek-kek!
"Stop laughing, blast you!"
Crab threw a punch to silence him, slamming the man all the way back against the wall. Yet he immediately stood back up with jerky, doll-like movements and began to dance.
"Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Boo-boo, boo-boo, bah-bah♬"
Humming the strange tune, he undulated his entire body like a boneless mollusk. Simultaneously, the sickening sounds of creaking bones and crushing flesh echoed through the room.
"H-Hey, stop! Cut it out!"
Crab barked an order to restrain him, but even as blood sprayed from all over his body, the sharp-eyed man kept up his grotesque humming and danced on.
"Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Boo-boo-de-bah-de-boo♩ Maggoty-waggoty, stinky and rank, the fly of all flies, the King of Flies, that's Bah, Beelzebuub♫ Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Boo-boo-de-bah-de-boo♩ Covered in dung, oh-so-fragrant, that is the paradise Bah seeks♬ Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Boo-boo-de-bah-de-boo♩"
Before long, what remained of the sharp-eyed man ceased to be human, morphing into a horrific creature resembling a giant fly.
"Eeeek!"
Terrified by the sudden metamorphosis, one of Crab's aides scrambled toward the exit to flee the room.
"Hey, you—"
Crab's command to halt never reached its end—.
"Kishi-kishi-sha-sha!"
Letting out a sound that was neither a shriek nor a laugh, a mass of tentacle-like appendages shot at blinding speed from the mouth of what had been the sharp-eyed man, skewering straight through the skull of the fleeing subordinate.
The skewered man spasmed violently, then abruptly rose to his feet and commenced a macabre dance of death. As the former staff member pranced about while vomiting blood, shrill screams erupted across the room.
The creature that was once the sharp-eyed aide planted both hands on its hips.
"This is a sentence-y. Our Supreme Great One is veeeery, veeeery displeased-y. Therefore, punishment shall be dealt to those deeply involved in this matter-y."
In stark contrast to a moment ago, it delivered the decree with an intensely solemn air.
That proclamation plunged the room straight into hell.
In the blink of an eye, every subordinate staff member in the room mutated into grotesque, unrecognizable abominations.
Witnessing what used to be his subordinates dancing in manic, flawless unison, Crab choked, "…Hic, gah…"
Overwhelmed by the sheer ghastliness and a terror so absolute it felt as though all the blood in his veins was flowing backward, Crab clawed desperately at his throat. Unable to draw a proper breath, he backed away toward the window behind him.
He was frantic. If he could just reach that window, he would find release from this living nightmare. Believing that with every fiber of his being, he kicked off the floor with all his might, shattered the glass, and hurled himself outside. All he had to do next was cast Fly magic to levitate—.
"—!!?"
Crab's desperate hope was mercilessly crushed as a swarm of fly-like horrors hovering outside the window seized him in midair.
"Pigyaaaaaaaah!!"
Amid his bloodcurdling screech, Crab's consciousness was completely swallowed by despair.