Flame Crow

Chris was dead.

Only five hours had passed since the police took him away, and a living person had become a cold corpse.

It was the first time Sean had seen a dead person with his own eyes, and the deceased was his friend. The white sheet covered only Chris's body, leaving his head exposed. When Sean saw that the stiff, ashen face with purple lips belonged to Chris, his pupils contracted sharply. His heart leaped into his throat, and he could barely breathe.

Only then did he understand why Quill had said Chris would have a hard time recovering.

Why he had said that even though Chris was emotionally stable, he couldn't communicate normally.

Because Chris was already dead.

Quill still wore his warm smile. It stood out beneath the ghastly white lights, so vivid that it seemed almost sinister, utterly at odds with the morgue's frigid atmosphere. His voice was as gentle as ever, yet Sean heard a bone-chilling coldness beneath it.

"Mr. Sean, is there anything you'd like to ask?"

"If you can't communicate with him normally, I can answer for him."

At that moment, a powerful sense of danger surged through Sean. He fought to suppress his pounding heart, slipped his right hand into his pocket, and spoke in a voice as heavy as a stone sinking into the sea. "You killed him."

It wasn't a question.

He was stating a fact.

Chris's injuries from hitting the wall hadn't been serious. Sean hadn't even seen much blood, and the injuries certainly weren't fatal. Even if the hospital had deliberately refused to treat him, Chris shouldn't have died so quickly. The only explanation was that someone had killed him.

Because the Witch Hunt was real, and Chris was a wizard.

Floris Hospital was the "they" Chris had spoken of!

Quill noticed Sean's movement. His eyes took on a playful glint, as if he'd come across something amusing.

"You brought a gun?" he asked.

Sean didn't answer. Instead, he asked the obvious. "Why did you kill him?"

"What if I told you I didn't kill him? He used magic to control my scalpel and tried to kill me, but couldn't manage it properly and accidentally killed himself. Would you believe me?" Quill spread his hands innocently.

Sean stared at Quill, anger blazing in his eyes.

"Oh, sorry. Did I just say 'magic'?" Quill seemed to realize what he'd said and patted his head. "You know how it is. I must have been influenced by spending so much time talking with your friend. There aren't any wizards in this world, of course. It's all just the naive, fanciful imaginings of patients."

"But you, Mr. Sean..."

"Although our country allows people to own firearms, most people don't carry them around. And you came to the hospital to visit a friend. Why did you bring a gun?"

"I'd guess you believed Chris and thought there was some so-called truth to the world we live in, as well as a mysterious organization that hunts people like you who know the truth. You suspected Floris Hospital was one of those organizations, sensed you were in danger, and brought a gun. Am I right?"

"You seemed to be looking over the garden earlier, but really, you were planning an escape route."

"I must say, you're very cautious, Mr. Sean."

"But unfortunately, you're mistaken. The truth is, you're sick too." Though Quill was supposedly expressing regret, his face betrayed a sick excitement. His eyes, sharp and greedy behind his glasses, were like a hunting dog that had found its prey. "Based on your behavior just now, I can make an initial diagnosis: you've developed the same delusion as Chris, and it's already seriously affected your perception. So my recommendation is..."

"Stay here, Mr. Sean."

"I've already explained what Floris Hospital is like. Our facilities are excellent, as you've seen for yourself on the way here. We'd never mistreat you, Mr. Sean."

"We're a private hospital, so our fees are certainly a little high. But Mr. Sean is a well-known novelist. Your monthly royalties are more than these working stiffs make in a year. You can afford it."

"Please don't worry, Mr. Sean. Your treatment here won't interfere with your work. In fact, I can even help you become more productive. I could set up a little writing room just for you. No meals until you've written your daily word count. How does that sound?"

By the end, Quill had changed from addressing Sean as "you" to the more formal "you," treating him like a client. He even knew Sean's profession—he'd known from the beginning. That courteous manner at the entrance had all been an act, a disguise. Quill's real aim was to keep Sean in the hospital!

His formerly impeccable, refined face had twisted into something grotesque in Sean's eyes. The polite smile that should have been reassuring looked ghastly beneath the lights, imbued with an indescribable eeriness.

Sean's finger was already on the trigger. His nerves were taut, and the gun barrel made a small tent in his roomy pocket. The cold air had stiffened his voice. "So Floris Hospital can just snatch people without consequence?"

"No, no, I haven't snatched you." Quill smiled as he corrected him. "You came to our hospital of your own accord. Mr. Sean came to see Dr. Quill for treatment, Dr. Quill diagnosed his illness, and Mr. Sean stayed here to cooperate with our treatment so he could recover as soon as possible."

"Your admission paperwork is being processed. It should arrive shortly."

Quill smiled warmly. "Mr. Sean will sign it, won't you?"

The paperwork he'd just ordered the staff downstairs to prepare wasn't meant to make it easier for Sean to leave later. It was meant to make sure he couldn't.

"What if I don't cooperate?"

"You will."

Quill looked at the pocket sticking out around the gun and smiled. "Believe me, Mr. Sean. Shooting me would be an irrational decision. It would bring our professional security guards running, and add another symptom to your medical file."

"Besides, you're just a frail writer. With your aim, you might not even manage to kill me."

Quill took an elegant scalpel from his coat, his smile confident and wicked. "We're within seven steps of each other, after all."

The thin scalpel blade gleamed coldly. Sean could feel how sharp it was, and could even imagine how easily it had sliced open Chris's stomach.

Holding the scalpel, Quill advanced toward Sean step by step. Every step seemed to land on Sean's heart. The cold around them surged in from every direction like a tide. Sean had never felt such intense pressure—not even when he'd encountered robbers at a bank and faced the dark barrel of their gun had he felt so suffocated.

But he didn't retreat.

Sean looked Quill straight in the eyes, raised his loaded pistol, and aimed it at his forehead.

"Take one more step, and we both die."

Quill hadn't expected Sean to stay calm under deliberate pressure. He saw resolve in Sean's eyes. Sean really would pull the trigger, even if it meant trading his life for Quill's.

"Looks like Mr. Sean is very confident in himself?" Quill licked his lips, his smile turning maniacal. "How about this? I'll count to three. You shoot, I strike. Let's see which of us is faster."

"Three."

"Two."

"One..."

The air grew unbearably tense.

But just as Quill said the final number, an angry middle-aged man's voice rang out abruptly from the stairwell.

"Quill! Sean! What are you two doing here?!"

The voice seemed to have some kind of magic in it, instantly dissolving the deadly tension between them.

Quill's gaze passed over Sean. He looked in surprise at the man who had suddenly appeared. "Vice Dean?"

"What brings you over here?"

The man addressed as "Vice Dean" ignored him and spoke to Sean in an indisputable tone. "Sean, come here."

Sean glanced at Quill, said nothing, and turned to walk toward the man.

He was calm enough that, for a moment, Quill thought he and the Vice Dean knew each other and that Sean had known the Vice Dean was coming.

But in reality, Sean hadn't lowered his gun. It was still loaded and ready to fire.

He didn't know any Vice Dean, and he didn't know why the man had suddenly appeared. He only knew that, right now, everyone from Floris Hospital was his enemy. Judging by the man's position, he was even more dangerous than Quill.

But there was one advantage.

The Vice Dean had a "high-status" position. He shouldn't be speaking with someone in the morgue building.

Quill's surprised expression proved it. The Vice Dean generally didn't come here.

Once he was out of the building, Sean would have a much better chance of escaping.

Even if the Vice Dean decided to save himself some trouble and speak with him at the stairwell, Sean would still be closer to the exit.

Just as Sean had expected, the Vice Dean led him downstairs.

Quill didn't stop them or say anything else. But when Sean looked back, Quill gave him a meaningful glance.

Sean read his lips: "Don't celebrate too soon. You won't get away."

The rain had stopped outside, and the sky was gradually clearing.

Even after leaving the morgue building, Sean remained on high alert.

To his surprise, the Vice Dean didn't give him a hard time or even speak. He remained silent the whole way, leading Sean around the main building, out through the entrance they'd come in, and into a narrow alley.

The moment he stepped out of the hospital, Sean's taut nerves finally relaxed a little. Only then did he realize how cold his back felt. His shirt was soaked with sweat and clung to his back beneath his coat.

"Weren't you just brave enough to die with Quill? I thought you weren't afraid." The man noticed Sean's reaction and taunted him. But his voice was nothing like the masculine voice from before. It was a strange, clear, ethereal girl's voice.

Sean stared in shock, his face full of disbelief, as the "Vice Dean's" features twisted and changed before his eyes. His body "shrank" along with them. The middle-aged man in a suit transformed into a beautiful young woman in a vivid red dress.

Sean: "???"

"You, you..."

"Never heard of Witch Potion?"

The girl folded her arms and looked at him. "I remember you wrote about it in your book."

He had, indeed.

It was an alchemical potion that could temporarily change a person's sex. If it was high-quality enough, it could also alter the user's build and appearance to a considerable degree. One common way to detect it was with the tail feathers of a fantasy creature called a Smell Crow, which could determine whether a target had taken a potion.

Speaking of feathers, Sean suddenly realized something. "You're the Flame Crow I saw last night?"

The girl's lovely brows lifted in surprise. "You're pretty smart."

He'd figured out so quickly that they'd met the night before.

"You're not bad-looking, either." She sized Sean up. She hadn't expected the shut-in writer, who'd only bothered to dress up a little because he had to go out, to look unexpectedly handsome. Saving him hadn't been a bad deal.

Sean: "..."

He'd only just come down from the tension and pressure, and his emotions hadn't shifted quickly enough to keep up with the girl's flighty train of thought. Ordinarily, he might have complimented her beauty too. A writer was never short on praise for women. But right now, all he could manage was two words:

"Thank you."

"No need." The girl waved a hand. "You won't be so lucky next time."

She'd come to Floris Hospital on business. When she'd heard someone had escaped from the hospital on her way into the city yesterday, she'd known he might die, so she'd wanted to try to save him. Unfortunately, she'd arrived too late. The police had already come to arrest him. Today, she'd infiltrated the hospital and found Quill threatening Sean, so she'd helped him out.

She'd done it all on the way, anyway. She might as well save whoever she could.

She didn't know Chris or Sean. Setting aside their looks, it made little difference to her which one she saved.

"So you flew past my house on purpose last night to warn me?" Sean asked.

"Yes," the girl said. "But you didn't listen."

Chris had also tried to warn Sean. The Witch Hunt was brutal. He shouldn't get involved with the supernatural, let alone become a wizard. He'd only turn himself into their prey.

"Don't go back to Floris Hospital. As long as you don't walk through the front doors, they probably won't arrest you," the girl advised.

Sean: "Probably?"

"They generally only arrest real wizards," the girl replied.

"I've read the story you wrote. The protagonist is Karl Black, right? If you know about him, you must be an Awakened One. But you've only awakened part of your awareness. You haven't gained any magic, which means you haven't awakened very far."

An incomplete awakening meant Sean had the potential to become a wizard, but not much—at least, not at this point. And even ordinary low-level wizards couldn't stop bullets. They'd only become another of the countless tragic victims of the Witch Hunt.

"I'd advise you to keep your head down and live like an ordinary person," the girl said. "At least that way, you can stay alive."

Sean fell silent for a moment, then shook his head. "It won't help. They're already watching me."

If Quill knew his profession, he must have read his books. In other words, Quill knew he was an "Awakened One," and he'd already been added to Floris Hospital's "patient list."

Sean didn't understand exactly what it meant to be an Awakened One. He hadn't had any related dreams yet, but he could guess it was something like waking up to see the world as it truly was—a shift in one's mindset.

The reason Floris Hospital hadn't acted against him was probably his novels. That unhinged bastard Quill had actually wanted to lock him up and make him write...

His instincts told him that the strange yet realistic worldview he'd "created" in his books might make it easier for people to awaken, helping them uncover more potential wizards.

Then they could round them all up.

He was being used.

The moment he was no longer useful would be the moment he died.

That was why Chris had told him to stop writing and leave the city.

The only way to hide was to change his identity, start over with a different job, and stop leaving any trace behind.

But Sean wasn't that kind of person.

Just as he'd known Floris Hospital might be dangerous but had gone anyway; just as he'd known he might die under Quill's scalpel and still aimed his gun at Quill's brow.

Sean remembered what Chris had said: "When they say you're a wizard, you aren't."

He wanted to change it to: "When they say you're a wizard, you'd better be one."

Sean could sense the girl's good intentions. He also knew that ordinary low-level wizards weren't much stronger than mortals. Some wizards who focused entirely on offensive spells were glass cannons even at high levels. That matched the setting in his book.

But for that very reason, he wanted to become a wizard all the more.

Because Chris, Quill, and the Flame Crow Girl standing before him had all shown him one thing: everything in his book was real. His novel unfolded from a third-person perspective. The author was like an observer, witnessing the heroes and epics that had unfolded throughout history and recording them in words. That was why the girl thought he'd awakened his awareness and glimpsed the truth of the world.

Quill probably thought so too.

But perhaps what he'd awakened wasn't awareness, but "memory."

In his dreams, he hadn't been an observer recording history. He'd been there, taking part in everything and experiencing it firsthand.

These stories were all events he'd lived through himself.

He wasn't a supporting character. He was the protagonist.

Karl Black was Sean himself.

This book was called The Moon and the Knight, and in the novel, it had a special genre tag—

It was called "Invincible Flow."