Charred stumps dotted the pale, withered world in scattered disarray. Crouched on each stump was an ash-white, ghostlike figure, holding an equally indistinct shakuhachi and continuously playing that grating music with its faint note of mockery.
Though the features of these shapeless musicians were blurred, their general outlines still identified them as the other missing members of the Ogre Tribe.
Clearly, all the ogres in the tribe had now been fused together through some strange, terrifying magic. The ash-white shadows left outside were like soap bubbles in sunlight, visibly fragile. A mere gust of wind or a flying pebble could shatter them.
Then, amid the whining flute music, the shattered gray-white fragments slowly coalesced again. Their figures grew ever thinner as they continued their monotonous, dreary existence as the undead.
The last sounds they left in the world were those passages played on their shakuhachi, a piercing, shrill noise like countless birds crying out at once.
Against that backdrop of shrill noise, the Magical Creatures Studies Lecturer's words sounded rather gentle.
And perfectly reasonable.
Yet they still weren't enough to convince Zheng Qing.
The young scholarship student held his Talisman Gun, his finger curled around the trigger, his expression hesitant, until someone voiced a concern he could not conveniently raise himself.
"Sir, you're putting Poseidon's father in a difficult position."
A chubby face struggled to protrude from the Blue Giant's chest. Its expression was somewhat indistinct, but its articulation was exceptionally clear, and a trace of gloating colored its tone. "...If Brother Scum doesn't do anything today, someone will ambush him and give him a beating tomorrow night."
Zheng Qing shot the chubby face an irritated look.
"Brother Scum?"
It took Gan Ning a few seconds to work out what that nickname meant. Then he remembered the special relationship between