Chapter 155: Consequence

When it came to Asok Kauhan, he was the boss of the underworld who controlled the largest private military company in India.

Kauhan, a former brigadier general in the Indian Magic Army, founded a private military corporation after retiring by making full use of the connections he built during active service.

Not only did he have strong ties with the national military, he also possessed overseas connections, effectively acting as a mercenary force that handled the suppression of rebellions and settlement of conflicts both inside and outside the country.

He preyed upon ignorant third and fourth sons of farming families who had come to the cities seeking work, binding them with outrageously exploitative contracts little better than slavery and turning them into soldiers.

He amassed enormous wealth through work that exploited legal gray zones.

And while occasionally engaging in outright black-market operations, he diverted investigations with bribes and created scapegoats whenever necessary.

The turning point that propelled Kauhan’s rise through the underworld while maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship with the Indian military was his acquisition of the future-seer, Tarit.

Born as an oppressed outcaste in a freezing rural village, Tarit had neither a family registry nor an education. The boy did not even know who he himself was.

Nor could he properly use his power to see the future.

When Tarit’s family came to the capital to visit relatives, Kauhan’s men happened to kidnap Tarit’s younger sister first. She was intended for soldiers’ “comfort.”

Outcastes were difficult to trace even if abducted, and a young girl was the perfect target. There had been no grand scheme behind it at all—merely routine business.

Yet that cheap bait brought in a huge catch.

Tarit, worried about his vanished sister, tracked her down using future-sight magic, and they miraculously managed to capture him.

All eight of their prized demon soldiers were turned into mincemeat during the capture, but the harvest far outweighed the loss. It was only possible because Kauhan himself happened to direct the operation and knew countermeasures against future-sight from Japanese military operation records.

Future-seeing magicians were weak against simultaneous multi-directional attacks and darkness.

Kauhan placed strict restraints on Tarit, the future-seeing magician he had struggled so hard to capture, and locked him in a dark room so he could not see his own future.

Then he threatened him using his sister’s safety as leverage. If he disobeyed, his sister would be killed. Faced with that threat, the ignorant boy cried and begged for mercy, obediently becoming nothing more than a tool for seeing the future.

Kauhan managed Tarit with extreme care.

He took meticulous precautions to ensure Tarit received no information and gained no wisdom.

All he needed was a tool that could see the future. A tool had no need for will or thought.

The future-sight ability that had fallen into his lap caused Kauhan’s mercenary organization to grow explosively.

The demon soldiers they lost were replenished almost immediately and in even greater numbers.

By fusing collected demons and incorporating tissue samples obtained through connections from transcendents, he was also able to push forward the Artificial Divinity Project.

Everything was proceeding perfectly.

Naturally.

After all, he could see the future.

His military strength increased day by day.

How delightful it was to execute plans that were guaranteed to succeed!

Of course, future-sight magic had its limits, and there were things it failed to foresee.

But every time Tarit missed something, Kauhan punished him severely, and amusingly enough, Tarit’s abilities continued improving.

Everything was going well.

At this rate, ruling all of India from the shadows was entirely possible!

He possessed enough cards in hand to make it happen.

Kauhan was at the peak of his life.

One day, Kauhan visited the city of Wangoi, where the secret laboratory for the Artificial Divinity Project was located, for one of his irregular inspections of the goose that laid golden eggs.

Wangoi was also the core of Kauhan’s empire—the place where future-sight was imprisoned. Everything that had brought him prosperity had begun there.

Simply capturing a future-seer would not have been enough. Tarit would have escaped immediately. Kauhan only reached these heights because he had also captured the sister who could serve as a hostage, and because he possessed some understanding of the limitations of future-sight.

The gods themselves were telling Kauhan to become the king of India.

While touring the secret laboratory in high spirits, Kauhan received a whispered report from his secretary and instantly became furious.

Throwing his wine glass at the secretary, he barked:

“You fool! Didn’t I tell you not to cause disturbances in this city?! A transcendent went on a rampage!? What if the national army moves in to suppress it?!”

“The artificial divinity—”

Kauhan struck the secretary with an ashtray before he could continue.

“There’s only one! We only have one so far! I ordered you to lie low until we created two!”

“M-My deepest apologies…”

“…Well, whatever. We merely need to correct any inconvenient future. So then? Who exactly caused this disturbance?”

“Y-Yes. One demon and two transcendents. They’re all foreigners.”

“Their names?”

Lighting a cigarette and asking carelessly, Kauhan froze solid when the secretary casually read the names from his memo pad.

“Conrad Williams and the Blue Witch. The demon is unnamed.”

“…What?”

The shock was so great that both Kauhan’s body and mind stopped functioning. The secretary repeated the same words twice.

The secretary wore a calm expression, completely unaware of the gravity of the situation.

He seemed to think this was merely another “minor conflict” like the many they had dealt with before.

“Boss? Is something wrong?”

However, seeing Kauhan’s expression, the secretary finally realized that something abnormal had happened.

Though knowledgeable about domestic affairs, the secretary knew little of the outside world.

He did not understand the weight carried by the names of those two transcendents—especially the weight of the name “Blue Witch.”

Or perhaps he simply could not comprehend the nightmare of having an ancient witch spoken of in world history standing before them in the flesh.

Wiping the cold sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, Kauhan hurried underground with the secretary toward the future-sight sector.

This was not the secretary’s fault.

It was the future-seer’s fault.

Missing something this massive was deeply alarming.

After passing through numerous doors, raising blast partitions, and walking through darkness and narrow suffocating corridors, they finally reached the cage where the future-seer was imprisoned.

The cage itself was surrounded by triple-layered dark chambers, making the prisoner impossible to see. The only means by which the future-seer could perceive the outside world were the sound of ventilation fans preventing suffocation and a thin voice tube.

Opening the lid of the polished speaking tube protruding from the wall of the doorless dark chamber, Kauhan suppressed his rage and spoke:

“What have you done?”

Instead of words, the dark laughter of an emaciated boy echoed back.

Blinking at the strange feeling in the voice, Kauhan realized after a few moments what felt so wrong.

For the first time since being captured, Tarit—the current future-seeing magician—was showing Kauhan the emotion of “joy.”

Cold sweat ran not only from his forehead, but from his back and sides as well.

And yet Kauhan still had confidence.

Speaking with the dignity of a master addressing a rebellious slave, he declared:

“Correct the future immediately. See a future where those foreigners are driven away. Otherwise—”

“You’ll kill my sister, right? Hah… hahahaha! Go ahead. I’ve had enough already.”

Kauhan understood.

That dry laughter was not bravado.

From the cold metallic speaking tube came the detached voice of the boy.

“It was hard, you know. Again and again, I tried to escape from here. I tried to see a future where I could save my sister. But it was pitch black. Always pitch black. For me and for my sister. I couldn’t see even a shred of light.”

“…Change the future right now. Do that, and I’ll spare both your legs. As long as your right eye remains, you can still see the future, can’t you? Hm?”

The prisoner in the darkness completely ignored Kauhan’s threat.

“You raised that horrifying monster. You kept increasing the number of slaves like us. I had no choice but to do as I was told. Ah, yes… I finally gave up. Honestly, I should’ve given up much sooner. It’s my fault you grew this fat and powerful. So, you know what? I decided to destroy everything. Hah… hahaha! When I saw that outrageous witch—the Blue Witch—I was so happy.”

Kauhan was about to signal his secretary with a hand gesture, but as though he had already foreseen it, Tarit continued speaking.

“You can’t escape. It’s useless. How many hundreds of times do you think I’ve looked into the future while pretending to obey your orders? How many times do you think I’ve turned my brain into mush for the sake of this day, this exact moment? It took real effort, you know. Feeding you sweet words that benefited you while subtly steering things toward your suffering.”

Everything is about to be destroyed. Me, you—everything. 

Every last thing will die out. That’s right. You absolutely cannot escape. Do you have any idea how much work it took to provoke the Blue Witch?

“She had no interest in people like us, after all,” Tarit sighed.

Perhaps it was only his imagination, but it felt as though a freezing chill had descended from the ceiling.

The cold would not stop.

Even though they were deep underground, Kauhan could instinctively feel that something terrifying was approaching on the surface above.

Spittle flew from his mouth as Kauhan screamed at his secretary.

“You idiot! What are you standing around for?! Intercept them! Mobilize the artificial divinity! Line up the demon soldiers! Deploy the ritual magic corps! Everyone—every last one of them!”

Kauhan had seized transcendents and tasted glory.

Then surely, it would also be transcendents who destroyed that glory.

Hearing Kauhan’s voice verge on a scream of panic, Tarit let out a twisted howl of laughter.

“Come on… destroy everything. Bring everything to an end, Blue Witch!”