A Shady Character

Jacco and Ivo were hurriedly running towards the back alleyway where the window to the victim's apartment led to. The suspicious character peeking into the room might be related to the killer, or at least, could answer some of their questions.

"Move!" Jacco shoved the people standing in his way with his strong arms.

"What the--!"

"Hey!" people were grunting angrily as they were pushed aside, but the two men were already too far away the moment they realized what had happened.

It didn't take long for them to reach the back alley, but by the time they got there, the mysterious individual was nowhere to be seen. The alley was barren without any signs of life. There were traces of things having been searched, most likely by the Police when they came earlier looking for clues.

"Shit! We missed him!" Jacco punched the air in frustration.

"Isn't it to be expected, boss. It takes too long to get from the apartment to this place," Ivo said nonchalantly, and then started looking around, "But maybe the person left something behind."

The alley was located right at the back of the apartment building where the dead Louis lived. There were covered windows that appeared as they belonged to the apartments on the first floor, and for security reasons, they were protected by metal railings. Opening them completely was impossible, so their purpose was more for letting sunlight in more than anything.

The two men approached the window only window whose curtain was open, which belonged to Louis's room. From outside, they could clearly see inside the small, barren bedroom despite the window being slightly tinted. It would explain why all of the other tenants kept theirs closed.

"The guy should be standing right about here when he was peeping," Jacco recreated the scene according to what he remembered. He was crouching near the right corner of the window and was looking inside.

"Why are you sure it's a he?" Ivo asked.

"That's just to make it easier for me to say, rather than say he or she. That's too bothersome," Jacco answered casually, "So after he saw us, he disappeared like this," Jacco retracted his upper body and disappeared from the field of view from inside the apartment.

"Then where did he go? I don't see any shoeprints around there," Ivo looked carefully at the ground around the window that showed no sign of having been stepped on very recently, except for their own traces.

"The guy must have been very light-footed. Maybe a Thief like you. That sleepyhead Luuk also doesn't make any sound when he walks and he is a Thief. Or he flew," Jacco got up and looked at the sky.

"Must be nice to be able to fly..." Ivo also looked up, his mind began wondering.

Suddenly, Jacco felt like the skin on his forearm got itchy, so he started scratching it vigorously, replacing the itch with relieving pain. At that moment, he also noticed that there were ants gathering around his feet, a lot of them began climbing up his thick boots.

"Shit! Fucking ants!"

He stepped back and began stomping, sending the ants falling back down to the ground and crushing them with his soles. Ivo also noticed the same thing and retreated, getting far away from the spot with a lot of ants.

"Boss! There are ants everywhere! This is definitely not normal!" Ivo shouted.

On the ground, tiny red ants were crawling in an alarming number, coming from all over the place and heading towards the two men who were busy avoiding them. The ants marched steadily, covering most of the ground like a wave of red blood that squirmed about.

"Where the hell did they come from?!" exclaimed Jacco as he was jumping farther back. He then looked at Ivo and the latter nodded.

"Run!!"

Jacco and Ivo quickly escaped from the small back alley whose ground and wall were now almost all covered in red ants, sending a tingling sensation down the spine of anyone who laid eyes upon the sight.

When they thought they almost escaped from the army of ants, however, the two Contractbounds had to stop in their tracks.

"Boss, there are ants over there too!"

In front of them, the ground and the wall were blanketed in those tiny red ants that looked to be never-ending. In order for them to escape, they would have to leap a distance of at least ten meters, over the sea of ants ahead of them.

"We're trapped. Boss, can any of your Ignoramus abilities help us?" Ivo looked at his boss, worry apparent on his face.

"I don't know! If only I had Hymes' flame. Fuck!!" Jacco cursed, "I will try something," he then said.

The two of them were racing against time, trapped there in the small alley. The armies of red ants were approaching from both their front and back, slowly crawling with their six legs towards the two living human beings. Although they were only ants, their unnatural number and their abnormal movement of approaching them made Jacco and Ivo alarmed.

Reaching into his pocket, Jacco took out a short stick of incense and a lighter. He then looked at Ivo and shouted a command.

"Find me something to hold this!"

Quickly, the blond man looked around and picked up two medium-sized stones and gave them to his boss.

"Cover me!"

Ivo nodded and took a fighting stance. The armies of ants were approaching, but there was still some distance between them and the animals, so Ivo could still get himself ready.

Jacco, who had placed the incense between the stones and kept it standing secure there, cut his palm and dripped his blood on the fragrant object, covering it completely with its redness. The once grey stick was now blood-red in color.

Click!

Jacco lit the lighter and began chanting.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Stupidity and Hatred, offer this bloodied incense to declare this whole area a Zone of Hatred!"

He brought his lighter closer to the blood-covered incense and mysteriously, it caught on fire easily despite the red liquid enveloping it. The flame burned both the blood and the fragrant material around the stick, creating a cloud of smoke that quickly and magically engulfed the whole alley before disappearing.

"Boss, what did you do?" asked Ivo curiously. He had been wary of inhaling the smoke, but since it was practically everywhere, he couldn't help but breathe in some of it.

"I've just created a Zone of Hatred. Everything in this area should start fighting among themselves," Jacco replied without taking his eyes off the burning incense. Smoke still came out of it, but it strangely vanished the moment it rose high enough like it didn't want to reveal its own presence to prying eyes.

Hearing Jacco's answer, Ivo stepped back in reflex.

Seeing what his underling had done, Jacco smirked and responded, "Don't worry. We're safe. My previous Deity gave me the ability to allow my teammates not to be affected. Normally, you would have started attacking me now,"

Listening to Hymes is the right choice, after all, Jacco thought.

His boss's explanation put his mind at ease. Knowing that he was safe, he began breathing normally and then observed his surroundings.

To his surprise, the armies of ants surrounding them were no longer crawling towards their position. Instead, they seemed to be busy fighting among themselves, biting and clawing each other with their strong mandibles. It was like they were completely enraged by something, and everything close by was an enemy that they had to strike down no matter what.

"Boss, your ability is awesome! With that, can't you just take down all the opposing gangs?" said Ivo, genuinely amazed.

"Dumbass! They are ants, so the effect is much stronger. On humans, it's a different story!" he replied, "Besides, look at this incense," Jacco pointed at the thing with his gaze, "It's burning very quickly. The moment it burns out, those ants will fucking return to normal! We're not out of this shit yet!"

The incense that he was protecting was indeed burning very fast as if the flame was burning a piece of paper instead. At that rate, only in less than three minutes, the incense would be completely gone.

Ants were still biting each other's body's off around them while the two men were racking their brains to find a way out. They could try running over the creatures, but they would be attacked and surrounded pretty quickly the moment they got too close, especially with the ants being in that berserk state. They were worried that once the ants climbed over their bodies, something bad would be triggered.

Clap! Clap! Clap!

Suddenly, came a tiny clapping sound from behind them. Jacco and Ivo quickly turned around and noticed that the clapping sound was coming from the ground.

It was from an ant!

Among the insurmountable number of ants engaging each other in a fight, there was one that was bigger than the rest; in fact, its size only kept increasing with each passing second. The strange ant grew larger and larger and once it was big enough, its body began undergoing a transformation process!

The giant ant was turning into a human!

The process was both bizarre and fascinating at the same time. First, the ant's carapace melted and softened into human skin. Its mandibles retracted forcibly in a process that looked painful while its insect eyes burst into pieces; in their place, a pair of blue eyes that belonged to a human emerged, looking straight at the two men in front of it.

"I must applaud you for being able to disable my armies of ants," a strange and metallic voice came from the figure was rapidly becoming more human and less insect. The voice was that of a woman, but it sounded like her throat had been minced by thousands of blades.

"But I must ask you a question, how are you able to use Zone of Hatred to directly cause fights? Normal Ignoramus can only impair people's judgment and make them more irritable. A fight will break out eventually, but it will take time," she asked. Her voice was gradually becoming more and more normal.

Jacco and Ivo were stupefied by the sight in front of them. Not only had the woman undergone a peculiar transformation process, but she was also naked! However, numerous ants quickly gathered around her and climbed over her body, covering her with a grotesque red dress made out of their small, interlocked bodies.

In front of them was now standing a tall woman with long, curly black hair with a mole under her red lips. Her face could be said as beautiful, but there was something uncanny about it. Her organic dress over her unnaturally pale skin didn't help her overall appearance either, but rather, enhanced the horrific aura about her.

"Do you think I will answer that?" Jacco came back to his senses, quickly returning to his duty of protecting the incense, "Are you the one peeping into the apartment room just now?" he asked the woman back inquisitively.

The woman let out a short chuckle.

"Do you think with my ants, I would need to do something as uncivilized as peeping? If you're looking for that guy, my babies have eaten him," she replied with a proud smile.

At that moment, Jacco and Ivo realized that their decision of not touching the ants at all was correct. They couldn't even begin to imagine the horror of being eaten by the tiny insects; their disbelief showed on their faces.

"Hahaha... don't worry. That guy died a very painful death. You two should have joined him if not for your troublesome ability," the tall woman shrugged.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Jacco asked, his hands stayed around the incense.

The ants around them were still fighting as long as the incense was still burning. Only those crawling closely around the woman had returned to normal, probably because they were being controlled or influenced directly by her.

"What can I say? I'm just someone whose job is to take out the trash," she smiled again.

If they were meeting under a different circumstance, Jacco would judge the woman as someone extremely polite and friendly. However, in that situation, he couldn't help but feel threatened by her uncannily genuine smile.

"What do we do, boss? Should we risk attracting the Police here?" whispered Ivo. His hand was holding a pocket knife, ready for a fight.

Jacco shook his head.

"Hell no! If they found out about us, although we might live today, our future might be spent behind a glass wall. We need to handle this ourselves or run if we have the chance!"

"If you say so, boss," replied the blonde man, tightening his grip on his knife.