Sin existed within the heart of all humans.
Each time a person acted against their conscience, their bodies would accumulate an amount of sin commensurate to the perceived violation. [Detect Evil] was a spell that allowed people to observe the amount of sin that each person had accumulated. It allowed the caster to judge the sinfulness of a target according to the depth of color surrounding them.
Those surrounded by deep red light held deep sin within themselves, whilst those with lighter hues were more or less normal individuals. The spell was a common tool in the arsenal of the Goddess of Morning’s paladins.
These warriors were sworn to pursue goodness, uphold the law and destroy all evil that they encountered. Hence they had garnered a reputation of being morally upright, but dogged and inflexible in pursuit of their ideals. To many, they were the bearers of hope. But to equally as many, they were harbingers of chaos and trouble.
Louie had cast this spell in hopes of observing an individual who was drenched in sin. Despite his transformation from a human, he still recognized Earth as his homeland, and he did not want to harm innocents unless it was necessary. For the criminal elements of society, however, he had fewer qualms.
‘Perhaps your sins aren’t so heavy that you deserve death, but that’s just your luck. Hehe. This is just spring-cleaning society,’ he thought, chuckling internally.
His smile gradually faded. Turning around, the temperature within the observation deck seemed to fall a few degrees. The few people who met his eyes drew in cold breaths as terror crept up to their spines.
His golden reptilian eyes clearly marked him as something other than human.
……
“Matsumura-kun, I really have no more pocket money. Can you give me a couple of days? Two days, just give me two days, and I’ll give it to you.”
In a corner of a high school campus in Tokyo, a skinny boy stood in a corner, shivering in fear and looking at the tall fellow in front of him. The few passersby either turned a blind eye to his situation or picked up the pace to get out of the area. To them, it was a common yet unfortunate situation – bullying.
“If you don’t have money, just ask your family for it. Just say that it’s to pay for school fees. Can’t you even do something so simple? Do you want me to mess you up?”
The larger boy named Matsumura spoke with a vicious tone, striking even more fear into the skinny boy’s heart.
Suddenly, Matsumura’s vision blurred. A multitude of colors appeared in his sight, and shapes seemed to merge into an indistinct mass.
The corridor seemed to spin infinitely, and he could no longer make out the target of his harassment. What was once a timid and cowering frame became an imposing and fear-inducing figure that he could no longer recognize.
The world was covered in rotten flesh and his nasal cavity was assailed with the stench of vomit. He could even make out terrifying whispers that poisoned his mind with words that both fascinated and frenzied his mind.
At that moment, answers to all the questions he never even knew to ask flooded his mind. Those math problems that had puzzled him in class, and the English language that he couldn’t be bothered to study seemed to come together like a jigsaw puzzle. He, who had once languished at the bottom of the school’s intellectual hierarchy, suddenly felt as though he understood the world.
He liked the feeling. It was as if he could learn and solve all the difficult problems in the world. He was dreaming that he was standing at the peak of life, dreaming that he was the master of the truth of the universe.
Although his current body was harder to move, the distortion and flesh chunks filled his mind, causing his spirit to fester. At the same time, pleasure filled his head, making him want to laugh out loud in obsession.
“Matsumura-kun…A-are you alright?”
The skinny boy saw Matsumura grin in front of him. Saliva flowed from the corner of Matsumura’s mouth as his expression became distorted. His eyes bulged, and veins appeared in his forehead, appearing like a terrifying monster seen in horror movies.
“Get out of the way!”
Matsumura pushed the skinny boy in front of him to the ground. Then he stumbled but quickly used the wall to support himself and left the place.
‘I have to… I have to hurry home… I have to hurry home and chant the name of God…’
In the endless trance, his mind seemed to have regained clarity for an instant. He wiped the drool on the corner of his mouth and quickly made for his house.
Matsumura recalled the recent events that happened to the world.
Since a dragon and Cthulhu appeared in the world, mysticism suddenly became a huge trend. Some people went to visit famous rivers and mountains in search of the so-called immortals. Some people tried to starve themselves in order to achieve enlightenment. Some people came out and proclaimed to have supernatural powers. There were even some people who claimed that they were Qin Shi Huang or Tokugawa Ieyasu and were paying people to create a new army.
Although all these were eventually proved to be false and frauds, there was no sign of this occult craze stopping any time soon. The presence of the dragon and Cthulhu clearly told them that the world was not as simple as it seemed.
The most active ones were those religions and cults. Whether it was those government-acknowledged religions or cults that sprung up out of nowhere, everyone was joining in the search. The most famous cults that appeared were those that believed in demons and devils as well as sects that believed in the evil gods of the Cthulhu Mythos.
This was because of the dragon and Cthulhu. Although dragons in modern propaganda were viewed in a positive light, according to legends, they were symbols of evil. Matsumura who had been thinking about these immediately turned on his computer the moment he got home and quickly opened a text file.
Some time ago, he had been bored and joined an internet discussion group. The leader of the group had been a crazy fan of Cthulhu mythology. He had posted some rituals and offerings to the evil gods. Matsumura, being the young boy that he was, was full of curiosity about these kinds of things and went on to perform these rituals and offerings.
At first, he thought that these were fake and made up by their group leader, but little by little, he began to believe they were real. He believed that he was the chosen of the Evil God because he prayed according to the methods taught by the group leader. And the nail in the coffin was the response he got from the mighty Evil God.
Matsumura skillfully arranged candles and animal blood in a strange twisted pattern. As the sun set and before the night fell, he knelt in the center of the pattern and prayed to the Gods. He begged the Gods to give him endless knowledge.
“Ia Ia Cthulhu Fhatgn!”
“Hail! Hail! Cthulhu Dreams!”
The whispers of the evil god once again appeared.
The distorted beautiful image of the world once again appeared.
“Ah. I am the greatest artist in the world!”
“Ah. That deep knowledge has enlightened me!”
“Ah. Cthulhu, let me attain the power beyond mortals!”
As Matsumura prayed, his body gradually swelled up. His skin turned dark green, and his body began to twist. Teeth sprouted from his neck and tentacles sprouted from his skin!
“God has answered my prayers and given me power beyond that of mortals!”
