Chapter 22: Laughter

Chapter 22: A Smile

Mrs. Hughes was dead—no, she was simply gone.

Yet, having escaped from the jaws of peril, Karen felt not the slightest sense of relief.

Before him knelt a man, and a woman, if indeed she could be deemed a woman;

in short, the pair of them pressed upon him with a crushing weight of dread.

Karen knew with certainty that a misunderstanding lay at the heart of this.

But he knew with even greater certainty that he could not afford to clarify it.

One had only to look at the clinical finality with which they had disposed of Mrs. Hughes... Karen had no doubt that if they so wished, disposing of him would be simpler still.

In times like these, he had to thank the profession of his past life and the panoply of bizarre occurrences that had greeted his awakening in this one; all in all, his psychological fortitude was quite robust, provided he was not balanced on the razor's edge of actual life and death.

What constituted that razor's edge? It was like earlier, when Mrs. Hughes had truly raised her blade, and he had been consumed by a terror beyond measure. He was slightly better than those who needed to see the coffin before they wept; until the lid was nailed down, he could still manage a fragile smile.

And yet,

the predicament was deeply awkward.

These two did nothing but kneel before him, neither uttering a word;

while Karen,

for his part, knew not what to say,

because any opportunity to speak was fraught with peril, and a single misstep meant his lips would be sealed forevermore.

"By your command, O Great One."

Karen began to retrace the words the man in the red suit had spoken to him just moments before.

Had they mistaken his identity?

No, that could not be.

Neither the "Karen" of old nor the man he was today possessed the right to command the obeisance of these two.

They had certainly not mistaken who he was;

rather, it seemed,

they had mistaken what he was capable of.

Complex problems were best reduced to their simplest terms;

they took him for some sublime entity, and though the reason eluded him, he had no choice now but to play the part of greatness to the end.

But,

how exactly was he to play it?

Karen desperately wished to go home now, deeply missing the familiar comfort of Dis's study;

oh, damn it all, Dis was not at home today!

Alfred and Madam Molly remained fixed in their postures of submission.

After a long, agonizing silence,

they finally caught the voice of the sublime entity before them:

"I am weary..."

Alfred pressed his forehead lower still against the floor, and Madam Molly followed suit.

Karen rose from the bed, his movements deliberately slow, for his limbs still felt somewhat hollow and weak.

Alfred shifted on his knees, moving aside to clear the path for the Great One's advance;

Karen began to pace forward, step by step. In truth, an impulse was raging within him—an urge to bolt through the bedroom door, fly down the stairs, burst through the foyer, sprint past the courtyard gate into that red Caiman sedan, and floor the accelerator to effect a desperate escape.

But,

glancing at the shards of glass beneath the window, shattered with such unsettling geometric precision, and recalling the manner in which this red-suited man had breached the room, Karen suspected that even if he were to sprout an extra pair of legs, he would never outrun them.

Yet, having already stepped away from the bed, he could hardly turn on his heel and sit back down, could he?

Ultimately,

Karen came to a halt before the heap of clothes that had belonged to Mrs. Hughes,

bent down,

and gathered the garments—or rather, the relics.

In truth, Karen had harbored a rather fond impression of Mrs. Hughes; he believed that for the most part, she had simply been herself, save for those moments when she was seized by the desire for artistic creation.

Even so, he did not indulge in excessive grief. Holding the clothes in his arms, Karen looked out through the window pane at the moon suspended in the heavens.

"The moonlight is quite fine tonight."

Alfred and Madam Molly remained dutifully prostrated, unmoving.

Karen did his utmost to steady his breathing as he continued his slow walk toward the window, the soles of his shoes grinding against the shards of glass with a faint, grating screech. He tilted his head back, feigning a deep immersion in the nocturnal beauty of the moon.

Behind him, a soft rustling arose as Alfred and Madam Molly shifted their alignment completely, turning from the bed to kneel toward the window.

No,

won't one of you speak?

If you just kneel there in absolute silence, how am I supposed to know what role I am meant to play?

The hand cradling Mrs. Hughes's clothes brushed against a small casing—a cigarette case.

At this critical juncture,

a sudden thought welled up from deep within Karen,

a thought so absurdly misplaced that he felt a sudden urge to laugh, or perhaps to slap his own face:

If my performance collapses in the next breath and I am to be devoured,

why not indulge in one last smoke before the end?

No, what in the world am I thinking?

Though a storm of self-reproach howled in his mind, "muscle memory" guided his hand to draw out the cigarette case nonetheless. It was a pack of "Honey" cigarettes, the slender variety favored by ladies.

He inverted the open pack into his palm,

tapped it,

tapped it again,

and then, a single cigarette slipped halfway out.

Plucking the cigarette free, he inverted it filter-down and tapped it against the back of his hand once, then twice;

he brought it up,

catching it between his lips;

then he retrieved the lighter, adorned with the imprint of a purple rose,

The face tilted down at forty-five degrees.

Click.

Ignition.

With a casual flick of the wrist to lower the lighter,

a deep draw was taken,

then the cigarette was pulled away, its cherry pointing downward as a perfect smoke ring escaped the lips.

This was a sequence of movements standard to any veteran smoker—or rather, every veteran smoker possessed their own set of habitual gestures, different in the slight subtleties of posture, but virtually identical in spirit.

The moment this motion began, it was as if an invisible background track started playing around them. No matter who you were or where you were—whether on a dusty construction site, in a train station smoking area, or just as he was now, being stared down by two ravenous "ghosts"—

as long as this sequence of movements was initiated, at least for this singular moment, you transcended the material world, gazing upon the universe with a profound, detached perspective.

The faint scent of tobacco began to drift and diffuse.

Alfred remained on his knees, and Madam Molly remained on hers as well.

"Heh..."

Alfred’s body shuddered slightly, and he instinctively wanted to lift his head, yet he fiercely restrained the urge.

Karen, meanwhile, pursed his slightly bitter lips,

and then he shook out another cigarette.

With an immense display of willpower, suppressing his trembling hand, he spoke to Alfred:

"Want one?"

He...

is asking me?

Alfred hesitated for a brief moment until finally, summoning an immense reservoir of courage, he raised his eyes.

He saw the great entity standing by the window holding a cigarette, offering it in his direction. The silver radiance of the moon bathed his figure, tracing his silhouette in a golden trim that felt sacred and inviolable.

"Hmm?"

"I..."

Alfred slowly rose to his feet, walking toward Karen with meticulous care. He extended his hand, accepted the cigarette, and placed it between his lips.

In the next heartbeat,

Click!

Karen flicked the lighter, producing a small flame.

Alfred’s body shook. This magnificent existence, the Divine Envoy himself, was actually going to... light his cigarette?

Tobacco and alcohol carried heavy cultural baggage, especially when manifested in the acts of offering a smoke or a toast.

When a superior performed such gestures, it never failed to deeply move those beneath them.

Alfred leaned in, caught the flame, and with a heart fluttering with trepidation and excitement, took a drag before turning his face away so his exhaled smoke wouldn't offend the great being.

Good, excellent, he took it.

Karen then pulled out a third cigarette and looked toward the kneeling Madam Molly.

"Would you like one too?"

Fuck, what on earth am I doing!!!

Karen cursed himself maniacally in the depths of his mind.

Madam Molly stood up and then, somewhat vacantly, walked over. Her red high heels tapped out a melodious rhythm against the floorboard until she reached Karen.

She had no hands.

But fortunately,

she had a face.

Karen took the initiative to present the filter end right to Madam Molly’s lips. She leaned her face forward slightly, parted her mouth, and took it in.

Karen brought the lighter up again and lit it for her.

And then,

Madam Molly began to smoke.

Could anyone truly imagine the sight of Madam Molly smoking? It was a composition beyond the wildest imagination of any sane artist.

Yet Karen was seeing it with his own eyes.

And so, despite the overwhelming horror and dread paralyzing his inner mind, the bizarre absurdity of this visual struck his funny bone with such precision that he felt a desperate urge to laugh out loud.

Karen suppressed it hard, biting it back, enduring it,

all to keep from shattering his divine facade.

He turned,

facing out the window.

At the exact same time,

Alfred and Madam Molly followed suit, turning to look out the window alongside him.

Three individuals,

facing the moon,

each with a cigarette dangling from their mouth.

Good heavens,

what a grotesquely deformed picture this was!

Karen felt the muscles in his cheeks turning sore from the sheer strain of holding it in.

Instinctively, he tried to use smoking to distract himself.

He took a drag, but the sudden inhalation caused his laughter to burst past his defenses completely, roaring out like a dam bursting its floodgates.

"Hahaha... cough, cough... Hahahaha..."

He choked, coughing violently, but the laughter could no longer be stopped. This whole facade, this entire process could no longer be salvaged. Karen simply kept laughing, coughing and howling with laughter all at once.

He laughed until tears welled in his eyes.

He laughed until he felt his own brain must have melted.

He laughed until he knew he had thoroughly botched everything, that he was utterly doomed.

It's all over!!!

As Karen continued to laugh, he slammed his palm against the windowsill in sheer, agonizing regret, yet his hand kept slapping down as the laughter roared on.

No, I can't laugh anymore, I have to stop, I have to pull it back!

Alfred was utterly struck with consternation by this bizarre, unbridled spectacle unfolding before his eyes, and beside him, Madam Molly was exactly the same.

The great existence before them,

Laughed with a frantic abandon, a boundless freedom, a stark and unadulterated purity.

And then,

Alfred began to laugh as well, a mere whisper at first, before swelling his volume to harmonize with the sublime being in their presence.

Beside him, Lady Molly, witnessing the great existence laugh and Alfred follow suit, joined the chorus to blend in with the company.

Karen, who had just regained his wits and was on the verge of stifling his own mirth, broke down completely once more upon hearing the twin cascades of laughter erupting from behind.

What the hell are you all laughing at!

"Hahahahaha!!!!"

"Hahaha!"

"Hahaha!"

What is so damn funny, stop egging me on, cut it out!

"Hahaha!"

Karen turned his head around,

Only to catch sight of Lady Molly, who had no hands to hold her cigarette, watching it tumble straight out of her mouth.

Dammit!

"Hahahahaha!!!"

Karen laughed so hard that tears began to stream down his face.

"Hahaha!!!" Alfred found himself utterly unable to stop as well.

To alleviate the awkwardness, and given that the cigarette was already gone anyway, Lady Molly raised her own voice and laughed even harder.

Are you two out of your minds!

Laughter was a contagion; even when there was no rhyme or reason or punchline, the moment someone beside you suddenly burst into a roaring laugh, you could not help but be drawn into the current, your mind bewildered while your body acted completely beyond control.

Karen lost all track of how long he had been laughing; in the end, he had laughed himself weak, laughed until he was practically gasping for oxygen, before he finally, gradually, came to a halt.

"It has been... a very long time since I last laughed, so long that I had almost forgotten what it feels like to do so."

Lady Molly's voice drifted softly into the silence.

She was finally speaking.

Karen instantly braced his mind, deploying the all-purpose rhetoric he used to comfort patients in his past life:

"Sometimes, only when one learns to let go of an obsession can they pick up what they truly desire."

Hearing this, Lady Molly’s body—or more precisely, her two voluptuous legs—shuddered violently.

Immediately after, she prostrated herself once more.

"Thank you for your enlightenment. I shall keep your teachings engraved in my heart."

Right at that moment,

Alfred suddenly spoke up:

"An Inquisitor of the Church of Order has arrived."

The Church of Order? An Inquisitor?

A bit bewildered, Karen looked out the window, and on the road just outside the courtyard gate, a familiar figure emerged... Dis.

Beside his grandfather was a tiny creature, its form obscured by the shroud of night, yet its eyes gleamed like amber—it was Puer.

Almost instinctively, Karen wanted to cry out, "Grandfather, save me!"

But after measuring the distance between himself and the two figures beside him against the distance to his grandfather, Karen abandoned the notion.

Nevertheless, his grandfather's appearance brought a profound sense of security rushing back into Karen's heart.

Standing there, gazing at Dis outside the window, he murmured indifferently:

"I live at his house."

Alfred's eyes lit up instantly, and he inquired eagerly:

"Is this Inquisitor of the Church of Order your vanguard squire?"

Of course, before any great existence rose to power, squires destined by fate would appear by their side to protect them through their initial period of tribulation; was that not how every religious fable went!

A squire could be a powerful aberrant demon, or... a formidable human.

No wonder this man remained in Roga City as a mere Inquisitor despite being so powerful; it turned out he had been harboring such a grand mission all along!

Karen replied:

"He is, in terms of this body's bloodline, my grandfather."

Karen swore that this statement was nothing but the absolute truth, without a single drop of exaggeration.

The reality was that, facing this red-eyed fellow, Karen did not dare to utter a lie, for he had a distinct feeling that this guy was incredibly sensitive—if you lied right to his face, he would perceive it.

In terms of this body's bloodline... grandfather.

So, this was a descended deity, one who borrowed a human vessel to be conceived, born, raised, and matured, all to carry out the mission of establishing his own faith!

It made sense now,

Everything made perfect sense!

This was a true god descended upon the mortal realm, a true god!

That was why he possessed a language exclusive to him alone, because his existence and his eras could no longer be measured by any single civilization!

That was why he possessed a holy hymn exclusive to him alone, because he was a god, and his song was his own hymn; he had no need to build from nothing, for he himself was the beginning and the end!

The God had already descended, and he had prepared everything!

Alfred prostrated himself once more,

Filled with awe and dread, he said:

"Please forgive my sin, for my impudence has disturbed your stride as you walk from greatness into the light."

"Your sin is forgiven."

"Thank you for your benevolence."

Yet Alfred did not stand up; instead, hardening his resolve, he spoke directly:

"I wish to follow in your footsteps, to be your soaring eagle, your beast of burden, your most loyal and most glorious servant!"

Beside him, Lady Molly spoke up without hesitation as well:

"I shall be your legs, solely to witness your magnificent path."

Karen blinked, utterly caught off guard by the unfolding scene.

He could only look down at his grandfather standing below,

And offer a helpless smile.

At the entrance of 128 Mink Street,

Dis and Purr both looked up, their eyes fixed on the second-floor window.

Purr spoke:

"Dis, do you regret it now?

An absolute taboo ritual has summoned a truly terrifying, alien demon.

Before this,

your eyes were blinded by his outward appearance, and your heart was clouded by so-called familial affection;

look,

he has already subjugated these two alien demons.

Look again,

now that his wings are fully formed,

he is casting a provocative smile right at you."