Atsuku didn't even flinch when he heard the roar. However, on the other hand, Yamada's fate wasn't that great.
"Ugh!"
Affected by the roar, Yamada covered his ears by leaning against his shoulder and closed the other one with his left hand. The right hand that held the revolver was kept steady, pulling the trigger at the same time as Atsuku.
Bang! Bang!
Two loud gunshots echoed at once with different trajectories. The bullet shot from Atsuku's Desert Eagle went straight toward the left chest of the Demon, while Yamada's went toward his head due to instinct.
But… That was a mistake.
Swoosh! Crack!
The Demon jumped high before the bullets reached him, embedding his clawed hand covered in a bluish streak onto the ceiling. The bullets passed through empty spaces and hit the glasses.
Clang! Shatter!
"Shit!" Yamada cursed loudly as his bullet missed.
"Don't aim at his head! Demon's eye is really sensitive and can detect danger aimed at its head because he was a human before." Atsuku explained to Yamada as he raised his gun.
"I know! I just instinctively shot the head!" Yamada retorted and pointed his gun toward the Demon in the ceiling.
Their movements were swift, and it was less than a second after they finished talking. The triggers were pulled once again, and two bullets shot from the muzzles toward the Demon's body. This time, none of them aimed at the head.
However, the Demon had already regarded them as enemies and was wary of their attacks and pulled his hand from the ceiling, dropping to the floor again. Once again, the bullets missed the Demon and were embedded in the ceiling.
"Grrr!! Raaaa!!"
"Fuck!" Yamada shouted loudly and pulled his triggers three times at once, letting three bullets travel toward the Demon's body.
Meanwhile, Atsuku abandoned the plan to destroy the Demon's body with his gun. He shifted the safety on and put it in the holster underneath his blazer, and a void appeared on his right while the Demon was busy dodging the bullets shot by Yamada.
His right hand then appeared from the void gripping a Grade 1 Arcane Sword with various runes on the blade, and he inserted his Arance into it.
Click!
Just as Yamada's bullet was depleted and nothing came out from the muzzle of his revolver even though he pulled the trigger, the rune on the blade glowed blue, and Atsuku ran forward between messy tables.
At the same time, he used Flame Control to add fire around his sword.
"Good job," Atsuku said to his friend as he passed by him.
With a flash of fiery flame that he created using Flame Control, the blade cut through the air, leaving a red trail of flame. It was too fast for the Demon to dodge.
Grk!
"Aaarrrrrrrghhh!!!"
The blade pierced the Demon's heart, burning it completely, and he stopped moving after screaming loudly. Blood spurted from its body before it fell limply. The flame on the blade faded, and Atsuku lowered the sword.
Silence filled the room; Yamada approached after he confirmed the situation was safe. Both of them looked at each other after they had successfully finished the battle.
"Is it over?" The blond-haired boy asked, looking at Atsuku with disbelief. "Isn't it too easy?"
"What do you think?" Atsuku asked back, putting the Grade 1 Arcane Sword back into the void. His lips curled up into a grin. "It's only the First Stage Demon. Dealing with it is easy. I told you that I will be able to handle it by myself."
"Is that so?" Yamada asked once more, a little confused and didn't believe Atsuku's words.
In fact, Atsuku himself lied a little bit. He looked down on the Demon, whose core was destroyed and had a burnt wound on his chest.
'It's all thanks to Arcane Sword and Yamada's distraction.' Atsuku thought in his mind.
'Without it, destroying the core will be hard. I can't do it with my bare hand, even with my increased physical strength, and I need a few seconds to burn the core completely, all while the Demon is moving around. It will take at least a minute to kill the Demon without these factors.'
The Demon on the floor began to turn back to a human as a black shadow seeped out from his body. The purple head filled with growing fingers, the large eyeball shrunk back, and the wide mouth filled with sharp teeth and greenish saliva returned to where it was.
Atsuku only watched it silently, and Yamada tried to hold back his disgust and got used to it. The latter knew that something like this would happen a lot in the future.
When the shadow was fully formed above its body, it resembled a large cow standing on two small legs. It had 3 horns, and when it looked at Atsuku, its body suddenly trembled and flew away through the bullet holes made in the ceiling.
"Are you sure you're going to let it go away?" Yamada asked curiously. His face looked a bit pale, and his gaze was only focused on Atsuku.
"It's just a nameless minotaur, nothing too special." Atsuku answered and looked down at the 'human' corpse once again. The face returned to normal, back to how he looked when he was still a human. "So you were the Demon, Mr. Manabu. What a shame." He heaved a sigh.
Yes. The Demon was Atsuku's editor. That explained why no one was here and those bloodstains and body parts. They probably were killed because of Mr. Manabu, who turned into a Demon after failing to stabilize his core.
Atsuku didn't know what actually happened, but something was clear.
'I don't need to find and silence him to keep the secret. He's probably the one who knows most about my new novel other than Yamada and Rio.'
Yamada stayed silent. He knew who Mr. Manabu was and didn't ask Atsuku about the man. Instead, he looked around curiously.
"Which computer has the file?"
"Most probably Mr. Manabu's computer."
Atsuku answered and looked around the office. It was a mess, and nothing was intact. Some desks were already destroyed, turning into wood splinters scattered on the floor.
"But it didn't seem like we needed to worry about it. Looking at the destruction created by Mr. Manabu himself, I doubt a fragile computer could survive. As for the file in cloud storage, I can just ask Masa or Misaki to hack into the editorial's database."
"Oh, your older sister," Yamada exclaimed in understanding. "So she's good with computers?"
He was also acquainted with Fujiwara Misaki when he first visited Japan. His impression of her was that she was a silent beauty with a pretty face like a doll.
"Yeah. She was the one who prepared my computers at home, although she hated to do it because I had just left my house at that time." Atsuku nodded and walked toward the exit.
He didn't even bother looking around anymore and just created a flame above his palm and threw it toward the flammable papers and wood scattered on the floor.
The flame immediately combusted into a large behemoth that burned everything, from the chair, tables, and even the building itself.
"We need to leave before the fire department arrives."
"Hahaha, you're not sparing anything."
"Better be safe than having someone to fix the hard disk and steal the data later."
"You're right."
Both of them exited the building casually, together with the panicked people from the lower and higher floors where the lights were still on.
It was amazing that they stayed even after hearing gunshots from the third floor, but this was just convenient for Atsuku and Yamada because they could blend in and leave quietly.
At that moment, the countdown in the air slowly faded away, and the sky returned to how it was before the crack in the sky appeared.