The young man grabbed a rifle that was resting on an oil drum nearby.

“But I've heard you yourself aren't that impressive! Your students may be great, but my shrunken head still managed to bite you!”

“…Unfortunately for me, you’re right.”

“Then you shoot too, Yarg!”

As he shouted that, something was launched from the gun in his hand. It was not just a regular bullet.

As the Clock Tower mage had so eloquently put, the young pirate was a necromancer. The bullet had been coated with the lingering resentment of the dead. Even if the Clock Tower mage used defensive magecraft to defend against bullets, the resentment would still make it through.

I had to step in.

“Wha— What!?”

At first, it was impossible for the young pirate to know what he saw.

“What the…?”

The young man’s eyes were wide with shock.

That was because his bullets had been blocked by a laughing box with eyes inside a birdcage.

Adventures of Lord El-Melloi II: The God Devourer; Prologue