The Shepherds Are Dense

Chapter 154. Since You’re Here, Don’t Leave Ch 154. Since You’re Here, Don’t Leave

As night fell, the lights at 14 Ronin Street went out at 10:30 PM.Two hours later, when the campus lay silent, a group stealthily approached.

They hadn’t staked out Aiwass’s doorstep. Instead, the demon scholars casually entered a nearby bar, drinking and blending in. For over a week, they’d frequented the place, playing cards and befriending students, appearing as harmless drunks.

Tonight was different.

After leaving the bar, they slipped into an alley, using a pre-prepared sobering ritual to dispel their drunkenness.

“Get ready,” the leader, a blond man in a white suit with slicked-back hair, said in a low voice. “Jim, set up the curse. Brayden, cut the phone line. Pero and I will prepare the ritual to summon our demons first. Then you two join us and summon your hounds.”

“Just a sleep curse?” Jim, the youngest and shortest, asked skeptically. “We could nest a weakness curse in it. You said that cripple’s swordsmanship is top-notch. Why not add a suffocation curse for safety? That’d kill him cleanly, and we’d have an explanation for the higher-ups.”

“I’m sure,” the leader replied firmly. “If it was just Moriarty, fine. But his maid and sister are there too. A curse split three ways won’t be strong enough to keep them deeply asleep.

“A weakness curse would alert them. If one sleeps lightly, they’d wake from sudden frailty, rousing the others. Don’t overcomplicate it, Jim. More curses aren’t always better.”

“Then maybe…” Jim persisted, “we cast the curse and pump poison gas into his bedroom. It’d look like an accident, not murder. No one would trace us.”

“You think a rich kid’s dorm is like your rundown shack?” Pero, the heavyset man, scoffed. “His bedroom’s not next to the kitchen. Use your head.”

“…I just feel uneasy, Mentor,” Jim muttered. “Isn’t this too smooth?”

The leader shook his head. “It’s smooth because we prepared well. It’s not about him. You’re overthinking.”

After half an hour, preparations were nearly complete. The sleep curse was active, the phone line severed, and both demons and hounds were summoned.

Jim’s unease lingered, but the leader dismissed it as his apprentice’s cowardice.

At sixteen, younger than their target, Jim had dropped out of school to join a gang. His quick wit and Transcendence Path aptitude caught the Lloyd Society’s eye, making him the leader’s apprentice.

Demon scholars often had apprentices, akin to sous-chefs, handling tedious prep and cleanup for curses and rituals, much like cooking.

The leader didn’t care for Jim’s timidity. Demon scholars needed a reckless, uninhibited mindset to advance, but Jim’s constant pessimism grated. Early on, the leader humored his warnings, wondering if Jim had Adaptability Path foresight. But after repeated false alarms, he concluded Jim was just spineless.

They’d scouted for a week, deployed four transcendents—two third-tier elites—plus a blade demon capable of facing fourth-tier foes and a supporting flayer demon. They’d cursed Aiwass and cut off his communication.

For a supposed first-tier Devotion Path user, this was overkill. The leader’s caution stemmed only from Aiwass’s feat of instantly killing a malformed demon, hinting at potent transcendent items from the Moriarty family.

Their plan: curse Aiwass into an unwakeable sleep, sneak in, and assassinate him.

He had classes tomorrow. At 1 AM, he’d be asleep, unaware of the curse, sleeping even deeper. A thief could rob him blind, and he wouldn’t stir.

Ideally, a single gunshot would suffice, mimicking a curse-wielding killer to throw off investigations. The demons were for any hidden guards or allies.

the leader thought.

Away from home, he couldn’t use his ritual items: a Cursed Infant, made from a cursed dead baby, delivering a heart-stopping blow; a Nightmare Phantom, crafted from a migraine sufferer’s scalp, inducing maddening pain; or a Corpse Bait, from a hanged elder, slowing foes with chilling frost.

These consumables let him punch above his tier but required specific storage, useless in this ambush.

Without them, he felt weakened, though this was his true strength—a discomfort from relying on such power.

As Brayden, a former thief, picked the lock, Jim pointed skyward. “What’s that? A firefly?”

“Some kind of butterfly,” Pero said, arms crossed. “Shame we didn’t bring a net. Looks valuable.”

“Jim, focus,” the leader snapped.

Glancing up, he saw the butterfly drifting toward them, trailing sparkling embers like scale powder.

Instinctively, he raised his right hand, pointing at it. Without words or mana, an invisible black force pierced the butterfly, splitting it in half. It extinguished instantly.

He smirked, pleased at destroying something beautiful.

“Your curses are impressive, Mentor,” Jim flattered.

Pero shook his head. “Looked valuable. No need to curse it.”

“A butterfly flying in the city? Valuable?” the leader scoffed. “Probably escaped from a lab. Not worth selling. Better to kill it.”

Pointing was his simplest curse. Like the unease of being pointed at behind one’s back, it mimicked a blade’s prick. His third-tier Path trait, Harmful Curse, a potent purple trait, infused all his curses with physical damage.

He had Jim cast the sleep curse because his own would turn it into a nightmare curse, waking the target. His poison food curse added minor cutting wounds to corrosion, and his tainted blood curse caused uterine bleeding. A mere point could make someone bleed like they’d been stabbed, though it took forty or fifty points to kill a healthy person through blood loss—a number he’d tested in Lloyd’s Ward.

His curiosity about new curse effects, like a child with a toy, fueled his ability to summon and tame the blade demon.

Then, a flicker of fire caught his eye.

In the dark, it blazed vividly.

Turning, he saw the shattered butterfly reborn in flames, closer now.

As it drifted toward Jim, who reached out curiously, the leader’s instincts screamed danger. He dove aside, rolling clumsily.

Pero, sensing it too, was too bulky to escape.

When Jim touched the butterfly, a blazing fireball erupted, three meters wide, spinning without exploding. It engulfed Jim and Pero, trapping them as their screams pierced the night.

“What the hell?!” the leader gasped, face paling.

Instantly, a demon hound and the flayer demon blurred, collapsing as their summoners died—a banishment effect.

In one move, Jim and Pero were incinerated. Jim was no loss, but Pero, a third-tier, shouldn’t have died so senselessly—dragged down by Jim’s folly.

Only the leader and Brayden, still picking the lock, survived.

Another identical butterfly approached.

This time, the leader unleashed a dark, chilling mana orb, shattering it. But it quickly reborn in flames. He tried another spell, breaking it again, only for it to revive once more.

He’d never heard of such a creature.

“Got it!” Brayden shouted, opening the door.

“Hide inside!” the leader ordered.

But Brayden yelped, scrambling out as a gunshot rang. A bullet hit his calf, dropping him with a scream.

The door swung open.

Aiwass, who should’ve been asleep, emerged with a dangerous smile, walking slowly.

His left hand was behind his back, his right bent naturally before him. A fiery butterfly perched on his middle finger.

“Guests, huh?” Aiwass said, grinning. “Since you’re here, why not stay?”

(Chapter End)