"Heh! Like it?"
Keli stomped on the accelerator, turning wildly, crushing those who couldn't escape in time.
The big truck's yellow high beams now seemed to have become the gaze of the God of Death; everywhere they shone, there were terrified screams.
"Wahhh! Bastard! My hand!"
"Ahhhhhh! Don't come near me!"
"Bang!"
"Click! Click!"
The screaming crowd clamored like a large group of field mice squealing and scattering, adding a previously absent feeling to the already lively village at night.
"Otomo! Isn't that your family's car?"
"I didn't bring it when I left; it should be with my son... No! My family!"
Listening to those screams and wails, Keli showed no mercy, crushing everything he felt was a source of the scent, as if operating a wheat harvester.
Because the car was high enough, he didn't even need to turn on the wipers to clear the bloodstains.
"Are... are we saved?" Sitting in his car, Goto Naoki stared blankly at the vehicle charging through the crowd like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, his face somewhat stiff.
Just moments ago, those villagers were like a pack of wolves encountered in the wilderness at night, filling him with despair and powerlessness.
He deeply regretted bringing his wife and daughters on this trip; he tried his best but still needed the life-risking help of others to escape. The despair he felt after getting in the car and finding it locked—all of this was given to him by them.
But at this moment, those devils who had once brought him immense despair were scattering like mice seeing a cat.
Some of the faster ones ran into alleys or buildings where the car couldn't easily go to seek refuge, but most were simply unable to resist the truck's speed.
Watching helplessly as a group of people were slammed against a wall a few meters away, and several others were directly run over by the wheels, causing the huge truck to bump a few times, leaving a trail of blood and wails, Goto Naoki swallowed hard.
He knew the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department wouldn't do something like this, so was the only outsider in this village the other university student next door? This... students nowadays are too terrifying...
At the same time, Gotō Hitori, who had run out of the temple, was also watching.
Looking at this scene that made her want to vomit, her brain crashed again, but with a wider view, she next saw something even more horrifying.
Those crushed flesh and blood... seemed to be squirming and getting up...
Smelling the blood that was strong enough to enter his nostrils even through the window, Keli's expression remained unchanged. He had already asked the beheaded monk; every household in the village was at least aware of and participated in, and provided assistance, so there was no need to hold back.
Yes, the leaves those two monks spoke of naturally couldn't be some high-grade tea; they were actual illegal drugs.
As for Living Corpses and cannibalism, Keli only hoped it wasn't the stuff from his memory; if it was, then it would be bad.
Living Corpse is a very old anime, and the story is quite interesting.
It mainly tells the story of the female protagonist, Tongfu Shazi, who was bitten by a man on a ship a century ago and turned into a Living Corpse. Then she accidentally saw a novel and felt a great resonance with the protagonist who had to kill to survive. So, she brought her captured family, old and young, and lived in Sotoba Village as a wealthy person.
The village began to experience deaths one after another, and eventually, with the internal and external cooperation of the male protagonist Ozaki Toshio, and the male supporting character Yuuki Natsuno, who, although turned into a Living Corpse, still sided with humanity, the villagers transformed from hunters to hunted, and then brutally slayed the Living Corpses in the story. 8
Although a long time has passed, several plot points are still impressive, such as how Living Corpses retain their rationality and memories after being transformed; one could even say they are just people who fear light, need to drink blood to live, and are relatively difficult to kill. However, Ozaki Toshio could, after his wife turned into a Living Corpse, ruthlessly experiment on her amidst her wails to find a way to kill this type of monster.
There's also the extremely abstract materialism of this village's people. When Ozaki Toshio, the doctor, said it was haunted! The villagers, determined not to engage in feudal superstition, declared it must be an infectious disease. Finally, to prove the existence of Living Corpses, Ozaki Toshio, who was being threatened by a Living Corpse at the festival, backhanded a knife to injure the Living Corpse, letting everyone see the Living Corpse's wound heal, uniting them against the monsters.
Of course, there's also the most infuriating part: the monk who wrote the novel that led to the Living Corpse coming here, at the end, realized that he simply wanted to do whatever he wanted freely, and then betrayed the human protagonist, taking the female protagonist and driving off to Tokyo as the anime's ending.
Keli had long accepted how stitched together this world was, and he wasn't frowning because these things would be difficult to deal with if they were those Living Corpses.
Because the Living Corpses in his memory were truly useless except for needing their blood circulation to stop to die; they were basically the weakest of all the Living Corpses in various Vampire entertainment works, or perhaps they were exactly that, since the term 'Living Corpse' was a name Ozaki Toshio assigned when researching literature.
Except for a few extremely rare cases that turned into Jinrou, who were not afraid of sunlight, didn't need to drink blood to live, and had astonishing strength, other ordinary Living Corpses were not powerful at all except for night vision.
What made Keli feel difficult was that if these were truly those things, then there might only be one such branch in Japan, but in these few hundred years, even if only the one Vampire who infected the female protagonist back then had existed, it would have probably spawned a bunch of disciples and grand-disciples. If there were more than one a few hundred years ago, wouldn't this world be full of such things?
Keli immediately felt that becoming a demon hunter here was useless; he might have to put on a reverse swastika armband, grow a small mustache, and lead everyone to catch Vampires and put them in gas chambers. 7
However, as if to confirm his bad premonition, Keli, who had been paying attention to the villagers he had run over, also saw the squirming flesh and blood under the light.
"Tsk!"
Keli immediately decided to finish them off. With an unpracticed U-turn, Keli prepared to give everyone he had just run over or hit but not crushed another free full-body massage.
However, just as he was turning around, something suddenly pierced through the glass and directly into the driver's cabin.
Keli looked up. A white-haired young man with glasses was gripping a staff that had been inserted into the driver's cabin, stabilizing himself, having appeared beside the car door at some unknown moment.
And at this moment, his staff had also pierced Keli's side waist due to the immense strength of its user.
"Benefactor, I apologize."
The monk, or rather, the Jinrou, Muroi Jingxin, who years ago killed his village elder and fled to Tokyo with Tongfu Shazi, the culprit who caused the deaths of most of the villagers, spoke to Keli.
Having struck successfully, Jingxin prepared to retrieve his special steel staff and jump off the car.
In his eyes, such a blow should have killed an ordinary person.
However, the next moment his eyes widened.
"Ahaha! Do you want to dance too?"
"Ahaha! Do you want to dance too?"
Keli paid no attention to the object sticking out of him; after completing the turn, he continued to press the accelerator, driving over the pile of minced flesh on the ground.