"Hello."
"Hello."
From his height to his features—even the phone in his hand—this man looked no different from any human Roy had ever met. Aside from the style of his clothes and jewelry—regional taste and fashion—he was just… a normal human.
Meeting a normal human in the territory of magic beasts, Roy watched the man smile and extend his hand.
He extended his own in return—and in the same motion, manifested his short sword and drove it toward the man's heart.
"Bang!"
A bullet snapped in from the side, slamming precisely into the blade and knocking it off line. The short sword grazed the man's shoulder, shaving off a chunk of flesh. The man's brow tightened, and he used the opening to pull back out of range.
"Why stab me?"
"Because…" Roy twirled his blade in a lazy flourish and looked calmly at the round-bellied middle-aged man in front of him. "I'm not interested in letting someone sell me by the pound and then helping them count the money."
His En sat over the area like an upside-down bowl, listening to everything within a radius of nearly two hundred meters. The instant he came into contact with this man, Roy heard the undisguised malice in his heart.
To this guy, Roy wasn't a "fellow human."
He was prey.
"I don't understand what you mean." Frank Becky lit a cigarette, and with his right hand, he pressed into his own chest and opened it—revealing a miniature bunker in place of his ribcage.
"Alright, boys—get to work."
"Hey! We actually found a heretic out here. Boss, we're gonna hit the jackpot this time!"
"So bright… it's so damn bright… what the hell did this guy do—why is his hand shining that much?"
"Idiot, that's not 'bright,' that's a mark! I've been running around the city all these years, and I've never seen a mark this strong!"
"Last time that traitor the Archbishop put on the wanted list—what was his name again… Garcia, yeah, Ribéry Garcia—he didn't glow half as much as this guy…"
The bunker's little hatch slammed open, and a swarm of tiny figures poured out. Once they cleared the bunker, they swelled with the wind and quickly grew to normal human size, weapons of every kind—guns and blades, hot and cold—already in their hands, eyes burning as they locked onto Roy.
Every last one of them was a Nen user.
Bunker—an ability that lets Frank Becky pull anything (including himself) into the miniature fort in his chest. Anything inside is shrunk down, and once it exits, it returns to normal size… that was his nen.
On Roy's hand, the cursed brand was ticking down his lifespan second by second.
Even without the peanut gallery running their mouths, En had already let him listen through every one of their thoughts, one by one. His heart sank.
First, he could confirm that the ground under his feet was real Dark Continent.
Second, being marked by a "god" made him like a lantern in the dark: anyone who met him could pick out instantly that he was a "blasphemer." And—
What he hadn't expected was that Frank Becky was right.
These people were just like him—descendants of those abandoned by God, "god's forsaken ones" and heretics. You could call them his "own kind."
The difference was, he'd come from a far-off exile zone.
These people had spent generations in the Uzuki Great Forest—dodging divine reach while effectively living in a sideways exile of their own, just not as far removed as the people on the Lake Island.
From inside the head of one hooded Nen user, Roy heard the full picture:
Under Frank Becky's leadership, this "4K Gang" was roaming around capturing heretic bloodlines to offer up as tribute to the Storm Church—hoping to erase their own marks, regain "believer" status, and…
As Becky saw it—"return to God's embrace."
"Why should we pay for our ancestors' sins, sir? I want to go back—we want to go back!"
In his mind's eye, Roy saw Frank Becky kneeling at the feet of a red-robed elder with thunder sigils etched onto his hem, clutching the old man's filthy foot and kissing the tip of his shoe.
Roy blew apart a charging brute with a flying slash, lopping off his head, then stepped onto the decapitated body and looked down at Frank with mocking eyes.
"Do the Archbishop's feet taste good?"
Frank Becky bit his cigarette in half, eyes going cold.
"Empty your minds," he snapped to the others. "No wandering thoughts. This bastard reads minds."
You don't lead a crew without having some skill. The kid doesn't get it, he thought. Big goals require keeping your skin intact, small rewards are for people who forget they're alive. So what if I lick feet? If the Archbishop told me to eat shit, I'd eat it. As long as I lose the mark, get my believer status back, become a citizen of Samir, and leave this cursed forest that 'resets' every year—everything is worth it.
"Brat's sharp," he added under his breath.
One idiot had just rushed in and died. With Becky's warning fresh in their ears, the hooded man—Nelson—raised his voice and pointed at two of them.
"Katie, Torre—lock him down."
"Muto, Garcia, fire support from range."
"Olivia, hang back and patch people up."
"Everyone else, you know what to do—" Nelson tugged his hood lower, drew a thin, flexible sword from his belt, and charged Roy with a strange, sliding step.
"Move!"
Bang-bang-bang—
Nen bullets roared past, tearing toward Roy.
The soft sword cut the air, point gleaming. A great axe swept down and howled with the wind. From farther out, and right up in his face, attacks converged on him all at once. A shadow-chain slipped along the earth like a snake, lashing for Roy's shadow, and two enormous spectral hands materialized behind him, clawing for his throat.
Roy's blade stayed level as if none of it existed. In the flare of steel and explosions, he watched Frank Becky standing leisurely within range, fiddling with that "divine" sidearm—the one stamped with the infinity symbol, chewing on a cigarette.
His short sword flushed red, then burned, a flood of fire roaring along the blade as he cut sideways.
Ken: Scorching True Blade.
A hair-thin line of fire whispered through the air.
Everyone except Frank Becky fell silent.
Their bodies kept moving for a heartbeat—then, like a drill run in practice, every single one of them lost their heads at the same time.
Even Nelson, the hooded one, stared down at the spray of red erupting from his neck, felt the world tilt, and understood only then that his head had been separated from his body by that single slash.
Darkness swallowed them as one after another hit the ground with fleshy thuds.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
[Life Energy +4 +6 +8 +7 +10…]
The system chime rolled on in Roy's ears.
~~~
Patreon(.)com/Bleam
— Currently You can Read 50 Chapters Ahead of Others!