After I was satisfied—or rather bored—listening to their conversation from the back seat, I could only let out a long sigh. Not a dramatic sigh, nor one filled with despair. It was more like the sigh of a man who realized that this world was too busy with its own destinies, and I was too lazy to follow along.
_'Whether it's related or not, that's not my business,'_ I thought as I leaned my head back on the seat. _'All I need to do is finish this system quest, then go back home. Period.'_
...
In the hotel corridor, with yellow lights casting long shadows like scenes from an overly dramatic drama, I saw them. The three of them. With suitcases. With relaxed expressions. And with an aura strong enough to make my body instinctively say: _"Careful, those are canon characters."_
At that moment, I could only laugh bitterly in my heart.
'Seriously… is life joking with me right now?'
Imagine, Osaka being this huge, hotels this many, streets this crowded, and I—a normal guy with an abnormal system—had to stay in the same place as Tobio Ikuse and his two partners. Impossible this was a coincidence. Impossible this was just fate. This had to be the system's doing. Or the universe. Or both collaborating to make me a cameo without permission.
I lowered my head, trying to walk past them like a passing breeze. Quiet, light, invisible. But my footsteps ended up sounding too loud, too full of awareness, as if the world was shining a cheap spotlight on me.
'Don't look. Don't talk. Don't get dragged into the main plot. I'm just a passing NPC, okay?'
Sae briefly turned around. Her eyebrow rose a little—typical reaction of someone who thought they recognized someone but was too tired to remember from where. Kouki was busy with the hotel map, probably unaware the earth was even spinning. Tobio… yeah, Tobio stared for a moment, silent, as if his radar detected something "not very dangerous but also not normal".
Of course. Because my life now was not normal.
I quickly sped up my steps, opened my room door, and closed it with a speed that was honestly impolite for hotel doors.
"Damn…" I whispered with a hollow, exhausted voice. "I really need a vacation."
I fell onto the bed as if the gravity of the entire universe had dropped on me at once. My thoughts drifted, trying to organize the tiny hope that maybe tomorrow would be better.
'Or worse. Because that's usually how it goes.'
I slept for a bit...
...
That night, without waiting for signals from the universe or dramatic signs like thunder striking, I moved immediately. The quest was already waiting, and Osaka, which had been friendly earlier, had now turned into a silent stage for things more… peculiar. According to the coordinates given by the system, the place I had to investigate was an old mansion—or rather, a grand building that now looked more like the ruins of past pride.
This was honestly funny. Think about it: me, a man who only wanted to sleep safely in a hotel, now standing in front of an abandoned mansion like some main character in a cheap survival horror game. The streetlight shone on the rusty gate, the night wind carried the scent of damp earth, and somehow, the whole atmosphere said: _"Welcome to a place you shouldn't enter."_
And of course—I still entered.
I put on my combat outfit, the murim-style set I obtained: black cloth, light protection, and a plain expressionless white mask. From afar, I probably looked like a third-rate ghost assassin.
Walking through the mansion's garden, the dry grass snapped under my feet like the brittle bones of a place long dead. The trees around me moved slowly, not because of the wind, but because… yeah, I didn't know. Maybe my own shadow.
I didn't set high expectations. No strong aura, no strange noises, just a silence that felt too lazy to be a threat.
Then I entered.
And sure enough—there was nothing.
A large room with cracked walls. Dust floating lightly like thin mist. Old furniture in the corner that might've once been expensive, now just silent witnesses to the owner's failure to maintain the house. A large chandelier hung crookedly, as if ready to fall at any moment.
Nothing at all?
I stood in the middle of the room, rubbing my chin, feeling as though I had been deceived by the atmosphere itself.
"I thought something would happen…" I muttered, disappointed.
And of course—right when I said that, something happened.
I felt danger from above. My murim reflexes, extremely sensitive to killing intent, screamed faster than my brain could react. My body moved to the side, jumping back, and something landed right where I had been standing.
I braced myself. But when I saw what had fallen…
'Seriously…? A Licker? Out of all things… a Licker from RE?'
The creature hissed, long tongue dangling, eyeless face, muscular body with rough skin, and claws as long as kitchen knives. What made the situation even more absurd was the fact that it wasn't alone.
There were several of them, hanging on the walls and ceiling like lizards that hadn't been fed for two weeks. Once they fell all at once, the dusty floor trembled, then they growled—a wet sound far too disturbing for normal human ears.
I stared at them. They stared… well, they didn't stare, they had no eyes. But the aggressive aura clearly targeted me.
'Okay… whoever the idiot scientist is who tried to graft survival game concepts into the DxD world, they've gone too far.'
They screeched, groaned, and began crawling quickly toward me. One jumped high, claw raised. Another swept in from the side. They moved in chaotic coordination, like monsters that had just learned how to be monsters.
I took a deep breath—a breath that felt more like a complaint than battle preparation. Qi flowed into my palm, forming a thin blade that glowed faintly. It felt like holding a sword, except this sword was born from my own body.
The moment my feet moved, the world slowed down.
One slash—clean, neat. The first creature split open like a wet wooden block, the sound of its flesh almost making me want to cover my ears.
Two steps left—avoiding the disgusting tongue of the second creature that shot out like a whip. I stabbed back without a second thought. It stopped moving before it even had the chance to make a sound.
The third monster attacked from behind. I didn't see it, but instinct and experience were enough. My body turned, my leg swept the air, and the creature flew into the wall. Spiderweb cracks instantly spread across the surface like an overly dramatic special effect.
Within seconds, everything was over.
The room returned to silence, except for the dripping sound of… well, something I'd rather not think too deeply about. The pile of strange bodies now just looked like failed experimental trash of some overly creative supernatural organization—typical for this world.**
I stood up while letting out a long sigh.
"If there are zombies after this, I honestly won't be surprised anymore…"
Those words had barely left my mouth when, of course, the world immediately responded to a challenge I never meant to give.
As soon as I went up to the second floor, what greeted me was—of course—a monster that looked like it crawled straight out of a survival horror game. A large, Orc-like body, bulging muscles, an ugly face that even a low-class devil might be ashamed to call a sibling, and a giant axe that looked like it was made specifically to cut someone in half.
"…Oh my goodness. Where are all of you even coming from?" I exclaimed, almost resigned.
"GROOOOAAAA!!"
Its scream made the dust on the ceiling tremble. I raised an eyebrow, then ran toward it. The horror-Orc swung its axe, but its speed looked like slow-motion to my body, which had long been accustomed to living among Devils, Angels, Youkai, and all sorts of creatures who loved to fight every week.
Just as I was about to take a step, I felt a faint vibration beneath my feet. Not an earthquake—more like something moving. Something BIG. Instinct kicked in, and without thinking, I swung Qi and split the wooden floor.
The floor cracked open, and I plunged downward—into the damp darkness that greeted me with a rotten smell I didn't want to identify any further.
Upon landing at the bottom, the sight wasn't pleasant at all.
"Ah. Chimera. Of course…" I muttered, no longer surprised.
Those creatures stood along the corridor—some on four legs, some crawling, others even looking like leftover body parts patched together without any respect for anatomical art. All of them moved on wild instinct.
'Good. At least they're predictable.'
The moment they charged, I was already moving first. Qi slashes, a hand pressed against the wall to vault over them, a quick spinning kick—basic things my body had been doing automatically after living in a world that loved creating biological problems like this.
One fell, five fell, ten passed without ever touching me.
The sewer was long—much longer than any mansion should reasonably have. And every few meters, I found even more failed mutated creatures. Some had too many eyes, some had organs in the wrong places, and some… well, didn't have enough reasons to stay alive.
"Seriously… Osaka has a place like this? This definitely isn't in the tourist brochure."
For the first time, I understood why Azazel was worried. If these creatures ever reached the surface, an entire city district could be destroyed in a matter of hours. And considering how 'creative' that Fallen Angel was, he probably suspected illegal Sacred Gear involvement in the process.
I kept walking, following the narrow corridor that felt endless. And finally, after cutting down around a dozen new chimeras, I reached the final room.
The room was larger, brighter, and far more horrifying.
Glass tubes lined up like a museum exhibit from the wrong major—inside them were incomplete bodies, organs floating in fluid, and some creatures that were still moving faintly as if trying to breathe.
I stood in the middle of the room, staring at the scene for a long moment.
"…Yup. This is the worst place I've visited so far."