Source
https://kakuyomu.jp/works/1177354054922300995/episodes/1177354054922726919
Kengo and the others, finally realizing that their surroundings have changed, are scurrying around in dismay.
Ryu [It’s a forest near the eastern dungeon, we won’t be disturbed here, okay? …Maybe we can light it up a bit.]
Ryu shoots fireballs in all directions, setting the surrounding trees ablaze. (Ryu cannot use any magic other than space-time magic, but he had released some of the fireballs that one of Big’s friends had released some time ago, which were still stored in subspace).
The vacant lot is surrounded by a dimensional barrier to prevent demons and wild animals from entering. The trees on fire were also surrounded by dimensional barriers to prevent the fire from spreading.
Ryu [So? What do you want, at this time of night?]
Kengo [B-bastard, I don’t know what kind of trick you’re up to….but it changes nothing ! Hey, you guys !”
Kengo’s signal brought the thugs back to their senses, and they all pulled out their swords at once. Most of them had daggers, but some of them had long swords.
Ryu [This is a mess, what are you going to do?]
Kengo [I’m gonna cut off your hands and feet and then torture you to death. I’m gonna expose your corpse in the slum so that no one will dare to oppose us in the future !]
Ryu [……Tanzi, you too?]
Ryu asks Tanzi, who was among Kengo’s friends and is from a church orphanage.
Tanzi [S-shut up ! I’ll kill you !]
Tanzi points his dagger at Ryu and turns his deadly eyes on him.
Ryu’s eyes glow gold.
Activating his divine eye, Ryu not only looks into Tanzi’s mind, but also into his future.
He looks at the possible options and their future consequences, but no matter what route he takes, he knows that only an unhappy ending awaits Tanzi.
Tanzi, who is no stranger to him, and who once lived with him in an orphanage for a short time, would have helped him if he could have but…Ryu sighs.
Ryu [I’ll warn you one thing. If you come to kill me, I won’t go easy on you either, and you will die. Only those who are prepared to die can come at me.]
Kengo [Against this many people ! You’re a weak man, what can you do on your own ! Do it !]
But as they ran toward Ryu, one by one, their heads fell to the ground.
A subspace was set up to surround all the heads, and when the space was “detached,” only the heads became a space of another dimension. The head and torso were separated by a dimensional barrier. If the subspace is released in an instant, the head, which is separated from the torso, will be cut off as if it were severed.
Ryu called this a ‘dimensional slash’.
Kengo [What’s wrong with you guys?!]
His friends attacked Ryu and fell down as their heads were cut off. Ryu does not move a finger.
Kengo [Hey ! What’s the matter ! What did you do ahhh !?\
Ryu [I told you, you’re going to die.]
Kengo […..!]
Ryu [Kengo, I’ve got a question for you. Why have you been pestering me this whole time?]
Kengo [You…you’re the one who’s at fault ! Why are you the only one……]
Ryu [……?]
Kengo [I was…..I was an orphan, too ! But after my parents died……I had no one to help me ! I lived in the slums alone, slurping mud !]
Kengo [But you guys got picked up by the church. Especially you, Ryu, you didn’t have to struggle in the slums, you were taken care of by the church as soon as you came to town !]
.
.
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Ryu was 12 years old when he was thrown out of the city. His father had given him some money, but it was not enough to live on. So Ryu approached a slum in search of cheap accommodation, where he was attacked by robbers.
Ryu was robbed of all his possessions and fell to the ground bleeding from the head, but it was Sister Ann of the Bordertown church who found him and rescued him.
She took care of him at the church, and he did not have to live penniless in the slum. He was indeed lucky.
・
・
・
Kengo [I can’t let you people get away with that !]
Tanzi [Did you think that about me too…..?]
Tanzi, who had been hesitant to attack Ryu and was unable to move, was still alive.
Kengo [That’s obvious ! I was going to make you disposable somewhere ! When I eventually rise to the top, I’ll destroy the church, too. Don’t worry, I’m planning to raise slum orphans to become respectable criminals.]
The fact that this seems to be the plan may mean that the upper organization, the Four Night Butterflies, is thinking about such a thing.
Kengo’s situation was unfortunate, but if they were going to mess with the church, he couldn’t let them live.
Kengo’s head fell to the ground.
Ryu had some resentment toward Kengo and the others, but it was not that deep. He felt sorry for him once he heard about his circumstances. It was Ryu’s compassion that he at least let them die without causing them pain.
He knew through his own experience that there is an afterlife and reincarnation.
If that is the case, then being alive is no longer the most important thing.
If you cannot escape from the hellish life in this world, it may be better to go to the next world.
It is not that he is not willing to take life easily, but he has no choice but to get rid of those who are willing to kill even those who are dear to him.
In the first place, this world easily loses lives.
Those that die will probably be reincarnated into the next world.
He, too, will eventually die and return to that world where he spoke with the goddess’s surrogate when he was reincarnated.
At the very least, Ryu hopes that he will be reborn in a happy situation in the next world, and it is the least he can do to make his death a comfortable one.
Two or three of those who had not attacked Ryu ran away, but Tanzi stood still.
Ryu turned toward Tanzi and approached him.
Tanzi [Eek..?!]
Tanzi said to Ryu, who was trembling as he pointed his dagger at Ryu.
Ryu [I can foresee the future.]
Tanzi [……?]
Ryu [You will die a miserable death in the near future.]
Tanzi [……What are you talking about…?]
Ryu [But the future is not absolute. The future is always changing according to your decisions. The future will change depending on the choices you make and how you live your life from now on. Think about it and live.]
Tanzi found himself in an alley in Border town. Ryu had transported him there.
In the end, Ryu could not kill Tanzi. If only a miserable future awaited him anyway, he thought it would be compassionate to kill him at once and let him start over……
The possibility is extremely small, but it is not absolute. The future always changes. The rest depends on Tanzi’s choice.
Ryu gathers the bodies of Kengo and the others in the center of the plaza. It doesn’t take much time to gather them in one place. Once the bodies are stored in subspace, they are brought back out to the center of the plaza.
Once the corpses are piled up, fireballs are released to set them on fire.
If the corpses are left unattended, the smell of blood will attract beasts and demons, and the corpses may revive as undead, so the basic rule is to always dispose of the corpses of demons.
When a member of a party dies, it is recommended to dispose of the body as far as possible. It is not a very pleasant sight to see a former comrade wandering around as an undead person.
Since they were deep in the forest, it would not be a problem to leave them there, but just to be safe, we decided to dispose of them.
However, the bones would remain if they were just roasted as usual.
There are undead demons with only bones, called skeletons. Even if they are only bones, they can become undead.
However, it is basically said that it is difficult to become undead from burned bones. However, it is unclear whether it is absolutely impossible, since no such verification has been conducted.
In fact, undeadness is a phenomenon that occurs when a person’s attachment to life is abnormally strong and a concentrated pool of stagnant magical energy called miasma is present, so there is a possibility that burned bones can also become undead depending on the conditions.
(To begin with, there are undead whose souls remain in other places than corpses and bones, so there may be no need to be concerned about corpses.)
However, Ryu does not leave even bones, but reduces them to ashes. After isolating the corpse with a dimensional barrier, he throws a series of fireballs to raise the temperature.
In fact, bones do not burn to ashes. They also have a higher melting point than stone or iron, and if they are burned at a high enough temperature to melt even the bones, the surrounding soil and stone will also melt and turn to lava. In other words, if the bones were burned at such high temperatures on the soil, they would mix with the surrounding molten soil and become glassy stones.
The wood that was being burned for light in the surrounding area was also transferred onto the corpse and burned together. Because of the high temperature, they quickly turned to charcoal.
Soon, a small pile of ash and charcoal had formed in the center of a square deep in the forest. The rest would melt and flow away when it rained. The bones would just remain as stones mixed with the surrounding soil.
Ryu watched and then returned to the city.
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