Rikaris Town, Block 2. The Kiribu Row Houses.
A single-story building, long and horizontal, with four separate entrances along its length.
The people who lived there could hardly be called well-off.
But they weren't struggling in poverty the way slum-dwellers did.
They represented the common class of the Demon Continent.
In a place like that, there were three shadows.
Two small shadows, and one large one.
They sauntered down the street with an air of utter nonchalance, and without a shred of hesitation, stopped in front of one of the row house doors.
"Helloooo! We're here from the
A young boy called out in a high-pitched voice, and knocked on the door.
Creepy.
Nobody in the local adventurer crowd spoke in such a polite tone.
Adventurers were, as a rule, a rough bunch.
And yet, that gentle voice apparently had the room's occupant completely fooled.
*Click.* The door opened.
Out stepped a girl of about seven or eight years old.
She had a long, lizard-like tail and a forked tongue — a Hobgoblin.
Her eyes went wide at the sight of the three visitors. The boy smiled warmly and addressed her.
"Hello there. This would be the residence of Meisel, correct?"
"Uh, um, what?"
"Ah, forgive me for not introducing myself sooner."
"My name is
"D-Dead End?"
The girl — Meisel — knew that name too.
Dead End.
During the Laplace War four hundred years ago, the Superd race had wrought havoc on countless battlefields, trampling friend and foe alike. Dead End was considered the most savage and vicious of them all.
If you encountered Dead End, you'd die.
That was the word going around.
Everyone who survived an encounter would say, "I barely escaped with my life."
The very synonym for terror on the Demon Continent.
Even the toughest adventurers who boasted they could take down any monster would tremble at the sound of that name.
Meisel knew Dead End's characteristics too.
This couldn't be him. He was way too small.
"Today, we're here regarding your pet search request. We'd like to hear the details — would now be a convenient time?"
Dead End. What a terrifying name.
The two behind him were a bit unsettling, but looking at this absurdly polite boy, the fear started to fade.
And they were adventurers — apparently, they'd taken on her request.
"Please find my Mii."
"Right. The name is Mii-chan, yes? What a cute name!"
"I named her myself."
"My, what splendid naming sense!"
Meisel brightened at those words.
"So, what does Mii-chan look like?"
Meisel talked.
What the pet looked like.
How it had gone missing three days ago.
How it hadn't come back.
How it usually came running the moment she called, but wouldn't now.
How it must be hungry since it hadn't eaten.
And so on.
Her explanations were rambling and incoherent, the kind you'd expect from a child her age.
A normal adult might have grown exasperated and left midway through.
But the boy listened with a smile the entire time, nodding at every word the girl said.
"I understand. Then we'll set out to find her right away. Leave it to Dead End!"
The boy gave a firm thumbs-up.
Come to think of it, the two behind him were doing the same.
Meisel didn't quite understand, but she mimicked the gesture.
Seeing that, the boy turned on his heel.
The hooded woman at his side followed.
The largest man crouched down and placed his hand on the girl's head.
The big man spoke.
"We'll find her for sure. Just wait here, and don't worry."
A scar running vertically across his face. A jewel on his forehead.
And mottled blue hair.
A frightening face.
But the hand resting on her head was warm.
The girl nodded.
"P-please do."
"Yeah. Leave it to us."
The three of them left.
Watching their retreating backs, Meisel called out to the large man.
"Um, what's your name?"
"
He said it shortly, then turned away and started walking.
Meisel's cheeks flushed red as she whispered Ruijerd's name to herself.
--- Rudeus's POV --- My encounter with the client.
That was where I'd first felt real confidence in what I was doing.
Back in my previous life, I'd watched door-to-door salesmen who visited our house all the time, and I tried imitating their approach. Seemed to work.
Let other adventurers laugh if they wanted — what mattered was that the client thought well of me.
You had to speak to clients with courtesy and deference.
"You're pretty good, you know. Didn't expect you could pull off an act like that."
I was still relaxing from the success when Ruijerd spoke to me.
"Not at all. Ruijerd, that last thing you did was really something."
"My last thing? What do you mean?"
"When you put your hand on her head and said those things."
That had been completely improvised.
I'd been sweating, wondering what he'd say, but the result was even better than I'd expected.
"Huh? That? What was so good about it?"
What was so good about it?
That girl had turned beet red, looking up at Ruijerd with flushed cheeks.
If someone had looked at me like that, I would've lost my composure for sure.
But if I said that with a straight face, Ruijerd — who was great with kids — would probably give me a disapproving look and lecture me about my conduct.
"Heheh, that girl's got it bad for you, big bro. Totally smitten. Hehehe."
So instead, I said it in a teasing tone and poked Ruijerd's thigh with my elbow.
Ruijerd gave a wry smile and said, with no confidence whatsoever, that it couldn't possibly be.
"Heheheh, once big bro gets serious, a little girl like that wouldn't stand a cha— ow!"
From behind, I got smacked across the head.
Turning around, I saw
"Stop laughing like a creep! Wasn't that all an act?"
Apparently, my lecherous little gesture had bothered her.
Eris hated creeps.
Ever since the kidnapping incident.
Even in Roa, whenever she saw someone who looked like a thief, she'd scowl.
I'd meant it as a joke, but Eris didn't find it funny.
"Sorry."
"Oh honestly! The
I nearly burst out laughing at that.
Hear that, everyone? Eris is talking about class.
The same girl who wouldn't feel satisfied unless she'd kicked down a door had somehow grown into a proper young lady.
But if she was going to say things like that, she should also stop randomly flying into rages and picking fights, like yesterday.
No, wait — if
No, that's ridiculous.
… I had no idea where the line of Asuran aristocratic decorum was drawn.
"Anyway, do you think we'll actually find the pet?"
Not knowing, I changed the subject.
From what I'd been told, the pet was cat-like.
Black in color, and had been raised with the girl since it was small.
The size was apparently substantial — the girl had spread both arms wide to indicate it.
If I took that at face value, it'd be about the size of a Shiba Inu.
Pretty big for a cat.
"Of course. I promised we'd find it."
Ruijerd's answer was immediate.
Now that was reassuring.
Without further ado, Ruijerd took the lead.
His stride was steady and unhesitating.
I felt a little uneasy.
Even with Ruijerd's extraordinary tracking senses, finding one animal in an entire town wouldn't be easy.
"Do you have a plan?"
"Animals are simple. Look."
Ruijerd pointed.
There, barely visible, were paw prints pressed into the soil.
Impressive.
I hadn't noticed them at all.
"If we follow these, we'll find it?"
"No, this is a different animal. The prints are smaller than what was described."
Ah, right — at this size, it was probably just an ordinary cat.
Well, the girl's description was probably exaggerated.
"Hmm."
"Something else is encroaching on the territory of the animal we're looking for."
"Really?"
"Without doubt. The scent is fading."
Scent?
Could it be — was this man actually distinguishing territorial marking marks by smell?
"This way."
Ruijerd murmured something to himself and headed into the depths of an alley.
I followed in silence.
I wasn't sure what was happening, but it felt like we were making progress.
So this is what it felt like to be the assistant following behind a great detective.
Using overwhelming pursuit skills to corner the perpetrator, extracting confessions through fear-based interrogation and demon-style martial arts.
Every case, solved at light speed.
The great detective Ruijerd, reporting for duty.
Yeah, right.
"I found it. This is probably it."
Ruijerd pointed at a corner of the alley and said that.
What he'd found and what "probably" meant, I had absolutely no idea.
There were no paw prints anywhere that I could see, at least.
"This way."
Ruijerd glided through the alley.
His steps were unhesitating.
He kept going deeper into narrower and narrower alleys.
The kind of narrow passages a cat might slip through.
I had no idea what logic was driving his movements, but he was probably following the trail just fine.
"Look. Signs of a struggle here."
In a dead-end alley, Ruijerd stopped.
He told me to look, but I couldn't see any signs of a struggle.
There were no bloodstains, no disturbed ground — nothing.
"This way."
Ruijerd moved ahead.
Eris and I just followed.
What an easy job this was.
Out of the alley, across the street, into another alley.
Out of the alley, into a back lane, and into yet another alley.
We charged through the maze-like passages.
We emerged from one alley.
And suddenly, the scenery had changed.
It was noticeably more run-down than before.
Buildings crumbled. Exterior walls peeled away. Everything looked shabby and neglected.
Men with hostile eyes glared at us.
People lay sprawled on the street.
Plenty of dirty children too.
The slums.
Not a gradual transition — more like we'd wandered in through some hidden passage.
In an instant, my alertness level spiked.
"Eris. Keep your sword where you can draw it at any moment."
"...Why?"
"Just in case. Also, watch out for anyone we pass and anyone behind us."
"O-okay, got it...!"
I gave Eris those instructions.
Ruijerd was with us, so I doubted anything would happen.
But if something went wrong and I'd left it to someone else, the consequences would be ugly.
You had to protect yourself.
Thinking that, I gripped the pouch of money in my coat.
It wasn't much, but I couldn't afford to have it stolen.
Now and then, some rough-looking types glared at Ruijerd.
But when Ruijerd glared back with genuine intensity, they looked away immediately.
Those eyes don't play around.
In a place like this, the wariness toward the strong might actually run deeper than toward adventurers.
"Is our target really in a place like this?"
"Could be."
Ruijerd's reply wasn't exactly confidence-inspiring.
Had he not been walking without hesitation after all?
No — he was just being terse. Ruijerd had surely noticed something.
I'd believe that.
After a while, Ruijerd stopped in front of a building.
"This is it."
At the end of his gaze, there were stairs leading down, and a door at the bottom.
The vibe of an underground bar where the visual kei crowd hung out.
Of course, no rock or pop music was drifting out, and no skinhead in sunglasses was guarding the entrance.
Instead, what hung in the air was the smell of beasts.
That indescribable animal stench, like passing by a pet shop.
And something else.
It smelled like crime.
"How many people are inside?"
"Not a single person. But plenty of creatures."
"Then let's go in."
Since no one was inside, there was no real dilemma.
I descended the stairs and grabbed the door handle.
It was locked.
Earth magic to pick the lock.
I checked the surroundings first, confirmed no one was watching, and slipped inside.
Just in case, I relocked it from the inside.
I felt like a burglar.
Inside, a dark corridor stretched ahead.
"Eris, watch our backs."
"Got it."
If anyone came in, Ruijerd would probably notice, but better safe than sorry.
With Ruijerd in the lead, we proceeded deeper.
At the end of the corridor was a single door.
Beyond that door was a small room, and yet another door.
We passed through two doors.
And then, a cacophony of animal cries assaulted our ears.
In the innermost room, cages were lined up.
Cages packed together with barely any space between them.
Inside them, a massive number of animals were crammed.
Dogs, cats, species I'd never seen before.
The room — about the size of a school classroom — was packed wall to wall.
"...What is this...?"
Eris's voice trembled.
As for me — What is this room?
That was my first thought.
But simultaneously — if animals were being collected here, then maybe the pet we were looking for was inside too.
"Ruijerd. Is the cat we're looking for in here?"
"It is. That one."
His answer was instant.
I looked where he was pointing.
… It was a creature that looked like a black panther.
It was big.
Seriously big.
At least twice the size of what the girl had indicated with her arms.
"Are — are you sure it's this one?"
"Look at the collar."
On the black panther's collar, the words "Mii-chan" were indeed engraved.
"That's definitely Mii-chan."
Well then — mission accomplished.
All we had to do was get this black panther out of its cage and bring it back to the girl.
But hold on.
What about the other animals?
Looking around, many of them wore collars or leg bands.
Some even had names engraved, like "Mii-chan."
They were obviously pets.
In the corner of the room, ropes and gags lay scattered in a heap.
Ropes — the word that came to mind was "capture."
Someone had been kidnapping other people's expensive pets and selling them at a markup.
A business like that could exist.
I doubted this world had much in the way of laws against it, though.
It certainly wasn't a good thing.
In other words, they were thieves.
"Hm."
Ruijerd turned toward the entrance.
Eris noticed too.
"Someone's coming in."
The animal cries were too loud for me to hear.
Ruijerd aside, Eris's hearing was excellent.
Now what?
From the entrance to here, we didn't have much time.
Should we run?
No — there was no escape route. Just one path.
"For now, let's capture them."
The option of talking it out, I discarded immediately.
We were trespassers.
There was a nine-out-of-ten chance this was a crime scene, but I couldn't entirely rule out the possibility there was a legitimate reason for all this.
Subdue them first.
If they turned out to be decent people, we'd negotiate and keep quiet.
If they turned out to be bad people, we'd silence them the hard way.
--- A few minutes later.
I was looking down at three people — two men and one woman — rolled up in the corner of the room.
Ruijerd had knocked them all out in an instant.
I'd shackled each of them with earth magic, then splashed water on their faces to wake them up.
One of the men had been screaming his head off, so I'd gagged him with a piece of cloth I found nearby.
The other two were quiet.
But just to be equal about it, I'd gagged all three.
Fair's fair.
"...Hm."
A question surfaced, unbidden.
So how did things end up like this?
We were supposed to be doing an E-rank job.
Finding a lost cat.
Ruijerd had told me to leave it to him, so I had, and before I knew it, we'd wandered into the slums.
We entered a building and found a ton of caged animals.
Before I knew it, we'd somehow restrained a bunch of people.
And yet, the ones who should've been restrained were the criminals, not us.
This was all the
He'd seen this coming.
This had become a mess.
We shouldn't have taken a pet search job.
--- I observed the three people I'd restrained.
Man A.
A demon race. No white to his eyes — compound eyes. A little unsettling.
The one who'd been screaming like a lunatic.
Gave off a savage impression, like he was the brawling type.
I felt like I'd seen something about his race in
I did remember reading that their saliva was toxic, and I'd wondered what you'd do about that when kissing.
Man B.
A demon race. Had a reptilian face, though the shape and markings differed somewhat from the door-guard type.
With a lizard face, it was hard to read his expressions.
But the intelligence flickering in his eyes put me on edge.
Woman A.
A demon race. Had something like compound eyes.
Her expression was frightened.
She was unsettling too, but her body was attractive, so the two canceled out.
Well, just standing over them and staring wasn't going to accomplish anything.
Time to have a little… no, that sounded wrong.
Time to interrogate.
Who should I start with?
Which one looked most likely to spill information willingly?
A man or a woman?
Woman A was scared.
If I threatened her a little, she might tell me everything.
But women lied.
To save themselves, they'd spin wild, incoherent stories with no thread of logic.
Not every woman in the world was like that, of course.
But my sister certainly had been.
When I heard lies like that, my anger took over before I could sort fact from fiction.
So, Woman A was out.
Then, one of the men.
Man A? He was worked up.
The most physically imposing of the three.
Scarred face — looked like he'd been in more fights than anyone.
Probably not the brightest.
Just a moment ago, he'd been shouting things like "What the hell do you want?" and "Get these damn shackles off me."
Man B?
His expression was hard to read, but he was studying us carefully.
He definitely wasn't stupid.
If he wasn't stupid, then he'd already be thinking about what lies to tell in a situation like this.
I chose Man A.
He was excited and had lost his composure.
If I provoked him a little, steered the conversation — he'd probably tell me everything I needed to know.
And even if it didn't work, I still had two more.
I removed Man A's gag.
He glared at me.
But said nothing.
"I have a few questions. If you cooperate, I won't have to get rough—"
Before I could finish, I was kicked.
Hard.
I'd been crouching, so I couldn't brace myself — I went flying backward.
I tumbled once across the ground.
The back of my head cracked against the wall, and stars burst across my vision.
Ow.
Damn it.
What an idiot.
Kicking someone who had you restrained.
Did he not consider what might happen if he made his captors angry?
"Hey! Wait — stop it!"
Eris screamed.
I scrambled to my feet.
I thought Man A had done something to Eris.
In the time I'd been dazed, he'd slipped the shackles, evaded Ruijerd's watch, and taken Eris hostage…
"Wha—!"
Wrong.
What flashed before my eyes was a short spear driven into Man A's throat.
Ruijerd had stabbed him.
Eris stared, wide-eyed.
The short spear was twisted sideways as it was yanked out.
Blood sprayed.
A spray of red freckled the wall.
Man A spun from the force of the blow and collapsed face-down.
Blood gushed from his throat.
A dark stain spread across his back.
A puddle of red expanding on the floor.
The thick, cloying smell of blood.
The man twitched once, and then was still.
He was dead.
Without saying another word, he was dead.
Killed by Ruijerd.
"W-why… why did you kill him?"
My voice was shaking.
It wasn't the first time I'd seen someone die.
Ghislaine had killed people to save me.
But this felt different from that.
For some reason, my body was trembling.
For some reason, my heart was afraid.
(What am I afraid of?)
That a person had died?
Ridiculous.
In this world, people dying was an everyday occurrence.
I was supposed to know that.
I knew it in my head — but was seeing it in person so different?
Then why hadn't I been shaken when Ghislaine killed those kidnappers?
"Because he kicked a child."
Ruijerd's tone was flat.
As if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Ah. Right.
I understood.
I wasn't afraid because a person had died.
I was afraid of Ruijerd — the man who, as naturally as breathing, had killed someone over a kick.
Hadn't Roxy said something like this?
'Between humans and demons, many things that are common sense differ. You never know what words might set someone off.' Right.
What if Ruijerd turned that killing intent on me?
This man was strong.
Stronger than Ghislaine, or at least on par.
Could I beat him with magic?
I should be able to hold my own.
I'd run simulations countless times against opponents who specialized in close combat.
Paul. Ghislaine. Eris.
Everyone around me had been a close-combat specialist.
Ruijerd was, among all of them, probably the strongest.
So I couldn't say with confidence that I'd "win."
But if I were fighting to kill, I had plenty of options.
But what if he turned on Eris?
Could I protect her completely?
No.
"D-don't kill anyone!"
"Why not? He was a criminal."
I blurted it out.
Ruijerd looked at me blankly.
His face said he genuinely didn't understand.
"That's…"
How should I explain?
What did I want Ruijerd to do?
For that matter, why shouldn't he kill?
I didn't have any conventional moral compass.
Back when I was a NEET, I'd scoffed at the words "You shouldn't kill people."
When my parents died, it was the same.
I'd thought things would get tough from here on, but whatever — who cares about that when you've got your hand lotion and your computer.
Coming from me, those words would ring hollow.
"There are reasons not to kill."
I was shaken.
Acknowledge it.
I was panicking right now.
Acknowledge that, and think.
First — Why was I trembling?
Because I was afraid.
The man I'd thought was kind had just killed someone without batting an eye.
I'd mistakenly believed the Superd were a misunderstood, peaceable race.
I was wrong.
Whether the race as a whole was like that, I didn't know — but Ruijerd certainly wasn't.
Ever since the days of the Laplace War, he'd been killing enemy after enemy.
This was just another instance of that.
And the possibility that his blade could one day be turned on me or Eris — I couldn't say it was zero.
I wasn't a paragon of virtue — Ruijerd himself would vouch for that.
Sooner or later, somewhere, I'd probably cross him.
If he got angry about that, fine.
We had different perspectives — disagreements were inevitable.
We'd probably fight about it.
But I had no intention of turning it into a fight to the death.
No matter what the situation, I had to draw the line right here, right now, and make sure Ruijerd understood.
"Listen, Ruijerd. I need you to hear me out."
But the words still wouldn't come.
How should I phrase this?
What would make him understand?
Should I beg him not to kill anyone near us?
No way.
I'd just told him the other day that I was a fellow warrior who would fight alongside him.
I wasn't under his protection — I was his comrade.
Begging was out.
Flatly forbidding him wouldn't work either.
If Ruijerd himself wasn't convinced, it would mean nothing.
Think.
Why was I with Ruijerd in the first place?
To rehabilitate the Superd's terrible reputation.
If Ruijerd killed people, the Superd's image would only get worse.
That was certain.
That was why I'd told him not to pick fights with other adventurers.
The Superd's reputation was already at rock bottom.
No matter how many good deeds he performed to change people's minds, if a Superd committed murder right in front of them, everything would be washed away and Ruijerd's reputation would hit the floor.
Right. That was why he couldn't kill.
People must not be reminded that Superd = terrifying.
"If you kill people, Ruijerd, it'll spread the Superd's bad reputation even further."
"...Even if they're criminals?"
"It doesn't matter who you kill. It matters *who is doing the killing.*"
I chose my words carefully, thinking as I spoke.
"I don't follow."
"When a Superd kills someone, it carries a different meaning than when anyone else does it."
I hesitated, then pressed on.
"It's seen as the same as a monster killing people."
Ruijerd's expression soured slightly.
That might have sounded like an insult to his race.
"...I don't get it. How does that follow?"
"The Superd are perceived as a race that kills humans. A demonic race that will murder anyone who even slightly offends them."
I might have been exaggerating, but that was the public perception.
And I was trying to change it.
"Telling people that the Superd aren't the monsters they're made out to be — that's easy to say with your mouth. If you demonstrate it through your actions, most people will change their minds."
"..."
"But if you kill someone, everything is undone. People will just say, 'See? The Superd really were demons after all.'"
"That's ridiculous."
"Doesn't it ring true? Think about it — have you ever done good deeds, made friends, and then had them turn on you?"
"...Yes."
As I spoke, the argument was crystallizing in my mind.
"But if you never kill anyone at all..."
"What happens?"
"People will realize that the Superd have rationality too."
Was that really true?
In this world, would not killing people really be enough to make them see the Superd as rational?
No — don't overthink it now.
I had to be right about this.
Ruijerd had killed too many people.
The Superd were thought of as a race that killed by default.
If they stopped killing, perceptions would change.
The logic held.
"Please don't kill anyone. If you care about the Superd — anyone."
You were supposed to judge when killing was justified and when it wasn't.
But I didn't know this world's moral standards, and Ruijerd's standards were probably extreme.
With both ends of the spectrum, the line was impossible to find.
So it was simpler to just ban it outright.
"What if no one's watching?"
At Ruijerd's question, I nearly grabbed my head.
*If no one's watching, it's fine to commit a crime?* What kind of elementary schooler logic was that?
Had this man really lived for five hundred years?
"Just because you think no one's watching, doesn't mean there aren't eyes on you."
"There's no one around."
Ah, damn it — right.
That thing on his forehead.
"There are people watching."
"Where?"
Right here.
"Eris and I. We're watching, aren't we?"
"..."
"Don't kill anyone. We don't want to be afraid of you, Ruijerd."
"...Understood."
In the end, it had basically come down to emotional pressure.
I had no confidence in my own argument.
But Ruijerd nodded.
"Thank you."
I bowed my head to Ruijerd.
Looking at my own hands, they were trembling.
Get it together.
This was perfectly normal.
Okay — deep breaths.
"In… and out…"
"In… and out…"
I couldn't calm down.
My heartbeat wouldn't slow.
How was Eris doing?
Was she scared?
I looked over.
Eris was perfectly composed.
Her expression said she'd been startled by the sudden violence, but it was only natural for trash to die.
No — surely she wasn't thinking anything that cruel.
But there she was, arms crossed, legs spread, chin raised. Her usual pose.
Whatever she felt inside, she was trying to act normal.
And here I was, falling apart.
My hands had finally stopped shaking.
"Shall we continue the interrogation, then?"
In a room reeking of blood, I forced myself to smile.