New Quest
“Ugh…”
I forced my heavy eyelids upward. An unfamiliar antiseptic smell stabbed at my nose. As my vision slowly sharpened, what greeted me wasn’t the familiar, cozy wooden ceiling of my cabin but a stark, alien white one.
“Mujin! You’re awake?! Are you okay?!”
“……”
Clinging to my waist was Rahel, her face deathly pale with deep wrinkles etched between her brows. Small scratches covered her cheeks and arms. And behind her, in the corner of the room, Cecilia stood with her head bowed like a condemned criminal, her entire body a mess of bruises and dried blood.
It seemed that while I was unconscious, the furious Rahel had beaten Cecilia half to death. …Yet seeing Cecilia—who would normally dodge and weave away like a slippery eel—in such a state, she had probably decided her food was responsible for my collapse and simply taken the beating without resistance.
Rahel approached with a tearful expression and gently stroked my forehead.
“You collapsed because of the garbage that bug made and had to be carried all the way to the Treatment Center! Seriously, why did you gulp that down and put yourself through this?!”
“S-sorry, Mujin… I, I really… I’m so sorry…”
Cecilia’s already bowed head sank even lower, as if it might touch the floor. At her pitiful apology, Rahel growled like she was about to summon her axe at any moment.
“How dare you open that filthy mouth? Who told you to create biochemical terror in a bowl?! That wasn’t food, it was deadly poison! That’s it—you’re done for today, you wretch!!”
Ugh. This misunderstanding had clearly spiraled out of control.
“Hey, you two… I think there’s been a huge misunderstanding.”
“Huh?”
Rahel whipped her head toward me.
“A misunderstanding? What are you talking about, my puppy? Are you still hallucinating because the antidote hasn’t fully kicked in?”
“I didn’t collapse because the food was bad. I collapsed because it was so incredibly delicious.”
“…What?”
Rahel’s eyes bulged as if they might pop out of her skull. Her blood-moon-red irises trembled violently.
“It… it was delicious…?”
Meanwhile, Cecilia, still huddled in the corner, sucked in a sharp breath. In her unblinking pitch-black eyes, transparent tears began to glisten.
“Yeah. The smell really was like rotten sewage, but the moment it hit my tongue, that explosive savory flavor and burst of meat juices slammed into my brain. Before I could even savor it, every taste bud in my body went into shock and surrendered completely.”
“H-how does that make any sense?! You foamed at the mouth and passed out after eating it!!”
“I don’t know the medical reason I fainted either, but it was insanely good. A flavor I’ve never experienced in my entire life—an absolute fantasy.”
The instant my firm confirmation landed—
“Waaaaah!”
Cecilia shot toward me like a comet and threw herself into my arms. It wasn’t her usual grotesque, ear-piercing laugh. This was the radiant, genuine smile of an ordinary girl overwhelmed by pure emotion and joy.
“My… my food… was s-so delicious it made you collapse…! I’m so relieved… r-really, truly relieved…!”
“Relieved?! Like hell it is!!”
Of course, Rahel’s face had rotted as if the world had ended. The worry that had filled her expression moments ago vanished, replaced by the taut, demonic visage of pure rage and humiliation.
“So… in the cooking battle, I lost to that sewer rat that crawls under floorboards?!”
Rahel’s blood-red eyes looked ready to burst like overinflated popcorn.
“My… my youth poured into perfecting wok techniques… defeated by that purple biochemical weapon?! Aaaaaaaaagh!!”
Rahel’s thunderous roar shook the Treatment Center windows. Outside, the waiting healers could be heard murmuring in terror.
“Whoa, whoa, calm down, Rahel. I wasn’t trying to insult you—”
“Bleeeh… I, I won, bleeeh…”
Before I could finish mediating, Cecilia—still wrapped in my arms—stuck her tongue out at Rahel and taunted her.
In that instant, Rahel’s face flushed a deeper crimson than her own eyes.
“You… you worthless bug bitch! Today I’m going to grind you into meatballs!!!”
I sensed the second round approaching and let out a deep sigh, shaking my head.
Just as Rahel reached into thin air to summon her axe—
“Ahem. Hm.”
With a dignified cough, someone approached from beyond the tightly drawn curtain.
What now? Had all our shouting finally prompted a healer to come issue a warning?
Swish—.
But the person who parted the curtain and stepped inside was a fairly familiar face.
“It appears I’ve arrived at a rather inconvenient moment.”
White beard, round glasses. It was Adrian, the village chief and father of that thug son who shook me down for my precious crops every week. Unlike his brutish offspring, the chief himself was a polite, scholarly type.
Surely he hadn’t come all this way to complain about his son’s broken legs?
“Who’s this old geezer?”
“Kukuk… He looks familiar… that face.”
As expected, my two terrifying bodyguards scanned the suddenly intruding chief from head to toe, baring their teeth.
“Whoa, whoa, settle down. He’s the village chief. He’s my guest, so stop growling and behave.”
At my command, Rahel’s head creaked as it turned.
“What? You’re seriously telling us to stay out? You want to talk alone with that old fossil?”
“Please, just five minutes! If you wait outside for just five minutes, I’ll bark my lungs out for you later—please?!”
A desperate bargain that tossed every shred of pride aside. Only then did the corner of Rahel’s mouth curl upward.
“You promise? You’ll really do it? Hihit!”
“W-what about me…?”
Cecilia crept closer, feeling excluded.
“You too, Cecilia! I’ll drink that purple stew of yours anytime, no complaints, so please just step outside for a bit!!”
“You promised… Kukuk.”
Once my blood-and-tears agreement was finalized, the two maniacs finally withdrew obediently beyond the curtain.
Sigh. Peeling those leeches off is ridiculously hard.
“Ahem… Mujin. You really do lead a difficult life…”
After the storm passed, the chief approached my bedside with a sympathetic gaze.
“I originally came here to enjoy a quiet retirement in the forest, but bad luck has piled up in just a few days and turned everything upside down.”
“By the way, that white-haired young lady who just left—isn’t she the famous S-rank adventurer, Lady Rahel?”
Ah. Must be nice to be Rahel. One look at her face and everyone on the continent recognizes her.
“Yes, that’s her. The S-rank Rahel. But Chief, I’m also S-rank, you know. Isn’t your reaction a bit different toward me? I’m genuinely hurt.”
“No, it’s not that… My worthless son went to collect from your house and returned with both legs shattered by Lady Rahel, so… Ahem.”
Ah. So that was the reason after all.
I tried to sit up with an awkward expression.
“Oh dear. I’m truly sorry about that incident. The girls have such explosive tempers…”
“Not at all, it’s fine! I didn’t come here for an apology. I came because I have a rather delicate request to make of you.”
The chief waved his hands urgently. A request?
He glanced outside the curtain, then leaned in close and whispered.
“You may have noticed, but recently some extremely bizarre and suspicious incidents have been occurring in this remote little village.”
No way.
“What kind of incidents?”
“Well… There are ominous rumors that ‘duplicate humans’—perfect copies of our villagers—are occasionally seen wandering around.”
The Mystery of the Duplicate Humans
📍 Location: Village and surrounding area
🎯 Objective: Investigate and resolve the clone sightings suspected to be demon-related
🎁 Reward: Generous compensation and village favors
The chief’s single sentence caused the image of Roselia—decapitated yesterday yet smiling perfectly fine at the shop this morning—to overlap in my mind.
This… had to be the work of those demon bastards.
For now I feigned ignorance and pressed the chief for details.
“Why are you suddenly telling me such frightening things? Have you noticed anything strange about the residents?”
“Indeed. There have been frequent reports of people who can’t remember conversations from the day before, or even sightings of two identical individuals in the same place at the same time.”
“Hmm, I see…”
My suspicions were correct. No matter how I looked at it, those demon bastards were definitely wearing human skins and infiltrating the village.
“That’s why I’m asking, Mujin. Could you and Lady Rahel possibly resolve this ominous matter for us?”
“Us?”
“You wouldn’t refuse after so elegantly shattering my son’s legs, would you?”
Ugh. Using that as leverage to threaten me?
Of course, I would have accepted even without the coercion. Demons were enemies that had to be uprooted eventually.
“Underst—”
“Naturally, if you resolve this, the reward will be quite substantial.”
“Deal!! We will handle this perfectly so that such ominous rumors never circulate in the village again!”
Flashing a capitalist smile that stretched ear to ear, I grabbed both the chief’s hands.
With both justification and money on the table, only an idiot would refuse!
“Oh, and the commander of the Iron Knights will also be arriving to investigate, so you’ll likely need to coordinate with them.”
“Oh? The Iron Knights commander?”
The knight commander who had appeared like a comet a year ago and was now called the supernova of the continent? That would make things considerably easier. I was curious what kind of person they were, too.
“Yes, that works perfectly.”
“Then I must prepare to welcome the commander, so I’ll take my leave.”
Having finished his business, the chief quickly vanished beyond the curtain.
After days of nothing but suffering at the hands of my yandere companions, a genuinely productive and lucrative quest had finally arrived.
“So you accepted the chief’s proposal?”
The moment I returned home after being discharged, I told Rahel and Cecilia about the chief’s quest. Cecilia sat elegantly at the table sipping black tea, while Rahel stood crookedly beside me with both hands stuffed in her pockets.
“Obviously. We can’t rest easy until we deal with those Seven Deadly Sins scraps anyway. Plus they’re offering money—how could I refuse?”
“Well, that’s true enough. You also mentioned that ‘Iron Knights commander’ or whatever is coming.”
Rahel narrowed her eyes.
“If that commander happens to be a ‘woman’…”
Instantly, Rahel’s blood-red eyes flashed with menace.
“N-no! A knight commander is probably some hulking man! A sweaty, mustached old guy, right?!”
“Hmm. Still, something feels off. This won’t do. I need to leave a ‘mark’ on your body so everyone knows you’re completely mine.”
“Hey! Hey, stay back!! No!!”
Just as Rahel reached for the back of my neck—
Thud!
Cecilia, who had been peacefully tilting her teacup, suddenly collapsed onto the table.
“H-huh? Cecilia? What’s wrong all of a sudden?”
As I moved to approach her, I saw it clearly: the corner of Rahel’s mouth twisting upward in a grotesquely wide grin that stretched toward her ears.
N-no way.
“Hmm~ I can’t believe it worked so directly.”
Humming cheerfully, Rahel pulled an empty glass bottle from her pocket and shook it. A mysterious white powder clung to the inside.
“W-what is that?”
“Ultra-powerful sleeping powder. Physical attacks pass right through that bug, so I resorted to good old-fashioned chemistry. And she just kept sipping her tea without the slightest suspicion! How delightful! Hihit!”
Rahel’s laughter, soaked in madness, sent a chill through the cabin.
D-damn it. The delicate balance of the yandere ecosystem—maintained through constant fighting—had collapsed. And in the worst possible way: complete monopolization by a single predator.
Rahel’s sticky gaze slowly turned toward me, the only one left.
“Now that the nuisance is asleep… shall we go somewhere quiet where only the two of us know, Mujin? Heeheehee!”
Staring at Rahel’s approaching shadow, I quietly closed my eyes.
Sigh. Another kidnapping and confinement after so long. At this rate I could add “self-bondage and confinement adaptation” to the special skills section of my resume.
Today, too, my peaceful life had sailed far, far away.