Yakuza Death Beam (5)
An unfamiliar ceiling.
No—wait. This ceiling was way too familiar.
"Nin?!"
This was my bed. My house.
Creeeak—
A chimpanzee that had absolutely no business existing in another world shoved open my bedroom door and walked right in.
"Oppa~♡ Morning~♡ Get up already~♡ You're gonna be late~♡"
"You've got to be kidding me."
That chimpanzee voice I hadn't heard in ages. Not a single spark of joy. All I felt was the pure, unfiltered revulsion of a hundred Galápagos giant centipedes crawling over my skin at once.
"Mom made doenjang-jjigae~♡ It's so good~♡"
I couldn't take it anymore.
This bastard dared to shove a fantasy like this in my face?
"Just die already!"
I shot upright and drove a full-power straight punch straight into the chimpanzee's gut.
"Ghk…! Oppa…. Why…?"
"Who the hell is your oppa."
"But Oppa…"
I wasn't listening to another word. I grabbed a fistful of its hair, hauled it up, and hurled it straight out the window.
"Ogo-gok~!"
Crash-shatter—!
Unauthorized outdoor excursion for one chimpanzee.
"Nin?!"
I stuck my head out to check whether the thing was properly dead—and the world outside the window was wrong.
- Chirp-chirp-chirp.
- Ha-ha, ho-ho.
- Giggle-giggle, cackle-cackle.
The entire world was looping like a video on repeat. A full-blown yokai city.
Bang!
I smashed the door to splinters and stormed into the living room.
Bubble-bubble-bubble.
"Nobin's home~! The stew's all ready~ Where's your little sister?"
My real mother was never that young and girlish, and she sure as hell couldn't cook. She was a ruthless salarywoman who slapped a pizza's worth of cash on the table with the excuse of being busy and then vanished out the door.
"My boy! You're up! What are you standing around for? Sit down! A man needs a solid meal! Hahaha!"
The Powered-Mountain Gorilla looked roughly the same, but the sudden affection was nauseating. And that silent serial-violence specialist would never say anything that sappy.
"—There's no meat side dish!"
I flipped the entire table.
"Kyaaak~!"
"Oaaat~!"
The fake parents took a direct hit of authentic Korean traditional doenjang-jjigae; their faces twisted into grotesque melting masks.
"Wh…y…?"
"It was… such a happy scene…"
Their dissolving faces kept spouting nonsense.
"You damn otaku bastard! This is an insult to my family!"
Apes cannot become human. The genetic structure is completely different. So a fake family pretending to be human would never work on me.
"—Time for the whole-family massacre party."
I snatched the baseball bat leaning beside the flowerpot.
Bang-bang-bang-bang! Thwack-thwack!
I smashed every corner of the house and, while I was at it, cracked each of the fake parents over the head once for good measure. Walls crumpled under the bat and, out of nowhere, the Milky Way itself spilled into view.
Just how much of a space-loving otaku was this thing?
- Stop at once. Or I will enter your 'Palace of Thought' myself.
"Bring it on!"
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
- Prepare yourself. I am not as soft as Belka-Tuna.
A yokai that read my thoughts and tried to rewrite them from inside my skull. There was only one move left: show it everything I had.
Woooooooooom—
- S-stop… it's too chaotic…
"This is the will of a Runaway Ninja~!!!!!"
No yokai could ever dominate my mind.
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
Woooooooooom—
- S-stop…. This is…. far too…
It thrashed, trying to claw its way out of my head.
"I'm not letting you go~!!!"
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
I kept shattering the space around us, pinning the thing in place.
Woooooooooom—
-…
It fell silent.
Craaack-shatter~!
The entire space exploded outward.
"Ninja Rising Technique."
Snap!
My eyes finally opened for real.
"…"
My body moved, though it felt a little stiff. That surging mana sensation—exactly the same as after I'd rested following Delamion's death.
Step, step.
I walked slowly, checking the surroundings. Everything was exactly as it had been. Not even a second had passed in reality? During the Spirit Torture I'd been convinced a hundred years had gone by.
No need to visit Orphe's grave or see the yokai granny Diana, then.
"Nin-nin."
What was finished mattered less than what came next. I loosened up with a quick round of national calisthenics and set off after the yakuza who'd fled into the mountains.
Not a single one of those bastards could be left alive. Idle thoughts could wait until the mission was over.
To cut straight to the result: total victory.
Joanna Goldon, lord of Goldon, handed out generous rewards to us adventurers—including the thug family. The material payout wasn't huge, but the important part was the Letter of Guarantee she issued.
That letter was an official document under the Goldon lord's name vouching for our goodness, courage, and character. In this world it also doubled as identification. With it, Orphe, Diana, and I had essentially become full citizens of the Iregal Kingdom.
- This old body will devote itself utterly to serving the lord and protecting Goldon!
Leonard quit being a free knight and became a territorial knight instead. Grandpa's second life. I'd watched him fight hard for the people, so I decided to root for him. Though I really wished he'd cut back on the booze.
- Boss. Eunice and I have decided to join the garrison. If we hadn't met you, we'd have spent our whole lives raising livestock in some tiny village. Thank you so much for giving us this chance…
- Gotta take a dump. Later.
Hammerhead and Unicorn stayed in Goldon; Angler and Proboscis bolted back to their own village the second the war ended. Cold little bastards.
- Everyone, well done.
Sayleen vanished without another word—as if, having fulfilled her duty as the Yakuza Slayer, she had no further business with us. An attitude worth emulating. I figured we'd meet again someday, so I didn't try to stop her. Warriors who stand against evil are always busy.
Still… I never even got a single proper sentence out of her?
Fuck?
- Truly fortunate. With Sir Leonard here, we can finally breathe. But… was Dorn among them?
- I couldn't say.
Tren was badly wounded and recovering. Arms and legs wrapped in bandages so thick he couldn't move, but nothing was missing, so he'd be fine. For the next few months Joanna would be running things alone.
No subject needed.
As for me?
"Nngh…!"
I'd been laid out flat on a bed for four straight days, suffering like hell.
"Robin! What is it this time?"
I'd already set up the alibi that I'd been crushed when the wall collapsed. The identity of the Runaway Ninja had to stay secret, after all.
"F-foo."
The real problem was that my whole body had swollen up like someone who'd actually been buried under a collapsing wall and barely crawled out. No issues on the day of the siege; I just woke up like this the next morning.
"F-feed me."
My mouth was puffed out like an orc's, making speech nearly impossible.
"Got it. Hang on a second."
Orphe brought over sausage and bacon she'd scrounged from the territory folk.
Chomp-chomp-chomp-chomp.
I inhaled it. These days I just ate, slept, and shit. Orphe had been hauling me around on her back, putting in real work. Well, that was her natural right as my disciple, so I didn't bother saying thanks.
The important part was something else.
"O-Orphe."
"…What?"
"Got somethin' important t' say."
"…Is it long?"
"Obvi'sly."
"How about we wait until you're fully recovered?"
"No."
Time is money.
I rattled on. I told her about the nightmare and everything that had just happened. Since I wasn't originally from this world, there were bound to be things I didn't know. Even after I explained it all carefully and logically, Orphe claimed she still didn't quite get it—but I waited patiently and calmly until we finally communicated.
"A ghost monster that tries to steal bodies…. I've never heard of anything like that. There are monsters that lure people in and eat them, but this feels fundamentally different."
If even Orphe didn't know, nothing to be done. It hadn't been that dangerous anyway; if I ran into another one later it wouldn't be a problem.
"It looks more likely that you got stronger after the nightmare than after killing Delamion. If adventurers got that strong just from killing a few monsters, every one of them would outclass knights. This is still early speculation, but… maybe you defeated those body-snatchers and took their power."
So Delamion hadn't been my power-up material after all. Honestly, I didn't want to believe it. Just as comrades share camaraderie, enemies share a certain bond of their own. There's even a saying that goes something like "keep your friends close and your enemies closer."
Still, reality had to be accepted. That was the path of a Runaway Ninja.
"Orphe…"
One more thing left to say. The knowledge that Hazstone—or was it Hanssanda?—had forcibly jammed into my skull. That was probably the real reason Delbanas had wanted Goldon in the first place.
Knock-knock.
"Just a second. I'll be right back."
Who was it? Another villager bringing food?
"Hello~! It's Muka~! Just a little get-well visit~! Came to sing you a song to cheer you up~!"
Oh, for fuck's sake.
This bastard had been nowhere to be seen during training, so why the hell did he show up the moment the war was over? Perfect draft-dodger. No—keeping a lunatic like this out of the military was the sane choice.
"Alright~! Today's song is~! 'The Arson Driver'!"
"O-Orphe. Kick 'im out. Now."
But Orphe just shook her head in resignation.
Pachi-chichi puchi-chichi pachi-chichi pu~!
Pachi-chichi puchi-chichi pachi-chichi pu~!
A song that sounded exactly like a yokai's death scream.
I blacked out on the spot.