Asagiri’s next move completely shattered Yuuki Asuna’s expectations.
He took two deliberate steps forward, his shoes clicking softly against the floorboards, and bent down.
His fingers closed around the handle of the blood-stained kitchen knife.
With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed the blade directly in front of the trembling man.
It clattered against the wood.
“Pick it up,” Asagiri said.
His voice was entirely devoid of emotion, flat and chillingly calm.
The man remained slumped on the floor, desperately clutching his pierced, bleeding wrist.
He ground his teeth together, his breath hitching as he tried to endure the agonizing pain.
Hearing the command, his bloodshot eyes darted from the discarded knife up to the towering, pitch-black humanoid creature looming behind the teenager.
Absolute terror seized him.
His knees hit the floorboards with a heavy thud.
He pressed his forehead against the cold, hard ground, abandoning all dignity as he began to grovel.
“No…
no, I was just acting on impulse…
please, I beg you, please spare me…”
“Begging for mercy?” Asagiri tilted his head, his expression unreadable.
“Now?
Are you trying to make me laugh?”
He paused, letting the heavy silence stretch.
Then, his tone shifted, softening into something almost conversational.
He closed the distance between them and extended an open hand.
“However, if you hand over your phone, I might consider letting you live.”
Hope flared in the man’s desperate eyes.
Still kneeling and trembling like a leaf in a storm, he fumbled with his uninjured hand, digging frantically into his pants pocket.
He pulled out a slightly cracked smartphone and offered it up to Asagiri with both hands, treating it like a holy relic.
“Here…
this is my phone…
it doesn’t have a passcode…”
“Hm.
You are very sensible.”
Asagiri accepted the device, a faint, polite smile curving his lips.
He looked down at the pathetic figure groveling at his feet.
“I have given your request some serious thought.
But unfortunately, you still have to die.”
The man’s eyes widened in horror, but before he could utter a single sound, Asagiri continued.
“Those who attempt to kill others should be fully prepared to be killed in return.
It is the simplest truth in this world.
Even a child understands the concept of consequences.”
The moment the words left Asagiri’s mouth, the Demi-Fiend moved.
The demonic entity extended a massive, tattooed arm, its enormous hand clamping around the man’s throat like a vice.
With zero effort, it hoisted the grown adult straight into the air.
The man’s legs kicked wildly.
His face rapidly flushed from a deep red to a suffocating purple.
Driven by pure survival instinct, he battered his fists against the Demi-Fiend’s arm, scratching and clawing at the hardened skin.
It was entirely futile.
He couldn’t even make the creature’s muscles flinch.
Seconds ticked by.
The man’s eyes rolled back into his skull.
The frantic thrashing slowed, his strength bleeding away into the cold air, until his arms finally dropped to his sides, limp and lifeless.
The Demi-Fiend casually tossed the body aside.
The man hit the floorboards with a heavy, sickening thud.
She stepped closer, her eyes scanning the unmoving chest.
“He is not dead yet,” she said hesitantly.
“He just passed out.”
A visible sigh of relief escaped Asuna’s lips.
The tension bleeding from her shoulders was obvious.
“That makes sense.
There is no need to dirty your hands by killing him directly.
As long as we leave him here unconscious, the dungeon’s time limit will expire, and the system will eliminate him anyway…”
“Eh?
What are you talking about?”
Asagiri blinked, looking at her with genuine, exaggerated confusion.
He walked over to the unconscious man, bent down, and casually wrapped his fingers around the guy’s ankle.
He straightened up, flashing Asuna a bright, almost mocking smile.
“Have you never read a web novel?
You know the trope.
The hero leaves the villain with a single breath, assuming the environment will finish the job.
Then, by some miraculous stroke of luck, the enemy survives, levels up, and comes back fifty chapters later to cause endless trouble.
It is absolute narrative poison.
Now, I might not be a protagonist, but I am certainly not stupid enough to leave a hidden danger lying around.
Besides…”
He gave the ankle a sharp tug, effortlessly dragging the dead weight of the unconscious man across the floorboards toward the stairwell.
“He still has some use left in him.
Letting him die to a simple time limit would be a terrible waste.”
“A waste…?” Asuna repeated, her brow furrowing.
She had absolutely no idea what went on inside Asagiri’s head, but she quickly hurried after him to keep up.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Asagiri did not bother lifting his cargo.
With every step they descended, the unconscious man’s head bounced violently against the wooden edges of the stairs.
The rhythmic, hollow smacks echoed through the dark stairwell, a sound so brutal it made Asuna wince in sympathetic pain.
By the time they finally reached the overgrown courtyard, she could not hold back her burning curiosity any longer.
“Utsunomiya-san,” she asked, her voice laced with deep confusion.
“What exactly are you trying to accomplish?”
“What am I doing?” Asagiri paused, looking back at her.
His smile was the picture of gentle kindness, his tone sickeningly sweet.
“Why, I am taking him to clear the level, of course.
I am a great philanthropist, after all.”
“Huh?
Are you serious?
That is just…”
Asuna swallowed the rest of her sentence.
She wanted to point out the sheer absurdity of the statement.
This man had murdered another player in cold blood just a few rooms away.
He had charged at Asagiri with a kitchen knife, fully intending to butcher him.
That alone was utterly unforgivable.
And yet, Asagiri was going out of his way to drag him across the finish line?
Was he returning evil with kindness?
Did this ruthless boy secretly harbor some twisted saint complex?
She quickly dismissed the thought.
Asagiri was absolutely not that kind of person.
He had literally just declared that this man had to die.
While she was lost in her thoughts, Asagiri had already dragged the battered body straight through the rusty iron gates of the courtyard.
“Hm.
This should officially count as crossing the boundary.”
Dropping the man’s ankle into the dirt, Asagiri tapped the screen of the stolen smartphone to wake it up.
Just as he suspected, sitting right there on the main interface was the exact same bizarre application with the crimson eye icon that haunted his and Asuna’s devices.
He pressed his thumb against the icon.
Instantly, a line of jagged, dark red text flashed across the cracked screen.
[Player identity verification failed.]
“Just as I expected.
There is a built-in security mechanism,” Asagiri muttered, his eyes narrowing in calculation.
“Even if someone else physically acquires the device, they cannot access the interface.
I wonder what happens if the phone is permanently lost.
Or rather…”
He didn’t finish the thought.
Instead, he simply summoned his Persona.
The Demi-Fiend materialized from the shadows in absolute silence.
Without needing a verbal command, the demonic entity reached down and clamped its massive palm entirely over the unconscious man’s face.
Then, it simply squeezed.
A sickening crunch echoed through the quiet night air, closely followed by a wet, heavy popping sound reminiscent of a ripe watermelon being smashed against concrete.
Thick, dark blood sprayed outward, spilling freely between the Demi-Fiend’s pitch-black fingers and pooling into the dirt.
Asuna’s stomach lurched violently.
A wave of intense nausea washed over her, and she immediately snapped her gaze away, staring hard at the rusted iron fence to keep herself from throwing up.
Ignoring the gruesome execution happening inches away, Asagiri calmly tapped the eye icon on the blood-spattered phone screen once more.
This time, the application opened without a single hitch.
The system had registered the owner’s death.
The dead man’s personal stat panel, along with the automated clearance notification he had technically earned just seconds before his skull caved in, displayed themselves openly on the glowing screen.
[Player Name: Noguchi Kazukawa]
[Physical Fitness Level: Ordinary]
[Talent: Not yet unlocked]
[Occupation: Not yet unlocked]
[Congratulations to Player Noguchi Kazukawa.
You have cleared the Newbie Dungeon and obtained official player status.]
[Clearance Rating: C]
[Reward Obtained: Item “Bottled Medical Disinfectant Alcohol”]
[Bottled Medical Disinfectant Alcohol: A standard 300ml bottle of medical-grade disinfectant alcohol.]
Asagiri made no effort to hide the screen from Asuna.
Forcing down her nausea, she stepped closer, her eyes scanning the glowing text and the pathetic clearance reward granted to the late Noguchi Kazukawa.
Her analytical mind quickly took over, pushing the horror of the situation to the background.
“A C-rank clearance reward,” she murmured thoughtfully, her gaze fixed on the screen.
“It doesn’t unlock an occupation, nor does it grant a special talent.
It just gives a mundane item that is barely better than nothing at all.
It seems that if a player simply hides and wastes time until the limit expires to clear the level, this is the absolute maximum they can achieve.”
She paused, her eyes narrowing slightly.
“The only real function of a reward like this is to serve as a tutorial.
By forcing the player to extract and store a physical item through the digital interface, the system proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this application is tied to actual supernatural phenomena.
It is designed to completely shatter any remaining delusions of innocence or normalcy they might still hold.”
[Inorin’s Note:
Hey guys, hope you’re enjoying the novel!
Hate waiting for updates and cliffhangers?