When we emerged from the Leaden Waterway, we were greeted not by the nose-stinging stench of sewage, but by acrid coal smoke and the smell of old timber burning.
It made me think we had surfaced somewhere nearby.
There was a place beneath the shadow cast by the enormous clock tower of Salus Square.
That landscape belonged to the slums—our home.
Well, we had not reached it yet.
“Whew, that truly frightened me this time. Traveling with you makes me feel as though no number of lives would ever be enough.”
Ravenwood shook out her ash-gray hair, which was drenched in sweat, and began grumbling at me.
“By the way, you sly one, what was that golden trick of yours? Was it some form of sorcery? I thought you were merely a bookish weakling who recited statutes like the other Executors…… but that ability twisted the very laws of reality. At that point, is it not less a matter of law and more like divine judgment?”
Ravenwood questioned me in a persistently curious tone.
Her reaction was understandable. Even I had never fought in such a manner while playing the game.
“Law is inherently accompanied by coercive force. Depending on how it is interpreted, the law can be even stricter than the laws of physics, can it not?”
I gave Ravenwood a vague response while lightly massaging my throbbing legs.
I had repeatedly kicked down iron doors and run hard enough to hear my heart pounding inside my skull. It would have been stranger if my legs did not hurt.
‘Tsk. At times like this, I wish I could claim immunity from the laws of physics and simply not feel pain.’
Unfortunately, it appeared that I could not yet violate physical laws of this sort.
Then again, had that been possible, there would have been no reason for me to run myself ragged. I would have become a one-man master of automatic combat, slaughtering everything with a single click.
“K-Kariya can be treated now, right? That is true, is it not??”
Lyn cautiously looked between Ravenwood and me, her eyes filled with hope.
“I cannot guarantee a complete recovery. They were in an extremely unhealthy environment, after all. However, I promise you this. I swear upon my career as a physician that I will save them.”
Ravenwood invoked even her professional career in an attempt to reassure Lyn.
Strictly speaking, she was an Alchemist.
Then again, were physicians and Alchemists essentially the same thing?
“Thank goodness…….”
At Ravenwood’s words, Lyn’s drooping tail began swaying cautiously.
“Let us see. Where are we?”
I pictured the map in my mind. Thanks to my experience playing the game, I was not entirely unfamiliar with the area.
More precisely, I desperately wanted to return to our base, remove my damp clothes, wash myself with reasonably warm water, and eat a bowl of hot soup.
Ravenwood and Lyn were probably thinking the same thing.
‘Still, this seems close to the slums.’
The pungent smell gave me that impression.
We kept watch over our surroundings and entered a building that appeared to belong to the slums. Only then was I finally able to relax.
‘We should at least examine Kariya as soon as possible.’
As though she had read my thoughts, Ravenwood spoke beside me.
“We should lay them down and examine their condition first. Fortunately, I always carry a medical kit in my bag.”
Ravenwood spoke carefully.
To secure Lyn’s cooperation, we first had to cure her younger sibling’s illness.
The inside of the building was terribly dilapidated.
There was not even a proper place to lie down. Ravenwood carefully placed Kariya on the creaking wooden floor, took their pulse, and drew some blood.
“Hmm…… This is rather serious.”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
Ravenwood added a solution to a glass test tube and shook it, glancing alternately between the vessel and Kariya.
“Their condition is quite severe. This is completely different from when I checked their pulse inside the waterway, you sly one. This was no ordinary poison.”
“What are you saying? What exactly are you trying to tell me? Are you saying this was not simply caused by spending too long in an unhealthy place?”
In response to my question, Ravenwood gave a brief nod.
At the same time, she glanced sideways at Lyn before looking away.
Apparently, discussing the matter in front of the person who would suffer most from the answer was difficult even for her.
“N-Nothing is wrong with Kariya, is there, Doctor!! My Kariya!”
Lyn still looked ready to cry. She stared up at Ravenwood as her tail thrashed violently.
Ravenwood found that gaze burdensome, but she soon sighed and explained the symptoms in greater detail.
“Haah, where should I begin? Explaining it one step at a time would take too long, but this is a Stasis Phenomenon. And of course, it had to be connected to the University.”
After hearing Ravenwood’s words, Lyn lowered her head in silence and began trembling.
It was not fear.
She looked as though rage might consume her at any moment. The atmosphere suggested that something would go terribly wrong if she were left alone in that state.
“Old woman, can you cure it or not? Just tell us that.”
“It can be cured. The chances of success simply are not very high.”
Lyn raised her head and glared at Ravenwood.
Ravenwood immediately spoke as though defending herself.
“I will not say that this is your fault. However, you are not entirely free of blame. Were you not the one who brought your sibling into such an unhealthy environment?”
“Th-That is true. But back then, I had no choice……!”
“If you intend to claim that you had no choice, then stop blaming everyone else, child. Do you think I enjoy telling you this?”
The two continued speaking as though their emotions had become volatile.
More precisely, Ravenwood sounded as though she felt unjustly accused.
“It is a Stasis Phenomenon. Someone has bound the time governing the ink flowing through this child’s body. I suppose I cannot claim to be entirely blameless either. This is precisely the sort of technique that would emerge from the University.”
Ravenwood covered her mask with one hand and muttered as though tormented by the thought.
“As for halting the circulation of ink in Salus…… Well, perhaps they regarded this child as little more than a supply of fresh ingredients.”
At Ravenwood’s words, Lyn’s expression filled with rage. Blood began running from her lip, which she appeared to have bitten.
“It was merely a figure of speech, little one. Those University bastards are devoted to research and experimentation, and some of them occasionally meddle with taboos. You sly one, remember that Vargas fellow? There is a strong possibility that he was turned into research material in much the same way.”
“Th-Then…… depending on what happens, Kariya could become like him too?!”
“Had more time passed, that might have happened.”
Ravenwood’s diagnosis left me with complicated feelings.
Within the game’s systems, this would have amounted to little more than a ‘Status Effect.’ In reality, however, it had become an actual disease.
Yet I did not even have the luxury of dwelling upon that thought.
“This is the place, right? I heard voices coming from inside.”
Someone suddenly kicked open the building’s door.
I turned toward the sound and saw several fierce-looking men entering.
“Huh? What is this? I have never seen your faces around here before.”
They wore clothes resembling rags, but the weapons in their hands made it difficult to mistake them for ordinary citizens.
Vagrants, raiders, or whatever else one might call such people.
The iron pipes and blades they carried made their nature obvious enough.
“This is the territory of the Sewer Rats (Rattus). Hey, you're there with the fine longsword.”
The foul-smelling man standing at the center of the group pointed a dagger at me.
“Where do you think you are taking that dying child? If you are heading to the University, hand them over to us. There has been a shortage of fresh material recently. Surely you can spare us a little charity? Or we could accept something else instead.”
With a repulsive grin, the man’s gaze swept across the sword at my waist, Ravenwood’s medicine bag, and Kariya lying on the floor.
Lyn continued glaring at them with murderous eyes, while Ravenwood sighed and muttered.
“Whew…… What do you intend to do, you sly one? I am rather tired, so I would prefer to toss them a few coins and send them away.”
“No.”
I responded to Ravenwood while examining the men’s gazes.
Their eyes overflowed with greed.
They embodied the very nature of vermin who cared for nothing but their own survival, desperately clinging to life in a ruined world.
“This does not look like something that will end with a few coins. Besides…….”
I slowly rose, drew the sword from my waist, and finished speaking.
“To everyone else, it may have been only a day or two, but after enduring so much absurdity, a thought suddenly occurred to me. Perhaps I need to teach people firsthand that obstructing an Executor in the performance of his official duties is an act of suicide.”
When I drew my sword and pointed it toward them, the raiders all clutched their stomachs and burst into laughter.
“Pfft, puhahaha! An Executor? Did you say you were an Executor? This lunatic is prattling on about Executors in a neighborhood that has already fallen apart! Boys, he says we should take everything they have!!”
At the shout of the man in the center, the entire group of raiders charged at once.
“There is always a reason the protagonist is the protagonist.”
They possessed human forms, but they were not human.
Thinking of them that way made my mind feel strangely clear.
They were less than beasts wearing human skins.
I tightened my grip around the longsword’s hilt and stared at them.
【Sewer Rat Raider】
Had this been the game, something like that would probably have appeared above them.
The raiders I encountered in reality, however, were entirely different.
Their murderous intent felt almost viscous.
After enduring one unreasonable ordeal after another, what I felt was not fear at the sight of a blade approaching me, but an incredulous laugh.
“Hey, this bastard must think we are easy prey! Are you laughing in a situation like this?”
The man holding an iron pipe raised it high and swung it down at me.
As the pipe descended, I kicked him hard in the abdomen and spoke.
“There is a provision in the laws of Salus. Assaulting or threatening an Executor is grounds for summary punishment. Furthermore, your actions constitute looting, child trafficking, and aiding and abetting kidnapping. You have accumulated quite an impressive list of charges, have you not?”
The golden laws flashing through my mind recited every one of their crimes.
“What the hell are you talking about, you damned bastard?!”
“Objection!”
I pointed an accusing finger toward them and spoke as though forcing the words out with a breath from deep within my throat.
In response to my shout, the power of the law pressed down upon their shoulders.
“Urgh?!”
[Objection successful!]
[Successfully identified the raiders’ unlawful actions!]
[The physical capabilities of the targets, ‘Raiders,’ decrease significantly!]
[The physical capabilities of the target, ‘Ash Gray (Self),’ increase significantly!]
This was Salus, the City of Law.
As long as they lived within this city, even they could not escape the power of its laws.
Those men had overlooked only one thing.
I possessed the power to enforce the law.
“What in the world is this……!”
“M-My body feels heavy, Leader!”
As though afflicted by Lethargy, their movements slowed noticeably.
The rusty iron pipe that had been brazenly swung at my head struck the tip of my casually wielded longsword. It flew from the man’s grasp and spun several times through the air.
“Wh-What happened?!”
The man who had swung the pipe gaped in shock, but I saw no reason to answer him.
I would show him through my actions.
I swept his inner leg out with my foot and knocked him down before driving my heel into his abdomen.
“Ugh, bleegh!”
“Y-You bastard! What have you done!!”
The others rushed me simultaneously, but after the legal judgment imposed upon them, there was nothing they could do against me.
‘I know this is merely me venting my anger.’
Without making any large movements, I subdued them with quick, efficient motions. I tripped them, twisted their joints, and hurled them onto the floor.
……I could have killed them immediately.
However, there was a reason I did not.
I needed information.
“It has become quieter now. Then allow me to ask you something. You cannot have entered this place without a reason…… Tell me who sent you. Now.”
The men had appeared almost immediately after we laid Kariya down.
‘Even if they were genuinely patrolling the area, the timing is far too convenient.’
Therefore, I believed my suspicions were justified.
Perhaps someone had been watching us, knew where we had gone, and had immediately sent pursuers after us.
I slowly ground my foot against the fallen leader’s chest as I spoke.
“You said you deliver fresh material to the University…… Who manages that route?”
It was the moment an Executor transformed into a thug in the blink of an eye.