Because it had been a game, I had never imagined these things to be so starkly real. I had regarded them as nothing more than ‘fiction.’
Whenever I encountered reports of crimes like these in online news, I merely condemned the perpetrators and moved on. After all, when I thought about it, those incidents had nothing to do with me.
However, after experiencing their malice and sordid depravity firsthand, I found it difficult to maintain my reason.
“Urgh……!”
I could hardly accept the fact that these less-than-human creatures still breathed, felt pain, and continued to live.
“I am talking about the route you use to trade the fresh material you deliver to the University. I would like to visit it personally.”
“I-I will guide you. Please, please, just take your foot off me. All right? Sir, I will do anything you tell me to!!”
The scoundrel became endlessly servile.
The sight inspired nothing but disgust from the very depths of my chest.
“The crime of attempting to injure an Executor in the performance of his official duties, and….
…’’
I spoke coldly as I mounted him and drove my fist into his face as though trying to crush it.
Once, twice, three times……
I continued swinging my fist.
At some point, I stopped counting altogether.
“The act of calling a child ‘material’ and participating in human trafficking.”
My head was growing unbearably hot.
I beat his face into a swollen mass until he could no longer even groan in pain.
“There is no separate statute for that, in truth.”
I simply could not restrain myself.
Something similar had happened in the past, and the memory had suddenly occurred to me.
The law was not truly fair to everyone.
To some, it was nothing more than a few merciless lines written in a judgment.
“P-Please… spare me….”
Perhaps the air was escaping through his broken teeth. After enduring my beating for some time, the man barely managed to speak.
“S-Stop!! That is enough, enough!”
Behind me, Lyn spoke while trembling and clutching Kariya in her arms.
As expected, this was not a sight that should have been shown to a child.
“Tsk…… You have beaten him into pulp, you sly one. If you crush him this badly, it becomes difficult to extract information from him.”
Ravenwood clicked her tongue and searched through the battered man’s belongings.
“What are you doing, old woman?”
“Looking for evidence of a connection to the University. Surely at least one of them carries something.”
Silence descended.
The only sound echoing through the wooden building was Ravenwood quietly searching the thugs’ clothes.
“Ah, here it is. Yes, I thought at least one of them would be carrying it.”
Breaking the silence, Ravenwood held up a medicine vial and a tattered piece of parchment, tapping them lightly with one hand.
“The people at the University never intend to dirty their own hands. They accumulate immense fortunes through every conceivable method, toss a few coins to rats like these, and then sit within their ivory towers discussing the advancement of humanity. They are nothing more than scum.”
A terrifyingly cold voice emerged from behind the crow mask.
She sounded as though the University’s actions were utterly unforgivable.
“My, quite a lot has happened within a single day. I wanted to avoid becoming involved with the University whenever possible, yet it seems I have been dragged into its affairs regardless.”
“Then could you not simply withdraw now?”
When I answered casually, the elderly woman in the crow mask raised both arms and shrugged before responding with exaggerated nonchalance.
“What can I do? The person who possesses what I desire insists that he will only feel better once he has uncovered the University’s secrets.”
“That is also true.”
“And thanks to these men, our situation has improved slightly.”
Ravenwood lightly shook the reagent vial in her hand.
“Is that the cure?”
“No, it is not quite a cure. However, I will not deny that it is a key ingredient.”
“Then you are saying that we need to go to the University regardless?”
Frankly, going to the University now would have been close to suicide.
Considering our current party composition and the state of our equipment, challenging the University was effectively impossible.
We were not prepared.
“No? Are you not making an extraordinary leap, you sly one? The University is hardly so easy to deal with.”
“……Then?”
A confident smile seemed to fill the space behind the crow mask.
“This may be resolved rather easily. Of course, we will not know for certain until we storm these men’s headquarters.”
“Was it truly something that could be solved so easily……?”
Lyn asked with a puzzled expression after hearing Ravenwood’s words.
I had been wondering the same thing.
“Haah, it appears that both of you require an explanation. Listen carefully. First, this liquid.”
Ravenwood spoke while shaking the reagent vial she had taken from the raider’s clothes.
“This is a drug known as a Stasis Agent. As its name suggests, it is both a medicine that slows the progression of the Stasis Phenomenon and a reagent capable of inducing the Stasis Phenomenon. You could say that it combines two different effects.”
In summary, it worked like this.
When used on a body unaffected by the Stasis Phenomenon, it forcibly induced the Stasis Status Effect. When used on someone already afflicted by it, it slowed the condition’s progression.
I nodded as I reached that conclusion.
“I am glad you understand. Then what do you suppose would happen if we concentrated this Stasis Agent and administered it?”
“Would it drive the condition out?”
“No. Without the precise formulation, its excessive potency would most likely stop the heart as well. However, I have previously conducted research into the Stasis Phenomenon. That is our one piece of good fortune.”
“……Why do we need more of the Stasis Agent?”
“When it comes to medicine, having a greater quantity is always useful. We need enough to adjust the ratios. The ratios.”
In the game, I had been able to create medicine with a single click, so I had never considered matters such as dosage or ratios.
To produce the cure, we needed more of the Stasis Agent that would serve as its base.
Therefore, we had to raid the headquarters of the University’s subcontractors to obtain it.
That was what she meant.
“I understand, old woman. We will do that.”
“The problem is that child.”
Ravenwood pointed toward Kariya, who lay on the floor breathing heavily.
Leaving the patient behind felt unsettling, and leaving Lyn alone with them was equally questionable.
“Can you go alone, you sly one?”
“Ah.”
That was certainly true.
I merely needed to go by myself.
However, I lacked the necessary knowledge and doubted I would be able to distinguish the correct reagent from the others.
“You sly one, when you visit that collection of fools, bring back anything resembling this reagent.”
Ravenwood handed me the vial.
The contents were bluish like the night sky, yet within their depths lingered a sickening hue, as though black ink had been mixed into them.
Beyond the cold glass, the liquid pulsed and then stopped again, almost like a beating heart.
“Listen carefully, you sly one. Fighting is all well and good, but if you become too excited and break that vial, you may consider everything lost. We have no idea how many more reagent vials they have at their headquarters.”
“Mentioning something like that is a poor habit, old woman. It makes it sound as though you are hoping it will happen.”
She had practically jinxed me, but I answered calmly.
“M-Mister…… please be careful.”
Lyn grabbed the hem of my clothes anxiously.
I gently took her hand and answered.
“Do not worry. Whether I like it or not, it is something that must be done. The law does not change merely because they outnumber me.”
The ‘Sewer Rats’ Warehouse’ I remembered from the game was one of the early dungeons.
However, this was no longer a game in which the enemies respawned after I rested and awakened.
It was the reality in which I now lived.
I was about to enter the enormous garbage heap into which the University excreted its filthy desires.
* * *
Not even an entire day had passed, but the passage of time prescribed by the laws of Salus had long since become distorted.
By my senses, it was clearly nighttime. For some reason, however, today had felt every bit as long as yesterday.
……Even so, the next day would not begin unless I slept.
The absence of a notification window despite the late hour convinced me of that.
“Hss.”
Coal dust permeated every alley.
The faint clattering sounds in the distance heightened the oppressive silence, as though an attack could come at any moment.
Had there been more of us, I probably would not have needed to be this tense.
Even the rustling of debris or the sound of a fragment falling from a building in the wind caused me to flinch.
‘I spoke confidently…… but I am still human.’
I possessed the power of the law, but my body was not made of steel.
I could still be injured, and my strength was not infinite.
That was why I could not help turning my head toward every unexpected sound.
“Hmm.”
Experiencing in reality what had merely been an ‘immersive setting’ within the game was not particularly pleasant.
According to the game’s lore, the Sewer Rats Gang occupied an area the University had designated as a waste disposal site.
It was unlikely that they had chosen the location by coincidence.
Immediately after the disaster began, they had rapidly established their position.
The University needed laborers to dispose of its waste, while the gang became the cleaners who handled it.
It was a structure in which their interests aligned and both sides profited.
‘……That was merely the story described in the game’s lore.’
Until I experienced the situation personally, I had never even considered recalling it.
I had not imagined that I would advance by retracing even those minor details.
As I continued through the chaotic yet desolate streets, the surrounding landscape gradually began to change.
Toxic wastewater poured from enormous sewer-like pipes and flowed through ditches.
Beyond them stretched fields littered with decomposing corpses that appeared to be melting into the ground.
“Ugh.”
The sight made me groan involuntarily.
People wrapped in rags thrust their hands into the poisonous wastewater and searched the corpses lying within it.
[You have entered the ‘Contaminated Zone’!]
[The aura of Contaminated Ink in the area erodes your Mental Fortitude.]
[Immunity has activated! You resist an unreasonable law!]
[You are exempted from the penalties of the Status Effect ‘Mental Haze’!]
That was fortunate.
I had asked Ravenwood to prepare a Mental Stabilizer as a precaution, but it appeared that I would not need to use it.
……Even so, the overpowering stench of rotting flesh and corpses inevitably made me grimace.
“These shoes will hold up, will they not?”
As long as the liquid did not touch bare skin, my clothing appeared to offer some degree of protection.
Human skin was not strong enough to withstand a toxic solution like that.
I carefully rested a hand on the longsword at my waist and prepared myself.
An abandoned building stood in the distance.
That was probably the Sewer Rats’ Warehouse I remembered.
Only after approaching closer did I become certain.
Unlike the rag-covered figures wandering nearby or the men who had come strolling out earlier, the guards stationed there were heavily armed and appeared far more dangerous.
“Now then, what should I do?”
I could break through the front entrance, or circle around, infiltrate the building quietly, and take only what I required.
Those were the ordinary options available to me in the current situation.
‘Should I test whether this works as well?’
I could always resort to an ordinary method afterward.
If this was something I could reasonably test, there was no reason not to try.
With that thought, I slowly advanced toward the warehouse entrance.
The guards stationed there had been snickering among themselves, but when they sensed my presence and turned toward me, they immediately shouted.
“You there, stop! Who are you?!”
“You look different from the others…… Are you the person the University said it would send this time?”
They leveled their weapons at me and assumed defensive positions.
Suspicion rather than murderous intent filled the eyes of the rough-breathing men.
I shifted my gaze momentarily, considering what I should say.
It would not have been difficult to cave in their faces and force my way inside.
‘But then there would have been no reason to approach through the front.’
I had to avoid a situation in which the warehouse descended into chaos and the reagent vials I needed were shattered.
I also could not allow the Stasis Agent in my possession to break.
‘Very well. Let us try it.’
This was a place where the law still held sway.
Here, the titles of Executor and Magistrate carried immense weight.
And what I intended to do was――
“The University? I find it deeply offensive that you would place me in the same category as those arrogant bastards.”
At those words, the guards sensed that something was wrong and shifted into positions from which they could swing their weapons at any moment.
“I am an Executor of Salus.”
The atmosphere changed instantly at my cold declaration.