Chapter 11 — Dannoura-Style Fatal Technique, Underworld Judgment!
Yogiri and Tomochika walked along the road through the grassland. Though the grass shook despite the lack of wind, they weren’t in any danger if they stayed in the middle of the road.
At least, that’s what they had thought, but it didn’t end up being that easy. There were a number of animals that lived in the grassland. Though it wasn’t like a flood of animals attacking them, there were plenty of grasshoppers and frogs living in the grass, dragonflies, bees, and butterflies flying around, and birds and bats in the air overhead. When any of them noticed the pair walking by, they’d immediately attack.
“We’re done for if they even touch us, right?” Tomochika’s expression grew stiff as she considered what would happen if Yogiri wasn’t there. No matter how athletic she was, avoiding every single thing that was attacking them would be impossible.
Some sort of protective equipment seems necessary after all. If we still had Furemaru, we could have created a protective suit that covers your entire body, but...
“That suit was a bit too form-fitting for my tastes.”
“This place is awful. I can’t imagine normal people being able to survive here,” Yogiri said, picking up a dead grasshopper from where it lay on the road.
“Hey! Are you sure it’s safe to touch those?!”
“It’s dead, so it’s fine.” He looked at the insect from a number of angles, but it appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary grasshopper. There were no obvious indications that it had been infected by the Seyla. “I guess the only difference is that it attacks people.”
“But still. What’s the connection between this stuff and the Seira Tendou you heard about?”
“Who knows? But maybe this continent is isolated to contain the Seyla. If so, maybe the Sage knows something about it.”
The Sage in charge of this area was a man named Van. They didn’t know how much he was involved with the situation on the continent, but in general the Sages were the leaders of this world, so it was hard to imagine he had nothing to do with it.
“For now, I want to prioritize finding everyone.”
“They all got sent to different places, right? Who went where again?”
Hiruko went to the Slow Life League. Luu went to Himeln. Hanakawa went to Suudoria Academy. And Enju’s body went to Momurus.
“Enju’s frozen now, isn’t she?”
The AI controlling the Enju robot had been previously shut off. Mokomoko had then hacked into the body, allowing her to move it herself. That meant without Mokomoko, the body wouldn’t even be able to blink.
“I’m not sure it’s worth the time to go pick her up,” Yogiri said.
“Huh? Aren’t you worried about her?”
“It’s not the real Enju; it’s just a robot.”
“You seemed pretty stuck on it before.”
“It’s just a robot modeled after her, but I don’t like the idea of some random guy giving her orders.”
She was frozen now, so unless there was someone who could control her like Mokomoko did, she wouldn’t move. That meant collecting her wasn’t much of a priority.
“Look, I can see the city,” Yogiri said.
As they crested a hill heading south, a city came into view. Considering they were on the coast, he had expected it to be a port town, but it didn’t look like it had any maritime facilities, nor were there any boats in the water. It just looked like an ordinary city that happened to be close to water.
It was also surrounded by walls. That was the norm for cities in this world, so it wasn’t surprising. However, their condition was startling. The walls were half-destroyed. Though they were still obviously walls, they had collapsed in many places, leaving the interior exposed. They would be useless as a defensive measure, making invading the city no challenge at all. Their disrepair may have been due to a lack of resources, but there were no signs that there had been any attempt to repair them.
“It’s abandoned?!” Tomochika blurted out as she looked it over.
“Seems that way. Doesn’t look like anyone still lives here.”
“So now what? I feel like it’s a waste of time to go there.”
“It’s not like anywhere else stands out, so we might as well take a look.”
Descending the hill, they approached the city. The road headed straight for it, and no plants grew nearby. Though the Seyla wasn’t really a threat to them, constantly being targeted wasn’t pleasant either. Seeing that there was no Seyla around the city was a relief to Yogiri.
“Is this a gate?”
“I don’t think we need to bother going through the front door.”
There was what appeared to be a gate leading into the city, but it had collapsed. The rubble blocked the entrance, so it would be considerably easier to enter the city through one of the many gaps in the walls. Naturally, there was nothing like a guard watching the gate, so they could make it inside with no issue.
They decided to pass through the gate anyway. Climbing over the rubble, a ruined cityscape greeted them on the other side. It seemed to have been that way for a long time. None of the buildings looked like they had met with any attempt at repair. It was like they had just been left to rot.
“Yeah, this place is abandoned. No doubt about it.” Tomochika sighed.
“At the very least, it’ll be nice to have a roof and walls if we want to rest.”
“I’m pretty sure those walls and roofs will have plenty of holes in them... Huh?” Tomochika started, seeing something.
Yogiri turned to find what she was looking at. Someone was lying at the end of the road. Covered in ripped, bloodstained clothes, it seemed like they had been attacked. In fact, men and women of all ages in similar states lay throughout the streets.
“Takatou...I don’t really want to believe it, but I think they’re alive. I can see their arms and legs moving...”
Yogiri couldn’t tell himself, but Tomochika’s eyesight far surpassed his. It wasn’t hard to believe she could catch such tiny movements even from this distance.
“Maybe we should help them?” he asked.
If they were victims of some sort of incident, helping seemed like the right thing to do. But Yogiri was hesitant. The state of the city was bizarre, so he hesitated to get involved.
Consider their appearance. It is possible they are a form of zombie. I recommend against approaching recklessly.
When Mokomoko said that, the figures suddenly moved. Standing up slowly, they looked at Yogiri and Tomochika.
“Meat...”
“They’re not infected...”
“They aren’t armed... It’s not them...”
“Where did they come from?”
Muttering amongst themselves, they slowly began to approach. Their awkward movements lent to the impression that they were mobile corpses.
“What?! Are they really zombies?!” Tomochika cried out.
“But they can talk, so they can’t be, right?”
“You’re awfully calm!”
Talking zombies have existed since long ago. I have seen movies where they have even called ambulances.
“Their complexions seem fine. They look healthy enough to me,” Yogiri replied.
Though their clothes were in tatters and covered in blood, their skin lacked the deathly pale color one would expect. Their torn clothes revealed skin with no indications of injuries, leaving them looking perfectly healthy. In short, they looked like ordinary people who happened to have a bizarre fashion sense.
“They’re mine!!!” One of them suddenly burst into a run. As he did, the others immediately followed suit.
“What’s going on?” Yogiri asked.
“Hey, if they’re attacking us, aren’t you going to stop them?!” Tomochika shouted.
Yogiri raised a hand towards the people running at them. “I’m warning you, if you attack us, I’ll fight back. If you don’t want to die, stop there.”
The people had spoken earlier, so they should have been able to understand him. However, not one of them stopped. They may have just been convinced that Yogiri couldn’t do anything to hurt them. Getting others to understand his power without a demonstration was rather difficult, so he immediately gave up on trying. In the end, it was their fault for attacking. He had already warned them, so he had no reason to hesitate.
“Uhh...Dannoura-Style Fatal Technique, Underworld Judgment!”
“Why do you have a name for it now?!”
“I figured it was easier to understand if it had one.”
“Then think of your own! Don’t steal our name!”
The man leading the charge collapsed, face planting into the ground. The next soon followed. By the time the third had collapsed, the others rushing towards him had realized something was wrong. It didn’t seem like they were monsters who had lost the ability to think. They all stopped where they stood.
“Right there. That’s where I set up my technique. If you cross that line, you’ll die.”
Yogiri pointed at the ground in front of him. They seemed to recognize what he was saying, as they grabbed their fallen companions and pulled them back. They then began to inspect their bodies. They didn’t look like they were trying to treat them. It seemed more like they were trying to confirm they had actually died.
“Impossible. There’s no way they could die.”
“That’s right. They’ll probably start moving again soon, like always.”
“Soon? It’s already been too long.”
“There’s no traces of him using a cylinder, though...”
“Look, I broke his finger, and it won’t go back to normal. It’s still broken.”
“No way...”
“It’s true.”
“We can die?!”
The people conversing turned to look at Yogiri again. It was then that Yogiri recognized they all had something in common. Every single one of them had purple eyes.
“No, that’s impossible. There’s no way...”
“It’s easy. All we have to do is check.”
One of the men stepped closer to Yogiri. When he passed over the “line” Yogiri had indicated, Yogiri killed him. The rest of them grabbed the newly dead man and pulled him back, crowding around him once again.
“He’s not moving...”
“Is he really dead?”
“Let’s wait a bit more.”
“Yeah. Energy absorption attacks and those cylinders made the revival process a lot slower than before.”
“But come on. He’s dead, right? No matter how you look at it! He’s not moving at all!”
“That’s true. Even if they don’t revive instantly, they’d always be twitching or something.”
“No way! I can’t believe that! How many times have we gotten our hopes up before for nothing?! Believing now just means a deeper despair later!”
“Then why not just give it a try? You don’t have to expect anything. If you come back to life, it’ll be the same as always. You’ve got nothing to lose.”
They had originally tried to attack Yogiri and Tomochika. But as if they had forgotten their initial objective, they had become obsessed with talking over the bodies of their dead companions.
“Umm...their attitude seems to be changing...” Tomochika said hesitantly. Her fear of being attacked by the people of the city seemed to dissipate.
“Ha ha ha ha... Are you serious?! We can actually die?! Can we?!”
Another of the men rushed at them and then collapsed. Yogiri didn’t know what they were thinking; he was just killing anyone who got close, before they could do any harm. That was all he could do, and it had to be done. However, he couldn’t help but hesitate. Even though they knew they would die, they were still approaching.
“Hey, you guys can talk, right? Then let’s talk about this. Watching you kill yourselves this way feels wrong.”
At Yogiri’s suggestion, they put their heads together again.
“He says he wants to talk. What should we do?”
“Why not? We don’t even know who he is.”
“But we were treating them like fresh meat a second ago.”
“We never actually hurt them, so it should be fine, right?”
“But if we talk and he learns what he wants to, he might leave...”
After speaking for a while, one man stepped forward to give their verdict.
“We’ll talk, but on one condition.”
“What is it?” Yogiri asked.
“We think you have the ability to kill us. Before you leave, we want you to kill everyone here who wants to die.”
“Uhh...let me think about it.”
Yogiri had killed all sorts of things, living and not, but this was the first time he had met someone who had asked him to kill them. He wasn’t convinced that them wanting to die was a good enough reason to do it, so he couldn’t agree without question.
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