Chapter 32.1. Slums

-???’s POV-

It was a desolate area. It’s a dirty place to live. Abandoned buildings are lined up in a row, and plywood boards are randomly placed on the window frames to connect the abandoned buildings. There are many narrow roads, and places that are blocked by lockers and abandoned vehicles.

The pedestrian bridge looked like a garbage dump, and many monsters were hanging from the bridge with strings tied to their bones. The store barely exists, but the windows are covered with boards, the shelves are empty, and the store is guarded by a muscular man who seems accustomed to rough work.

The inhabitants are various, such as those with tired faces, those who look as if something is wrong, and those who are lethargic.

If an ordinary person were to enter, they would not be treated with impunity. Men are stripped naked and floating in the gutter as corpses, and women are attacked and sold to brothels. It is an extraterritorial place that even the police will not enter. The slums were there.

It is a crucible for criminals and the impoverished poor, from robbers to hit men, homeless people and prostitutes, and drug dealers.

Fights and even killings are common in this area, but today was different.

Several abandoned buildings had collapsed, sending up a cloud of dust that fell like ashes. The dust covered the ground, and the fallen disappeared.

Flames were shooting out from the decaying houses, and the fire was spreading. The hyenas, who would try to take the bodies of the dead, realized that their lives were in danger and ran away screaming, turning the scene into a screaming hell.

Amidst the spreading smell of fire, smoke, death, and blood, robed men in black stood holding swords dripping with blood in their hands.

One of the robed humans found an emaciated woman who was shivering, perhaps because she had failed to escape, the robed human swung their sword down emotionlessly, killing her without a second thought.

The woman screams and collapses. As the robed men try to advance further, a flaming bullet flies at their feet. When they land with a roar, they explode, scattering flames, but the targeted person has evaded backward.

“What the hell are you, you bastards!”

A woman’s yell echoes and dozens of people appear, their footsteps clattering wildly. They were all armed with iron pipes, knives, and short rifles.

There are three times as many as those in robes. A young girl, who must be the leader, leaps down from the sky, her face covered with fury. She still had childishness, but her eyes were wild and showed a stern look accustomed to roughness.

“Uh-huh? You’re the leader here, aren’t you?”

One of the robed humans came forward, clapping his shoulders in trouble, and opened his mouth.

“That’s right! I am Youko! I’m Youko, the Nine-Tailed Youko-sama! I’m the boss of this territory! You do whatever you want in my territory. Where do you belong?”

The girl has fox ears and a fox tail and does not look human. She is a magician. Because of her dirtiness, her fox ears and tail are as thin and dirty as if she were a burdock.

“Ah, yes, yes. I don’t live in such a dirty place. Do you guys live in a dump like this?”

The man chuckles as he picks his ear. Youko’s miffed face turns angry.

“Even here, you live in a dump!”

“You seem to have a lot of power, you know. I see, in a place like this, you can be the king of the mountain, can’t you? In a place like this…”

“You bastard!”

The man in the robe laughs, and Youko’s friends, unable to bear their anger, leap out of the way. They raise an iron pipe and swing it mercilessly down on his head. The man does not even run away, but grins.

With a gulp, Youko’s friend swings the iron pipe down on the robed man’s brain and grins at the sure response, but the next moment, they look startled.

When the robed man removes his hood, there isn’t a scratch on him. He grabs the man’s face with his hands and lifts the grown man with one hand. The man with the robe off was a man with blond hair and golden eyes.

“Oh, stinky, stinky, are you guys taking a bath?”

“Get the fuck off me, you motherfucker!”

The man in the robe lightly applied his hand to the violently flailing man.

Squash.

The flailing man’s head of the man crushed like a watermelon, flooded with brain plasma, and stopped moving as blood trickled out.

Throwing it away, the robed man crosses his arms as he pumps up.

“I’m Hrungnir, one of the executives of [Nidhogg]. I’m the one who acts to change the world into the right form. That’s it, you know, the ally of justice.”

“Bullshit! How dare you kill my friends?”

“Oh, come on, he attacked me first. I was defending myself.”

Youko waves her arms and yells at Hrungnir, who smiles gleefully.

“What the hell are you talking about? You’ve been killing all my friends who lived here!”

“Oh, that’s that. It’s called a necessary expense, yeah. You see, if you kill enough people, the boss of this territory will come to you, right? That’s what I needed to do. Well, they’re not productive alive. You didn’t mind killing them, did you?”

“You …… only did it for that?”

Youko asked back, feeling intimidated by his light tone, but Fulongnir nodded unconcernedly.

“They’re a group of criminals anyway. People should’ve killed them, right?”

“Screw you! But we still live here!”

They are indeed a group of criminals. Pickpocketing and stealing are commonplace. They drink, sell their bodies, and do drugs. They even kill people, depending on the money people are willing to pay.

But they were important friends to Youko, who had come to live here as a child.

“Ha! If you kill a group of criminals, they may thank you, but they won’t hate you. Except for scum like you guys. .. But more importantly, don’t you guys know what a magical tool is? It’s called the Crown of Clay, and I finally got word that it’s here, and I screwed up6 years ago. That was a mistake.”

Youko’s face palls at Hrungnir’s line, which he says in a light tone of regret, and she bites her lip and glares back at him.