01.40 - Saga of K the Evil

“You don’t get it brat, look at the bright side, at least you’ll have company in the afterlife,” the man said and another two voices laughed out. “Once you cross us, you are going down. No exceptions. Nothing personal. Just following orders.”

“I think I recognize that voice,” Kentaro whispered to me while we listened in on them.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ve heard enough. We’re going to take them out one way...”

Before I had finished my sentence, Kentaro, still in disguise, had bashed in the door and already knocked out two of the goons.

“Slightly personal,” Kentaro said as the goon leader’s head hit the ground, “But also just following orders.”

“Well,” I said as I stepped into the room. “At least you kept them in one piece.”

Reiko freed the captive while the two of us tied up the goons.

“Could the two of you help him rescue the other kids?” I asked.

“Sure,” Kentaro said. “What about you?”

“There are people with unfinished business,” I said. “I am sure you understand.”

Kentaro and Reiko used the Shapeshifter Classes’ Transform Skill to copy the goon's appearance, then searched the other rooms in their new disguises.

As for me, ‘Soul Catcher’ had caught on to a lot of restless souls with ties to this world.

We could probably deal with things on our own, but I’d rather not get the kids directly involved in the business to follow.

After ‘Vessel Creation’ had done its job, the interrogation room was filled to the brim, 42 people in total. Jung and old, male and female, but mostly younger men.

Most of them were more than a little disoriented at first.

Returning to the world of the living wasn’t exactly a common experience.

“Who are you?” one woman asked.

“What are you?” a man asked.

“What have you done to us?” another one questioned.

“Are you a devil, or are you a god?” one guy asked.

“Neither,” I said. “I am someone with an agenda. I plan to change things around here, starting with those that ordered your death. You are free to leave, or to follow my way.”

—

About two third of them left.

The remaining thirteen swore their allegiance.

Kentaro and Reiko meanwhile found notes on a meeting, planned to take place in a nobles mansion three days from now.

Suffice to say, we crashed the event.

In full force.

In another disguise, and with thirteen ‘Fallen’ following along.

Going by the lack of security, they probably didn’t expect anyone to be stupid enough to crash their party.

Don’t get me wrong, some of the thugs and regular guards were strong compared to the average citizen, but Kentaro alone could have taken them on easily, even back in the old timeline.

Some of the guards reacted as if they had seen a ghost or two.

And for good reasons.

We managed to free a number of girls held captive on the upper floor, supposedly for the afterparty. They were held there both by force and threats against their relatives.

Then we finally closed the trap around our main targets.

The bosses of a few organizations were mixed in with a couple of politicians, merchants, and some nobles mixed in.

The sight of more than a dozen people storming their party was certainly not what they had expected from the night.

We disarmed those with hidden weapons and lined the whole bunch up.

Then identified our captives one by one.

The whole process took a while, but was eased significantly by “Know Your Enemy”.

Some of them got rather agitated by the ordeal.

“Release us at once!” one demanded,

“Do you cretins have any idea who you are dealing with?” another asked

Ah, yes, the old ‘Do you even know WHO I AM?’ approach.

Nice try.

“Oh, we are very aware,” I said. “But do you have any idea who YOU are dealing with?”

I smiled slightly. Then grinned excessively.

The bloke looked at me in confusion and surprise. “I have no clue.”

“Really?” I asked. “You do not recognize ANY of the people here?”

Maybe they just had too many skeletons in the closet to recognize them by face.

“Let me please introduce myself,” I said with a mock bow. “I'm a man of wealth and taste.”

I paused for impact, but got no reaction.

“Doesn’t ring a bell, huh?” I asked. “Fine. Call us ‘K’.”

“Never heard of you upstart,” one guy said.

“Let us go and we might not kill you!” Another called out.

“Speaking of killing,” I said, “Maybe some of you are wondering why we haven’t killed you yet?”

"Don't push our luck, kid,” the first bloke said.

“Because we’d never do that. If we killed you…” I said with a dramatic pause, “...we’d be just as bad as you.”

Our captives exchanged confused glances. Some had to suppress a laugh.

Maybe I had pushed the anime main character shtick too far.

“Nah, we’re just pulling your leg,” I said.

Then, with a snap of my finger, the rude bloke I had identified first went up in flames.

“You see,” I said, “Unlike you, we won’t threaten, harm, or kill your loved ones. But you people… are fair game!”

“You can’t intimidate us kid,” said the second guy. “We don’t fear death.”

“So what?” I asked, then incinerated him too. He went down screaming. So much for the tough guy act.

I looked around as some of our captives tried to avoid going into full panic mode.

Man, I really enjoyed the act more than I probably should have.

Before they could muster a unified front, I used my ‘Vessel Creation’ skill to resurrect my two former practice dummies.

The room fell silent as the ashes slowly coalesced and reformed into living bodies.

That finally got the attention of the captured crowd.

“You see,” I said. “Where we are from, there are a lot of things worse than death.”

I paused for impact. “Since we came here, we have learned a few new ones.”

“We wanted to give you an idea,” I said. “Just in case you didn’t believe us…”

“...So we started making a list...”

“...Then we ran out of paper.”