He must have had no clue what had hit him. Gizmelt touched the back of his head with a dumb, vacant look on his face, trying to make sense of the pain. He froze. The next moment, he collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. There was a gaping hole in his skull about five centimeters wide.
“Whew...” I sighed in relief.
I had killed someone. Even after I’d been hit with that realization, I strangely thought nothing of it. I was simply overcome with relief that I was still alive. Normally, this should have been where you started feeling sick to your stomach, where your conscience kicked in and made you question everything—but it wasn’t like that at all.
“No way I’m letting this scumbag mess with my head,” I said.
I’m going to live, no matter what it takes.
I silently looked down at Gizmelt’s body. It was a grotesque sight. His eyes were wide open, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. Paired with his unsightly features, he looked like some distant cousin of an orc or a goblin. Actually, the most rotten thing about him had probably been his heart.
At the same time, I felt power coursing through my whole body. I’d heard that when you killed a creature, you absorbed its mana and that boosted your capacity. Apparently, that applied to killing humans too. It was no wonder people never stopped fighting each other.
“But this mana boost is barely noticeable,” I said to myself.
Gizmelt had obviously been a seasoned mercenary, but all I got was this meager little boost? That wasn’t the most pressing matter though.
“What am I going to do with his body?”
I had no clue what to do, and nowhere to hide the corpse.
“Even if I dump it outside, someone might see me.”
Should I bury it here? I wondered to myself. No, then I won’t be able to use the tent. Should I burn the body? I don’t have the mana for that. Plus, I’d probably burn down the tent while I’m at it.
“I guess...that leaves the storage space.”
It wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought, but it’d be less of a psychological burden than burying him and sleeping right above the body. Besides, it wasn’t like the body was going to brush up against my other belongings in storage.
“Oh well. Store,” I commanded.
I held my hand out over Gizmelt’s corpse and stuffed him into storage. I used the vault’s sorting function to separate his weapons and gear—there was no telling when they could come in handy.
I wasn’t done just yet though. Using magic, I gathered up all the blood-soaked dirt and clumped it into a ball before throwing it outside. After one final sweep of magic to flatten the ground, all the evidence had been destroyed.
“Phew... That should do it.”
I was completely wiped out, both mentally and physically. I decided to leave anything else for tomorrow. I crawled into my bed in hopes of getting some shut-eye, but it didn’t happen.
“Great. I’m too wired to sleep.”
It was probably because my nerves were still buzzing—though I couldn’t blame myself after all that had happened. Still, even after I had lain there for what felt like forever, I couldn’t fall asleep. My hunger was surely to blame. I’d gone over half a day on just some water and a bit of jörgyn grass—my stomach hadn’t stopped growling.
“Tomorrow, I have to find something to eat,” I promised myself.
How tragic would it be if I got reincarnated just to die of starvation? Even if I have to hike out farther, I’m gonna get my hands on some food!
As soon as I’d made that promise to myself, I noticed that it was unusually noisy outside.
“What’s going on?” I wondered.
When I listened closely, I heard a commotion, like a group of people arguing, mixed in with some occasional piercing screams. Then came some loud, echoing blasts. Arguments had been par for the course in this town, but this many people screaming? That was a first.
Boom! Boom! BOOM!
“I-Is the ground shaking?”
The explosions echoed one after another. Inside the tent, my few belongings rattled.
“It’s definitely shaking!”
Unless I was imagining it, the sounds were getting closer too. I stayed hunkered down in the tent for a while, but the situation outside didn’t seem to be changing. I crept toward the tent entrance and pressed my ear against the flap, trying to make out what had been going on. Sure enough, the explosions were drawing nearer—and mixed in with them were voices of people panicking and fleeing.
“Where d-did that thing come from?!” a voice said.
“It’s gotta be from the dungeon!” replied another.
“That’s ridiculous! No way that monster could fit through the entrance!”
“Then maybe it flew in from outside!”
“Whatever—just run!”
Monster? Run? I questioned myself.
“They’re saying the West District is up in flames!”
“Wh-What?! Where are the guards?!”
“They were the first to run!”
“I heard those high-ranked mercenaries are fighting it!”
“And what good are they gonna do?!”
“Look, it’s right there!”
From what I was able to make out, the town was under attack by some giant monster—the explosions had probably been its doing too. The guards had already fled, leaving only a handful of mercenaries to hold the line.
“No wonder that damn Gizmelt was in such a hurry.” I panicked. “He was running from this!”
Things were looking grim.
“I need to get out of here before it’s too late.”
They’d said the West District had been engulfed in flames. The fire might spread here too, but how was I supposed to get away? I was four years old. Where would I even go? Was there a shelter nearby?
Then came a deafening roar.