When I opened my eyes, the woman who had been sitting in the front seat, snoring as she slept, had vanished without a trace.
“So when she said to endure for two days, did that include yesterday? Or does it start from today?”
Come to think of it… she hadn’t clarified when the two days the Hero mentioned were supposed to begin.
But really, it wasn’t that important.
All I had to do was keep my mind blank for the next two days, starting now.
“I guess I should pick up some diamonds on the way.”
Wanting to at least be of some help to the Hero in saving the Earth, I decided to buy a bunch of diamonds and emeralds on the way back to my hideout.
“So even cultists can’t resist diamonds, huh?”
Turns out, expensive things really were the best.
In the face of high-priced goods, even gods had no chance. That was the moment I realized it.
Ah, now that I think about it…
While driving back to my hideout, a thought crossed my mind—
The memory of the Heavenly Will Cult trying to offer my mother’s ashes as a sacrifice.
…No way, they didn’t already take them, did they?
I suddenly felt a wave of unease. What if those bastards had already taken the urn from the columbarium?
“…Guess I’d better check.”
So I decided to stop by the columbarium on the way home.
There won’t be any trouble… right?
Surely, nothing would have happened.
Surely…
Surely, that had to be the case.
…
“……”
The world had never shown me kindness.
Not once… had life ever been easy for me.
That’s why I had always prepared various defenses to protect myself on all fronts, but…
“……”
When my identity got leaked—
I hadn’t even considered the possibility that they could harm my family.
Because… I didn’t have any family left.
Because… there was no one alive they could use as a hostage against me.
But—
“Ha… haha… ha… Turns out, I still had a weakness.”
I still had a weakness.
And they… they had taken advantage of that weakness.
They had stolen the urn containing my mother’s ashes, which should’ve remained in the columbarium.
“…….”
I immediately pulled out my phone and opened the internet.
What else would I search for?
– Heavenly Will Cult
– Heavenly Will Cult location
– Heavenly Will Cult phone number
No matter how much of a cult they were,
They still had to have a headquarters somewhere.
So I started searching for where their base was.
And not long after starting—
“…Lucky me.”
I found it.
“At least it’s not too far.”
I found the location of one of the Heavenly Will Cult’s churches.
And once I knew where their headquarters was, what I had to do next was obvious.
Just as I turned to leave the columbarium—
I saw the face of the caretaker standing at the entrance, staring at his phone.
Step… step…
Without hesitation, I walked up to him.
Grab—
“Wh-What are you doing?!”
“I didn’t pay all that money for you to pull something like this.”
I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him close to my face.
And then—
“Wh-Who do you think you are…?!”
I could hear the caretaker asking who I was.
“……”
I silently stared at him…
Then tore off the recognition-blocking mask I was wearing on my face.
“Who do you think I am? I’m someone who trusted this place and left things in your care.”
The moment he saw my face, he immediately recognized me as a regular visitor who had come here every year—
“V-Villain hunter…!”
“…….”
Villain hunter?
Did he just call me villain hunter?
“…What?”
“Y-You were… I mean… you’re still a-alive…?”
“No… no… that’s not what you’re supposed to say right now.”
“Wh-What do you mean…?”
“Look at my face. Look closely. Don’t you remember?”
“Well… now that you mention it…!”
Last year.
The year before that.
And the year before that…
Do you know how much money I gave you?
All the money I slipped you was just asking you to take a little better care of my mom, dad, and younger sister’s remains?
Crunch—
“Guh… hhk…!”
The body of an ordinary man without any powers was fragile enough that even the slightest miscalculation in strength could shatter it.
Knowing that, I tried to control my strength so he wouldn’t die…
But the anger rising from the depths of me…
“P-Please… s-spare me—ghrk…!”
Just as I was about to tighten my grip around his throat, ready to kill him right then and there—
“Kyahhh!”
Someone who had just entered the columbarium saw the scene and screamed before bolting out.
Realizing that making a bigger scene would only work against me,
I hurled the man into an empty wall and fled the columbarium.
Because right now, someone like the caretaker wasn’t what mattered most.
Please let there be nothing… please… please…
I pressed down on the accelerator and headed toward the Heavenly Will Cult’s church where my mother’s remains were supposed to be.
…
“3584, pull over!! 3584!! Pull over to the shoulder!!”
Ignoring the police who started chasing me just for speeding a little,
I kept driving toward the church of the Heavenly Will Cult.
Only five more minutes to go. So I slammed the gas even harder.
And just when I was almost there—
“…Huh?”
I could see a tire killer laid out on the road ahead.
Sensing instinctively that the car’s tires would be punctured, I finished preparing to jump out of the car.
“3584!!! Stop!! If you go any faster, it’s suicide!!”
I slammed the accelerator even harder and sped straight toward the tire killer.
Bang!
The moment the front tires burst with a deafening explosion—
Blink, blink, blink—
With my eyes quickly blinking three times while facing the farthest possible direction,
My body was suddenly on top of a residential building, far away from the car.
Screeeech—
In the distance, the car with its front tires blown out flipped forward and crashed.
Boooom!!
I had always kept a small amount of explosives in the vehicle just in case,
So the overturned car immediately shattered into pieces with a huge explosion.
This way, I made it as difficult as possible for the police to realize that the driver inside the vehicle had vanished.
Then I took off running toward the main base of the Heavenly Will Cult.
Blink, blink, blink—
Teleportation, by its nature, was a power that consumed a lot of stamina.
So unless it was an emergency, I avoided using it and continued running toward my goal to conserve energy.
After about ten more minutes had passed, I arrived at the location of the Heavenly Will Cult’s headquarters.
“Huff… huff…”
Near the large church building of the cult, I could see large numbers of police forces deployed.
“Phew… I guess I’m getting a little too familiar with the police today.”
It wasn’t likely that the police and heroes chasing me had figured out my destination in advance…
Most likely, they had gathered there because of the massacre committed by the God of Death, like the association president had mentioned the day before.
But I had no choice. I had to find my mother’s urn somewhere inside that building.
“You can’t come in here.”
I crossed over the police line without hesitation.
“You can’t go insi—huh?”
As I tried to pass the officers who were taking pictures of the corpses,
“I-It’s moving!!”
“Officer!! It’s moving!!”
When I turned my head at the officer’s sudden shout that “it” was moving…
There it was…
“…So, you’re the one. The false god.”
It gave off a similar feeling to the beastly monster I had seen at the pig farm.
But this one was much larger and more grotesque, existing in a semi-transparent form.
Truly…
“It’s getting up…!”
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who could see the massive being.
The heroes surrounding the false god sprang into action, moving to attack the creature that had begun to stir.
“Our powers aren’t working!”
“It has no physical form! We need to retreat!”
“Physical attacks are still useless…!”
I heard them shouting that neither supernatural abilities nor any kind of physical attack had any effect on it.
So this thing can only be fought within a domain, huh?
Well, it made sense.
If something calling itself a god could be taken down by brute force, that would be pretty pathetic.
Still…
Not my problem.
My only goal now was to find my mother’s urn, which had to be somewhere in this place.
Just as I turned to head deeper inside…
“..…”
I saw it. A pure white urn behind the false god.
“What are you doing…?!”
I began to walk forward.
“You can’t go any closer!!”
“We don’t even know what that thing is!!”
People shouted from behind me, but I kept walking.
Because I had to find that urn.
Because I had to… bring that urn back.
“Stop hi—Damn it, we can’t stop him…! He’s already too close…!”
As I kept walking toward the urn in that corner—
– Death… is… not… enough.
With a bizarre voice, the translucent monster suddenly charged toward the area where people were gathered.
And thanks to that—
“Mom…!”
I was able to easily confirm the urn in that corner. But…
“…Ha.”
Maybe the Heavebly Will Cult had stolen others’ urns more than once.
The urn placed in that corner wasn’t my mother’s.
So—
Just as I turned again to head deeper into the Heavebly Will Cult’s church—
– Dea…th… death… death…
I locked eyes with the false god, who had been driving police officers and heroes to take their own lives.
And the moment it saw me, it came charging at me without a moment’s hesitation.
“Yeah… You’re the root of all this evil.”
And so, I too charged toward the creature that had tried to exploit my weakness.
At the same time—
Crunch—
I shattered the power suppressor that had been strapped to my right foot.
Thump-thump-thump-thump—
The moment my heart began to pound like crazy—
The creature and I were pulled into the domain.
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