"Ahhh!"
The man's pained scream was cut off halfway by Roland's next brutal kick.
"You're a man, right? Crying from this little pain how do you plan to handle what's coming next? Do you even realize how much more pain I've endured compared to you? Yet I'm still working hard to maintain my image. You… you should really learn from me."
Roland slowly stretched out his hand, palm facing the man. Under the dim light, his fingernails grew steadily, visibly, like tender sprouts pushing out after the rain.
"It's ridiculous. I just cut my nails yesterday, and today they've grown three centimeters. But there's nothing I can do about it. I see so many people every day, and every now and then, I meet one who's… just right. Every time I watch them walk away, I feel this overwhelming urge to follow, to trail after them, to—"
He spread his long, sharp nails wide, his expression calm but eyes distant.
"I don't know how many times I've played it all out in my head: follow them home, stay out of sight, force open the door, and then, the part I'm best at, succeed. Again and again, I've stopped myself. And to deal with the unbearable desire, I had to spend my precious money on making perfect hand models, like some kind of pervert. I haven't even found a new apartment yet. If I attracted attention, it'd go completely against the code I live by."
Roland closed his hands, then looked coldly at the yellow-haired man, who couldn't even whimper anymore, and stepped down hard on him.
"Because I see this as a trial. If you want to grow, you have to overcome your past self."
"But you, you filthy scum, you wasted my precious time and made me expose the emotions I've been working so hard to suppress. Tell me, how are you going to repay me for that!"
Roland's face twisted slightly, his voice raising as he roared out a command, drowning out Huangmao's broken cries for mercy and despair.
"Killer Queen — First Bomb."
With a fiery explosion, Roland crushed the ashes of the human figure before him. He took a deep breath, then summoned his Stand with a blank expression to clean up any remaining traces.
In front of Killer Queen, what should have been tedious cleanup work became simple and efficient.
His nails finally stopped growing.
Although that scumbag's hand wasn't worthy of being kept as a trophy, Roland still felt a rare sense of relief after venting just now.
Aside from keeping his contracted spirit from disturbing his peaceful life by eliminating hidden dangers, part of Roland's need to release stress came from within himself.
Today's incident had simply been an extra fuse on top.
A person's life is not theirs alone.
Before he obtained the Key to All Spirits, back in his original world, Roland had lost his parents in a car accident when he was still in junior high school.
In the depths of that sudden loss and grief, Roland had realized something even more terrifying.
He had no one left to rely on.
Even though he hadn't encountered greedy relatives, and his parents' inheritance was more than enough to support him until adulthood, for his younger self, the looming sense of crisis from watching his resources gradually dwindle was unimaginable.
To survive better, to avoid being left helpless by some disaster in the future, he had to carefully calculate the consequences of every action he took.
Crossing into another world, that's a miracle countless people yearn for, dream about, would even trade everything to achieve.
But crossing over alone? That's a gamble where you stake your life.
He could only rely on himself, could only trust himself. Roland had been operating under extreme mental tension, burning through his energy nonstop during this time.
In order not to let the spirit of Kira Yoshikage affect him, he'd been suppressing himself way too much. And only just now had he realized, alongside suppressing kira's influence, he'd also been smothering his own heart.
At the end of the day, the contracted spirit only gave him extra traits. What truly determined his path was himself.
The way to maintain a peaceful life, that was defined by him alone.
The Key had made it crystal clear: he was the master of the spirits.
He held the chains.
Before, Roland had been caught in the trap of knowledge. In the original story, Yoshikage Kira longed for a quiet, uneventful peace, and Roland, the first time, had subconsciously imitated that.
But that kind of peace was never what Roland wanted.
Sure, he had some fondness for stability. But he never intended to wrong himself for it.
"Are you kidding? If it were for some greater goal, fine, but even against some scumbag like this, something you see every day, I hesitate? I let my pride bow to others? I passively wait for disaster to strike before planning my next move? That's not peace at all."
Realizing his own contradictions, Roland felt genuine happiness for the first time since coming to this world.
"Ha… what a huge roundabout journey this's been…"
He lifted his head, gazing up at the dark yet clear night sky, feeling utterly relaxed and at peace inside.
Until the next spirit appeared.
Until Yoshikage Kira was fully digested by him.
He would continue to maintain this peaceful life, go to work safely, come home safely, and decisively erase any threats before they could bloom, no matter who they were.
In short, anyone who disrupted this peace, anyone who made him uneasy… must die.
After stepping over the ashes long blown away, Roland, having cleaned up all the blood and stains walked over to where the yellow haired guy had been drinking alone.
In the middle of the convenience store snacks, a document folder stood out.
"What's this? A property deed?"
Roland pulled out the papers, flipping through them quickly with nimble fingers.
It seemed an old mansion was up for sale, and the details were well documented.
The property consisted of a large Japanese-style house, complete with a tool shed and spacious garden, tucked away in a quiet area. No one was living there, but it had been briefly cleaned. Even though the garden was overgrown, it wouldn't take much effort to move in right away.
The keywords scattered through the description struck Roland's heart.
By the time he reached the floor plan of the mansion, he was laughing aloud.
Just when he'd been the most uncertain, just when he was worried about securing a foothold in this old city because he'd blown his budget on expensive hand models, a turning point had dropped straight into his lap.
Was this the effect of his powerful luck?
Roland remembered the ability he'd been overlooking.
Yoshikage Kira's many narrow escapes and miraculous reversals had often relied on various coincidences and sheer luck. Even when Kira couldn't accept the risks of leaving Morioh Town, he'd never actually been cornered, until the very end.
So this was what it meant to have good luck. It didn't mean you never faced crises, but when crises came, you could always slip past safely and even gain something from them.
Tucking the property deed back into the folder, Roland turned and walked deeper into the alley without the slightest hesitation.
With this, he didn't need to waste time today collecting rental information.
Although some time had been lost on the way, when you added things up, he could still get plenty of sleep tonight.
"Hah… at first, I thought things weren't going so well these past couple of days, but in the end, luck really is on my side."
With a smile, Roland walked forward toward his new life.