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"Don't come any closer!"
Inside the convenience store, watching Asakura, glowing as if descended from heaven, slowly approach, the camping ground owner roared at Asakura indistinctly and in a panic: "If you dare take another step forward, don't blame me for dragging these innocent people down with me!"
Asakura frowned.
However, someone among the survivors, who were taken as hostages, also mustered the courage to shout: "Don't mind us, quickly defeat this monster!"
Asakura nodded.
"Good."
Then he snapped his fingers, and those survivors were burned by a fire, emitting piercing screams in the flames.
"Alright, now you have no hostages."
Asakura said with a smile.
"You, you're the monster, aren't you!"
The camping ground owner was stunned: how could this guy not play by the rules?
"When did you get the illusion that I'm a righteous hero?"
Asakura spread his hands while pressing closer: "And whether it's destroying the base station or tampering with explosives to cause a landslide, your methods of committing crimes are definitely not perfect. It wouldn't be difficult for modern forensics to find evidence of your guilt…"
"The legend of the Yamanokemono has existed for half a year, which means you've been on Mount Kumotori for at least half a year. Why was everything peaceful before, with at most one or two women disappearing, a minor skirmish, but this time you acted so drastically without leaving any retreat?"
"There's only one reason, and that is you plan to perform 'certain actions,' such as a sacrifice, a ritual, or a sacrificial ritual. In short, with this latest batch of victims, you've 'gathered enough people.' As long as you can achieve your goal, Mount Kumotori will no longer be necessary for you. You can feign death or use other methods to escape."
"So, the simplest way to stop you is to make it so you 'cannot gather enough people'."
Asakura's smile, illuminated by the firelight, became increasingly cruel and distorted: "Right?"
"You stinking brat!"
The camping ground owner grabbed a chef's knife nearby and lunged at Asakura.
Although the opponent could not possibly harm Asakura, and would even be burned to ashes due to the counter-damage effect of the Cursed Flame Scale Armor, Asakura felt that would be too easy for the opponent.
"Snake"
The camping ground owner's heels and tendons disintegrated together, turning into many earthworm-sized small Snakes wriggling on the ground, and he consequently fell face-first, unable even to stand up.
"Damn it, damn it!"
The owner, his mouth full of blood, was still struggling.
"Your power…"
Asakura looked down at him, then glanced at the surrounding Yamanokemono who no longer dared to approach him, and asked in a cold voice: "And these things, where exactly did they come from?"
"Hehehe, you can just hold onto those questions and never expect to get an answer…"
The camping ground owner let out a sinister sneer, speaking with a defiant attitude.
Asakura didn't respond, only moved his fingers, and the owner let out a painful scream as several Snakes fell from his back.
Only then did Asakura, in a gratified tone, leisurely say: "Actually, I'm not that interested in those things, but I have many novel ideas for my Magic when applied to people. Normally, I don't have experimental subjects, so I can only keep them to myself. But now that I have a scumbag like you, on whom I won't feel any psychological burden experimenting, it's truly wonderful."
This was not him threatening the other party, but Asakura was genuinely interested in how many spells affected the human body. For example, he had just turned the owner's heels and tendons into small Snakes, and the owner's feet looked like they were naturally deformed, only the original tissues had disappeared, replaced by intact skin.
But now, the small Snakes he conjured from the owner's back were as if flesh had been directly gouged out of the other party's body. The owner's back was covered in wounds, bloody and making one's scalp tingle.
"Kill, kill me…"
The camping ground owner pleaded.
"Dream on."
Asakura refused without hesitation.
"Are you… a demon…?"
"Thank you for the compliment."
Then he turned more than half of the other party's body into a pile of Snakes, and manipulated the Snakes to burrow through the remaining parts of the other party's body.
"My power… it suddenly appeared in my mind… it appeared after seeing the Divine Envoy…"
The camping ground owner finally seemed unable to bear such torture, hysterically breaking down: "Kill, kill me!!!"
Perhaps the pain was too great, he didn't even realize his tongue had been uncursed and he could speak normally again.
"I have one more question."
Asakura stroked his chin: "Half a year ago, were you the first person to post about the Yamanokemono on 2ch?"
"It was me…"
The other party answered breathlessly.
Asakura asked seriously: "Then in that story, what happened to your daughter in the end?"
However, the camping ground owner remained silent, only staring at Asakura with a strange gaze.
A moment later, the other party slowly said: "She was the first to become a Divine Envoy. My wife was the second."
"You just watched?"
Asakura couldn't help but ask.
"Of course not… I tricked my wife into assimilating with the Divine Envoy."
"What an excellent scumbag."
Asakura said with disgust.
"Hehehe…"
However, the other party did not continue to answer, but let out an unpleasant laugh.
"What's so funny."
Asakura frowned.
"Claiming not to be a righteous hero… yet feeling displeased by such things. In the end, didn't I still test you? You really are a good person! Those hostages… Hmph, they just passed out, didn't they? The flames that can burn a Divine Envoy to ashes in an instant, yet burning those ordinary people still haven't extinguished until now, was it just to deliberately obscure my vision…"
"At this point, do you still think you can turn the tables?"
Asakura looked at the camping ground owner, who was left with only half a body and could be killed by his Magic at any moment, with a calm composure.
"Hehehe… I certainly have no chance left. Everything was destined to fail the moment I underestimated you."
The middle-aged man stared intently at Asakura, the fierce glint in his eyes even giving Asakura the momentary illusion that he was staring into the malicious eyes of a Yamanokemono: "But that doesn't mean you've won… Haven't you noticed that half of the Divine Envoys are no longer in the house?"
"I'll eliminate all of them later."
Asakura said: "Killing them is no more troublesome than crushing an ant."
"Hehehe, I've given up control over the Divine Envoys… They are free, no longer confined to this mountain… Even if only one Divine Envoy escapes into human society, their numbers will explode geometrically! Everything has already… Wah, Ahhhhhh!"
Asakura glanced at the owner engulfed by flames, then took a deep breath.
"I hope it's still in time… it's just the Magic reserves… Forget it, now is not the time to worry about that."
The surrounding Yamanokemono, who were merely covering their kind's escape, seemed to realize something, but it was already too late.
"Candle!"
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