POV – Tobias

[Residential Zone; Year 2, Day 210… One week after getting stabbed in the heart.]

Ugh… Why does my entire body hurt?

Stretching as I yawned, I found myself extremely tired. Sitting up, I opened my eyes and looked about, finding myself alone in a bedroom with at the small bedside table and mana lights. I momentarily panicked before remembering this was our bedroom in the Residential Zone.

What happened? Wait… I’m alive?

Touching my bare chest, I found the wound healed without even a scar. That’s good, I’ve healed up pretty well... Opposite to my heart, the tattoo leaf that represented the world tree seed had grown much larger. It now covered a much larger portion of the right side of my chest.

My shirt also has been misplaced somewhere, but that wasn’t important at the moment.

What is important is that I’m still alive.

Dad, you’re awake! It’s been super boring without your constant stream of nonsense.

Finding her on the bed-side table, I picked God-hunter up while rolling my eyes at God-hunter’s untimely nonsense. Before, swiftly changing gears from alertness to finding answers.

Where’s Rin? How long have I been asleep?

Seriously, you cannot spend two seconds to say hello before bombarding me with questions? I been waiting for you to wake up for a week, whatever happened to common courtesy?

God-hunter! Courtesy later, answers now. Where’s Rin?

Fine... I have no clue where currently Rin is, but she checked on you earlier this morning. At the very least, she’s in a better condition than you are.

Relaxing at the news, I soon found myself getting extremely drowsy but mentally unwilling to continue sleeping.

As for the person who stabbed you, after Rin rushed over to you, and Stanley arrived shooting at them with his gun causing them to run off and escape like a rat.

That’s… good.

Swaying slightly, I found it difficult to keep my eyes open. Shaking my head to wake up, I got out of the bed.

However, I found myself collapsing to the ground from sudden weakness in my legs. Why am I so damn tired? I been sleeping for a week, I need to wake up already.

Dad, don’t force yourself. If you need to continue sleeping, then go ahead.

No, I need to wake up… I should… talk… Rin.

My mind barely coherent and shutting down, I failed to stand up again.

Sadly, while I had the will to wake up. The adrenaline from had worn off and my body began to insist otherwise.

I found myself slipping into unconsciousness… unable… to…

---

POV Swap – Rin

Inside the Demonic Slayers’ guild building, people were lining up around the exit. Before all of them, blocking the main exit of the building stood Rin.

Rin glared at the crowd of people ahead, furious at everything in this world. Tobias never should’ve been put into a situation where he could’ve gotten hurt. If Stanley hadn’t had been there with blood essence, he would’ve died.

Rin had spent the past week tracking the person responsible for Tobias’ condition. Every time Rin had tracked them down, they had managed to escape.

Not this time, though.

After tracking them to this building, they couldn’t escape.

Drawing her sword, Rin pointed it at the crowd and announced, “Nobody leaves.”

The person who’d attacked Tobias had been a shapeshifter, making it infinitely harder to track them by scent or appearance. However, they definitely had limitations and, over this time period, she’d learned them.

They were limited to three forms. Killing someone allowed them to change into that person. However, most importantly, they didn’t get the memories from the person they killed.

Whispering from the crowd ensured upon the threat. Everyone was rather confused upon the receiving a threat from such a young girl.

“Who’s that? She cute.”

“What’s going on?”

Nobody had any answers, though. Still, there wasn’t anyone attempting to leave. Although that was mainly from curiosity of the situation, not from fear of Rin.

Hearing the unusual noise below, a male figure began descending from stairs in the middle of the building while shouting at the crowd below. “Who’s causing a ruckus? Didn’t I already tell you people to shut up while in the guild hall.”

Rin wasn’t bothering with listening to the crowd. Too many voices constantly flooded her ears, partly why she hated cities to begin with.

Instead, Rin’s focus was entirely on the observing their reactions and appearance. Any abnormalities noted and kept track of.

Upon hearing the voice from the figure on the stairs, the crowd separated allowing him to get a clear view of Rin.

His face scrunched in anger up upon seeing Rin with her sword out. “Since when do other people dare to cause trouble in our guild hall? People are already lucky enough if we haven’t gone to trouble them.”

Rin didn’t bother answering him.

Instead Rin individually pointed her sword toward seven people that she’d identified as suspicious. “You people. Step forward.”

“Oi, don’t ignore me.” The man from above jumped off the side of the stairs onto the floor below and blocked them. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

Seeing this man stepping forward, none of the suspicious people moved.

Glaring at the man who’d interrupted her investigation, Rin threatened, “Stay out of my way.”

Enraged by the girl’s arrogance, he pulled out his own sword and pointed it at her, “Girl, who do you think you are?! This isn’t somewhere you can come and randomly cause trouble.”

This is why Rin hated dealing with people, they couldn’t just listen to what she said and shut up.

Rin’s eyes were filled with anger, but she carefully gauged his approximate strength. After determining he wasn’t a threat, Rin dismissed him with a polite warning, “I’ll give you three seconds to clear off or die.”

“You want to take this outside?!” He snarled, gesturing with his sword to the exit behind her.

Rin’s eyes flashed at his words, and she stepped forward growling, “Nobody leaves.”

As the time passed and the man showed no sign of back off, she prepared kill him and be done with it. Tobias might not approve and it will cause trouble later, but she didn’t have time for nonsense.

Instinctively taking a battle stance, Rin stepped forward slashing toward the hindrance’s neck.

The man managed to bring up his sword sideways to block the strike.

Without hesitation, Rin shifted into a thrust and stabbed the sword straight through his chest. The blade thrust went into the irritant’s heart.

As the man collapsed to the ground, she waved her sword to wipe of the blood. Pointed the blade toward the crowd. she repeated herself, “Step forward.”

The crowd fell into silence at the brutal murder.

Rin hadn’t exactly been convincing in her speech and nobody moved. Rin stepped forward to grab people and someone shouted, “Run!”

The entire crowd turned around and began running off toward another exit in a frenzy.

Irritated at their reaction, Rin stowed her sword and took out her bow. Then, she proceeded to release a stream of arrows into the legs of the fastest people.

After people saw the front runners with arrows piercing midway through their legs, the crowd gradually came to a crawl. People were unsure of what to do, nobody wanted to be shot next, but neither did they want to stay behind for the insane girl to catch up to them.

“Nobody leaves until I’ve completed my investigation.” Rin repeated coldly to the crowd, “If I have to kill you all to achieve that, I’m more than willing.”

Nobody spoke up. The injured were too focused on their pain and injuries. Meanwhile, the fifteen to twenty uninjured people were afraid of standing out and being targeted.

Rin’s eyes flashed as she considered her next move. The shapeshifter couldn’t have memories of more than a couple days, thus whoever didn’t accurately remember past events or interactions should be the person who’d attacked Tobias.

The problem was that she needed other people in the crowd to verify each other. Killing everyone wouldn’t guarantee that she would get them. As it’s possible they’ve already escaped.

Grabbing the nearest suspicious person, Rin demanded, “Introduce yourself. Be as detailed as possible.”

Timed passed by as Rin interrogated the seven suspicious people.

None of them showed any out of character behavior based on the crowd reaction.

After testing the people she found immediately suspicious, she proceeded to interrogate the rest of the crowd using others to gauge the realism and accuracy of the information provided.

Once again, nothing.

If the shapeshifter was among them, they must’ve done research about their target long in advance.

Rin’s eyes flashed with anger at that conclusion. If true, this entire attempt was pointless. There’s no way to verify whether their identity is true or false.

Annoying.

This is too annoying. I should just kill them all and be done with it.

Should I utilize save/load to minimize the casualties?

No, it isn’t worth updating a save slot for these people.

I need the save slot before Tobias was stabbed and I don’t want to update the slot on [Day 13] or [Year 2; Day 111].

Making a decision, she decided it was easiest to simply kill them all.

If Tobias is alive enough to berate her for this action, she’d be more than happily listen to it. If not, he’ll never find out about it.

Swapping to her sword, her expression turned cold as she stared at the group.

The crowd wasn’t stupid and immediately noticed the change in stance and expression.

“She’s gone crazy again!”

“Run!”

Targeting the uninjured first to prevent their escape, she proceeded to massacre them one by one.

They were all too weak to even block a single strike. Whenever someone came close to escaping, she released an arrow into their neck.

While some attempted to use their abilities, they weren’t strong enough to stop her arrows or strikes. Nor were they powerful or fast enough to injure her.

As they were slaughtered, some shouted out cliché lines.

“The guild leader will avenge us!”

“Why are you doing this?!”

Rin ignore them all and continued her slaughter, searching for someone who didn’t die in a single strike.

Slaughtering twelve people, she discovered what she was looking for.

After slashing a woman’s throat, the woman had changed into the fast man who’d she fought with that night and had almost killed Tobias.

The fast man frowned at her, “You’re extremely persistent.”

The fast man’s clothing hadn’t changed from the woman’s dress and he only had a small dagger.

Rin didn’t respond with words, instead she instinctually slashed toward him with her sword.

He backed off without giving the sword a chance to land.

“As much as I’d love to stick around… I have places to be.” The fast man responded, bowing slightly toward her before zooming off toward the main exit.

Without moving to chase him, Rin only quietly mumbled the words from earlier. “Nobody leaves.”

BOOM!

As the door opened, it exploded with fire and shrapnel which pierced the man’s body.

People instinctually backed away from the explosion, imagining what would’ve happen had they been the one to open the door.

Meanwhile, Rin rushed forward and sliced toward the man’s neck; attempting to kill him in a single blow.

He wasn’t that easy to kill, though. Shaking off the confusion, he rolled away dodging her strike and coughed up blood from the damage to his lungs.

Standing up, he wiped away the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

Gazing down at the blood on his hand, he frowned and grunted out, “You’re becoming more than an simple annoyance.”

Moving forward and blocking the exit with her body, Rin pointed her sword toward him without speaking.

Instead of fighting with her, he retreated at breakneck speed and stabbed a nearby person in the heart.

Rin’s eyes flashed as she realized his plan. He was collected another person to shapeshift into.

Reaching into her bag, she threw forward a vial of sleeping powder, before drinking the antidote herself.

She hadn’t wanted to waste it, but to prevent him from escaping it was worth it. The poison should spread throughout the room and allowing her to easily deal with him.

He dodged the vial. It broke on the floor behind him, exploding into a pile of dust that spread throughout the room.

One by one people began dropping to the floor asleep.

Watching the people around him fall asleep as they breathed the dust, the fast man frowned and covered his mouth with a cloth while holding his breath.

“Annoyingly persistent.” He spat out through the cloth and retreated up the stairs to avoid the powder.

Frowning, Rin followed after him.

He had already disappeared, though. Vanishing the moment he was out of sight.

She examined the environment more careful and saw an open window. Looking outside, she saw his figure retreating into the distance.

Clenching her fists in anger as her brows furrowed.

He’d escaped again.