Kengo and his group finally realized that their surroundings had changed and looked around nervously.

"This is the forest near the eastern dungeon. No one will bother us here... Let's brighten things up a bit."

Ryu shot fireballs in all directions, igniting the surrounding trees. (Ryu couldn't use magic besides space-time magic, but he had accidentally stored some fireballs in his dimensional space from when Big's group used them, and now he released some of them.)

The clearing was surrounded by dimensional barriers to prevent monsters and wild animals from entering. The burning trees were also enclosed by barriers to prevent the fire from spreading.

"So? What do you want in the middle of the night?"

"W-What kind of trick is this... But we'll still do it! Hey, you guys!"

Kengo gave a signal, and the thugs, regaining their composure, all drew their swords. Most of them were daggers, but a few had longswords.

"That's quite a lot of weaponry. What are you planning to do?"

"We're going to cut off your limbs and then torture you to death. We'll display your body in the slum town to make sure no one dares to oppose us again!"

"..... Tanji, you too?"

Ryu asked Tanji, a former church orphan who was among Kengo's group.

"S-Shut up! I'll kill you!"

Tanji pointed his dagger at Ryu with murderous eyes.

Ryu's eyes glowed golden.

Activating his Divine Eye, Ryu saw not only Tanji's heart but also his future.

He saw several possible options and their future outcomes. He realized that no matter what path Tanji chose, a tragic end awaited him.

Although they weren't close, he had lived with Tanji in the orphanage for a short time. Ryu wanted to help him if he could, but he sighed.

"Let me warn you. If you're coming to kill me, I won't hold back either. You'll die, you know? Only those who are prepared should come."

"With this many people against you! What can a weakling like you do alone?! Do it!"

But the heads of those who ran towards Ryu were all severed and dropped to the ground.

Ryu had created a dimensional space surrounding everyone's head and separated it. This made their heads exist in a different dimension, effectively cutting them off. He could instantly reintegrate the space, making their heads seem to be severed.

Ryu called this "Dimensional Slash."

"What's going on?!"

Kengo watched as his companions were attacked by Ryu and had their heads cut off, but Ryu didn't even move a finger.

"Hey! What's happening?! What did you do?!"

"Didn't I tell you? You'll die."

".....!"

"Kengo, I have something I want to ask you. Why have you been so persistent in bothering me?"

"You... You're the one who's wrong! Why are you..."

".....?"

"I... I was an orphan too! But after my parents died... I wasn't helped by anyone! I lived in the slums, scraping by alone!"

"But you guys were picked up by the church. Especially you, Ryu. You never had to struggle in the slums. As soon as you arrived in the city, you were taken care of by the church!"

.....

.....

.....

When Ryu was thrown into this city, he was 12 years old. Big's father had given him some money, but it wasn't enough to live a carefree life. So Ryu started looking for cheap accommodation near the slums but was attacked by robbers.

He was found unconscious, covered in blood, and rescued by Sister Anne, a nun from the Bordertown church.

From then on, Ryu was taken care of by the church and never had to experience the hardship of living penniless in the slums. It was certainly a stroke of luck.

.....

.....

.....

"I can't forgive you guys for that!"

"Did you think the same thing about me... ?"

Tanji, who had hesitated to attack Ryu and remained still, was still alive.

"Of course! I was thinking of finding a way to discard you all. I'll crush the church one day. Don't worry, it seems the organization plans to raise the slum orphans as proper criminals!"

The fact that he said "it seems" meant that the upper organization, the Four Night Butterflies, might be thinking along those lines.

Ryu felt sorry for Kengo's situation but could not spare him if he planned to target the church.

Kengo's head fell to the ground.

Ryu had some grudges against Kengo and his group, but they weren't very deep. Hearing about his situation made him feel sorry for him. At least, he had made sure he died without suffering, out of compassion.

Ryu knew about the afterlife and reincarnation from his own experience.

If that was the case, living became less important.

If one couldn't escape a hellish life in this world, perhaps going to the next world would be better.

He wasn't unfazed by taking lives easily... But while he could still tolerate it if it was just himself, he had to eliminate anyone who tried to kill his precious people.

This world was one where lives were easily lost, after all.

Those who died would be reincarnated into the next world.

He, too, would eventually die and return to that world where he had spoken with the Goddess's proxy during reincarnation.

He wished that he would be born into a happier situation in the next world and that letting him go easily was the least he could do.

Two or three people who hadn't attacked Ryu ran away, but Tanji stood frozen.

Ryu turned towards Tanji and approached him.

"H-Huh...?!"

Ryu spoke to Tanji, who was trembling, pointing his dagger at him.

"I can foresee the future."

".....?"

"You will have a tragic death in the near future."

".....What are you talking about...?"

"But the future isn't absolute. Your future is constantly changing with your decisions. Depending on your choices, your life going forward, the future will change. Think carefully about how you live."

Tanji found himself in the back alleys of Bordertown. Ryu had transported him.

Ultimately, Ryu couldn't kill Tanji. He had thought about killing him off quickly since a tragic future awaited him anyway, but...

There was a chance, however slight, that it wasn't absolute. The future was always changing. It was all up to Tanji's choices from now on.

Ryu gathered Kengo's corpses in the center of the clearing. Using teleportation, it didn't take much time. He just had to store them in dimensional space and bring them back out to the center of the clearing.

He stacked the corpses, then lit them with a fireball.

Leaving corpses unattended would attract beasts and monsters with the smell of blood. It would also cause the bodies to turn into undead, so it was a basic rule to dispose of monster corpses.

The same applied if a member of the party died. It was advisable to process the remains as much as possible. It wasn't a pleasant sight to see a former comrade wandering around as an undead.

This was deep in the forest, so leaving them wouldn't be a huge issue, but he decided to take precautions and dispose of them.

However, simply burning them wouldn't turn them into ashes. The bones would remain.

There were undead creatures called Skeletons, composed of bones only. Even after becoming bones, they could still turn undead.

In general, it was said that undead couldn't form from burned bones, but there wasn't enough research to know for sure.

In reality, turning undead usually required the individual's intense attachment to life and a concentration of dark magic called miasma. So, depending on the conditions, even burned bones could still turn undead.

(Although, there were also cases of souls remaining attached to things other than corpses or bones, which means that maybe there was no need to focus on the corpse itself.)

Ryu, however, made sure to turn them into ashes, not even leaving the bones behind. He isolated the corpses with dimensional barriers, then repeatedly threw fireballs at them to raise the temperature.

It turned out that bones wouldn't burn to ash. They had a higher melting point than stone or iron. If you burned them at a high enough temperature to melt the bones, the surrounding soil and rocks would also melt into lava. In other words, if you burned them at such a high temperature on top of the soil, the bones would melt and mix with the molten earth, becoming glassy stones.

He transferred the wood he was using for light around the area to the top of the bodies, burning them together. The high temperature quickly turned them into charcoal.

Eventually, a mound of ash and charcoal formed in the center of the clearing deep in the forest. Rain would wash it away. The bones would mix with the surrounding earth and remain as stones.

Ryu watched this scene unfold before teleporting back to town.