Ch.108Isekai-Style Fire Truck Game

I picked up the bottle with the highest alcohol content from those I had placed on the floor and sniffed it.

The intense alcohol aroma stung my nose.

If I kept smelling it, I might get drunk just from the scent alone.

Hmm. This should be enough.

“Johan, Johan… Right. I’m going to ask you some questions now, and if you lie, you’ll receive a special baptism. Understood?”

“Baptism…?”

Perhaps he didn’t understand what I meant. Johan’s pupils trembled from side to side.

I tilted the bottle slightly and moistened his hair a little.

“Yes, baptism. They do it sometimes in the Church, don’t they? Pouring oil or holy water on your head, claiming it absolves sins.”

When I waved the lit cigarette in front of his face, Johan, now understanding perfectly, began to tremble violently.

Frider, who was watching my antics, laughed incredulously.

“I-I’ll tell you everything! I won’t lie!”

“Good, I like your cooperative attitude. Let’s begin then… First, your village, how many people are there in total?”

“W-well…”

Johan trailed off, his eyes darting around.

Is he trying to stall? Or is he planning to lie from the very first question?

It seems advice without pain is meaningless after all.

“Your answer is taking too long. I thought you understood me. Can’t be helped.”

I grabbed another bottle and seized one of Johan’s arms.

His body convulsed violently. Like a fish on a cutting board.

“Hiiieek! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!! Just a moment, I can’t remember…!”

He’s being overly dramatic. I wasn’t planning to burn him just yet.

“Really? Well, that could be true… or not. Perhaps you’re trying to stall for time against us. Something like that.”

He might genuinely not remember, but that’s not my problem.

“N-no! Just a little, just a moment! It’s…!”

As expected, he’s not answering promptly. Everyone starts this way.

“I’m sorry I can’t trust you. But our acquaintance has been too brief for trust to develop between us, so what can we do?”

I smiled down at Johan, who was drenched in cold sweat.

“Thanks for understanding. It’s okay. I have my methods, just trust me. Men usually develop strong trust after playing a game together, you know?”

Frider snickered at the mention of “men.”

“G-game…?”

“Yes. What I call the wheel game. Rolling a round wheel as you walk.”

I stretched his captured arm flat on the table and called to Frider.

“Gag him. It’s going to get noisy.”

“You seem quite experienced at this.”

I’ve done it occasionally before.

Frider took a piece of cloth and stuffed it into Johan’s mouth.

I firmly secured Johan’s arm with my left hand and gently placed the bottle I held in my right hand on top of his hand.

Johan’s body trembled. As if sensing what was coming.

“So, what are you planning to do?”

“This.”

– Crunch.

Slowly, I rolled the bottle.

From fingertips to wrist, up toward the elbow, rolling the bottle like a compression roller. Very slowly, smoothly.

“Mmmphhh! Mmmmmphhhh!! MMMMMPHHHHH!!!”

Johan’s arm flattened like a sheet of paper.

“Wow. Being monstrously strong lets you do all sorts of things.”

Frider watched in admiration.

While stomping down on Johan’s body as it convulsed and jumped wildly.

Johan’s legs pounded the table in seizure-like movements.

His pupils were already half-rolled back, and a foul smell spread from between his thighs.

I stopped the bottle when I had half-crushed the area above his elbow.

It would be troublesome if he passed out completely.

I took a drag from my cigarette and waited for Johan to calm down a bit.

Confirming his voice had changed from screams to groans, I removed the cloth gagging his mouth.

“Now, are you ready to—”

“Eighty-two! Eighty-two people!! Please stop…!”

See? Highly effective.

He answered before I even finished my question.

So, about 80 people.

That shouldn’t be a problem.

I didn’t need to ask about their skills.

Men who resort to such despicable acts couldn’t possibly pose a threat to us.

“Good. Don’t you feel like we’ve built some trust between us now? I think we might even call each other friends at this point.”

I patted Johan’s cheek.

“Hnnngghh…”

Johan started sobbing. I don’t know why he’s crying when he did nothing right.

I didn’t even pat him that hard—it would be troublesome if his face caved in.

“Johan, my friend Johan. Friends shouldn’t keep secrets from each other, right? Next question. How long have you been doing this?”

“Fifty years! I heard it’s been about fifty years!”

Quite a long-standing tradition, I see.

They’ve managed to avoid detection for an impressively long time.

“Well done. Let’s keep this up. So what about the women? Not the ones you killed or sold. I can tell you’ve got them locked up somewhere.”

“Behind the village, next to the cemetery, there’s a chapel! They’re gathered in the basement there!!”

Next to the cemetery.

Yes, that’s efficient.

Outsiders wouldn’t visit a cemetery, and if a captured woman died, they could just bury her in the adjacent graveyard.

And of all places, the chapel basement…

God must be weeping.

“A chapel? Does that mean the priest is in on it too?”

Frider, who had been watching with interest, chimed in.

“N-no, we killed the priest long ago and buri—gack!”

Frider kicked him in the side.

He’s not particularly religious, so I guess he just felt like kicking him.

“It’s okay, Johan. We’re almost done. Just hang in there a little longer. So, my last question… how young do they know about what you’re doing?”

This was the most important question.

The reason I crushed his hand was to ensure he wouldn’t lie about this.

This question would determine where to draw the line on who to dispose of.

“W-well… once they seem grown enough, as an initiation…”

Initiation my ass. They’re quite skilled at this.

In other words, there’s no set age. This is getting troublesome.

“What does ‘grown enough’ mean? Is there some standard?”

I grabbed the bottle again.

Johan let out a strange groan.

“Hair! Hair! Whether it’s facial hair or hair down there! When they grow hair, we take them!”

Doesn’t that usually happen around fifteen…?

This is completely messed up. In the original story, they at least didn’t touch children. Is this what happens when it becomes reality?

It was more disgusting than I had imagined.

Well, I’ve heard everything I needed to. Time to wrap this up.

“Frider, gag him again.”

“What?! I’m not lying! It’s the truth!!”

Johan desperately pleaded.

Dripping with tears, saliva, and cold sweat. Disgusting.

“Of course I believe you. I’m not doubting you—it’s just time for us to part ways. Every meeting has its end. As friends, you’ll understand, right?”

“What does that…?! No, you said if I told the truth honestly, you’d spare me…!”

I never said that.

“Frider, did I ever say such a thing?”

“Don’t think you did.”

Frider shrugged his shoulders, as if teasing Johan.

“Right. I said I wouldn’t eat you. But that doesn’t mean I’d let you live, does it?”

If you had any conscience, you wouldn’t even think about surviving.

But I guess you wouldn’t be doing these things if you had one.

“What?! You son of a—!”

Johan’s mouth was gagged again as he tried to curse.

“Is that how you talk to a friend? Seems like our game wasn’t enough?”

Johan shook his head frantically as he faced my smile.

—-

It didn’t take long for his limbs to flatten like tablecloths.

Repeatedly passing out from the intense pain and waking up to more, Johan finally evolved into a mollusk.

You endured well, Johan. Evolution is always painful.

“That was simpler than I expected.”

Frider curiously poked at the flattened limbs.

“Guys like this don’t have much resilience. Normally it would have taken more effort, but this worked out well.”

His eyes were intact, his ears were intact, his torso was intact…

Even his lower body, which emitted a foul smell, was still intact.

“So, what now?”

“What else? We eliminate the village and try to rescue the captured women. The villagers must be missing the eight men who left earlier, and since there are about eighty of them, we should be able to hunt them down easily.”

It’s a job that could be finished in an hour.

Two hours at most.

“How do we split up?”

“Millia and I will handle the village, while you and Demian go to the chapel.”

If all four of us attacked the village together, we’d finish quickly, but we don’t know what the men at the chapel might do in the meantime.

They might take hostages or kill the women out of desperation. They could do anything.

“Hmm. Tactically that makes sense, but… I’m not sure Millia is cut out for this kind of work.”

Frider tilted his head slightly as he commented.

It was a valid point.

Since we’d need to take down fleeing villagers one by one, it made sense for Millia and me to handle the village attack since we both know how to use bows.

The problem was whether Millia, who was shocked after killing just two men, could shoot and kill dozens…

“She needs to get used to it. It’ll be less traumatic than witnessing women being kept like livestock.”

If we sent her to the chapel, she might have a breakdown.

Better to let her experience hunting human-Kobolds instead.

“You’re not wrong. So, what about this guy?”

Johan was weakly groaning, his spirit seemingly half gone.

“Let’s get ready to leave first. After that, I’ll absolve him of his sins.”

I proudly showed Frider the bottle in my hand.

The strong liquor inside sloshed around.

“You know that’s blasphemy, right?”

“Who cares. Priests do similar things sometimes.”

Chuckling with Frider, we left the waiting room, leaving Johan behind.

I returned to the room where Millia was waiting to put on my armor.

Frider went downstairs to tell Demian about our plans.

—-

“I’m back. Everything okay, Millia?”

“Yeah. No one came this way.”

Millia nodded.

She definitely seems better than before…

I wonder if she’ll be okay with what’s coming.

“Good, then get ready. We need to clean up a village. They’re all in on it.”

“Huh? Clean up? You mean… kill all those people…?”

Millia stammered, seemingly taken aback.