Chapter 50: What a… Weak Traverser
The instant Meyu Inkyo's words left her mouth, a massive, hulking silhouette — trailing an eye-watering stench of decay — hurled itself at blinding speed toward the source of the unfamiliar voice.
Credit where it was due: the traverser's decisiveness was impressive. The moment something felt wrong, she'd ordered the kill without hesitation.
That said, this towering brute, easily over two meters tall…
Didn't actually seem all that strong?
The speed that would have been impossibly fast in a normal person's eyes… in Ryū's…
Looked like a slow-motion replay.
He felt as though he only needed to shift his footing slightly.
And he could dodge it with laughable ease.
Staring down the hulking figure charging at him, Ryū could make out every detail of its frankly horrifying appearance. Not a scrap of skin anywhere on its body — every muscle fiber exposed to the open air.
And yet, strangely, not a single major artery was visible.
This qualified as a monster at this point, didn't it?
Even if, before its transformation, it might have been human.
The hulking figure threw a savage punch straight at Ryū — he was, after all, the one who'd spoken.
The terrifying force churned the air, kicking up a gust of wind.
Ryū's hair fluttered in the draft.
Clearly, the punch packed serious power.
But it still fell far, far short.
Ryū raised one hand and caught the blow head-on. The enormous fist collided with his open palm and a heavy, dull impact rang out — BOOM.
The hulking figure's thick arm began to tremble violently.
But the creature seemed to feel no pain whatsoever.
Its other massive fist was already swinging in.
"What a pain…"
The words sounded bored, but internally Ryū was genuinely taken aback. Because this thing was… a little bit weak.
Or rather, it was really, truly weak. Weak to the point of making his scalp tingle.
He'd caught the punch with one hand, effortlessly.
He hadn't even used Tekkai.
His Points-enhanced constitution alone…
Was enough to crush this thing in every conceivable dimension.
Unexpectedly, absurdly feeble.
Watching the second fist come in, Ryū tilted his head to the side, unhurried. The skinless fist, trailing a faint draft, sailed past his ear without touching him.
Shigan!!
A wet, rapid-fire staccato of punctures filled the air — like sharp objects punching through raw meat.
The hulking figure looked as though it had been raked by a light machine gun. Holes appeared across its body, one after another, and it slowly crumpled to the ground.
Ryū was, admittedly, a little puzzled. This thing… couldn't take a hit at all.
Had he even used ten percent of his strength? Maybe… probably… roughly that much?
This creature, which could loosely be called a "zombie," was at best capable of beating… maybe a dozen ordinary people?
Its life force was impressively stubborn, though, he'd give it that.
It had taken over a dozen Shigan strikes before finally dying for good.
And it seemed like the killing blow was the one that hit the head.
Was the brain always the weak point with zombies?!
* * *
Off to the side, Yukari's expression carried a hint of disappointment. She'd been hoping to finally witness the Admin-dono's true strength… but the enemy had turned out to be rather underwhelming. Or, to be blunt, genuinely pathetic.
Not even in the same league as the Blackbeard from the One Piece world.
Not even close. Separated by who knew how many tiers.
Under these circumstances, the Admin-dono hadn't needed to show anything resembling his real power.
He'd dispatched the enemy as casually as swatting a fly.
It looked so fearsome…
And yet it was this weak.
The big brute really didn't live up to its villainous appearance.
"Leave the other one to this one."
Yukari gently tore open a Gap. Her elegant, pale hand slipped inside.
The other end of the Gap materialized beside the second hulking zombie.
A slender, white hand emerged from the tear in space.
And with a single, delicate flick of her finger…
BOOM!!!
A hole at least thirty centimeters in diameter exploded clean through the second zombie's torso. Punched straight through, front to back.
Yukari's control over her strength was exquisite. The damage was limited entirely to the zombie. Nothing else was affected — not even the wall right beside it showed so much as a hairline crack.
"GRAAAGH!! Hssss… GRAAAGH!!"
Yukari regarded the creature thrashing on the ground with mild surprise.
She murmured, curious: "Its vitality is rather tenacious. Its heart is already in pieces, and it can still roar that loudly?"
Ryū spoke up. "Destroy the head and it'll stay down."
Yukari blinked, then gave a thoughtful nod.
Come to think of it, the Admin-dono had also gone for the head just now.
And that was when the grotesque thing had finally died, wasn't it?
Only by destroying the brain could you kill it…
How interesting.
If these things weren't so unspeakably hideous — and if the stench weren't enough to test even a Yōkai Sage's tolerance — Yukari would have been genuinely tempted to bring one back to Gensōkyō for study.
Who knew? She might discover something remarkable.
But considering the smell…
Yukari abandoned that impractical notion.
Another flick of the finger.
This time, aimed at the head.
Just as Ryū had said: the moment Yukari obliterated its skull, the zombie — which had been howling in a frenzy — went completely, permanently still. Its life force guttered and died.
She snapped the Gap shut just before the spray of blood could reach her fingers.
The Admin-dono had probably been through enough that this kind of thing didn't faze him anymore.
But she had no intention of washing her hands a few hundred times when she got home.
The Yōkai Sage was, in fact, quite fastidious.
* * *
"Number One… Number One and Number Two — my painstakingly synthesized Evolved Zombies — they… they couldn't even survive a single exchange?! How is that possible? This… isn't this supposed to be a slice-of-life world?!"
Meyu Inkyo's face was a mask of disbelief. And that blonde girl across from her… something about her stirred an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
As if she'd seen her somewhere before. But the memory was blurred.
That wasn't the point, though. The point was: how could people like this exist here?! This was a slice-of-life world! How could any of this be happening?
She swallowed hard, staring at the thoroughly dead Number One and Number Two.
A sense of absurdity welled up inside her: the Evolved Zombies she had poured so much effort into synthesizing hadn't lasted a single round against these strangers.
Had she somehow opened her traverser career on the wrong difficulty setting?!
My slice-of-life world can't possibly be this overpowered!
☆☆☆
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