The Earring Rat Woman...
After hearing Yu Ishigami, Beam, and the others finish their report, Makoto Nishikado wore an odd expression.
It had reminded him of some filthy things from his previous life.
Ishigami continued, "Senior, over the past few months, mutants like the Crablante have been appearing all over the world. But ever since Makoto Nation was established, the numbers have shot up."
"Most of them are like the Earring Rat Woman. People pushed into a corner. Capitalist elites who refused to roll over and die."
"It seems that when humans are pushed into a corner, or when a specific emotion breaches its absolute limit, they can undergo this kind of mutation. For now, let's call it monsterization."
Makoto let out a quiet laugh. "From Crablante a few months ago, to Monkey Charlie before that, and now the Earring Rat Woman..."
By now, after seeing so many monsters, he understood something.
This world he had once mistaken for a chaotic everyday crossover setting was turning into the kind of urban superpowered world from One Punch Man.
In that world, humans usually became monsters in one of two ways.
One came from genetic mutation caused by twisted obsessions or unbearable stress.
The other came through outside interference, like bodily modification or consuming monster cells.
The Crablante and the Earring Rat Woman clearly belonged to the first category.
Standing nearby, Chika Fujiwara said, "More and more monsters are causing trouble."
"Ishigami has been hunting them worldwide these past few days, but there are only so many of us. Every day, plenty of people still die at their hands."
"More and more people from around the world are fleeing here. It's not only because you've driven prices down to the limit, Lord Makoto, and made it cheap to relocate. With someone like Ishigami guarding the country, of course they'll want to..."
"Don't let the globalists in," Makoto said.
Chika blinked, then nodded at once.
The Japanese tended to have a more favorable impression of those people, but because Makoto still held onto the worldview of his past life, Chika had gradually adapted to his perspective."But if this keeps going, that's not really a solution, is it?" Mrs. Yukinoshita cut in from the other side.
At the moment, Ayano Yukinoshita was serving as the steward of Makoto Palace. By rights, she was not qualified to participate in a meeting this important.
Even so, she felt it was necessary to warn Makoto.
He needed to be careful about invasive outsiders.
Look at France and you could see why. Tourists could wander in and think half the country belonged to Africa.
Even more absurdly, in recent years there had been street marches where black protesters demanded that white people get out of France, declaring it their country.
Completely insane.
The discussion continued for a while longer. In the end, they decided to expel all illegal residents and opportunistic migrants from Makoto Nation and keep as many ordinary people as possible.
For now, immigration would be open only to China and a very small number of other Asian countries. Even then, priority would go only to genuine victims of disaster.
Of course, that was only treating the symptoms.
But that was fine.
Makoto had never planned to cure the disease.
From the beginning, he had never intended to be a savior. Keeping his own territory in order was enough.
As for the rest of the world...
Not his problem.
The moment the policy was announced, the entire world was shaken.
Makoto was not even trying to hide it. He had practically written his disgust for those people across his face.
The wealthy elites expelled from Makoto Nation were furious, but they still dreamed of returning.
After all, the country had been built on America's foundation. Even if Makoto had seized ninety-nine percent of their property, as long as they still held onto the remaining one percent, they could still live like royalty.
And now that monsters were wreaking havoc across the globe, Makoto Nation was unquestionably the safest place in the world.
So they started speaking with great righteousness, condemning Makoto's actions as ethnic discrimination, insisting that squid lives mattered too.
Naturally, they would not foolishly step forward themselves. Instead, they stirred up ordinary people to march in the streets. It was hardly the first time they had pulled that trick in history.
When Makoto heard about it, he smiled.
Perfect.
Ever since he had become the ruler of a nation, Pochita's power had been weakening.
There was nothing strange about that. Pochita was a devil. A devil's strength came from human fear. The more people feared him, the stronger he became.
But now so many people in the world saw Makoto as a beacon. Bound to him, Pochita had naturally grown weaker and weaker.
"Senior, should I kill them?" Ishigami asked from behind him.
"Too merciful, isn't it?" Makoto said with a faint chuckle. "That won't create any fear."
For beasts like them, death was relief.
Makoto intended to use this opportunity to awaken the fear of garbage all over Blue Planet once more and restore some of Pochita's power.
Then inspiration struck.
Plenty of those people had been regulars on that island, hadn't they?
Good.
Then they could experience for themselves what they had done to those children.
"Humphrey."
"Woof woof! I'm here, boss!" The sinister little Libido devil trotting around Makoto's feet answered in a human voice.
"Leave this to the Fab four. Let those rioters get a taste of it too."
As he spoke, Makoto took out his phone and pulled up news reports about Epstein and that island, then showed them to the Libido devil.
The Fab four leaned in for a look and were instantly dumbfounded.
What the hell?
Compared to this, they barely qualified as devils at all.
That night, YouTube hosted another massive livestream, one that drew more than a hundred million viewers.
Countless people turned pale and vomited as they watched, yet they still could not suppress their morbid curiosity enough to look away.
The stream was titled:
Capital Island.
On screen, the powerful figures who once appeared untouchable in financial news now sat in cages like merchandise, each one marked with a number.
Some of them had been forced into obscene flight attendant uniforms or sailor outfits. Below them sat a crowd of vicious, grotesque creatures that were clearly not human, holding numbered paddles and bidding.
Bang, bang, bang.
The Libido devil struck a tiny gavel against the table and shouted, "Next up, item number forty-four... Andre! Opening bid... one hundred years of lifespan! All right, let's begin!"
To ordinary people who were not players, the beings seated below would have looked like monsters no different from Crablante or the Earring Rat Woman.
But former transmigrator players like Yukino Yukinoshita and Shizuka Hiratsuka, along with natives like Nayuta and Reze, could tell at a glance.
Those were devils from the Chainsaw Man world.
In the end, a Lion Devil bought the man once known as a prince, and a regular guest on that island, for three hundred years of lifespan.
Then, under the gaze of the entire world, the former prince was seized by the throat, beaten, and slowly suffocated. Instinct drove him to resist.
But how could human strength compare to a devil's?
The harder he struggled, the more excited the Lion Devil became.
Then, amid the cheers of the other devils, the Lion Devil forced him into women's clothing and made him role-play in public, humiliating him before everyone.
At the end, it tore him open and devoured him.
The demonic feast rolled on.
As the host, the Libido devil occasionally turned to the camera and offered thanks in all sincerity.
"Many thanks to Lord Makoto Nishikado for his generous support of this event!"
At that moment, not only those capitalist parasites, but ordinary people as well, even some of the fans who had once regarded Makoto as a beacon, felt a deep fear of him rise in their hearts.
The people in the livestream deserved to die.
Even so...
Wasn't this too brutal?
Yet no one dared say so through comments or bullet chat. They did not even dare mention it to the people around them, afraid they might wind up just like the ones trapped in the broadcast.
Makoto found that amusing.
Pitiful?
Weren't those children pitiful too?
At that moment, Pochita, lying by Makoto's feet, suddenly opened his eyes.
"A-Makoto, I can feel my power coming back."
Smiling, Makoto scooped Pochita into his arms.
Exactly.
This was the effect he wanted.
He had given a speech before, yes, but he had never been interested in becoming the beacon of an entire planet.
The people who respected him were free to keep doing so.
But he wanted them to fear him too.
Better yet, he wanted them terrified.
"What's going on?"
In front of the screen, Haruno Yukinoshita fought down a wave of nausea as she stared at those devils who looked like they had crawled out of the Underworld..
She had never fought devils directly in the Chainsaw Man world, but she knew what they looked like from the news. She had even seen several of those exact devils on television over there.
So why were they in the real world?
Thinking back, after returning from that world, Makoto had gained a number of new people around him.
The bomb girl Reze. The child called Nayuta. Beam, who was clearly not human. That Libido dog. And more.
The first two were one thing, but the others were obviously devils or fiends from the Chainsaw Man world.
How was that possible?
Why were people and devils from that world appearing in reality?
Just then, the Libido devil on the livestream dropped to both knees again and prayed with a devout expression.
"Thank you, Lord Makoto Nishikado, for blessing me!"
A devil praying.
That alone was enough to make this world fear Makoto even more.
If these devils could appear in reality, then Makoto had to be involved somehow.
During the livestream, some of the capitalist elites transformed into monsters under the pressure of overwhelming survival instinct and fear.
But the devils were hardly harmless prey.
By the end of the stream, they had absorbed a great deal of fear from humanity in this world as well.
If judged by the monster rankings from One Punch Man, they had at least reached Tiger level.
Against those Wolf-level monsters, they still had overwhelming superiority.
People in the real world had also witnessed, with their own eyes, the process of a human turning into a monster. Their understanding of monsters deepened once more.
In the wealthy Manhattan district of Makoto Nation stood a detached villa with the word Nakano engraved on the nameplate.
"Everyone, dinner's ready!"
At Nino Nakano's call, Ichika Nakano, Miku Nakano, Yotsuba Nakano, and Itsuki Nakano all took their seats one after another.
"Dad isn't coming home today either?" Miku asked quietly.
Her relationship with her adoptive father was only average, but she was still just a seventeen-year-old high school girl. Of course she still had a longing for fatherly affection.
More importantly, she was not ungrateful. Their adoptive father rarely spoke with them, but he had never shortchanged them financially. She was grateful for that, and she did want to grow closer to him.
"The hospital was moved from Japan to America, so Dad has a lot to take care of," Ichika said in his defense.
Nino gave a dissatisfied snort. "Or maybe he just doesn't like being around me."
Back in Japan, Maruo Nakano had rarely eaten with them. Some years, it happened fewer than twice.
That had always irritated Nino's proud, difficult personality.
"Ichika, this isn't America now. It's Makoto Nation," Yotsuba reminded her.
"Oh, right. Sorry, sorry." Ichika smiled uneasily, then glanced around as though searching for something.
"What are you looking for?" Nino asked.
"I'm checking whether Commander-in-Chief Ishigami is about to suddenly appear in our house and shoot me," Ichika said, half joking.
The other sisters could not help laughing too.
That man was world-famous for his loyalty to Makoto.
"Can we eat now?" Itsuki asked, swallowing hard.
The sisters looked at each other and smiled, then said in perfect unison, "Itadakimasu!"
Naturally, they chatted as they ate, and the hottest topic over the last two days was obvious.
"Did everyone watch the livestream yesterday?" Ichika asked.
All four of her sisters turned a shade paler. Nino rolled her eyes.
"Don't bring up something that disgusting while we're eating."
Even if all he had done was inflict on those perverts exactly what they had done to children...
For ordinary high school girls, it was still way too much.
"I just don't know where Mr. Nishikado found so many monsters. And they actually listened to him?" Ichika said, taking a sip of miso soup with open curiosity.
"Not monsters. Devils," Yotsuba corrected.
"You know about that, Yotsuba?" Miku asked. She had been quiet until then.
Yotsuba's expression froze at once, and she immediately started dodging the question.
The Reincarnation Game forbade players from exposing their identities.
Seeing that Yotsuba clearly meant to hide it, the others did not press her and changed the subject on their own.
"By the way, I'm a second-year student now," Ichika said, stretching lazily and showing off her curving figure in the process.
That was right.
An entire year had passed since Makoto had been chosen by the Reincarnation Game and gained supernatural power. The characters from the original stories had all grown a year older as well.
The Nakano sisters, Megumi Kato, and the others who were the same age as Makoto had all advanced to their second year of high school.
Though, at this point, Makoto barely went to school at all.
"If so much hadn't happened this year, I might've been held back," Miku muttered.
Thanks to the upheaval Makoto had caused, Shuchiin Academy had never even gotten around to holding final exams. All the students had simply been promoted automatically.
"I-I did study seriously," Itsuki insisted.
To be fair, among the five sisters, she really was the one who worked hardest academically.
Hard work was one thing.
Talent was another.
She studied hard, yet still failed every subject.
The moment grades came up, all five sisters looked a little irritated.
Puffing out her cheeks, Nino said, "With the world turning into this kind of mess, test scores don't matter at all anymore. As long as you have superpowers, you can establish yourself in society now. Airi Akizuki wasn't exactly some top student either, and now she can throw her weight around in high society."
"You're forgetting one thing, Nino," Ichika said. "Airi Akizuki is one of Leader Nishikado's women."
If anyone had truly skyrocketed in status, it was Yu Ishigami.
In less than half a year, he had gone from a shut-in young man to the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the strongest country on Earth.
What Ichika did not know was that for Ishigami, it had not been half a year.
It had been thirteen.
Without realizing it, the conversation drifted back to Makoto yet again.
Yotsuba felt a secret little thrill in her chest.
Among the five sisters, she was currently the only one who had any real contact with Makoto, and that gave her the guilty sweetness of having stolen a bite for herself.
"I'm going to train hard again tomorrow."
It seemed Yotsuba had plans for the next day.
Ichika caught the shift in her expression and guessed about eighty percent of what her little sister was thinking.
The next morning, a girl with a ribbon tied in her hair, making it look like rabbit ears were sprouting from her head, quietly opened her door and slipped out like a suspicious little dog.
Then, the very next second after Yotsuba shut the door, Ichika's bedroom door on the second floor slowly opened as well.
Let's see where Yotsuba's going.
To stake out her sister, Ichika, who normally slept like the dead, had simply stayed up all night.
When people were doing something sneaky, they had the strongest willpower in the world.
But during the tail, Ichika was shocked to find that her sister was absurdly fast.
Yotsuba had always been the most athletic of the five sisters, but this was ridiculous.
Even Usain Bolt would've packed his bags and run for the hills.
Ichika was forced to rent one of the little yellow bicycles and chase after her.
Those had been introduced after Makoto Nation was established, incidentally.
By the time she followed Yotsuba all the way to the palace that looked like a grand ancient imperial complex, Ichika was stunned.
And when the guards outside let her little sister in...
Ichika's entire brain shut down.