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Beth stared at the naked man in front of her like she wanted to peel his skin off with her eyes. Pure murder burned across her face. She gritted her teeth and spat out every word.
"Fine. Another million. I'll buy his goddamn life."
"Deal!"
Soren snapped his fingers, stepped up, and cut Beth loose. He handed her a phone.
The second the two million dollars hit his account, he slammed the middle-aged creep back into the tiger chair and strapped him down tight.
The guy started bawling, offering blank checks, promising double, triple—whatever it took to buy his way out.
Soren just smirked.
Cry harder, buddy. You don't look like you've got two nickels to rub together right now.
"Miss Beth, he's all yours." Soren gave a polite little bow and waved at the wall of blood-crusted torture tools. "I'll be right outside."
He kicked the iron door shut behind him. The screams that came through the steel sounded like someone was getting the world's worst colonoscopy.
While the guy inside howled, Soren finally had a second to check his haul.
He pulled up the system panel.
[Ding! Legitimate business income detected: $2,000,000]
[Side Quest: Debt-Ridden Sparda – progress updated.]
[Current: $2,000,000 / $100,000,000]
[Debt reduced by two million. Bonus reward: One-Time Devil Arm Draw ×2]
His phone buzzed with the transfer alert. Soren blinked, then frowned.
"Wait… what about the twenty million? Why didn't that count?"
He scrolled through the panel, half-convinced it was bugged.
Then he spotted the tiny disclaimer under the progress bar.
[All debt must be repaid through legitimate channels.]
Soren smacked his forehead. The system had warned him back when the quest first popped. He'd just been too busy staring at all those zeros to notice.
Made sense, though. Otherwise he could've just robbed a bank in a ski mask and cleared the whole hundred million overnight. The system wasn't about to let him cheese it like that.
After the initial shock, a slow grin spread across his face.
If the system didn't count the twenty mil from Ingrid… that cash was his. Clean and personal.
Two free Devil Arm draws, plus twenty million sitting pretty in his own account.
If the system had taken the full twenty, he'd still be flat broke after tonight. Now? He was actually stacked.
When Uncle Dante finally drags his ass home, I'm buying him the biggest strawberry sundae bath he's ever seen. Let the old man taste capitalism for once.
He shook off the daydream and grinned.
"System—draw!"
No fancy wheel. No golden sparkles. Just a quick pause, then two new notifications.
[Congratulations! You obtained: Faust's Hat (One-Time Use)]
[Congratulations! You obtained: Yamato (One-Time Use)]
Soren's smile froze.
He didn't know whether to laugh at his luck or cry at his luck.
Faust's Hat: a straight-up pay-to-win weapon that burned cash for massive damage. With twenty million in the bank, it was actually useful.
But Yamato? Vergil's goddamn katana. The blade that sliced dimensions, ripped apart space itself, and could even split a person's soul. Peak T0-tier gear.
In any other situation he would've been screaming with joy.
Except it was one-time use only.
Classic hoarder problem. Back in his old life he'd been the worst kind of gacha addict. Trash pulls? He wouldn't touch them. God-tier pulls? He'd rather die than waste them.
He always told himself he'd save the big ones for the final boss.
Spoiler: the final boss never came, and the god-tier stuff just collected dust forever.
"Fine. Bottom-of-the-backpack insurance policy it is."
Soren sighed, tucked the draws away, and headed out to meet Patty.
…
A long while later, Beth stumbled out of the factory, reeking of blood.
Whitney's cold body was strapped to her back.
The Otherworld had already faded. Alessa looked like she'd had her fun.
The once-heavily-guarded slaughterhouse was silent again—nothing but corpses and the smell of iron. Maybe in a hundred years, when someone dug the place up, they'd finally uncover the hell buried underneath.
Beth found a quiet patch of dirt outside the factory and gave Whitney a proper burial.
Only then did Soren walk over.
"Miss Beth, I'm heading back to town. Want a ride?"
The second she heard "town," Beth's whole body jerked. Fear flashed in her eyes.
If she hadn't met this guy a few days ago, she would've ended up worse than Whitney.
"What the hell is left to go back for? That place is full of monsters wearing human skin!"
Soren let the night wind toss his silver-streaked hair.
"To send them all straight to hell, of course."
…
Late night in the little town.
The streets were empty except for the occasional muffled scream coming from some back room.
Soren, Patty, and Beth stood on a hill overlooking the whole place.
He gave the floating girl in front of him a nod. "Do it, Alessa."
"Let every demon hiding in human skin burn in hellfire forever."
Alessa's eyes leaked bloody tears. The pretty dress she'd worn for so long lost all its color and faded back to that same blue outfit from the beginning.
The little girl rose slowly into the air. Pure darkness poured down from the sky and swallowed the town whole.
BANG!
Transformers exploded in showers of sparks. Power lines died. The entire town plunged into blackness.
Thick fog rolled in. Rusted iron wires and roaring flames from the Otherworld snaked into every house.
Screams. Wet dragging sounds. The heavy scrape of Pyramid Head's blade. A twisted symphony drifting through the mist.
The tourists who were just here for vacation would wake up tomorrow and find half the town's permanent residents gone overnight.
Soren watched Alessa floating overhead and muttered under his breath, "One bag of rice, how many floors?"
"Huh? What floors?" Patty turned, confused.
"Noth—"
Soren's words cut off. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up.
He spun around, arms snapping into a perfect guard stance.
BOOM!
A high-caliber round slammed into the dirt right by his foot, blasting a fist-sized crater.
"Who the hell—?"
"Wow, nice reflexes, little Soren."
A lazy, teasing voice drifted out of the darkness.
"You're playing demon now? Really?"
"That disgusting aura… exactly like that childish old man. I knew I shouldn't have let him drag you around."
Soren's shoulders dropped. He let out a helpless laugh.
"Lady… sis, can we maybe change up the greeting next time?"