CHAPTER 52
Cain.
A Japanese man who no longer remembered his real name.
He had been a hikikomori in Japan.
The reason was bullying during his school days.
The sole reason for the bullying was that he had no parents.
Cain protested to the school.
He even sent a letter to the Board of Education.
But at the time, Cain's school principal didn't want the issue to escalate.
So he smoothed things over with the Board of Education and swept it under the rug.
Furthermore, the classmate who bullied him was a well-known delinquent who ran with several gangs in the neighborhood.
The delinquent brought his friends and beat Cain to a pulp.
Then they left him for dead on a mountain.
Cain crawled out of the mountains, half-dead. After that, he turned his back on the world and shut himself away at home.
That was the life of the man named Cain.
Cain wished.
He wished that one day he would be transported to another world, just like the character named Cain from a niche anime he liked.
He wished and wished with all his heart.
And when he was finally transported to this world, he was overcome with joy and tried to achieve everything he never could before.
Money, fame, a girlfriend, even changing his past experiences from school.
He wanted to achieve and change everything.
He had been a social misfit because he couldn't belong in society, but this was another world.
It was a place far removed from the society he had lived in, so he could be more assertive.
Perhaps to him, this other world felt like a game.
The protagonist of a common story where a Transferee gets a cheat ability and goes on a rampage.
That's what he thought of himself.
"Hahk, huff!"
Inside the cave.
That is, until one of his arms was severed and he was running for his life.
His face deathly pale, he ran, panting with feverish breaths.
He denied it in his mind over and over, telling himself this wasn't real. But the pain from his arm kept forcing him to realize that this was, in fact, reality.
It hadn't hurt this much even when he was beaten up by the gang of delinquents. And it hadn't been this scary even when he was being chased by them.
"Please, please!"
Just as he cried out with a desperation to live that he had never felt before,
Thud!
Cain tripped on a rock and pitched forward.
Whoosh!
In that instant, a few strands of his hair were cut and flew through the air.
When Cain raised his head with a bewildered look, he saw a single dagger that had flown past him.
It was a dagger belonging to the Avengers who had appeared a moment ago.
This dagger had been thrown at him.
Why?
"Huuk!?"
Cain gasped and turned his head.
Clack—
A woman was walking toward him.
Long black hair and red eyes.
A sword was visible between her long sleeves.
"Cain, why are you running away like that? You're making things difficult."
Cain flinched and trembled.
Her appearance had changed, but her name was Jenny.
But Cain already knew that was a fake name.
In reality, she was the No-Named Serial Killer.
"Why, why are you doing this to me!" Cain screamed at the top of his lungs.
Jenny had suddenly appeared while he was talking with Arshel.
Her sword had slit Arshel's throat without hesitation and then turned on Cain.
Cain had hurriedly summoned his Dimension Eater, but her sword was far sharper.
She had split the Dimension Eater in a single blow and then targeted Cain.
That's when the Avengers appeared.
They drew their weapons in unison and charged, intending to kill the serial killer.
The moment Cain saw that, he turned and fled.
"You saw, didn't you?"
Just then, Jenny raised the corners of her mouth in a chilling smile.
It was a terrifying smile filled with killing intent.
Seeing it, Cain's body trembled violently.
"What, what the hell did I see!"
"You don't need to know right now. But it would be troublesome if you told others what you saw."
"I won't tell! I swear I won't tell!"
With a leisurely attitude, she tapped the tip of her longsword on the ground.
"Ahaha."
Suddenly, the sound of her laughter was right next to him.
Cain saw a sword thrust right in front of his nose.
In that instant, the space in front of Cain distorted and a wolf with multiple eyes burst out.
CLANG!
Her sword clashed with the wolf's teeth and was flung wide.
Just as another head sprouted from the Dimension Eater's neck and tried to bite her,
CRACK!
Instead of using the arm that had been knocked away, her other hand grabbed the creature's snout and crushed it.
CRUUUNCH!
Her red eyes left afterimages as they moved.
Cain was using the Dimension Eater as a decoy to escape, but he was already within her range.

Just as she was about to swing her sword again to kill Cain,
Crackle—
She rolled across the ground as the sound of lightning crackled from behind her.
BZZZZT!
Lightning struck the spot where she had been standing, sending currents of electricity spreading across the floor.
It was magic cast by Bulldog.
As expected, it's a pain if you don't take out the mage first.
But that wasn't all.
Peeeeee!
The man had blown the horn.
The moment he did, red tattoos appeared all over the bodies of the two cultists who had just died. Red smoke flowed from their mouths, forming a red crown above their heads.
The Transcendent worshipped by the Radiance Faith.
The Owner of the Lazy Throne.
They were men who had planted Apostles within their bodies from the very beginning. I had thought they were below standard for a capture team, but this was the reason.
"Didn't I tell you? If you are the real one, we're dead men anyway."
The two cultists, now Apostles through the power of the Owner of the Lazy Throne, charged forward, spewing crimson smoke.

"Prove it."
The serial killer and the two Apostles clashed.
The Apostles' bodies had long surpassed the limits of a human.
No matter how the serial killer swung her sword, it just bounced off their hard, tattooed skin.
On the other hand, the claws that grew from their hands easily tore through the killer's soft skin.
For the first time, the killer let out a pained grunt.
The Throne's Horn, wielded by the cultist.
It was treated as a divine object even within the Holy Church.
The fact that the cultist had brought it meant the Archbishop was truly backing him.
"Now, what will you do?"
The cultist holding the horn grinned slyly.
His face showed he was already certain of victory.
"I don't know what you insects are planning, but it'll be fun when you, who are clearly playing the role of bait, disappear—"
KRA-BOOOOOOOOM!
The cultist's words stopped abruptly.
Right next to him, one of the Apostles he created was sent flying into the wall.
"Keuk!"
Bulldog, the mage, was also caught up in it.
He collided with the flying Apostle, rolled into the wall, and coughed up blood.
He was a gruesome sight, as if he'd been hit by a massive boulder.
After grinding his teeth for revenge, he was taken out of the fight so anticlimactically.
But he wasn't the only one.
The Apostle, with all its limbs broken, could only twitch, unable to move anymore.
It looked like an insect that had been crushed by something enormous.
The cultist, his face stiff, slowly turned to look at the serial killer.
Half of the killer's face had collapsed.
An attack from the Apostle had smashed her head.
But even in that state, she wasn't dead.
Instead, her collapsed head was slowly regenerating, twisting into a grotesque form.
Splurt—
At the same time, the head of the other Apostle, caught in the killer's grasp, was crushed.
The strength of her grip was on a completely different level than before.
Fangs began to sprout from the killer's mouth.
Her eyes started to resemble those of a beast, not a human.
Finally, even her skin turned black.
She could no longer be considered human.
The cultist knew the identity of her transformed state.
"Hah, I thought you were just ordinary bait."
He sighed and reversed his grip on the horn.
Then, he aimed the sharp point of the horn at his own neck.
"So you were a Modified Body?"
"G-grrrk."
Instead of an answer, slobber dripped from her mouth.
"Seriously, you people are insane. There's a limit to blasphemy."
A group so insane that even the Radiance Faith would click their tongues in disapproval.
That was Black Dawn.
BOOM—

With that, her figure vanished.
A delayed sonic boom erupted around them as she lunged at the cultist.
By the time she was right in front of him, the horn was already embedded in the cultist's neck.
KRAAASH!
The cultist, now an Apostle, threw the serial killer off him.
He too took on a monstrous form, spewing crimson smoke from his mouth.
"Let's see whose Transcendent's will is greater."
The cultist, his entire body covered in red tattoos, let out a roar.
The serial killer also let out a roar that was far from human.
With that, the serial killer and the cultist clashed, beginning a ferocious battle.
But they did not know.

In the cave where they fought, a certain Corpse Spider had arrived, completely unnoticed.