—Eyes! Oh, I’m back here again. Figures.

Rubbing my hands, I turn to my inventory. Now, what has my dear friend gifted me from beyond the grave? Let’s see here… A few knives, some scrapers, a hammer, a leather strop… Yep, that’s the good stuff. I wonder how I might be able to tan leather without a proper tanning rack…? Eh, I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

…Huh. Looks like I was so distracted by the prospect of new toys that I didn’t even notice the madness-inducing WHITEness of the lobby. Interesting.

Either I painstakingly paint the lobby using my crummy blood for the coming twenty hours, or I test out my new tools. Hmmm…

After a bit of consideration, I have decided to paint a little corner of the lobby, and then test out the tanning tools in there. Win-win! It’s very nice. Fr. Moonlight had fancier tools, but these are well-used and clearly loved. I like both.

Absorbed in my fun game, I barely even notice the time passing until the floor opens.

Do you want to enter?>

I hesitate a bit. Maybe, if I’m playing with my tools, then the month passing won’t feel so bad…?

[No] will be chosen for you

and the floor may be accessed

next attempt.>

…Alright, alright, I get it; no need to be like that. Sheesh.

I press the ‘yes’ button, still sitting cross-legged on the floor. A decision I come to regret as the world around me shifts, and all of a sudden I’m sitting cross-legged in the middle of a crowded street, not even a second passing before someone bumps into me and stumbles to fall onto the cobblestone road. Acting on instincts faster than even shame, I draw my legs to my chest, entering the fetal position. The person who just tripped over me looks around, confused.

Unfortunately, since I’m still sitting in the road, someone else soon walks right into me, kissing the dirt just like the last one.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

I fly to my feet. A myriad of eyes turn to me, widening as they take in not just my height, but also the fact that I’m a human. Yep, great, wonderful, glad you people can be normal about what I look like, thank you very much. Turning my face around and about, I eventually spot an alleyway that’s moderately darker than this hellhole of a street. I practically leap for it, making a few old ladies scream in horror and overall ruining the otherwise quite gentle mood.

I slip-n-slide inside the alley, gluing myself to the wall and letting my stealth skills hide me from public view completely. After only half a minute or so, I finally stop hyperventilating.

Phew… What the heck is even—

Hell Difficulty Twenty-ninth Floor:

The Diseased City.>

<[Clear Condition]

End the sickness plaguing

the city of Oran.

2 613 infected.>

Ah. So, that’s the deal. If nothing else, that certainly explains the smell. Going purely by scent, this city seems to hold, at the very least, around fifty thousand inhabitants. It’s positively crowded. More than that, though, I can smell the disease. It’s bustling. Stinking. Almost—

Sniff sniff. I turn to look down the alley. There’s a young, obviously drunk guy relieving himself. In broad daylight, too.

…Well, that’s pretty convenient. I was thinking about where to get a disguise, so this is actually very helpful.

Striding up behind him, I slit his throat before he has time to stop humming. The alley is pretty secluded, so I don’t take him anywhere else. The dismantled limbs, organs and similar go into my inventory, and the skin goes onto myself. It isn’t quite snug, but I don’t have time to experiment with tanning and such quite yet, so for now it’ll have to be good enough.

I peek out of the alley again. Right, so, how do I do this best? Fire is a pretty standard one, but if people survive, it gets complicated. So, instead… Poisoning water supplies, and such? Not a bad idea. Another way to do it would be to spread another plague, and have them tag-team everyone. I’d like to kill as many as possible personally though since it helps increase my skills.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

…However, I’ll hold off on that for a moment. There’s no timer on this floor, and even if the plague starts slowing down, I can always get it going again with a new one. In other words, there’s no reason to hurry this.

No, if anything, I have good reason to take it slow.

With the past floors, for lack of goblins, I was unable to test out a certain skill.

<[To Make A Martyr(Lv.MAX)]

The God of Cruelty, who watches

over those that show cruelty

above mercy, has granted some

of His powers to His potential plaything.>

any wound using the fresh heart of

a goblin, human, or dragon.

Cannot be used to heal user.>

<[SOVEREIGN SKILL]>

However, now, with a whole city full of fresh hearts… I can test it out to my heart’s content! Wonderful. I’m starting to consider the possibility that cruelty sent me here specifically to play around with it. Of course, there’s no way to tell if he’s the one who chose this task for me. They don’t talk much anymore. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but it gives me less to be distracted by, which is always a plus.

Before I jump right into exploration, I need to get a better sense of where I am. To begin, I’ll need to know whose skin I’m wearing. If I’m lucky, he’s a bachelor of some sort, which would mean that I have a private residence waiting for me, somewhere. Honestly, considering the time of day, I can’t imagine anyone but a bachelor to be in the position I found him.

So, following the scent on his clothes and letting GVS take over, I head towards where his smell is the most concentrated—ergo, where he spends the majority of his days and nights. After around half an hour of walking, I find a university. It’s designed more like a church, but it is absolutely a university. The students are either walking from building to building, listless and zombie-like, or sitting outside in the nice early-autumn sun, equally dead-eyed. Hm.

I head for the place where he spends the second most time.

It’s a dorm. The building is a squat, pathetic little thing that smells like sewage, alcohol and featureless food. I hesitate on the doorstep. Is it even unlocked? I can smell people in there, but how will they react to my arrival?

…Even if they react poorly, I can always just do away with them.

The thought allows me to regain bravery, and I open the door, heading inside. It smells even more like food once in here. But not any specific food. Trying to dissect the smells is futile, and even though it’s honestly a repulsive stench, I find myself moving through it, down a corridor to the right, walking through various rooms until I reach a staircase. Up, to the left, into another hallway…

I find the room that smells the most like whoever I’m in. I open the door, enter, close it behind me, and turn around just in time to spot a guy sitting at the tiny room’s desk, his back to me. He’s facing the window, neck formed into an U-shape to let him peruse the contents of his book better. I freeze where I stand.

His large ear twitches, and he turns around. “Dude, I told you before, I need to be alone to cram this thing. I know you can read a whole tome in like an hour, but I’m a standard mortal! So, unless you want me to tell Ilwa that you’re hanging out with other kits, I suggest you move your drunk ass out that door and close it behind you, nice—”

I stride across the room, grab him by the neck and pull him off the chair before slamming him onto the floor, planting myself atop his chest. “Hey,” I say. “Who am I?”

He gasps for air, his eyes massive and darting to and fro as his brain attempts to catch up with what just happened.

I pull a little on the hide stretched onto my right hand, letting my needle-sharp claws stab through the fingertips. I streak one of my claws across his face, the razor-sharp tip slitting a long RED line across his green skin. The pain makes his eyes finally focus on me properly. “Who am I?” I repeat.

His chest starts spasming into rhythms suitable for math rock and his mouth opens to try to make coherent words come out. “Y—you, what are—”

“Who am I?”

“You—you aren’t Lepp,” he whimpers. “You aren’t—please, what have you—”

Lepp. That’s a dumb name. “Where is this place?”

“Oh—oh, Gods, please, please don’t hurt me,” he says. “God of Knowledge, please, if You’re listening, don’t let me die here, I swear I’ll pass all my exams, so, please, just—”

I stab my claw through his cheek. “Where is this place?”

He winces in pain, tears streaking down his face and snot going down his nose. “O—O—Oran, the,” he draws in a deep, snivelling breath, “the Apostle Johe dormitory, of—of the university of Oran…” He takes another breath, his gaze starting to wander again as he mutters ‘Oh Gods, oh Gods, oh Gods,’ under his breath.

“Does anyone know you’re here?”

His eyes snap back to me. He blinks. “Th—that’s…” Great big tears go down his eyes. “Please. Please. I don’t know what you are, I don’t know what you did to Lepp, but I—I won’t tell anyone. Not a soul. I—I swear it by the God of Truth. I mean, I—” He tries to smile, but fails miserably. “I’m just a student! Who in their right mind would believe me?”

I’m reminded of something. I stand up. He remains on the floor, breathing quickly. His eyes ask more than his mouth did. “Stay here,” I tell him. Since he seems like the sneaky sort, I also add, “If you try to leave, I’ll know.” And then, just to rub it in, “If you try to leave, I won’t make it quick.”

I give him a look. He nods quickly, unblinking. Great! With that done, I exit the room, take a quick sniff, and ascertain that the closest goblin is in the next room over. Excellent.

I enter the room. She turns to me, and stares, clearly expecting her presence to be enough for me to realize that this isn’t my room, and that I should probably leave. I do neither of these things. Instead, I cross the room, grab her by the neck, and pull her out of the room and back into my own dorm room. Thankfully, the guy is still there, lying on the floor, with the sole difference being that he has now soiled himself. Gross.

I toss her down next to him. She yelps in pain, clutching at the back of her head and next. “Lapp, what in the world are you—”

Stepping on her chest, I push her down onto the floor, feeling a few ribs snap under my foot. Her abdomen twitches and I can tell an annoying sound is coming, so I crouch down and put a hand over her mouth. “Scream, and you die first.” Her wide eyes tremble with terror. “Understood?”

She jerks a nod. I pull my hand off her face. She doesn’t scream, but she does draw in a labored breath and say, “Wh—who are you…?”

Since her question is unimportant, I decide to ignore it. Let’s see… The skill allows me to heal people by using the fresh heart of a goblin, human, or dragon. So, to begin, for the sake of simplicity, I gag her with a bit of scrap leather and then proceed to break both of her arms and legs. The guy seems pretty surprised by the turn of events, despite him asking me not to do something similar only a minute ago, going so far as to leap to his feet with the clear intent of doing something stupid. Not that he has time to.

“Wh—wh—what are you—”

In accordance with my unsaid promise to kill him quickly, I stab my hand through his chest to pull out his still-beating heart. It doesn’t get any fresher than this. He staggers a little before finding support on the chair he was sitting in mere minutes earlier. It isn’t enough to hold him, though, and he clatters to the floor, bringing the chair down with him. The girl beneath me stares at him in horror.

I hold his fresh heart. I look down at her. Um, so, now, with this…

What am I even supposed to do…?

I wave it a little in front of her. Alakazam, alakazim, heal this girl’s limb!

Silence.

…Nothing. I press the heart against her. Here, get better. Heal, damn you!

But she doesn’t heal. Not even when I feed her the heart do her limbs un-break themselves. I sigh loudly. Alright, it’s not like I expected it to work on the first try, but this is still disappointing. Oh, well. There’s always the next time, I guess.

I do away with her.

The dorm room worked as headquarters for a few days, but then I got annoyed at having to live so close to other people, so I took residence in a normal house. The family I stayed with was very hospitable once they no longer breathed. During the coming week or two, I spent the majority of my days and nights skulking about, exploring the city, finding shortcuts and holes in the walls, designating the best places to test out my skills, and—of course—testing out the make-a-martyr skill.

It all went pretty well. At least, until I got caught.