CH 15

[Appropriate Fire Fighting Activity]

Iris Niflheim was a member of the guard who protected the order of the “Netherworld”.

She had whitish brown skin and silver hair that grew long to her back.

Her long, slender limbs, and her breasts and hips that curved ideally drew a perfect body line.

Covering that feminine body were nothing but a tube top that tighten her breasts and a micromini hot pants. They were consisted of some ornaments like a folk costume, but in essence it boasted the same degree of exposure as underwear.

She, who dressed in such a lascivious outfit as everyday wear, was now in a hurry running to the ‘Tower’.

“What is it, what is it!? This is the first time I’ve ever seen such ‘heat’!? What the heck is going on!?”

The Magic Eyes that dwelled in her eyes had the power to reflect the degree of ‘heat’ that people’s heart emits, just like a thermography.

Even in the ‘Netherworld’, people who were doing evil deeds because they have a strong regret or people with radical thoughts who scattered destruction existed, although few.

Since such people often had ‘heat’ that overflows from their bodies, this ability to mark hidden and dangerous people ‘just by looking’ was convenient to her surroundings.

The stronger the ‘heat’, the redder and hotter it felt.

In the sight of Iris who had such a power, the ‘Tower’ suddenly gave off a huge amount of ‘heat’.

The strong ‘heat’, which she had never felt before in her life, spread from the middle of the ‘Tower’ to its entirety; to her, it felt as if the ‘Tower’ was made of fire.

“What’s going on, what the heck is going on!?”

“Ahh, Iris-sama!”

“Mister, please don’t stop me! I am also a member of the guard!”

“Pardon me for my impoliteness. As a matter of fact, there is a report that a new kind of monster has appeared.”

Iris received a report from the guards who had been blocking the ‘Tower’, and she concluded that they had misunderstood.

That amount of heat was not something that monsters could produce. Monsters had only life-sized urge to destroy and obsession with the desire to survive. The body that could carry that ‘heat’ – that was enormous to the extent of being visible in a distance – could only be possessed by an intelligent being that had endless desire.

Making a judgement from her own experience, Iris raised her voice so that it could be heard by the guards around her.

“No monster could give out such heat! It is not a new kind of monster but a human being! Please call for support, I will head in to check first!”

“Iris-sama!? You can’t go alone!!”

“Please don’t stop me, mister!!”

Grabbing her favorite foldable long rod, Iris ran up the ‘Tower’.

On the way, the corpses of monsters rolled around and the ash dust that came out of them obstructed her view, but the ‘heat’ that spread through the passage properly pointed out the way to go.

Then, when Iris finally arrived at the end, a pair of male and female were killing each other while cladded in flames.

““Ooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!””

On one hand, a male was swinging his sword with frenzy.

On the other hand, a female was swinging her sword with rage.

The clashing flames and the ‘heat’ overflowing from their bodies were rampaging like a storm while winding up the ashes of the surrounding monsters.

(This is bad!)

The divine-make monsters born inside the ‘Tower’ were existences created from the regrets of the people who came to the ‘Netherworld’.

Those who challenge the ‘Tower’ purified their souls by defeating the monsters, and received rewards for cooperating and contributing to the purification work that gods should be responsible for.

However, on rare occasions, there were those who make their own regrets even bigger.

Roughly speaking, the activity in the ‘Tower’ could be said to be the work that the ‘Netherworld’ gave to the dead.

The common dead people devoted themselves to work because there were extraordinary rewards such as revival to the real world and the likes.

On the other hand, there were many people who enlarged their regrets, whose importance of reward and work was reversed.

For them, returning to the real world was not worth a fart; to keep swinging their blades in the ‘Tower’ itself was their satisfaction, their reason for living.

Even though they continue to give satisfaction to their ‘regret’, it would only get enlarged.

System of the ‘Netherworld’ polished one’s soul by using the form of work and rewards.

The male named Sakurai Tōru, who saw the entire system as a stage set to raise his level, could be said to be a dangerous person who with all his might, ran on the opposite direction on the highway, so to speak.

As a result, the mountain of corpses of the divine-make monsters who were slaughtered by Sakurai’s hands punctured the purification mechanism of the ‘Tower’, and Sakurai who continued to take in the stagnant ‘regrets’ went out of control, creating a vicious cycle.

And Higaki who stepped into it also started to went out of control with her rage against Sakurai as the trigger. Since she stood in the way as a being who hindered Sakurai’s ‘regret’, his attachment with his ‘regret’ heated up and accelerated the vicious circle.

(If a burning heart and an excessive regret are combined, it will lead to one’s soul being destroyed by fire! If that happens, nothing could be done about it!!)

Even without a life, as long as one had a soul, one could reincarnate into a new life.

However, if even the soul was burned out and disappeared, what lies beyond that was ‘death’ in the truest sense of the word. If that happened, as a member of the void that drifted about in the world of nothingness, one would continue to suffer ‘the feeling of feeling nothing’ for eternity.

To prevent such an end was her reason to rehabilitate the dead as a member of the ‘Netherworld’.

And she couldn’t let such a thing pass as a person linked to the blood of Anubis, the lord of the Netherworld.

“O’ God Anubis, the lord of the ‘Netherworld’! If I can be the person who reach that height, please lend me the god’s authority for a while!”

Looking at the two who were still killing each other, Iris raises the long rod that looked like a cane and prayed to god. A small water ball with a small light shining in its center appeared at its tip.

Iris moved her rod to stir the air and began collecting the surrounding dust into the water ball. The water ball that took in the dust grew bigger and bigger, and by the time the view became clear, a huge lump of water that seems to be twice of Iris’ height was created.

The light in the center left the water ball along with the collected regrets and was sent out to Anubis, then she slowly held aloft the water ball that was left behind and——

“That’s enooooooooooough!!!”

――slammed the water ball on the two fighting people.

The exploding water ball caused a tsunami that filled the passage, and swallowed the flames cladding Sakurai and Higaki.

After seeing Sakurai and Higaki pulled by the waves, hit the wall, and lost consciousness, Iris confirmed that their ‘heat’ had subsided and took a breather.

After that, she only had to watch these two people until the support comes.

“Haah… what the heck are these kids. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen such a shuddering ‘heat’.”

Although she thought that she was sticking her neck into a troublesome matter, it would be a lie to say that she was not interested in the circumstances that created such ‘heat’ and conflict between the two.

With some mixed feelings, Iris Niflheim waited for the support coming from below.