Chapter 2. No. 3789028376
In Belteruk's eyes, the severed soul tether could be seen poking out from outside the virtual reality server-connection helmet, swaying as it dangled. Normally, the soul's main body would've come out attached to that tether, but not this time.
That was because soul no. 3789028376 was currently inside the virtual reality world, enjoying a game. This was exactly why soul reapers could tell a soul was inside virtual reality without even logging in.
Virtual reality games were quite an annoying existence for soul reapers' work. If someone died, they should be able to come out quickly so they could be taken away right then and there… but humans who died while still connected like that continued rampaging around inside the server, not even realizing they were dead. Like bugs with heads, thrashing for hours even though they had no consciousness.
In cases like this, soul reapers had no choice but to wait until the soul they were supposed to take to the underworld logged out.
Of course, a weirdo soul reaper like Belteruk didn't have much complaint about it. Because what he had in excess was time—time that was all connected to the terrible thing called boredom.
Belteruk found this virtual reality business a bit of a nuisance, but in some ways he was actually grateful for it. Because it let him kill, even if only a little, the dull and endlessly long time he'd been given.
Ssshk.
Belteruk, who had tucked his reaper's scythe back into his chest, swept his gaze through the room. This was him examining what kind of human the soul of no. 3789028376 had been while waiting for it to come out. He wasn't doing it out of interest in soul no. 3789028376. It was just a habit he'd picked up over an immeasurably long time, like a reflex. It had no meaning.
The room clearly showed the personality of the owner of soul no. 3789028376.
A sparse set of basic furniture and electronics. A desk and a bookshelf placed on top of it. A few books stuck into it and a bed. Also a small trash can beside it, and finally, the virtual reality capsule where the body of soul no. 3789028376 lay. Everything was so clean it looked newly bought, without a speck of dust.
Clean freak.
Soul no. 3789028376 seemed like a perfectionist who didn't allow even the tiniest dust mote in their space. Belteruk had seen plenty of people like that, but a case this severe was rare.
'Obsessive compulsive cleanliness? Or else…'
Belteruk's piercing vision went past the room and stabbed into the living room and even the bathroom. Just like this room, it was hard to find even a single speck of dust. But that wasn't what Belteruk had been expecting.
Sniff, sniff.
What stimulated his senses wasn't his eyes, but his nose. From somewhere, he caught a familiar yet peculiar smell. Acrid, yet a unique fragrance that pleased the noses of soul reapers—blood, and the stench of rotting corpses. It was so faint that even a soul reaper like him could barely notice it. Only now, with his nerves sharpened, could he properly feel it. That was probably why he hadn't sensed it when he first entered the villa.
Belteruk's nostrils flared. He was tracking the source of the smell. It was rising from below.
He lowered his head.
Even as his naturally downward gaze passed through the floor of the 5th level, the 4th, the 3rd, the 2nd, the 1st, he couldn't find the source. Belteruk's pitch-black eyes turned white. It was a phenomenon that appeared when he pushed his piercing vision to the limit.
Soon, he detected a secret space underground.
'Hm!?'
There were no corpses there either. His field of vision sank further down. Only after passing three more such hidden spaces did he finally find the source of the smell.
This customer really is a meticulous bastard.
"Kekeke."
Belteruk grumbled low. The reason was that he'd confirmed the owner of soul no. 3789028376 was the kind of human who created extra work for soul reapers. He didn't know what the man's job was, but his "hobby" seemed closely tied to soul reapers' work.
In a communal cavity hidden deep underground, the corpses of humans—dozens, or hundreds, hard to tell at a glance—were sleeping inside an enormous freezer. Judging by the fact that there were fresh bodies that weren't fully frozen yet, the owner of soul no. 3789028376 had clearly enjoyed his hobby just a few days ago—maybe yesterday, maybe even today.
This planet called Earth in the 111th dimensional world had always been more brutal than other places. Recently, it has grown a little more distant from soul reapers, but essence doesn't change so easily. Before the academic field humans called science developed this far, scenes like that could be found easily anywhere on this planet. Of course, when war broke out, things even worse than this happened all the time.
So to soul reaper Belteruk, this wasn't anything special. The reason he found it interesting lay somewhere completely different.
A corpse carries the color of the killer's soul and their killing intent. Even if the corpse is already an empty vessel with its soul gone.
From the corpses in that underground freezer, he felt purity. There wasn't a trace of killing intent. How should he describe that purity?
Pure murderous madness. That was probably the right way to put it.
A soul with that kind of sensibility—something hard to encounter anymore in the 111th dimensional world of today, which emphasized human rights and civilization—was exactly soul no. 3789028376. Not nonexistent, but rare.
It was because Belteruk hadn't come across a soul like this in a long time that a smile formed at the corner of his mouth.
"A pure killer starving for blood. In Earth's words… a psychopath, was it?"
That was Belteruk's assessment of soul no. 3789028376 of the 111th dimensional world. At that level, wouldn't it be hard for him to come back out of the Eight Hells before being properly purified? Maybe he could rot in the Eight Hells for ten million years. If he was unlucky, the soul might even be annihilated before those ten million years passed…
Of course, that wasn't Belteruk's problem.
After confirming that far, Belteruk completely lost interest in soul no. 3789028376. Whether 3789028376 was the worst murderer in cosmic history or not had nothing to do with him. As a soul reaper, his job ended once he escorted that soul to the underworld. Whether soul reaper Yama turned that soul into a rag or erased it from existence wasn't within Belteruk's jurisdiction.
It was just when Belteruk was about to scratch his eyes with his scythe again out of boredom.
The reaper device let out a beeping chime—an alarm. It meant the time had come to collect the soul, so he should hurry up and do his job.
Belteruk didn't think much of it since he was already done and waiting, but to double-check anyway, he took out the reaper registry and opened it. Just like before, he yawned as he checked the target soul number.
3789028376.
It matched.
"No problems."
Just as he relaxed—
"Hm!? This is…?"
He found the problem! A fatal one!
The dimensional world number written under the soul number wasn't 111th, but 112th! This customer wasn't the 3789028376 soul of the 111th dimensional world, but the 3789028376 soul of the 112th dimensional world.
Something impossible had happened.
It was a simple mistake, but in the world of soul reapers, mistakes were often directly connected to annihilation. If soul reaper Yama found out about this, it would be the end. If he was unlucky, the pain of ten million years in the Eight Hells he'd mentioned earlier might not be for that soul, but for him instead. And of course, the outcome would, nine times out of ten, be annihilation.
Belteruk's mind spun rapidly. He'd performed reaper duties for tens of millions of years. He'd never made a single mistake. He'd trusted that too much—so today, it finally exploded in his face.
'Because of this one error, I can't lose everything I suffered through for tens of millions of years! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it…! Ah!'
At some point, as he silently spat out damn it over and over in his mind, he recalled "that incident" that had shaken the underworld hundreds of millions of years ago.
'Soul grafting.'
A grotesque case where a deranged soul reaper tried to artificially create soul conjoined twins. That reaper conducted an experiment to see whether it was possible to put two souls into one body. The method was very simple: attach the severed soul tether onto the tether of another living soul and solder it together. It was an unforgivable sin that blatantly violated the rules of reaper service.
Every action a soul reaper took was tied to the order of the dimensional worlds. And he'd done that to a soul that was supposed to be alive, so the ending was obvious. In the end, the reaper was discovered and annihilated.
Whether the experiment succeeded or failed, and what happened to the dimensional worlds because of it, was never revealed. Soul reaper Yama had imposed a gag order on everyone involved.
One thing, though.
Among soul reapers, the belief that it was probably possible had carried weight—enough that there were still soul reapers who told the story whenever they were bored.
So then.
'Would it work?'
What if he tried it right now? What would happen?
He saw the soul tether dangling outside the virtual reality capsule. There was still time. 3789028376 still hadn't logged out.
If, in this situation, that soul logged out—
Belteruk would be annihilated. But if he attempted soul grafting, he might gain a chance to cover up his mistake. After grafting the 111th dimensional world's soul no. 3789028376 onto the body that should've died—soul no. 3789028376 of the 112th dimensional world—and then severing only the tether of the 112th dimensional world's soul no. 3789028376 and guiding it to the underworld, all the dimensional worlds would proceed exactly as originally planned! If it worked like that, no one would ever learn of his mistake!
Even if a soul from the 111th dimensional world ended up going to the 112th dimensional world, the total quantity of souls in the underworld would be preserved. With that, Belteruk could at least breathe easier.
It didn't take long to decide. Belteruk grabbed the tip of the tether of the 111th dimensional world's soul no. 3789028376. Then, without even a moment of hesitation, he pulled out the reaper device.
Beep-beep—.
On the device, the reaper number 112th lit up. With a light vibration, Belteruk vanished from the spot.
It was the moment soul grafting was realized for the first time in hundreds of millions of years.