Villain Retirement

"...Yes?"

"Hm… Then perhaps we truly are in the right place."

"Riley Ross?"

"Heh…? What\'s this?"

Aurora, as well as the thugs who were waiting for them outside the ship, could not help but raise their eyebrows as Riley just casually stepped out of the hatch; just casually stepping down the ground without even caring that he was stepping of blood.

"Haha. This fucker thinks he\'s amusing," one of the thugs stepped forward with a knife in his hand, "Oi. I know you guys are new here, but you really should show respect while we are still being—Oi!?"

Riley did not even let the thug finish his words as he just suddenly snatched the knife away from him.

"Do you want this back, Thug?" Riley then started spinning the knife in his hand, "But you are not even holding it right."

"What are you—"

"This is how you hold it," a wide smile crawled on Riley\'s face as he just suddenly swung the knife right across the thug\'s neck.

"Geurgh…!?"

"Jiff!?"

The other thugs could not help but slightly back away. They did not even know how their friend was cut, and the only way they knew was by seeing Riley\'s arm already stretched to the side.

"Since we need to fit in…" Riley then glanced back at Aurora as he crouched down so that he could be at the same level as the man whose throat he just sliced, "...I will do that for us."

"What are you—!?"

And without even saying another word, Riley just grabbed the thug by the hair and pulled him closer… before the sound of flesh and blood gurgling whispered in the air as Riley started sawing his neck right in front of everyone.

Riley did not even care that the other thugs might start attacking him — he just continued slowly sawing the man\'s neck until he was able to pull it apart.

"Tadaah," Riley stood up and started shaking the head while still holding it by the hair, "I helped him lose weight."

"You—"

One of the other thugs rushed toward Riley, but Riley also rushed toward to meet him — smacking his face with the face of the decapitated head he was holding; its teeth, sticking onto the thug\'s nose.

"Gkh!" The thug quickly backed away while holding his face, but before he could even pull out his friend\'s teeth, Riley continued to rush toward him; this time pulling him by the ankles and letting his back slam to the ground. Unfortunately for the thug, before he could even process all of this, Riley just started smacking him with his dead friend\'s head until both of their faces were all mashed up together; his body, just flinching with every hit and it couldn\'t anymore.

"Huh…" Riley then got up, his hand now only holding the back of the man\'s scalp as everything else had been ground up, "...I suppose we can all say that they were close friends, no?"

"Wh—Run! Run!"

And as they all saw the smile that was crawling on Riley\'s face from ear to ear, the remaining thugs all just started running away. Unfortunately for them, Riley was just starting.

He crashed the remaining skull from the scalp he was holding and just threw it right through their ankles — causing all of them to just drop, except for one.

"One\'s getting away!" Aurora, who just recovered from her stupor, quickly aimed her gun at the one still running away, but before she could shoot, Riley placed his hand on her gun and lowered it.

"Let him go, Aurora," Riley shook his head.

"But…" Aurora took in a small gulp as the blood and flesh dripping from Riley\'s hand got onto her hand, "...If we let him go, he\'s going to tell his gang that—"

"Exactly," Riley smiled at Aurora before he walked away and approached the thugs who were writhing in pain on the floor and holding their ankles, "The more there are, the more fun we will be having, no?"

"What do you…" Aurora could really only mute her words as she watched as Riley just started stepping on the remaining thugs — even inserting his finger into their ankles and then twirling the shard of skull inside. Even if she continued to speak, she doubted that someone would even hear her from how loud the thugs were screaming.

And it wasn\'t only her that was completely frozen in place — the others who were near the dock could not move. Most of them would be looting the corpses right now, but they were afraid that this white-skinned and white-haired man might accidentally grab them and start torturing them too.

Unfortunately for everyone there, the screams lasted for several minutes more.

"Just let him do his thing," Miss Pepondosovich stood beside the stumped Aurora while letting out a long and very deep sigh, "It\'s better that he lets loose lightly like this."

"This is… letting it loose lightly?" Aurora could really only blink a couple of times as she looked down at Miss Pepondosovich, "...Then what if he isn\'t taking it lightly?"

"You don\'t want to know, Kid," Miss Pepondosovich shook her head, "Let\'s go, he\'s done. Ack, ew! I think I got blood on my foot!"

"You should start wearing shoes, Miss Pepondosovich." n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Har har. How many times do I have to tell you and Lucy that I don\'t need or want to wear shoes?" Miss Pepondosovich kicked her foot, causing a blast of wind to erupt as she cleaned all the blood and flesh sticking to her leg, and unfortunately threw them all to the bystanders,

"So, Aura… what are we doing here exactly?"

"R… right," Aurora then just quickly followed behind the two before walking ahead of them, "We… need to stay here for a while. These people might have been thugs, but they were right about needing to pay the toll."

"The toll…?" Miss Pepondosovich raised an eyebrow, "I thought this was a lawless country, why would there be a toll?"

"Well… it is a lawless place," Aurora glanced back at the bodies they left behind, only to see the bystanders finally looting the bodies as soon as they walked away — and then pushing them out of the floating island after,

"...And it isn\'t exactly a toll per se — it\'s a map."

"...Then why not just call it a map?"

"That… I don\'t know," Aurora sighed, "The Grand Triangle shifts from time to time, and only the location of the island planets remain exactly the same — but the route, path, and things we need to avoid all completely change each time."

"Sounds like a fun place," Miss Pepondosovich breathed out before looking at the sky and the horizon, "I guess beautiful places like this truly are deadly."

"Hm…" Aurora nodded, "...If it wasn\'t for that fact, then most life would probably be living here — one would be able to freely travel in space even without fancy spaceships. Imagine going on an adventure free of being caged in one. Well… I guess the two of you don\'t really need to imagine."

"I just noticed," Miss Pepondosovich started looking around. The city they were in just looked like a normal city — maybe it could even be considered old-looking in terms of aesthetics. But most importantly…

"...I\'ve noticed this — but are the majority of the species living in the Unknown… are humanoids? I mean, like you and Riley?"

"Oh…" Aurora also looked around, "...Yes. I do believe we\'re the majority and—"

"Hey there, sweet cheeks."

And before Aurora could finish her words, several men they passed by going deeper into the city started whistling and calling for her attention.

Aurora, however, did not even glance at them as she pointed her gun at them.

"Woah, relax. We were only joking. Hehehe…"

"See you later, sweet cheeks. We\'ll be clapping that later."

"It\'s best not to talk to anyone or mingle with anyone while we\'re here," Aurora said as she looked at Miss Pepondosovich, "We\'ve already put a target on our backs by killing the gangs earlier, we don\'t need the additional smoke to… where\'s Riley Ross?"

"Where do you think?" Miss Pepondosovich smirked. And as soon as she did so, Aurora quickly turned around…

…only to see Riley holding the necks of the two people from the group who taunted her, while the others were lying flat on the floor, clearly dead.

"You…" Aurora could really only close her eyes and sigh, "...Why did you kill them? Their catcalling wasn\'t bothering me at all, I\'m used to it."

"I killed them because they were breathing, Aurora," Riley just shrugged before letting go of the corpses.

"We should stop killing people…" Aurora shook her head, "...This place might be lawless, but there are a lot of gangs and organizations here — and as I told you…

…there are people with abilities here, we are lucky we haven\'t run into one yet. But if we do…

…with what I have been hearing, they might be even stronger than you, Riley Ross."

doubt

Romeru