Erina's eyes flickered with astonishment as she stared at Saeko.
Her words had clearly shaken her.
"What do you mean?" Hisako demanded urgently. "What's this nonsense about lives being as cheap as ants, devils and zombies running rampant? What are you babbling about?"
Saeko replied calmly, "It's not nonsense. It's the genuine future."
Erina raised an eyebrow. "You're saying you can see the future?"
"No, to be precise, I came back from the future. Just one day ago," Saeko said with utmost seriousness.
One day earlier.
Tokonosu City, Fujimi Academy.
As the captain of the kendo club, Saeko, as always, stayed after school to practice swordsmanship and guide her kouhai.
When the club activities ended, she took a shower to wash off the sweat and left the school.
On her way home, she faintly sensed someone following her.
But far from being afraid, Saeko gripped her wooden sword tightly and veered into a secluded alley.
No one noticed the flicker of excitement, thrill, and even bloodlust in her eyes as she entered the alley.
Soon after, a figure followed her.
It was a middle-aged office worker, a typical salaryman.
He had been trailing Saeko and, seizing the moment when no one was around, closed the distance between them in a rush.
Saeko stopped and glanced back at the man.
"Sir, why are you following me?"
The salaryman didn't respond. Instead, he scanned every inch of her body with a greedy gaze.
It gave Saeko an unsettling feeling.
It was as if the man craved her body—not out of lust, but out of hunger.
She realized his gaze wasn't that of a man eyeing a beautiful, mature woman. It was more like he was looking at a juicy steak or a freshly roasted chicken.
It wasn't the gaze of a man admiring a woman.
It was the gaze of a human eyeing food.
In an instant, Saeko's guard went up. She realized this man was different from the usual creeps driven by reckless desire.
With that thought, she instinctively drew her wooden sword and pointed it at the man.
The salaryman saw the sword and let out an unmasked, mocking grin.
Then, with astonishing speed, he charged at Saeko.
"So fast."
She hadn't expected the man to move so swiftly—like a sprinter in a hundred-meter race, no, even faster.
In the blink of an eye, he was right in front of her.
But in that moment, Saeko's honed swordsmanship kicked in.
Her body moved before her mind could catch up, thrusting her wooden sword toward the man's throat.
Thud!
The strike hit the salaryman's throat with precision.
The throat was a human's most vulnerable point. Even though her weapon was only a wooden sword, a thrust with such force and angle could shatter that fragile spot and send him to the grave.
Normally, Saeko wouldn't strike to kill. This was a civilized society, after all.
She wasn't about to ruin her bright future over some middle-aged creep.
But this time, for reasons she couldn't explain, the salaryman gave her an unprecedented sense of pressure. Under that pressure, she unleashed a ruthless strike without hesitation.
Yet, in the next second, something jaw-dropping and unimaginable happened.
Though her wooden sword struck the man's throat, it didn't shatter it.
It didn't even push him back a single step.
The salaryman's throat was like iron. Not only did the wooden sword fail to repel him, it bent under the pressure, then snapped, splintering into countless fragments.
Then, the salaryman grabbed Saeko by the neck and lifted her off the ground.
He spoke his first words since encountering her.
"Let's eat."
The next moment, he opened his gaping maw and bit into Saeko's shoulder, tearing off a chunk of her flesh.
The searing pain made her let out a gut-wrenching scream.
But the salaryman seemed to revel in it, his eyes turning blood-red.
At that moment, Saeko finally remembered.
In Japan, there was a peculiar urban legend.
It spoke of a special kind of creature called a Ghoul. They looked human but couldn't eat human food.
Their only sustenance was… humans.
Saeko had always thought it was just a legend, but now she realized Ghouls were real—and she had encountered one.
There was no doubt—she would die.
She would die at the hands of this Ghoul, becoming its meal.
Worry, fear, terror.
In an instant, the shadow of death loomed over her like an invisible hand squeezing her heart, leaving her breathless.
When her fear reached its peak, Saeko's pupils contracted to the size of pinpricks.
Her brain received a powerful jolt, and a strange hallucination appeared before her eyes.
Zombies. Endless zombies.
She saw the zombie crisis erupt in Tokonosu City days later. She saw Tokyo fall, Japan collapse, Onmyoryoji succumb, and devils fall.
Countless devils turned into zombies, rampaging across the land of Japan.
They turned a civilized, orderly society into a living hell.
In that upheaval, she fought for survival time and again, only to be defeated time and again, until she finally died at the hands of a powerful devil zombie.
But curiously, when she opened her eyes again, she saw a small Ghoul treating her as food.
This scene wasn't unfamiliar to Saeko.
She had already lived through it once.
When she was about to become the Ghoul's meal, a group of Ghoul hunters arrived, drove it off, saved her, and sent her to a hospital.
That allowed her to escape the zombie crisis in Tokonosu City in time.
But this time, Saeko had no intention of waiting for rescue.
In that brutal apocalypse, she had slain countless devil zombies. A mere Ghoul was nothing in her eyes—barely worth mentioning.
At the same time, the Ghoul, in the midst of its feast, suddenly froze.
---
Hi guys, Elenea here! I just want to announce that starting now I'll be trying to focus on my own original fanfic, which I've been thinking about for the past few days (lol I really mulled this over briefly for a few days and decided I'm going to make it a full novel).
[Worse Than the Devil (DxD)]
Synopsis:
Devil.
An evil and chaotic creature, born from hell, which are often a scapegoat for humans. Blamed for the atrocities they themselves commit.
"The devil made me do it."
A phrase always uttered by humans after committing crimes, casting blame and responsibility for their wrongdoings onto the devil.
But not all humans are like that, for there is one man who would gleefully commit atrocities that would be condemned by all of human history and accept the blame and responsibility for those wrongs with open arms.
His name is Michael, but in stark contrast to the meaning of his name 'Who is like God' he is not a devout man who draws near to God's embrace. Instead… he is the one who sends lost sheep to meet God's embrace much faster.
---
Btw, a quick note before you decide to read, if you have a heart as pure as glass, I suggest you don't read this because it REALLY gets dark to early. The first chapter will give you a little idea of what I might explore later on in this fanservice harem-themed world like DxD.
Adios!