Late at night.
The moon hung pale against the treetops.
"Roar—!!"
A chorus of howls flooded the clinic like a rising tide.
The Blackthorn Forest was seething.
Under the command of the Twin-Headed Demon Wolf, hundreds of monsters had surrounded the place.
Goblins brandished rusted blades, kobolds swung bone clubs, and several three-meter-tall ogres drooled while hoisting massive tree trunks onto their shoulders.
They were furious; they were terrified.
They intended to tear that legendary "cannibalistic" perverted doctor into pieces.
"Charge! For the tribe!"
"Kill him! Rip out his guts!"
The roars shook the heavens and the earth.
A few ogres at the very front raised their giant logs, preparing to smash the thin main door into splinters.
Creak—
Without any warning, the tightly shut metal door slid open automatically.
All the roaring was suddenly cut off, as if strangled by an invisible hand.
The air went deathly silent.
Hundreds of pairs of crimson eyes stared fixedly at the mist dissipating in the doorway.
The first thing to emerge was the tooth-grinding sound of an engine idling.
"Chug-chug-chug... Vroom—!!"
Immediately after, a slender figure stepped out from the shadows.
Victor.
He had just finished dinner.
The compressed rations were too unpalatable, so he had found some wild berries in the backyard. They were rich and deep red, like blood, bursting with flavor at the slightest bite.
At this moment, the front of his signature lab coat was splattered with thick, bright red juice.
A trail of red liquid still hung from the corner of his mouth, dripping down his chin.
In his hand, he carried the freshly maintained Rusty Saw of Redemption, its serrated teeth gleaming.
The chainsaw roared, emitting blue exhaust that flickered across his pale face, casting him in half-light and half-shadow.
Gulp.
A lone goblin swallowed hard.
In the eyes of the monsters, this was a Shura that had just crawled out of hell.
Covered in blood!
He must have just finished eating someone!
He definitely ate them raw!
"Uh..."
The lead ogre froze, the tree trunk held mid-air unable to descend.
It watched the man push up a pair of non-existent glasses.
Then, he flashed a smile that was brilliant to the extreme.
"Good evening, neighbors."
Victor looked at the dark mass of "red dots" outside his door, his heart racing.
It wasn't from fear, but excitement.
It was all points!
They were all walking materials!
That goblin was truly wonderful; he actually brought the whole village, young and old, to see the doctor!
"Everyone, no need to be so formal. Why bring gifts for a medical visit?"
Victor looked at the logs in the ogres' hands, mistaking them for timber brought by the patients' families as gifts.
He opened his arms warmly, ignoring the hundreds of weapons pointed at him.
"Come, come, don't just stand there."
"Though there are many patients tonight, as long as you follow the order, I guarantee everyone will receive treatment."
He lifted the roaring chainsaw, waving it slightly to direct traffic.
"Line up! Everyone get in line!"
"Minor cases to the left, serious cases to the right!"
"You, the one carrying the wood—I see you have severe scoliosis. Does your back hurt? Come, you’re an emergency case. You go first!"
As Victor shouted, he took a step forward.
That single step, to the monsters, was like the Grim Reaper sounding a death knell.
"He’s coming over!!"
"He’s going to start killing!!"
"He called me an emergency... he wants to eat me first!!"
The designated ogre’s legs went weak with fear, and the several-hundred-pound log crashed onto its toes with a heavy thud.
"Aow—!"
It clutched its foot and screamed, but after seeing Victor’s concerned (greedy) gaze, it forced the scream back down.
Fear was spreading.
They weren't afraid of a fight.
But facing a blood-soaked madman holding a torture device who insisted on calling murder "treatment," their Sanity was plummeting.
"Why aren't you moving?"
Victor stopped, puzzled.
Why did these patients look so nervous?
Fear of pain?
"Don't worry, everyone!"
Victor raised his voice, his smile becoming even more "kind."
"I have unique painless techniques!"
"You saw that goblin, didn't you? Three hits with the hammer and it stopped screaming!"
"Trust me, my hands are very fast. Before you can even react, the lesion will be cut away!"
Shuffle.
The crowd of monsters stepped back in unison.
Three hits with a hammer and it stopped screaming?
That’s because it was beaten to death!
This wasn't a painless technique; it was clearly "physical transcendence"!
Just then, Alice, who had been standing behind Victor, poked her small head out.
She held the great scissors, looking as obedient as a doll.
Only her red pupils were fixed intently on the log in the ogre's hand.
"Director."
Her soft, sweet voice was exceptionally clear in the dead silent night.
"The wood in that big guy's hand is in the way."
"If it isn't cleared, the patients behind him won't be able to get in."
Victor nodded. "True, it takes up too much space."
"Then let me trim it for you."
Alice gave a sweet smile.
Standing on the steps, she lightly snapped her scissors toward the thick solid oak log over ten meters away.
Snip.
A visible silver ripple cut through the night air.
Silently, the massive tree trunk resting on the ogre's shoulder snapped into two pieces.
The cut was smooth and even; even the fine hairs on the ogre's shoulder were neatly shorn off.
The ogre was stunned.
It looked at the half-log in its hand, then at the other half on the ground.
Then it touched its own neck.
Its neck didn't seem as hard as the wood.
If that snip had been just a little off-target...
"Oh, I missed a little."
Alice pouted in annoyance, her scissors opening again.
"Let me try again. This time I'll definitely get the head... I mean, the wood trimmed straight."
This single sentence became the straw that broke the camel's back.
"A witch! She's a witch!"
"Run! They aren't human!"
"I'm not getting treated! I'm not sick!"
They broke. They broke completely.
The wolf king's orders became worthless paper in that instant.
The ogre was the first to drop the wood, letting out a pig-like squeal before turning and slamming through the goblins behind it, sprinting away like an out-of-control tank.
With a leader showing the way, panic exploded instantly.
"Run!"
"Get out of the way!"
"Mama! I want to go home!"
Hundreds of monsters threw down their gear and fled, wailing for their parents.
The aggressive army from moments ago now wished they had extra legs.
Goblins dove into holes, kobolds jumped into bushes, and worgs tucked their tails and whimpered.
In just one minute, the area in front of the clinic became completely empty.
All that remained was a ground littered with lost shoes and that severed log.
The wind swept through the desolation.
Victor stood at the door, his chainsaw idling.
His smile froze.
It was like an enthusiastic salesman about to give his pitch, only for the customers to all flee and call the police.
"What... what happened?"
Victor looked bewildered.
"Am I that scary?"
He looked down at himself.
"The clothes are a bit dirty, but I smiled very sincerely just now."
"Could it be because they tried to skip the line without an appointment and Alice scared them off?"
Victor sighed and turned off the chainsaw.
"This batch of patients has terrible mental fortitude."
"This is a classic case of avoiding the doctor! What's the point of running? Will running make you get better?"
He felt a pang of deep regret.
The ducks that were practically in his mouth had flown away.
So many points! So many materials!
All gone!
"Alice, go see if anyone fainted from fear. If we pick them up, we can still manage to treat them."
Victor waved his hand listlessly.
However, Alice didn't move.
Her red pupils suddenly contracted into pinpricks.
She gripped her scissors and stepped in front of Victor, her gaze locked onto the depths of the mist.
"Director."
"There's still one."
"There's one... big guy who didn't run."
Victor blinked and followed her line of sight.
Among the panicked retreating figures of the underlings, there was one figure that was out of place.
It hadn't run.
Instead, it was walking toward the clinic against the flow of the crowd.
Thump.
Thump.
The footsteps weren't heavy, yet they struck the ground like drumbeats.
As it approached, the mist was dispersed by some kind of force.
It was a figure wearing a tattered black cloak.
Hunched over, it looked like an old man on the verge of death.
But the aura it radiated was more terrifying than the sum of the hundreds of monsters from before.
It was the scent of death.
Pure, ancient, and decayed.
It walked to the bottom of the steps and stopped.
It slowly looked up.
The hood slid back.
What was revealed was not a face, but a countenance shriveled like dried orange peel.
Skin clung tight to the bone, eye sockets were deep and hollow, revealing two turbid eyeballs.
Lips were cracked and shrunken, exposing two impossibly long, blackened, and decayed fangs.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
It coughed violently, shedding greyish-white flakes of skin.
It looked at Victor, who was covered in blood and holding a chainsaw.
In those turbid eyes, there was no fear.
Instead, there was a kind of... scrutiny, as if looking at one of its own kind.
And a trace of desperate longing.
It opened its mouth, its voice sounding like sandpaper rubbing together:
"Young... executioner..."
"Can your saw... cut through a cursed immortality?"
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