Dimensional Descent

The brace on Leonel’s wrist vibrated, and all the accumulated tremors of his earlier hammer surged.

Jones felt the pressure building in his head as the horror set in.

His skin began to bulge from the blood pressure, his skull deformed soon after as his brain pushed up against its mold, and then his eyes popped out of their sockets in a rain of blood.

All the while, Jones wasn’t able to make a single sound. He could only scream in his own thoughts, trapped in the cage of his own mind as it became a murky, disgusting mess of gray matter oozing from his nose and ears.

Then, he couldn’t withstand the pressure anymore, and his head exploded.

A shocking silence filled the city streets. There had been many spectators that had gathered by now. After all, the Kammy smithy was on a busy street. Their residence was the only one here, while there were many other commercial properties that the people would frequent.

Seeing Jones stir up trouble again, many wanted to remain uninvolved, but many more wanted to see just how far these matters would go.

Jones was a true stain on their city. His presence made several things harder on everyone, but no one could say anything.

In reality, the intelligent amount the city knew the real reason Jones was allowed to run rampant.

The city was in a bad situation with the marriage alliance between Vener and Vate City. The city lord wanted to increase taxes, but he didn’t want to become the villain himself, so he let his son do it.

Most of the hatred of the people was directed onto Jones, and the foolish and naive didn’t even realize that many of the things Jones did were done in tacit acceptance of his father.

Jones thus became a hound. While most of the things he did were just to enrich himself, much of the money he gathered went right into the coffers of the city lord and were sent to bolster their defenses and prepare for the next battles.

But now...

He was dead.

Leonel waved a hand, and Jones’ headless corpse fell to the ground.

Aina came to his side, shaking her head and gently using the apron she wore to wipe the blood from his face.

Because they were in the Third Dimension now, it was much more difficult to do certain things, and Leonel was certainly overexerting himself for the sake of both the display and causing their enemies the most amount of pain possible.

What she didn’t realize was that her casual actions were just as shocking. When had these people ever seen someone they assumed to be a housewife wipe not only blood but gore as well from the face of her husband?

Why was the action so casual? So unassuming... so natural?

Aina wiped the last of the blood away and straightened out Leonel’s clothing. She didn’t even bother to take off her now blood-stained apron as though it was only natural that it be like that.

Everyone else could only focus on the interaction and the corpse that now lay on the street, but the two of them didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

Kammy and Elaine looked at Jones’ corpse, their expressions somewhat pale. When they gazed up to look at one another, they seemed to have both come to a tacit understanding as well.

Elaine took a step forward and hurriedly whispered to the two.

”You two need to leave as quickly as possible. You can’t stay here anymore.”

Leonel didn’t reply. That was because while Aina was still focused on cleaning him up, he was focused on making sure she wasn’t harmed. He was practically scanning every one of her hairs to see if there really was one missing or not.

As for what he would do if he found something out of place when Jones was already dead, maybe only he was aware of that.

It was only after he ensured that Aina really was just fine that he looked over to the housewife.

”Where does the city lord live?” he asked.

He didn’t really need the answer. He could find it with a thought. Instead, he had asked for a completely different reason.

The same instant he asked, he scanned the changes in the reactions of everyone around.

There were quite a number of those who reacted with horror, unfortunately, making him realize that this matter wouldn’t be so simple.

The city lord was smarter than he thought, and he wasn’t outright hated by his people. Just taking him out wouldn’t be good enough because that would mean he’d have to likely travel with his pregnant wife to another city unless he planned on fighting it out. with the entire militia.

If he had his normal slate of abilities, he wouldn’t care. But he really couldn’t manage it

now.

’Considering the quota, there should be about 300 or so official men of the military. They would likely be stronger than usual Third Dimensional existences, and I still haven’t confirmed whether this world truly has no one of the Fourth Dimension or not. It would be dangerous to go up against so many people!

Kammy was shaken. He grabbed Leonel’s wrist and pulled him back.

”Why are you asking that?! You need to be careful,” he hissed.

”Why? Didn’t you say that this is his son? I have to at least explain my actions to him, no? I’m a blacksmith now. There might be a chance to survive.”

Many people breathed sighs of relief when Leonel said this, but they were the fools of the group, smitten by the trickery of the city lord.

It was those who had initially reacted with excitement that gave Leonel a second look.

Indeed, they had seen through Leonel’s intentions as well, and some seemed to appreciate his pull back.

There was some hope for this city after all, it seemed. However, how the fallout would go was hard to say.