Reincarnated Hero System

'Is it gone?'

[The goddess 'Artemisia' says that the soul fragment of the Entity-' Methik Ifoumien' has been eliminated completely.

She further states that the target would suffer a substantial decrease in stats but is not sure if the damage to the soul was enough to warrant the loss of a skill.]

'The fact that his soul is damaged is enough for now.'

Evan replied to Artemisia as he undid his body transformation, before turning towards Kayla who was in her larger humanoid form and petting her head.

"Good job, Kayla."

He then turned his gaze towards the knight who had seen all of Kayla's actions in slow motion due to his superior kinetic vision, as well as sensed the activation of 'Methik's' skill, and was looking at him in silence.

"…His arm…did it contain explosives?"

The knight finally broke the silence, turning his gaze to the corpse that Evan's sword was piercing as he asked.

"Not just his arm, his whole body did.

That's why I had Kuro tell you to behead that one instead of attacking any other body part."

Evan replied while gazing at the black cat who licked his paws as he sat on the knight's shoulder, jumping off right after and sinking into the young hero's shadow.

Right after Evan's reply, the huge flesh golem that had been standing upright due to Methik's corpse puppetry, collapse onto the ground with a loud 'BAM'.

The young hero only gave it a side glance, before tossing the corpses of both 'Methik' and his 'contracted demon' into his inventory.

"Let's go back so you can explain to the Duke.

That's why I brought you here, after all."

Upon returning, Evan was met with the figures of a very displeased town lord, along with a few dozen other B-rank adventurers and Knights waiting for him close to the town walls.

A few of them let out voices of surprise as they saw the boy's bloodstained face, however, some of them and the Duke and Evan's companions realised that it wasn't his blood.

Seeing as the remaining civilians had been taken to safety by the knights and some adventurers, Evan decided to bring out the corpses of 'Methik' and his 'Contracted Demon'.

"Now then, I suppose you guys want an explanation."

Evan spoke as he pulled off the ragged coat on his body and tossed it into his inventory, not after using it to rub the blood off his face.

"Um…is there any adventurer or someone skilled in…dismantling humanoid corpses?"

"…"

Evan's question was met with silence all around as people gazed at the boy with questioning looks, wondering why he suddenly asked such a question.

"No one?

Well…that's too bad.

Let's hope we all don't get blown up, then."

"Huh?"

Ignoring the shocked voices around him, Evan casually pulled out a corpse from his inventory, one obviously missing an arm and stuffed his hand into the opening on the residual limb, causing a black liquid to splash on the floor as he pulled out something from inside the corpse.

Evan looked around and spotted a mage subordinate of Duke Cheverton and passed the thing in his hands to him while speaking.

"Here, check it out with your skill.

It's your explanation."

In the boy's hand, was a small cuboid box, about 15 by 10 cm in size and was made of a soft hand-mouldable solid material, tied up like a package.

Duke Cheverton's eyes narrowed when he looked at the thing in Evan's hands, instructing the mage to run a quick analysis on it.

"Is this tar?"

Before the mage could even collect the item, one of the adventurers identified the black liquid spurting out of the corpse in large quantities.

"It is, but it seems to be mixed with something else.

Tar's usually a lot thicker than this."

Another adventurer noted this as she bent to the ground and touched the black liquid with her finger.

It was then that the mage's shocked voice rang out, drawing the attention of everyone around who turned to see him with a small green magic circle in front of his eye.

"This is a plastic explosive!"

The mage's eyes alternated between the tar spilling out of the corpse and the plastic explosive in his hand, about to ask a question when Evan suddenly spoke out.

"What if this entire corpse was stuffed with these plastic explosives…let's say, the corpse was made to explode using magic or a skill?"

His question made chills run down the spines of all those present as they instantly figured out what he was hinting at.

A corpse filled with tar and plastic explosives, if such a thing was ignited or made to explode, the results would be unimaginable.

"Wait…then that explosion in the sky…?"

"Why do you think the corpse is missing an arm?"

Evan's reply to the random adventurer's question finally gave the answer to the question of what exploded in the sky.

Such a powerful explosion; and that was just the arm of the corpse!

If the whole thing was to blow up…they didn't want to imagine what would have come out of it.

Not to talk of what would have happened to the town and anyone who was within the vicinity of the explosion, the death toll would have been outrageous.

"Then…what if there were two corpses like this?"

Evan decided to seal the deal by asking that last question, with the adventurers who wanted to rush out earlier thanking their stars that the knights stopped them.

"I planned to capture the guy at first, but the moment I noticed that he had such a skill, I had no choice but to kill him.

His plan was most likely to draw people's attention towards the flesh golem and then blow them all up when they came close.

The Brigade Captain over here can attest to the fact that he tried to detonate the explosives earlier, forcing me to cut off his arm and have it tossed into the sky."

Of course, Evan could only tell that the magic power in his arm was building up, and Artemisia was the one who had told him to cut off the arm while telling Kayla to toss it into the air.

Hearing all this, the Duke who had been silent, gave a side glance to the unconscious Faerora who had been bound by magic sealing chains before speaking.

"So that's what happened, huh?"

He then turned towards the broken town wall and gave the mages his orders to repair it using magic, moving on to the knights and adventurers who he brought with him and having them deal with the aftermath of this incident.

The priests were dispatched to heal the wounded town guards who were knocked unconscious by Methik, while the bodies of the undead monsters along with the flesh golem were promptly disposed of by burning.

Evan did give a side warning that there might be tar or explosives in the flesh golem's body but after running checks, they only found some tar in the core area, explaining the black liquid Evan had noticed in the creature's core.

This tar, however, only helped the flames that turned the flesh golem's corpse to ashes to burn brighter and faster.

The Duke left overseeing the issue to the town lord and a few of his high-level knights, before taking Evan's group along with the rest of the knights and adventurers back to Bultom Dungeon City.