"Ah!!!!!!"
"Help me!!!!"
"Someone's being killed!!"
"Ah!!!"
The screams from outside interrupted Denji's happy moment. The waitress put down the slice of bread, her face full of panic. As a restaurant employee, her instinctive reaction was to check out the situation.
But the moment she opened the private room door and looked out, the sight terrified her. She hurriedly shut the door and scrambled back to the table. "There's... there's a giant rat outside," she said, her voice trembling. "And it's absolutely disgusting."
"A rat? Is it a devil?" Denji asked.
"It looks like one."
By now, both waitresses' legs had gone soft. They cast desperate, pleading looks at the man stuffing his face with beef. They knew there was a Devil Hunter in the room, and between the two of them, Arata was the only one who looked the part.
Seeing Arata just focusing on his food without taking any action, the waitress asked quietly, "You're a Devil Hunter, right?"
"I'm not. He's the Devil Hunter," Arata said between bites. He didn't want the devil outside ruining his lavish dinner.
"You're the Devil Hunter!!" The waitress was caught off guard. No matter how you looked at him, Denji just looked like a high school kid.
"That's right, I'm a Devil Hunter." Denji gave a crooked smile. He picked up Pochita and stood up.
"Can you help take care of the devil outside?"
"Sure I can, but..." Denji pointedly stared at a certain area.
"As long as you save us, I'll do anything you want." The two waitresses severely underestimated Denji's desires, assuming a kid's request couldn't be that outrageous.
"Hell yeah!!" Denji's fighting spirit instantly hit the roof. For that, Denji would risk it all. Saying that, he held Pochita high and charged out the door.
But the second he ran out, he immediately ran right back in. "Uh... that rat out there is huge. It's not even in the same league as a tomato or sea cucumber. I don't think I can handle it alone."
Denji wasn't an idiot. One look was all it took for him to run back inside for backup. Except the devil outside didn't give him the chance. A long, thin rat tail whipped in, tightly wrapping around Denji and violently dragging him out.
"Ah!!!"
"Um, is he going to be okay?" The two women clearly lacked faith in Denji's strength.
"Relax, he's the Chainsaw Devil, he can't die. Even if he does, he just needs to drink blood to revive."
"I was asking about the little boy."
"Relax, he won't die either. Worst case scenario, I'll just give him a heart transplant." Arata finished off the beef thigh and wiped his mouth with the tablecloth. "Fill my glass."
"Yes." One of the waitresses walked over and topped off his wine.
In the time it took to have a drink, the noise outside intensified again. Various men's voices shouted back and forth. A moment later, a bald man in a uniform walked into the room.
"We're private Devil Hunters from around the area. Are you all right?"
"We're fine, we're fine. Is that giant rat outside dead?"
"We've already exterminated it."
"It's dead!!" The two waitresses clutched their chests, letting out long sighs of relief.
"The manager here said there was a Devil Hunter in this private room?"
"He just went out. He's just a kid."
"Ah, that kid is pretty badly hurt. You're with him, right?" The bald man asked, walking toward Arata.
"That's right. The kid is my apprentice."
"Your apprentice? As his master, you just sit here eating and don't go out to help? That kid almost died, you know that?" The bald man glared coldly at Arata. But then he suddenly dry heaved.
"Blergh!!"
"Are you okay?" the waitress asked with concern.
"I... I'm fine. Probably just ate too much earlier," the bald man forced a smile, insisting he was alright.
"Blergh!!!" He had just said he was fine, but a second later the bald man dropped to the floor, violently dry heaving a few more times.
"If you're going to puke, could you take it outside? Can't you see people are eating here?" Arata said.
"Blergh!!!" The retching grew more violent. It looked like something was forcing its way up his throat toward his mouth.
The bald man's eyes rolled into the back of his head, draining of all color. He threw his head back, forcing his jaw wide open.
Squeak!!! A rat crawled right out of his mouth.
It wasn't just his mouth. Even more rats were clearly burrowing their way out of his ass and stomach.
"Ah!!!" The two waitresses shrieked in horror, covering their mouths. The rats that burst out of his body quickly scurried out of the private room. The bald man was left sprawled on the floor, completely devoid of life.
A short moment later, the Rat Devil's screech echoed from outside once again.
"Ah!!!" The briefly calmed restaurant was thrown back into chaotic screams.
The manager burst into the private room, clutching his arm, and slammed the door shut behind him. "Help... help me." He collapsed onto the floor next to Arata's seat.
"Didn't the Public Safety Devil Hunters already arrive?"
"They... they were all bitten to death by the rats."
"What's wrong with you?" Arata asked.
"My arm..." The manager exposed his arm to the group. His thick arm was covered in a dense, horrifying cluster of bite marks of all sizes.
The two waitresses immediately turned their heads away, too terrified to look. They were terrified the same thing would happen to them.
"Blergh!!" The manager's body also began to react.
"Manager!!"
"Don't touch him. Anyone bitten by the Rat Devil becomes a breeding ground for rats," Arata warned.
"Breed rats!!" The two waitresses scrambled away from him.
"No... please no, save me. I just got promoted, and I'm supposed to get married this year. I don't want to die!!" The manager threw his arms around Arata's leg, but Arata just kicked him away.
"You're beyond saving," Arata replied coldly.
"Blergh!!"
"Ah!!!!" The manager suddenly shrieked. He grabbed his ass with both hands, feeling something gnawing on his anus and the surrounding internal organs.
"Ah!!! It hurts so much."
"Save me!!! Just kill me."
Watching the manager's agonizing expression, Arata's hand formed a blade. Five sharp slash marks instantly appeared across the manager's neck. The waitresses beside them slumped to the floor in terror.
"A devil that interrupts my dinner is completely unforgivable."
Arata stood up. He pulled a black top hat from his messenger bag and elegantly placed it on his head. His face contorted into something sinister, stepping slowly out of the private room like Freddy Krueger crawling out of hell.
"What a foul stench. It's completely ruined my appetite."
"Another devil!!!"
"Another delicious late-night meal." The Rat Devil, its body bloated to twice its original size from gorging on corpses, beamed with a grotesque smile when it saw Arata.
"The more I eat, the stronger I get, and the bigger I grow. Especially devils, eating them doubles the effect."
"Where is Denji?" Arata asked.
"Who is Denji? Anyone who fought me has already been digested in my stomach. Ha..."
The Rat Devil didn't even get to finish its laugh. In the next moment, its voice was permanently cut off.
The bloated rat head slowly split in two. The top half of its skull slid off and dropped to the floor. Its blood-soaked, mangled brain was packed densely with writhing rats. These were the Rat Devil's internal parasites.
Exposed to the light, they all scrambled to flee in every direction. But they couldn't escape Arata's phantom claws. Every single one was killed. If even a single rat managed to slip away, the Rat Devil would have been able to revive.
Having dealt with the Rat Devil, Arata used his bladed claws to rip open the creature's stomach. It was stuffed to the brim with piled body parts and mangled heads, making it impossible to identify anyone in the immediate mess.
Vrrr!!!
Just as Arata was digging through the corpses, the sudden roar of a chainsaw erupted behind him. The sound rapidly closed in, going from distant to dangerously near in an instant.