A Beheading at the Start

"Feed these little brats some pig slop. At least keep them alive through the night!"

Who?

Who was talking?

Had I gotten drunk and fallen asleep on the street?

Rinto slowly opened his eyes. All he could see was darkness. His familiar ceiling was gone, and so was the familiar fluorescent light. Only the dim oil lamps lining the corridor beyond the black iron bars brought the slightest bit of light to the place.

What was going on?

Rinto jolted upright and quickly scanned his surroundings, his heart immediately sinking.

Nothing in sight was familiar to him!

Iron bars separated one cage from another. Beneath him was cold, hard ground. Inside the enormous cage, ragged children huddled together in a trembling mass!

This...

Looking down at his small, immature yet rough hands, Rinto instantly broke out in a cold sweat.

"I... I'm only six or seven at most!"

If this wasn't a dream, then he was in serious trouble!

These hands were not the large, rough hands he used to have. Obviously, this wasn't his body.

More importantly, the fierce, burning hunger in his stomach told him this was no dream!

"This is so fucked..."

Lowering his arms, Rinto forced a bitter smile and collapsed backward weakly. For a moment, he simply could not accept it.

He could be sure of one thing: he had transmigrated.

Suppressing his hunger, Rinto shut his eyes tightly and tried to dig through this body for its previous owner's memories. The damn thing was, the former owner's little brain was completely blank—cleaner than the tissues by his bedside.

"My money...!"

Rinto was no stranger to transmigration. In his previous life, he had worked in sales. Whenever he wasn't negotiating with clients, his favorite pastime was reading novels. Sometimes, he had grown tired of his repetitive daily life and envied those transmigrators who could experience countless exciting adventures.

But now that it had happened to him, Rinto really didn't want to transmigrate at all!

He had painstakingly saved up tens of thousands of yuan. At the very least, he should have been allowed to spend it in style first!

The thought of his money lying, just like him, inside a dry, cold safe made Rinto's heart ache so badly he could barely breathe.

Still, he had endured society's beatings and understood that one had to bow one's head when the time called for it. Something as bizarre as transmigration was simply not a reality he could resist right now.

Thinking that, his mindset gradually calmed.

"Thank goodness they didn't wipe my memories from my previous life too. Otherwise, there'd be no point in playing."

After all, Rinto had been a somewhat successful salesman in his previous life. He had faced countless difficult clients and demanding corporate bosses. His mentality was rock-solid, and that was the foundation of his livelihood.

After silently adjusting his state of mind, Rinto recalled everything he had seen since waking up.

A pitch-black, windowless cage. Cold, damp ground. Murky, foul-smelling but not cold air. Ragged children. Everything spoke of cruelty and misery.

The only conclusion Rinto could draw for now was that this place was underground.

Considering that children—including himself—were being illegally imprisoned here, this had to be the secret base of some international criminal organization!

Just as Rinto was deep in thought, a sudden, piercing knocking sound rang out.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

It gave him such a fright that he jumped.

"Damn it, are you ghosts or something? Don't you make any noise when you walk?" Rinto muttered softly before opening his eyes.

By the faint candlelight, he saw a cold-looking middle-aged man wearing a gray hemp short coat tied at the waist, with something like fishnet stockings underneath. The man kept striking the iron bars with a wooden stick. Oddly enough, his forehead was also wrapped in a metal-plated headband engraved with strange patterns.

The middle-aged man expressionlessly scattered handful after handful of black pellets into the cage, littering the ground with them.

Rinto had been lying near the edge of the cage. He sat up, casually picked one up, and watched the middle-aged man's departing back as he quietly mocked, "That guy must have something seriously wrong with him. Wearing fishnet stockings as clothes underneath? He's either a pervert or gay."

As he spoke, Rinto suddenly froze. A flash of insight streaked through his mind, and his pupils slowly widened.

I... I think I've seen clothes like that before!

The next second, the words Naruto leaped into his mind, and a storm surged in his heart.

Suddenly, he remembered the sentence he had heard before waking up. The pronunciation sounded exactly like the Yamete he often heard in AV videos.

Then that metal-plated headband on that middle-aged man's forehead... wasn't that a forehead protector?!

Thinking of that, Rinto looked down at the black pellet in his hand, and his teeth began to ache.

No, no, no! I still can't be sure. Maybe that guy was just some freak whose condition was called gender identity disorder but was really just cross-dressing!

Inside the cage, the children scrambled desperately for the black pellets on the ground. Any child who got one immediately stuffed it into their mouth and continued fighting for more.

Very soon, the pellets on the ground were gone. Rinto clearly noticed that quite a few children had grabbed more than one. They carefully hid them away, curled up in corners, and watched everyone around them with intense vigilance.

The children who got nothing stared greedily and longingly at the others. Several of them watched the hand holding Rinto's pellet with green-eyed hunger. It was hard to imagine that children no more than seven or eight years old could have such vicious looks in their eyes.

Swoosh! With a faint sound and a few chews, the green light in the children's eyes around Rinto shifted elsewhere.

Rinto swallowed the pellet and secretly let out a sigh of relief.

When poor, one should look after oneself; when prosperous, one should help the world.

He only had one pellet, and his stomach was burning with hunger. He had better take care of himself first.

Not long after the pellet went down, a feeling of fullness washed over him, and warmth rose in his stomach. Rinto smacked his lips twice in amazement.

The taste was terrible, like he had eaten a mouthful of mud, but the effect was outstanding. One pellet was enough for an entire meal.

Feeling the pain in his stomach gradually ease, Rinto shifted away from the children who had already begun fighting. He found a quiet corner, leaned against the wall, and tried hard to recall the Naruto plot he had once watched.

He hadn't realized it before, but once he thought about it, he was shocked.

"Damn it, why is my head full of 'I, Madara, will call you the strongest,' 'How many floors can one bag of rice carry? Spicy, sweet, sour, salty'? This is killing me! I've watched too many hype videos!"

Muttering to himself, Rinto's lips slowly curved upward as he sighed softly.

"Youth..."

As the candlelight gradually dimmed, Rinto closed his eyes as well and fell asleep.

Who knew how long had passed when the half-asleep Rinto was suddenly awakened by a piercing knocking sound.

Outside the cage stood Old Man in White Coat, with four or five people dressed like ninjas behind him. The middle-aged man who had delivered food to Rinto and the other children was striking the iron bars hard with his wooden stick.

"Get up! All of you, get up! Stand by the side of the cage!"

The middle-aged man roared loudly, his shadowy eyes filled with ferocity.

The ragged children woke one after another and huddled tightly together like terrified lambs. Rinto got to his feet, lowered his head, and hid among the crowd while secretly watching every movement of the people outside the iron bars from the corner of his eye.

Creak. With a harsh scraping sound, the cage door opened.

"Come out! Hurry!" The middle-aged man continued striking viciously, producing loud banging noises.

Still mixed in with the crowd, Rinto followed Old Man in White Coat at the front through the narrow corridor that stretched beyond sight amid the shouted orders.

The enormous underground cavern had droplets falling from stalactites overhead. In the center of the cavern stood a massive stone platform soaked with mottled dark-red blood, while a thick stench of blood filled the air.

Before the stone platform, a man wrapped tightly in a cloak stood with his hands behind his back, expressionlessly staring at the huge raised platform before him.

"Lord Ineyū, the sacrifices for Lord Jashin are ready!"

Behind the man, one of the ninja-dressed figures knelt on one knee, his voice filled with reverence and fanaticism.

The cloaked man called Ineyū nodded silently. Still facing away, he spoke in a hoarse voice.

"What about the vessels?"

The ninja immediately lowered his head. "They are all prepared. This time, we have one hundred and fifty-two vessels."

Only then did Ineyū nod more noticeably. It was clear that he was very satisfied with that number.

"Go make the preparations. Lord Jashin will remember your devotion!"

At those words, uncontrollable delight immediately appeared on the kneeling ninja's face.

People surged forward from the pitch-black cave entrances in every direction as large numbers of children were driven out. The expressionless Cultists cracked their whips and freely indulged their brutality.

Very soon, the sallow, emaciated children were driven onto the huge altar in the center of the cavern. They crowded together in terror, waiting for an unknown fate.

Ineyū, hooded and wrapped tightly from head to toe, looked at the uneasy children on the platform. His bloodshot eyes were filled with fanaticism, and he continuously muttered low, mad ravings.

Once the children were in place, the cave entrances that had just quieted down filled with people again. This time, however, countless adults with numb, withered faces poured out from within.

There were men, women, and even white-haired elderly people among them. They had different faces, different genders, and different ages. The only thing they shared was their eyes, each pair consisting of nothing but whites.

Moving with the staggering gait of zombies, these people surrounded the altar.

Seeing that both the sacrifices and vessels were in position, Ineyū pulled back his hood and revealed a hideous face covered in savage scars. His eyes, mostly white with little black, were full of blood vessels and fanaticism.

"Yahahaha! Begin the sacrifice!"

Following Ineyū's shrill scream, the guards in ninja uniforms all dropped to their knees toward the central altar, bowed their heads, and continuously uttered chaotic, blasphemous sounds through their trembling lips.

Standing on the altar, Rinto suddenly felt the world spinning as though the entire world had twisted out of shape.

Even his head felt rusted, turning with unbearable sluggishness.

"Damn Cultists, I can't move! I have to... save... myself!"

Though he had no idea what these abnormal people were doing, he could be certain that it was nothing good.

Just as Rinto struggled desperately to regain control of his body, a cruel scene unfolded.

The Cultists somehow drew all sorts of grotesque, dark-red instruments of torture and charged into the crowd of adults like meat grinders, stirring up storms of crimson flesh and blood.

How could ordinary people possibly stand against a group of ninjas? Not to mention that these ordinary people had no awareness of resistance whatsoever. They did not even let out a single scream.

Before long, blood dyed the ground red, and severed limbs covered the area below the stone platform.

Ineyū closed his eyes and savored the scent of blood in the air. Suddenly, his bloodshot eyes flew open, and his hideous face twisted violently.

"Not enough, still not enough! There are too few sacrifices! Kill some of the vessels!"

His piercing roar rang out as the Cultists grinned savagely, brandished their instruments of torture, and rushed onto the stone platform.

At once, cold sweat poured down Rinto's back.

Yet his body was like rusted machinery, creaking as it struggled to move even an inch.

As the bloodstained axe blade was about to cut across his neck, Rinto became frantic, his eyes nearly splitting apart.

"Move! Get out of the way!"

His hysterical roar echoed through the cavern.

The string inside his body snapped at its limit. With a soft twang, an intense, burning desire to survive shattered the restraints on his body.

His body immediately tipped backward, narrowly avoiding the Cultist's beheading strike by a hair's breadth.

But before he could breathe a sigh of relief, the Cultist's grotesque, demon-like face appeared again. The axe in his hand seemed weightless as it sliced through the air at terrifying speed, chasing after Rinto's neck.

Rinto's pupils instantly shrank to pinpoints. As he watched the axe blade draw closer and closer, despair filled his heart.

It's over.

The sharp axe blade swept through. Rinto only felt the world spin as though he had been thrown into the air, before crashing heavily to the ground with a dull thud.

In his gradually darkening, blurring vision, a familiar headless body slowly toppled over, kicking up clouds of dust.

Damn it! My head and body are separated! I'm dead!