After I severed Gennaro's arm, the others immediately went limp and turned pale!
Without a word, I quickly picked up his severed arm and threw it into the well.
"You... you beasts! How dare you cut off my grandson's arm? I'll fight you to the death!" Grandma Gennaro's face twisted with hatred.
But just then, the sow beside us suddenly stood up, startling us all. Grandma Gennaro's eyes widened in shock, left speechless.
Even if it was a demon, how could it still be alive after having its throat slit and bleeding out?
"Wait, it's not the pig demon - it's a vengeful ghost possessing the pig," Stein exclaimed.
That's right. The pig demon and the ghost of the loli had shared the same body. While the pig demon had been killed, the ghost remained. Now that I'd cut off Gennaro's tattooed arm and thrown it into the well, the tattoo's protective effect was gone.
Without the tattoo's protection, that loli knight...
The dead pig slowly rose to its feet, its scarlet eyes opening as drool dripped from its mouth.
"I deserved to die? Why did I deserve to die? Didn't I have the right to refuse? Just because I wouldn't sleep with him, I deserved to die? Your grandson is precious, but others mean nothing?"
Suddenly, the pig's mouth began spewing human words in a hateful tone. The atmosphere grew intensely eerie, and we all held our breaths, not daring to move.
"Evil ghost! Kill me if you must, but don't harm my grandson!" Grandma Gennaro shouted, though her body trembled with fear as she spoke.
But the knight ignored her, moving straight toward Gennaro instead.
"No, don't kill me! I was wrong! I'll burn paper money for you - anything you want! If you kill me, you won't be able to move on! Let me go, I'll do anything!" Gennaro begged through the pain.
It was no use. The sow possessed by the vengeful ghost lunged at Gennaro with terrifying ferocity.
Fresh from losing an arm, Gennaro couldn't resist as the pig attacked like a wild beast. In moments, it had bitten through his throat. Blood pooled on the ground as Gennaro drew his last breath.
Fortunately, I'd had the foresight to record everything on my phone. Gennaro had been killed by a pig - it had nothing to do with us. No lawsuit would hold up.
Immediately after killing Gennaro, a cloud of black smoke floated from the pig's body before vanishing with a whoosh.
Justice had been served. The ghost's resentment was finally eliminated, and she had presumably moved on to reincarnation. That poor loli - hopefully in her next life she'll be wiser about going home with strangers. To be fair, she did bear some responsibility in this too.
A life for a life, a debt for a debt. Gennaro had finally paid the price he deserved.
Grandma Gennaro clutched her grandson's body, wailing in grief. But with his throat torn out, not even the gods could save him now. All that remained was to prepare his funeral.
We slipped away during her moment of sorrow - no point waiting around for her to come after us later. I wiped my fingerprints off the butcher knife, tossed it aside, and fled with Stein and the others.
It was past 1:00 a.m. when we retraced our path back to Remmerink's house. But strangely, the house had vanished - only a graveyard stood in its place.
The cemetery plot had been disturbed, its headstone clearly bearing Remmerink's name alongside those of his wife and children. His entire family appeared to be dead!
My mind reeled at the impossibility. When we first arrived in this village, we'd stayed at Remmerink's house. How could it have transformed into a cemetery upon our return?
Then Stein spotted several hundred-dollar bills placed before the headstone. I picked them up - unmistakably the same money I'd given Remmerink.
Since there were no hotels in the village, I'd slipped Remmerink a few hundred for lodging. He hadn't refused, taking us in while telling us about Gennaro's house and its location.
How could this be...?
Unnerving. Deeply unnerving. Had we really been staying in a cemetery this whole time? Impossible - we'd clearly entered the village.
Antonio and Stein agreed - we'd definitely come to a living village, not a graveyard. Yet the evidence lay before us: we'd boarded in a cemetery, seeking help from the dead!
After prolonged exposure to this eerie graveyard, we all got goosebumps and hurried away, spending the rest of the night beneath a large tree in the village.
Come morning, we ate at a village breakfast stall and asked the owner about Remmerink.
"He's been dead for years," the proprietor said. "The year he had that affair with Papa Gennaro's wife in the pigsty, Gennaro hacked him to death on the spot. They threw his body in a well - soaked there for years before anyone found it. In the end, they took Papa Gennaro out and shot him."
What's more, news of Remmerink's affair with Gennaro's father's wife spread throughout the village. Unable to endure the villagers' gossip, Remmerink's wife suffered a mental breakdown and eventually jumped off a building while holding their baby - both died as well!
Their relatives ended up burying the entire family together - a tragic family reunion.
Holy shit! So this Remmerink was the same man who had cheated with Gennaro's mother in the pigsty!