Chapter 12: A Dark Turn of Imagination.
....
With a loud bang, the wooden door was kicked open by a leg clad in opaque black tights.
Akane Shinjo stepped into the room, her expression dark. Without a word, she tossed her school bag onto a pile of trash bags filled with discarded clay scraps near the entrance. Passing through a corridor lined with shelves of monster figurines, she headed straight for her desk.
The secondary monitor flickered to life instantly.
Alexis Kerib appeared on the screen.
"Shinjo-san, you don't seem to be in a good mood."
Akane ignored him completely.
She put on her glasses and immediately entered her creative mode.
The tip of her sculpting knife moved slowly across the clay. But there was nothing calm about her movements, her eyes burned with anger, her hands cutting into the material with unsettling intensity, as if she were carving into something alive.
"...How dare they treat my protagonist like that… No manners… no respect… just disappear already…"
A low, chilling murmur escaped her lips.
Alexis silently observed.
For him, this situation was ideal. The stronger Akane's emotions, the more powerful the monsters she created would become.
It seemed he no longer needed to guide her, just act as the one who materialized her creations.
After about two hours, the monster was complete.
It was a humanoid creature combining features of a mantis and a wolf sharp mandibles, clawed limbs, and twin scythe-like blades extending from its arms.
"Hmm… quite an impressive design," Alexis commented.
Akane didn't even look up.
"Stop talking. Just send it out. I want those two gone."
"…Understood."
"Materialization—activate."
A deep crimson light burst from Alexis's W-shaped visor, filling the room. Akane squinted as the glow faded.
The clay figure was gone.
Now alive.
Akane quickly launched her drone and began tracking the monster as it leapt across buildings.
"Yes… faster… go faster! If you don't hurry, the volleyball club will finish practice!"
The creature arrived at Tsutsuji-dai High School just as club activities were ending.
Instead of entering through the front, it vaulted over the wall and landed silently in the school's wooded area, moving low to the ground like a predator.
Akane's drone couldn't follow closely, so it hovered above, focusing on the back entrance of the gym.
There, one of the girls, Fuyukawa, sat alone, listening to music.
Akane smirked.
"Disrespecting a god… being rude to the protagonist… and now skipping practice? You really don't belong in my city."
She watched as the monster drew closer.
Just then—
The door creaked open.
"Fuyukawa! Seriously, why are you slacking off again? If Yotsuba-senpai finds out, we're both getting in trouble!"
Tomiyori stepped out, scolding her friend.
"Sorry, sorry! The training's too intense. Slacking a little when she's not around is fair, right?"
"…You really—"
She stopped mid-sentence.
Her eyes widened in horror.
Something had emerged from the trees behind her.
Fuyukawa, still wearing earphones, didn't notice. She only saw Tomiyori frozen in place, unable to speak.
"Hey, what's wrong with you—?"
Before she could finish, something sudden and terrifying happened.
Moments later, silence fell.
Fuyukawa's expression slowly changed from confusion to fear.
"…Tomiyori…?"
The situation had turned into something she couldn't understand—something wrong.
Before she could react properly, the creature moved again.
Everything happened too fast.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the campus fell quiet.
The monster disappeared into the shadows.
"Ugh—!"
Akane suddenly turned away from her screen and rushed to the bathroom.
"Shinjo-san, I told you not to keep watching," Alexis said, his tone almost helpless.
Akane was pale, leaning over the sink, trembling.
"Shut up… just leave me alone…"
"…Very well."
His image vanished.
This was the first time Akane had witnessed something like this so directly.
Originally, she imagined her monsters as massive creatures, destroying buildings from afar, everything distant, almost like a show.
But this…
This was different.
Up close. Real.
Too real.
"…Was this… really the right thing to do…?"
A flicker of doubt surfaced in her mind.
For a brief moment, she hesitated.
Suddenly, the room filled with a faint red glow.
That doubt… faded.
Her discomfort eased.
Her thoughts became quiet again.
"Shinjo-san, I told you not to eat too much fried food. Now look—you upset your stomach."
"Stop nagging! You're so annoying, Alexis!"
After washing up, Akane returned to her desk and turned off the secondary monitor.
"Now then…"
She leaned forward slightly, eyes gleaming again.
"Let's see what my protagonist is doing~"
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Thank you for reading.