Chapter 236: Boring! Fight! Fight! I want to see a river of blood
The rusted iron gates of Yongye Middle School loomed ahead, their peeling paint barely visible through the thick, unnatural mist clinging to the asphalt. A group of players huddled together beneath the decaying archway, their faces pale with apprehension.
"A school instance?"
Haruto casually chewed on a skewer of roasted meat. He glanced at the shadowy silhouette of the teaching building hidden within the fog, then lazily swept his gaze over the gathered crowd. Counting himself, there were exactly twelve players present.
"Brother Haruto! Sister Kaguya!"
A familiar voice pierced the gloomy atmosphere. Yotsuya Miko jogged over, her uniform swishing lightly. Trailing closely behind her was a girl sporting square-framed glasses, dressed in a similarly neat student uniform.
Miko gently pulled the bespectacled girl forward. "Her name is Rin Setsu. I met her in the last instance. After adding her as a friend, we found out we are actually from the same world."
Hearing that specific name...
Haruto paused mid-chew. His jaw locked for a fraction of a second.
If it had not been for the second half of Miko's introduction, he would have genuinely believed the girl standing before him was some long-lost relative of Rinnosuke.
"Brother Haruto. Sister Kaguya." Rin Setsu bowed her head slightly, her voice laced with nervous hesitation.
Although this was her very first time meeting the legendary duo, Miko had practically talked her ear off about them since their last survival game. Punching evil spirits into oblivion and drop-kicking false gods—the descriptions Miko provided were so utterly absurd they sounded like pure fantasy.
In truth, just the day before this instance began, Rin Setsu had been agonizing over whether to spend her hard-earned points to hire a veteran player for protection. Out of nowhere, Miko sent a message claiming these two supreme experts were willing to party up.
However...
Rin Setsu discreetly eyed the pair. Her expression grew incredibly complicated. They looked like they were on a leisurely midnight stroll to a convenience store. They carried nothing but two flimsy plastic bags, and they were literally wearing cheap rubber slippers.
When entering a life-and-death horror instance, was it not standard procedure to bring heavy tactical backpacks stuffed with survival gear?
She could perhaps excuse the lack of weapons. But the contents of those plastic bags were undeniably freshly grilled barbecue skewers. Did that mean they were casually having a late-night snack right before being teleported into a ghost town?
If she did not trust Miko with her life, Rin Setsu would have immediately assumed these two were suicidal amateurs.
... why were they staring at her with such intense, unblinking eyes?
Rin Setsu shrank back, pulling her shoulders up to her ears. Haruto and Kaguya had not looked away from her face since she introduced herself. She shot Miko a desperate, silent plea for help.
Miko blinked, equally bewildered by the heavy atmosphere. She opened her mouth to intervene, but Haruto beat her to it.
"Do you happen to have a relative named Rinnosuke?"
Miko froze. Was the infinite multiverse truly this small? Did they actually run into an acquaintance's family member here?
She turned to Rin Setsu, only to find the bespectacled girl looking completely lost.
Rin Setsu shook her head firmly.
"Then it is nothing." Haruto waved his hand dismissively, his intense aura evaporating into casual indifference. "I just thought you were a distant relative of that guy Rinnosuke. Even your glasses are the exact same square-framed style."
Kaguya nodded slowly, a dark shadow crossing her features. "If you were Rinnosuke's relative, then Ryuko and I would have to take good care of you."
Miko watched Kaguya crack her knuckles. The sickening crunch of bone echoed in the quiet mist. An almost suffocating wave of pure, unadulterated malice radiated from both Haruto and Kaguya. Miko swallowed hard, a drop of cold sweat sliding down her cheek.
She could vividly imagine exactly what that so-called 'taking care of' entailed.
Rin Setsu shuddered violently, wrapping her arms around herself. It would be a supreme injustice to suffer a brutal, undeserved calamity just because she shared a surname and eyewear preference with some stranger she had never met.
Haruto turned his attention away from the terrified girl.
The other eight players had already clustered into their own respective cliques, yet every single pair of eyes was glued to Haruto's group. Seeing that the bizarre interrogation had finally concluded, a man from the largest group cautiously approached.
"What do we do next?"
These people were far from stupid. From the brief exchange, they easily deduced that Haruto and Kaguya were the veteran anchors of their team. The duo's absolute lack of tension, combined with their beach-vacation attire, practically screamed 'Supreme Experts Who Look Down On The World'.
Haruto lazily shifted his gaze to Kaguya.
Sensing the collective weight of everyone's expectations resting squarely on her shoulders, Kaguya cleared her throat delicately. She raised a slender finger and pointed toward the looming shadows of the school grounds.
"Let us go inside first and look for clues."
The rusted iron gates stood wide open, inviting them into the abyss.
After a brief moment of collective hesitation, the players began to shuffle forward. They all understood the cruel logic of the survival games. Huddling at the entrance and waiting for dawn would only guarantee a total team wipeout.
"There is information over here!"
A girl with twin ponytails, who had bravely crept into the dilapidated security booth near the gate, shouted through the broken window.
Haruto and his group immediately strolled over.
The security booth was incredibly cramped, choked with dust and rotting wood. It could comfortably fit three people, or four if they held their breath. Haruto, Kaguya, and the twin-tailed girl occupied the main space, leaving barely enough room for a single mouse to squeeze past them.
The clue in question was a yellowed, crumbling newspaper spread across the guard's desk.
The headline prominently featured Yongye Middle School. The smeared ink detailed a tragic accident. A student had drowned in the campus lake while playing a late-night game of hide-and-seek.
"Got it. The instance mission is probably hide-and-seek." Haruto shoved his hands into his pockets, shrugging his shoulders.
The twin-tailed girl clutched the edge of the desk, her voice trembling violently. "You mean... we have to play hide-and-seek here? With... with that drowned child?"
"Most likely." Haruto nodded, completely unfazed.
"I do not want to!" The girl took a frantic step backward, her back hitting the dirty glass. Panic warped her features. "If we are found by the ghost, we will definitely die in some horrible way!"
"It is not necessarily him coming to find us." Kaguya interjected, a bright, cheerful smile blooming on her face. But before the terrified girl could even release a sigh of relief, Kaguya leaned in closer. "It could also be us finding him. Or... finding each other."
The implications hung heavily in the stale air. The twin-tailed girl let out a strangled sob, completely overwhelmed by the psychological pressure. She spun around, shoved her way out of the booth, and bolted into the courtyard.
Haruto turned to Kaguya, raising a single eyebrow. His silent gaze clearly communicated: 'Why did you intentionally scare her?'
Kaguya blinked, her expression the picture of pure innocence. She was merely stating the logical possibilities of the game mechanics. She genuinely did not expect the girl to shatter like cheap glass. By all rights, a player with such fragile mental fortitude should have perished in the tutorial instance.
Besides, the newspaper article was merely a preliminary hint. Whether the main objective truly involved playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek with a vengeful spirit required further confirmation, usually in the form of bloody text written on a wall.
Before Haruto could step out of the booth to investigate further, a tall, muscular boy stomped over. His brow was furrowed in deep anger.
"What were you doing inside just now? Why is my girlfriend crying her eyes out the second she came out, saying you bullied her?"
Haruto tilted his head, glancing past the boy's shoulder at the weeping twin-tailed girl. A look of sudden realization washed over his face. He finally understood exactly how someone so cowardly had managed to survive all the way to a third-tier instance. She had a meat shield.
"I did not do anything anyway." Haruto casually pointed a thumb at Kaguya standing right beside him. "But you can ask this lady next to me."
The moment the words left his mouth, Haruto vanished. He swiftly slipped through the narrow doorway, gliding effortlessly across the courtyard until he was standing safely behind Miko and Rin Setsu.
Kaguya stood frozen in the security booth. Her jaw dropped.
Did he seriously just sell her out without a second thought?
Hearing that the beautiful, elegant girl in the princess dress was the culprit, the tall boy's aggressive posture faltered. His personal principles strictly forbade him from raising a hand against a woman. However, with his girlfriend sobbing pitifully in the background, he forced his chest out and took a menacing step forward.
"Miko, are you sure your Sister Kaguya is okay?" Rin Setsu watched the massive boy block Kaguya's only exit. Her hands wrung together in genuine anxiety. The size difference was terrifying.
"She is fine."
Haruto leaned against the brick wall next to them. Hearing Rin Setsu's trembling voice, he could not help but let out a dry chuckle. He waved his hand dismissively. "The one who should be worried right now is not Sister Kaguya. It is that guy."
As he spoke, Haruto reached into his inventory. With a dramatic flourish, he pulled out a massive, brightly glowing neon sign. He hoisted it high into the air under the utterly bewildered stares of Miko and Rin Setsu.
The scrolling LED text flashed in vibrant crimson: "Boring! I want to see a river of blood! Fight! Fight!!"
Miko's eyelids twitched violently. Rin Setsu simply stood there, her mouth hanging open in sheer disbelief.
Back in the security booth, Kaguya glared at the glowing sign. She felt as though ten thousand muddy alpacas were violently stampeding directly through her brain.
The surrounding players stared at the neon sign, their facial muscles spasming uncontrollably.
Meanwhile, the tall boy at the center of the conflict was completely paralyzed by confusion. He stared at Haruto, then back at Kaguya.
Were these two not a couple? Were they not teammates?
Not only did the guy abandon his female companion to face a physical threat alone, but he was now actively cheering for a bloodbath from the sidelines like a deranged sports fan.
The tall boy was trapped in an agonizing dilemma. He truly did not want to strike a girl, yet the princess-like beauty standing before him refused to offer a single word of explanation. Instead, she crossed her arms, her eyes radiating a chilling 'if you want to die, make your move' aura.
Just as the suffocating standoff threatened to boil over into actual violence, another player intervened. A quiet man who had also been inside the security booth stepped between them, quickly explaining the actual cause of the misunderstanding.
The heavy tension instantly evaporated.
Realizing he had aggressively confronted someone over a simple statement of facts, the tall boy flushed bright red. He bowed deeply, offering a frantic and sincere apology to Kaguya before retreating to comfort his girlfriend.
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