**Killer Queen Has Already Touched This Doorknob!

"I'm cute."

"Huh?"

Sakurajima Mai suspected there was something wrong with her ears and stared intently at the girl before her.

She had refined features, translucent white skin, long black hair falling past her shoulders, and a face so cute it was almost unfair.

Although her chest was as flat as the Kanto Plain, she had long, well-proportioned limbs, a perfectly slender waist, and flawless curves. Her black hair swayed slightly, her delicate skin glistened translucently, her large eyes shone brightly, and her lips were a light cherry pink.

Without a doubt, she was an exceptionally beautiful girl.

Sakurajima Mai admitted as much, but what exactly was she trying to say?

Besides, was it really appropriate to solemnly declare, "I'm cute"?

Yukino Yukinoshita's tone remained calm:

"I've been cute since I was little. That's why I was bullied."

"When I was in elementary school, my indoor shoes were hidden around sixty times. People even put thumbtacks inside them. Girls were responsible for fifty of those incidents, so I had to bring my indoor shoes and recorder home every day."

"Besides that, people put dead insects in my desk and wrote things like 'slutty bitch' on top of it. Those things happened too. They probably learned it from their ill-mannered parents."

"Still, I think it was unavoidable. Humans are weak and ugly, and they easily ostracize others out of jealousy. The more outstanding someone is, the harder it is for them to survive. It's utterly absurd, but that's reality."

"Ah, sorry. I've gone off-topic."

"In any case, all of that changed after Kira-kun enrolled."

"Although he was the one being bullied and ostracized, the reality was that the people bullying him ended up being bullied themselves."

"At first, Kira-kun chose to endure it, but constantly backing down only made the bullying worse. In the end, perhaps because he could no longer tolerate it, he retaliated against every act of bullying without mercy. Anyone who tried to use force against him was subdued. Some had their hands broken, while others had their legs broken."

"Is that what you mean by 'subdued'?" Sakurajima Mai's expression became slightly strange.

Does that mean Kira-kun's psychic ability had already awakened in elementary school?

Still, she had to admire Kira-kun's mercy. He had merely "subdued" them instead of blowing them up on the spot.

"Thanks to Kira-kun, I was saved as well, since I was being bullied too."

"But Kira-kun was expelled from school because of it. After all, breaking dozens of students' bones in one go was indeed excessive. Although the school authorities suppressed the matter, pressure from the students' parents ultimately forced them to expel Kira-kun."

Sakurajima Mai instinctively pressed her:

"What happened next?"

"I don't know."

Yukino Yukinoshita gently shook her head:

"Not long after that, all the bullies were transferred to other schools by their parents."

"And because I was being bullied, my parents transferred me to a school overseas as well, causing me to lose contact with Kira-kun."

After a pause, Yukino Yukinoshita said softly:

"This happened after the school became famous. I didn't understand it at the time, but thinking about it now, perhaps Kira-kun chose to endure things at first so he could wait for the school to become famous. Only after the school truly experienced the benefits of accepting orphaned students would it stop abandoning all orphans because of one person's actions."

Through media coverage, Starlight Academy received donations from a large number of compassionate people. The school's operations and profit model had long since become different from those of ordinary schools.

To this day, almost all the students at this school were homeless orphans from across Japan. It could even be said that this was the only school in all of Japan that could provide orphans with a normal education free of charge.

Sakurajima Mai remained silent for a long time before saying softly:

"Kira-kun saved all of you."

Yukino Yukinoshita replied calmly:

"He didn't just save us. He saved this world."

Sakurajima Mai froze, not quite understanding what she meant. She was about to ask, but Yukino Yukinoshita suddenly hit the brakes and pulled the car over.

"We're here."

At the girl's indifferent voice, Sakurajima Mai looked toward the luxury apartment by the roadside.

This was precisely the address Kira Yoshikage had sent them.

Only then did Sakurajima Mai remember the most important question:

"Come to think of it, what are we doing here?"

"Preventing Kira-kun from committing a crime."

Yukino Yukinoshita's gaze was complicated. There was a second half to her sentence that she left unsaid:

Or helping him clean up the crime scene.

As the title says, the book will go on sale this Friday.

I'll start with at least 50,000 extra words. Whether there will be more depends on how I'm feeling.

I have no idea how many first-day subscriptions I'll get.

Also, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Following Ciweimao's tradition, I'll set up a bounty.

There will be at least 4,000 words every day.

Every 100 monthly tickets will add 2,000 words.

Every 100 blades will add 2,000 words.

That's all.

Currently, there are 532 monthly tickets, 11,930 recommendation votes, and 177 blades.

Chapter 63: Killer Queen Has Already Touched This Doorknob!

Ding-dong!

The number displayed inside the elevator remained at 30.

The moment the elevator doors opened, a dim corridor appeared in Kira Yoshikage's line of sight. The elevator's light spilled outward, but it illuminated only the area within two meters of the doors.

Yet this was clearly a high-end apartment where each square meter cost more than a million yen. How could they possibly be stingy enough not to turn on even the corridor lights?

Even an unprepared ordinary person could vaguely sense the abnormality permeating this corridor.

Bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt!

The bright lights inside the elevator kept flickering while emitting an ear-piercing electrical buzz. This deepened the fear in people's hearts, as if the elevator might malfunction and plummet straight down at any moment, urging them to hurry out of the elevator before it fell and enter the dim corridor.

For the vast majority of people, that would merely mean stepping from one trap into another.

Smack!

Kira Yoshikage placed the bag in his hand against the elevator doors, then stepped out of the flickering elevator and slowly disappeared into the darkness.

Amid the rustling sounds, something seemed to be approaching rapidly. Kira Yoshikage instinctively looked up at the ceiling. With the help of the flickering elevator light, he clearly saw what was above him.

Dozens of arms were chaotically embedded in an obese body. Most of them clutched hairless heads with their eyes closed, while the few arms not holding heads helped it scuttle rapidly across the ceiling like a spider.

In almost the blink of an eye, it had crossed the corridor and reached the spot above Kira Yoshikage's head.

"Hey."

It lowered an arm from the ceiling and aimed the head in its grasp at Kira Yoshikage, its voice sinister:

"You can see me, right?"

The moment it finished speaking, the hairless head in its hand suddenly opened its eyes. Its formerly calm features twisted into extreme terror, and it let out a piercing scream.

That scream seemed to act as some kind of switch. One head after another opened its eyes in its hands, their features growing more hideous and horrifying with each one, until shrill screams echoed through the corridor.

"You can see me, right?"

"You can see me, right!"

"You can see me!"

Kira Yoshikage looked at the monster hanging from the ceiling, his tone as calm as ever:

"Killer Queen."

Pink Panther stood beside Kira Yoshikage, its similarly pink vertical pupils quietly fixed on the grotesque monster.

Shrieking, the monster reached toward Kira Yoshikage's head with one empty arm. As long as it touched him, it could turn this human Kira Yoshikage's head into another addition to its collection!

Boom!

Amid the silent explosion, Kira Yoshikage's footsteps rang especially loudly through the empty corridor.

He walked through the dark mist left behind by the exploded Evil Spirit and stopped before a door, carefully making out the letters written on it:

Nakano. Nakano.

Ding-dong~!

After standing at the door for two seconds, Kira Yoshikage pressed the doorbell.

The darkness in the corridor remained deep and heavy, showing no improvement after the Evil Spirit's death. Only the lights in the elevator area had stopped buzzing, struggling to push a patch of brightness outward.

Amid the crisscrossing light and shadows, Kira Yoshikage waited quietly while taking out his phone and opening his chat with Nakano Miku.

The chat history stopped at Nakano Miku's morning greeting. She had not replied to Kira Yoshikage's questions, as if the girl had already met with misfortune and could no longer send any messages.

The fact that no one had come to open the door after so long seemed to confirm it.

In theory, however, as long as they followed the rule of "not being seen," they should not have been killed by the Evil Spirits so quickly.

Unless it was a special-grade one.

After thinking for a moment, Pink Panther stepped forward and grasped the doorknob.

BOOM!

Without a sound, a silent explosion occurred inside the apartment.

Whatever Evil Spirit had been guarding the door, it had now been completely obliterated.

Click!

Amid the crisp sound of the lock, the door slowly opened.

Just like the dim corridor, the interior was shrouded in darkness.

However, the city's glow still filtered through the broad floor-to-ceiling windows occupying an entire wall, allowing Kira Yoshikage to make out the living room with the help of the faint light—

Bad news: There was no one here.

Good news: There were no corpses.

"Excuse me."

Kira Yoshikage called out toward the empty living room before entering under Slender Ghost's corridor-like welcome.

It was like accidentally wandering into an Enderman nest while playing Minecraft. Numerous slender black shadows, each more than two meters tall, gathered from all directions of the house and turned their featureless faces toward Kira Yoshikage.

"You can see me, right?"

In response to Slender Ghost's sinister question, Pink Panther amiably touched it.

Boom!

Slender Ghost clearly could not withstand Pink Panther's enthusiasm. It turned into a mass of black mist and slowly dispersed.

But this also enraged the other Slender Ghosts, confirming that Kira Yoshikage could "see" them. Like a pack of wolves that had caught the scent of meat, they surged toward him.

There were so many Slender Ghosts that even Kira Yoshikage found them troublesome—

Although Killer Queen's bombs were practically invincible in power, capable of killing even gods in a single strike,

Killer Queen could create only one bomb at a time. It could create a second bomb only after the first one exploded. In other words, an explosion could not deal with multiple enemies attacking simultaneously from different directions.

Killer Queen could blow up one enemy, then blow up a second.

However, there were simply too many Slender Ghosts, they were too close, and the space was far too cramped!

Even though Kira Yoshikage was confident that Killer Queen could blow up most of them in an extremely short time, he would inevitably be injured by the remaining stragglers.

So...

Pink Panther stood calmly before Kira Yoshikage and threw a punch at a speed beyond the limits of human vision.