The Problem Was Huge, So There Was No Need to Be Afraid
"Muda!"
A roar exploded in Baihe Hua's ears, and then she was horrified to see that the disgusting One-Eyed Monster was blasted away by a phantom punch!
Simple, direct, like something out of an animation: the short, fat, One-Eyed Monster flew through the air, his eyeballs bursting open, brain matter and tissue fluid spraying out along with his blood.
No, it wasn't just tissue fluid; his body was like a watermelon that had been violently smashed by a giant hammer—not just the juice, but also the flesh and rind disintegrated together.
Internal organs, flesh, and even the filthy monk's robe were all shattered by this punch, and after flying about five meters, they had completely turned into ashes.
"What... what's going on?" Baihe Hua stared blankly, stunned by what she saw, but the intense hunger in her stomach forced her to snap out of her shock.
I'm so hungry!
I'm so hungry!
I'm so hungry!
Remembering the legend of the "Hungry Ghost Soul" that Rinka had mentioned before, Baihe Hua couldn't help but touch her front cushioning pad to make sure the size hadn't changed before picking up the bread that Rinka had left for her and swallowing it in big gulps.
After finishing one loaf of bread, the hunger in her stomach was slightly relieved. Baihe Hua tore open the packaging of the second loaf and slowed down her eating speed.
She chewed her food in small bites as she began to think about everything that had just happened in the blink of an eye. After a brief silence, she roughly pieced together some information.
"That one-eyed creature must be from Weird Tale... um, something like the One-Eyed Monk. It attacks people who can see it, and then it realized I could see it, so it tried to attack me."
Based on the available information, Baihe Hua made a simple deduction, and then...
Who was that figure who shouted "Useless"?
Just as Baihe Hua, a series of unusually discordant footsteps approached. She turned her head slightly and saw that her classmates in the infirmary were all unresponsive. She immediately realized that this might be another Weird Tale, so she lowered her head and pretended to be focused on the bread in her hand.
Soon, footsteps approached, and several strange-looking monsters rushed in and began searching the area.
These monsters had heads as big as buckets, necks longer than giraffes, and some looked like fleshy growths with arms and legs; each one was strange in its own way.
Watching these Weird Tale leaping and rummaging through the room, Baihe Hua tensed up, taking small bites of her bread, feeling a churning in her stomach.
Excessive tension made her feel nauseous, but hunger urged her not to stop eating.
"No!" The monster with a long neck, resembling the legendary "Gourd Head), twisted its neck and uttered a questioning voice with its head, which it had just pulled out from under the bed.
The tumor-like monster blinked its beady eyes and asked in confusion:
"This is indeed the place where the [consciousness] of One-Eyed Entrant is most concentrated, so how come there isn't a trace of it at all?"
"That guy has the ability to beg for mercy; there's no way he could have been eliminated without making a sound." The monster, whose head was so large one worried about whether his neck could withstand it, kept scanning the layout of the infirmary, frowning as he said:
"And there are absolutely no signs of a battle here!"
"But Hundred-Eyed Demon can't be wrong! The aura of the One-Eyed Entrant has already disappeared!"
The Gourd Head, twisting neck resembling tentacles, stared at the ordinary students in the infirmary and said:
"These people haven't reacted much either. If they really encountered that Kamen Rider, they should have made a commotion. It's impossible for all of these dozen or so students to be Kamen Rider, right? I haven't detected Kamen Rider belt or [Knowledge] aura either!"
"So it's not in this room?" The big-headed monster squeezed its head through the window and looked to both sides.
"To be able to eliminate One-Eyed Entrant without even having time to beg for mercy, and for an ordinary person to be unable to see it, this is probably not Kamen Rider, but some other kind of Weird Tale."
"Impossible! Apart from the [Knowledge] that One-Eyed Entrant, there are absolutely no other traces here. There's no Weird Tale here." The veins on the tumorous monster's body began to throb rapidly, and its Gourd Head shook its neck like it was jumping rope.
"So, the One-Eyed Entrant cultivator went elsewhere and was dealt with there?"
"That's the only way to think about it. Hmm, those Kamen Rider from the Eastern Kingdom collect the [consciousness] of the dead, right? Maybe the Remnants [consciousness] of One-Eyed Entrant has already been collected..."
"Then there are no clues?"
"No clues is good? I don't want to fight Kamen Rider! Quickly report the situation here!"
The three monsters exchanged ideas as they emerged from the infirmary. Baihe Hua finally breathed a sigh of relief. As the school bell rang, the area outside became lively.
"Yuri-chan! I brought the cookies I made in home economics class, have a taste!" Rinka's voice came from outside the door. Baihe Hua's mood finally improved a lot. She didn't take the cookies, but instead shakily got out of bed. The infirmary was too scary. The classroom, with more people, seemed safer.
She finally made it out of school, but Baihe Hua's mood didn't improve at all, because she discovered that there were far more Weird Tale on the streets than at school!
"What are all these things?! Have I been living in a world like this all along?" Baihe Hua looked at the monsters coming and going, almost in despair, watching them occasionally bar their teeth and claws at passersby, and felt her sanity plummet.
She practically fled into the convenience store, dodging the "ghost" that seemed to be patrolling inside, and swept all the sanitary pads off the shelves into her shopping cart. Even though it wasn't her period yet, today's experience made her realize that she probably wouldn't be able to live without them from now on...
Soon after, a young girl appeared at the checkout counter, pushing a cart full of sanitary pads and various high-calorie snacks as if she were shopping for New Year's goods, which left the sales clerk a little bewildered.
"Check out!" Seeing the ghost that had been circling the store approaching her, Baihe Hua tried to remain calm and, in a tone almost like she was robbing a bank, shouted the order.
The sales clerk immediately realized her lapse in decorum and, displaying the traditional Dongguo craftsmanship, bowed and apologized while quickly scanning the code.
This large shopping spree cost Baihe Hua several Fukuzawa Yukichi's, but for her, these were necessary expenses. Although she didn't understand what had happened, after a day of thinking, she could at least conclude that both her sudden ability to see Weird Tale and the figure that One-Eyed Entrant -do were directly related to her suddenly increased appetite!
But more painful than the money spent was figuring out how to get through those huge bags of stuff...
"Huh? Not heavy?"
A hint of surprise flashed across Baihe Hua's face, who had already come to her senses. That thing, which must have weighed at least ten kilograms, was carried in her hands as easily as a balloon.
However, this physical ease did not bring Baihe Hua any sense of relief; instead, it made her even more sorrowful.
"My body is definitely in serious trouble!"
Some readers may have misunderstood the concept of psychological confrontation.
It is not against the "spirit of Progenitor Supernatural Tale," or rather, it is not just against them.
Didn't we use the folder merging example before?
If a Progenitor Supernatural Tale has four powers [1], [2], [3], and [4] (of course, there are also settings, Companion Phantom, Tag, etc., but powers are used here because they are the most representative), and you only get three powers [1], [2], and [3] from the Supernatural Tale Entry you play, then [4] will be a contamination for you when you devour the Progenitor Supernatural Tale.
What you need to fight with your mind is [4] and the spiritual Remnants of the Progenitor Supernatural Tale.
However, most of the time, as Innate Supernatural Tale Progenitor Supernatural Tale is closer to that of an intelligent program than a biological being, so its "self" is not very strong and it is not difficult to fight against. The real trouble is those "files" that you do not possess.
After all, Tag are a manifestation of real people's "cognition" of Weird Tale. To fight against Tag is to fight against the people who perceive these Weird Tale.
Taking the Kuchisake-onna as an example, Kuchisake-onna has different methods of killing, such as "stabbing with scissors" and "cutting open the throat." Depending on the version she plays, she may gain different powers such as "piercing" and "cutting."
If you play as the Kuchisake-onna with the power of [cutting], while devouring the Progenitor Supernatural Tale, you must fight against the cognitive Weird Tale enthusiasts' belief that "the Kuchisake-onna should be pierced."
In short, it's a conflict between "how I think I am" and "how others think I am".
If one cannot accurately understand oneself, one will lose oneself, which becomes Omen.