In the dim classroom, only the cigarette between Lu Shiyan's fingers glimmered faintly.
By its meager light, Hoshino stared at the pitch-black mark on Yekaterina's arm.
It was a human face, screaming soundlessly.
Just looking at it made her feel a chill deep in her womb.
"Th-this... what is that?" Hoshino's voice trembled.
Yekaterina lowered her sleeve and answered succinctly, "A curse."
"Don't be scared, little girl~"
Lu Shiyan exhaled a smoke ring, a wicked grin on his lips.
"Anyone who enters the grounds of this school gets marked by that Hospitable Master."
"Of course, that includes you too~"
"What?!"
Hoshino shrank into a ball, tears glimmering in her eyes.
She looked pleadingly at Yekaterina, her gaze screaming, "Tell me this isn't true."
But Yekaterina crushed the last of her hopes without hesitation and said coldly,
"Lu isn't trying to scare you this time."
"If you don't believe me, check yourself."
Now Hoshino was truly panicking.
With trembling hands, she tried to pull open her collar to look, but she didn't dare—as if some flood or ferocious beast lurked beneath.
"Th-then... what does that ghost want with this mark?"
Hoshino asked in a tearful voice.
Lu Shiyan raised an eyebrow and lowered his voice mysteriously.
"To throw a party."
"When it's 4:44 AM, you'll find out what it wants..."
"Think about where we are... It's a school, after all. There have to be morning readings and flag-raising ceremonies."
"Trust me, you're going to 'love' it."
"I don't like it!!"
As Guo Shuai was about to leave the rain-soaked valley, a roar rang inside his mind.
"Holy shit! Are you trying to kill me?!"
Guo Shuai jolted in fright, nearly slipping into the mud. "Why'd you scare me out of nowhere? Could you have some manners?"
"Manners? You expect me to have manners?"
In his mind, Albert yelled in exasperation.
"What was that nickname you just thought of?! Fei Yangyang?!"
"That doesn't sound like a proper name at all!"
"You little brat, you're a real piece of work, bullying an old man who's over a thousand years old."
"It's just a nickname. Why're you blowing a fuse over it?"
Guo Shuai trudged toward the exit, stumbling through the mud as he shot back.
"I don't care! I don't want it! You're not allowed to call me Fei Yangyang!"
Albert gave a haughty snort like a childish old man, then fell silent.
Guo Shuai's mouth twitched.
This guy's personality...
How did he not match the bitter, deep-hatred image in the diary at all?
He seemed more like a tsundere who'd been locked away too long and had become a bit of a chatterbox.
"But... people can put on an act."
Guo Shuai thought to himself, "You can't be too careful around anyone."
Humming a tune, he slung his machine gun over his shoulder and hurried toward the black RV parked in the distance.
"I did a great job this time, and brought back weapons and intel. The boss should praise me, right?"
Thinking of Jiangnan, Guo Shuai's eyes filled with admiration.
That figure in the sea of flames, godlike; that silhouette that had raised a hand and reduced everything to ashes.
He had become his only faith in this apocalypse.
But just then,
Albert started up again.
"Hey, kid."
"Why are you following that man?"
"You've got me now. We could strike out on our own!"
"We could found a sect and get anything we wanted—women, resources, territory, all within easy reach! Why live under someone else's roof?"
At that, Guo Shuai flew into a rage.
"Shut up! Stop trying to fool me!"
"I haven't even settled the score with you for judging people by their station!"
"I'm telling you, the boss will always be my boss! I'll follow him until I die!"
"Judging people by their station? Don't you go slandering me!"
Albert was flustered.
"Although I, Fite Albert, occasionally tell a few 'kind little lies,' I never joke about anything important!"
"Your boss, according to my precise scan just now, is an E-minus nobody, according to the Data Panel!"
"His presence is... I admit, pretty impressive. He's got a knack for putting on a show."
"But he doesn't even have a trace of supernatural energy. He's an ordinary person! What makes you so blindly loyal to him?"
"..."
Guo Shuai rolled his eyes, not believing a word.
"An ordinary person? Yeah, right."
"You're blind as a bat. What the hell do you know?"
Guo Shuai was convinced the guy was fishing for information—or simply blind.
Besides, when the Scarecrow died, this guy had still been down in the cellar.
He'd never seen the boss show his power, so naturally he had no idea what it meant to be "a god whose might is like a prison."
"Can't be bothered with you."
Guo Shuai blocked out the voice in his mind and quickened his pace.
Seeing that the other man wasn't responding, Albert didn't try to force the issue.
But he sank into thought.
"Strange... did I really misjudge him?"
"That man... there's something about him that makes even me uneasy."
"But why is every value on the Data Panel so low?"
"Interesting... very interesting."
As they spoke, Guo Shuai had already reached the RV.
"Guo Shuai!!"
Wang Meng, who had been pacing by the door, spotted him and hurried down, throwing his arms around him.
"Haha! You're finally back, brother! I was worried sick!"
Then Wang Meng noticed the machine gun hanging around Guo Shuai's neck and the rifle on his back. His eyes lit up like light bulbs.
"Holy shit! An NG-7 machine gun?! A fully kitted M4?!"
"Did you go shopping for guns? Where'd you get these?!"
Guo Shuai scratched his head and shook the rain from his clothes with a grin.
"Heh, got lucky. Found them."
"Brother Wang, could you let me get on the RV before I explain? This rain's freezing, and I'm covered in mud."
"Oh, right! What am I thinking?"
Wang Meng slapped his thigh and immediately started taking off his jacket.
"Quick! Take off your wet clothes and put mine on first! You'll catch a cold!"
"Th-this doesn't seem right..."
Guo Shuai looked a little embarrassed.
"Aw, what's wrong with it? We're brothers! What's mine is yours!"
Wang Meng cheerfully began unbuttoning his jacket.
"Brother Wang~"
"Brother Guo~"
The two grown men gazed deeply into each other's eyes in the rain, the air growing increasingly tense and ambiguous.
"Ahem."
Just then, the door opened.
Jiangnan came down, a shirt draped over his shoulders and an impassive expression on his face, interrupting the display of "brotherly devotion."
He glanced over Guo Shuai's gear but showed little surprise.
Instead, he took out his Memo Pad and got straight to the point.
[How did it go?]
At the sight of his boss, Guo Shuai immediately dropped his grin, his expression turning solemn and respectful.
He stood straight, not even bothering to wipe the rain from his face, and recounted everything he had seen and heard at the school gate.
That included the Cherry Blossom Country squad that had been wiped out, the bizarre rain monsters, and the chatterbox "Fite Albert" in his mind.
He reported every last detail.
Jiangnan listened quietly, nodding now and then.
When he heard the name "Fite Albert," an amused glint flashed in Jiangnan's eyes.
The mad wizard who'd written that diary was still alive.
Interesting.
After hearing the report, Jiangnan wrote in his Memo Pad:
[You did well on this mission.]
[Give the guns to Wang Meng to handle.]
[As for finding the Terminal Signal Tower, put it off for now.]
When he was done, Jiangnan turned to get back in the RV.
"Hey? Boss?"
Guo Shuai paused, then pointed to his left eye and asked hesitantly,
"You're not... worried about 'him'?"
He meant Albert, the one parasitizing his eye—the being who had once created an S-class BOSS.
This was a monster who'd lived for over a thousand years. He seemed like a bit of a clown now, but what if he turned on Guo Shuai?
Jiangnan stopped.
He didn't turn around. Facing away from Guo Shuai, he raised the Memo Pad in his hand, tore off a page, and let the wind carry it over to him.
Guo Shuai hurriedly caught it.
There was only one line on the note, the strokes sharp and brimming with unmatched arrogance and scorn:
[Would you care about a stray dog you casually kicked to death by the roadside?]
"!!"
Reading those words, Guo Shuai felt a rush of hot blood surge straight to his head!
Arrogant!
So damn arrogant!
He compared a thousand-year-old Great Witcher, the creator of an S-class aberration, to a stray dog by the roadside?!
And not just any stray dog, but one he'd "casually kicked to death"!
"The boss really is the boss!!"
Guo Shuai trembled with excitement. He almost wanted to kneel before Jiangnan right then and shout, "You're the man!"
But...
Some were glad; others were miserable.
"Bastard!!!"
In Guo Shuai's mind, Albert was absolutely livid. His roar made Guo Shuai's head throb.
"Stray dog?! Who's he calling a stray dog?!"
"That arrogant mortal! What gives him the right to look down on me?!"
"Kid! Give me control of your body! I'm challenging him to a duel! I'll show him the dignity of a wizard!!"
When had he, the mighty Fite Albert, ever suffered such an insult?
Guo Shuai sneered inwardly:
"You? Don't get ahead of yourself."
"The boss isn't someone you can mess with. If you don't want to die, behave yourself."
"Hmph!"
Albert fumed.
"I could tell he was scared! Delaying our departure all of a sudden—he's obviously afraid of that monster in the rain!"
"He's nothing but a coward hiding in his shell!"
"Shut up!"
A flash of anger crossed Guo Shuai's eyes as he snapped in his mind:
"You're not allowed to slander our boss! He must have his reasons for doing this!"
"Say one more bad thing about him, and I'll gouge out that eyeball of yours and shove it up the ass of one of the Wandering Corpses outside! I mean it!"
"..."
The threat of physical humiliation was clearly extremely effective.
Albert choked on his words, then could only let out a cold snort.
"Facts speak louder than words! We'll see, you brat!"
Outside the vehicle, the arguing went on without end. Inside, all was quiet.
Jiangnan sat before the Monitor Screen, his gaze fixed on the valley entrance shrouded by the curtain of rain.
"A monster hiding in the raindrops..."
"Water element, teleportation, physical immunity."
"Indeed. For me, right now, in the middle of a skill vacuum..."
"And lacking any means of large-scale control, it's a somewhat troublesome opponent."
If he forced his way in, the deterrent power of his S-Class Magic Skin could keep him alive.
But killing the thing hidden among countless raindrops would be extremely difficult.
"Still..."
"Today's its last day."
"Let's see if you're still this arrogant tomorrow..."
Jiangnan rose, took off his clothes, and returned to the warm bed.
Chen Tong snuggled into his arms like a docile kitten and rubbed her cheek against his chest.
Jiangnan held her soft, warm body close, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
He was waiting.
Waiting for that moment to come.
Tick.
Tick.
When the hour and minute hands met at the highest point...
[ Ding! The time has reached midnight, 00:00. ]
[ Daily Settlement complete. ]
[ Word Quota refreshed: +1 (current balance: 6323) ]
[ Current location: Rainy Night Valley (periphery) ]
[ Sign-in successful! ]
The system's notification rang out right on cue, like music to his ears.
[ Congratulations, Host. You have obtained Word Spirit: Abyssal Court Heavy Domain (A-Class)! ]
[ Word Spirit: Abyssal Court Heavy Domain (A) ]
Effect: Unfolds a gravity domain with a radius of 10 meters, centered on yourself.
Anyone who enters this domain with murderous intent will immediately be subjected to your targeted extreme gravitational pressure.
Extreme pressure: One hundred tons.
Properties: Triggers in response to hostile entry; can stack; duration unlimited; ineffective against those without murderous intent.
Range: 10-meter radius (centered on yourself).
Cost: 6 words.
Activation: Drop to one knee, press your palm to the ground, and whisper: "This court is heavy; halt."
On the big bed, Jiangnan's eyes snapped open.
Raindrops? Teleportation?
In front of the Hundred Ton King, I'll make this entire downpour kneel before me!
Before you continue