Nothing Left to Fear...

The streets were brightly lit, neon signs flashing everywhere. Shops and buildings lined both sides, making it look like a thriving commercial district.

Was this the place he had come to yesterday?

Probably. He could not remember clearly. Back then, all his attention had been on that restaurant, and he had been starving. In a daze, he had followed the aroma straight to its entrance... That was basically it. As for the other details of this street, he really had not paid attention.

Thinking back on it, Gu Mo scratched his cheek, looking left and right as he walked forward.

It had to be here, and it could not be too far away. He held onto that thought as he wandered the streets for quite a while, but the relaxed look on his face gradually gave way to an increasingly deeper frown.

Something was wrong. Where was the restaurant? That huge restaurant?

It had clearly been here yesterday. Why was it gone today?

There was no shortage of eateries on this shopping street, but none of them was the distinctive restaurant he remembered. He looked again and again, walking from one end of the street to the other, yet he did not see even a single familiar word...

In the end, Gu Mo began questioning his whole life. He stood still, raised a fist beneath his chin, and fell into thought.

What exactly was wrong? He could not figure it out. It had been such a simple matter, so why had it suddenly become so complicated? Sure, he had not remembered the exact location, but that still made no sense.

After all, even if he included the residential complex on the other side of the alley, the whole area was tiny—barely bigger than Vatican City. The place name might even need the food delivery app's map zoomed in to the limit before it could be found... So there was no reason he should come back the next day and fail to find that restaurant.

No matter how out of it he had been, logically speaking, it had to be somewhere around this area!

After looking around, Gu Mo continued onward. He refused to believe that even yesterday's restaurant had been a product of his own delusions and imagination. He preferred to believe that he had simply misjudged the distance, or that it might be a little farther ahead.

Well, that was not impossible...

After all, when he had come here, he had been in a daze and somehow found himself at the restaurant's entrance. When he left, he had also been absentminded, and before he knew it, he had returned to the snack street.

—He really did not remember much about what happened in between...

As he labeled and rationalized the matter in his mind, Gu Mo kept searching ahead.

He stubbornly walked for quite a while longer. The shops on both sides gradually became sparse. He looked around, then changed direction and headed that way... It was easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go from luxury back to frugality. Yesterday's food had raised his standards so high that he found it hard to convince himself to settle for ordinary fare again.

Besides, it had truly been delicious and affordable. At roughly the same price point, why not choose the best?

With that thought in mind, he carried out a diligent, careful carpet search. Who knew how much more time passed before he finally... unsurprisingly found nothing.

"Damn it!"

Something was clearly wrong with this script. Gu Mo stopped his futile steps, his brows twisted together. He seriously suspected that he had been searching in the wrong direction from the very beginning, and that perhaps he should have trusted his instincts and searched from the other side.

It was hard to judge that idea. After all, he had discovered there was no road in that direction, which was why he had reluctantly gone the other way. He had kept walking until now, until he reached this place—

"Come to think of it... where am I?"

He realized that he seemed to be lost. He had taken so many twists and turns that not only had he failed to find his destination, he had gotten himself turned around. The city before him now seemed utterly unfamiliar... He had never come this way before, so nothing looked familiar.

Where had he come from? Where was he going?

Why did every direction seem unlike the way he had come, yet also somehow seem like the way he had come?

Gu Mo looked around the unfamiliar surroundings in confusion, then shook his head. Still, he was not too worried. He casually took out his phone and started searching. Technology was so advanced these days that as long as one brought a phone when going out, there was usually no problem.

"Emmmmm..."

He swiped around on his phone. Since he normally did not use map navigation much, and there were so many apps cluttering his phone with dazzling icons, he could not immediately find the right program... Just as he considered downloading a new one, his thumb suddenly stopped moving across the screen.

What was that app he had downloaded before called? Shitty Navigation or something?

Had it been redesigned now?

Looking at the simple icon for the app labeled "Map (M)," Gu Mo felt that something was off. He was silent for a moment, then quietly opened it.

The map quickly appeared. He swiped a few times, confirmed his current location, and confirmed that he indeed did not recognize the nearby place names. Then he searched for the restaurant's name, but found nothing...

It was not on the food delivery app either. Was it really that low-key?

Still, he had probably missed it today. Never mind whether he could find it or not—even if he found it later, he had wasted so much time that it was very likely already closed.

With a sigh, Gu Mo searched for his residence, checked the route back, and could not help frowning slightly. Had he unknowingly walked this far? Just walking back would take nearly half an hour.

But there was nothing he could do about it. After comparing the options, he chose the best route, turned on navigation, spun around on the spot a few times to calibrate his direction, and started walking again.

He returned in disappointment, filled with Grudges...

What a terrible day.

About ten minutes later.

"Feels like I'm heading somewhere more and more remote..."

Gu Mo walked along a long slope, muttering in confusion. He lowered his head to look at the map navigation on his phone, then looked around. The broad, winding slope stretched ahead like a snake. Under the soft glow of the streetlights, the granite wall on the right looked solid and heavy, while the forest beyond the slope stretched silently into the midnight darkness.

The landscaping was pretty nice. He really had not known there was a place like this nearby.

But at this hour, it really had the atmosphere of a horror movie, especially with him being the only person walking down this road.

He did not know whether it was an illusion, but Gu Mo felt the air around him growing noticeably colder. It was not merely a physical drop in temperature; there was also a chilling sensation that seeped into his mind.

Narrowing his eyes slightly, he looked toward the cluster of buildings standing ahead along the winding slope. Then he glanced at the heavy granite wall beside him, where a bronze plaque was embedded. It seemed to be a road sign, probably indicating what lay ahead.

—"Miyagi Prefecture Sugisawa Third High School."

Huh? He had thought there was a park or scenic attraction ahead. It was actually a school?

And he had never heard of this school before.

Gu Mo carefully searched his memories and confirmed that he had no impression of it whatsoever. Besides, the name had a completely different vibe. School names like "XX City Middle School," "XX No. 1 High School," and "XX No. 2 High School" were the kind he knew well and found familiar.

Something like "Miyagi Prefecture Sugisawa Third High School," on the other hand, felt utterly out of place. It was obviously some flashy oddball from a completely different genre.

What was Miyagi? And what was Sugisawa Prefecture supposed to be?

An urban village? Or perhaps a corporate-sponsored name?

A string of questions surfaced in his mind. Gu Mo checked his route again. This really was the shortest distance, practically a straight line; he merely had to cut through the school grounds as a shortcut... Well, if the map displayed it this way, then it had to be right.

Reassured, he continued forward.

The coldness in the air would not go away. A faint pressure seemed to press in from all around, as though something were watching him from within the dimness where the streetlights' glow interwove with the shadows of night... Gu Mo did not like the feeling, but he was no child. Naturally, he knew it was only psychological.

However.

A few more minutes passed. When he came very close to the school's main buildings and happened to be passing along the road in front of its gate, he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet shake as though the entire earth had trembled once. The source had come from inside the school.

Gu Mo turned curiously toward the school and found the entire teaching building pitch-black. What had that sound been just now?

Could the high school have been carrying out some major repairs or construction recently? But at this hour, there was no way a worksite would still be operating in the middle of the night.

"Can a talisman really just be peeled off like that?"

"No... A human without Cursed Energy cannot do that! Normally, anyway!"

Under the night sky, two high school students sprinted down the long, winding slope. The one in front wore black and had begun breathing heavily, while the one behind looked fine. He even had enough energy left to ask questions that puzzled him.

"Go right, take the shortcut!" The boy behind glanced at the road ahead, estimated how long it would take to reach the school, and decisively made the call. He was more familiar with the terrain.

The black-clad high schooler in front naturally had no objection and quickly followed.

"What was sealed inside is too powerful, and the seal has been there for so long that it's as fragile as paper..."

"But hearing you talk about curses and stuff, I still can't imagine it..."

Both of them had excellent stamina. As they rapidly approached their destination, they also exchanged information and opinions at high speed.

Meanwhile.

"It's all fake. It's all fake..."

Gu Mo muttered the words, forcing himself to calm down and face the scenes unfolding before him.

Before him, the once-solid ground seemed to have melted, changing from a solid substance into something liquid. In his eyes, the entire world became increasingly distorted, absurd and ridiculous. The road resembled a river shrouded in black mist, while the ground became a vast purple-black ocean covered in whirlpools...

Several strange "things" swam through this nightmare-like sea. He could not see them clearly, but the "IDs" and "Health Bars" above them were unmistakably asserting their presence.

"??? (100%)"

"??? (100%)"

"??? (100%)"

And behind nearly every Health Bar was a skull icon, its blood-red color carrying a hint of ill omen.

Within this chaotic illusion, they were nightmares incarnate. It was like floating alone on the surface of an ocean in a suffocating, oppressive world as dark and lightless as the deep sea, while enormous shadows passed beneath the water...

All right, faced with such an abrupt scene change and the entire world being overturned without warning, Gu Mo was actually fairly composed. His face did not turn pale, nor did his legs shake. He could not quite be called unflinching before a mountain collapse, but he was not far from it.

He simply watched.

"There's nothing left to fear..."

After all, he knew it was fake. It was merely a chaotic hallucination caused by his mental issues, so what was there to fear? Besides, he had already made up his mind. No matter what, he would return to the world of normal people. He absolutely could not give in so easily...

BOOM!!

An overwhelming pressure brought with it a gust of wind that felt almost tangible. A gigantic shadow leaped from the "water" like a whale, black mist coiling around it. It was as massive as a small mountain, and its grotesque, twisted appearance was like some bizarre monster walking out of a nightmare.

Then, as though that were a signal, other gigantic shadows burst out from the ground one after another!

Huge protruding exposed eyeballs...

Black tentacles flailing wildly...

Dense clusters of insect limbs...

There were even fragments of human bodies, hands, and feet. All kinds of random biological tissue had been stitched together onto bloated, rotting, foul-smelling bodies, creating figures disgusting beyond measure.

And they were torn open and bloody—

Especially the sticky green and black slime, constantly writhing and dripping down, stretching into threads at the ruptured wounds. Mixed into the slime were unknown chunks of tissue, along with yellow and green paste of unknown origin, churning inside those open, chrysanthemum-shaped mouths—

Finally, together with the swirling black mist, it erupted like a fountain.

Perhaps it was just psychological, but an illusory stench seemed to rush straight at him...

"Fuck!!"

Gu Mo, who had remained expressionless just moments ago, suddenly went pale and turned to run.

He could endure fake fear, but he could not accept something this realistically disgusting—fighting was fine, but what the hell was this shit-covered-broom nonsense?