Qiji got to his feet, paying no further attention to the corpse on the ground.
He looked at Liuli as she approached, a little embarrassed.
"I think... I went a little overboard... Sorry, I killed your brother."
Liuli said nothing.
She simply bent down in silence, picked up the longsword from the ground, and walked over to Kamishiro Seigen's corpse.
The girl tightened her grip on the hilt and raised the sword high.
Then she drove it down with all her might!
"Squelch!"
The blade sank into flesh.
She pulled it out.
And stabbed again!
"Squelch!"
Again and again.
There were no screams, no cries, only the dull sound of a sharp blade cutting through flesh over and over.
Blood splattered, staining Liuli's uniform red, staining her long, misty-purple hair red, staining her pale cheeks red.
As if she knew neither fatigue nor rest, she simply repeated the motions of stabbing and slashing, mechanical and frenzied.
Until the corpse was so mutilated that its original appearance was no longer recognizable.
"Clatter."
The longsword slipped from her hand and fell into the pool of blood.
Liuli stopped as if she had exhausted all her strength, her chest heaving.
There was no expression on her blood-covered face. Only her misty-purple eyes shone, as if burning with icy-blue flames.
She slowly turned to look at Qiji beside her, her bloodstained lips moving.
It was as if she wanted to explain her madness, or perhaps she was simply murmuring to herself:
"He killed my mom... and mailed me the flesh... he cut from her body... piece by piece."
She lowered her head and looked at her blood-covered hands, her shoulders trembling almost imperceptibly.
"I'm sorry... Qiji, I scared you, didn't I?"
Her voice was so soft that it seemed a breeze could carry it away.
"No."
Qiji stepped forward, paying no mind to the blood covering her.
"I think... you're beautiful like this. At least..."
Qiji paused, then said with a note of certainty,
"Right now, you seem like a real, living person."
Qiji handed Liuli a bottle of water, gesturing for her to clean herself up.
When Qiji returned with Liuli, quite a lot of blood still remained on her.
Everyone hurried over to ask after her.
Liuli skillfully switched to another personality, hiding her true self once more behind her signature model-student smile.
"I'm really sorry for making everyone worry..."
The rest of the sweep went even more smoothly than it had in the original plot.
That was because Qiji had dealt with Kamishiro Seigen before he could send the void beasts into a frenzy.
Thus, after encountering two more small groups of void beasts, Class Eight reached the agreed meeting point with Class One without any real danger.
Liuli's situation had delayed them, so by the time they arrived, Class One had already been waiting for a long while.
Suyo stood at the front of Class One. When she saw Qiji arrive late with Class Eight, a victor's smile appeared beneath her mask.
She stepped out from the group and walked up to Qiji. "You took so long for a mere D-rank rift?"
"Sorry, sorry. Sorry for the wait. How about I treat you to dinner tonight to make it up to you?" Qiji walked up with easy familiarity, moving as if to put an arm around Suyo's shoulders.
Suyo jumped and abruptly stepped back half a pace, as if afraid something filthy might touch her.
Avoiding Qiji's outstretched hand, she said coldly, "I never dine with losers."
Satisfied that she had outdone him, she was about to return to Class One's ranks.
But Bai Lili spotted her and eagerly ran after her once again. "Suyo, Suyo! Remember to wait for me when we get back to school. We can go home together!"
"..."
Suyo had managed to maintain her aloof composure before Qiji, but faced with her nominal fiancée, she stiffened visibly, flustered as a punctured balloon.
She stammered and broke out in a sweat, completely unable to cope.
By the time they left the rift, it was already evening.
Kijika, Class One's teacher, came over and carefully counted his students.
After confirming that none of his students were missing, he smiled faintly, his face usually serious, and offered them a few brief words of praise.
The students of Class Eight looked around, but couldn't find their own teacher.
Kijika was the one who told them that Teacher Yuejian's workday had ended, so he had already left.
The Class Eight students were speechless. They exchanged glances, a bad feeling rising in each of them.
At Echo Academy, homeroom teachers were responsible not only for daily instruction but also served as their students' greatest source of support on missions.
After all, many of those missions were dangerous.
But given how utterly unreliable Teacher Yuejian was, they couldn't help feeling...
Their days ahead might not look too promising.
The practical assessment results came out quickly.
By the time everyone returned to the academy, the detailed scores and rankings for Class One and Class Eight had already been posted in the classroom building's corridor.
The students from both classes spotted them and rushed over in a crowd, craning their necks and standing on tiptoe.
Outside the crowd, only Qiji and Suyo remained where they were.
Qiji glanced at Suyo beside him. She was still standing ramrod straight, as if she didn't care about the results. He casually asked, "Aren't you going to look?"
"I'm first," Suyo said proudly. "There's no need to look at a result I already know."
Qiji nodded in wholehearted agreement. "Great minds think alike. That's what I think too."
Hearing Qiji so readily acknowledge her "first place," Suyo was stunned for a moment. Then, beneath her mask, she could barely keep the corners of her mouth from rising.
As a fellow masked character, she had lived in Qiji's shadow for years.
She had dreamed of beating him!
Yet she had never expected the victory she longed for to come so easily.
Although she was so happy she could almost float, she did her utmost to keep her voice calm, even a little reserved, as she said:
"The fact that you can acknowledge my first place so readily has improved my impression of you quite a bit.
From what I'd heard from others, you seemed like the 'I'm number one in the world' type, someone who looked down on everyone.
But now it seems you do know how to accept reality and face the gap between us."
She paused, seemingly feeling that she should show a little grace as the victor, and added:
"Of course, it's not your fault you didn't come first in this assessment.
Since you're in the same year as me, you were destined to compete for second place at best. You don't need to take it too hard. There's no shame in it..."
"...?"
Qiji was a little confused.
It took him a moment to realize that she seemed to have misunderstood him.
When he had said, "That's what I think too," he had clearly meant that he thought he himself would be first...
Yet not only had she completely misunderstood him, she had gone on to deliver a lengthy victory speech all by herself.
What can I say?
Chapter 18: The Face Beneath the Mask
Suyo's little mouth kept going on and on without stopping.
Qiji didn't even have a chance to get a word in.
Fortunately, Bai Lili appeared just in time, curing Qiji of his habit of occasionally feeling embarrassed on other people's behalf.
"Suyo, Suyo! You're amazing! You came second!"
Bai Lili ran over, her expression showing how genuinely happy she was for Suyo.
Suyo waved a hand and was about to offer a few modest words when she suddenly realized something. "Wait! What place? What place did you say I came in?"
"Second!" Bai Lili thought it was only natural.
After all, the one in first place was Qiji!
He was a monster in a whole other category.
"S-second?! Then first place is...?"
"Qiji, of course! Suyo, you have no idea how amazing Qiji is! Let me tell you, we ran into a group of void beasts in the rift, and their leader was upper second tier..."
Bursting with the desire to share, Bai Lili took hold of Suyo and began rattling off how Qiji had displayed his might, easily dealt with the Scorpion King, and guided Huomu and Setsuna to make breakthroughs of their own...
Suyo stood rooted to the spot, her face beneath the mask turning red and then pale.
His earlier declarations of "I'm first" and "You can only compete for second" now seemed to turn into countless invisible slaps, smacking her own face one after another.
The viewers in the barrage couldn't help laughing at the contrast in Suyo's behavior:
"Hahahahaha! Public execution!"
"Even among masked characters, there's a difference!"
"Smiles don't disappear; they just move to someone else's face!"
Setsuna stood on the outskirts of the crowd and saw her name near the top of the rankings.
A+, tied for third with Wuma Ling of Class One.
She instinctively looked toward Wuma Ling, only to find that Wuma Ling was looking at her too.
"Aya." The girl gave her a somewhat awkward smile.
Setsuna quickly looked away and said coldly, "Don't call me by that name."
Then she hurried away, as if fleeing.
The next moment, Setsuna saw Qiji.
Thinking of something, she hurried over and thanked him.
Huomu was with her.