CH 411

Seiji found it difficult to get rid of his anxiety.

‘Perhaps I’ve read and watched too many manga and anime, which has overly stimulated my imagination regarding evil and mysterious organizations,’ Seiji mentally commented in his mind.

No matter what, he intended to wait until midnight. After all, even if he lay in his bed, he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep due to being too concerned about this.

“Brother Seiji…”

“Go ahead and sleep first, Shika-chan. I’m going to sleep a bit late tonight.”

Reo had already gotten into bed and fallen asleep. He had Shika go to sleep as well while he sat down in front of his computer and randomly browsed the internet, waiting for time to hit midnight.

On the Channel 22 message forum, everyone was discussing whether things similar to last night would occur again. These topics had a high number of posters. Seiji figured that many people were just as anxious as he was.

Time passed quietly just like this.

There were now ten seconds until midnight… nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two… one.

It was now time.

Midnight.

There was no strange sensation at all. Seiji’s computer remained on as the electricity didn’t stop this time. His cell phone still had a signal as well.

The Midnight Spell didn’t repeat itself.

Seiji went to go check on Reo and saw that she seemed fine. Then, he returned to his computer and continued browsing the internet for another hour.

Everything was calm. No demons ran into the barriers that Seiji purchased and set up, nor did any new relevant topics appear in the message forum.

‘Has… nothing happened?

‘Seems like I can relax for the time being.’

Seiji learned back against his chair and heaved a sigh of relief.

“I must have thought too much into things…” he muttered to himself.

After finally feeling like he could relax a little, he instantly felt a wave of fatigue wash over him.

‘Let’s go sleep.’

Seiji turned off his computer and went to his bedroom. He placed his cell phone and wooden sword by his pillow and got into his bed and blankets as quietly as possible so as to not wake Reo up. He shut his eyes and went to sleep…

Yukari was running for her life.

She was currently in a place that seemed like a cave.

As for why it only seemed like a cave, that was because she had no time to inspect her surroundings whatsoever.

Some bright red flowers illuminated this area with a dim red light. Apart from that, everything else was pitch-black.

Yukari did her absolute best to run down the red-illuminated pathway.

There was a gigantic monster chasing after her.

*Tap tap tap tap…* The sound of the monster’s feet wasn’t that loud, and even sounded rhythmic.

The purple-haired girl’s heart filled with a tremendous amount of fear upon hearing this sound.

‘Why are things like this? Why am I here? Why is such a monster chasing after me!?’

Her last memory was going to sleep in her own bed at her own home. For some unknown reason, when she woke up, she discovered that she was in this strange location. Right after waking up, a gigantic spider appeared in the darkness!

The spider had eight eyes that let off a bloody light, along with sharp fangs and lengthy legs…

Yukari was frightened to the point of screaming upon seeing its vicious appearance, and turned around to run instantly.

She was afraid of spiders to the point of having arachnophobia.

That was because when she was young, a spider had once crawled around on her face, so she was afraid of spiders ever since. Such a gigantic and ugly spider increased her fear to the maximum!

She furiously ran for her life, propelled by her instinct.

However, her stamina gradually decreased. Although Yukari’s athletic ability was above average for a high school girl, anyone would get tired after running for so long. The monster would eventually catch up.

Just imagining what might happen if the spider monster caught up to her caused Yukari to shiver all over.

‘I’m so scared…

‘Why are things like this…

‘Am I dreaming? Yet this all feels so real…’

Her sense of logic and reason told her that this seemed likely to be a dream. However, what she experienced felt so real.

‘If that monster catches up to me, I’ll really die!

‘I don’t want to die…

‘Save me…

‘Save me… Seigo!’

Yukari’s eyes filled with tears as she thought about Seigo. She started shouting out loud.

“Save me! Seigo!”

‘You promised.

‘As long as I called for you, you’d come save me.

‘I need you right now, Mister Hero…’

“Save me…! Seigo…!”

Something red flashed in the darkness.

Seiji felt as if he was floating in midair as something red passed him by.

‘What was that?

‘Where am I?’

Seiji’s consciousness was quite hazy. Although he had some questions about his current state, he didn’t possess the mental acuity to think about these questions right now.

He faintly felt like he was hearing something.

However, the sound was too faint, and he was unable to hear it clearly.

He kept floating and floating… his consciousness grew even hazier, not even questioning his surroundings anymore. It was as if he had become an empty shell of himself that kept floating in the darkness.

However, a voice gradually became clearer to him.

“Save…

“Seigo…

“Save me…

“Hurry and save…

“Hurry and save me… Seigo…”

Seiji’s consciousness suddenly became much clearer!

Although it still felt like his mind was filled with mud that caused his thoughts to slow down, he recognized this voice.

He did his best to look for the source of that voice, reaching out with his hand, wanting to catch on to something…

*Smack!*

Yukari tripped over something and fell over.

Her body felt like it was in intense pain, pain so realistic that it couldn’t possibly be a dream. This proved that she was indeed having no dream.

“It hurts…”

She cried as she dragged herself up, having discovered that she was injured and bleeding bright-red blood.

She was unable to do anything about it right now, because the monster behind her had gotten much closer.

Its gigantic body and numerous legs that moved all at once, in combination with its eight blood-red eyes…

Yukari was frightened to the point of screaming and attempted to escape, but two pincers reached out from the darkness and clamped on to her!

“Let go of me!!”

The purple-haired girl did her best to struggle. However, her efforts were fruitless.

She was clamped and brought upwards into the air. The pincers were so tightly clamping down on her that she could barely breathe.

“No… I don’t want to die…”

Her face was filled with tear streaks.

Many scenes flashed through her mind.

‘I don’t want to die… I want to live…

‘Save me…’

She instinctively reached out towards the sky with her hand, wanting to grab on to something.

In the midst of all the darkness, some light suddenly appeared!

“Yukari…!”

A figure appeared in the middle of the light and reached his hand out to her.

Yukari widened her eyes in surprise.

Hearing his voice and seeing him at such a time, her mind went completely blank, with only one thought remaining:

‘You came.’

Seiji took Yukari’s hand with his left hand while he used his right hand to wield his spiritual weapon wooden sword and slice through the pincer clamping down on her! Then, he held her tightly in his arms and jumped steadily down onto the ground.

His consciousness was fully awake now.

‘Where is this?

‘What type of monster is this!?’

Although he was confused as to what was going on, Seiji cast the [Body-strengthening spell] upon himself and speedily backed away from the spider monster while holding onto Yukari, putting a distance of several dozen meters between them and the monster.

“That’s a… spider?”

Using [Astral Vision], he was able to see a clear outline of the monster in the darkness.

‘This is such a huge spider.

‘I can’t see it too clearly since it’s so dark, but it’s already much larger than a normal car.’

It was screeching ear-piercingly, making sounds of obvious anger. Simultaneously, a light-red glow gathered upon its body. Part of the red light gathered on one of its legs that had been sliced off by Seiji while it was pincering Yukari. Then, the leg speedily regrew!

“Seigo…”

Yukari wanted to say something.

But before she was able to, the humongous spider rushed over! When it closed the gap, it lifted its abdomen 1 and shot something white out from it.

Spiderwebs!

Seiji dodged the sticky spiderweb strands that landed on the ground.

The large spider continuously fired spiderwebs at them, not giving up.

After dodging numerous waves of spiderwebs, Seiji chose to do his best to take Yukari and escape, searching for a safe location.

He ran at a high speed which easily helped to put plenty of distance between him and the large spider.

“Where is this place?” he asked Yukari in his arms.

“I don’t know… all I know is that I was suddenly here.”

“You don’t know where that spider came from, either?”

“I don’t…”

‘This place appears like a cave. All these red flowers seem to be lycoris radiata,’ Seiji thought to himself.

Lycoris radiata also had a more common name: cluster amaryllis. They had bright-red petals, which were shaped like upturned claws. In some legends, they were the flowers that bloomed on the road to the netherworld and represented death.

A dark cave, red cluster amaryllis, and a humongous spider monster… this didn’t seem like reality, but also felt quite real.

‘Is this place a soul realm? Whose could it be? Yukari’s?

‘And if this is her soul realm, why would it be like this? How would she even get trapped in her own soul realm? And why was I able to arrive here? I was clearly sleeping in my own bed just earlier…

‘Did something happen again while I was sleeping?’

Seiji pondered all these things as he kept running. Suddenly, his field of vision widened up as he arrived in a relatively wide-open space.

Seiji looked all around him, and discovered that…

There were no more paths to take.