How To Survive A Cute Ghost Yandere
Chapter 21: let’s get this show started

Chapter 21: Chapter 21: let’s get this show started

"Hm~ hm~ hm~"

A girl strolled through the forest, her steps relaxed and easy. She hummed softly, wandering through the trees as if it were nothing more than a playground.

Her long red hair fell loose down to her waist. Her pupils looked soft and pleasant enough, but a second later, as she took one wide stride forward, her whole body dissolved into a shimmer of blood-red light.

The next instant, she reappeared atop an enormous tree, tall enough that she could clearly make out several Stigma Academy students fighting off a handful of Awakened-tier monsters below.

"Not as boring as I thought." A smile crossed her face, her small frame wrapped in a gothic dress blending black and red.

Then her eyes drifted straight toward a girl with long golden hair, her pupils matching the same shade. From there, her gaze shifted again, this time toward a young man with brown hair and dark blue eyes.

Her gaze shifted once more. This time, she settled on a pair of Imperial twins—a prince and a princess, both with pale silver hair, nearly gray, their pupils a matching gold.

Then she looked elsewhere, and elsewhere again.

"The last card of the gods, destiny’s chosen, hero’s bloodline, heir to the Sky Realm."

She ran through quite a few of them in a cheerful tone, then paused on that final line, adding weight to her voice as her smile widened further.

"And a girl from the Spirit World, lost and astray."

The moment her killing intent leaked toward that girl from the Spirit World, their gazes met—not overtly, but that girl, Erness, was clearly staring straight across the distance toward where the red-haired girl stood.

Then Erness raised her hand, tore a rift through the air, and her body vanished.

"...What a nuisance. That particular type of Stigmata really does make her a pain to kill. But no matter, in the end, she’ll hand over her life willingly enough anyway."

The girl pressed a finger to her pink lips, her pupils glinting with danger.

"You’re not going to leave your own home now, are you? Ah, no, actually, it can’t really be called your home anymore. Not when you..."

The girl smiled, cutting her sentence short. Then she looked up at the sun hanging overhead, sitting right at its peak.

"I think I’ve been playing around a bit too long."

She leapt into the air, the wind sweeping her red hair back. Then, not long after, she spotted a burst of light hurtling toward her, saturated with murderous intent.

"Well then, let’s get this show started."

***

A tremor shook the ground.

It wasn’t the pleasant kind of tremor—trees started toppling one after another, and in some of the steeper areas, small landslides broke loose, impossible to ignore.

Monsters howled in the distance, and the students, having no idea what was going on, could only try to get out of the forest. Fortunately, they were trained students, and they knew exactly what to do in a situation like this.

The supervisors moved in to help as well.

All of it played out clearly across Estiel’s pupils. Silver and dark blue light, brimming with wisdom, glinted in his eyes.

Then the glasses he wore simply cracked apart, revealing his pupils, empty of any emotion whatsoever.

After that, he was no longer looking at just one world—he was seeing far, far too much. He saw the deaths of countless students, he saw the academy burned to ash, he saw the students emerging victorious, he saw so many different outcomes all at once.

But none of it was the future. Rather, it was something unfolding across a different dimension entirely—a parallel world.

Thanks to those very eyes, Estiel could track down the culprit instantly, and without wasting a single second, he shot forward at tremendous speed, using an artifact to close the distance.

There, he found a small girl with long, thick red hair, dropping down through the air, staring at him with a smile.

The closer Estiel got, the heavier and redder the surrounding atmosphere became. It felt exactly like standing beneath the Blood Moon itself.

Not long after, deep beneath the forest floor, the overpowering stench of blood flooded Estiel’s senses, and in an instant, one particular reflection of the world flashed clearly across his eyes.

Down there, underground, lay far too many corpses. Whether monster or human, it didn’t matter—all kinds of bodies had been gathered there in bulk.

’What’s all that for?’

There was no need to ask, since the answer presented itself right before him. The girl raised her fingers, pointing them directly at him.

The tremors beneath the ground grew stronger, and slowly, blood from every single corpse down there rose upward, moving entirely at the girl’s will.

Like some kind of twisted art form, the blood swirled around her, dancing like a crimson scarf.

The girl twirled her hand.

Then, her Stigmata manifested into a massive, dark, blood-colored scythe.

"Nice to meet you, Tower Keeper of Wisdom."

Her voice rang out in a shrill, incomprehensible ecstasy, while Estiel silently studied her, then smiled without a trace of emotion.

"Well, I can’t say I’m surprised this happened. You people picked exactly the right moment—when I’m the only tower keeper currently at the academy."

"Hehe~ that’s not all, you know? It’s also because you’re the easiest one to deal with. So whether it’s your life we take or ’theirs,’ it doesn’t really matter which one dies—either way, it’s enough to deal some serious damage, you know?"

Estiel’s smile didn’t waver.

"You’re right, I suppose I really am the weakest. But above all else, people don’t say I’m the weakest—they just say everyone else happens to be too strong."

Estiel’s smile widened as a bright white star bloomed within the Stigmata mark sitting in his eye.

"No one’s ever once called me weak, you know that?"

His smile widened just a touch more.

Then, the world seemed to crack apart. Mirror-like reflections appeared everywhere.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of them.

Estiel stood at the very center of it all.

Then, within one of those mirrors, someone appeared, dropping a meteor down onto that world.

And the very next instant, that mirror imprinted the meteor into their own current world, sending it hurtling straight toward the red-haired girl.

The girl looked around with obvious interest, her smile twisting into a wide, sharp grin.

"Wow~ so impatient, aren’t you? Hehehehe...!"

The girl watched the meteor plummeting straight toward her. It was an attack calculated with absolute precision.

Estiel didn’t hesitate, even knowing the students were positioned directly beneath that meteor’s path, because the girl wouldn’t be able to dodge easily at such close range either.

He’d already seen it, across every parallel world.

Her only real option was to destroy the meteor outright, and that was exactly what she did.

Every bit of it played out clearly before Estiel’s eyes.

The girl’s scythe spun with ease, the blood surrounding her following along with the motion, twisting through the air. Then, a giant hand formed, curling into a massive fist.

Two of them slammed straight into the meteor. The explosion shook the entire surrounding area, wind howling violently, whipping up a small storm that sent several trees flying.

The supervisors and professors rushed to help the students caught up in the chaos. Unlike before, sheer panic had now taken hold.

Down below, Eiros and his group had gone completely pale.

Eiros clicked his tongue.

’What the hell is happening right now? A clash between two ridiculously powerful beings this early in the story? This makes absolutely no sense!’

For the record, Eiros was genuinely terrified of the possibility of the Saintess dying here, given his system quest, so he grabbed onto the Saintess’s clothes to shield her—even knowing full well there wasn’t much he could actually do.

A few supervisors had already come to help them. But the clash between Estiel and that unknown girl was completely, utterly over the top.

His breath caught in his throat. He could feel the Saintess trembling in his arms, her hands clasped together in prayer. Nearby, Alen looked grim, standing beside Godon and Lovia.

"...!"

Then the ground shook once more.

"What the hell is happening?! Argh, damn it!"

Lovia screamed, cursing without end.

The ground wouldn’t stop shaking, revealing cracks wide enough to send Eiros spiraling further into panic.

’Ah, damn it, don’t tell me...!’

He didn’t let himself hesitate. He wrapped his arms around the Saintess even tighter. Then, the ground beneath them split apart, dragging them down into somewhere dark and cold.

Eiros couldn’t let the Saintess get hurt, so he positioned his own body underneath her, keeping her on top.

"Ah, ah...!"

He could see the Saintess panicking, eyes squeezed shut, struggling to stay calm as she prayed.

Alen and the others were nowhere in sight anymore, but luckily, he’d at least landed close to one of the supervisors.

"Waaah...! Damn it!"

Eiros screamed, feeling the wind rush past faster and faster. He channeled his Soul Essence, hoping to soften the impact of the fall.

The further he fell, the paler his face became. The thought that he might actually die from this...

’Damn it.’

He hated death more than anything else in the world—it was painful, traumatic. But given his current situation, if he really was about to die...

[Would the Host like to imprint Remnant of Red Light?]

’Yes.’

Then he’d make full use of it.

***