Resentment

During the morning break, amidst the clamor of the classroom, Miketsu sat at her window seat. An old magazine was spread across her desk, and under the warmth of the sunlight, she leisurely flipped through the pages of Urban Legend Secrets Revealed, scanning the bizarre illustrations and spine-chilling short stories.

"Cursed Bus... Suicide Forest... Kuchisake-onna... Red Cape, Blue Cape... Terror Tunnel... Tsk, tsk. These modern ghosts are mostly weaklings, but they certainly have a knack for horror and atmosphere. Not like the brutes of the past..." Miketsu muttered, carefully savoring the terrifying details in the magazine.

In the Heian period or the Sengoku period, there were many yokai powerful enough to cross directly into the human realm. If they wanted to attack humans, they would simply kill them; they never bothered with psychological horror or creating a scary atmosphere. They were simple and direct. Generally, only weak yokai and spirits resorted to scaring people to wear down their mental state, using petty tricks and schemes to set traps.

For an ordinary person, even if they lacked spiritual vision, a gloomy mindset and a belief in spirits would bring them closer to the demon realm. The more a person was frightened, the more they fell into the spirit's trap. The more they feared, the more they believed; the more they believed, the more real it became; and the more real it became, the more dangerous it was.

In this current era, the days of powerful yokai crossing over to slaughter villages or besiege cities were long gone. Today's powerful yokai were either under the jurisdiction of yokai organizations or had secluded themselves in various Secret Realms. Most of the trouble in the mortal world now came from evil spirits formed from the souls of the deceased. While these new evil spirits were numerous and impossible to fully eradicate due to the large population, their strength was generally pathetic, hardly comparable to the ancient yokai.

To Miketsu, if one were to compare the threat of evil spirits to ancient yokai, these evil spirits were like actors in a classic horror movie, while the ancient yokai were like the stars of Jurassic Park.

As these thoughts swirled in her mind, Miketsu continued flipping through the magazine while tossing a new eraser in her hand. She had marked the eraser to distinguish its sides, using it like a coin to divine the authenticity of the urban legends in the magazine.

"Fake... fake... fake... real... fake... real..."

Miketsu whispered to herself, circling the urban legends that actually existed with a pencil. Generally speaking, most of the rumors in the magazine were fabricated, but a few were genuine. She circled these real legends, planning to assign them as 'homework' for Miko later.

'Hmm... as expected, most of it is just made up...' Miketsu thought as she reached the end of the magazine with very few circles. However, just as she turned to the final page of the main text, her eyes were drawn to a very small blurb inside a text box.

Unlike the other ghost stories that had long, flowery descriptions, this entry was extremely brief. The text box was so small it could be completely covered by two or three fingers.

Miketsu focused on the title of this short passage and read it aloud in a low voice.

"Hell... Correspondence?"

"Oh, you're interested in that one too, Inaba?"

Hearing Miketsu's voice, Hayakawa Rin, who sat behind her, perked up. She leaned forward with a curious expression.

"You care about this story?" Miketsu asked indifferently, glancing back at her. Hayakawa Rin nodded immediately.

"Yeah! That legend is short, but it left a deep impression on me. Most other stories are just about ghosts and curses, but this one is special... A website that can only be accessed at the stroke of midnight, and only by those harboring deep resentment... A site that can send people to hell. It feels like such an eerie yet cool concept!"

"Heh... that just proves the person who made up this legend had some talent..." Miketsu smiled slightly. She turned her gaze back to the small text box describing Hell Correspondence and began to scan the brief content.

According to the rumor, if a person harbored deep-seated resentment, they could access a website called 'Hell Correspondence' at exactly midnight. The visitor could enter the name of the person they hated, and then the Hell Girl would appear before them to ferry that person to hell.

The legend was brief, lacking illustrations or case studies—just a few dry sentences. The reason it caught Miketsu's attention was that it directly involved the hell of the Underworld. The idea that a 'Hell Girl' could take someone directly to hell just because of another's resentment seemed a bit laughable to Miketsu, even in her boredom.

To ignore the rules of the Underworld, bypass the guidance of the Shinigami and the judgment of Yama, and take a living person straight to hell? Could an entity capable of such a feat really be some common spirit appearing in an urban legend? One could only say that the imagination of these storytellers was truly impressive.

Despite thinking the legend couldn't possibly be true, Miketsu habitually tossed her divination eraser.

The eraser stopped rolling. The side facing up featured a chibi white fox. In Miketsu's system of divination, this pattern represented the positive side, meaning the legend was real.

Seeing the result, Miketsu paused for a moment, a look of genuine interest appearing on her face.

"Well now... this is getting interesting..."

The sun crossed the sky and began to sink in the west; the day's classes soon came to an end.

At dismissal, students flooded out of the school buildings toward their respective destinations. Most stayed on campus to participate in club activities.

At the school's tennis courts, a girl with dyed yellow curls named Eguchi stood in her athletic wear outside the wire fence. She watched the tennis balls flying back and forth and the members of the Tennis Club dripping with sweat. A look of pure loathing crossed her face as her hands gripped the iron fence tightly.

"Damn it... if I weren't so injured, I'd be out there too..." Eguchi muttered through gritted teeth. Although she had some delinquent tendencies, she was a genuine tennis enthusiast and a member of the club—one of the more skilled ones, at that.

Eguchi loved tennis, but due to the series of injuries she had recently sustained, she was currently unable to play. She could only stand outside the fence and watch, her mind churning with frustration.

'Why... why is it so hard just to teach that girl a lesson... and in the end, I'm the one who ended up with all these injuries, to the point I can't even play...'

Eguchi complained inwardly. Her desperation to play and her inability to do so made her incredibly irritable. This agitation triggered the massive amount of resentment she had accumulated recently, causing her to punch the fence hard.

"I'm so pissed... This is all Fushimi's fault... if it weren't for her... if it weren't for her..." Resentful words spilled from Eguchi's mouth. Just then, a steady, deep male voice came from behind her.

"Eguchi-san, you seem to be in a bad mood..."

Startled by the voice, Eguchi turned around. She saw a well-built, handsome young man with short, cropped hair, wearing a white short-sleeved athletic shirt. He was looking at her with a gentle smile. Eguchi's face flushed slightly as she stammered.

"Ma-Matsugami-senpai?! What are you doing here?"

"Nothing much, I was just passing by. I heard you talking to yourself and got a little curious, so I came over." As he spoke, a flash of sharpness crossed Matsugami's eyes. He continued, "Eguchi-san, is there someone you resent very deeply right now?"