High School Day (3)

Natsu Kuri tightly covered her mouth, her stomach churning uncontrollably. The intense physical revulsion made her vision blur; even with her eyes closed, those struggling faces and gruesome scenes continued to replay in her mind.

The members of the Mountain Crow family who arrived afterward exchanged looks and shrugged helplessly. They assumed this little family head was naive and that it was only natural for her to be terrified by such a scene for the first time. Only a girl with a high ponytail, wearing a kendo uniform and wooden clogs, sensed something was amiss.

Aoi had seen the little family head, Akabane Tsubaki, covered in blood during the Floating Lantern Festival, hacking a path through mutated spider bodies. At that time, she had been surprised that the little family head's psychological fortitude was not at all like the dignified and quiet girl the rumors described.

Yet now, Natsu Kuri was acting like an ordinary girl who had never encountered an urban legend, her mental defenses completely shattered by these tragic sights.

"Help me..."

Natsu Kuri finally managed to recover from the intense nausea and looked toward the source of the voice.

On the other side, a man with more than half of his body imprisoned in an egg sac moved his lips incessantly, weakly and painfully breathing out a few syllables.

"Help me..."

"Help... me..."

Everyone present was surprised to find there was still a survivor. When they saw Natsu Kuri stepping forward, one person was about to stop her, but Aoi held him back. The man immediately fell silent upon seeing the fluttering black ponytail.

The smell of blood emanating from the girl's kendo skirt was thick, as if it had been soaked through. Everyone knew that this cold woman was a famous killing machine from the Sword Covenant Group. The Mountain Crow family handled the unsavory business of the Chi family in the dark, but the places so black that even light could barely reach were dealt with by these killers from the Sword Covenant Group.

Aoi had once been the personal guard of the head of the Snow family. Abandoned as a child, she was adopted by the previous female head of the Snow family, but later, for reasons unknown, she ended up in the Sword Covenant Group. The rumors were quite fantastical, saying she had an ambiguous relationship with the current head of the Snow family.

After all, the position of head of the Snow family had always been passed down only to the eldest daughter.

One could catch a glimpse of this icy beauty's character from her daily behavior: she loathed contact with the opposite sex, frowning even at the basic etiquette of a job handover. She remained silent in public, but privately, she frequently visited the flower shops in the red-light district.

Despite the rumors flying everywhere, she never cared.

"Help me..."

The man's lips twitched.

Natsu Kuri stepped forward to dig out the chunks of flesh trapping the man, murmuring to herself, "Hang on, you'll be out soon..."

To her surprise, the man's expression suddenly became distorted and malicious as he roared with his last ounce of strength, "Are you an idiot? I told you to kill me! Kill me!"

Natsu Kuri froze for a moment. An odachi slashed a white arc before her eyes, its cold edge pressing against the man's neck and sinking deep within. No blood sprayed out; the man's body had been almost entirely eaten away by the spiders inside, leaving only cotton-like flesh to prop up the skin shell.

"He was beyond saving, Your Highness." Aoi flicked the blood from her odachi, her tone indifferent.

It took a long time for Natsu Kuri to come back to her senses, her chest finally beginning to rise and fall steadily again. Seeing this, Aoi helped her up from the ground. "No one here can be saved. This is the only way to set them free."

Natsu Kuri stood up and, after seeing the black-haired girl's face clearly, said, "Big Sister Aoi?"

Aoi paused, her gaze softening slightly. "Have you seen me before, little family head?"

"I heard about you at the main house before. I've always admired you, Big Sister Aoi."

Aoi shook her head. "We are lord and vassal; there is no need for such words. Why did you come to this place?"

Natsu Kuri realized the situation and briefly recounted the matter regarding her aunt. Aoi nodded and called over a member responsible for the tally. "What's the status?"

"A 'sower' accidentally stumbled into this chemical factory not long ago, which led to this tragedy."

"As for the list of missing persons, it's all here."

Before the recorder could finish, Natsu Kuri hurriedly snatched the list. She checked the names one by one, and after confirming that the Nishimiya surname was not there, the heavy stone in her heart finally dropped. It seemed her aunt had not met with an accident; that was a relief.

"A 'sower'? Why would one appear here?" Aoi's brow furrowed. "They should all be within the city."

"The situation over there hasn't been optimistic lately. Recently, there have been reports of such attacks across the entire territory of Red Heaven. I heard from the military department that the Eight-Spider Hive Mother might have noticed the existence of 'the outside'."

Aoi propped her chin with her finger. "Could it be that these sowers are the eyes sent by the Eight-Spider Hive Mother to the outside world?"

"It's unclear."

"Wait, that sower you just mentioned—I didn't see it just now."

The recorder looked troubled. "That's also what I wanted to ask. We didn't find its body in the factory. It's very likely it escaped to the outside."

Just then, an egg case began to vibrate violently. A clear yellow liquid burst from its abdomen, and savage mandibles tore through the membrane. A palm-sized creature covered in a bluish-black exoskeleton lunged out. Upon closer inspection, the larva had spikes growing from its back.

With eight compound eyes and eight pairs of limbs, it vibrated its wings and lunged straight at Natsu Kuri, who was closest to it.

"Is this an egg laid by that sower?" Aoi realized the danger. Her odachi immediately moved to intercept the sower larva's path, but the creature was extremely agile. It beat its wings at high speed, its body dodging the falling blade light at a tricky angle. In the blink of an eye, it was already in front of Natsu Kuri.

"Your Highness!" Aoi blurted out a shout.

Surprisingly, Natsu Kuri, who had been dazed just a moment ago, now seemed like a completely different person. Her eyes were sharp as she thrust out her index and middle fingers with the precision and speed of a surgical scalpel, piercing the sower's relatively soft abdomen. Ignoring its gaping mandibles, a mimicry dagger appeared in her hand, piercing directly through the insect's head before she flung it toward Aoi.

Aoi understood immediately. With a loud shout, she raised her odachi high and swung it down with the fierce momentum of a horse-slaying blade, splitting the sower larva in two along with its shell.

"Insects like sowers have no individual consciousness; their behavioral logic follows a collective will. Once outside the range of the Hive Mother's will, it will follow its instinct to 'sow'. That sower will tend toward places where people are relatively concentrated," Natsu Kuri said in a deep voice, her calm demeanor a world away from her previous self.

This look was all too familiar to Aoi. There was no mistake; this was the same Akabane Tsubaki she had seen at the mountain temple that day.

"It's impossible to intercept it on the road now. It will parasitize a normal person, stealing and injecting its own genes into the host, eventually mimicking every move of the host before their death in a short time. Finding it in a sea of people is unrealistic."

"Where is the most crowded place nearby?" Aoi didn't have time to overthink the change in Natsu Kuri and spoke up immediately. "We'll go there and wait for the prey to come to us!"

Someone quickly analyzed the data, and then their expression changed, whispering a conclusion that no one wanted to hear.

"Zhutai High."