The Ritual Begins

Sorrow, pain, despair... and a longing for death.

Monia's eyes had lost the spark they had when they first met, leaving only a dull, broken emptiness. Her sincerity and attempts to please had been met with nothing but mockery and cruel amusement. At this moment, she wanted nothing more than to escape this world.

Consequently, mysterious filth quietly welled up from the now-cleared ritual site. Its concentration grew denser and denser, filling the auditorium in the blink of an eye.

“Ignorance is merely fearlessness, but it does not mean innocence. Some things, once done, must ultimately be paid for,” Lynch said, a look of realization crossing his face as he smiled mockingly. “To put it another way, heaven has a way of settling scores with the vile.”

“What do you mean?! What did you do?!”

The schoolgirls also seemed to sense that something was wrong. The eerie atmosphere in the room filled them with genuine terror. Some of them bolted frantically toward the doors, but the doors and windows felt as if they were fixed to the very space itself, completely unyielding.

There was no way out.

“In the world of the mystery, there are always causes and effects. They may not be linearly connected, but there is always an ethereal thread binding them together. I don't need to do anything; all of this is simply the consequence of your own actions.”

Leaning on his cane, Lynch stood to the side and took two steps back. Beside him, Monia had already collapsed to her knees, her body arching backward. A swirl of black mist spiraled around her, forcefully repelling everything in her vicinity.

“I don't know much about rituals, but if I'm not mistaken, the lack of residual filth here earlier simply meant the ritual hadn't taken effect yet. The reason was likely that the conditions hadn't been met. She was merely marked, and something has been following her. That's why she could hear those bizarre whispers from the Dreamlands, and why strange incidents of things breaking actually happened around her. Yes, bizarre things really did happen around her. Whether you stumbled into it by accident or someone guided you, what you did to her perfectly mirrored what was actually happening around her. Because of this, she was pushed to the brink of collapse so quickly. But it would have only gone that far, unless the activation conditions of the ritual were met.”

One of the girls shrieked in terror, “What damn conditions?! Let me out of here!”

“Out? The ritual has already begun. I suggest you stop dreaming about leaving,” Lynch said in a low, chilling voice. “The activation condition is actually quite obvious: the marked subject must develop a desire for self-destruction. As for everyone else, I'm afraid that theoretically, every participant other than the subject is a sacrifice. So, congratulations, young ladies. Through your own malice and twisted nature, you have finally successfully activated the ritual and turned yourselves into sacrifices. Soon, you will get to taste the flavor of your own little joke. Heh, your efforts have paid off. I applaud you.”

The leading girls began trying to smash the windows, but the fragile glass was now as indestructible as a fortress wall. The others desperately pounded on the auditorium doors, trying to catch the attention of anyone outside.

Leaning on his cane, Lynch watched coldly from the side. Looking at these children screaming and running around in terror, he felt absolutely no sympathy, and even found it slightly amusing.

In them, Lynch saw the purest form of malice. Thus, he had no desire to save them whatsoever; if anything, he felt like applauding. Since he himself stood independent of the ritual, whatever chaos unfolded wouldn't affect him in theory. He was more than happy to sit back and watch.

Except for his client...

“Ah, my foot...”

One of the leading girls, who had been running around in panic just a moment ago, suddenly collapsed. Only then did everyone notice that, at some point, her feet—from her shoes to her soles—had turned into dust. It scattered with her movements without her even realizing it. It was only when her entire feet had completely dissolved into dust that she lost her balance and fell.

As the dust transformation continued to creep upward, she finally realized what was happening. Clutching her legs, she wailed in despair, “No, my legs! Help me! I was wrong, please save me!”

Her smug expression was long gone. The young girl crawled toward Lynch, tears and snot streaming down her face. Her agonizing cries were enough to evoke pity in anyone, but Lynch merely took two steps back to maintain his distance, shaking his head slightly. “Someone once told me that as nobles, you must be responsible for your every action from the moment of your birth, and be prepared to bear the consequences. Clearly, you do not understand this principle, but the consequences will not bypass you because of that. Yes, every single one of you.”

“Ah, my hand! My hand!”

Another schoolgirl shrieked as she discovered her fingers were beginning to turn to dust. In her despair, she ran toward her friends for comfort, but the other girls scattered to avoid her, terrified of being touched by the drifting dust.

Yet their dodging did nothing to halt the process. Starting from either their hands or their feet, the dust transformation began to manifest on everyone. The leading girls suffered the most severe effects, while the others were slightly better off, but not a single one escaped. For a time, blood-curdling screams echoed throughout the auditorium.

“Please learn to face your end calmly and bravely, young ladies. As you said, there is indeed nothing I can do to you, so I can only watch you die. You had better pray that Monia's hatred for you isn't at its deepest. That way, you might live a bit longer. Of course, only a little bit.”

Lynch sighed, turning his attention away from the gruesome scene in the auditorium. These children were finished. Even if they didn't die in the end, they would be left permanently disabled. They wouldn't even be able to secure political marriages, which meant they would likely be swiftly marginalized by their noble families. For them, losing everything they currently possessed would probably be more painful than dying on the spot.

Although watching this was highly satisfying, it was now time to figure out how to resolve the situation.

By his estimate, once all the sacrifices involved in the ritual died, the ritual would succeed, and everything would come to an end.

But this was a ritual with an uncertain outcome. Since it was already this bizarre, Lynch had no intention of gambling on the final result. He couldn't just stand by and let this thing succeed. Otherwise, even if it didn't cause a massive wave of deaths outside, his client would likely meet a grim end.

Hmm?

As he was thinking, Lynch suddenly noticed that after he spoke those words, the rate of the dust transformation on the other students had noticeably slowed down—excluding the leading girls, whose transformation had already reached their torsos, leaving them with no strength left to struggle.

You're actually...

Lynch looked in astonishment at Monia, who was shrouded in black mist. Clearly, the girl had heard his words and was actively trying to suppress her hatred for the others.

You're actually trying to forgive them?

Human nature in this world is truly complex, far more troublesome than in any game.

“Fine, I'll give you a hand. You are the client, after all. I'll resolve this event as quickly as possible. As for how many survive in the end, that will depend on their luck.”

With a soft chuckle, Lynch took off his glove and pressed his palm against the floor, speaking in a relaxed tone, “I just learned this: the three elements of a ritual are the sacrifices, the venue, and the host.”

“We have the venue, and plenty of sacrifices. The only thing missing here is the host.”

“I don't believe for a second that a bunch of brats could stumble their way into completing such a complex ritual just by following an instruction manual. Someone must have been guiding them in secret. I imagine that black smoke stealthily following Monia is our dear host.”

“My skills were limited, and I indeed couldn't find you before, leaving you to hide. But once the ritual begins and the flow of filth is laid bare on the table, do you think you can still hide as one of the three elements?”

Lynch snorted coldly. Activating his Mystery Intuition, the distribution of the nearby mysterious filth concentration was instantly mapped out in his consciousness.

“Heh, there's absolutely no high-concentration filth area that would typically belong to a host. Quite a good hiding job. Too bad I played a similar trick when I first awakened. It's nothing more than using a higher concentration of filth to mask yourself, using the venue's filth to cover your own presence. I've seen through your trick, host.”

As Lynch finished speaking, a green skull shot straight toward the ruined ritual site on the stage. Just as it arrived, the skull violently exploded, sending a wave of eerie green mist sweeping through the target area.

A figure perched on the iron framework was blasted directly out of hiding, stumbling back a few steps.

Yet Lynch's expression instantly froze in utter disbelief. “It's you? How is that possible?”