Growing Pains

Lynch saw a familiar silk scarf.

The person his blast had forced out of hiding was none other than the girl with the silk scarf, whom he had seen being bullied in the school building not long ago.

Covered in soot and dirt from the blast, the girl clutched her arm and stumbled back several steps. Though in a wretched state, she still glared fiercely at Lynch, her expression twisting with rage.

Were the schoolgirls of this world all insane?

“You found me after all, but you can't stop me. The ritual has already begun,” the girl with the silk scarf shouted frantically, a sinister grin appearing on her once timid and weak face. “Every single one of them must die. No one is getting out of here alive!”

Lynch simply couldn't wrap his head around it. With a dark expression, he asked in a low voice, “Why are you doing this? If you were taking revenge on the classmates who bullied you, I would absolutely applaud you. But why are you ignoring those who actually harmed you and targeting a student from another grade instead?”

“I didn't target them! They are merely tools and sacrifices,” the young girl laughed hysterically, pointing at Monia, who was shrouded in black mist. “My only target is her! I want this ritual to turn her into a monster! Hahaha!”

“But why? Do you have a grudge against her?” Lynch couldn't help but press further. “You were both victims of bullying. Shouldn't you support each other? Why do you hate her so much?”

“Why? Why should she get a pass? We were both being bullied! Why does she get to use those things to attract everyone's attention? Why does she get to escape being bullied just because she brought out a few rituals? We are the same! If we're going to be bullied, we should suffer together! Why does she get to get away? I won't allow it! I'm going to make her own ritual turn her into a monster! Hahaha! Come on, let the ritual begin!”

Listening to the girl's hateful laughter, Lynch exhaled slowly, feeling as if the very air he breathed out was freezing.

The weak dared not fight back against their oppressors, yet they drew their blades against those even weaker, flying into a rage simply because someone else had managed to escape their shared plight.

At this moment, he felt nothing but horror at the twisted nature of humanity, and even a wave of deep disgust.

“Child, you...”

Lynch spoke in a gentle tone, but before his words could fully register, he suddenly drew his gun and fired, emptying the entire cylinder in an instant.

Hesitation leads to defeat.

Regardless of age or gender, he would gun her down first to stop the ritual.

A scream rang out. A bloom of blood erupted from the girl's chest, and she stumbled, collapsing onto the stage. Yet she scrambled back up almost immediately, still laughing triumphantly.

“You fool! The ritual has already begun! With the power of that Lord, I cannot be killed! You can't stop me! Hahaha! Didn't she want to look for these things? Fine! I'll let her look to her heart's content! I deliberately left that thing in her family's old warehouse! I wanted her to turn herself into a monster with her own hands! Even if you kill me now, it's useless! Everything has already begun! Hahaha!”

Damn it, this was trouble.

The most direct way to terminate a ritual was to destroy one of the three elements. Right now, the venue was clearly affected by an anomaly and could not be destroyed, and he wasn't insane enough to slaughter all the sacrifices littering the floor. Now, the host had turned out to be unkillable. What was he supposed to do? Miss Valente had never taught him this.

For a moment, Lynch grew highly anxious, and then the situation shifted once more.

The leading girls had fallen completely silent. The bizarre power had thoroughly eroded their bodies, turning them entirely into piles of dust, as though they had undergone tens of thousands of years of weathering.

Of the remaining seven or eight children, some had already lost half of their feet, while others were missing several fingers. Terror had stripped them of the strength to run around. Huddling together, they wept and shrieked, their hearts filled with despair.

As for Monia, Lynch finally saw it this time—a bizarre shadow emerging behind her.

It was a hunched, infant-sized black mummy shrouded in the mist, revealing only a pair of pale eyes that stared mockingly at everything unfolding here. Seemingly sensing Lynch's gaze, the infant-sized black mummy split its bandage-wrapped mouth into a sinister grin.

As the mummy gradually materialized, the theater fixtures around Monia began to decay rapidly, turning into dust.

Holy crap, which Lord was this one?

This wasn't the descent of an evil god, but what was it trying to do? No, regardless of its intent, he couldn't let it succeed. He had to stop it immediately.

Let me think, let me think... the three elements...

The decay continued, and the shadow grew increasingly solid. Everything was spiraling out of control. Weeping, laughter, and agonizing wails filled the auditorium, creating a chaotic din like some farcical play currently on stage.

Yet amidst this absolute chaos, a faint smile suddenly tugged at the corner of Lynch's lips.

“Heh, I get it now. In the world of the mystery, it's never about brute force. It's always about the subtle, the conceptual, the metaphysical symbols. In that case, let's play a game of mystification.”

Lynch abruptly raised his head, his eyes shining brightly as he locked his gaze onto the frantic girl with the silk scarf.

“If I can't kill you, and I can't kill the sacrifices, then the only option left is the venue. Can't destroy the venue? That's fine. The venue was never meant to be physically destroyed in the first place.”

“This is the school's theater and auditorium. The original concept of this venue is a stage, a playhouse. When you used it as a ritual site, the concept of the ritual site overrode the original concept of the stage and the theater building itself.”

As Lynch spoke, he dashed behind the stage and pulled down a series of levers on the wall. Soon, the gas lamps on the stage flared to life one by one, illuminating the entire area with brilliant clarity.

“Therefore, as long as we restore the original concept of the stage and theater to this venue, the ritual site will cease to exist. And the method of restoration isn't brute force, but... action.”

He ran over to the phonograph in the corner, wound the crank tight, grabbed a random record, and threw it on. Instantly, comical, upbeat music wafted from the massive horn.

“Now, we have the lights, and we have the music.”

Dashing back below the stage, he picked up several girls with injured feet and carried them over to the audience seats.

“And now we have an audience. The elements are basically assembled, leaving only...”

Finally, he grabbed the girls with injured hands and tossed them onto the stage one by one.

“The actors are in position! If you don't want to die a horrible death like your friends, start singing whatever you want! Right now, go!”

Having already been scared out of their wits, the young girls complied with Lynch's command like a reflex. They began to wail along with the music, making the auditorium livelier than ever.

The laughter of the girl with the silk scarf grew increasingly shrill. “You idiot! This is a ritual I went through so much trouble to obtain! Do you honestly think such a foolish method can break it? Hahaha, you've gone completely mad, I—ah!!!”

Her roaring laughter ground to a screeching halt, her face turning a sudden, sickly pale.

Monia, still shrouded in black mist, collapsed to the floor, her mouth and nose tightly shut as she lay motionless. Meanwhile, the filth permeating the entire auditorium suddenly seemed to be pulled by some invisible force, surging backward and engulfing the host—the girl with the silk scarf.

The ritual had backfired.

“No, how can this be? My Lord, my Lord, save me...”

As the crimson mist representing the filth flooded her body, the girl with the silk scarf writhed on the floor, howling in agony as if enduring immense pain.

“Quickly! Tell me right now, who did you get this ritual from?”

Lynch instantly realized that there was someone behind this who had provided the actual mystery ritual to these crazed girls.

“I'll never tell you! I hate all of you! I refuse to accept this! I want revenge! You all must die!”

Midst her crazed roars, the girl's body began to swell. Countless buds of flesh, tumors, and tentacles sprouted from her, rapidly transforming her into a writhing mass of putrid meat.

Seeing this, however, Lynch merely took a few steps back.

In the next instant, the swelling mass of flesh shuddered violently. A torrent of foul blood erupted from within, and the body ruptured, dissolving into a heap of filthy gore. A copper stench of blood and decay instantly filled the auditorium.

Standing guard beside the unconscious Monia, Lynch watched the entire scene play out calmly. Upon seeing the girl who had turned into a monster dissolve into nothingness, he simply removed his top hat, held it to his chest, and bowed deeply to the deceased.

Safe travels on your final journey.

This was a textbook case of a twisting transformation caused by soul contamination. However, an ordinary person's soul could not withstand a twisting transformation; thus, they often dissolved halfway through the process. Had it been a Soul Severer instead, it would have undoubtedly been a bitter struggle.

'Still, Neighbor, I can truly feel that I've changed.' Lynch took a deep breath of the foul air, a relaxed expression on his face. 'For the first time, I didn't rely on anyone else's strength or resort to tricks. I faced a mystery event entirely on my own, using nothing but my own mind and body.'

【Yes, congratulations. You have grown, Lynch.】

The goddess's voice remained as gentle as ever, yet beneath that gentleness lay a trace of a peculiar smile.

【But growth is often accompanied by pain. Are you prepared to bear those growing pains?】

Huh? What did she mean?

Just as the thought crossed his mind, a deafening crash reverberated in his ears, and a massive cloud of dust billowed into the air.

Having endured multiple conceptual shifts between a ritual venue and a theater stage, and further ravaged by the contamination of the mysterious filth, the lavishly decorated little auditorium finally reached its limit and collapsed in on itself.

The auditorium had caved in.

Lynch Laura Jones Drake Levive was buried underneath.

The sudden disaster threw the outside world into utter chaos. Countless students and school staff gathered around, gesturing and murmuring at the ruins. More faculty members rushed over from a distance. Among them, a hunched old woman leaning on a cane had a rare, meaningful smile grace her usually tense face.