Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Seiji and the others were able to sense the locations of all the enemy Red Team's tournament participants.
When the battle began, the Bloodwine Spirit would allow all the tournament participants to sense the names and locations of all the enemy team's participants, all the way until all the members of one team were defeated. However, the minimap senses would also be periodically turned on and off.
Even if this abnormal mist and cluster amaryllis flowers appeared, the Bloodwine Ritual tournament still continued "as normal…" this proved that Seiji's guess had been on the mark.
What he didn't expect was that not long after the tournament's group battle stage formally began, a Red Team tournament participant was judged to have been defeated.
Why was this person defeated so quickly?
There was a significant amount of distance between the starting locations for Red Team and Blue Team. Even if some Blue Team members were prepared beforehand to move at high speed from the very start, would they really be able to defeat a Red Team member in such a short period of time?
Could it be that the Revenge Alliance members really did obtain great power, to the point where they could move super-fast and defeat someone in a single attack? Or were the Revenge Alliance members not obstructed by the mist, or perhaps they were able to snipe others off from a super long distance?
This was just like cheating… Seiji couldn't help but recall all the cheats available in battle royale games like PUBG and Fortnite in his previous life. Such cheats would give all sorts of mystical abilities to the players. Some people even called the cheats "God simulators", as a battle between cheaters was just like a battle between the Gods.
So, the current situation resembled cheating players abusing and beating up the top-level players?
That really did seem like the case… but making such an analogy didn't reflect the seriousness of the situation.
No, no, this was a really serious situation! This was no game, this was a real battle. People could die!
Seiji suddenly felt his body stiffening when he thought to this point.
This feeling was…
*Crack crack crack crack!*
Many black arms suddenly broke the floorboards of the house Seiji was in. These black arms viciously grabbed onto his legs and body!
This was just like the soul attack he underwent on the ship… No, wait!
Shika, Kanna, and Izawa were all still next to him. And, black hands had grabbed onto all of them as well!!
*Shing!*
Shika formed a blade of ice and instantly sliced through several black hands!
*Shing shing shing shing!*
After swiftly eliminating all the black hands around her, she then helped to break Seiji free.
Seiji and Shika then helped to slice off all the numerous black hands surrounding Kanna and Izawa. Yet, after the two of them were freed, both Kanna and Izawa collapsed right where they stood.
"Kanna! Izawkun! What's the matter!?"
Seiji inspected Izawa's condition and found that his entire body had hardened, as if he had been frozen solid.
Shika found that Kanna was in the same condition.
What was going on?
However, he didn't have time to check further on their condition, because a low sigh sounded in the room.
Several hazy figures then appeared in midair. Some were male and some were female. They wore normal clothing and their faces couldn't be seen clearly. Black mist swirled all around their bodies, and they uttered strange sounds that sounded like sighs yet also like pitiful screams.
These figures approached Seiji's group… more accurately, they were trying to approach Kanna and Izawa that collapsed on the ground!
Shika instantly decided to attack these figures with her ice blade!
She sliced two of the figures in half. Yet, these figures only floated backwards slightly before forming themselves into whole again.
These two ghostly figures then used the black mist around their bodies to attempt at enveloping Seiji's young Spirit-branded Retainer!
Shika used a barrier spell to block the black mist.
Seiji sliced through another ghostly figure, with the same result.
If direct physical attacks were ineffective, then…
[Cleansing]!
The black mist that was cleansed instantly had a portion disappear.
It was effective! Seiji then created another seal and borrowed power from his bonded female spirit, casting [Evolved Cleansing]!
*Whoosh…* Instantly, a large patch of black mist and a ghostly figure all evaporated due to the cleansing.
This would be much easier to deal with now that Seiji knew the correct technique to use.
"Evil spirits, begone! I decree it so!!"
Seiji used such a classical phrase while continuously using [Evolved Cleansing] to eliminate all the ghostly figures.
The scene then fell silent afterwards.
"Urk…" Izawa started making sounds and moving.
"Izawkun! Are you alright?"
"I'm fine… Where's Master…? Master!"
Izawa shook Kanna on the shoulder. Soon, Kanna woke up as well together with an "Ahh!!" sound.
Seiji inquired what happened and learned that both of them had entered frightening hallucinations, as if they suddenly started having nightmares.
Just as they were resisting against the hallucinations, they suddenly woke up.
Were these sudden hallucinations because of the black hands and ghostly figures?
It would seem that was highly likely to be the case.
Forget about the black hands, were those ghostly figures… the former residents of this island or even that house they were in? Seiji wondered about that.
Could they have been undead spirits?
Seiji instantly recalled what he had experienced during the incident in Reo's soul realm.
Black mist… ghostly humanoid figures… scary hallucinations… that was quite similar to the current situation!
The return of the dead… the current situation and a mysterious power… was this current situation connected to the mysterious power that Reo and Mayuzumi possessed, the power which could even summon the spirits of those who had died already?
He recalled that there was one more person from the Story of One Hundred Demons incident of ten years ago with Mayuzumi and Reo's mother, Riko Tachibana. There was one more high school girl at the time that had suffered the same nightmares as them!
That girl's name had been...
"Risa Kobayakawa…" Seiji muttered to himself.
"Please… Stop…"
Right after he said that name out loud, he heard a faint sound!
This was the same mysterious voice that he heard back on the ship. Now, he was able to hear it clearer than before. He could now discern that the voice was evidently female.
"Who are you?" Seiji looked all around him. "Are you Risa Kobayakawa!?"
"Please… stop that person… otherwise… everyone will die…"
The words he heard came only in broken succession.
"By 'stop', do you mean stopping the current situation from developing any further? Who is 'that person'? If we don't stop this person, will all of us die!?" Seiji continued asking questions.
He received no response.
The voice stopped saying anything more.
Shika, Kanna, and Izawa were all looking at him.
"I recalled something and then heard a mysterious voice. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to obtain any useful information…" Seiji explained the situation to them.
He felt that the mysterious female voice wanted to express something like this: he had to stop a certain person's plans. Otherwise, everyone on the island would die!
Yet, he had no idea who this person was supposed to be.
'Come on now, stating the name clearly is the most important part of the warning, mysterious lady.' Seiji could only mentally sigh.
At this moment, he sensed that a two-person team on the enemy Red Team was just defeated. His "minimap senses" of their existence stopped working as they were judged to have lost the tournament.
Were these Red Team participants defeated by Blue Team members, or were they defeated by these ghostly figures that just appeared? Seiji didn't know.
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'I said, don't try to stop me.'
'Besides, I've already started. It's too late to stop now.'
'Heh heh, I really am an idiot. It's just as you say.'
'I never thought that I would be so foolish, and yet not regret anything at all.'
'This is the action I've taken that I regret least in my life.'
'What I regret the most in my life was the fact that I noticed you on that day.'
'If only I ignored you instead… you wouldn't have died.'
'You would have grown up normally, into a wonderful woman. You probably would have found a gentle husband, had cute children, and lived a normal and fortunate life.'
'If only time could be turned back… If only I could go back to the time when I met you, I would definitely stop myself. I wouldn't mind even if I had to kill my past self.'
'Haha, why can't I talk like this?'
'If you want to viciously scold me, then return!'
'As long as you come back to me alive, then you can scold me all you want.'
'I want you to return.'
'I don't care about anything else… this damned shitty world is one where people can only be killed but not revived. That's so unreasonable!'
'There're countless out there that deserve to die. But there are also some that should be revived, such as you.'
'I'm willing to pay anything if that can really happen.'
'If only everything I possessed could be traded for you to come back to life again, that would be the best trade I could ask for in the world.'
'But since that's not possible… I can come to visit you in the next world instead.'
'Haha, even if you kick me away, there's one sentence that I absolutely have to tell you personally.'