Gokou Ruri was somewhat restless. Clearly, Asakura had been gone for less than ten minutes, but in the girl's physical sense of time, it felt like an agonizing night of a novelist procrastinating on their updates. Her maverick behavior had attracted quite a bit of attention from others.
However, the girl did not care at all—she was originally the type who did not care about the gaze of others; otherwise, she would not usually go out in such a grand manner wearing that set of black Lolita long dresses. The reason she had cared about her outward appearance before was only because she did not want to lose face for Asakura, but now that he had already left, such things no longer mattered to the girl.
After all, the venue for the banquet was a luxury hotel in Ginza, and the buffet provided was quite lavish—items like king crab, bluefin tuna, rose lobster, and red devil shrimp, which would usually cost tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yen, were currently lined up on the tables like they were free for anyone to take at will. It was just that the girl had no appetite at all and could only wander around the venue like a ghost walking in circles.
"Hmm?" During her wandering, Gokou Ruri bumped into Yukinoshita Haruno once, and the latter showed a somewhat surprised expression, "I remember, you are... the one by Asakura's side?"
Gokou Ruri glanced at the wine glass in the other's hand, raised an eyebrow, and said nothing. Noticing her gaze, Yukinoshita Haruno shook the glass in her hand: "This is just for holding and looking at; I haven't drunk a single drop. After all, if I have nothing in my hands, I'd look somewhat out of place".
"Only sheep flock together..." Gokou Ruri said clearly.
"Could it be that you are a lion?" Yukinoshita Haruno asked curiously.
"I am Kuroneko..." the girl who called herself the Saint of the Fallen Heavens, Kuroneko, replied as such.
"That doesn't sound very strong either..." Yukinoshita Haruno said with a smile.
"The cognition of a mortal..." Gokou Ruri said disdainfully.
At this time, a corner of the banquet suddenly began to stir.
"What happened?" Yukinoshita Haruno looked toward that direction curiously, and precisely because her attention was attracted by the commotion over there, she did not notice that in her own wine glass, something was slowly crawling out of the rim.
"Hup." Gokou Ruri, quick of eye and hand, slapped the glass out of her hand.
Yukinoshita Haruno looked at the girl with a questioning expression of "what are you doing..." but found the girl's brow furrowed, looking at the spilled wine on the ground as if facing a great enemy. Yukinoshita Haruno followed the other's gaze and looked down, seeing several creatures that looked like insects slowly crawling out of the wine, struggling for a bit before dying on the carpet.
Her scalp suddenly felt numb—if she had just drunk that wine, she feared these things would have invaded her body. The commotion at the edge of the banquet was still spreading, and it seemed someone had vomited, as one could faintly hear shouts like "There is a problem with your hotel's food" and "Get your head chef over here" coming from that direction. However, because the behavior of the waiters over there was a mess, the situation had not been effectively suppressed; instead, more people were vomiting.
"Regardless of whether it's this church or this hotel, their reputation is going to be ruined now..." Yukinoshita Haruno said softly.
"A naive idea..." Gokou Ruri evaluated indifferently.
"I really don't want to hear such words from a child who hasn't even walked out of the school campus yet".
"You'll understand once you reach my age".
"...Being able to grow backward in age like this is indeed something to be happy about..." Yukinoshita Haruno's mouth twitched. "But society has its own rules, and with so many high-ranking officials and nobles present, it's impossible to hide such a scandal (she glanced loathingly at the insect corpses on the ground)."
"That's why I said you are too naive..." Gokou Ruri folded her arms. "The rules you speak of are not the rules of society, but the rules of the 'sheep pen'... Real rules transcend this".
Yukinoshita Haruno originally wanted to say something more to refute it, but after thinking of Asakura's figure, which was full of mystery, she stopped and remained silent.
The disturbance spread further, and like a spark thrown into a boiling oil pan, shouts of "The door won't open..." "Is it locked..." and "Open the door quickly" came from the entrance. In an instant, the entire banquet hall was shrouded in a panicked atmosphere. The behavior of those who had vomited also began to become bizarre, as they seemed to start being keen on catching those who had no vomiting reaction and tried to stuff their own vomit into the other party's mouth.
"What kind of zombie crisis is this..." Yukinoshita Haruno shrank into a corner uneasily. It wasn't that she didn't want to flee the banquet hall, but either several exits were locked, or there were people who had vomited waiting there—going over now would be like walking into a trap.
"I really don't want to admit there are such disgusting and unhygienic zombies..." Gokou Ruri evaluated calmly.
"Aren't you afraid?" Yukinoshita Haruno looked at Gokou Ruri with difficulty—the latter had no fear at all toward these people who were clearly becoming abnormal.
"Takuma-senpai had already anticipated this kind of situation..." Gokou Ruri hugged her arms, looking at the banquet hall that was a mess in front of her. "Although dealing with these filthy guys is not my intention, since Takuma-senpai said so, then I shall suppress this chaos".
"Kuroneko, are you really okay?" Haruno asked with concern.
"It's just suppressing these guys..." Gokou Ruri struck a pose, preparing to take action to resolve the chaos.
Just then, a person who had vomited stumbled toward them.
"[Silence]..." Gokou Ruri said softly, "Don't move."
The other party's movements froze instantly. Just as Ruri showed a satisfied smile, the other party suddenly vomited toward her again. Probably because it was mixed with bile, the green vomit looked sticky and gooey as it splashed toward the girl's head and face. It was just that at the moment it was about to touch the girl's body, it was blocked by the [Scale Flash Pattern] attached to her body.
Yet even so, there were still bits and pieces of vomit that stained the girl's skirt.
'This is the clothing Takuma-senpai bought for me!' In an instant, Gokou Ruri's expression darkened.
"I've changed my mind; guys like you, go die twice for me!" The girl, who was fuming with rage, reached out toward the long table placed in the center of the banquet hall: "Although I cannot create illusions in the true sense, it is very easy to just increase the size until the body is crushed by its own weight—[Beast: Chimera]".
Under Yukinoshita Haruno's incredulous gaze, the long table that spanned the entire banquet hall suddenly seemed to possess life and raised its body high. The expensive food on the table fell off with a clatter, the tablecloth with gold tassels became fur, the marble slabs laid on the table became a shell, and the table legs all became claws with knotted muscles.
A giant beast with a lion's head rose up like a coiled serpent, raising its head and letting out a roar that suppressed the commotion of the entire banquet hall.