Chapter 149: A Lesson in Fear
"I'll talk! I'll talk, just please don't pinch me! It was all my illusion! It was all my fault!" Tail, having clearly learned his lesson from the last encounter, preemptively confessed to Stelle to save himself from another squishing.
"Hey! I... I want to come too!" Huohuo piped up, her voice trembling but determined. "Al-although I'm very weak, could you two please take me along? I-I-I... I'm a judge from the Ten-Lords Commission! I can help!"
Rekka gently patted Huohuo's head, a silent gesture to calm the anxious girl. Stelle, on the other hand, went straight for the kill, leaning in with a predatory grin.
"Let me get a huff!"
"Stop trying to huff the poor girl," Rekka intervened, pulling Stelle back. "Let's go save March first."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Fyxestroll Garden, March 7th was having the time of her life.
"Aaaah!" she shrieked, only for her expression to immediately go flat and bored. Her ability to switch emotions on a dime was on par with a cartoon starfish.
Guinaifen had originally accompanied March 7th for a ghost-hunting livestream. She'd been genuinely a little scared at first, but March's constant, over-the-top screaming had completely desensitized her. In fact, she'd started joining in on the chorus of shrieks.
People like March 7th were the most terrifying opponents in a mecha game—the type to scream "I'm hit! I'm going down!" while simultaneously drawing a beam saber and vaporizing the enemy's cockpit.
[Guinaifen has been totally corrupted. This doesn't feel like a horror stream at all anymore.]
[Are these two holding a concert in a haunted garden?]
"Just now, we heard a strange noise, which we suspect is a supernatural phenomenon—" March began to narrate for her audience, before letting out another piercing scream.
This one wasn't even half-hearted; she was just having fun now.
Before she could finish her sentence, a dull, heavy boom echoed from the distance.
The ground beneath them shuddered. This wasn't an act. The stone paths of the Fyxestroll Garden began to crack, the tattered lanterns hanging from the trees rattled violently, and even the camera on her terminal shook.
[Whoa, what the hell is happening?]
[Earthquake?]
[No, that sound... it was like a massive explosion.]
March 7th and Guinaifen exchanged a wide-eyed glance. Without another word, the two of them broke into a dead sprint, parkouring over obstacles like they were in a real-life game of Temple Run.
The ghosts are coming, run!
A burst of intense, dramatic music seemed to swell from nowhere. At some point, Guinaifen's livestream feed had cut out, but the terminal Rekka had specially modified for March was still broadcasting.
"Guinaifen," March panted, slowing to a stop. Her breath condensed into a white mist in the frigid air. "Was this place always this... big?"
Guinaifen leaned on her knees, gasping for air. Hearing the question, she looked up and scanned their surroundings, her brow furrowing. "What do you mean? Are you saying... we've actually..."
March paused, then reached out and flicked Guinaifen's forehead.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"Does it hurt?"
"Of course it hurts!"
"Then you're not dead," March stated matter-of-factly. "Would you still feel pain if you were a ghost?"
"That's... true," Guinaifen conceded, rubbing her forehead. But her relief was short-lived, and a new wave of anxiety washed over her. "Then what's happening to us? We've been running for ages; by all logic, we should be out of the garden by now... Is this that thing from the legends? A 'ghost wall'?"
March glanced at her terminal. The positioning signal on the screen was jumping erratically, and the location data was a stream of garbled code. "Crap. Looks like the official stream got taken down."
As if on cue, the surrounding mist suddenly thickened. It came on strangely, seeping in wisps from the cracks in the ground, the base of the walls, and the gnarled branches of withered trees. It was as if something massive underground was exhaling, and the mist it produced was icy, carrying a evident chill that clung to their skin.
"March..." Guinaifen's voice, coming from just behind her, was trembling noticeably.
March turned to see her friend pointing a shaky finger into the gloom ahead. Following her gaze, she saw a figure standing indistinctly in the depths of the fog. The shadow wasn't tall, its outline blurred and hazy, looking for all the world like a small child.
"Hey, kid?" March called out tentatively. "Are you lost?"
The figure didn't move. It just stood there, a silent, solitary shape in the swirling white.
March took a cautious step forward.
"Don't go over there!" Guinaifen grabbed her arm, her grip tight with panic. "How could there be a kid in a place like this at this hour? It's definitely a ghost!"
"Even if it is, it's a child ghost," March said, gently prying Guinaifen's fingers away. "What's there to be afraid of?"
She spoke with an unnerving amount of confidence. And why was she so confident?
Firstly, she now had Long Night Moon as her ultimate trump card.
Secondly, before she left the Express today, Rekka had pressed a mysterious little gadget into her hand.
'Those who can't beat me are just weak,' she thought, a smirk touching her lips.
And right now, March 7th was about to treat these so-called ghosts like misbehaving children in need of a stern lesson.
"I'm counting on you, other me!"
When her eyes opened again, a deep, swirling blood-red had consumed her pupils. An indescribably cold aura erupted from her, spreading across the ground like a sheet of ice and forcibly pushing the cloying mist back several feet.
[I really can't do anything with you, can I~?♭]
Long Night Moon flexed her wrist, tilting her head as she studied the small figure lurking deep within the fog.
"March?" Guinaifen blinked, confused. "Why did your voice change?"
"Shh—" Long Night Moon brought a slender index finger to her lips, turning to give Guinaifen a conspiratorial wink. "March is feeling a little tired, so I'm taking over for a bit. Just stay right there and be a good girl, hm? This will be over soon~♭"
The crimson glow in Long Night Moon's eyes made Guinaifen deeply uneasy. At her silent command, countless translucent red jellyfish materialized from thin air, surrounding and restraining the floating green flames—the Heliobi—that had begun to gather in the vicinity.
"The Memoria Active Field he made is quite useful," she mused, glancing at the device from Rekka in her hand. A subtle, dangerous arc curved the corner of her lips. "That great inventor really does provide a new little surprise every day."
[Let me go! Let me go!] a sharp, piercing voice shrieked in her mind.
Long Night Moon tilted her head, a predator listening to its prey. "If I were to pinch a little thing like you into a Memory Spirit... now that would be quite interesting."
With Rekka's magical little gadget in hand, she could manipulate Memoria with ease. Mental-type entities were her favorite playthings—so easy to hang up and whip into shape. She was, after all, the strictest mother when it came to matters of the mind.
"Be good and listen now. I'll be very gentle~♭" she cooed, then turned back to Guinaifen. "Want to see a magic trick?"
Guinaifen's mouth had been hanging open for some time. She looked from this new, terrifying version of March to the trapped Heliobus, and finally managed a stiff, jerky nod.
"Then watch closely~♭"
Long Night Moon clasped her hands before her chest, fingers interlaced as if in prayer. A brilliant red light spilled from between them. The jellyfish floating in the air began to shrink and deform, eventually transforming into hair-thin crimson threads that wrapped around the struggling Heliobus.
The spectral creature thrashed, but with every movement, the threads only tightened. Its ethereal flame began to dim as its very form was forcibly altered. The blurry green fire contracted, its outline growing sharper, clearer, and more... defined.
"Very good," Long Night Moon declared, admiring her handiwork. "Now it's a proper Memory Spirit."
The twisted, monstrous thing before them was a Heliobus, its core traits gathered and refined into a single, cohesive form. Those traits were the human emotions it had absorbed—joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, and suffering, all coalesced into one being. The 'clean' parts of the Heliobus, its original essence, were unable to coexist with this emotional cocktail and had been summarily cast out by Long Night Moon, becoming nothing more than wisps of pure energy.
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