Silence.
Dead silence.
Facing the gaze of dozens of eyes, even Natsuki, who had completely mastered the essence of Machiavellianism, couldn't help but feel his face flush, a sense of social death welling up in his heart.
"Ah…"
A soft cry from a girl broke the silence of the classroom.
Immediately after, the girls' exclamations rose and fell.
Many girls raised their hands to cover their eyes, while some were quite bold, widening their eyes and curiously examining the unfamiliar male who had appeared before them.
"A man!"
"A living man!"
"And a living man without clothes!"
"His body is so strange… and so, so ugly!"
"..."
Natsuki quickly took out clothes, put them on, and then frowned slightly.
Something was wrong.
He should have appeared next to Chika after instantly moving, but secretary Chika was nowhere to be seen in the large classroom.
He looked around again, but Chika was still not in the classroom.
"Who are you, student?"
A female teacher in a suit and black-rimmed glasses stood up, her expression serious as she questioned him.
"I am…"
Natsuki was about to speak when he suddenly saw an unfamiliar short-haired girl in the corner secretly winking at him. At the same time, the short-haired girl raised her right hand and quietly wiggled her pinky finger.
"Hmm?"
Seeing the short-haired girl's signal, Natsuki was slightly stunned, then quickly reacted.
"It's Chika."
"She didn't speak, is it because she can't reveal her identity?"
Natsuki's mind raced, quickly analyzing the possible reasons why Chika didn't reveal her identity.
"Who exactly are you?"
The female teacher's expression was serious, her eyes already turning pitch black.
"Hello everyone, I apologize for meeting you all in this manner. My sincerest apologies." Natsuki raised his hands, spouting nonsense with a straight face, "I am a magician who has been practicing for two and a half years. I was just practicing instant teleportation, and I accidentally teleported here."
"You're lying, right?"
"Magicians need at least two prop boxes to teleport, and then dig a tunnel under the boxes. This man clearly appeared out of thin air just now."
"Exactly, he's definitely not a magician, but a wizard."
"…"
Facing the whispers in the classroom, Natsuki said with a normal expression:
"Since everyone doubts my identity, I can only perform the art of disappearing into thin air again to prove my innocence."
Everyone looked on with curiosity, and even the female teacher on the podium temporarily stopped her evil spirit transformation.
"Watch closely, disappearing into thin air only requires three steps…"
Natsuki spoke while glancing at the classroom door out of the corner of his eye, then quietly retreated backward under the gaze of a group of girls.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps…
Reaching the classroom door, Natsuki unhesitatingly grabbed the doorknob, pulled the door open, and then darted out.
"…"
The girls in the classroom looked at each other.
After a brief silence.
Finally, a girl quietly broke the silence:
"Did that boy… run away?"
The female teacher's eyes suddenly turned pitch black, blood-red mist swirling around her body. Her voice was icy:
"Catch that intruder! This is an all-girls school, we cannot let him contaminate the school environment!"
The girls in the classroom immediately became excited, rushing out and beginning to pursue Natsuki.
Soon, only one short-haired girl remained seated in the classroom.
A moment later.
The shadow beneath the girl's feet suddenly swayed gently, and a figure quietly emerged from the shadow.
"President!"
The short-haired girl called out happily.
"Chika?"
Natsuki raised an eyebrow slightly.
"It's me, it's me."
The short-haired girl nodded in response, then happily stepped forward, about to hug Natsuki.
"Wait a moment." Natsuki took half a step back. "Your voice and appearance are both very unfamiliar now… It feels a bit like cheating."
"What do you mean, voice and appearance are just external." Chika puffed out her cheeks, "Even if my voice and appearance are different, I'm still me."
Natsuki said:
"So, hugging isn't cheating?"
Chika put her hands on her hips and said:
"Of course it's not cheating."
Natsuki asked again:
"What if I do something more excessive?"
Chika's pretty face flushed slightly, and she quickly covered her chest with her hands, shaking her head:
"Of course not! This is a dungeon right now, President, don't always think about strange, perverted things!"
"Alright, we'll talk about this later when we have time." Natsuki spread his hands, "…Why did you summon me in the classroom?"
"Because there was no other way." Chika whispered, "My backpack and skills are sealed now, and I still have to complete a blood-letter quest soon, so I tried summoning the President… I hadn't tried summoning the President before, so who knew the President would appear in the classroom in such a terrible way."
Alright.
Natsuki admitted it was his fault.
The [Evolution] skill could only be used once every twenty-four hours, with an extremely long cooldown. So, the girls only knew that the fated person could travel through Time and space to their side, but the specific method of appearance was unclear. Only Hayasaka was most familiar with it.
"Also…" Chika's gaze dropped, and she couldn't help but puff out her cheeks, "Why was the President naked, not wearing a single piece of clothing?!"
Natsuki explained:
"I was taking a bath, you can see I'm still not dry."
Chika looked doubtful:
"This is a dungeon, right? Why can the President still take a bath?"
Natsuki said:
"That's a long story…"
Before he finished speaking, footsteps suddenly rumbled in the hallway.
"President, quickly hide."
Chika quickly waved her hand, signaling Natsuki to hide with her in the corner.
Rumble.
Several unfamiliar girls ran past in a flash in the hallway, holding blood-stained baseball bats, their faces excited, clearly pursuing Natsuki.
"Phew…"
Chika clutched her chest and let out a sigh of relief:
"President, you can get up now."
Natsuki squinted slightly, looking out, and whispered:
"Chika, what's your main quest?"
"It's to survive three days in the school." Chika whispered in reply, "But strange blood-colored characters appear from time to time in the school, and anyone who sees them must complete them… like those blood-letter quests on the blackboard."
Natsuki turned to look at the blackboard, only to see a line of crooked text written in dark red blood:
"Everyone in the classroom must draw their self-portrait with blood within half an hour."
"Drawing with blood?"
Natsuki raised an eyebrow slightly:
"It doesn't look like a proper quest at all… What are the consequences of not completing the quest?"
"The consequences are severe." Chika whispered, "Those teachers and classmates looked normal just now, but if the blood-letter quest isn't completed, those guys will immediately turn into evil spirits and abuse those who haven't completed the quest, pulling their hair, spitting, beating, and even… In short, it's as excessive as it gets."
At this point, Chika clenched her fists, huffing and puffing:
"That's one thing, but my game backpack and skills are all sealed, it's super annoying!"
A player's biggest advantage was their wide array of abilities and items. Without the enhancement of various abilities, ordinary players in a bare-handed state simply couldn't inflict damage on evil spirits, or even if they did, it was only a negligible amount.
"I see."
Natsuki nodded lightly, understanding why Chika hadn't summoned him immediately after descending into the dungeon.
Firstly, her game backpack and various abilities were sealed, and she worried that Natsuki's abilities might also be restricted like hers. Secondly, she probably also had the idea of clearing the main quest with her own abilities, quietly developing, and then astonishing everyone.
Now, clearing it herself was super difficult. To draw a self-portrait with blood, there seemed to be no other way but to draw her own blood… In desperation, she could only try summoning Natsuki.
Summoning Natsuki didn't use a skill, but rather the red string code that Chika transmitted by wiggling her pinky finger. So, strictly speaking, it didn't fall under sealed abilities.
"Why can the President use abilities?"
Chika asked curiously.
"I don't know." Natsuki shook his head. "Perhaps I'm exceptionally gifted?"
"Eh?" Chika asked, puzzled, "How is the President exceptionally gifted?"
Natsuki didn't speak, but instead looked down.
Chika's gaze followed downwards, her pretty face quickly flushed, and she couldn't help but lightly scoff:
"President, you're perverted!"
"How am I perverted?" Natsuki said righteously, "I clearly didn't say anything. Sometimes, you should look for reasons within yourself."
"Poke—"
Chika reached out and poked, her cheeks puffed up high, like a chipmunk with its mouth full of pine nuts:
"Super infuriating!"
"I'm sorry, I was wrong." Natsuki raised his hands in surrender, "Chika-sama, please forgive me."
"Hmph~ I'll reluctantly forgive the President for now." Chika hugged her arms across her chest. "Oh, by the way, does the President have any news about everyone else? Yesterday, I searched carefully in the school for a long time, and only found Kaguya-chan, Hanamori-chan, and Marin-chan, Sayu-chan. There's no news of anyone else."
Natsuki's eyes lit up upon hearing this:
"They're all in the school?!"
Indeed, what one seeks might be found without effort. No wonder the Paw Patrol had no news; it turns out they were all in the girls' school—
Kaguya and Marin, they most likely all replaced someone else's identity, with different voices and appearances, so their scents would naturally be different. It was perfectly normal for the Paw Patrol not to find them.
"Besides you, everyone else has already been found." Natsuki said gently, "Senpai, Shoko, Juju, Yukino, Haruno… In short, not a single one is missing. Not long ago, I even bought a house for Tsubame-senpai."
"Eh?" Chika was surprised, "Bought a house for Senpai?"
"That's a long story…"
Natsuki was about to explain when footsteps suddenly approached from afar in the hallway. The footsteps sounded quite noisy, clearly more than one person.
"It must be those classmates returning." Chika quickly lowered her voice, "They didn't find the President, so they must be preparing to come back and complete the blood-letter quest."
"Here."
Natsuki took out a bag of artificial blood plasma and handed it to Chika.
Not knowing which items would come in handy in special situations, players generally had a hoarding habit, with all sorts of messy things in their backpacks.
Chika took the artificial blood plasma and whispered:
"President, hurry and hide, don't let those people discover you."
"I have an idea..."
Natsuki said, taking out the leg attachment.
"Eh?" Chika blinked, "Does the President want to turn into an attachment? Will it be ineffective?"
"Whether it's effective or not, we'll know once we try."
Natsuki said, taking off his clothes again.
These were clothes opened from a Blind Box, and they could be stored in the game backpack, so of course, they couldn't be wasted.
Chika's pretty face flushed slightly, but she didn't look away. After all, they had already been in zero-distance contact. She urged in a low voice:
"President, hurry up, the footsteps are almost at the door."
"Mm."
With a slight flash of light, Natsuki's figure vanished into thin air, transforming into a true leg attachment.
Chika caught the leg attachment, lifted her skirt, and pressed it onto her thigh.
Click.
The leg attachment was successfully loaded.
"Let's see if it works first..."
Chika closed her eyes slightly.
Not long after, secretary Chika's pretty face quickly showed an excited expression, and she happily clenched her fists.
"Hahahahaha, I'm going to take on ten!"
"..."
As they spoke, the girls who were chasing Natsuki walked back dejectedly, each returning to their drawing boards to sit down.
"Damn it, that man actually escaped."
"After class, we'll continue to look for him. He's a living man."
"Count me in, I want to go too."
"Whoever finds him gets him!"
A girl sitting next to Chika sighed to Chika:
"What a pity, I wanted to taste what a boy tastes like."
Chika subconsciously said:
"It doesn't taste good at all."
"Eh?" The female classmate turned her head to look over, "How do you know?"
Chika's pretty face flushed slightly, and she whispered:
"Everyone knows that kind of thing, right? There's not much time left, hurry up and draw, or we won't make it."
"..."
The difficulty of painting with blood was originally the source of blood. If Natsuki couldn't be summoned, Chika would only be able to cut her finger and use her own blood. But now that she had loaded the 'Natsuki-brand' cheat, the problem was immediately resolved.
Chika only took a few minutes to draw a portrait with artificial blood. It didn't matter if the characters were simple, as long as they met the requirements of the blood character mission, it was enough.
"Time's up."
As the female teacher on the podium spoke eerily, the blood characters on the blackboard quietly melted, and then everyone stopped writing.
The girls who had completed their paintings pulled out pipe wrenches, blood-stained baseball bats, and other weapons, revealing cruel smiles on their faces, and walked towards the unlucky ones who had failed to complete the blood character mission.
Bang!
The blood-stained baseball bat whistled down, smashing directly onto a girl's head, instantly splattering blood and flesh.
"Go to hell!"
"All of you, go to hell!"
"Weep! Scream! Repent!"
Accompanied by cruel and crazed laughter, the entire classroom quickly turned into a large-scale assault scene.
Chika frowned slightly, unable to accept the cruel scene before her. They had just been laughing and talking as friends a moment ago, and the next second they revealed ferocious faces and cruelly taken advantage of each other.
While others weren't paying attention, Chika quietly got up, slipped out of the classroom along the wall, and came to the hallway.
"Hoo..."
Chika held her chest and exhaled lightly, whispering:
"The morning classes are over. Next, let's go find Kaguya-chan first."
Natsuki was still a leg attachment at this time, so he naturally couldn't respond.
"Let's go!"
Chika clenched her fists, held her head high, and strode forward.
If she had walked cautiously before, now that she had enough confidence, her steps had become fearless.
A moment later.
Chika had already walked onto the school. Her gaze swept around, and she saw two girls standing together next to a swing set in the corner. She walked directly towards them.
"Kaguya-chan, I'm here!"
Chika smiled brightly and called out happily.
A slender girl in a school uniform with golden twin tails turned her head and looked over, curious:
"Why does Chika seem to be in such a good mood?"
"Eh?" Chika blinked, "How can you tell I'm in a good mood?"
Next to Kaguya was a tall girl, estimated to be over 170cm, with waist-length black hair and a white hairband on her head. Hearing this, she retorted:
"Although Chika-chan tried hard to hide it, the smile on her face couldn't be hidden at all."
"Eh heh~"
Chika clenched her fists, lightly tapped her head, and then put her right hand on her hip, saying:
"There is indeed good news, but it's a secret for now. I'll tell you when Marin-chan and Sayu-chan arrive."
"Good news?"
The golden twin-tailed girl's eyebrows raised slightly. Just as she was about to ask, she suddenly saw someone jogging over.
The girl who came over wore glasses and had short hair. She looked unremarkable and jogged to the front of Chika and the other two.
"Sayu-chan." Chika quickly stepped forward and said, "Why are you alone? Where's Marin-chan?"
Sayu held her chest and took a deep breath, anxiously saying:
"We finally completed the blood character mission and were preparing to gather on the school. But when we went out, we accidentally bumped into a girl. Marin-chan was cornered by her and her people in the club activity room. Marin-chan decisively locked the door of the activity room, but we don't know how long it can last."
Hearing this news, Kaguya and Hayasaka both frowned.
The girls' school in front of them belonged to a special area in the instance. In the girls' school, not only were abilities and backpacks unusable, but even physical attributes were sealed to a certain extent. With the ebb and flow, fighting with the vengeful spirits in the school was the most unwise choice.
"What do we do now?"
Sayu asked anxiously.
"Don't worry." Kaguya quickly spoke, "We'll go to the back of the activity room and have Marin-chan jump down."
Sayu bit her lower lip and said:
"But the activity room is on the third floor. Jumping down from such a high place could easily cause injury."
Hayasaka said from the side:
"I remember there seemed to be ropes in the sports warehouse. I'll go get them now..."
"Stop!"
Chika extended her right hand, blocking Hayasaka.
"The sports warehouse is so far away. Running there to find a rope and then running back, we won't make it in time, will we?" Chika put her hands on her hips, raised her chin, and said confidently, "They're just a bunch of weaklings, easily defeated. Give me three minutes, and watch me deal with them."
"Eh?"
Sayu looked over in confusion, unable to help but say:
"Chika-chan... what's wrong?"
"I don't know." Hayasaka shook her head lightly, but she already had a vague guess in her heart. She complained, "But it reminds me of a short video I saw on NicoNico before. It was a small, pitiful, and helpless chihuahua, but as soon as its owner held it, it would become super fierce."
Chika puffed out her cheeks and said:
"You're calling me a chihuahua, Hanamori-chan, that's too much."
"So..." Hayasaka crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head, "Chika-chan only denies the chihuahua analogy, but doesn't deny that she has something to rely on now?"
Kaguya said softly from the side:
"Let's go save Marin-chan first, don't waste time."
"That's right." Chika quickly nodded, waving her hand, "Come on, let's go save Marin-chan!"
"..."
Among the few girls, only Sayu was clueless, not knowing why Chika had suddenly turned into a 'reckless person'. However, the situation was urgent, and there was no time to think too much, so she quickly led the way.
The four girls ran at full speed and soon arrived at the third floor of the activity building.
Turning the corner of the stairs, they saw five or six girls holding baseball bats and stools, loudly smashing the door. The door was already dented and shaky, clearly unable to hold out much longer.
"Chika-chan?"
Sayu breathed lightly and looked at Chika expectantly.
Kaguya and Hayasaka also cast subtle glances.
"Hmph hmph, it's my turn to make an appearance."
Chika stepped forward half a step, extended her right hand, and activated her ability in her mind.
The next second.
Water-blue light points gathered from all directions, quickly condensing into a blue water ball in front of Chika's palm.
"Eh eh eh?!"
Sayu's eyes widened in disbelief, and she exclaimed softly:
"This is... Water Bullet Technique? Why can Chika-chan use her ability?"
Chika proudly raised her chin and said:
"Of course, it's because I'm exceptionally talented."
Kaguya's expectant voice quickly sounded from the side:
"Is it really the President?"
Chika raised her chin even higher, a proud curve on her lips, and said:
"It's my own ability, it has nothing to do with the President."
Hayasaka interjected from the side:
"Even if Chika-chan broke through the instance's restrictions, you never learned Water Bullet Technique before."
As she spoke, the water bullet continued to condense in front of Chika's palm, quickly growing to the size of a soccer ball.
"That's enough."
Chika aimed at the target and chose to release it.
The Water Bullet Technique didn't fly very fast, and agile young people could dodge it, but Chika was ambushing from behind. The girls who were smashing the door had no guard whatsoever. By the time they heard the whistling sound behind them, it was already too late.
Boom!
The water ball exploded with a roar, and water splashed everywhere.
Although the power of the Water Bullet Technique was not strong, taking a direct hit was still unpleasant. The girl hit from behind by the Water Bullet Technique rolled out directly, and the other girls were also drenched.
"Someone ambushed us!"
"Find her, break her arms and legs!"
The girls who were drenched were furious, their eyes turning red. They stopped banging on the door and began to search for the black hand that had ambushed them from behind.
However, Chika quickly hid after successfully ambushing them, so she was naturally not discovered.
Rumble.
As the sound of footsteps faded, Chika led the way out of her hiding place in the restroom, her hands on her hips, and walked with an arrogant stride to the activity room door, knocking and saying:
"Marin-chan, open the door, your hero is back."