The chemistry classroom was still full of smoke after the explosion.
The school building looked like it was on fire.
From the classroom window, Ian could see two people arguing fiercely, and his curiosity shot through the roof. There was actually someone else, besides him, who could see those reapers from the invisible world?
Could it be that his godfather had a goddaughter too?
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Ian instantly perked up.
This whole fight had just gotten a lot more interesting.
"Stay right here. Don't move. I'll bring you back a few oranges in a minute."
Ian turned and reminded Madison, who had already pulled out her phone and was filming furiously, clearly trying to farm a huge wave of traffic on social media. Then he immediately sprinted toward the school building, afraid he would miss the best part if he got there too late.
"I don't want oranges! Bring me some of Mr. White's morphine!"
Madison shouted after him, her attention still fixed on her video. Bad grades did not mean she was dumb. She not only knew Ian wanted a front-row seat to the drama, she also knew exactly what the most valuable thing in the chemistry teacher's classroom was.
Madison did not use that stuff herself, but having it would absolutely let her show off in front of her friends.
"No problem!"
When money was not involved, Ian was usually more than willing to help his friends. The sharp stench of gunpowder and burnt chemicals hit him in the face as he ran through the school building, moving against the flow of screaming students and fleeing staff toward the chemistry classroom.
A few teachers ran past him.
None of them even asked what he was doing.
They were too busy saving themselves to worry about some random student. That was just how things worked in America. It was the exact reason Hollywood loved glorifying those rare flashes of morality. Helping other people? In some places, that was just something you did on the way. In others, it was enough to make you a hero.
Outside the smoke-filled classroom,
Ian poked his head in slightly.
He saw two women.
One was a female reaper in a black uniform. Her face was unfamiliar. It was not Tessa, his old acquaintance. The other was a blue-haired girl, and under the sunlight streaming through the window, her hair seemed to shimmer.
She had delicate features, pale skin, and a strange mark on her forehead. The dark purple clothes made her seem even colder.
Ian searched through his memory, but he could not recall anything about her.
"Maybe she's just a low-popularity character?"
He made the guess silently in his head.
Inside the classroom, the floor was covered with debris from the explosion. Some chemical substances were still slowly flowing across the ground, gathering together as if they were forming some kind of pattern.
No one seemed to notice.
"This man made a deal with Trigon. I need to know why."
The girl stared expressionlessly at the female reaper. Curled against the edge of her finger was a transparent soul.
Yes.
Ian could see the soul too.
It was their unlucky chemistry teacher, Mr. Walter White.
"Trigon would never take an interest in someone this ordinary."
The blue-haired girl's tone was calm but firm. She clearly believed there was some larger scheme behind all of this.
"I'm not ordinary!"
Mr. White protested weakly from the corner.
"Terminally ill, made a deal with a demon, got a second life, became a major drug kingpin. That's about as ordinary as a planet in the universe."
The girl delivered the line without the slightest fluctuation in tone.
...
Mr. White was instantly shut down.
"I'm a good man... I did it all for my family. I just wanted to leave some money for them..."
He stammered, trying to argue for the fate of his soul.
"The good ones are the people who don't sign contracts with demons. Like me." The blue-haired girl paused for a moment. "No, not me either. My father is a demon, after all."
There was a trace of self-mocking dry humor in the line.
Mr. White, however, was in no state to appreciate the irony.
"You're an unusual girl, and I sympathize with your situation. But this soul has already been marked. I have to take him."
The brown-haired reaper's attitude was equally firm.
"You're making a decision that harms this world. That makes you even more foolish than I am."
The blue-haired girl's tone remained just as flat as she openly delivered her judgment.
"Reapers do not concern themselves with the affairs of demon lords."
The female reaper smiled faintly and stepped forward to take Mr. White away. When she noticed the blue-haired girl move, she immediately raised a hand.
"What did you do to me?"
The blue-haired girl suddenly realized she could not move and frowned slightly.
"I'm carrying out my duty."
The female reaper replied calmly and reached out toward Mr. White.
Mr. White, however, clearly did not find that reassuring. He hesitated and refused to go with her.
"Come with me. Don't be afraid. Death is only a new beginning."
The reaper's voice softened as she tried to reassure him.
Their kind had rules too. One of them was that the soul had to go willingly. Only then could they take away a spirit that no longer belonged among the living.
"I need to accomplish my goal, even if I have to bear the blame."
The immobilized blue-haired girl's forehead began to glow red, and her eyes turned crimson in an instant.
The tension in the room became razor-sharp.
The reaper immediately looked on guard.
The temperature in the air began dropping fast.
And right then,
"Wow, your forehead is really bright."
A hand suddenly reached over and grabbed the blue-haired girl's forehead as if trying to pry the glowing "gem" right out of it.
[Dark Corrosion]
[Berserker EXP +3]
A prompt sounded in Ian's ear.
Ian had gotten exactly the kind of reward he wanted from being rude. He did not know who the girl was, but he could feel that the power gathering in her forehead was extremely dangerous.
And he liked dangerous things.
"Sorry, I just woke up. For a second I thought I'd found the precious jewel I'd lost."
Ian grinned at the expressionless girl, whose glowing eyes had already gone dark as she stared at him.
"Who are you? And how are your hands even nosier than mine?"
A flicker of confusion passed through the girl's eyes.
"Just a passing bystander who prefers not to give his name."
Ian flashed a wide smile, then turned toward the chemistry teacher in the corner and waved cheerfully.
"Hey, Mr. White. You're looking pretty good today!"
The warm greeting earned him nothing but Mr. White shrinking even deeper into the corner. He already knew Ian was not normal, but he had never imagined he was this disturbingly weird.
He was a ghost now, and Ian could still see him?
"Are you a reaper too?" Even the blue-haired girl could not make sense of Ian. Anyone touched by her power should not have been able to smile that brightly.
When she asked him,
"I'm not."
Ian shook his head.
"I can already tell the two of you aren't going to make it to the hair-pulling stage. You're not her match, which is normal. Reapers are basically all Men in Black, and right now this is the black-lives-matter version. Black clothes are still black."
He reached out and started patting around in the girl's pocket.
"What are you doing?"
Still not fully free from the binding, the girl frowned as she watched Ian pull out her wallet. Then she watched him open it and walk over to the female reaper.
"I'm actually pretty curious about this Trigon thing she mentioned too."
Ian counted out two hundred dollars, pocketed one hundred for himself, and handed the other hundred to the reaper.
"Go grab a drink. This won't take long."
Ian had already figured out that the girl was not his god-sister, but that did not stop him from showing off his helpful side.
Fine, the truth was that he wanted the demonic power on the girl's forehead, the kind of energy that clearly came from a top-tier demon.
So.
The power of face!
Activate!
(End of Chapter)
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