Chapter 14: Worms
Perona couldn't be bothered to listen to these two useless men argue about who was more shameless. The way she looked at them resembled someone staring at two flies that accidentally fell into a cream cake — irritating, and completely ruining her mood.
"Horohorohoro…"
She gave her red parasol a lazy twirl. The four translucent ghosts hovering at her side let out eerie whimpers and drifted slowly toward the corner where Kazuma and Gintoki were huddled.
"Hey! You pink twin-tail gremlin! We can talk this out! Don't start swinging those things around!"
Gintoki shouted with forced bravado, shrinking even further behind Kazuma as he pulled on Kazuma's bath towel to use it as a shield.
Kazuma smacked his hand away. "Get off!"
Before they could finish their scuffle, one of the Negative Hollows was already bobbing in front of Gintoki. He didn't even manage a proper scream before the ghost drifted straight through his chest.
No pain. No impact.
But Gintoki's expression froze instantly.
Those half-lidded dead-fish eyes widened in an empty, unfocused stare. He stayed stuck in the posture of shoving Kazuma, frozen like a statue whose soul had just been yanked out.
One second later…
Thud.
Gintoki dropped to his knees and collapsed forward, pressing his forehead hard into the dusty floor.
"I'm done for… I'm just a worthless piece of trash…"
He muttered in a wavering voice soaked with misery. It was barely louder than mosquito buzzing, but in the church's silence, Kazuma heard every word clearly.
"I'm nothing but a lying, black-hearted boss… I can't even pay Shinpachi and Kagura's salaries… I make them eat mayonnaise on rice every day… Sadaharu has to survive on the cheapest dog food…"
"I've been behind on Otose's rent for months… I'm the biggest parasite in Kabukicho…"
Kazuma stared so hard his eyes almost rolled out.
What… what is going on?
Why did this guy suddenly start self-destructing?!
And he's exposing everything!
But it didn't stop there.
Still sprawled on the floor, Gintoki weakly pounded the ground with his fist, his voice growing more pitiful by the second, like he was pouring out every regret in his life.
"Kagura's still a kid, but I made her suffer through meals where we don't even know if there'll be a next one… Shinpachi forces down his sister's abominations just to keep the Yorozuya running… What kind of boss does that make me… I'm scum…"
"And worst of all… I actually… I actually slept with Otose… that wrinkly old hag… she's over sixty… I'm a monster…"
His voice cracked completely at that point. He buried his face in the floor, his shoulders shaking as he sobbed like the world had ended.
"My glorious reputation… my White Demon name… all ruined… I'd rather be dead… just let me melt into a puddle of strawberry milk right here…"
Boom.
Kazuma felt something explode inside his skull.
A chill shot straight from his tailbone to the top of his head.
The effect was way too fast!
Instant mental collapse?!
He finally understood.
So that's why this guy arrived in this world stark naked!
He got drunk… lost control… and his partner was that terrifying old lady.
No wonder he refused to explain earlier!
This ghost's power forced you to spill your darkest, most humiliating secrets — the things you'd never admit even under torture.
It was worse than death.
Kazuma instantly felt goosebumps. This was without a doubt the most vicious attack he had ever seen. He tried to jump back and find an opening to counterattack…
But another negative ghost had already floated silently right up to his face.
"Wai—"
He barely got a word out before the second ghost slipped straight through his chest.
Kazuma's movements also stopped.
An indescribable, extreme sense of pessimism instantly overwhelmed Kazuma's reason. He felt like the whole world had lost its color. All of his previous plans for the future, all of his desire to survive, had vanished into thin air.
His fingers slowly loosened from the towel. The towel fluttered to the floor, and he collapsed next to Gintoki like a boneless creature, the two of them forming a perfect pair of defeated souls.
"I… I, Satou Kazuma… am nothing but a scumbag, a perv, a shut-in loser…"
Perona hugged her Kumashi plush, smiling with smug delight as she looked down at the newly added "wriggling worm" on the ground. "Horohorohoro… another one."
"I died because I got scared by a tractor while trying to buy a limited-edition game…" Kazuma's face was buried in the dust on the floor, his muffled voice conveying every word with humiliation.
"That tractor was slower than an old man taking a stroll… it didn't even touch me… I… I wet myself from fear, fainted, and died…"
"Dying in another world like this... I'm probably the only idiot in the entire world who managed that…"
"Pfft—"
Even Gintoki, buried in his own despair, let out a strangled snort before sinking back into misery.
"And because of that, I was mocked for a whole month by that dumb goddess Aqua! She even drew a picture of my death and advertised it everywhere! My entire life is a joke!"
Kazuma's voice rose with each confession. He lifted his head, tears and snot streaking across his face.
"I, Satou Kazuma! Seventeen years old! I've barely even held a girl's hand! I'm… I'm still a virgin! A pathetic virgin who died because he was scared of a tractor! What right do I have to keep living?!"
"And when I arrived in this world, countless people saw my tiny 'Excalibur' in full display… uuuuh… just let me die already!"
He slammed his forehead into the floor again and again, as if trying to knock himself unconscious and escape this social death worse than dying.
The abandoned church echoed with two grown men's alternating sobs and confessions. Just moments ago they'd been arguing. Now, they were kneeling side-by-side, competing to see who could spiral deeper into despair.
One was grieving over a drunken night with an elderly landlady.
The other was mourning his tragic virgin life and tractor-related demise.
Perona stood over them like an artist admiring her masterpiece, a devilish smile plastered on her face. She tapped her umbrella lightly on the ground and looked down at the two broken men with regal arrogance.
"Horohorohoro… even more pathetic than I expected. Still, this makes things much easier."
Her laughter grew brighter. No matter the world, watching others fall into despair was always entertaining.
On the blood-red panel in front of her, it clearly displayed that defeating them would grant a large amount of reputation points.
These two big fish were hers now.
[Congratulations to Assault Faction Player Perona.]
[You have successfully caused Neutral Faction Player — Sakata Gintoki and Guardian Faction Player — Satou Kazuma to lose combat capability and suffer a massive morale collapse. Reputation gained: 100,000 points.]