Lacking energy and looking utterly sluggish, Kenmyo Isayama walked through the school corridors, his mind still occupied with thoughts of that village of vengeful spirits.
[All Souls Temple] was the most dangerous location in that plane. To be safe, Kenmyo hadn't even attempted to go up the mountain to check it out. After all, "he who listens to advice eats his fill," and the system had slapped him with three warnings forbidding him from ascending.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Just encountering a random Vengeful Spirit (Hunter) on the outskirts had forced Kenmyo into a desperate one-for-one trade to secure a kill. He knew all too well how helpless and resentful he felt against those terrifying spirits.
However, through fighting these ghostly things, Kenmyo knew he was gaining more than just points. He was earning experience that could only be grasped between life and death—a refinement of his raw combat techniques and, of course, a higher tolerance for pain.
These were things Kenmyo lacked in his daily life. His strength sat in an awkward middle ground: he could one-shot weak, low-level cursed spirits, but when faced with powerful ones, his only options were to run or cling to someone else's leg.
In his usual battles, he mostly just cheered from the sidelines and collected points after the fight ended; he rarely had the chance to actually strike. Thus, fighting the vengeful spirits was the best whetstone to sharpen his combat methods.
The problem now was that the enemy had numbers. He had dealt with four, but fifty-one remained. It was a daunting figure.
The vengeful spirits had different "classes" with varying lethality. From what he'd seen, the [Butcher] was the strongest in melee but relatively slow-witted; the [Hunter] focused on range and possessed basic tactical awareness; and the [Villager] was the weakest—just strong and driven by a desire for flesh.
But even using the weakest [Villager] as an example: if two appeared at once, Kenmyo could handle them. If there were three, he could take one down with him before dying. If the number hit four, Kenmyo felt he might as well restart the round immediately.
And if more than one [Butcher] or [Hunter] appeared on the field, Kenmyo would only end up dying with regret.
This was the intelligence he had gathered so far. He didn't rule out the existence of other special classes; after all, it didn't make sense for a village to operate without specialized combat roles.
Furthermore, the data described All Souls Temple as a thousand-year-old ancient temple. In ancient times, the wealthy and the high-ranking would surely visit. With limited guest rooms on the mountain, this unnamed village at the foot of the mountain would be the prime place to stay.
Kenmyo theorized that the village might have had a thriving tourism industry because of the temple. The bodyguards of those wealthy nobles might have also been caught in the massacre and died there.
In Kenmyo's eyes, this ghostly village was like a "Lite Version" of All Souls Temple—at least something he could try to storm. It was a budget-friendly alternative.
Unlike the temple itself, where just reading the words on the archway caused some entity to ignore all rules of engagement and try to use him as a coordinate to descend into reality. It was incredibly sinister. Until he had absolute strength, Kenmyo wouldn't go up that mountain. If he couldn't afford to provoke them, couldn't he at least hide? He'd have to settle for guerrilla warfare on the outskirts to scrape by.
"Sigh, this is tough."
He had to find a way to take down that village. Killing four had netted him 3,200 points. How many points would the remaining fifty-one give him? He'd go from rags to riches in an instant.
He was truly greedy for it.
Kenmyo absentmindedly crushed a cursed spirit walking beside him (just because it stepped with its left foot before its right). The feeling of seeing something he wanted but couldn't reach was truly frustrating.
Whenever he was annoyed, a heavy, gloomy aura radiated from him. Fortunately, he had arrived at school early and most people hadn't arrived yet; otherwise, he'd end up with another "gloomy" attribute added to his reputation.
"Is someone here this early?"
From the back stairs, Kenmyo spotted a figure in Class (A) cleaning the room.
Slide—
He pulled the door open to see a student in the Aoyama Academy female uniform looking very focused. She was holding a blackboard eraser, standing on her tiptoes, trying to wipe a chalk mark at the very top of the board. It was likely a spot missed by yesterday's cleaning crew. Since the smudge was inconspicuous, Kenmyo only noticed it because she was trying to reach it.
However, due to her small stature, reaching that height was a bit of a struggle for her.
"Let me."
Seeing this, Kenmyo didn't think for more than a second. Before the girl could even realize someone else was in the room, he moved silently behind her, took a second eraser from the podium, and wiped away the numbers for her so she wouldn't have to jump.
"Eh? Oh, thank you... Isayama-kun?"
"No problem, Eat-Egg-Tart-san."
Kenmyo put the eraser back on the podium and walked down to his seat, ignoring the surprised voice behind him.
The girl was Eru Chitanda—the one who made Kenmyo feel a sense of dread and nearly gave him "tentacle phobia." She always arrived earlier than the assigned cleaners.
Kenmyo recalled the scene just now. In the morning sun, the girl's straining tiptoes had caused her uniform top to rise slightly, revealing a glimpse of her fair, slim midriff. He wasn't sure what he was thinking, but he simply didn't want the guys coming in later to see that, so he had stepped in to help.
Of course, those terrifying "tentacles" had gone into high-alert mode as soon as he approached, presenting an aggressive posture that was quite a buzzkill.
Fortunately, because Kenmyo had now died five times, his spirit was much tougher. His level of disgust and fear toward them had dropped significantly, though he still maintained restraint and didn't provoke them.
"Hmm?"
Kenmyo arched an eyebrow. As he lowered his head to organize his bag, he smelled a pleasant fragrance approaching. It was Eru Chitanda.
The girl's eyes were wide as she asked curiously, "Isayama-kun, why did you call me 'Eat-Egg-Tart-san'?"
"Sorry, that was rude of me, Chitanda-san."
After all, making fun of someone's name isn't polite. Kenmyo just felt that calling her that made her seem cuter. Saying it to her face was a bit of a slip-up.