Giving the Female Ghost Humanistic Care

What puzzled me was that Saber, who had been as eager as a rabid dog off its leash, had actually stopped on the landing halfway up the stairs.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I hurried to catch up, only to find that the middle of the staircase was blocked by a pile of wooden desks and chairs. These were similar to the ones we had seen in the room just now. They must have been moved here deliberately by the homeless man as a barricade to prevent bored students from exploring upstairs. A classic dungeon roadblock.

I had just pointed my phone’s camera at the haphazardly stacked desks and chairs, which had a certain horrifying, abstract art quality to them, when I saw Saber, looking as if she had just seen her wife’s murderer, charge angrily at the barricade. She transformed into a ruthless tower-pushing machine, a one-woman wrecking crew, sending everything crashing down with a clatter.

I understood her mood completely. If you were a groom eagerly awaiting your wedding night with your never-before-seen wife, and you were suddenly stopped by the police on the main road for human trafficking, you would also be as furious as a curly-haired baboon.

System-Hime had said that although we had turned into anime characters, we hadn’t gained their corresponding powers; our physical abilities were the same as before our transformation. In other words, Saber, who had been a muscular tough guy before, still possessed the strength of a muscular tough guy. Now, filled with rage, her destructive power against these barricades was no less than the original Saber seeing the Holy Grail. In short, she cleared them out in a few moves, tossing desks aside like they were cardboard boxes.

The comments in the stream were filled with amazement at this ‘gap moe’ of a slender, beautiful girl/boy displaying monstrous strength. But some people still insisted it was the work of the props team, that there were steel wires attached to the desks and chairs, and that it only looked like Saber was throwing them when in fact the wires were pulling them away. Many people refuted this “it’s all props and steel wires” argument. These refuters, though full of passion, were still elegant and gentle. They simply sent comments saying:

[The steel wires also pulled your mom away (ﾉ*･ω･)ﾉ]

“Alright, we can go now,” Saber said, dusting off her delicate hands, her eyes filled with a knightly determination. “Ghost girl, don’t even think about escaping from my sword!”

You, who have had your ‘instrument of crime’ confiscated, no longer have a “sword”!

Saber, clearly unaware of this fact, stomped up the stairs in her little leather shoes.

I pulled Exusiai along as we ascended the steps to the second floor. The second floor looked no different from the first, a scene of decay and neglect.

Several bright flashlight beams scanned the area. Yukino’s beam suddenly stopped on the corner wall where the stairs met the horizontal corridor.

“There seems to be something here…” she muttered softly in her snow-like voice. She walked to the corner in her youthful canvas shoes, her slender white fingers brushing aside her black hair to get a better look at the ground.

I followed her gaze and saw a patch of orange of unknown origin on the flashlight-illuminated floor. The bright color was very conspicuous on the dim floor, like a single pixel of a different color on a corrupted screen.

“What is that?” I took a few steps closer, looking at the ground from behind Yukino.

“Not sure…” Yukino said, bending down to get a closer look.

Unfortunately, I was standing right behind her, so when she squatted down, it was equivalent to a full-force punch to me with her tight, straight-leg jeans. This back-attack move was truly vicious, hitting right where it mattered. In that instant of impact, my body felt like it had been electrocuted.

“Ah, sorry…” Both Yukino and I stumbled. She, having bumped into me, apologized first.

“Oh, it’s fine,” I replied nonchalantly, trying to act cool while my soul was leaving my body.

Yukino clearly didn’t realize the effect that little bump had on me. In her mind, it was perfectly normal for roommates to accidentally bump into each other. So she continued to squat down without a care, observing the orange object.

Only Exusiai, who was watching coldly from my side, caught my reaction and the tremor that traveled from my arm to her palm. A super-seductive smile curved her lips. Her soft pink lips moved closer to my ear, and as she inhaled the air beside it, she exhaled a delicate breath into my ear. “That little bump just now, tsk tsk tsk~”

My face flushed red in an instant.

You, you bastard! You saw it and you’re still coming over to deal a shame-dimentional attack on me?!

Seemingly noticing my flushed cheeks, Exusiai chuckled softly and whispered into my ear with the breath from her throat, “From now on, let’s have a mutually beneficial relationship. I have a lot of good things here that can be a win-win for both of us~”

Mutually beneficial?

I’m all for sharing a beautiful life!

This guy…

The hand that was intertwined with hers, I raised one finger and, while she wasn’t paying attention, poked her soft waist, causing her to burst into a peal of silver-bell-like laughter.

The laughter instantly startled Saber, who had been focused on the orange object with Yukino. She shot upright, her eyes, which seemed to be burning with dark green flames, looking over. When she saw it was us, the flames in her eyes gradually extinguished. “What, it’s just you two laughing. I thought it was the ghost. I got excited for nothing!”

Saber was a little speechless at our antics in such a tense environment. She pinched her monocle and said, “I was quick to hold back. I realized it was you two and not the ghost girl, otherwise I would have pounced.”

“Why would you pounce if it was the ghost?!” Would a normal person react like that?!

“Of course, it’s to,” Saber’s expression turned solemn, “let the ghost girl feel the care of humanity.”

“If that twisted emotion of yours is a part of humanity, then you can indeed let the ghost feel the care of humanity! And a super-intense kind at that!!”

“Stop arguing, you two,” Yukino, the sensible one second only to me, spoke up. “This orange thing on the ground seems to be a piece of fabric torn from some clothes.”

Her words instantly quieted us down. I also went over to take a look. In Yukino’s fingers was indeed a piece of fabric with ragged edges, as if it had been torn from clothing with brute force.

“And,” Yukino raised her phone, shining the flashlight on the ninety-degree corner of the wall, “look at the wall.”

I held up my streaming phone, synchronizing its screen with my vision. On the dim, old wall were very conspicuous and frantic scratch marks. The plaster had been clawed away, leaving behind horrifying, rugged marks. There were even some dark red stains in the scratches, seemingly blood that had been shed at the time.

It seemed someone had desperately clung to this corner, but was still dragged away by force. After a piece of orange fabric was torn from their clothes, they still couldn’t resist their attacker and were dragged deeper into the dormitory building.

The scratch marks on the wall, the fabric on the ground—they were all remnants of an event mixed with fear and madness.