"Isayama-kun, if you don't mind, please use these!"
Kenmei Isayama stared blankly at Eru Chitanda, who was holding something out to him.
He pointed at himself, stunned.
"What's this? For me?"
"Yes, these are my class notes."
Recalling how she had been caught peeking at him earlier, Chitanda's large, moist eyes darted away guiltily after glancing at Kenmei.
Then, afraid he might misunderstand, she hurriedly explained:
"Because you said during homeroom that you wanted to study hard, but you've missed so much coursework."
"So I thought I'd lend you my notes, hoping they might be of some help."
Clutching several notebooks tightly to her chest, the girl leaned forward as she spoke, her earnestness palpable.
"You don't have to worry about the quality. Every subject is..."
"Okay, okay, Chitanda-san. I get it."
Seeing the girl leaning in closer and closer until she was almost touching him, Kenmei immediately took the notebooks and thanked her.
"Hey, these are your notes, Chitanda-san. Why would I doubt their quality?"
Unlike Kenmei, who was currently dragging down the class average, Eru Chitanda was a model honor student. Since enrollment, she had firmly held a spot in the top ten of the second year. At Aoyama Academy, anyone in the top thirty was basically a god of learning compared to students at any other high school.
"This really helps a lot."
"Not at all. I just happen to like studying a little bit."
Seeing that he accepted the notes, Chitanda let out a small sigh of relief and added:
"Isayama-kun, if there's anything you don't understand, feel free to ask me."
"Understood. Thank you, Chitanda-san."
"Mhm!"
Happy that she could be of help, Chitanda nodded cheerfully, her mood visibly brightening, before returning to her group of female friends.
"You did it! That was amazing."
He could faintly hear the girls over there patting Chitanda on the head and praising her.
"Good job, Eru-chan."
You think Kenmei Isayama was just acting like a shy, "herbivore" boy who couldn't handle a girl getting too close?
No way. Kenmei prided himself on having a backbone.
When he stepped back from Chitanda earlier, that was purely his survival instinct screaming at him.
He might have looked calm on the surface, but inside, he was terrified enough to bust out a ghost shuffle right then and there.
However cute this girl was to others, that was how terrifying she was to Kenmei.
As Chitanda got closer, the pitch-black Cursed Energy clinging to her went completely berserk. It felt like a rampage.
In Kenmei's vision, the dense resentment materialized from behind her, extending twelve blood-red tentacles thicker than his thighs, surrounding him from all sides.
But that wasn't all. What nearly made Kenmei lose his mind was how the tentacles changed. The skin on them split open, dripping fresh blood. Inside the split flesh, countless frantic eyeballs spun wildly.
Just as Chitanda was about to "pounce" on Kenmei with her notes, all those bloodshot eyes snapped open and stared dead at him.
Hiding in Kenmei's shadow, the Flesh Hound bared its sharp teeth and let out a deep, threatening growl. Clearly, these twelve bizarre tentacles posed a massive threat to its master's safety.
Looking at his remaining 30 Mana, what else could Kenmei do?
Pretend he didn't see anything, obviously.
He immediately soothed the agitated Flesh Hound, telling it not to cause trouble. As for himself, he glazed over his eyes and hypnotized himself: "I see nothing."
"Get your damn tentacle off my face..."
Kenmei almost broke character when he felt the gross, rough texture against his skin. His heart was about to jump out of his throat.
In the end, he suppressed the urge to blast the bastard tentacles with a [Psychic Bolt]. Instead, he stared straight at Chitanda, using her cuteness to forcefully counteract his disgust, and casually chatted with her to end the conversation on a friendly note.
only when Chitanda walked away did Kenmei realize his back was soaked in cold sweat.
Strangely enough, once she moved away, those tentacles—which embodied madness itself—vanished into thin air like a mirage. It was as if it had all been a hallucination.
Or maybe they only reacted to Kenmei. Those girls touching Chitanda right now seemed perfectly fine.
"How nice~ 'This really helps a lot.'"
Kenmei was drinking water to calm his nerves when he heard the chubby kid behind him mimicking their conversation in a sour, sarcastic tone.
"You already know all this stuff. Why did you take Chitanda-san's notes?"
During the break, the chubby kid had secretly checked Kenmei's completed test paper against the answer key. It was all correct. He had a mental breakdown on the spot.
It hurt more than being killed.
"When I was last in the grade, no one ever said to me, 'If there's anything you don't understand, feel free to ask me.'"
Kenmei just gave a cold laugh and delivered a stinging retort.
The chubby kid's face turned green. He wanted to stand up and argue, but Kenmei walked out of the classroom without even looking at him.
After roasting the fatty, Kenmei felt much better. Happiness really should be built on the suffering of others.
He slid open the back door of the classroom, intending to get some fresh air. Then he sighed.
"Bad luck..."
He casually crushed a twisted, humanoid, low-level Cursed Womb standing in the doorway, blocking his path.
He watched the info window pop up:
[Absorbed Cursed Energy. Points +1]
Killing something this weak—too weak to even be called a Cursed Spirit—didn't even cost Mana. He just used brute force, crushing it with a flicker of psychic energy.
The system was working normally.
"So the thing on Chitanda isn't a Curse?"
He had taken a huge risk earlier. When he took the notes, his hand seemingly brushed Chitanda's fingers by accident. In reality, he had used a psychic scalpel to slice off a fragment of the blood-red mist, less than a millimeter thick.
The result was clear. Even as the fragment dissipated into the air, nothing happened. The system couldn't absorb the Cursed fragment once it was separated from Chitanda.
Normally, the [Warhammer Simulator] should be able to absorb residual Cursed Energy like that. But it triggered no reaction.
Whatever. Don't force it.
It seemed Class A wasn't free of Curses because of good feng shui. It was because the thing inside Chitanda terrified them.
They didn't dare cross the line.
Kenmei looked down the second-year hallway at the distorted, grotesque figures wandering aimlessly among the students. With a thought, his hands were enveloped in psychic energy.
"Haven't been to school in a while. Time to play janitor."
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