Chapter 51: Chapter Fifty-One: Qi Revival

“A great demon?”

After his surprise, Kamikawa Mitsu regarded the three main character panels with interest; the settings for Jizō and the child demon were insufficient, leaving their panels as “unidentifiable.”

Immediately, his gaze settled on Dairetsu.

Dairetsu’s panel did not display “unestimable”; its race and power level were marked as “great demon.”

“I don’t recall setting any demon tiers.”

Kamikawa Mitsu remembered the friendly tip beneath the script panel and suddenly understood.

“It seems many people regard Dairetsu as a great demon, so the system has judged its power level accordingly.”

With that, he fell silent.

He turned his gaze again to the character “Jizō.”

Combining the current script panel, the system’s prompt, and the script system’s functionality, Kamikawa Mitsu grew slightly serious, murmuring thoughtfully.

“It seems I can’t casually fabricate virtual characters anymore; otherwise everything will fall into chaos, making it easy for people to doubt my fabricated demon lies, indirectly lowering my score and script points.”

For this script, the world already believes demons exist.

Thus, the world already holds a general concept of demons.

To acquire different character abilities and skills, Kamikawa Mitsu cannot blindly create whatever character he desires; he must base his creations on the premise that the world firmly believes demons are real, in order to gain varied abilities and skills.

For example.

Currently, Jizō leaves the world with the impression of being powerful; therefore, Jizō’s design must be powerful, grounded in that strength.

Otherwise, the world will spot the inconsistencies.

How could Jizō suddenly be weak one moment and strong the next? Are all these fakes?

The world must never entertain such thoughts; if they do, popularity will surely drop.

Put simply:

A lie requires one lie after another to sustain it, each linked in a chain.

“When I get home tonight and upload the video, I’ll exchange for a demon character and tweak the settings.”

Kamikawa Mitsu was deeply interested in possessing demonic abilities.

With that, he fell silent.

He finished his last bite of bread, patted his belly.

After school, I’ll buy a special egg yolk mayo bread to eat.

…

Afternoon.

The dismissal bell rang.

“Oh! School’s out!”

The students, transformed from their lifeless classroom demeanor, shed their lethargy entirely, each as if reborn into a second youth, excited and exuberant.

Seeing this, Kamikawa Mitsu smiled.

What a familiar scene.

Indeed, under the high-pressure regime of nine-year compulsory education, students everywhere are the same—before and after class, they live two entirely different lives.

Just as Kamikawa Mitsu was packing his bag, preparing to go home—

Boom.

He felt the building shake.

“Damn, earthquake?”

The quake wasn’t strong—around magnitude four.

In earthquake-prone Japan, quakes were nothing unusual; students should have remained calm. But after the Yunhu incident, everyone had become hypersensitive, interpreting earthquakes differently.

“Could another demon be appearing?”

“Shit, an earthquake? Is some demon passing near our Arakawa district again?”

“Do you think this quake is caused by a demon—or is it real?”

Students chattered incessantly; some even bolted from their classrooms, sprinting out of the school building to stare up at the sky.

Not just students—teachers had rushed out too.

Clearly, the Yunhu incident had left an indelible impression on Arakawa’s residents, rendering them prone to panic at the slightest sign.

“Kamikawa-san, do you think this quake was caused by a giant demon passing by?”

The girl sitting in front of him blinked curiously, asking Kamikawa Mitsu.

Kamikawa Mitsu laughed helplessly.

“Probably a demon.”

He didn’t know how to respond; as the “script director,” he wanted to say definitively it wasn’t—but he couldn’t be certain, or it would raise suspicion.

The girl looked out the window and replied:

“I think it’s a demon too—it’s too coincidental. Before Yunhu appeared, earthquakes were more frequent than usual.”

“Yes, too coincidental.”

Kamikawa Mitsu replied offhandedly, yet inside he thought:

How could it not be coincidental? I created this quake myself—just to make you believe.

He stepped out of the classroom, out of the school building.

Kamikawa Mitsu looked down at the ground, now slowly ceasing its tremors.

Come to think of it… in recent years, they’ve been frequent. What’s the cause? Solar flares altering Earth’s gravity, shifting the crust?

Thinking of this, his good mood led him to joke with himself:

“Could it be… Qi revival, causing frequent earthquakes?”

At the same moment:

In Arakawa district, on a large mountain not far from the suburbs.

Deep within the mountain, dense forests stretched.

As far as the eye could see, branches and leaves thrived, lush and emerald, utterly devoid of human traces.

Even villagers from the mountain’s base rarely came here.

A wild boar, nearly half a human’s size, munched on wild mushrooms on the ground.

Suddenly—

The mountain trembled; leaves fell rapidly. The boar startled, squealed, and prepared to flee—but then its ears twitched, sensing something, its running feet halted, and it turned back toward the spot where it had been eating.

Hum~

Above the mushrooms, nothing was visible—yet invisible ripples rippled through the air.

Waves spread, the space crackled.

It was as if a mirror made of water had appeared out of nowhere; touch it, and ripples surged; strike it hard, and it cracked with a crunch, forming a shattered vortex of ripples.

This sight was astonishing.

The vortex appeared out of thin air; fragments of space fell into the fissure, slowly expanding into a one-meter-tall elliptical spiral black hole, within which strange ripples swirled—like a black pool inverted upside down.

Then—

A mysterious, ineffable aura spilled from the vortex-black pool, followed by spreading frost.

The earth, grasses, and trees across the area froze over in a layer of ice; the temperature plummeted below zero.

Gurgling.

The vortex-mire bubbled, as if something was emerging from within.

Quickly, a hand covered in white fur, with long, sharp claws like a demon’s, reached out, then a foot stepped forth—its body materialized—and finally, a humanoid creature emerged from the vortex-mire.

It looked monstrous.

Above and below its normal pair of eyes, each bore an additional pair—three pairs of eyes in total.

On its forehead grew massive antlers like a gazelle’s; its entire body was covered in white fur; its hands were human-like, but its claws were long, black, and sharp; its feet were not human—they were gazelle hooves, bent and standing; its back bore a scorpion-like tail, longer than its own height—two meters long.

It turned its head, fixing its gaze on the only living thing nearby—the wild boar.

The next instant—

Its six eyes glowed with human-like greed as it reached out, grasping the air toward the boar.

The half-human-sized boar was lifted as if by an invisible hand, hurtling toward the six-eyed, antlered monster.

Boom!

The boar exploded.

Red and white, flesh and bone fragments flew everywhere, staining the ice-covered ground.

It opened a mouth bristling with fangs, its eyes gleaming with cruelty, devouring the boar’s flesh; the tough bones crunched like potato chips in its jaws.

Soon, it swallowed the entire half-human-sized boar whole.

Its white-furred hands were stained crimson, blood dripping from its lips, its appearance grotesque and chilling.

“Though it had not a trace of spiritual energy, the meat was delicious—fatty and tender.”

It tilted its head, nostrils flaring, its six eyeballs turning, flashing with ferocity.

“Just as the Offering Master predicted—this is a low-level world devoid of spiritual energy.”

…