join p atreon.com/KeyofStars and become a Sequence 9: Reader for advance chapters | Every 100 powerstones = 1 extra chapter | Report issues @discord.com/GVBdncd9Wr
The campsite's restroom, to put it in high-EQ terms, is close to nature, making you feel like you're in the great outdoors.
To put it in low-EQ terms, it's simply crude.
According to Asakura's observation, regardless of women, most male campers solved their needs in the woods—which shows how bad that restroom was.
However, Kagamihara Nadeshiko is a girl with a sense of shame, and with a restroom available, she naturally couldn't let loose and relieve herself in the wild.
So, even though it was a bit dirty, she still chose the women's restroom at the campsite.
Asakura waited outside, bored, fiddling with his phone, trying to see if he could get a signal, even just one bar...
Suddenly, Asakura felt a strong tremor in his heart, a feeling so intense that a tingling sensation started from his scalp and flowed down his spine, spreading throughout his entire body.
A Snake was killed.
It didn't seem to be the campers who killed them, and the other party was moving towards them at a very fast speed.
"Tsk," Asakura muttered to himself, "Something similar happened during the hot spring trip, but that time it was Asagumo Chihaya. I hope this time it's also such a cute guy..."
But his hopes were destined to be dashed.
'Thump... Whoosh... Meow-tz...' A strange, low growl came, and Asakura looked towards the bushes, finding a naked figure standing there.
No, calling it a person would be too distorted.
Although it had the general shape of a human body, it had no head, and only one leg supported its body.
Its arms were long, but not slender in a graceful way; rather, they had the elongated thinness of human limbs stretched out.
There was no trace of blood on its entire body; rather than a human, it was more like a monster haphazardly pieced together from human torsos and limbs.
Even more bizarrely, where its chest would be, there was a grotesque human face.
But that was not a true 'human face'; instead, it was like a child with poor artistic skill had carved it onto a doll with a carving knife, its distorted and disfigured features further Magnifying the eerie atmosphere around it.
Yamanoke-mono. The monster from the urban legend actually existed.
Even an ordinary person, upon seeing such a distorted monster, would likely freeze up, unable to move, feeling as if their blood had turned to ice due to instinctive fear and the uncanny valley effect.
Fortunately, Asakura was not like that.
When he came to Mount Kumotori this time, he had already made sufficient mental preparations, and perhaps having experienced great terror between life and death, Asakura surprisingly felt little fear towards these tangible demons and ghosts.
Of course, it could also be because he had ample firepower reserves.
"Snake!" Almost the instant he saw the opponent appear, Asakura had already cast Magic at it.
In an instant, the Magic captured its form.
'Thump... Whoosh... Meow-tz...' The monster let out a sound that was either pain or disgust. The skin around its body—or what appeared to be skin—began to peel off, turning into thumb-sized small Snakes, revealing its lifeless, eerie internal body structure: no organs or blood, only strings of sticky, disgusting orange-yellow tissue like fat, and also muscles so pale they made one think of a corpse, fused together in a completely illogical way.
The monster, which had been rushing towards the building beside Asakura, stiffened for a moment and then, due to inertia, slammed heavily onto the ground, causing black, foul-smelling pus to spurt from the gaps in its body.
It didn't instantly explode into a mass of Snakes because, as an anomaly, it also possessed its own 'mystery,' thus having a certain resistance to Magic?
Asakura looked at the monster writhing in pain on the ground, raising his eyebrows slightly: However, it seems that Magic's priority is still much higher than that of anomalies.
Then Asakura noticed an even more troublesome situation.
Although the small Snakes peeling off the Yamanokemono would also succumb to the Magic Snake and be controlled at will, once Asakura's attention shifted from them, these creatures were not as obedient as ordinary Snakes.
It was as if distorted and violent factors were engraved in their flesh and blood; without the restraint of the Magic Snake, they would begin to fight each other and even attack everything around them.
"Did something happen?" The girl in the restroom seemed to hear the commotion outside and quickly asked.
"Nothing, just a small wild boar suddenly ran out. I'm going to catch it to make a boar hotpot," Asakura casually replied.
"Eh, eh, eh? Is that really okay?"
"Of course it's not okay, so no boar hotpot today."
"The choice between appetite and life is truly difficult..."
"I don't think that's a decision to be made in a restroom."
"Mmm..." The girl stopped talking.
Asakura, meanwhile, looked down at the monster, which was still shedding small Snakes, and suddenly realized that although he was standing right there, this thing didn't choose him, who was closer, as its target. Instead, it rushed towards the restroom... or rather, towards Kagamihara Nadeshiko inside the restroom.
It seems the mention in that urban legend about the Yamanokemono having greater malice towards females was not unfounded.
If this continued, the monster's struggles might attract other people, so it was better to deal with it quickly.
"Of all times, the Sorting Hat is still in the tent..." Asakura mumbled, then a light bulb went off in his head.
Isn't this the best opportunity to test new Magic?
So he looked at the dying monster and lightly snapped his fingers: "Candle."
Crimson flames instantly engulfed the monster and the small Snakes that had peeled off its body.
Compared to the Magic Snake, the effect of Candle seemed to be even better.
In just a flash, the monster, which was originally quite large, standing over 180 centimeters even without a head, turned into a small, inconspicuous pile of ashes.
"Asakura-kun, were you burning something outside?" By the time Kagamihara Nadeshiko came out of the restroom, there was nothing left on the ground. Even that small pile of ashes had vanished with the wind.
"No such thing," Asakura said seriously, "I know that setting a mountain on fire means spending the rest of your life in prison."
Asakura, who hadn't expected this operation to go so smoothly, relaxed and opened the system page, intending to claim the reward after completing the mission.
However, the text on the interface surprised him slightly.
[Mission: Kill or contain an evil creature] The mission was not completed.
join p atreon.com/KeyofStars and become a Sequence 9: Reader for advance chapters | Every 100 powerstones = 1 extra chapter | Report issues @discord.com/GVBdncd9Wr