The weather is nice.
He he.
There is a need for existence to come to an end.
After all, life is a circle of endless death and life.
People are born, and then they die.
People are born again, and then they die again.
It's never the same person that dies and is born, but the collective "people" as an entity live and die following a cycle.
The cycle goes on for countless generations.
But as always, everything does come with a set of challenges to face.
He he.
Hahahahahaha.
Ridiculous.
Utterly foolish of me to have setbacks.
But that's not something you need to understand, kid.
He he.
All you need to do is agree to make a deal with me.
So what do you say?
The voice was directly transmitted to my head, interpreted from the mutterings of a distorted voice.
I was back in the same classroom with the same conditions;
The sound of my voice speaking in my head.
The classroom.
The droning of Mr. Yakuza.
The terrifying monster beside me.
The potential monsters collapsed, being taken to the clinic in the hallway.
Everything was the same except for those maniac whispers.
The first thing I did was move away from the monster.
I stood at the back of the classroom in front of the lockers.
Of course, I also attracted attention, but the hostile, annoyed gazes of the students were none of my concerns.
It would be a joke for me to be afraid of them.
After all, the most they can do is kill me.
And I've died more times than they could imagine.
One of those times even involved me forcing a student to stab me in the neck with a pen.
I wanted to see if someone else killing me would release this curse.
The curse of being alive after death.
The curse of having to face that monster countless times.
In fact, I would be happy to embrace the warmth of death.
Alas, I'm permanently unable to do it myself.
Even if I do manage to get away from this curse, I would still be afraid of killing myself.
Not because I grew a fear of death; it's not like I've actually died.
It was more akin to experiencing pain, then blinking and starting all over again.
And also because I would never be able to get rid of the feeling that killing myself would result in waking up alive again.
At first, my cowardice directed towards pain stopped me from achieving death.
Then my cowardice towards actually doing it myself stopped me from achieving death.
Now my cowardice towards the possibility that I might come back to this classroom again is what's stopping me from achieving death.
After getting far away from the monster, I began to ponder on what the voice was saying.
Existence, death, setbacks.
It is right that I don't understand what it means.
But I don't need to understand.
I don't care about the meaning.
I don't even care that it sounds like it wants to destroy the world.
I'm not smart, sharp, strong-willed, or courageous.
I'm not the hero in some story who thrives on fearsome odds.
I'm not some main character who overcomes a traumatizing ordeal with sheer willpower.
I'm not smart enough to deduce bad intentions.
I'm not sharp enough to offer misleading words with the purpose of discerning more information.
I'm not courageous enough to fight the monster.
In summary, I'm a coward and I will always be one.
A coward is mostly defined as someone who runs away.
A coward doesn't stand up to the bullies but runs away in fear without thinking about resistance.
A coward is someone who gets afraid the more they die even though it's always the same way.
A coward is someone who doesn't face their challenges or adversity.
Instead, they hide away from the danger once it arrives.
They hide behind the strong while pretending that they aren't weak.
They abandon their friends in fear even though they brought them along.
They live in a state of constant fear with no intention of solving it.
And lastly, a coward like me is someone who chooses to end it all using external factors instead of facing my problems.
After all, I'm too scared to face it.
I'm too scared to fight it.
I'm too scared to stand up for myself.
So I simply choose to make something else or someone else do it for me.
And then the source of my fear is destroyed without me facing it.
So to the deranged whispers of a foreign language that doesn't sound human and feels insane—
I say yes.
Yes, I agree that existence is meant to be destroyed.
Yes, I agree that everything should come to an end because I'm too scared to face the world.
And I say yes to your deal.
He he.
Aren't you going to ask what the deal is, kid?
Then what is this deal?
All you need to do is sincerely desire for an end.
And in return, I'll be your guardian.
He he.
I hope for good cooperation.
Is that all?
That's easy.
A coward like me has no other desire than for an end.
I agree.
He he.
Then it's settled.
From now on, you're one of the vessels for the seeds.
Will I meet the other vessels eventually?
I was worried because I have always been afraid of other people.
If you survive, then you'll naturally find out.
Wait what—
I really am a coward, that other voice said.
I was attacked again by the monster.
Once again the blood filled up my throat, causing an obstruction.
I choked out blood while my consciousness began to slip.
I died.
Then I felt pain.
Wasn't I already dead?
Then why am I still feeling pain?
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
The pain started from my feet.
It felt like I was being torn apart inch by inch.
It felt like my skin was being peeled away.
It felt like something heavy was being pressed on me until my bones were like mush.
It felt like there was boiling lava being poured under my skin and on my blood vessels, muscles, and organs.
It felt like my soul was being torn apart.
It felt like my existence was being torn… no, being ravaged apart into pieces.
It was also a feeling beyond description.
It was just an unimaginable amount of pain.
And it was torturously slow.
An agonizing slow build-up starting from my feet.
It was the definition of torture and pain, but also further than that.
Like the amount of pain I felt couldn't just be described with words like torturous or painful.
But yet I still persisted.
It was because I had suffered a lot of pain from continuously dying.
I wasn't a stranger to pain anymore, and we could be considered as familiar as childhood friends who get married in the future.
Weird comparison, I know.
But I couldn't hold on anymore.
Like I've stressed in the course of this bizarre event—
I'm not some main character with an inhuman amount of resolve.
I won't clench my teeth in determination and try to survive the pain.
Neither would I decide to survive to become strong and take revenge or something.
Neither would I go insane from the pain and survive through a twisted madness.
I'm a coward.
I know I have probably repeated this a hundred times in the past few revivals.
But it's just something I have been for all my life.
I can't change it.
I really am a coward.
And as a coward, I did what I was expected to do.
I succumbed to the pain and embraced my desire for death.
I didn't fight the pain and let it consume me.
I have a feeling that this time it might finally come to an end.
A coward's most fervent desire is for the end to be reached.
They just don't have the courage to do anything about achieving it.
And so I felt myself drown in the agonizing pain for a long time.
The only sensation I felt or perceived from any source was pain.
After a while, I felt like my existence was pain itself.
Then I felt nothing at all.
Meanwhile, there was commotion in the classroom when he was attacked.
The other students who had their heads down stood up and started attacking the other students.
There was chaos as the school erupted in frantic screams and began to be dyed in blood.
The body of the cowardly first victim in Mr. Yakuza's classroom slowly rose up.
He he.
AHHHHHHHHH!
Then it started screaming an ear-piercing howl.
AHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Then those screams turned to maniacal laughter, with his mouth opened into a large arc.
Amidst the bloody classroom that was in disarray, and the blood-red moon and sun in the sky—
Wei Zhi let out a maniacal laughter in the empty classroom as his eyes turned a bloody red.
At the time of his submission to death, he resonated with the source of his pain—or more accurately, the seed.
This caused his entire being to be successfully restructured to become a vessel for that seed.
The deal was effectively completed.
After letting out such a maniacal laughter, Wei Zhi promptly rolled his eyes back and passed out.
He had received the largest concentration of the "seed," and he couldn't maintain that state for long.
Besides, his freedom should be enjoyed while actually conscious of himself.
Not long after, a red blob manifested from the shadows in the classroom.
It was like a red blob of slime that transformed itself into a cat.
The cat was black, but its eye sockets were pitch black, like a gaping hole straight to the abyss.
It walked to Wei Zhi and patted his forehead before melting into the shadows once again.
The shadows in the hallway outside the classroom trembled as if a stone was thrown into a lake, causing ripples on the surface.
The direction of those ripples ended in the girl's bathroom.
End of Nice weather arc