'So noisy…

'So noisy die I don't want to die stop being so noisy go die so noisy shut up die don't die so noisy so noisy go die…'

There was a huge commotion going on in Shoutarou Rinura's head right now. He was no longer able to differentiate between which noises came from his own heart and which noises were just illusionary fantasies.

Everything he saw before him kept flickering back and forth between reality and his dreams. Disgust, complaints, anger, and hatred, all these emotions that he possessed in both reality and his dream mixed together and formed something pitch-black and chaotic.

He faintly heard some rather strange words in his daze… was these words he heard in his dream? Or a foreign language?

No, they weren't, it sounded more like…

A curse…

The black mist around Shoutarou Rinura suddenly exploded!

By the time that Seiji noticed what was going on, he was already engulfed in darkness.

Seiji felt his head becoming dizzy and consciousness going hazy. He faintly saw many chaotic scenes and heard clamorous sounds as his body became light.

He did his best to maintain his consciousness. Soon, his head no longer felt dizzy and his field of vision returned to normal. He immediately noticed that the black mist had disappeared, but that the banquet hall was now dark with all the lights turned off as if the electricity had stopped.

Everyone in the banquet hall was standing there frozen with no signs of life in their eyes. It was as if they had all lost their souls.

Before Seiji could take a closer look at the situation, he suddenly saw a patch of bright red appear in his vision.

The bright red came from cl.u.s.ter amaryllis flowers.

"This is…"

While Seiji was still busy being astonished, the beautiful bright-red flowers continued to bloom in the banquet hall while glowing with a dim red.

Under the illumination of this red glow, everyone's clothes soon began to corrode. The skin revealed underneath soon began withering at high speed, and their hair began to fall out as their eyeb.a.l.l.s melted. Their hands enlarged and soon became nothing but bones… in less than ten seconds' time, all the original banquet attendants had become a large group of skeletons with distorted bone claws!

*Whoosh…* The skeleton that was formerly the male host lunged in Seiji's direction!

Seiji dodged this attack, then dodged the female host skeleton's attack. He immediately cast [Body-strengthening technique] on himself and knocked back the female anime president skeleton with a punch.

More skeletons started rus.h.i.+ng him, waving their sharp bone claws at him!

Seiji speedily retreated while casting [Mana Barrier] on himself. He dodged the skeletons' attacks while countering with his punches and kicks.

*Boom!* *Smack!* *Cras.h.!.+* *Bang!*

After he figured out what amount of strength was required to defeat them, he was able to defeat each skeleton with just a single punch or kick without wasting energy.

There were far too many skeletons, and their bone claws were incredibly sharp. There was no way for him to dodge all the attacks, but luckily, his [Mana Barrier] was able to block all the attacks that landed on his body.

Not to mention, Seiji wasn't the only person in the banquet hall who was battling the skeletons.

In a location slightly far away from the stage, there was a crew cut hairstyle pudgy middle-aged man wearing a jacket and sweatpants who was agilely dodging the skeletons' attacks with dexterous movements that seemed completely unmatched with his body shape. He was shouting angrily loud while grabbing everything around him to block the skeletons' bone claw attacks or to attack the skeletons with.

"What the h.e.l.l! Why did things suddenly become like this!? What exactly happened here!?"

He kept shouting while fighting the skeletons. Although he was slowly forced into a corner by the skeleton horde, he suddenly backflipped and then landed on the ceiling, attached there in a position like a toad's!

The skeletons kept jumping up and down while waving their bony claws at him. The pudgy middle-aged man kept crawling on the ceiling, while occasionally stomping down on a skeleton's head… this scene appeared both abnormal and hilarious.

Seiji noticed that the pudgy middle-aged man was heading in his direction.

"Harano-kun! You don't mind me addressing you this way, right? Do you know what's going on here!?" the pudgy middle-aged man shouted towards him.

"Of course you can call me Harano-kun. Also, may I ask who you are?" Seiji responded. "I don't know how any of this happened, but I think it's connected to Shoutarou Rinura."

"My name is Tsuyos.h.i.+ Matsutani," the pudgy middle-aged man replied. "I think that this is connected to that Shoutarou Rinura as well… d.a.m.n it! I should have just left here immediately when I saw a black mist emerging from that middle school brat!"

He crawled near to Seiji's location and backflipped off of the feeling, crus.h.i.+ng a skeleton under his feet as he landed.

The two of them started fighting together as allies, which made it much easier on both of them to face the skeleton horde.

"Matsutani-san, are you a light novel author?" Seiji inquired.

"Yes. You could consider me your senpai," Matsutani responded.

"May I ask what your pen name and light novel are?"

"Sharphorn Ironcliff, 'I Can't Sleep When I'm Sleeping Together With My Younger Sister', and it's fine to be more casual in your speech with me…"

"You're Ironcliff-sensei!?" Seiji was astonished. "Both me and my adopted younger sister really love your 'Can't Sleep With Younger Sister' novel. When I came here, I was even thinking that I had to get Ironcliff-sensei's autograph if I could meet you here."

"Thanks for your support. Your adopted younger sister actually likes my light novel as well? I'm suddenly curious just what type of sister she is." Matsutani blinked in surprise.

"She's a really cute little sister, and an important family member to me."

"Alright, I've confirmed it now. You little rascal, you're a sis-con."

"That's right! How could I possibly not be a sis-con with such a cute younger sister!"

"This is my first time meeting such a handsome pervert… You're a great fellow, Harano-kun!"

"Ironcliff-sensei, I should being saying that you're a great fellow instead! It's amazing how you wrote a masterpiece like 'Can't Sleep With Younger Sister'! Your eloquence in writing has reached an amazing realm that no ordinary person can reach. I'm truly impressed."

The two of them exchanged glances for a while before they both smiled.

"Harano-kun, let's have a good chat with each other after we finish clearing out this place that changed so mysteriously." Matsutani tossed away a skeleton with enough force to knock over several other skeletons.

"I'd like to do the same thing, Ironcliff-sensei… Matsutani-senpai." Seiji used a whirlwind kick to demolish three skeletons.

Some while later, they finally defeated all of the skeletons… or more accurately, crushed all the skeletons to little pieces.

Neither of them held back. It wasn't because that they felt that these people were no longer savable—it was because these skeletons weren't real people to begin with.

Matsutani was able to sense that these skeletons possessed no life force whatsoever. Seiji sensed more than Matsutani did as he realized that this was no longer reality, but a soul realm!

The cl.u.s.ter amaryllis flowers blooming everywhere was the evidence of this.

These skeletons weren't actually real humans that transformed into monsters. They were produced by the soul realm instead.

When that black mist covered everything, they were pulled into a soul realm… as for whose soul realm this was, the answer was quite obvious.

As for why things became like this, neither of them knew. Seiji and Matsutani both felt that Shoutarou Rinura wasn't a Spiritual Ability user who had the power to cast such a spell like this of his own volition.

Was Rinura an Awakened…? That seemed like a possibility.

But if that middle school boy had such an ability, why would he use it here?

Was it just for revenge? For what happened in the authors' waiting room?

Seiji didn't feel that it was likely Rinura would go to such a degree for the extent of what happened there.

No matter what, things had developed in such a fas.h.i.+on already. The important thing now was how to escape from Rinura's soul realm and return to reality.

Seiji felt that Yomi would have an idea about this. However, she wouldn't respond to him, so he figured she was still sleeping.

Since his cheat-like bonded spirit was still sleeping, he could only deal with things on his own.

"I only know of one method: walk towards the place with the most cl.u.s.ter amaryllis flowers. Perhaps we can find Rinura or something else there. We may be able to return to reality by dealing with whatever's located there," he told Matsutani.

"Perhaps… but your method sounds rather unreliable."

"Indeed. I'm not sure if it will work, either, nor do I know what we will meet with. I'm only certain that this will definitely help us to find something."

"Since there's no other method, then let's just do it your way… Honestly, I've already stopped being part of the mystical side of society to become a light novel author and yet I still met with such an incident." Matsutani scratched his head in frustration.

"Senpai, could I ask what you did in the past?" Seiji was quite curious about it.

"In the past… I suppose you could call me a ninja."

"Ninja!?"