Even though the notification for completing the emergency quest had appeared.
Kitahara Minakaze was in no mood to pay attention to it.
The moment that bowl of blood hit his stomach.
Minakaze felt his insides start to churn.
Having just had his internal organs roasted yesterday, Minakaze was already on edge and instantly went on high alert.
Fortunately.
Although his stomach was churning, the agonizing pain of his organs being grilled over charcoal from yesterday didn’t return.
It was very uncomfortable.
But it was still within Minakaze’s tolerance.
“Is that it…” Minakaze endured the discomfort and looked at Grandpa, preparing to ask a question.
But the moment he opened his mouth, a fierce wave of pain suddenly struck.
His blood felt like it was boiling.
Minakaze stumbled.
What followed was a severe bout of dizziness.
Minakaze cursed under his breath.
Yesterday it was roasted organs, today it’s boiled blood.
Motherfucker…
“Brother…” Natsume Mio quickly caught him.
But Minakaze truly had no strength left to answer.
He shook his head, but still couldn’t fend off the intense vertigo.
Minakaze slowly closed his eyes.
Right before he completely lost consciousness.
He thought he saw the sacred relic enshrined in the Natsume family shrine—that old sword—suddenly tremble.
At the same time, an unfamiliar voice roared with deep-seated resentment:
“The Hojo clan, Sagami Taro, you killed us! You will die a horrible death!”
“You destroyed us, destroyed the samurai, destroyed the gokenin…”
And then.
He completely lost consciousness.
“Brother!?”
Mio struggled to support Minakaze as his entire weight pressed against her.
She slowly sank to her knees and shook him.
“Grandpa, is this normal!?”
Seeing that Minakaze was unresponsive, she snapped her head toward her grandfather.
But the old man had also swayed the moment Minakaze fainted, looking as if he were about to collapse.
“Grandpa…?”
“So loud!” Grandpa rubbed his temples, steadied himself, and barked.
“I’m fine, and that brat is fine too. He’ll wake up soon…” Grandpa raised his voice, lifting a hand to firmly smack his temple as he spoke.
“…I’m going to rest for a bit. Once the brat wakes up, explain things to him.”
Grandpa briefly went over a few matters.
After Mio nodded in understanding, he leaned on his cane and hobbled outside, his back hunched.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Grandpa?” Mio asked with concern as she watched him leave.
Grandpa waved a hand dismissively and slowly paced out of the main hall.
Mio breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, she refocused her attention on Minakaze, who was leaning against her.
…
When Minakaze woke up, the first thing he saw was, once again, an unfamiliar ceiling.
Fortunately, despite the unfamiliar ceiling, at least there weren’t a bunch of burly men staring down at him saying things like, “Hey, you’re awake.”
There was, however, a beautiful girl.
Mio looked down at him.
Seeing him awake, she let out a sigh of relief and asked softly, “Brother, how do you feel?”
It took Minakaze a second to deduce his situation based on his posture and angle.
He shifted his position slightly and said cheerfully, “I feel pretty good right now.”
“That’s good… Then, Brother, could you please get up? My legs are numb…”
Minakaze joked, “Already? I just woke up.”
“Gross… Hurry up and get off.”
Mio supported his head, trying to help him sit up.
Although Minakaze felt a bit disappointed, he smiled, exerted a little strength, and climbed up from the floor.
Once he was off her.
Mio sighed in relief and immediately adjusted her sitting posture, looking down to rub her snow-white thighs.
Minakaze thought for a moment and asked, “How long was I out?”
“About ten minutes.”
“Is that it?”
“Yeah.” You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Mio slowly raised her head.
Minakaze met her gaze.
In that instant, both of them felt… how to describe it?
A sense of being connected by blood…
Mio lowered her head again and murmured, “This feels so weird.”
Minakaze frowned, exclaiming in sheer amazement, “I didn’t know that was a thing… huh?”
Halfway through his sentence, Minakaze suddenly changed his tune.
“What’s wrong…?”
Minakaze scrambled up from the floor with a strange expression and casually blurted out, “Nothing, I was just saying your thighs are really white.”
“…”
“I need to use the bathroom.”
Minakaze didn’t say another word and strode straight out of the main hall.
“…?”
Mio whipped her head around, watching with her own eyes as Minakaze broke into a sprint the moment he stepped out the door.
A flush began to creep up her fair neck, spreading rapidly until her cheeks and even the tips of her ears were burning red.
What does he mean by suddenly saying my thighs are really white and then running off to the bathroom!?
…
Meanwhile.
Minakaze had no idea what was happening back in the main hall.
He was staring at a countdown timer that had appeared before his eyes, sprinting madly toward the bathroom.
He barely managed to burst into the bathroom at the exact moment the countdown hit zero.
Bang.
He quickly slammed the door shut.
The countdown stopped immediately.
[Emergency Quest: Please proceed to a secluded location]…
Completed.
A line of text floated in front of Minakaze’s eyes before slowly fading away.
Breathing slightly heavily from the sprint, Minakaze glanced at it, just about to check what exactly was going on.
A sudden wave of nausea surged up his throat.
He frowned, rushing to the toilet and gripping the seat.
“Blergh—”
He vomited a massive clump of blood.
Minakaze’s entire body convulsed as every blood vessel in his body bulged and swelled.
It looked terrifying.
And it hurt like hell.
Minakaze’s expression twisted into a grimace.
The next second.
The nausea returned.
He threw up another huge glob of crimson blood.
This repeated seven or eight times.
Only then did his bulging veins slowly begin to subside.
Minakaze finally pulled himself away from the toilet bowl.
He sat on the floor, completely drained.
[Emergency Quest: Purge impurities]…
Completed.
[Emergency Quest: Drink the New Blood.]
One quest vanished, and another surfaced in its place.
Clink.
A soft sound came from his left.
A test tube filled with crimson liquid appeared on top of the toilet lid.
“…”
Minakaze felt a bit of a breakdown coming on.
He suddenly felt like life was utterly meaningless.
He looked at the vial of New Blood.
A word gradually materialized above it.
[Extraordinary]
It was the exact reward from the emergency quest.
“…I’m not drinking that!” Minakaze declared flatly.
[Emergency Quest: Drink the New Blood; Emergency Quest: Drink the New Blood; Emergency Quest: Drink the New Blood; Emergency Quest: Drink the New Blood; Emergency Quest: Drink the New Blood…]
Minakaze: “…”
He sat on the floor for quite a while.
Meanwhile, the whispers echoed incessantly in his mind.
And the voice grew louder and louder. New chapters come out on g.com first.
“Seriously, are you a System or not? What is your deal? Would it have killed you to take out this so-called New Blood earlier? Is this fun for you?”
Minakaze muttered to himself, his face deadpan.
And this time… the System answered.
A line of text slowly materialized before his eyes.
[You desire the extraordinary.]
Minakaze paused, then said, “But I hate being tortured.”
[You can save Natsume Mio for a moment, but you cannot save her for a lifetime. Please be stricter with her.]
“What? What do you think the first emergency quest was for?”
[Never, never, never willingly accept the corruption of the gods.]
“Speak plainly!”
[You should live for yourself, not for others.]
“…”
[Live well.]
“Ah…”
Minakaze realized it.
He was just talking to a brick wall.
He sighed and gritted his teeth in resolve.
He grabbed the test tube off the toilet lid, popped it open, and downed the New Blood in one gulp.
Since he had no choice.
Between being driven insane by the whispers and enduring another round of torture.
He chose the latter.
The moment the New Blood hit his stomach.
The veins all over Minakaze’s body bulged once again.
He clutched his stomach and curled up next to the toilet.
“I haven’t done a single thing today. Just spent the whole fucking time boiling blood.”
Minakaze cursed through gritted teeth, enduring the agonizing pain.
The dizziness arrived right on cue.
Just as he finished cursing.
His consciousness began to blur the very next second.
Outside the small building.
A gentle breeze blew.
Suddenly.
Thump-thump—
The visiting worshippers.
Natsume Mio, sitting in the main hall.
Grandpa, up on the second floor of the small building.
Faintly, they all seemed to hear an ethereal sound, like the beating of a heart.
Inside the bathroom.
Minakaze had passed out again.
The final line that had appeared, [Live well.], still hovered in midair.
Even though Minakaze, the only one who could see it, was completely unconscious.
It remained there.
Thump-thump—
The ethereal heartbeat echoed once more.
The line of text finally began to dissipate.
[Hidden Quest: Node]…
Completed.
The quest completion notification popped up.
Then, after the completion notification vanished.
A new, short sentence.
Slowly materialized.
[Goodbye, and may your martial fortunes be prosperous… Brother.]
Then, the text lingered for half a second.
Before it too dissolved into the void.
As if it had never existed in the first place.
On Kitahara Minakaze’s status panel.
The final summary line.
[An unlucky and ordinary high schooler, though with reasonably well-developed limbs] gradually began to change.
Starting from the last letter, it all slowly turned into particles and scattered into the void.
A new summary appeared.
[…The most handsome person in the world.]