Why is the Demon King like this?

Are there any rumors about certain fingers at our school?

"How could such a thing exist!" Yuto Nakagawa criticized. "Of course, if it were a finger that died from doing homework, that would be understandable, and if it were posted online, many people might agree with it."

Aokiji shrugged; his own dream wasn't exactly a pure and innocent thing.

Yuto Nakagawa laughed at himself: "If it's something even more supernatural, you can ask the girls or the paranormal club."

After finishing their discussion about the paranormal, the two began to eat seriously.

Although the pork chop rice is far from the sophistication of off-campus restaurants, the marinade and the frying technique are both commendable.

According to Yuto Nakagawa, a certain department once held a pork cutlet rice party (which was actually an agreement among the department members to order pork cutlet rice together).

Keisuke Ao guessed that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, this department would likely consist of Nakagawa and his team themselves...

After lunch, Nakagawa Yuto invited Ao Keisuke to meet his friends from the soccer club, but Ao Keisuke naturally declined.

Using someone as a tool to obtain information about the school and engaging in meaningless social interactions are two different things!

After saying goodbye to Nakagawa Yuto at the stairwell landing, Ao Keisuke returned to his classroom. Before he opened the door, the classroom was filled with conversations about him, but as soon as he went in, they all disappeared.

—Aren't these high school students a little too energetic when it comes to gossip?

Keisuke Ao looked around the classroom, but Asuka Arisugawa was nowhere to be seen. He wondered if she had taken refuge or been captured by her friends.

Poor Yamato Nadeshiko!

Keisuke Ao shook his head, slumped back down at his desk, and pretended to sleep.

He was quite interested in the clues and intelligence he unexpectedly obtained at school!

Of all the ways to become stronger, his favorite was hunting down those spiritual monsters and extracting what he needed from the slaughter.

However, given his current weakness, he still needs to find more clues to discover the possible monsters and their weaknesses.

Hanako?

Does this refer to a single person, or the "Toilet Flower Girl" from Japanese urban legends?

Hopefully, it's the second possibility—that way, we can have two meals.

After lying down for a while, Keisuke Ao took out his phone and started trying to collect legends about Hanako online.

A quick glance revealed that Kobayashi Rena's message count had jumped to over 100—I'd forgotten she was my first-year junior.

Let's ignore the white teeth for now!

Let her calm down.

There are many urban legends in Japan, and Hanako-san of the Toilet is one of the most well-known, with countless fan-made versions.

If urban legends can create spiritual monsters, then it's truly unimaginable what such monsters would be like in modern times...

Big breasts, wavy hair, and a short skirt that reaches the top of the thighs?

Or should he be gender-swapped into a cute little boy?

Based on Keisuke Ao's understanding of power, although such monsters that rely on the consciousness of countless people for survival may be powerful, they are often prisoners of power and have nothing to be proud of.

If a power does not belong to you, there will inevitably be a price to pay when using it.

This is one of the timeless rules of mysticism.

"Hanako-san, the ghost doll, has been circulating since the 1950s. By the 1980s, Hanako-san in the toilet had become a well-known ghost story."

The original image was a little girl wearing a red sundress, a white shirt, and with a kappa-like hairstyle.

In the original version, Hanako was murdered in a toilet by a villain before her death. Wanting to play with children or find a scapegoat, she frequently lingered in toilets, dragging those she had bewitched into them and drowning them—a truly horrific act.

The differences in Hanako stories across Japan mainly lie in the summoning rituals, while the unrealistic fantasies of some manga artists and novelists are excluded.

The most famous version is about the toilet on the third floor of the school. Starting from the first toilet closest to the entrance, knock gently three times on the door and ask: "Is Hanako here?"

Keep counting until you reach the third room, and the little girl will come out to share the food with you, making you want to stay longer.

Another version from Tokyo high schools goes like this: if you shout "Hanako!" three times in the girls' restroom, you'll hear someone respond with "What is it?" If it's after 4 p.m., you should add "Hanako, I'm sorry" and you'll receive a "It's okay" response.

—Perhaps because she is a gentle Tokyo high school girl, she is very polite even when she is disturbed.

In schools across Japan's 47 prefectures, the versions of the story are basically all different. Keisuke Ao saved the post and decided to find an opportunity to look for this high school girl from Kukai Private High School.

But with so many master's programs in the world, whether every one of them can be filled with a probabilistic problem is a matter of probability.

However, since the spiritual remnants in the dream mentioned "Hanako," it's highly likely that one of them resides in Kukai's world.

Keisuke Ao wasn't worried that the monsters were too powerful for him to handle—after all, the shrine maidens of Meiji Shrine all possessed spirituality, so there was no reason to leave those potentially dangerous monsters unattended.

However, just to be on the safe side, I can go to Meiji Shrine and get a free amulet first.

In Japan, lunch break is usually only 45 minutes long. You can eat, chat for a while, and then start preparing for the fifth period.

In English class, the English teacher of Class 5 was a middle-aged man who looked half decadent and half inscrutable. He spoke fluent English with a standard Japanese accent and would occasionally gesticulate excitedly as he talked about his experience of communicating with officers in English when he visited a military base in the Americas.

After listening for five minutes, Aokiji rationally chose to give up and spent an entire class period memorizing all the English words he needed to learn this semester.

Yuto Nakagawa was distracted, changing positions more than a dozen times in three minutes, as if his butt was greased – he didn't stop even when he was called on to ask a question.

After memorizing all the words, Aokiji finally asked, somewhat helplessly, "What's wrong with you?"

Nakagawa Yuto, on the other hand, seemed a little embarrassed: "What?"

"Are you stomping your feet to the rhythm because you love your English teacher's class so much?"

"Qinggui, you bastard! Even if Professor Yasuda likes America a lot, you can't slander him like that!"

"Shouldn't I be mocking you when I say that?"

"Um?!"

"Pfft—" Hayama Yuki, who had been eavesdropping on the two's conversation, suddenly burst out laughing.

"Yuto Nakagawa, you stand at the back!" English teacher Taisei Yasuda yelled in his slang-accented English.

"Yes!" So, Keisuke's deskmate strode off with his books, full of pride and confidence.

Yasuda Daisei glared at Ao Keisuke again, having heard of this student who had just returned to class—there were no secrets in the teachers' office.

So he just snorted and then started the class again.

Where are we?

Let's start from the beginning!

Keisuke Ao thought to himself, of course, if he was referring to the story of shaking hands with the American officer, then he would pretend he hadn't said anything.