Lucky billion players, you've never seen one before / I can accumulate my own luck

"Himuro, you're strong, help us carry our bags. Wow... the sun is so strong. Why did you choose this place for our school trip? Himuro, did you bring an umbrella? Can I borrow it?"

"I brought it. Here you go."

"You only have one, right?"

"You can use it, I... I like sunbathing."

……

"For this school festival, does anyone in our class have volunteered to be the executive committee chairperson?"

"Wow...it sounds like such a hassle."

"Let's leave it to the class monitor."

"No, I have student council business to attend to."

"Teacher, I recommend Himuro. She is very meticulous and reliable."

"Yes, let Himuro go, I agree."

"Yes, Himuro is indeed very reliable, I agree."

"Well then... Himuro-kun, it's all yours now, okay?"

"..." Himuro Rui: "Yeah... I'll try my best."

……

"That Himuro guy, if you can't do it, don't try to be something you're not capable of. She agreed to prepare the costumes and props, but the school festival is about to start and she hasn't managed to gather a single thing!"

"Yeah, it's all her fault! She's made us suddenly have so much more work... Uh, oh no! When did she come into the classroom? Did she hear everything?"

"Don't say anything yet, or she might hold a grudge."

……

"Himuro, did you apologize to Junko and Yumi? And you even gave them drinks as an apology?"

"Well, I did cause them trouble at the cultural festival after all."

"Are you out of your mind?! They were talking badly about you behind your back, and you're apologizing to them?"

"But……"

"There's no 'but' about it! Those jobs were theirs to do in the first place. You helped them out of kindness. If they made you do all the work, then they're the ones with the problem."

"But……"

"You...you're really infuriating! Do you know what they said about you after you apologized? They said you were abnormal, that you were disgusting...Fine, I'm not going to care about you anymore!"

"Sorry……"

……

"Himuro..."

"Um……"

……

Until she graduated from high school, Rui Himuro lived a busy life.

Every day, she has to do many things she doesn't want to do, and things that have nothing to do with her.

She neither knows how nor dares to refuse others.

She constantly acted against her own will, and every day was exhausting.

This kind of exhaustion is not only physical, but also psychological, stemming from accumulated fatigue, regret, and self-blame.

Just like a soft-hearted person who lends money to someone they don't want to lend it to, they will feel bad for a long time, regret it, and hate themselves for not being able to be ruthless.

The people-pleasing personality is like a chronic disease, fixed in Himuro Rui's body.

And the degree is quite high, quite serious.

Having read this far, Fan Xiao roughly guessed what would happen next.

A person who constantly helps others may not necessarily earn their respect.

More often than not, people will not take it seriously.

The saying "a little kindness is appreciated, but excessive kindness breeds resentment" has existed throughout history.

Just as he had guessed, after graduating and entering society, Himuro Rui still couldn't escape the predicament and mental exhaustion caused by her people-pleasing personality.

She's always the one who suffers, but few people truly thank her.

Over time, her life became terrible. Many of the benefits that belonged to her were taken by others, and trivial matters that were not hers kept her extremely busy... Her life kept going downhill, and the resentment and other negative emotions in her heart accumulated more and more.

People with a people-pleasing personality are often accompanied by a series of negative states such as low self-esteem, feeling taken advantage of, inability to say no, and severe mental exhaustion.

Himuro Rui, as one of the best among these people, seems to have a life filled with negativity.

The turning point came after she ran into an old classmate from Aoyama Academy.

Through the introduction of her old classmate, she gradually reconnected with and returned to her former circle of classmates.

The people she knew seemed to have long forgotten what had happened at Aoyama Academy.

Everyone except her is doing well, living a happy life, and looking forward to the future.

Takahashi, who had once led the bullying against her, even sincerely invited her to his wedding.

Takahashi's marriage partner is not Endo from Aoyama Gakuin, but someone she knows very well—a famous senior from her school whom she once had a crush on.

During their conversation at the wedding, Takahashi even apologized to her with a smile, saying that he was young, impulsive, and immature at the time, and had done many wrong things.

His words did not imply any request for her forgiveness.

After all, many years have passed since then.

The belated apology is nothing more than Takahashi's self-satisfaction and attempt to move himself after he has matured psychologically.

Nobody cares about things that happened so long ago.

The past is the past.

Takahashi and the others live in the present while looking to the future.

Only Himuro Rui herself remains trapped in the scars of the past, struggling to move on.

In contrast, she finally broke down.

"Why..."

"Why are you all living such good lives!?"

"Why am I the only one..."

"Why...!!!"

All the negative emotions that had been building up inside her exploded at once, and Himuro Rui became hysterical.

Resentment, a deep and terrifying resentment arose in her heart.

She wished all her classmates who were doing better than her would die!

She wanted to kill everyone!

Just then, the Evolution Game arrived.

The extraordinary events created by the players began to circulate online as urban legends.

The truth and the falsehood are mixed together.

Himuro Rui came into contact with the cursed game and took it for the real thing.

So she contacted her former homeroom teacher, Mr. Aoki, and through his connections, organized a class reunion.

The evolution game quietly chose her.

Unsurprisingly, the party successfully sent everyone who attended to hell.

This also includes Himuro Rui herself.

Her memory split into two parts.

The kind, timid self of the past remained at Qingshan Academy.

The vengeful spirit now remains in Green Mountain Prison, becoming a dungeon boss.

Or rather... she is Qingshan Prison.

That concludes my recollection.

Fan Xiao regained his composure and adjusted his emotions.

Himuro Rui's memory fragments, imbued with a very strong mental interference, can evoke a powerful emotional resonance in people.

Despair, anger, hatred...

"what--!!"

A roar caught Fan Xiao's attention.

He looked in the direction of the sound and saw that behind the gloomy man, the bespectacled man and the man with the high ponytail, unable to withstand the resonance and erosion of despair, took out short blades from their storage spaces and stabbed them into their hearts, constantly turning the blades to pulverize their hearts.

Thump, thump... The two of them quickly fell to the ground.

The ground was soaked with blood, and they did not get up again.

The others weren't much better off; they all experienced unusually strong suicidal urges.

Even if you overcome it through willpower, no one can escape self-harm.

Even Fan Xiao raised his hand and punched himself in the cheek.

Apart from Fan Xiao, all the other players suffered serious physical injuries.

Bob even cut off his own left arm and is now writhing on the ground in agony, howling in pain.

After the outburst of despair, a resonance of anger and hatred follows.

The players glared at each other, gradually becoming blinded by hatred, and a violent killing intent surged within them.

If things continue like this, it's only a matter of time before players start killing each other.

"The Lost Country".

Fan Xiao murmured, releasing the Forgotten Domain, which enveloped Mercury and the others, using its forgetting properties to slightly reduce their thoughts of suicide and mutual killing.

Suddenly, a wisp of black smoke emerged from his body.

The black smoke was the same black smoke that formed after the second half of the diary exploded; unexpectedly, it had merged into his body.

Perhaps... it was this black smoke that brought back fragments of Himuro Rui's memories and her emotional resonance.

Unsure of what might happen, Fan Xiao became extremely cautious.

The next second, black smoke drifted toward the top half of the diary he had stuffed in his pocket—the one he had gotten from the locker.

Like a nimble little hand, the black smoke rolled a small piece of paper off the pages of the diary and merged into it.

The shredded paper quickly turned black and fell into Fan Xiao's palm.

“This is…the same shape as the piece of paper I tore off from the paper doll when we entered Qingshan Academy from the villa.”

Fan Xiao noticed this detail immediately.

At the same time, as if the conditions had been met, a way to leave Green Mountain Prison suddenly appeared in his mind.

The reverse method involves combining the newly formed black paper scraps with other people's black paper scraps, then silently chanting "Lord Ghost, Lord Ghost, please bless us so we can be together forever," repeating the chant a number of times corresponding to the number of people, and the paper scraps will be transferred away.

The procedure for this ceremony is exactly the reverse of the procedure for entering.

No wonder it's called the reverse attack method.

"The first half of the diary, the second half of the diary... which is also the black smoke. Only by collecting both of them can we get out..."

"However, this method seems to be limited to players who entered using a curse ritual."

"Those three foreign players were forcibly swallowed up from the villa. They haven't played the cursed game before, so they probably won't be able to get out using the reverse strategy..."

How did they leave?

"Could it be that they're trying to steal the black paper scraps from other players?"