You say this is a love game?

Kurosawa Ryohito showed an indescribable expression.

Mizutani Makoto rarely seemed bothered by the smell of burnt meat on his brother's body. He even stood quite close to him, acting as if they were close friends regardless of age.

"I haven't heard about the fire yet... No, the one that happened at the private Hiiragigaoka Academy."

Mizutani Makoto looked at the teaching building in the distance and pondered, "How much do you know about Lao Hei? If you have any clues, you can sell them to me as intelligence. Just name a price. I still have a lot of souls left, so I should be able to buy a lot of information."

Upon hearing this, Kurosawa Ryohito also looked thoughtful.

"Brother, you have also reached the level of the He level, right?"

"Yes."

"I see, you're making rapid progress, little brother... That's good."

As he spoke, Kurosawa Ryojin lowered his head and stared at the crack in the ground, not knowing what he was feeling sad about.

"Brother, your situation is truly unique. In over a hundred years, I haven't seen anyone as incredible as you. While growing stronger, you're also able to investigate the story of this crevice... It's truly incredible. If you keep going like this, sooner or later you'll uncover the truth about this place, right? If so, I'll lend you a helping hand."

"I will tell you everything I know."

Oh my god, it’s a level lock!

Mizutani Makoto was shocked. He didn't expect that he would encounter such a thing.

Just because your level is not up to par, does that mean you don't deserve to know the story that happened at the private Hiiragigaoka Academy?

Wait, it seems that even if I reach the same level, I will still be kicked to death like a stray dog ​​on the roadside...

Mizutani Makoto did not forget that in her prime, Furuya Ruriko started out as a strong mid-level divine maiden, and carried several shikigami with her, including the strong-level Tang Shizi. It was not even certain whether Tang Shizi was her strongest shikigami. Even with the many secret medicines, such a configuration was still defeated by this gap.

My voice was a little loud just now, please continue.

Kurosawa Ryojin said, "I haven't told you this before, little brother, but actually... I'm a teacher at this school, responsible for teaching physical education."

"Ah."

Mizutani Makoto pretended to have just learned about it, and nodded solemnly.

"The principal of this school is Lord Hiiragihara... To be more precise, his name is Soichiro Hiiragihara. Lord Hiiragihara is a respectful title given to him. Legend has it that the Hiiragihara family is an aristocratic family that has been passed down since the Heian period. They hold a very important position in Yato City, like a feudal lord."

As he told the story, Kurosawa Yoshihito couldn't help but look nostalgic.

Mizutani Makoto: "?"

"What's with that expression on your face, little brother?"

"Nothing, Lao Hei, please continue."

"But sadly, the head of the Hiiragihara family usually dies young."

According to Lao Hei's story, a major characteristic of the "Hiiragihara family", which occupied the position of lord of the "Yajima family", was that each generation of the head of the family would die young, with their lifespan stopping at the age of forty, and it was even common for them to die suddenly in their early thirties for various reasons.

Therefore, almost every generation of family heads would give birth to offspring at an early age, and their career as family heads would mostly begin at the age of thirteen or fourteen and end at around thirty years old.

So desolate?

Mizutani Makoto imagined it, a boy of thirteen or fourteen, whose father died suddenly, and he was made the head of the family by Huang He, and then urged to reproduce offspring like a stud, until he suddenly died of a serious illness at the age of about thirty... Where did this master come from?

He couldn't help but frown.

There is definitely something wrong with this.

Now that he has stepped into the other world of strange powers and chaos, and has confirmed that supernatural powers exist in the world, there must be something fishy about this inheritance that can be called a desperate reincarnation.

It is likely to be accompanied by some kind of curse or mission or something like that.

"And Soichiro, at the age of 26, he established the private Hiiragigaoka Academy."

During the Taisho era, Soichiro Hiiragihara emerged as a "famous philanthropist" and invested a huge amount of money to establish the private Hiiragihachi Academy in Yotsugu City. He put aside family affairs and personally served as the principal, using his own reputation to attract countless students to join.

Soichiro Hiiragihara's social status is extremely high, which gives him unchallengeable authority in the academy.

Kurosawa Ryojin swallowed and whispered, "But, ever since the day the school was founded, horrific incidents have been happening non-stop."

"I didn't understand before, but after falling into the rift, I knew everything... the ghost bear in the basement, the strange stories on the stairs in the teaching building, even the mirror! Some monsters were born later as the present world developed, but some monsters have existed since the beginning, along with the emergence of the rift."

"It must have been these monsters that killed so many students back then... I was always investigating these things back then, but I never thought it was the work of monsters."

As Kurosawa Ryojin spoke, his tone became increasingly sad.

Mizutani Makoto could hear it: "Is all this related to Soichiro, the principal?"

"Probably."

Kurosawa Ryojin nodded and continued, "Three years after the school was founded, when a new batch of high school students enrolled, Soichiro set up a night cram school in the name of improving grades and strengthening perseverance. He and a special teacher personally taught the classes."

"We teachers were quite critical of the situation at the time, but Soichiro gave a good reason – although the first class's graduating grades were good, they didn't reach his ideal score. Such an aristocratic school must have a certain level of talent, so he wanted to personally supervise the new students... so we didn't have any objections."

Is this the origin of cram schools?

Furthermore, according to Kurosawa Ryohito's subsequent comments, Hiiragihara Soichiro was a serious educator, personally supervising the students' tutoring, and this group of students quickly jumped ahead of the rest of the class. The school also introduced "nighttime supplementary meals" to replenish the energy of students selected for tutoring.

Mizutani Makoto was shocked and immediately associated the snacks in the cafeteria with "supply meals".

It turns out that these unlucky guys are eating those snacks!

Is that thing really for human consumption?

The cram school branch ends here.

Kurosawa Ryojin was not the teacher chosen to supervise the students. He was just a physical education teacher and knew very little about what was going on inside the cram school.

He added: "Sato Ayako is very close to the principal and is responsible for supervising students' tutoring."

Oh?

This name...

Mizutani Makoto calmly opened the backpack. In Touko's backpack, there lay quietly a copy of "Sato Ayako's Diary Part 1". The diary found in the secret compartment of the music classroom happened to tell the story of the unknown friendship between a music teacher and the principal.

There are indeed not many simple characters who can leave their names in the cracks.

Mizutani Makoto: "What about this fire? What happened?"

Kurosawa Ryojin sighed deeply. "This fire was definitely arson. A few days before the fire, I had a feeling someone was sneaking around in the gymnasium... That was during class. It just so happened that several students were missing. I had no idea there were monsters, so I wondered if I could just wait and see..."

"As a result, I discovered that someone had hidden a large amount of gasoline inside the gymnasium... I reported the matter to the school, and the gasoline was removed. But for some reason, the fire broke out again the next day. I was in class at the time, and eventually..."

Burned into this state.

"Actually, I have the same doubts as you, little brother..."

Kurosawa Ryojin smiled bitterly and reached out to touch his face, but when he touched the burnt flesh on his face, he retracted his fingers as if he had been electrocuted.

He murmured, "None of us were involved. Even before the fire, I was just an ordinary teacher. The story I knew was very limited. I had no idea about Soichiro's motives, what happened in the school at that time, and why this rift was created after the fire."

"I wasn't the same until the moment I fell through the cracks."

"To put it simply, I've become something like a ground-bound spirit. But it's precisely this identity as a ground-bound spirit that connects me to the gymnasium behind me, and thus to this crevice. I can use the crevice as a bridge and vaguely sense the changes within."

"For so many years, I have been wandering in the cracks. The props you bought are also collected by me over the years."

"But I haven't seen Soichiro since then. I don't know what he's planning. I can only vaguely sense that he seems to still be in this crevice, probably hiding..."

The boy frowned, but listened carefully.

At this point, the story of Kurosawa Yoshihito has come to an end.

Mizutani Makoto understood.

The story told by this man basically matched the intelligence he had learned, and he was sure that he was not playing tricks with his background.

He also let down his guard a little.

Based on his personal experience of soul-gaming, there is one extremely frustrating thing about this type of game. That is, the NPC who laughs and jokes with you in the early stages may fight you to the death for inexplicable reasons one day, and finally die with the last words "If you were a dragon, that would be fine", leaving the player disheveled in the cold air of the air conditioner.

So, his impression of Kurosawa Yoshihito from the very beginning was - I have something up my sleeve.

While treating him as a mysterious prop dealer, you also have to prevent Lao Hei from suddenly saying the line "Today we will determine who is better and who lives the same", and then give him a gorgeous backstab.

So based on the current situation... can Kurosawa Yoshihito continue to be trusted?

Mizutani Makoto stood up and finally asked, "So, Lao Hei, have you heard of the Yajima family?"

Kurosawa Ryojin frowned and pondered for a long time.

"Ah, I remember that."

"Isn't that also a noble family?"

"I remember they were very close to the Hiiragihara family... Oh, by the way, they are loyal fans of the Hiiragihara family and have been following them for a long time..."

Mizutani Makoto:?

Wait a minute, what the hell is this?

"Old Hei, as far as I know, the Yajima family is the lord of Night Light City."

Kurosawa Ryohito:?

In an instant, the old and the young fell silent.

You look at me, I look at you, we are like confused fruits on a confused tree, and you and I are under the confused tree.

After a long pause, Mizutani Makoto mused, "I think we need to have an in-depth academic exchange on the relationship between the Hiiragihara and Yajima families... Could you, Old Black, please provide me with a genealogy of their ancestry for eighteen generations?"

Kurosawa Ryojin held it in for a long time, and even said in an accent: "I don't know either."

Mizutani Makoto: "?"

Kurosawa Ryojin: "To be honest, little brother, I'm the only one in my family who went to college. My father and grandfather... ahem, were both farmers. It was only after I entered the workplace and happened to have a principal with a remarkable background that I learned about the Hiiragihara family through gossip from others."

You want a working man to sort out the things about the aristocratic genealogy for you?

Mizutani Makoto: "I am sorry for being so presumptuous."

The young man shook his head helplessly and thanked Kurosawa Ryojin. Kurosawa Ryojin had always been both stingy and generous. Now that so much information had been provided to him for free, it was only right that he should thank him for his generosity. As for how things would develop next, that was a matter for the future.

So the young man just stared at the blood moon hanging high in the crack, and for a moment he felt a little melancholy.

Thousands of words are reduced to one sentence:

"Play the game to the bone."

……

……

Early that morning.

Makoto Mizutani broke away from the crack and brushed his soul for most of the night. Now he was lying on the tatami like a salted fish, looking up at the ceiling and thinking about life.

The main line of this gap is both clear and a little confusing.

"So far, my main plot is to destroy this principal named 'Soichiro Hiiragihara', right?"

"He's still hiding somewhere in the cracks..."

"A boss that could defeat Miss Furuya, who started out as a strong mid-ranker?"

The boy rubbed his temples, looking troubled.

What does it feel like?

He didn't start the game in the Ashes Graveyard, but directly in the Farran Fortress. The boss at the end was not called the Judge of Ashes, but the Watcher of the Abyss, the one who really liked Lawu.

Forget it, he should think about upgrading.

As long as the levels can continue to rise, everything will be fine.

“When the sun rises, forget yesterday.”

Mizutani Makoto turned his head to look out the window. The night light city in the early morning always has a mysterious silence, but it makes people feel as if there is an undercurrent, not as calm as it seems on the surface.

Beside him, Yoshiko Satori was sleeping soundly.

Since he quit his part-time job at the newspaper, he no longer needs to get up at five o'clock every day to deliver newspapers. Satori Yoshiko's waking time has also adjusted to his biological clock. Now she will probably get up at around six o'clock in the morning to prepare breakfast for Mizutani Makoto who gets up at seven o'clock.

Now, this little god of fortune was curled up in the quilt, wrapped around a living pillow like an octopus, with a look of satisfaction on his face while sleeping.

Suddenly, Mizutani Makoto's eyes fixed.

"Ok?"

The light blue glass wind chime was tied there by Yoshiko Sanatori.

Now, the string of wind chimes is swaying slightly in the cold breeze of the early morning, making a clear and pleasant sound.