Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious-Chapter 217 - 5

Seijirou let out a long, slow yawn, the morning air crisp and cool against his skin as he navigated the familiar route to Saint Shinomiya Highschool.

Yesterday had been an anomaly in his usually chaotic life.

Unlike their usual rowdy celebrations, the "welcome home" party hadn’t lasted until the break of dawn.

By the time the moon was high, the house had grown quiet. The girls, usually so eager for his attention, had collectively decided to play the role of strict guardians.

They had practically shooed him toward his bedroom, insisting that he not exert himself so soon after being discharged from the ICU.

For the girls—Suzune, Yukina, and the others—it was a matter of genuine, protective worry.

They saw the lingering paleness in his face that he tried to hide with his Ki.

For the boys, like Renji and Sakai, the night was supposed to be a legendary marathon of food and drinks, but they had been unceremoniously dragged out by the ear, scolded by the girls for being "thoughtless meatheads" who didn’t prioritize Seijirou’s long-term health.

Consequently, nothing particularly "special" had happened last night, aside from a few lingering, tender kisses at the door and the soft warmth of knowing he was home.

No grand battles, no depraved rituals—just the restorative silence of his own bed.

Now, he was walking alone, his hands deep in his pockets, while his mind was a whirlwind of the revelations he had received from Aphrodite.

The fragment of the Outer God had shattered, scattering like a dark, invisible contagion across the 24 Districts.

He knew he had to find and destroy them before they could take root in the "Wicked Hearts" of the city, but the sheer scale of the task was daunting.

’How do I even begin?’ he wondered, kicking a loose pebble. ’There are millions of people in the Shinra Region. I can’t exactly go around checking everyone’s pulse for cosmic horror.’

He considered his options. Maybe there were some fragments already nesting in the school? After all, in the "game" he had played in his previous life, the academy was the primary stage where all sorts of depravities and "Bad Ends" occurred.

It was a magnet for drama, lust, and cruelty—the perfect buffet for a fragment of the Void.

He sighed, scratching the back of his head in frustration. ’That goddess didn’t even give me any real benefits for being her ’protagonist.’ Even a simple compass or a radar that could point toward the fragments would have been enough. Instead, I get a cryptic lecture and a pat on the back.’

He was so deep in his internal monologue that he didn’t even realize he had already arrived at the imposing iron gates of Saint Shinomiya.

The morning bustle of students in their pristine uniforms swirled around him, but he felt like he was walking in a different dimension.

"Seijirou..."

Just then, a soft, familiar female voice called out, snapping him out of his reverie. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

He stopped and turned his head, seeing Rindou standing by the brick pillar of the gate.

She looked official yet concerned, her blue eyes scanning his face for any signs of lingering trauma.

"Rindou. Good morning," Seijirou said, offering a small, tired smile.

Rindou nodded, her expression serious. "Yes, good morning as well. I’m glad to see you’re on your feet, but I’m afraid duty calls sooner than expected. Sorry to do this to you on your first day back, but can you come with me? I need your help with a situation that I can’t quite categorize."

Seijirou raised an eyebrow, his interest piqued. If the great student council of Shunji High was asking for "help" with a school matter, it usually meant things were about to get weird.

He nodded. "Alright. Where are we going?"

"The Student Council room," Rindou replied, already turning to lead the way.

With that, the two of them walked together through the main plaza.

Of course, their presence did not go unnoticed.

Seijirou, the "King" who had just survived a near-fatal incident—for some reason, rumors that he was hospitalised spread like wildfire—, walking side-by-side with the beautiful, stern and noble student council president Rindou.

It was truly a sight that set the school’s rumor mill into overdrive.

He could hear the whispers behind hands and see the curious glances from the windows.

He was sure that by lunch, all sorts of wild rumors would have spread across the campus, ranging from a secret engagement to a blackmailing incidents.

Once they reached the Student Council room, Rindou opened the heavy oak doors and entered, with Seijirou following close behind.

The atmosphere inside was heavy and stagnant.

As he entered, Seijirou’s eyes immediately fell on a girl sitting on the sofa. She had vibrant orange hair, but it was messy and lacked its usual luster.

She was sitting in a daze, her eyes unfocused and lifeless. Dark, heavy eyebags hung beneath her lower lids, making her look as if she hadn’t slept in weeks.

She looked frail, her hands trembling as they gripped a paper cup of cold tea.

The moment she noticed them enter, her eyes lit up for just a fleeting second, a spark of desperate hope flickering in the gloom.

Rindou walked past her and sat down in the President’s chair while Seijirou took a seat on the chair opposite the girl.

He leaned forward, his instincts for trouble already beginning to hum.

"So, who is she?" Seijirou asked, his voice low.

"She is Kusana Tamaki," Rindou introduced. "A second-year transfer student who joined just before you went into the hospital. She’s in my class."

"And what’s the problem here?" Seijirou asked, focusing his gaze on Tamaki. He didn’t sense any immediate Karyoku from her, but the air around her felt... thin. Cold, even.

Rindou leaned back, gesturing toward the girl. "Kusana-san, can you repeat for Seijirou what you told me earlier this morning? Don’t be afraid. He’s... an expert in these matters."

Tamaki hesitated, her breathing shallow as she looked at Seijirou, her eyes darting around the room as if checking the corners for shadows.

Finally, her voice came out as a ragged whisper. "I’m... I’m being haunted!"

Seijirou’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Haunted? In a world of Ki and Karyoku, "ghosts" were rarely just spirits of the dead; they were usually manifestations of psychic energy or parasitic entities.

"Haunted? Are you sure it’s not just a stalker or someone playing a prank on a new student?"

"It’s not!" Tamaki suddenly exclaimed, her voice cracking with terror. "I thought so too at first! But ever since I went to that mixer last week, I have been haunted! I can’t sleep because the moment I close my eyes, I’m having the most horrific nightmares... dreams of being torn apart, of being raped, of faces with no eyes! And now, it’s not just in my sleep! I can see them everywhere! In the reflections of windows, in the shadows behind the lockers... they’re watching me!"

Rindou turned her gaze toward Seijirou, her face unreadable. "What do you think? Clinical exhaustion, or something more?"

Seijirou didn’t answer immediately. He rubbed his chin, his mind scanning the "game" database in his head. "Can you elaborate, Tamaki? This ’mixer’ you mentioned... where was it held? What else did you do there besides drink and talk?"

Tamaki blinked, looking stunned that he was actually taking her seriously. "Y-You... you believe me? Most people just tell me I need to see a therapist or take some iron supplements..."

Seijirou waved his hand dismissively, "Doesn’t matter if I believe you or not. Just answer my question."

Tamaki stared at him for a few moments before she took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to steady her thoughts. "Well... Those...those senpais, um, they got us drunk and...and, they brought us to an abandoned building at the very edge of the city. Beyond the residential zone."

Seijirou’s brows furrowed, a cold sensation crawling up his spine. "That building... was it that old abandoned hospital? The one that was partially burned down twenty years ago and sealed behind a high fence?"

Tamaki’s eyes went wide. "Yes! That’s the one! How did you—?"

"Those senpais... Were they, the kind of troublesome bunch? Delinquents and the like?"

"Y-Yes! They were the one who forced us to accompany them!"

Seijirou took a sharp, hissed breath through his teeth.

If his memory of the "game" was correct, that location—the Otsuka Sanatorium—was one of the most cursed and depraved maps in the entire software.

It was a place that traumatized countless players, even him, so much so that seeing the image of an abandoned hospital would trigger some stress response in him.

It was a location where the most horrific "Bad Ends" occurred—endings involving biological horror, eternal imprisonment, and the total erasure of identity, where Heroines have become nothing more than glorified meat toilets.

However, in the game, that place was not haunted by any means. After all, the plot regarding that place happened before the supernatural stuffs were introduced.

So how?

Could it be...a fragment?

Yes, that’s the most plausible explanation. After all, it happened a week ago, around the time where that fragment escaped from him.

His eyes narrowed, That place... I need to check it out.