Chapter 152: A scared girl is a quick conquest

I sighed heavily as I took a break on a park bench.

At this point in the day, I did enough work for a normal human to die of burnout. I'm honoring my Japanese genes...

Actually, I don't feel tired, just frustrated, but Tsubaki insisted that I take a break of at least 5 minutes and even System Goddess mentioned that a Higher Entity can develop heart demons from overwork, which seemed to me something interesting to analyze.

Considering that my most important skills are based on my mental instability, maybe I can create heart demons to turn into a spirit attack technique.

If I can share my migraine with my enemies things would get interesting...

I sighed, taking breaks seems like a waste of time to me, but I don't want Tsubaki to feel worried about my non-existent sanity so I'll just pretend this helps me relax.

I took advantage of this small moment of peace to observe my surroundings.

It's already time that the students are out of class so there are several teenagers walking around the park either to relax or to take a shortcut home.

I looked at the teenagers and realized how absurd life is.

The world is full of spirits, deities, humans with the power to destroy buildings, lunatics with abilities to devour souls, genocidal womanizers, and all kinds of absurd things, but despite all these dangerous things, humans live in peace, too much peace for my taste….

[System Notification: The destructive instincts are affecting the user.

Allowing the 'Reader's Madness' energy to feed destructive instincts?

YES/NO]

[NO]

Wonderful, now I'm an unstable jerk... I think I spent too much time acting like a genocidal idiot on my trip to other worlds, I must be more careful not to develop the habit of using violence to fix every situation or I'll get in trouble with the Will of the World.

System Goddess mentioned that system users tend to develop a big appetite for combat as it allows them to show off their powers, it seems that narcissism is the characteristic trait of system users so I need to improve my self-control.

I sighed and looked at the people walking by nonchalantly, there are some attractive women but my standards have risen, and only picking up women who are easy to fall in love with would be boring, though I won't reject women who fall in love with me even if I wasn't the one who seduced them.

Tsubaki told me that I should rest at least 5 minutes so when the exact 5 minutes passed I stood up to continue working, but at that moment I saw something strange.

"Tsubaki..." - I sighed internally. – "Can you see that?"

"Yes…" – Tsubaki seemed confused. – "Is that a ghost?"

I have seen souls and even eaten souls, but this is the first time I have seen a soul moving independently without a physical body.

The soul was not a sphere of light, but rather resembled a gray liquid that dispersed within into an unpleasant-looking humanoid entity.

"That doesn't look like a Kishin egg, but I can see a lot of resentment and corruption in that soul" – Tsubaki sounded confused.

"That's an evil spirit" – System Goddess entered her teacher mode. – "In this world, human souls are managed in two systems, the system of reincarnation and the system of believers…"

"The reincarnation system is the basic system of the multiverse, when an entity dies its soul enters the cycle of Samsara where the personality, memory, emotions and all traces of the mind are eliminated from the soul making it a blank, then the soul travels and when an entity is about to be born, the soul enters the body causing the reincarnation cycle to continue flowing…"

"Sometimes there are problems with this system and that's why there are people who are born with innate talents or some knowledge from their past lives, but that's not important for now..."

"The second system, the system of believers, is a form of support for entities based on the energy of Faith…"

"Whether they are Superior Entities, Guardians or earthly deities, the entities that use the Faith system need the energy of their believers to survive and when a believer dies, his soul travels to the realm of the entity…"

"The soul of the deceased becomes a source of temporary energy for the deity, and when a period of time passes, the soul is returned to the cycle of Samsara to maintain the balance between the living and the dead, that is why the entities that can destroy souls they alter the balance and that makes them enemies of the multiverse…"

"There are also cases where some entities cling to the souls of their servants preventing them from reincarnating, but in order to do that, the servant needs to possess a large amount of Destiny Energy or the soul will become corrupted over time..."

"Ahem, anyway" – System Goddess sensed my boredom at this explanation so she got to the main point. – "Sometimes people with strong desires evade the cycle of Samsara and cling to the physical world thus creating ghosts, of course, not all spirits are evil and some can even evolve to become guardian spirits, but most spirits are corrupted by their own obsessions and become evil spirits"

"I see, ghosts are stubborn idiots who don't accept death and in case they can't control their own obsessions they turn into monsters" - I sighed internally. – "Couldn't you have said something that simple?"

"…W-Well, giving a general context is important…" – System Goddess sounded embarrassed.

"We're going to have to do something about your stupid habit of giving explanations too long" - I sighed with annoyance.

It's a good thing I'm curbing my habit of doing exaggeratedly long monologues or even I couldn't stand my bullshit.

I kept looking at the evil spirit and the spirit noticed my gaze.

"Oh, right, I forgot to mention something..." - System Goddess spoke with irony. – "Normally entities such as the divine messenger foxes are in charge of purifying these things since the evil spirits feed on human vitality and emotions creating fatigue and nightmares in humans, also, if a human can see them they will go crazy and attack the human…"

"This is the kind of thing you should tell me first" - I sighed, I'll have to educate this idiot goddess...

The spirit screamed like an angry animal and began to twist its body.

His appearance was similar to a human who died in a car accident, his four limbs were bent at various odd angles as if they were broken, his neck was three times longer than a normal neck, and his eye sockets lacked eyes.

"YOU CAN SEE ME!" – The spirit shouted with a voice full of suffering and hatred as he rushed to attack me.

I sighed in boredom, horror movies always seemed boring to me.

I don't even need to use my Authority as the Administrator of Japan to kill this thing, my body is practically a spirit body and if this thing dares to touch me, my [Reader's Madness] energy will devour him completely.

Best of all, as long as I don't use my [Reader's Madness] related skills outside of my body, then this energy won't be detected by other entities and even if Senko sees me devour a spirit, she'll think I'm purifying it with some ability related to a hero from another world.

I looked at the evil spirit that opened her mouth to the point where it could devour my head in one bite and held back the urge to yawn.

Before the ghost could touch me, I saw a girl rush over to hug me.

There have been instances where a girl pretends to love me to try and kill me, but I didn't refuse the girl's hug as I saw something interesting.

When the spirit was about to attack the girl and me, two little girl-like entities with fox features appeared and stretched out their hands.

The spirit changed its target to one of the entities and in one bite devoured the upper half of the little girl.

The other little girl ignored the 'death' of her partner and attacked the spirit making it explode with an invisible attack.

After the little girl eliminated the evil spirit, the girl stopped hugging me and looked at the entity which raised two fingers and then disappeared.

That entity was a spirit body, but it did not possess a soul, basically a remotely controlled doll.

Her body was similar to my black blood, a spirit body, with the difference that my blood is visible to human eyes while that little fox girl was invisible… This is interesting.

"H-Hello! Sorry for being late…" – The girl greeted me as if we were friends.

I noticed that several people turned to see us since in her eyes this girl ran to hug me for no reason.

She seems to be trying hard not to attract attention, although I think it's not to avoid other people's rumors, rather she wants to avoid the attention of the spirits.

I smiled back at him and stood up. – "Don't worry, now we are going to have something for lunch"

The girl sighed in relief when I played along, but she seemed a bit uncomfortable with the idea of ​​going out to eat with a person she doesn't even know to which I whispered under my breath. – "Consider it a thank you from me"

The girl looked at me in surprise, then nodded with a bright smile.

We went to a crepe stand and I bought a couple of crepes. The fact that this girl chose the cheapest without taking advantage of my wallet made me like her immediately so she goes to my harem.

We walked a bit and when we reached an area without many people I smiled wryly. – "So can you see them?"

The girl paled and looked around.

"None of them is close, we can talk calmly" - I smiled finding her reaction funny.

The girl sighed in relief as if she had managed to escape from a hungry tiger, it seems that she has had a difficult life

"I'm sorry about before, when I saw that it wanted to attack you... Well, my body moved on its account" - The girl smiled in a forced way.

"I was hugged by a nice girl, I don't see the problem" - I shrugged and bit into my crepe.

The girl smiled and started eating her crepe, it seems that the stress of the situation has made her insensitive to compliments which is good, I don't want to deal with another tsundere.

"My name is Luis" - I smiled and held out her hand to greet her. – "You can call me whatever you want, but please, if you are going to call me by my name, do not use honorifics as it sounds strange"

Luis-san, Luis-kun, Luis-sama… Yes, that sounds stupid.

"Yotsuya Miko, you can call me Miko" – Miko smiled and shook my hand.

When I held her hand I felt her tremble a bit as her pulse showed that she was still scared by what just happened.

"Since when can you see them?" – I asked showing bitterness.

"..." - Miko sighed heavily as if living was exhausting. – "I have always been able to see them… I have been trying all my life to pretend that I do not see them so that they leave me alone, but I am very tired…"

At the end of her words, she almost seemed to want to cry to which I sighed and gently patted her shoulder as if I shared the same sentiment.

I underestimated the amount of stress this girl is dealing with as with what little comfort I offered, she directly hugged me and started crying as she pressed her face into my shoulder.

I sighed internally, I'm a magnet for tragic women...

I gently hugged her and gave her the comfort she needed, but when about five minutes passed, two evil spirits approached us.

"Crying… It hurts… I don't cry… It doesn't hurt…" – A six-year-old girl crawled on the ground while her head hung as if her neck was completely broken.

"Hug…. I want…..hug…..pretty girl…hug…" – Something similar to the combination of a man and an octopus squirmed disgustingly as her tentacles headed towards Miko.

Miko froze in my embrace as she tried hard not to listen to these disgusting things.

I have the option to imitate Miko and show her that I suffer the same pain as her, but this will only create a sympathetic relationship between us and it will take time for her to really fall in love with me.

The other option is to use the more basic tactic, 'Hero saves the princess'.

I sighed, using this tactic is boring but effective and I'm too busy to use overly complex methods.

I stood up and pulled Miko out of my embrace. She clung to my shirt as if she wanted to express that I shouldn't see them, but the fucking octopus seems to be a pervert and this girl got my attention so it only remains to kill this asshole, or well, kill again.

I pushed Miko away and before she panicked, I used 'Soul Resonance' to turn my body into a spirit weapon and held the fist's tentacle to pull it under my foot. When his head was in the right place, I lowered my foot crushing the disgusting octopus's head.

When my spirit energy hit the octopus, its soul was purified forcing it back into the reincarnation cycle.

Although I would have liked to destroy his soul, I won't risk causing the Will of the World's suspicion so I can only kill politely.

The evil spirit in the form of a little girl panicked and ran away right away, but I didn't chase after her since it's possible that killing something like a child will leave a bad impression on Miko.

I sighed pretending I stepped on a cockroach. – "I hate insects…"

The surrounding people only thought that I stood up to kill an insect since my movements were subtle.

I sat back down and hugged Miko who was completely frozen in disbelief.

"Although I appreciate that you had helped me before, it was not necessary" - I spoke quietly.

Miko didn't reply and she just stood there.

"You can ask me whatever you want" - I spoke softly like a father consoling a brat.

Miko clung to my shirt as if she were a small animal looking for some security in a hostile world. – "H-How did you do that?"

"You can see them" - I began to stroke her back gently. – "I can see them and hit them, it's that simple"

"You are not afraid?" – Miko managed to calm down a bit.

"Yes" – I feigned a bit of fear in my voice, then spoke resolutely. – "But avoiding a problem will not solve the problem, sometimes we have to face what we fear in order to move forward"

Miko clung to my shirt more tightly, she must be too scared to want to face the spirits, but that's okay, not everyone follows the ancient teachings of solving problems with violence.

The fact that she was willing to face her fear to help me makes me see that she is a kind girl despite the constant fear that drowns her heart.

Although I think martyrs are idiots, this girl also doesn't have much of a choice since I can feel that she lacks the spiritual power to fight evil spirits, she can only see them while she is a magnet for these entities.

"Miko, facing problems does not mean that you do things on your own" - I spoke kindly and held her chin to look into her eyes. – "It is okay to be afraid and it is normal to ask for help when you cannot deal with something"

Miko's eyes were teary. – "C-Can I ask you for help?"

I smiled. – "Of course, I will help you when you need it"

"..." - Miko didn't answer and pressed her face on my shoulder again.

In a short time she had fallen asleep, it seems that she suffers from insomnia and the feeling of security that I am giving her made her want to sleep.

I wanted to sigh, it seems that my break is going to be longer...

Miko slept soundly asleep for two hours so I sat in the park the whole time.

Some elders saw us and smiled since we look like a couple in love, though there were also guys who clicked their tongues at me and said something like 'Riajuu explodes!' or pathetic stupidity like that.

Since I hate wasting time, I used this time to analyze the contracts my father left behind.

The more I understand the structure of high-level contracts the greater my admiration for Beast VII, creating something so complex and tricky is without a doubt the work of genius.

System Goddess mentioned that there are many types of contracts and oaths, but the ability to make contracts that affect the Core of Existence is almost exclusive to the Wills of the World so an entity that can create contracts on its own is a rare treasure that many worlds and factions wish to monopolize.

If I reveal that I can create low-level contracts then the Will of the World will give me VIP treatment, but if I reveal that I can make medium-level contracts then the Will of the World will seek to destroy my free will and turn me into a printing machine.

Basic-level and low-level contracts are some of the most sought-after artifacts in the multiverse, but mid-level and higher-level contracts are prohibited items as they are traps designed solely to manipulate other entities.

The fact that only entities with the ability to create contracts or entities with high-level analysis skills can differentiate the levels of contracts shows how dangerous a contract is.

In my case, the combination of [Reader's Madness], [Stingy Jack], and [Contract] makes me one of the best swindlers in the multiverse so it's best to hide most of my skills.

While studying the contracts, my title [Stingy Jack] allowed me to feel something in Miko, a mid-level contract…

Come to think of it, the two little girls who appeared to help Miko didn't seem like kind spirits, but more like evil spirits.

I haven't even finished my work, but it seems I have another problem to deal with.

Well, for now, I'll wait for Miko to wake up to fix this problem...

Am I really going to get in supernatural trouble over a girl I just met?

…

Well, she has a cute face and I like her thighs, it's worth it.