"Mmm..."
Yukina slowly awoke, and upon seeing the unfamiliar ceiling above her, she was instantly shocked. She hurriedly sprang up and looked around.
Under the white lights was an unfamiliar classroom, and sprawled across the classroom floor were several people.
What was going on? Weren’t they supposed to have left Tenjin Elementary?
"Touma, wake up, quickly wake up! Look, where are we?"
Yukina shook Touma vigorously, then went on to shake Sora and Gui Kotonoha. At this moment, the others also began waking up, as if they were roused from a dream, opening their eyes and sitting up. When they saw the classroom before them, Touma, Setsuna, Sora, and Word Leaf were equally stunned like Yukina. In contrast, Nakajima Naomi and Shihara Seiko on the other side cheered and tightly hugged each other.
"Great, we’re back! This is Kisaragi Academy!!"
"Huh? Huh?"
Watching the elated group, Yukina and the others were utterly confused, not knowing what to do. Noticing their confusion, Shishido Yui came over, smiling, and began to introduce them.
"This is our classroom; we’ve returned to Kisaragi Academy!"
"Really? This isn’t another one of those multiple sealed spaces or something, right..."
Compared to the survivors from Kisaragi Academy, Yukina and her group were evidently more cautious. It’s no wonder they were asking such questions. After all, it was already late at night. While the typhoon seemed to have passed, if one were to look outside the window, it was still pitch black.
No different from what they saw at Tenjin Elementary earlier.
Of course, one could say that this classroom wasn’t as old, more in line with how they remembered a school to be...
"No, but it is indeed already midnight now..."
Shishido Yui took out her phone to check and found that it was already 4 AM. When they performed the ritual earlier, it was around 7 in the evening, making it about eight or nine hours in total. However, for Shishido Yui, the less than ten hours seemed... something she probably could never forget for the rest of her life.
"Alright, students."
Thinking of this, Shishido Yui clapped her hands, signaling everyone to look at her.
"It’s time to go home... I’ll give everyone a day off tomorrow to rest well."
"But... my brother hasn’t come back yet..."
Yuka was still worried about her brother, and there was nothing the others could do about it.
"We should trust Classmate Haruno. Since he said he’d find him, I’m sure he will. Don’t worry..."
While speaking, Shishido Yui softly comforted Yuka a bit, then looked at Yukina and the others.
"What about you?"
"We..."
Upon hearing Shishido Yui’s inquiry, Yukina and the others looked at each other, somewhat at a loss. To be honest, they wanted to leave this place immediately. On the other hand, they were also worried about Fang Zheng and Sora’s circumstances. If they didn’t see them return with their own eyes, they’d feel uneasy.
But... to wait in this classroom for them to come back, Yukina and the others honestly didn’t have that kind of courage. After all, they learned from Naoko and Seiko that this school was built on the original site of Tenjin Elementary. Staying here, if they accidentally got sent back in, who would save them next time?
However, just as everyone was hesitating, Setsuna silently pulled out her phone.
"There’s a 24-hour fast-food restaurant nearby."
"Let’s go there."
Sora immediately decided. She and Setsuna had worked at fast-food restaurants before, so they were relatively familiar with such places. There aren’t many people in 24-hour fast-food places, so it’s relatively safe and close to the main street. If something were to happen... it’s good to have some backup.
Moreover, after being up all night like this, even if they went back, they certainly wouldn’t be able to sleep and would end up having nightmares. Rather than that, it’s better to stay together, where it’s a bit more reassuring.
"I’m going too!"
Yuka was also worried about her brother, so she didn’t plan to go home and instead wanted to stay up with everyone else.
After making their decision, everyone, led by Shishido Yui, left the classroom. Of course, on the way, they also encountered patrol guards, giving them quite a scare. Fortunately, with the appearance of the guards, everyone finally confirmed that they had indeed returned to the real world and were no longer trapped in some sealed space...
With Shishido Yui’s presence, the group wasn’t questioned much, as the guards just assumed they were responsible for organizing class supplies and only asked a few basic questions before letting them go.
Amid all this, they also discovered that apart from them, others couldn’t remember Morishige Sakutaro at all, as if he never existed in everyone’s memory.
Could it be that people who died in that world would be completely forgotten?
While losing a friend was sad, at least... they returned alive.
At the school gate, everyone nodded and said their goodbyes. Yukina and Setsuna dragged their weary bodies to the nearby fast-food restaurant, while the others were escorted home by Shishido Yui one by one.
Now, all they could do was wait.
But for Fang Zheng, it wasn’t so simple.
If previously he wasn’t too sure about what Kannoyuki meant, after entering here, Fang Zheng immediately understood what Kannoyuki meant by "she’s different from us."
Strictly speaking, the four Tenjin Elementaries were formed by the resentment of four victims. Fang Zheng wasn’t afraid of such spaces and was no stranger to them. Of course, you could say the spaces of the previous Tenjin Elementaries felt like haunted mortuaries or some sort of real ghost houses.
But this place was different.
Visually, from the outside, this place was no different from the other three "Tenjin Elementaries," but in terms of feeling, it was different.
The rotten wood floors creaked underfoot, feeling soft like you were stepping on a heap of piled corpses. The door handles weren’t cold at all, even feeling somewhat warm, like bones freshly extracted from a body, still tinged with blood and slime.
The air was so oppressive it felt like wearing three masks; even opening your mouth, it was hard to breathe.
What made Fang Zheng more wary was a hint of... evil in the air here.
Evil is relative.
Kannoyuki, Yoshizawa Ryo, and Tsujitokiko also killed a lot of people, but they weren’t associated with evil. They were more like beasts lurking in the forest. Encounter prey, they’d rush in to tear and pounce until you were dead.
The reason might be because you invaded their territory or threatened their young, or they wanted to eat. But regardless, these have nothing to do with evil.
So their space’s atmosphere had some danger and maybe some chaos, but it wasn’t necessarily evil.
But here it was different.
Just walking in the corridor, Fang Zheng felt his hair stand on end, an unspeakable "evil" presence tingling his nerves to the max. If not for the appearance, purely from the feeling, in Fang Zheng’s view, this place was no different from the first layer of Hell in the Main World.
This situation was very serious!
Note that this is just a love world... alright, now a little supernatural factor has been added, but even if graded by power levels, calling this a Low-Magic World would be excessive; calling it a World Without Magic seems more appropriate.
But in this world, there actually exists an instance with the same scene as the first layer of Hell in the High Magic World...
It’s just like placing a Star Wars battlefield map in a World War I setting...
How do you play with a Jedi wielding a lightsaber when you only have a musket?
Fang Zheng silently made a comparison. If he wasn’t mistaken, the power the owner of this space possessed should be about three and one-third of Diablo’s strength...
Well, if it were in the Main World, Fang Zheng could easily crush this kind of opponent with a casual effort.
However, in this world, he doesn’t have such good fortune. After all, the only thing Fang Zheng can use right now is the Primordial Fire. Fortunately, the opponent is just a weakened version of Diablo, so using the Primordial Fire directly isn’t completely without a chance of victory.
Thinking of this made Fang Zheng more worried about Sora’s safety.
He had never been to Hell, but there were numerous records about Hell in the White Tower. Those terrifying devils and demons, and the legendary ’Blood War’ are not the most important. The scariest thing is the erosion of the human soul by the hellish aura. Once this erosion reaches a certain level, it’s irrevocable.
Now Fang Zheng can only hope that Sora can still hold on.
Third floor, second floor...
Fang Zheng quickened his pace, checking one room after another. Unlike before, he didn’t encounter any ghost attacks in this space, not a single ghost. Only the occasional appearance of bones and corpses told the story of their past sufferings. But this only made Fang Zheng even more vigilant, as he remembered there was another person who had also come to this space, seemingly named Satoshi Mochida. But now, he couldn’t see any trace of him.
Nor could he find his corpse.
Eventually, Fang Zheng arrived on the first floor.
The infirmary.
"Click...!"
When Fang Zheng reached out his hand to pull open the infirmary door, he found it locked, and at the same time, a trembling voice came from inside.
"Who, who is it?!"
"Sora?"
Hearing this voice, Fang Zheng felt relieved.
"It’s me."
"Brother?!"
Upon hearing Fang Zheng’s voice, the Sora inside immediately shouted joyfully, but the next moment, her voice turned into panic.
"No, no, brother, you can’t come in!"
"What’s wrong?"
Hearing Sora’s words, Fang Zheng frowned.
"Hurry and open the door, we need to leave here quickly, it’s very dangerous here..."
"No, no, brother, you can’t come in!"
However, to Fang Zheng’s surprise, no matter what he said, Sora refused to open the infirmary door, much less let him in.
"I’m coming in!"
Seeing that persuasion was ineffective, Fang Zheng started to get worried. Could something have happened to Sora? Or was she injured earlier? Disfigured? He heard from Shizaki Sachiko that the three of them were tortured to death by her, and Shizaki Sachiko even lost an eye.
Could she have done the same to Sora?
If she really dared to do that, Fang Zheng promised to beat the crap out of that little girl!
"I’m opening the door!"
Fang Zheng roared again, grabbed the door, and with a "crack" sound, he forcibly broke it open. Then he tossed the door panel aside and took large strides inside.
"Nooo—!!"
Apparently, Sora didn’t expect Fang Zheng would just barge in, and she screamed in fright, but unfortunately, it was too late.
Even though Sora desperately wrapped herself in a sheet, Fang Zheng still saw the tail and horns sticking out from it...
And then Fang Zheng was dumbfounded.
"Uh... brother... don’t look at me..."
Sora desperately reached out, trying to cover the horns on her head, but it was no use. The horns on her head weren’t as long as antlers, but they weren’t short either; they were long and sharp. Even if she spread her hand open, it was impossible to cover them.
"..."
Seeing this, Fang Zheng was dumbfounded.
He hadn’t figured that Sora had a problem, but he never expected her to have this kind of problem.
Half-Dragon Transformation!
Actually, in the Main World, Half-Dragon Transformation is not considered particularly rare. Among the spellcasters, there is a group known as Dragon Vein Sorcerers, whose blood naturally contains Dragon Blood, allowing them to naturally use certain "special abilities." When they have mastered the magic power within their blood well enough, they can actively activate the part of their bloodline belonging to dragons, resulting in a Half-Dragon Transformation.
They can gain dragon scales, dragon physical qualities, dragon strength, and even grow tails, horns, and wings... Of course, these are usually not ordinary humans, but rather Half-Dragons.
But what Fang Zheng didn’t expect was that Sora could also undergo a Half-Dragon Transformation.
Upon thinking more carefully, Fang Zheng quickly realized the crux of the issue—it was himself.
Yes, Fang Zheng had directly projected his soul here, but the problem was that he and Sora were twins in this world. Therefore, Sora’s soul was unintentionally influenced by him. Fang Zheng is a deity, a Time Dragon, and the Swarm Overlord; in any of these identities, the influence of his soul is incredibly strong. In comparison, Sora’s soul was merely mortal, and with their blood connection, avoiding being "infected" was as difficult as defying the heavens.
But...
Looking at the sobbing Sora, Fang Zheng scratched his head.
In this situation, what should he do?
Thinking this over, Fang Zheng pondered for a moment and then sat down next to Sora.
"Don’t worry, Sora, this isn’t your fault. In fact, it’s my mistake..."
"Brother?"
Hearing Fang Zheng’s words, Sora curiously peeked her head out to look at him, and Fang Zheng looked at her, then spoke.
"In fact, I’ve always kept this from you. Actually... I’m not from this world..."

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