OREGAIRU : Hikigaya Hachiman's Exorcism Story

"Ha..."

Watching the tips of her shoes stop, Hikigaya Hachiman sighed in relief.

At that moment, he and Yotsuya Miko were hiding behind the sliding classroom door. If Iroha Isshiki poked her head inside, she would see the two of them leaning together.

"Forget it, I'll just go..."

After saying that, Hikigaya saw the tips of Iroha Isshiki's shoes pull back.

"That scared me to death."

"Click..."

But just as Hikigaya started to relax, the classroom door behind him suddenly slammed shut.

Hearing the sound of the door being locked, Hikigaya froze.

No way, how could the door be locked from the outside?

Could that person have a master key?

With this thought, Hikigaya quickly scrambled to his feet and rushed to the classroom door, grabbing the handle and trying to pull it open.

But after several attempts, the door remained completely still.

It was definitely locked.

"Why does this kind of thing keep happening?"

Kneeling in front of the door, Hikigaya couldn't help but question his life choices.

"Here, take this."

At that moment, Yotsuya Miko, who had been quietly sitting on the floor, suddenly walked over and pulled something from her pocket, handing it to Hikigaya Hachiman.

"What's this?"

Hikigaya took the key from Yotsuya Miko, examining it while looking up to ask her.

"A master key..."

After saying that, Yotsuya Miko lowered her head in embarrassment.

Hikigaya: ..... 

Is everyone at this school walking around with a master key except me?

Looking at the key in his hand, Hikigaya couldn't help but feel doubtful about life.

"Because I can see evil spirits, they often get attached to me. To make it easier to escape at night when I'm at school, I specifically made a backup key..."

Before Hikigaya could say anything, Yotsuya Miko explained on her own.

"Okay..."

Without asking why Yotsuya Miko needed to escape from something at school in the middle of the night, Hikigaya inserted the key into the lock and easily opened the door, stepping outside.

The familiar hallway, the familiar sunset...

Even though Hikigaya had seen these things countless times, this time he swore he saw them with tears of gratitude in his eyes.

Then...

Who closed the door?!

After calming down, Hikigaya guessed that the person who did this must have noticed that he and Yotsuya Miko had hidden in the classroom.

After all, the footprints on the dust at the classroom door were too obvious—anyone would see them unless they were blind.

So, the person who knew there were people inside the classroom but still locked the door was really going too far!

"Ugh..."

Just as Hikigaya was looking around, trying to figure out who played the prank, Yotsuya Miko suddenly clutched her chest in pain, letting out a miserable cry.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Hearing Yotsuya Miko's painful sound, Hikigaya rushed back to her.

"I'm fine..."

Lying on the classroom floor, Yotsuya Miko weakly opened her eyes and looked at Hikigaya. A faint smile appeared on her pale face. "It's just that it's coming..."

"It?" 

"Yeah, I ran into it last week on the street. After it found out I could see it, it started following me, and it even left a mark on me."

Saying that, Yotsuya Miko rolled up her sleeve to show Hikigaya the mark the evil spirit left on her arm.

"But it's daytime now!"

Looking at Yotsuya Miko's pained expression, Hikigaya spoke in a low voice.

The sun is the evil spirit's worst enemy.

No matter how powerful the evil spirit is, it can't hurt anyone when the sun is up. This is an unbreakable rule the system told him!

"But the sun is about to set."

Yotsuya Miko gave a miserable smile.

Hikigaya looked up and saw the sun was already mostly below the horizon.

Is it already this late?

Thinking of this, Hikigaya pulled out his phone to check the time. When he saw the number on the screen, his pupils shrank slightly.

The passage of time felt off!

From the moment he was caught by Hiratsuka Shizuka in the activity room to meeting Yotsuya Miko, everything that happened should have taken no more than half an hour.

Yet the phone showed it was already past six in the afternoon.

It had been more than ninety minutes since school ended!

"There's something wrong..."

Hikigaya's mind sharpened. He glanced at Yotsuya Miko on the floor, not caring about much else, and immediately bent down to pick her up and run toward the playground.

As he stepped out of the classroom, the area around him suddenly became eerily quiet.

The narrow hallway stretched infinitely in front of him, then began to twist.

Chilling laughter echoed throughout the campus.

Hikigaya carried Yotsuya Miko and reached the window, looking out at the playground.

As expected, the playground, which had been filled with various club members earlier, was now empty.

At that moment, the last ray of sunlight disappeared as the sun completely sank below the horizon.

The sky above the entire campus gradually darkened with heavy clouds.

Looking further away, the buildings outside the school wall started to twist and were soon covered by a layer of mist.

"Ding! Advanced evil spirit detected, automatically generating high-level dungeon -- Sobu High School."

"Well, that's quite an appropriate name for a dungeon..." 

Hikigaya complained about the system being lazy by using the school name as the dungeon's name, while he began to inspect the changed appearance of the school.

The bright, clean buildings now looked eerie and terrifying, with the only source of light being the blood-red moon in the sky.

"This definitely doesn't look like a dungeon I can handle..."

After some analysis, Hikigaya reached a final decision.

From what he could tell about this dungeon, that advanced evil spirit could easily kill him.

"Sorry, I got you involved in this..."

Hearing Hikigaya's words, Yotsuya Miko, who was leaning in his arms, looked at him with an apologetic expression.

After seeing Hikigaya easily deal with the lower-level evil spirit, she had thought his strength was enough to handle the evil spirit bothering her.

But now, she realized Hikigaya wasn't that strong...

"I'm really sorry for being so weak..."

Seeing the look on Yotsuya Miko's face, Hikigaya spoke her thoughts aloud.

"Sorry..."

Once Hikigaya said what she was thinking, Yotsuya Miko immediately lowered her head and repeatedly apologized to him.

She just wanted to survive.

"It's okay, you can't be blamed for this."

Hikigaya Hachiman shook his head at Yotsuya Miko in his arms. This wasn't something she could control.

Whether or not they were pulled into this space wasn't up to her, and it seemed that as soon as Yotsuya Miko met him, that advanced evil spirit had already set its sights on him.

After all, people with spiritual power are much more tempting than regular humans...

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