It was like being targeted by a hunter. If the frequency of your breathing changed even slightly, the hunter would rush over and bite your throat.

If this is a means of silencing people, then this posture is too scary.

"Really... By the way, did I introduce you? This is Hachishaku." The young man seemed unaware that Hachishaku beside him was secretly threatening Natsume. He turned his head and met Hachishaku's brilliant and as devoted smile as ever.

This smile seemed a little weird to Natsume.

"Nice to meet you...human child, hehe." Hachisha rubbed Kuen's cheek as if to declare sovereignty.

Without waiting for Natsume to speak, Hachisha kept pestering Kuen: "You haven't told me what to do with that person yet..."

(She stopped me from telling Huang Quanchuan about his abnormality... In other words, the direction in which the abnormality occurred in the other party was in her favor. Once Huang Quanchuan knew the truth, it would damage Hachisha's wish!)

(——Could it be that the Hachishaku-sama in front of me is one of the murderers who caused Yomigawa-san to be possessed by a monster?)

All possibilities quickly ran through Natsume's mind. He had seen quite a few monsters, some good and some bad. He naturally would not deliberately assume malice towards the other party, but Hachisha's reaction made it difficult for him not to think so.

(But, what exactly is the monster that possessed Huangquanchuan?)

Kuen looked at Yasha thoughtfully, "Do you want to get an answer from me? I thought you would choose to use your own method."

"This time is different." Bashi acted even more clingy than usual.

"Really?" Jiuyuan said, "Just do whatever you like. I don't have any other ideas."

"...Hehe." Yasha nodded with a smile, then stepped back. Before turning around, he looked at Natsume again.

Still a warning.

Madara, who had seen everything, exhaled through his nose, as if he regarded Yashi's warning as a provocation. He bared his fangs and watched Yashi walk up to him, grab the curser's arm, and said, "Leave him to me."

He held the curser tightly under his claws without relaxing for a moment. Seeing that Madara did not accept his opinion, Hachisha tilted his head and said, "I want to take him away."

"……what ever."

Natsume probably wanted to tell the young man some truth. Since Hachisha was leaving here, he could just let her deal with this unlucky guy. This would give them some time to come over.

With his giant claws, he swung the unconscious curser's arm upwards, and his body was thrown into the air like a sack. Bashi roughly dragged the corpse-like thing on the ground, and walked one step, two steps, into the depths of the forest.

Natsume immediately turned to look at Hisaen, and saw that the young man also frowned, as if he had discovered something.

Natsume thought: Huangquanchuan classmate must have noticed something, right? Otherwise, why would he ask me this question?

"...Sure enough, it's very strange." Hisayumu's smile was a little tired, he rubbed his forehead, "Sorry, Natsume-san, I've been feeling a little tired lately, and I don't have anyone to talk to about this. I, maybe I'm too suspicious..."

He was talking incoherently, and it was obvious that something was wrong. Natsume was about to ask him directly, "Do you know that there seems to be a monster in your body?", but the boy spoke up, "Hachisho's attitude just now was very strange. I don't know if I'm too sensitive. It seemed that he was not looking at me at all, but was looking at someone else through me."

"I've had this feeling before sometimes... but never as explicit as this, to the point where I feel uncomfortable."

After saying this, the boy fell silent again, as if he was trying to find more doubts in his memory and list them.

Natsume could see that although Yomikawa was still trying hard to maintain a smile, he had already sensed something was going on.

Natsume asked indirectly, "Is this related to the question you asked me just now, 'Do you feel like someone else sometimes?' Mr. Yomiukawa, you sometimes feel this way, right?"

"Yeah. It actually happened once before, but I didn't understand what it meant at the time... I just said something very ordinary, but when I came to my senses, everyone was looking at me and someone asked me: 'Do you remember what you just said?'"

The boy smiled bitterly: "I didn't realize it at the time."

"But just now, it should have been a critical moment of high concentration. Why do I feel that there is something wrong with my memory? It's as if some plots were suddenly cut off and went straight to the next scene——"

Natsume thought of the boy's unnatural state change when they avoided danger just now.

"To use a metaphor: it's like someone cut a small section of a tape from the middle and then put it back together with tape. On the surface, it seems that there is no problem, but once the tape is played, the deleted part will become extremely obvious, and the two syllables will become disconnected."

"But...what was the deleted part? I could only vaguely see a little bit, but it seemed to be separated by mist, as if it was another 'me', a completely different 'me'..."

The more he spoke, the more tired he felt, and then he sighed.

After thinking about it, Natsume asked tentatively: "Student Huangquanchuan, have you ever thought about a possibility..."

"For example... your body may be under the influence of some monster." He said it very tactfully, but soon he felt that this was too tactful and the direction was not obvious at all, so he changed the topic and said, "I have seen people who were possessed by monsters and ghosts. Some of them would be like what you said, suddenly becoming unlike themselves, or doing things that they had no memory of."

Unexpectedly, the young man smiled and said, "I don't think so. If an external soul or consciousness is in my body, Basha and the others should be able to detect it. Moreover, I have a safety device on me--"

At this point, the boy stopped talking abruptly.

There seemed to be a mixture of emotions in his blue eyes, and soon his smile turned bright again.

But amidst the cheerfulness, there seemed to be some gloom.

"...I understand, Natsume-san, thank you for reminding me."

Natsume quickly realized that the other party might have found some answers.

"Are you okay?"

"It's okay. I just...seem to understand something."

Just at this time, Hachisha came back.

His appearance was at perfect timing, the hem of the white dress was stained with blood, and no one asked him what he had done.

When Hachisha saw that Kuen and Natsume were still together, a very obvious displeasure flashed across his face. His straightforward reaction made Ban Yang raise his head and stare at him, but at this time, Hachisha's eyes were only on Kuen.

There was no trace of blood on his clean white hands. He took small steps forward, approached Jiuyuan like a happy girl, and laughed.

"Give the insolent fellow a little punishment...send him to his companions and let them fight each other."

Hachisha's behavior was like that of someone who had performed an interesting prank and was excitedly sharing it with important people, but was expecting praise and compliments.

His attitude is too confusing - Natsume thought, and then he looked at Kuen worriedly.

The latter still kept smiling and asked softly, "Really?"

Hachishaku said nothing. Just as he was about to go forward and put his arms around Jiuyuan's neck, intending to kiss him like before, Jiuyuan said, "Hachishaku."

"Are you hiding something from me?"

The pair of white arms stayed in mid-air, swaying and about to fall, like two pieces of wood.

Basha withdrew his hand angrily, then held his cheeks with both hands, looking a little anxious - his fingers kept tapping his cheeks, as if he was using his face as a keyboard.

"How could that be... How could you say such hurtful words..."

Jiuyuan: "Really? Tell me honestly - is it true?"

"That's too much. I'm clearly deeply in love... in love... Even you, even the container, can't doubt me..."

(container?)

Natsume was stunned when he heard the word, and then realized that his guess might be correct.

(Hachisha must know the monster possessing Kuen!)

Hachishaku's nervous movements stopped like a downpour.

His eyes rolled around, and he made inconsistent inhalation sounds, and occasionally let out a few weak laughs.

Afterwards, he looked at Natsume beside him, and then at Madara who was silent but protective behind him.

"Ah...did you say something weird?"

Madara stood up instantly, waving his huge claws and raising dust. Half of his body blocked Natsume, completely separating Natsume and Yasakaki. His protective posture was self-evident.

However, Hachisha was immersed in a deeper madness. His teeth were grinding and his shoulders were shaking.

“No…No…”

Kuen also stood among them and said to Hachishaku, "This has nothing to do with Natsume-san. It's just my own guess."

Hachisha stopped moving and stared at Kuen blankly.

Jiuyuan called the system in his heart: "System, hurry up, give me another tube of demon power amplification agent."

The system immediately understood that something was going to happen again, and quickly added a buff to him, then moved a small stool to start eating melons.

The young man's heart sank, and the demonic power around him suddenly began to stir. It was still that red mixed with black, and it was extremely difficult to control.

However, Hachisha's expression became somewhat intoxicated, and he just listened to Hisaen continue to ask questions.

"Is the relationship between your master and I really just a container?"

"Are you hiding something from me?"

"I've been finding this strange for a long time. You all clearly have bodies that can descend into the human world, so why doesn't he have one? Don't use that theory to fool me. Even if he doesn't have one, that guy should be able to use his demonic power to condense a body, right?..."

"Unless, he has already lost all his 'entity'."

"So I'm not the 'vessel' at all, but his actual 'body', correct?"

"If this body itself is his, then... who am I?"

[System: Ding——The main storyline of Hachishaku-sama has been completed. ]

Jiuyuan, who had just finished speaking his lines, was a little confused.

The main plot of Hachishaku-sama seems to be finding the best toys for his beloved children.

Jiuyuan: "...He is very satisfied with this script?"

[System: The main storyline has been completed, you should be very satisfied, right? ]

Jiuyuan suddenly realized that the beloved child of Hachishaku was the one who wrote random scripts every day. The real Jiuyuan had given Hachishaku so many scripts, but none of them were to his taste.

I didn't expect that this kind of melodrama would be exactly what he likes.

Kuen: It turns out that Hachishaku-sama likes such an old-fashioned stand-in plot...

...Wait, if I had known earlier that he should have gone to the bookstore and bought some substitute literature, would he have been able to complete the main storyline?