3 Years Later

[3 years later]

"Hey! Search in that house!"

The sound of several people's footsteps and the juggling of their equipment and weapons rang inside my ears. I could guess who they were just by their sound. After all, they were always flocking around my relatives whenever they would visit my parents, though those times would never come again.

"That demon was just here! We are telling the truth! We really saw that ominous white hair!"

A couple, dressed in the most absurd fashion one can think of, was yelling at the top of their lungs, and the heavily equipped people were shaking their heads in denial. And among them, there was one familiar face, a face everyone in this city knew.

But white hair? Oh, my hair turned during the incident. Well, not like I missed the black.

"We are sorry."

"You useless bunch! Who made you a chaser?! Do you even know what will happen to you lot if something happens to me?!" the girl lashed out at the chasers in fuming rage.

"..."

The chasers were silent. They knew danger was upon them the moment the girl's temper reached the limit.

"B-But Young lady Jane, we cannot just summon him out of nowhere. And please don't worry about your safety. As long as we are here, that demon cannot even touch."

This girl was annoying.

"Find him no matter what!"

Maybe it was better to kill her...

I glanced at my hands and remembered the feeling of tearing the flesh of living beings and the sensation of buckets of hot blood on my skin. I was already a murderer, no, a mass murderer.

Anyway, why was she so inclined to find me? What did I do to her?

'Oi Lan. Any ideas?'

<Hmm... nothing comes to my mind.>

Well, I expected it.

Lan and I had been on good terms since that incident, but still, it felt like a wall was between us. We could talk to each other just fine, he would still crack occasional jokes, but I could not feel anything coming from inside to respond to Lan's words and expressions, just fake smiles, because I knew that he was doing all this to cheer me up. but I just could not reciprocate his incessant tries.

"That guy..." the girl quietly muttered.

"Y-Young lady...?"

This girl was acting weird.

I shifted my eyes to the guy standing beside her. He was deeply sighing with his hand covering his forehead. I guess what was about to unfold was a habit of that girl, and the guy is tired of seeing that.

<Hm? Oi Ken, the girl...>

I moved my eyes over to the girl.

"I want him... I want him I want him I want him I want him I want-"

... What?

The tone of the girl completely made a 180. Her angry vibe changed into that of someone obsessed with someone.

No matter how far I ran away, I couldn't run forever and there will be a day when I would be captured. I didn't want to wind up in this girl's hands.

To ensure my safety, I must kill this girl.

"Ahem!"

Seems like she regained her composure, but that's not going to stop me from killing her.

"Sorry I lost my composure there."

She posed like royalty in front of a parade.

"Anyway, find the demon."

She said her part and left the scene while the chasers continued their search.

I was about to pounce on her but a chaser rushed after her and joined her. She was guarding her.

I guess it's her lucky day. I didn't chase after her. There would be plenty of opportunities in the future, I am sure.

I stood from my sitting position on the top of one of the abandoned buildings and jumped from rooftop to rooftop.

The power I had now was something that I could not have dreamt about. It was exhilarating. I felt like I was going through transcendence when the power suddenly burst inside me in front of everyone.

'Rage...'

I had torn the flesh of the girls who defiled me with their lecherous approaches, I had gouged the eyes of the teachers who always turned a blind eye to my situation, I had detached the limbs of the ones who took advantage of my weakness and beat me to half-death every single day and bathed from the gushing blood from their torn limbs, and I had crushed and curled and twisted and pieced the tongues of those who belittled and threw their words at me like I was no more than a speck of dust.

I had completely immersed myself in madness. It was nirvana for me, and by the time I came to, it was already over. The largest and insanely prestigious school in the whole continent now had over 120 people brutally slaughtered and will stay in its history like an unrecoverable scar.

I didn't know how I pulled that power from within me. I could not remember anything, not even my appearance when I went berserk. All I was left with was the pleasure and a particular message from the system which was still in the corner of my vision.

{Kills needed for Ascension- 400/1000}

I was also able to learn a lot of things about the system. Rage—a phenomenon that makes me go berserk. It only happened when my emotions run amok. First, Philip and his group, when the girls were about to have a taste of my body, my emotions went wild, and "Rage" got activated, which resulted in me killing them (their bodies were found after the incident behind the school). And then, the incident itself... I didn't know if Rage came into play only when emotions are involved but till now, that seemed like the case.

And maybe after this Ascension, I would start receiving EXP. Yes, I was not given any EXP when I massacred the students. I could only hope to receive EXP after Ascension.

...

Well, I thought that it wouldn't bother me, but it was bothering me. I won't be experiencing high school life... but a try doesn't hurt, does it?

And I also needed an alibi to hide my identity as the Demon.

***

Things were hectic in the Chaser Association. Everyone was throwing everything they had and smacking their brains to figure out the position of a single man, no, a kid who shook the whole of Central. The Central School of Magic and Combat was the most prestigious of all on the First Floor. Children of many renowned figures and personalities went to that school because of its absurdly high production of capable mages and combatants, making them ready for being Chasers or Hunters.

But now, that overly prestigious school had something in their history that was never recorded to this date- a scar- all by the hands of a single kid.

His appearance and face were unknown to all and those who escaped from his clutches were traumatized beyond help, so they weren't too much of a help. But it was not like they were of no help, they offered a bit of information, just a bit.

A demon in the guise of a human, the advent of destruction, the white devil- these were the description the surviving students and teachers gave about the demon.

Knock knock!

A man knocked at the door of an official, seemingly high ranking.

"Come in." A hoarse voice called out to the knocking man.

The man entered swiftly and thumped a pile of paper in front of the other, who was sitting with his hand on his forehead.

"All of them?" The man sitting asked.

"Yes, all related to the 'Demon', chief."

"Haa..." The chief let out a deep sigh and slumped his head down in deep thinking.

"What are you going to do now, chief?"

The chief looked up to face the man in front of him.

"Fuu... lower the concentration of patrols. Our association is at its limit. We need to take a break from this matter. "

"And leave the citizens in the terror of the Demon?!"

"Calm down, Alvin. I am not saying we should completely withdraw from this case. We will just make a tactical retreat. That's the best possible route for now. And there is the case of Levithan Guild too. They are going to challenge the Ninth Floor again and are saying they clear it this time."

Alvin was silent.

"Anyway, we have another matter to take care of."

The chief threw some documents in front of Alvin. He picked them up and stared at the photo stuck to the upper corner of the document for a long while.

"... what are your thoughts, chief?"

"The boy says that he was cursed while he was accompanying his parents during their hunt on the Fifth Floor. They died, but he didn't and now he can't take off the mask because of the curse."

"That might be a bluff."

"Then only by that white hair, we cannot conclude that he is the demon."

"But we never publicly announced the demon's appearance."

"In which era are you living? This is the advanced era. Do you think the government can hold every single piece of information to themselves? Add the existence of the Tower, it is even more clear. Also, we checked if what he was saying was true or not, and he indeed cursed." The chief gave a sharp look.

Alvin's expression shrunk due to embarrassment.

"... so what are you going to do now, chief? Are you going to let him in?"

"We gotta if we want to find his true identity. You know what to do, right?"

"...got it, chief."

Alvin trotted out of the room and left the chief alone in silence.

The chief got up and stared out of his window at the city beneath him.

"... Demon huh..."

***