Dimensional Codex System: I'm really not a cultist!

The death of Yangg Shenyai was naturally a massive blow to the Funeral Society.

All this time, Yangg Shenyai had been the unquestioned spiritual leader of the Funeral Society; it was precisely because of his presence that these people could unite. But now, with Yangg Shenyai getting his head blown off by a single shot from Fang Zheng—dead as dead can be—the Funeral Society began to fall into turmoil.

Of course, none of this was something Fang Zheng or Sakuramitsu Shinmei cared about, and what annoyed Sakuramitsu Shinmei the most was......

”Why is he running off to that container again?!”

Seeing Sakuramitsu Shuu on the screen go and talk to Inori Yuzuriha yet again, Sakuramitsu Shinmei shouted, hating that iron could not become steel.

”That’s perfectly normal.”

Hearing Sakuramitsu Shinmei’s complaint, Fang Zheng, who was still refining the operation plan, lifted his head, glanced at the screen, then withdrew his gaze.

”Some men are just like that, they love being simps. And now that Yangg Shenyai’s already dead......”

”He clearly saw that container together with Treton, and he still does this kind of thing?”

Sakuramitsu Shinmei just couldn’t wrap her head around it, while Fang Zheng shrugged.

”That’s how simps are. Don’t say just seeing them spend the night together—even if he sees Inori Yuzuriha with a big belly, pregnant with someone else’s kid, he might still end up choosing to accept her in the end.”

”.........Is he insane?”

At this, Sakuramitsu Shinmei was dumbfounded, completely unable to comprehend.

”On a certain level? Yeah.”

”......As I thought, we still have to kill that container......”

”And then you’ll have created for yourself an opponent you can never defeat.”

”Huh?”

Faced with Fang Zheng’s reply, Sakuramitsu Shinmei froze for a moment.

”What do you mean by that?”

”It’s simple: you can never beat the dead. If you want me to kill Inori Yuzuriha, that’s easy—same as Yangg Shenyai, one bullet and the problem’s solved. But what happens after that? Your brother’s not just going to forget about her. He’ll always remember the time he spent with her, and he might even subconsciously idealize it. As for you......how are you going to ’correct’ him? Inori Yuzuriha’s already dead, what are you gonna do, drag a corpse out just to flog it?”

”Uu......then what do you say we should do?!”

Right now Sakuramitsu Shinmei was practically like a little girl, starting to throw a tantrum. Just as Fang Zheng had observed, Sakuramitsu Shinmei was essentially a pampered Young Lady, and although she was the host of the Apocalypse Virus and her mind could be considered mature, the problem was that when she first exploded she had only been a teenage girl. Her thoughts were hardly that mature.

And all these years she’d been asleep the whole time, so you could say......she hadn’t grown at all.

”Don’t worry. If the canary won’t sing, I’ll just find a way to make it sing.”

As he spoke, Fang Zheng picked up his phone again.

It was time for the kind and enthusiastic Chaoyang Masses to make another appearance.

Meanwhile, Sakuramitsu Shuu was standing outside Inori Yuzuriha’s room, staring anxiously and blankly at the tightly closed door.

Ever since Yangg Shenyai died, Inori Yuzuriha had seemed like a different person altogether. She drifted around in a daze, shut herself in her room, and barely spoke to anyone. Not only that, the atmosphere inside the Funeral Society had changed a lot as well, making everyone uneasy.

”Miss Inori, um......I wanted to talk to you a bit......”

Sakuramitsu Shuu knocked on the door and said softly, but there was no response from inside. This left him feeling extremely frustrated, and just as he was trying to think of something else to say to comfort Inori Yuzuriha, suddenly a piercing alarm went off. Immediately after, the tightly closed door flew open and Inori Yuzuriha burst out of the room, not even sparing Sakuramitsu Shuu a glance as she ran toward the depths of the corridor.

”Ah, wait up!”

Watching Inori Yuzuriha’s figure dart away, Sakuramitsu Shuu stared for a second, then hurriedly ran after her.

By the time they reached the command center, the place was already packed with people.

”What’s going on? What happened?!”

The shrill alarm had everyone on edge, but soon, the news they received next left them all utterly stunned.

”Our position’s been exposed. GHQ’s special response unit, ’Antibodies,’ is advancing toward our location!”

”What?!”

Everyone was shocked speechless at this.

What followed for the Funeral Society was basically a nightmare unfolding in real time.

Having lost their leader Yangg Shenyai, they couldn’t even mount any meaningful resistance. Under the encirclement and suppression of the ’Antibodies’ unit, many members of the Funeral Society were shot dead on the spot; only a tiny handful narrowly escaped with their lives. By the time they’d shaken off GHQ’s pursuit and regrouped, the Funeral Society’s members were down to barely a tenth of what they had been.

”Damn it, what the hell happened?!”

A burly man smashed his fist into the wall in rage, his brows tightly knitted.

”Why did it turn out like this?”

”.........,”

The others mostly kept silent as well. Losing Yangg Shenyai had already been a huge blow to them, and now GHQ had even gone and wiped out their base......

Yet at this moment, a member of the Funeral Society suddenly rushed up to Sakuramitsu Shuu, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him up.

”It was you, you ratted us out, didn’t you!!”

”What are you talking about?!”

Sakuramitsu Shuu was also completely dumbfounded, struggling desperately.

”H–how could I possibly do something like that?!”

”Who else could it be but you! Back then with the leader too, you were clearly right by his side, why didn’t you protect him? And this time GHQ suddenly raided us—if it wasn’t you, who else would’ve ratted us out? It’s you, it’s you! You’re the one who got our brothers killed! You bastard!!”

”I—I didn’t...!”

Sakuramitsu Shuu struggled desperately, trying to break free from the other man’s grip. He looked around, hoping someone would come help him. But what chilled him to the core was that no one stepped forward to help; instead, many of the gazes fixed on him were now tinged with suspicion———which was perfectly normal, actually, because the only new recruit in the Funeral Society recently was him, and it was only after he joined that so many things started going wrong!

To say no one suspected him at all would be impossible!

But from Sakuramitsu Shuu’s point of view, this was utterly hopeless.

”It really wasn’t me, aaaaaah!”

Shouting as he spoke, Sakuramitsu Shuu thrust out his hand, plunged it into the chest of the man in front of him, and pulled out his Void. Once the Void was extracted, the man immediately lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground. Seeing this, the others hastily raised their guns and aimed them at Sakuramitsu Shuu.

”Enough, cut it out.”

At this moment, the Funeral Society’s strategist, Quadrant, hurriedly stepped forward.

”Suspecting our comrades won’t help us at all right now, it’ll only divide us further. Yangg Shenyai is already dead. We have to do something to escape GHQ’s pursuit. Everyone, lower your weapons. Sakuramitsu Shuu, put the Void away too!”

”.........”

Hearing Quadrant’s words, Sakuramitsu Shuu finally lowered his hand slowly.

But right now, his heart was completely frozen over.

The next day, Sakuramitsu Shuu returned to school again, and with him were several girls from the Funeral Society. Just like Inori Yuzuriha, they had transferred into Uranus State First High School as new students......

”Honestly, I really can’t figure out what kind of brain circuit this is supposed to be.”

Watching the group walk into the school from outside the window, Fang Zheng shook his head. He’d always thought this kind of thing in anime was an especially dumbass setup: the protagonist is being hunted down, and then still goes back to school and attends class like nothing’s wrong. This kind of scene had shown up not just once or twice or three or four times, to the point that Fang Zheng couldn’t help wondering whether it was the protagonist’s IQ problem or the writer’s IQ problem......

Or maybe both?

While Fang Zheng was lamenting how incurably stupid this plot was, Sakuramitsu Shuu, who had just walked into the school, was also shrouded in darkness inside. Even though a few members of the Funeral Society had come to school with him, Sakuramitsu Shuu knew they weren’t here to protect him. Or rather, while on the surface they were here to protect him, in reality they were only here to keep an eye on him.

Why? Why did things turn out like this?!

Looking at Inori Yuzuriha walking a short distance ahead, as calm and indifferent as if they were strangers, Sakuramitsu Shuu felt like crying but had no tears. He had already made up his mind: if Inori Yuzuriha was willing to support him, he would inherit Yangg Shenyai’s will and fight hard for the Funeral Society. But now, he was actually being suspected of being a mole?

I’m not a mole at all! Why won’t any of you believe me!!

Sakuramitsu Shuu felt endlessly wronged, especially when he sensed the glare coming from Sakomiyu Ayase; his resentment surged even higher. This girl in a wheelchair was one of the people in the Funeral Society who respected Yangg Shenyai the most. After Sakuramitsu Shuu joined, she had been the one in charge of teaching him. Originally, he’d trusted her quite a lot, but now......even she doesn’t believe me?!

What the hell am I supposed to do...!

Because of this, Sakuramitsu Shuu was in a foul mood the entire day, sitting in class with a dark face. Maybe because they could feel the low pressure radiating off him, no one came over to talk to him. But not everyone acted like that. For example, Kyojo Matsuri—as Sakuramitsu Shuu’s classmate and friend, she was naturally very worried about his mental state.

So, when the bell rang for lunch break, Kyojo Matsuri went to find Sakuramitsu Shuu and nervously asked him:

”Um......Shuu? Did something happen? You don’t seem to be in a very good mood......”

”Kyojo.......”

Looking at Kyojo Matsuri standing before him, a glimmer of light appeared in Sakuramitsu Shuu’s previously dull eyes. It was like a drowning man seeing a lifeline. That’s right, he still had Kyojo! She was different from Inori Yuzuriha and Ayase, not a member of the Funeral Society, had no connection to Yangg Shenyai, just an ordinary person. If it was her, she would definitely believe him!

Thinking this, Sakuramitsu Shuu’s eyes brightened again.

”Kyojo, actually......”

However, just as Sakuramitsu Shuu was about to tell Kyojo Matsuri something, suddenly a voice came from not far away.

”Kyojo.”

”Ah, Sensei, what is it?”

Hearing the voice, Kyojo Matsuri turned around and saw Fang Zheng standing a short distance away, looking at her.

”Have you seen Kusama?”

”Kanae?”

”That’s right. I need something from her. Could you ask her to come to the infirmary? Just tell her I have a topic about disease prevention to notify her about.”

”Ah, yes!”

Kyojo Matsuri was, after all, a good kid. Since a teacher had asked her to help, of course she would listen. She nodded, then turned to leave, but before she went, she still glanced back at Sakuramitsu Shuu.

”Shuu, I’ll come back later and then......”

”No need!”

What Kyojo Matsuri didn’t expect was that Sakuramitsu Shuu coldly refused her, then turned around and left. This stunned her for a moment. She wanted to chase after him, but in the end, deciding that relaying the teacher’s message was more important, Kyojo Matsuri hurried back toward her own class. In her view, she could always go find Sakuramitsu Shuu to talk after she finished this errand.

But for Sakuramitsu Shuu, it wasn’t like that at all.

”Damn it......damn it...!”

Clenching his fists, Sakuramitsu Shuu’s face was full of anger. He had been counting on Kyojo Matsuri to understand him, but in the end......everyone was the same. In Kyojo Matsuri’s eyes, was a teacher’s message more important than him? Everyone was like this! None of them put me in their eyes, none of them! Every single one of them is the same!

And just as Sakuramitsu Shuu was seething with rage, a voice both familiar and unfamiliar suddenly rang out.

”Shuu......”

”This voice is...!?”

Hearing it, Sakuramitsu Shuu looked up in surprise, staring ahead—and there, he saw a girl standing, smiling as she opened her arms to him.

Looking at the girl’s gentle smile, Sakuramitsu Shuu seemed to fall under a spell, slowly walking toward her.