Two days after his confrontation with the corrupted spirit, Cyrus sat in the comfort of his room, scribbling words into his notebook. Since the encounter, he had resolved to be consistent in documenting his experiences with corrupted spirits. He believed that recording these encounters would help him in future battles.
The boy's room was rather bare, containing only a bed, a chair, and a desk positioned next to the bed. A single poster hung on the wall above the desk, depicting a silver-haired samurai with a wooden sword.
In the lonely room, Cyrus was writing down a few words. They read:
"Defeating the corrupted tentacle spirit wasn't all that difficult, aside from having to hunt it down for days before the confrontation. But the most annoying part? I threw my wooden sword like an idiot. In the heat of battle, I forgot how much that sword once meant to me."
In fact, that wooden sword meant a great deal to Cyrus. It was the only weapon that could withstand his unimaginable strength. Despite his appearance, Cyrus was far beyond the capabilities of ordinary humans—he could probably destroy even the most resilient weapons with his strength alone. Yet, the reason why the wooden sword could endure his power remained a mystery. All he knew was that the sword had once belonged to his mother.
"It took me hours to find the wooden sword on the train tracks. I'm surprised it didn't break when the train ran over it, but it's not an ordinary wooden sword, after all…"
As the ink in his pen ran out, Cyrus switched to another. The next words he wrote were:
"Well, it's not really important. The fact is, I got the sword back intact. I have more important matters to focus on. I need to do some research on my laptop, so that's it for today."
After finishing his writing, he put his pen and notebook in the drawer, then grabbed the laptop from under the desk and opened it. He was about to dive into a bit of research that would occupy him for the next three hours.
"Let's see what paranormal activity is happening in the city right now…"
Cyrus was searching for any strange phenomena or unusual events happening across the city, hoping to track down another corrupted spirit to slay. The city he lived in was notorious for its abundance of paranormal activity, filled with rumors and legends. Cyrus scoured every corner of the internet—from forums and online communities to videos, tweets, and anything else he could find.
Why did Cyrus bother searching for proof of a corrupted spirit, knowing the internet could be unreliable? It was simple: most paranormal rumors tended to be true. The tentacle-corrupted spirit, after all, had started as an online rumor, with individuals posting blurry images of the creature.These people were probably more spiritually aware than the average person, which, based on Cyrus's experience, made those rumors fairly reliable.
Some time later, Cyrus had found about fifteen rumors that piqued his interest—rumors that seemed more urgent than the rest. The one that stood out as most likely to involve a corrupted spirit was about an amusement park where people suddenly dropped dead in the middle of the attractions. The park was on the verge of closing its doors because visitors were terrified of dying in the "mysterious park where people drop dead."
Cyrus was confident that a corrupted spirit was behind this phenomenon because, when a soul is being devoured, it looks as though a person's life essence is being sucked out of them. Therefore, he believed the story to be trustworthy.
"The park is about to close down… I need to find him before that happens. If the park shuts its doors and no more visitors come, he'll lose his hunting grounds, which means he'll be unleashed on the city. Ugh! Being a shaman can be so annoying sometimes."
After closing his laptop, Cyrus began to contemplate his next steps for taking down the corrupted spirit.
"I don't know if he's similar to the last spirit I fought, but I can't just confront him in the middle of the park. Even though the amusement park has lost many visitors because of the rumors, there will still be at least a thousand people there… So what am I going to do?"
"Well, I'll think about it later," he muttered to himself.
After those thoughts faded, Cyrus closed the laptop, placed it back under the desk, and stared at the empty wall in front of him. His eyes drifted to the lone poster of the silver-haired samurai with the wooden sword. Then, suddenly, he remembered something important.
"Oh, that's right… I haven't gone to school in days…"
It wasn't unusual for Cyrus to skip school for entire weeks. After all, corrupted spirits didn't care whether he had classes that day; they would continue to devour souls regardless. As a result, he often spent weeks tracking down these spirits, which meant he rarely attended school without missing at least one day each week. He had gotten into a lot of trouble because of this—still was, in fact. Yet, his grandfather, despite rarely speaking to him, always bailed him out in the end.
Even though he told himself he still had time to deal with the mysterious cursed amusement park, he couldn't find a reason to go to school over the past two days. After confronting the tentacle-corrupted spirit, he still had to deal with a dozen more that followed. Since it was still morning and he had no plans for the day, he decided to go to school.
***
The school Cyrus attended was an ordinary high school, typical for average teenagers. Except, of course, Cyrus was anything but mundane. He wore an all-black uniform adorned with the school logo in red on the right side of his hoodie, right in the center of his chest. The outfit didn't quite fit him; his pale skin was so striking that some people thought he resembled a walking dead man. However, his brown hair was a clear reminder that he was still among the living.
As usual, there was no one around the school entrance; Cyrus was two hours late. Not only did he rarely come to school, but when he did, he was always late, which said a lot about his personality.
After ringing the school bell and opening the door to take the absence note to class, Cyrus heard fast footsteps echoing down the hallway.
"It's her again…" Cyrus muttered.
The echoes in the hallway grew louder as he heard her voice shout, "You stupid moron!"
In a flash, a petite girl with purple hair streaked with black skated toward him, wearing a school uniform and wielding a baseball bat, clearly intent on hitting him.
Chapter Two End