The First Time I met her (or) That time when almost all of the unspeakable horrors of the city solemnly vowed to hunt me down to death.

(Well technically it was the previous chapter, but whatever)

Right, so where was I?

Oh yeah literally 2 inches away from my death.

She repeated her question again

"Do. I. Still. Look. Pretty."

Honestly speaking...

Fuck no girl.

You look like roadkill,

Literally...

Obviously, I couldn't say that to her face.

Lying that she still looked pretty wouldn't get me any points here either.

I took a deep breath to calm myself down and analyze the current situation.

- A mysterious girl was stealing something that looked like the orb-of-souls or whatever the rest of those guys were talking about downstairs (or upstairs, I don't know anymore)

-I said something stupid and messed with someone I shouldn't have.

-Let's all agree to blame her for that, obviously, she must have used a charm spell or something.

What? NO! It definitely wasn't my di** making the decisions. I am not some third rate protagonist.

-Next, she asked me if she was pretty or not.

-Depending on my answer, I will either get to live or die.

Yep, I am totally screwed. Forgive me Lily, I have been a bad brother. Sorry Jordan, I won't be able to find out why or even whether I killed you. Sorry, mom and dad.... well I take that part back, fuck you, you guys have just vanished into thin air and haven't even contacted us since forever.

I resigned myself to my fate and then proceeded to glance at her as if contemplating before giving a decision.

However, I once again fell into a trance...

"Sculpted from flesh and carved in bone.

Adorned by the blood, dark red and crimson.

She who is black and white yet red all over.

Under the pale light of screaming souls,

Stands the princess of crimson

The epitome of beauty,

The epitome of horror. "

I could find myself being attracted to her all over again.

She stared at me as I stared at her.

In her beauty there existed a twisted sense of horror, and in her horror, there was an ethereal sense of beauty.

I slowly raised my hand to cup her cheek.

"You aren't pretty... but ... "

"You are extremely beautiful... "

"I think I like you, so ..."

"Please be my girlfriend."

"Please haunt me for the rest of my life."

Well since I am going to die, either way, I might as well go all the way in and take the riskiest gamble.

Even I would never be able to say no to such an awesome confession. I am sure that any girl will fall heads over heels for me after such a smooth confession.

The ghost girl seemed to be shocked for a while then she slowly took a step backward and her appearance reverted to its original form. There wasn't a speck of blood that could be seen on her white dress.

However, I knew that what I experienced was no illusion. The feeling of staring death right in its face was pretty real.

"Well, that's the first time anyone has ever confessed to me... in such a unique fashion"

She then tilted her head to contemplate how to respond to me.

Suddenly her face brightened up as she just had the most brilliant idea ever.

She picked up the glass orb she had just stolen and threw it over to me.

"This here is the orb of wailing souls. It's nice stuff, extremely useful in matters related to the domain of souls. You can have it as a gift"

Wait a minute...

"You see, I can't just agree to be in a relationship with anybody. My boyfriend must be someone with who I can feel safe, not some random weakling."

"So, all you have to do is to survive till daybreak."

"If you survive, then I promise to haunt you forever."

She went on while smiling happily,

I stared at her helplessly as I slowly understood the details of my current predicament.

I took the orb and placed in the pouch with the spirit stones with a sigh.

Observing my actions she nodded in approval

"I will give you a tip, do find some time to get rid of those spirit stones, the puppet mistress might be able to track you down with them. She has most likely left a mark on them."

"Wait in that case-"

"Don't worry I have already erased her mark on the soul orb and replaced it with mine. So be careful not to lose it, I will need it to find you"

Great! I can't even ditch this hot potato now.

"Ok th-"

"I will hurry up if I were you, the alarms are going to ring any second now"

Silently cursing in my head I smiled at her and then shot up the stairs back to the library at light speed.

Just before I left the stairway I could hear one last sentence from her- "My name is Alice by the way."

WELL, how amazing! Her name is Alice! Was wonderland too hard on her? Or was it the stifling real world instead? Was she so desperate to go back there that she decided to jump in front of a truck in hopes of getting isekai'd.

On my way out I still didn't forget to randomly stuff some expensive and ancient-looking books into my backpack. Hopefully one of them will hold a user's manual to the soul orb.

Now, that I have gotten my hands on such a rare treasure, I should at least know how to use it.

It is the first gift from my to-be-girlfriend after all.

Just as I reached the remains of the door, the alarm had rung. I could see raven-cloak and saw-carrying-stalker-dude rushing towards me.

I ran towards them and pointed at the wall-

"I saw someone phase through the wall to escape."

"Quick use your saw to cut through it! "

The man felt a little suspicious but still proceeded to mow down the wall.

Yeah even though it sounds a bit ridiculous he used a bloody saw to mow down an actual wall.

Using the momentary distraction as the wall collapsed exposing the street outside, I took out my taser and shot the saw-wielder twice. Next, I used the stun flashlight to blind raven-dude and jumped out of the building onto a nearby tree, before slithering down and running into the distance.

This will be a nice time to tell you all that I have also been obsessed with parkour a lot over the last two years and thus have decent running skills for urban locations.

This would have been way cooler if I had brought some explosives with me.

I would have then left the building in ashes as I escaped in style.

I could vaguely hear them screaming in agony.

"YOU BLOODY BAS***D! GET BACK HERE!!!"

Well, it was good to know that sneak attacks and mortal weapons still worked on these horrors.

As I was running into the distance I looked upwards into the night sky.

The sun had just set a while ago and the moon was slowly rising high.

It was going to be a long time until daybreak...

I went straight towards downtown. That place is a hub for nightlife, and it was easy to get lost in the crowd. I knew that even though I had gotten a headstart, it won't last long. I took out a slingshot and loaded it with a spirit stone.

Since they could be used to track me, might as well get rid of them.

I turned back to see clown-face floating towards me at breakneck speed.

If I hadn't turned to look behind I would have been a goner for sure.

"Well, well Mad Dog. It seems that you have gotten quite gutsy these days. You even dared to steal from the puppet mistress. I wonder why I didn't come up with such a brilliant idea"

"If you had told me earlier I would have helped you, we could even split the rewards... but then again it's not like you can trust me, they don't call me the Trickster for nothing"

I took aim and immediately released the quarry.

My heart ached as I saw the spirit stone slowly leave my grasp but I ruthlessly steeled my nerves and sent the stone to its death.

Turns out they pack quite the punch.

The Trickster was still going on with his tirade- "You might have managed to slip past the Night Raven and Dr.ChainSaw but-"

"Kaboom!"

Cause this exploded right in the trickster's face, sending him backward. His figure more translucent than before.

The fucker would never have expected that I would have used money as ammunition.

I took the opportunity to throw the remaining 4 stones in random directions, before slipping into the narrow alleys.

I had gotten quite familiar with a lot of the narrow and dark alleys of the city.

I kept trying to find some thugs there to practice my self-defense skills.

It was only later that I realized, that the only thugs I could find in such places were high-school delinquents.

I had managed to shake off three of the unspeakable nightmares. The vampire fellow wasn't there, and the puppet-butler didn't have much mobility anyways.

They would first try to find my position using the spirit stones. That should delay them for a while.

So before they send off a larger search party I must lose myself in the crowd.

I kept running relentlessly, I was only one street away from the destination when-

"Bam!"

I slammed face-first into someone running the opposite direction.

We tumbled along before falling into the sewers through a nearby pothole.

Just fucking great!

Luckily we didn't fall into the river of filth but landed next to it.

The other guy had surprising levels of dexterity and guided both of us to fall safely.

Still, I was quite sore from the fall.

Massaging my arm I glared at the man who was responsible for the current situation.

"What in the Fucking heavens are you doing here at this ungodly hour, Jimmy!"