Mir forcefully opened her eyes. The face of the female ghost was only a fist away from her own face. The previously beautiful face was now as horrendous as the face of ghosts in horror movies.

She remembered the ghost without a name that she met just the previous day. She remembered how the ghost fought ghosts more than its number. That nameless ghost was sure amazing, Mir thought. It used something like a whip from its body…

Mir made a smile. She couldn’t breathe, but she was still smiling. She knew what to do now. She imagined her spiritual power to be like a whip. She made four whips out of her spiritual power. They coiled at the female ghost's hands, neck, and right leg.

The female ghost seemed like she didn’t notice it. Perhaps anger clouded her vision, Mir thought calmly. No, she was not angry, but she couldn’t see the whip that coiled the female ghost either. But Raleigh said that the ring worked, so, there must be whips coiled the female ghost’s body right now.

And with a flick of her wrist, the female ghost was pulled apart from Mir. However, her neck was scratched by the ghost’s claws. And they were quite hot now…

“RAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!”

Mir didn’t have time to think about the pain in her neck now. She immediately imagined compressing the spiritual power into the gun again. This time, she aimed properly. While the ghost was shrieking intimidatingly, Mir shot her. The spiritual bullet… was avoided!

The ghost raised her hand, trying to attack Mir with her supernatural power. Mir knew that she couldn’t defend against this attack, so she jumped to the side and dodged her. She tried aiming at the ghost as soon as she could, but when she looked in the ghost direction, it had disappeared.

“…”

Mir looked around silently. It was too dark to see anything. There was light. There was dim light coming from the gaps on the ceiling and the blocked windows. But it was not enough for her to see more than a meter away. The best she could see was only a meter in front of her even though she was standing in a place where sunlight shone on it.

She couldn’t see the female ghost. However, she could hear the cranky voices of the animatronics. Naturally, she couldn’t see them, but the voices should be enough for her to aim generally.

“…”

She didn’t shoot. Even if she shot, she would know the result. It would be a waste of bullets… no, it would be a waste of spiritual power.

Mir clicked her tongue in annoyance. Fighting against ghosts in dark was really troublesome. Not that she had such an experience before. Usually, she wouldn’t fight back at all. However, now, with her life at the stake, she naturally had to fight back.

“…”

The question was how. She didn’t know how she could win against the female ghost. If only she knew how to fight, she might put up a better fight than this.

When she was thinking useless things like that, she suddenly felt a presence from behind her. She turned around and saw the female ghost skirting in the corner of her eyes. She moved so fast that Mir could only barely see her, even though she was less than a meter away from her.

“AAAAAHHHH!!!” The female ghost let out another shriek right beside Mir’s ears. She was surprised and tried to shoot the female ghost before she moved, but she was a bit too late. The female ghost had retreated quickly.

And then, she suddenly felt a weight on her back. She tried to turn around, but it was, once again, too late. A three-meter tall monkey doll had hugged her and pushed her down with its weight. She couldn’t help but fall because of the sudden weight.

When she hit the ground, the gun was dropped from her hand. She grunted in pain as she tried to escape from the doll as soon as she could. Every doll had similar weaknesses. They were old, so they were extremely fragile. At least, with a small girl’s physical power like hers, she managed to rip off the arms of the previous doll. And so, she thought that she would be able to do that to the monkey doll that grabbed her this time as well.

Of course, she managed to do that. The monkey doll was even more fragile than the lion doll. She managed to break off one of its arms in less than ten seconds.

That was right. In less than ten seconds, she managed to rip off one of its arms. In another ten seconds, she would rip off its other arm. And then, in another five to ten seconds, she should be able to break free from under its body.

That should be what happened. If the monkey doll was the only doll that attacked her. There were, however, more than just one doll. In fact, there were tens or even hundreds of dolls that had her surrounded. Before she managed to break free from the monkey doll, the other dolls had fallen on top of her. They piled up into a small mountain with Mir in the middle of them.

…

Raleigh was running as fast as he could while looking around carefully. He lacked information about this building. If only he saw the blueprint of the building, he might know where he should go. But now, he could only blindly search for the exit.

Generally, the exit should be on the exact opposite side of the entrance. That meant, if he ran straight from backstage, he should see the exit soon.

Well, that was ‘generally’ speaking. He was not lucky though. Not today. All he could see was the wall that blocked their way.

“Left, or right?” Raleigh wondered for a second. It was a gamble with a fifty-fifty chance. If he was wrong, something bad might happen to Mir.

Just as he thought about Mir, he suddenly heard the female ghost shrieking loudly. Raleigh was surprised, but he stopped thinking about the ghost immediately. Instead, he started running, going to the left, following the wall.

“Please let me find the exit!” Raleigh prayed with all his heart. He kept on running until he found another wall.

“Tsk! Wrong!” Raleigh didn’t waste time. He turned around and dashed in the opposite direction. He heard the ghost shrieking again, and his heart was worried for Mir. Though he was worried, he didn’t stop moving his legs.

“Another wall!?” Raleigh was surprised. He bit his lips and continued running, following the wall. Fortunately, the big hall was devoid of furniture, so he could run with all his might without fear of bumping into anything.

…at least that was what he thought when he felt a force suddenly attacked him from his right side. He was thrown to the wall. He saw, in a glimpse from when the flashlight fell from his hand, a pile of dolls in the middle of the room. And then, there was the female ghost in a wedding dress right in front of him.

Raleigh could only smile bitterly. It seemed Mir was defeated by the female ghost. It was expected. After all, Mir was inexperienced. No matter how big her potential was, it would be useless if she didn't know how to use that potential. Against a strong ghost like the female ghost, the chance of her winning was extremely slim.

Raleigh pulled out his broken wooden sword.

It’s not a sword anymore, but more like a dagger. It’s still useful though.

Raleigh smiled wryly as he transmitted his power into the broken wooden sword. He wouldn’t go down without a fight, that was what he thought.

The ghost raised her hand again, trying to attack Raleigh. Raleigh used his wooden sword to parry the attack.

“Sword of Banishing Evil!” Raleigh shouted loudly as he brandished his broken sword. It was… not entirely useful though. Because the power he accumulated was easily overwhelmed by the power of the casual attack from the ghost. Once again, his back hit the wall behind him and Raleigh couldn’t help but bit his tongue because of the impact. Blood seeped from his lips, but he didn’t have time to wipe it.

“…I can do this all day… is what I want to say… but…” Raleigh fell to his knees. He really lost a lot of power from the previous exchange. He used almost all of his power to block the attack of the ghost, but even if he used all his power, it was useless.

“…ah, it seems I’m going to die now… goodbye, teacher… sorry Mir…” Raleigh smiled bitterly. He closed his eyes, waiting for the ghost to attack him again, ending his puny life permanently. However, after he waited for a minute, no attack came to him, so he opened his eyes timidly.

“…”

The ghost was standing in front of him. Her face turned back into her normal face, without wrath and fury ruining her beautiful face. Actually, the ghost was beautiful. But Ghost was ghost. It would be impossible for Raleigh to harbor any feeling toward a ghost, no matter how beautiful they were.

“Now that the thief has gone, let’s proceed with our wedding ceremony.” The ghost said as if it was a matter of fact. Raleigh couldn’t refuse, and no one would object.

“…as expected, I’m going to fight until my last breath!!!” Raleigh suddenly stood up once again and he prepared to attack. He didn’t want to marry a ghost! He would rather die than marry a ghost!

That was when a loud bang could be heard from behind the ghost. Both Raleigh and the ghost reflexively looked at the source of the sound. And Raleigh was stunned.

It was dark. So, he could barely see anything, even with the light from the phone flashlight. However, right now, there was a new source of light. And that light came from under the mountain of dolls. No, it was not a mountain of dolls anymore. The dolls were blown away, and a young girl was standing stoically. She was glowing as if she was an actress that had taken the stage.

That was right. The girl breathed roughly. Her clothes and hair were a mess. There was a trace of exhaustion in every part of her body. But the intensity in her eyes told otherwise.

Both the ghost and Raleigh were stunned. But the ghost reacted fast. Before Raleigh woke up from his stupor, the ghost had moved. She tried to attack the source of uneasiness in her heart. She was flying toward Mir.

At least, she was trying to do that. However, her entire body was stopped unnaturally. The ghost couldn’t see it. But Raleigh, with his spiritual perception, noticed what was happening.

Just like an octopus trying to pull its prey into its mouth, there were countless tentacles coiled around the ghost. The ghost was slowly being pulled towards Mir. It was helplessly pulled by the power Mir unleashed.

The ghost shrieked in anger. She struggled with all her might, but the more she struggled, the more tentacles coiled around her body. And when she was only five meters away from Mir, Mir took another action.

She slowly raised her hand. There was a handgun in her hand. Properly aiming at the stunned ghost, the young girl shot.

“AAAARRRRHHHHH!!!!” The ghost shrieked in pain. Her entire right arm disappeared soundlessly.

“…miss.” Mir muttered softly. A whisper so soft that it shouldn’t be audible. However, Raleigh heard her clearly. It was as if she was a little kid in a carnival who was playing a shooting game.

She properly aimed one more time, and she shot again. A huge hole appeared on the ghost’s stomach. Again. The next instant, her head was blown off. That ended the long shriek the ghost ever made…