"R-Really? Is it okay?"
"Relax."
"Can we win?"
"We will win."
"B-But..."
"What's with all the nonsense? Didn't you ask me here to solve the problem where the ghosts might attack you if you can't completely ignore them?"
"But I asked you to solve the problem of me seeing them, not to solve them! I must have been out of my mind to believe your nonsense." The timid girl shrinking beside Chen Li was his client for this commission.
Her name was Miko, a young girl who could see the supernatural phenomena occurring around her.
But the ghosts in this world were peculiar. Although they were everywhere, they wouldn't normally devour humans in broad daylight.
However, if a ghost discovered that you could see it, it would immediately devour you.
And Miko, because of her ability to see them, was deeply troubled by this.
"Don't say that. I was being very sincere, you know. When I said I could solve your problem, I meant it. I will absolutely not go back on my word," Chen Li guaranteed.
He had successfully used the effect of [The Sincere Heart] to move her, making her believe his words and thus allowing him to come to this world.
Chen Li was genuinely sincere about solving her problem. He just hadn't specified how.
"Whoa! Can they really not get in?!" Miko stared in horror at the terrifying ghosts swarming outside the protective shield she was in.
"They can't get in. Don't worry, the Miracle Shield will keep you safe. As long as you don't go out. Now, I'm going to start forging a Curio," Chen Li said to her.
"Oh." Miko squatted inside the Miracle Shield, on the verge of tears.
Why did I have a moment of weakness and believe his words, riding my bike all the way out to this desolate place and summoning him from another world?
---o---
As Chen Li tossed two Miracle Crystals, an ethereal blue flame erupted on the forging platform.
The first thing he did was forcibly shove the ghost he had been holding by the neck straight into the forging platform's Miracle Flame.
Chen Li had waited for Miko to bike out to the deserted countryside before teleporting. The moment he arrived, he saw a ghost trailing her and immediately took action.
Under the intimidating effect of the [The Arrow That Once Slew a Million Youkai] Miracle Card, the ghost's courage shattered. It clearly hadn't survived the first round of intimidation, and so Chen Li had captured it.
This was the first time Chen Li had extracted Entries from a living creature, adding a different kind of experience to his repertoire.
The Miracle Flame first engulfed the two-meter-tall ghost. Then, amidst its wretched shrieks, its form rapidly shrank, consumed by the flames until only a few Entries—[Ghost], [Fear], [Devour]—floated in the fire. Its body turned to ash and vanished.
"Does this mean that as long as the Miracle Flame engulfs a creature's entire body, even a god, even if it has the ability to resist, can be turned to dust?" Chen Li fell into deep thought, but the movements of his hands did not stop.
A small, palm-sized pouch was also thrown into the fire.
He had found this pouch among the youkai relics. Its effect was to attract things, almost making him think it was a Human-Seed Pouch, but he later discovered it could only pull things closer, not into the bag itself.
And thus, the [Attraction] Entry appeared.
Chen Li took the [Ghost] and [Attraction] Entries and began to forge the Curio.
---o---
[Ghost Attractor]: When used, it can attract all ghosts within a certain range.
Note: The range can be freely adjusted, but the larger the range, the weaker the effect.
PS: If gravity isn't enough, use anger. Adding a little sass when you shout can improve the Curio's effect.
"Young lady, do you believe in gravity?" Chen Li asked, turning to Miko with the large megaphone-like Curio, which had cost 6 Crystals to make, in his hand.
"Yes, yes, I do!" Miko nodded frantically.
Who would dare not to? Faced with a monster who could grab a terrifying ghost with his bare hands and then toss it into a fire to be roasted, would Miko dare to say no?
"Good that you believe. Now, don't blink." Chen Li cranked the dial on the megaphone to its maximum setting and took a deep breath.
"With all due respect, all you ghosts and ghouls are idiots! I can see you! Come and get me if you've got the guts! First come, first served!"
"Want to say a few words?" Chen Li offered the megaphone to Miko.
Miko shook her head furiously.
"Then I'll just continue." Chen Li kept spouting sassy remarks into the megaphone.
Forging the Curio had cost 6 Crystals. Besides the two used for extracting the Entries, the rest were all spent on [Attraction].
But clearly, the effect of a Curio made with only six Crystals was still a bit lacking. To attract ghosts from all over the world, he had to add a little sass.
The Ghost Attractor, being a megaphone, didn't produce a loud sound, but its voice echoed in the ears of every ghost in the world.
A stunned silence was followed by a furious rage. An inexplicable anger drove them toward the center of the sound.
Just half a minute later, Miko and Chen Li, sitting inside the Miracle Shield, could no longer see anything outside. All they could see were the countless faces of ghosts, mad with rage, pressing against the shield but unable to break through.
Both were at the center of a swarm of ghosts, but their reactions were completely different.
Miko trembled with fear. Chen Li was ecstatic.
He couldn't even imagine how much Merit he would gain after this was all over!
How many unscrupulous things could he do with all this?
Oh, wait.
How many unscrupulous things could "Sparkle" do?
"Here, have something to eat. We'll wait a few more hours for more of them to arrive."
"Isn't this enough?" Miko took the bag of potato chips Chen Li offered with a trembling hand.
"This is nothing. I want every ghost in the entire world to come here."
"The... the entire world's ghosts?"
"Hey, why'd you stop talking? Don't tell me you fainted."
---o---
"Ugh... a strange ceiling... Whoa! So many ghosts!" Miko's eyes shot open to see the Miracle Shield plastered with a dense layer of ghosts, and she was instantly wide awake.
"Oh, you're awake?" Chen Li, who was in the middle of forging a Curio, greeted her without looking up.
After being idle in the Miracle Shield for a good while, Chen Li had remembered that he needed to forge a Curio that could produce an endless supply of instant noodles.
"How... how long has it been? Did I miss anything?"
"Only about three hours. I figure most of them should have arrived by now, so it's about time for the show to start. You woke up at the perfect time," Chen Li said, putting away the Curio he'd just finished.
As for those that couldn't make it... the Longbow of Peace would find them.
Forging a Curio that could produce infinite instant noodles was simple. All it took was an [Eternity] Entry and a cup of noodles.
Done in three Crystals.
He had even added a [Delicious] Entry, hoping the client would give him a good review.
It wasn't that he was seeking some psychological satisfaction. Rather, just after he had scared his client into fainting, he had acquired a new Trait, his very first Professional Trait—[Good Review Cashback]: Receive a good review (recognition and affirmation) from a Curio wielder to gain additional EXP based on the Crystal cost of forging the Curio.
At that moment, Chen Li had been dumbfounded.
I was planning to stop being a good person, and you give me a Trait like this? Is this appropriate?
Although the cashback was in EXP, not Crystals, it was still an excellent Trait, considering the ever-increasing EXP requirements of the Curio Forger profession.
He would use it for now and figure out the specifics later, like what exactly constituted a "good review."
"Now I'll show you how I clean up these ghosts." Chen Li tossed a Miracle Crystal into the Miracle Shield to recharge it.
Then, he snapped his fingers.
As a Crystal disappeared, a magic circle with intricate patterns materialized, and from it, Kikyo slowly emerged.
"Kikyo, it's been a while."
"It has been a... while? What have you done now?" Kikyo, having responded to the summons with her true body, was quite shocked by the scene before her.
"This is my new client. She can see abnormal things, or 'ghosts.' In this world, if a ghost realizes someone has seen it, it will eat them. To resolve her worries, I decided..."
"You decided to eliminate the ghosts haunting her?"
"No. I decided to eliminate all the ghosts in this world."
"???" Kikyo did not understand and was greatly shocked.
"I've now attracted almost half of this world's ghosts here. Next up is the cleanup. So, it's time for the Longbow of Peace to do its work," Chen Li said, pointing to the longbow in Kikyo's hand.
"Oh... no, wait. The Longbow of Peace can be set by Sin Value. If you've summoned half the world's ghosts and activate The Reckoning, its cleansing barrier might cover the entire world. That means any humans in this world with a high enough Sin Value will also be killed," Kikyo said hastily.
"I know."
"You know?"
"I'm the one who forged this Curio. You think I don't know what it does? So, you go ahead and use it. If you won't, give it to me, and I'll use it. On second thought, it probably isn't right to make a miko like you bloody your hands," Chen Li nodded, understanding his mistake.
"That's not the issue at all! If we really do as you say, hundreds of thousands of people could die under the Longbow of Peace," Kikyo said, deeply worried.
She wasn't worried about those people, but about Chen Li.
Because Kikyo knew that slaying demons and punishing evil were two completely different things.
Wouldn't killing hundreds of thousands of people give you nightmares every day?
"How could that be?" Chen Li waved his hand dismissively.
"Is the moral standard of the people in this world particularly high?"
"I mean, how could it only be hundreds of thousands? Miko, tell her how many people are on Earth," Chen Li said, looking at the girl beside him.
"At least 7 billion," Miko said.
"That's seven billion people," Chen Li clarified.
Miko and Chen Li had just given the ancient miko a little taste of modern population shock.
"...Do you truly comprehend that number? Even if we assume only one in a thousand people meets the minimum Sin Value requirement for a 'villain,' you would still be killing nearly ten million people," Kikyo was even more stunned.
You're going to kill nearly ten million people without even blinking?
"It seems you're still having trouble with this. I'll do it myself." Chen Li took the Longbow of Peace directly from Kikyo's hands.
He checked and found that Kikyo hadn't been idle during the few days he had been busy. The Longbow already contained over a hundred wicked souls.
It was enough starting capital to activate The Reckoning, as the surrounding ghosts could all be used as fuel.
"Knowing full well that so many people will die by your arrow, are you truly not worried about having nightmares?" Kikyo asked one last time before Chen Li drew the bow.
"Perhaps you don't know me very well. I've always thought the death penalty in criminal law is too lenient. I believe attempted child trafficking should be a capital offense, school bullying should also be a capital offense, and the person who invented shake-to-view ads should get life in prison, at the very least. So... I don't think I'm the one who should be having nightmares," Chen Li said nonchalantly, and then decisively activated The Reckoning.
Decisiveness. It was one of the key reasons Chen Li had been able to turn the tables on all the troubles he had encountered.
Even Evil Gods couldn't give me nightmares. What right do they have?
Only morality can judge me.
And right now, morality is on my side!
Let the number of [Approbation of Sublime Morality] I receive in the end be the judge of whether my actions were correct.
And if they weren't? Then it's "Heaven" that has a problem!
A blood-red arrow shattered the Miracle Shield, which was completely besieged by ghosts, and transformed into a rain of countless arrows that fell from the sky.
Simultaneously, the blood-red barrier representing The Reckoning unfurled. As the rain of arrows reaped its harvest, it rapidly began to spread across the entire world.