Chapter 170: Horror House

"AAAAAAAHHHHH! IT BURNS! AAAAAHHHHH!"

The scream of the woman who runs the booth screams in agony as she squirms and tries to remove my arm from her head but I just grip her head harder without letting go. I also intensify the flames in my hand causing her to squirm harder and scream louder. The customers buying tickets from her were so terrified that they are stuck from where they were standing with horrified expressions on their faces.

She continues to scream for a while until her movements stopped. When I released her, her body disintegrated into ashes despite only burning her head. The mana also dissipated as soon as her body disappeared into the air. The bystanders cannot do a single thing and no one from them dared to approach. Finding that no one is willing to step forward to fight against me, I went ahead and entered the Horror House.

...

The atmosphere of the horror house is quite heavy. You might even think that the horror house inhabits real ghosts due to the heaviness of the surroundings but it is quite clear that only dark energy remains here, making it obvious that everything is just part of the gimmick.

"ROAR!" a ghost performer appeared on the window to scare me, however, I find it annoying.

"Get lost," I said before shooting electricity towards the performer, electrocuting the person to death.

Looking on the window for any traces of the person, I only managed to glimpse the fragments of mana dissipating in the air.

"Are you afraid of killing innocent individuals?" Blue said after seeing the dissipation of the illusion.

"I am just making sure that the person I shot magic is not a real person. Killing innocent people using magic will only make me no different from the magicians who use magic for their gains."

"Indeed. Humans using magic for their gains are one of the reasons why there are always conflicts in the magician world. If these greedy magicians did not exist, maybe the world is much more flourishing and the demons are only a small threat. Now go, I can sense that girl's presence not too far from your location. Get going to reunite with her."

"Understood."

The Horror House is not that complicated. There are just too many interactive traps that hamper my progress from time to time.

"ORA ORA!"

BANG!

"Do you needed that "ora ora" sound just to kick down a blockade?" Blue asked.

"It's some sort of war cry. It can enhance your strength just by shouting it."

"I don't think I comprehend much on your logic. Are you messing with me since I don't know much of modern culture?"

"Just don't dwell too much on it."

...

As I move deeper into the horror house, the heaviness pressure that has been keeping me feel dread is getting heavier than before. Thankfully, Maple is finally in my sight.

"Maple!"

Maple looked in my direction but instead of getting happy, she looked serious and pulled out her katana.

"She is suspicious of you Kazuma!"

"Huh? Wait, wait! It's me Kazuma! I am friendly! I am not your foe!"

"Don't try to deceive me! I have enough of you bastards trying to deceive me in here! I have to cut you down!" Maple brandishes her weapon straight to me, while on my side are the flying daggers she used earlier to slit the throats of our enemies.

"Woah, Woah! Chill out! It's me!" I shouted and quickly evaded her strikes. Her strikes are quite fastfor me to follow so I barely manage to dodge them. All I can do is keeping the distance away from her while keeping on convincing her.

"I can't blame her on her reaction. With these illusions breaking one's sight and their decisions, Maple is now wary of anyone unless she is convinced that you are the real deal."

"Yes. Convincing her is hard since I don't know how to get her to immediately trust me that this is the real me."

"If you can't convince her using practical persuasion, then use physical means to keep her convinced. Overpower her to make sure she calms down."

"There is no other way. Alright, let's do this!"

I stopped running and ignited the flames in my hands. "If I can't convince you this is the real me, then I have no choice but to convince you forcefully!"

Flames grow bigger on my hands and after getting it to a certain size, I hurled it to Maple's direction in succession.

SWISH!

Maple's quick slices allowed her to cut through the fireballs I hurled at her and she is keeping it on the same speed as before. I focused my eyesight on her movements. Not only they are flawless and precise but they don't have any kind of extra movements, making her look like she has no gap in her defenses. But that doesn't mean she cannot be defeated.

Quickly evading her attacks, I go for a punch on her abdomen to knock her out but she managed to block it using her katana. Luckily for me, the Skull Knuckles defended my fist, or else, it might have sliced my fist like butter.

"GOTCHA!"

With my Skull Knuckles coming in contact with her katana, it is time to shock her a little bit. Before she can retract the katana off from my fists, I activated the electricity on my fists, controlling the intensity that is enough only to paralyze the enemy and shock them a little bit.

ZAP!

"Ugh!" Maple didn't expect it and when she received the shock, it caused her to stop in place and shook a little bit before she fell to the ground. She did not collapse though and managed to stay awake but she is paralyzed.

"Now, listen to me. I am Kazuma Fukuyama, not an illusion you see around here and I came here looking for you. Now please calm down and keep yourself cool without going on a rampage. You almost killed me back there," I said to her.

"Ah....ah...I'm... sorry...ugh..." Maple had a hard time talking since the effects of the paralyzing electricity I discharged on her is still numbing her movements.

It's partially my fault so I pulled out the blue candies placed in a clear bottle that I obtained during my infiltration inside the underground mall. The Reverter. This candy does not just revert the user from the effects of the shrinky candy but it can also revert them to the time they are still fine, which can be called also an all-cure candy. Since I got a bottle of it, why not use it in times like this?

"Take this candy and eat it. It will help the paralysis to fade away. I am sorry for not restraining myself."

She opened her mouth slightly allowing me to pop the candy inside. She slightly chewed it a bit before she slowly stops shaking from the paralysis. It didn't take long for her to recover and she manages to get back on her feet.

"I am sorry earlier Kazuma. I just have enough of the people here which I just found out to be mere illusions."

"No worries. I understand it too. The illusions here seem like they have minds on their own. I tried killing a few earlier and they act like real people. However, anytime they die, they just vanish like dust in the air, not leaving any corpse, allowing me to identify if they are human or not."

"Someone must have caused these things to happen to us. Since we are investigating the Crazed Phenomenon Disorder, this illusion might be disrupting our senses?" Maple looked at me to hear my thoughts.

"Might be so. However, I got info that we are not in the real Hirakata Park. This is not the Hirakata Park at all. This is an alternate space that trapped us inside, allowing us to wander inside this place forever. The only way for us to get out of here is to eliminate the source of the illusion and break out of this space."

"So, we should be tracking the source of the illusion? How can we do that? If they have imitated the size of Hirakata Park, then we have a lot of space to cover!"

"There is not much to it but we can just get out of our way and destroy this place slowly. Even if we don't find it immediately, if we destroy bit by bit, eventually, that source we are looking for will appear for us to seize and destroy. Now, let's get going."

"I'm afraid we can't get out yet, Kazuma."

"Huh? Isn't it fine to exit outsi- UGH!" I just tried walking out of the exit near us since this was apparently the end of the Horror house and the exit will lead us outside, however, when I tried crossing, some sort of barrier blocked my way out.

"The exit is blocked by some unknown force. I tried slicing it down using Masamune but it doesn't work."

"Have you tried using Muramasa?"

"You have already seen that Muramasa is something I can't control easily, but I doubt my Muramasa is not able to slice it too. It seems like it is invulnerable to anything even the power of Masamune doesn't work."

Then, are we just doomed to stay here without any methods of going out of this sh*thole?