93 Before The Meetup 2

"Hello, Miss Prettiest!" greeted the grinning boy to her.

Yes, it was the same nasty host that she badly wanted to tear into pieces. And he appeared right in front of her just when she was about to go crazy from looking for him.

It was at the top of the Cryptos, a regular sophisticatedly designed social club for people with money and some influence. She designated the place as the rendezvous point since it was a place frequented by those from the upper society and underground alike.

When Clarissa saw the boy waving a hand at her with a wide grin on his face, her eyes widened and her hands instantly reached out to the long knife hidden underneath her knee-length skirt.

"You dare to appear before me!" she angrily shouted while taking out the weapon.

The boy, of course, saw her action but did not react to it. Instead, he answered her question,

"Why not? I'm your avid stalker. I'm afraid you already forgot my face so I'm here showing it again to you. Hahahaha! By the way, did you like my gift this morning? I plan to set up fireworks for you, but my intuition tells me you'll find that boring so I just stuck to my old style and blew up another building as a present! The pure fire from the huge explosion is prettier than any other colors so I'm thinking that will be more to your liking! Hahahahaha!"

The hate in Clarissa's eyes deepened. She disliked the feeling of being one-upped. Even though she really doesn't care about the blown up buildings, the feeling of having something belonging to her getting bombed into ashes was still nowhere near good.

Of course, the number one reason was still his nearly successful attempt on her life. She's been in this city for more than a year, has been a host for the same amount of time, yet it was her first time being so close to death!

As she gripped the knife tightly, her cold and angry voice resounded, "Boy, I really hate your guts, I want to kill you so much, and blow you up into pieces as you did to my people and businesses! So I'm very grateful that you deliver yourself right into my doorsteps!"

"Hahaha, I'm flattered. It's nice to hear compliments from my stalking target!" laughed the crazy looking teenager.

Clarissa's eyes flashed with fury as she talked to her system AI. "That item will work, right?"

'Yeah, but all of you love creating misunderstanding and making your hosts guess your features by themselves,' she rolled her eyes as she ordered it to activate the one-time-use-only item.

Then with confidence radiating from her body, she told the other immoral host, "I'll make you regret that you show up in front of me, you rascal!"

Not even two seconds passed and the room was flooded with people armed with firearms. They're mostly Clarissa and Aljur's men, the few others were police lent by the mayor. Of course, since they could appear here this instant, it means all of these people are currently under Clarissa's mind control.

Yes, the moment she saw the boy, Clarissa called them here using her ability, and since they were not really stationed far from here, these few people managed to arrive within two or three minutes. And there were even more still rushing here and would be coming any time soon!

The 'stalker' naturally showed a surprise expression to the sudden arrival of the controlled non-hosts. But he was not given any time to think more of his situation when he felt something imposing on him heavily.

'Space is locked? I can't teleport?' the boy thought with a shocked expression on his face.

"I'm telling you, I won't let you get out of this room alive! Consider yourself lucky for being killed by your idol!" she loudly declared, her eyes slightly red from the craziness and anticipation.

A second later, all the gun-wielding individuals started raining bullets on his direction! It was like all the cue they're waiting for was Clarissa's words!

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The continuous sounds of gunshots continued for minutes and it seemed to be getting endless as new batches of non-hosts joined them in.

"DIE, BRAT! THIS IS PAYBACK FOR ALWAYS BLOWING ME UP TO PIECES BACK THEN!"

Clarissa madly shouted as she joined the group of people firing bullets at the younger teen, except her bullets were provided by the system, capable of corroding any material upon contact. She bought this in case the kid has something underneath his shirt. And she was very happy about this decision as she imagined her bullets also corroding his flesh!

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

"HAHAHA! TELEPORT, BRAT! LET ME SEE WHERE YOU CAN GO NOW THAT I ISOLATED THIS SPACE! COME, SHOW ME HOW MIGHTY THE LUNATIC BOMBER IS!!! TELL IT TO MY BULLETS!" she once again shouted, laughing.

Though it was already an overkill, Clarissa did not make everyone stop. It seemed she was venting her anger for the past days by watching and imagining all these bullets boring holes on that lunatic bomber.

Another minute passed before Clarissa and her subordinates ran out of ammunition. By this time, even if the girl wanted to continue shooting, everyone had no more bullets, thus they could only stop.

A second later, before the badly damaged walls, Clarissa finally saw a silhouette seemingly riddled with bullet holes. The girl's crazy smile turned into a genuine one as she happily waited to see the horrible mess the pesky brat's corpse had become.

In fact, even before she saw the bloody corpse, she was already laughing happily. Her pleasant-sounding voice even echoed with extreme joy when she exclaimed, "Finally! Haha, you damn bratty scoundrel is finally dead! You died! By the hands of a host a level or two lower than you! Hahaha! This is what you deserved! How dare you bomb my belongings! How dare you throw a bomb at me! You deserve to die! So now you're dead! Hahaha!"

Clarissa laughed a bit more, ignoring the weird gazes of the men around her who already regained clarity of mind. She became too engrossed with her victory that she momentarily lost control of them. Naturally, they came back to their senses.

Most of them remembered firing so many bullets which hit the walls and other pieces of furniture. However, when they checked, the wall clearly had no damage aside from the holes... And none of the weapons used today used gunpowder. Actually, no modern firearms used that anymore. So where did the smoke come from? And why was it concentrated on the corpse?

At this train of thought, one of the tattooed baldies finally called out, "Lady Boss. Something's odd."

Another one added, "Yeah. Something's not right here... I seem to be seeing something on the walls."

"Idiot! Stop! Don't say it! Boss is currently happy!"

The young police officer replied, his expression weird, "...But there's really something on the walls... Are you people pretending to be blind? Or illiterate?"

"...You rascal!"

Their bickering made Clarissa sober up. Her laughter stopped and her serious expression returned. She swept an icy glance to the group of men of varying heights, getups, looks, and physiques.

She actually didn't like what they said. But they did remind her that she should only celebrate once the enemy's death was confirmed. This was the only reason why she didn't punish them. Instead, she prioritized checking the corpse.

Clarissa froze. It was not because of what the system told her. It was caused by the scene in front of her.

The floating white powder giving them the illusion that there was smoke finally vanished, revealing the cold, 'dead body'. There were holes everywhere and blood that looked to be seeping out there, but when she looked closely, something was really odd.

'Why does the damn thing appear fake?'

It looked like not a real corpse because it was now slowly turning intangible and illusion-like! Also when she directed her gaze to its bloody face, she saw that its lips formed into a smile. A mocking smile! It made her remember that lunatic stalker's always-maniacally-laughing expression!

"Damn it!!!" She couldn't help but yell in agitation.

He did not die! He was actually not shot to death!

'SYSTEM!!!! WHERE IS HE?!!! HOW DID HE SURVIVE!??? I BOUGHT THAT DAMN STUPID BUT EXPENSIVE DEVICE SO WHY DID HE STILL SURVIVE?!'

The thing questioned, of course, knew the answer. However,

Though angry, she chose to ignore the system. Her eyes then wandered all around, only to land to the now clear wordings on the wall. Like this morning, the letters were formed through the bullet holes. But unlike earlier, the current message was way more provocative. Or at least it successfully made Clarissa have a fit of hysteria greater than when she first received a letter.

The reason? Definitely not him knowing her plan to get Sofony Mendez to join their fray. Or him kindly informing her which site he plans to bomb next.

It was because at the end of his cleverly phrased wall of texts, or rather, the wall of high-blood-inducing insults, the boy's postscript said:

"Actually the reason I became your stalker is that I hate 'people' like you. Obvious, right? Hahahaha. Anyway, after I toyed you to death, I'll, of course, look for a new one to hunt. You won't want me to become bored, right? After all, someone like you has a worthless life. At least, doing me a favor will help you become productive to society. So how about we do this? I mean, how about you answer this?"

"Hehehehehehe, Miss Prettiest, our loveliest secondary host..."

The words that came after were written in a red blood-like substance scattered around the place where his fake corpse used to be, asking:

"May I know who your Original is?"

...