Chapter 219: The Sakuragi Gang’s Pranks
The night was thick and heavy, like ink that refused to dissolve.
Mist drifted through the mountain forest, while the occasional cry of a night owl sent the horror atmosphere straight through the roof.
There was more than one trail leading to the shrine.
And that was exactly why the Sakuragi Gang had carefully chosen this place as their personal "execution ground."
The first trail was overgrown with waist-high weeds.
"D-Damn it…"
Mitsui Hisashi clung desperately to Miyagi Ryota's shirt.
His steps were as unsteady as if he were walking on cotton, and whatever dignity he had once possessed as an MVP was nowhere to be found.
"Hey! Ryota! Slow down! Aren't we supposed to be brothers?"
"Shut up! Stop pulling on my pants! They're going to fall off!"
Miyagi sounded tough, but the cold sweat dripping from his forehead betrayed him.
The beam of his flashlight was swinging wildly. At that frequency, anyone who didn't know better would have thought he was dancing at a nightclub.
Whoosh.
A cold wind slipped down their collars.
The bushes beside the trail suddenly began shaking violently.
"Give me back… my hair…"
A mournful, horrifying voice emerged, as if it had crawled straight out of a sewer in hell.
Then, a deathly pale mask descended upside down from the treetops, long black hair dangling almost to the ground and swaying in the wind.
"WAAAAAAAAAH!!"
Mitsui and Miyagi instantly produced dolphin-level shrieks.
The two of them instinctively clung to each other, their chattering teeth clearly audible.
"GHOST!!"
"Don't eat me! Mitsui's meat is old! It's chewy! Eat him!"
"You bastard, Ryota! You're the old one! Your whole family is old! I'm still a young man!"
They insulted and betrayed each other while scrambling forward on all fours.
They moved so fast that even a world-class sprinter would have had to offer them a cigarette before attempting to keep up.
Above them, Ohkusu Yuji, wearing the ghost mask, covered his mouth with both hands as he laughed so hard he nearly fell from the branch.
"These two cowards are way too easy to fool."
The second trail consisted of steep stone steps.
Akagi Takenori marched at the front, his back straight as an iron plate.
Kogure Kiminobu pushed up his glasses and followed with a helpless smile.
He could clearly see that his captain's massive legs, thick as tree trunks, were trembling at a very suspicious frequency.
"A-Akagi, you really don't have to walk this fast…"
"I… I'm simply trying to reach the finish line as quickly as possible! Time is money!"
Akagi's voice boomed through the forest, as though he could use sheer volume to drown out his nervousness.
Just then, a huge black shadow slowly rose from behind a boulder beside the trail.
The thing was enormous, with two curved horns on its head and a giant club in its hands. Its presence was overwhelmingly intimidating.
"ROOOAAAR!"
A beast-like roar exploded through the night.
Akagi froze.
His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
What the hell was that?
A demon from some ancient legend? A mountain ogre?
At that moment, his extreme fear underwent a complete transformation.
It became extreme...
anger!
"AAAAAAAH! HASSA-GIIII!!"
Akagi shut his eyes, swung his massive fist, and unleashed a completely technique-less Gorilla Smash straight at the shadow.
Human or ghost, he would punch first and ask questions later!
BAM!
A dull impact rang through the forest, followed by the sound of something cracking apart.
Then came the meaty scream of Takamiya Nozomi:
"OW! OW! OW! Captain! It's me!"
"I'm Takamiya! My intestines are going to rupture!"
The costume had been completely destroyed by one punch.
Takamiya clutched his stomach and rolled around on the ground like an overturned turtle.
Akagi stood there panting, still recovering from the shock.
When he finally realized it was that fat idiot Takamiya, his face instantly became as dark as the bottom of a cooking pot.
"You dared to scare me?!"
What followed was a brutal session of "affectionate" captainly punishment.
Takamiya's screams echoed throughout the mountain forest.
The third trail was completely silent.
Rukawa Kaede walked with both hands in his pockets, his eyelids drooping as though he were sleepwalking.
Beside him, Makino Juro continued casually cracking sunflower seeds.
Crack. Crack.
The sound was particularly jarring against the silence of the mountain path.
This left Noma, hiding in the bushes, feeling extremely awkward.
These two had absolutely no awareness of their responsibility toward the monsters of this beginner village!
Couldn't they at least pretend to be scared?
"Damn it! Take this!"
Noma suddenly yanked on a rope.
Whoosh!
A white-clad female ghost with wild, disheveled hair shot across the path in front of them, pulled along by a pulley at terrifying speed.
It moved so fast that it created an audible rush of air.
A normal person would have wet themselves on the spot.
However...
Rukawa merely tilted his head slightly.
The instant the "ghost" flew in front of him, a cold glint flashed through his normally sleepy eyes.
His right hand shot out like lightning.
Smack!
He caught the model directly by the neck.
Momentum caused the dummy to swing back and forth in his hand, like a cat being held by the scruff of its neck.
"…"
The air suddenly went silent.
Hidden in the bushes, Noma's jaw practically dropped to the ground.
That thing had been traveling at forty kilometers per hour!
And he just caught it?!
Was that even human dynamic vision?!
Rukawa stared expressionlessly at the fake head in his hand.
His brows furrowed slightly.
"Blocking the way."
He casually tossed it aside.
Thud.
The dummy head traced a beautiful arc through the air and landed perfectly in the bushes.
Right on Noma's forehead.
"Ow! Headshot!"
Makino Juro spat out a sunflower-seed shell and gave the bushes a thumbs-up.
"Nice aim. Looks like all that training these past few days paid off. You're even good at catching ghosts now."
The fourth trail.
Sakuragi Hanamichi was protecting Haruko and Ayako as they walked forward with the swagger of a man who feared absolutely nothing.
He repeatedly thumped his chest, making enough noise to shake the heavens.
"Haruko! Don't be afraid!"
"Even if Sadako shows up, this genius will stuff her right back into the TV!"
Haruko clung tightly to Ayako's hand.
Although she was still frightened, she managed a nervous smile after hearing Sakuragi's words.
That single compliment injected nuclear power directly into Sakuragi's body.
His combat power skyrocketed.
Just then, Yohei Mito personally activated the Sakuragi Gang's ultimate trap.
A massive cloud of dry-ice fog suddenly erupted from all directions.
The ground began to tremble.
A green light illuminated the path ahead, revealing the vague silhouette of a headless samurai holding a bloodstained katana.
"Give me back… my head…"
The voice had been processed through a voice changer, making it deep and hoarse, with full surround-sound effects.
"YAAAAAAAH!"
Haruko screamed as tears immediately sprang from her eyes.
Ayako's face also went pale, and she instinctively stepped backward.
The goddess had shed tears.
And Sakuragi went berserk.
"You bastard ghost! How dare you scare Haruko!"
Sakuragi Hanamichi's hair practically stood on end.
He completely abandoned any pretense of rationality and charged forward with a sliding step.
"IRON HEADBUTT!!"
BOOM!!
The headless samurai was sent flying a full five meters, crashing into a tree branch.
Pieces of the costume scattered across the ground, revealing Yohei Mito underneath.
Yohei clutched his chest with an expression of complete despair.
"Hanamichi… you really didn't have to hit that hard…"
"That thing had a steel-pipe frame…"
"My ribs are going to break…"
Sakuragi froze.
Then he burst into laughter.
"Wahahaha! Yohei! So it was you!"
"This genius saw through everything from the very beginning!"
"That's the power of a genius's insight!"
Twenty minutes later.
Miraculously, all four groups arrived at the shrine halfway up the mountain at almost exactly the same time.
Calling it a shrine was being generous.
It was more like a dilapidated little wooden shack.
The paint had completely peeled from the torii gate, and half the sacred shimenawa rope had snapped apart.
Everyone gathered together.
They stared at one another's miserable appearances.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then everyone burst out laughing.
Akagi rubbed his swollen wrist.
Takamiya had a spectacular black eye.
Miyagi and Mitsui were still blaming each other for being "useless teammates."
Rukawa was yawning, wearing the expression of someone who desperately wanted to go home and sleep.
The entire Sakuragi Gang had taken some damage, but their faces were glowing with the satisfaction of a prank successfully executed.
"All right."
Juro walked up to the shrine and clapped his hands.
"Since we've come all this way, it'd be a waste not to make a wish."
END OF CHAPTER
The King Of Slacking Off - MrBehringer's Secret
👉 /MrBehringer