Ren, who was being held, felt slightly stiff.

  However, he could clearly sense Fujiwara Chika's fear through her trembling.

  She was terrified, so much so that her body wouldn't stop shaking.

  Yet, despite being scared to death, she was f herself to watch.

  Ren sighed softly.

  "...Hayasaka-san, tinue."

  "Uood." Hayasaka gave a slight nod and resumed the video.

  The se transitioo the basement of the boratory—a fined, enclosed space.

  The entrance was sealed off with thick pstic sheeting.

  Everyone knew instinctively: this was the critical part.

  They held their breath and watched in silence.

  The camera moved past the pstic barrier and into the underground b.

  As the lights turned on, the interior was revealed.

  "…!?"

  The girls couldn't help but cover their mouths.

  What greeted their eyes were dozens of b tables, each occupied by a corpse.

  The victims spanned different ages.

  There were elderly individuals, middle-aged men and women, and even children eared no older than ten.

  All of them were strapped to the tables. The deep marks on their wrists and ankles painted a vivid picture of the unimaginable agony they endured before death.

  Their faces were frozen in expressions of sheer horror.

  Numerous needle marks were visible on their bodies.

  It wasn't hard to imagine what kind of experiments these drug dealers had ducted on them.

  The more emotionally sensitive members of the group reached their limits.

  "Ugh...!"

  Ran and Sonoko felt a powerful wave of nausea crash over them.

  They scrambled for the trash s that had been prepared beforehand.

  "Ughhhh!!!"

  Their stomachs revolted, and they vomited untrolbly into the bins.

  The sight, the stench, the implication of what had occurred in that b overwhelmed them.

  As Ran and Sonoko lost trol, the others followed.

  One by one, each girl grabbed a nearby trash and vomited as their bodies reacted to the trauma.

  Re Chika's trembling intensify.

  Without a word, he extended his hand and used his abilities to pull a trash from across the room, pg it in front of her.

  "Th-thank you... Ughhh!!!"

  Her gratitude was cut short as she bent forward aied her stomach.

  See? I told you it was better not to watch.

  Even Ren himself felt unfortable looking at the horrific se.

  Those individuals oables had bee addicts due to the experiments ducted by the drug dealers.

  Their endless suffering had pnted a seed of hatred s that many of their souls had likely turned into malevolent spirits after death.

  The true perpetrators of these crimes were well-known to these spirits.

  But because the vilge chief hadn't bee at the back-mountain base, those vengeful spirits remairapped above the isnd, uo exact their revenge.

  Rely turo the side and began patting Chika's back to help ease her nausea.

  But in such situations, there was no way to stop vomiting until their stomachs were pletely emptied.

  The only one who seemed retively stable was Isumi.

  Her eyes burned with fury—but not fear.

  It was clear she'd witnessed simirly horrific ses before.

  Everyone else was visibly shaken.

  Even Kaguya, who was usually rational and posed, and Maria, who always maintained an air of maturity, were overe by the shock.

  No one had been spared.

  After ensuring Chika could manage on her own for a moment, Ren stood up and walked over to grab some tissues.

  He returned, handing a few sheets to Chika.

  "...Thank you."

  Chika accepted the tissues but immediately bent back over the trash as another wave of nausea hit her.

  The room remained filled with the sound of retg for another half a minute.

  Not because the trauma had passed but simply because there was nothi in their stomachs to expel.

  The girls wiped their mouths with tissues, their faces pale and exhausted.

  They all looked utterly drained.

  But pared to the violent siess from earlier, they now seemed slightly better.

  "...Even children weren't spared."

  Kaguya's voice was cold and trembling.

  She had just withe darkest depths of human depravity.

  Drug dealers who would strap children barely ten years old to b tables for their grotesque experiments had nht to live.

  But then a thought struck her.

  "Wait… Amamiya-sama," she said, turning toward him.

  "Tsukikage Isnd isn't that big. How did the disappearance of these children go unnoticed?"

  "…"

  Ren didn't answer.

  Instead, he silently raised a hand and poioward something on the projected s.

  Kaguya was momentarily stunned.

  But she quickly grasped the implication.

  Her gaze shifted toward the frozen image on the proje, her expression turning plicated.

  It wasn't that the parents of the missing children didn't care about their disappearance.

  They simply never had the ce to.

  The drug dealers had already taken trol of them.

  And the reason behind it ainfully obvious.

  Any parent who tried to raise s about their missing child would mysteriously vanish soon after.

  On an isnd as small as Tsukikage Isnd, the pattern should have been suspicious.

  But the drug dealers had prepared their cover story in advance:

  "The family went on vacation."

  A ve lie to expin the disappearances.

  The townspeople, not wanting to dwell on susettlis, chose to accept the deception.

  "I see..."

  Kaguya ched her fists, her voice low.

  "So this... is the darkhat exists in the ordinary world."

  The others also realized the truth.

  Their eyes returo the s, where the bodies of the tortured children remained on full dispy.

  A heavy silence desded over the room.

  They had never entered this level of human depravity before.

  This was their first exposure to it and it left a scar deep in their hearts.

  "How does it feel?" Ren asked softly.

  "A lesson you'll never fet."

  Kaguya took a shaky breath. Her face was still pale, but she gave a small nod.

  "This... was necessary," she admitted.

  The brutality they'd witnessed had etched itself into her memory.

  Drug dealers weren't simply criminals.

  They were monsters who had long since abaheir humanity.

  "Amamiya... is the supernatural world like this too?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly.

  Ren gave a faint, bitter smile and shook his head.

  "In the supernatural world," he began, "with power es the loss of restraint."

  "Now ask yourself, hoeople still g to their humanity when given absolute power?"

  He gestured toward the s.

  "These drug dealers are evil, yes. But the supernatural world?"

  "It's filled with hidden bdes and stant, suffog malice."

  "There are tless people who will abandon their principles in pursuit of power."

  "pared to them... these drug dealers are almost tame."

  The room fell into another long silence.

  The truth weighed heavily on everyone's shoulders.

  Kaguya's eyes remained fixed on the s.

  She thought back to the moment she had obtaihe Ice-Ice Fruit.

  Her first thought hadn't been about justice or responsibility.

  It had been about freedom.

  "...Like me," she muttered.

  "When I got the Ice-Ice Fruit, I couldn't help but think of using that power to break free from the shackles pe."

  Ren gave her an approving nod.

  "That's exactly it," he said.

  "Human nature is fragile."

  "When you're trapped, you accept it because you have no other choice."

  "But once power enters your hands—once you realize you have other options—"

  "That's when the real test begins."

  "Because under repeated indulgence... human nature shatters."

  Kaguya closed her eyes a his words sink in.

  She had always thought of herself as rational and disciplined.

  But the mere taste of power had tempted her to abandon that self-trol.

  The liween human and monster... was thihan she'd realized.