Riku was hailed as a genius. Unlike other babies that were called a genius by their families, Riku was considered a genius by everyone, even by the government. His future was bright. His family loved him because of it.

When Riku was four years old, he had a new brother. Unlike him, his brother was normal. However, even though he was normal, Riku was still happy to have a sibling. His mother was also happy, and they lived happily. For a few years.

Suddenly, his mother caught an illness. His father tried his best to find the cure for her illness, to no avail. Her condition worsened and before long, she passed away.

Ever since that day, his father changed. He started comparing the two siblings, saying that his brother was useless, so don’t play with him anymore. Gradually, they stopped seeing each other even though they lived in the same mansion. They ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at different times. They had different tutors. They never saw each other even though they lived in the same house.

That situation lasted for a long time. Meanwhile, Riku started to go out more. His father brought him to parties held by other influential people. His father introduced him to a lot of people, so he already had a lot of connections ever since he was young.

That was not the kind of life he wanted to live though. Unlike his brother, Riku felt he was under a lot of pressure from his father. He had to be the perfect boy they expected him to be. However, he also wanted to be free, just like his brother. His brother who didn’t have to go anywhere like him. His brother who didn’t have to wear a fake smile all the time.

In the beginning, he wanted to be his brother. However, when he grew older, he got a better idea. At least, in his opinion, it was a better idea than pretending to be his brother. Some people who knew them better could easily distinguish the two of them.

“I should try to be a girl. That way, no one will recognize me.”

He started to pay attention to woman’s attires. First, he bought the woman’s accessories, unknown to his family. After that, he started with the dress. The first time he wore the woman’s clothes, he noticed the lack of make-up. So, his manly face wearing a beautiful woman’s dress… that combination was not something that even he wanted to see.

Gradually, Riku became used to dress as a woman. And gradually, he used this hobby of his to run away from the expectation his father expected from him. Sometimes, he went to the village in the woman's disguise and no one noticed that he was not a woman. He even went to the neighboring city to enjoy life without pressure in the city every once in a while. With that kind of balanced life, he started to live a happy life.

Naturally, he wouldn’t want anyone to find out about his hobby. Fortunately, he found a secret room in the basement where his father never used before. No, it was not that his father never used the secret room. His father didn't even know the existence of the secret room, so Riku used the secret room only for himself. He gathered all of his dresses and accessories in that secret room. He also stole the only key to the secret room, the key that no one knew what it was for. So, he would be the only one who could use that secret room.

However, one day, he caught a plague. No, not only him. His father also caught the plague. Even the butler and the maids, no one was spared from the plague.

Everyone died one by one. Until Riku became the only one who lived in that big mansion. Riku, who lived alone in that mansion, stopped hiding his true self. He started appearing in his woman appearance in his house, even though his body grew weaker every day. And finally, his body was too weak to maintain its idle daily life because of the disease.

Thinking that he would meet his end soon, he would rather burn all of his secrets. However, his body was too weak. He used all his strength to crawl to the secret room, but… in his hurry, and because of the weakness that assaulted him, he forgot to bring the key to the secret room. And because he exhausted all his strength, he took a quick rest at the chair in this room. A quick rest that lasted eternally.

After he died, he became a ghost that haunted that mansion to drive people out. He didn’t want anyone to find out his secret. He couldn’t die peacefully. So, he could only drive people out with everything he had.

In the beginning, he didn’t gather as much malice as now. That was until the mansion was turned into amusement for a lot of people. He was afraid that his secret would be known by a lot of people, and his strong feeling became malice that gave him power. Not only that, but the malice from people's negative emotions also gave him power… until he was as strong as he was now.

The malice turned into a black miasma that trapped ghosts with negative emotion, who killed more people to be turned into ghosts with more negative emotion. This cycle repeated continuously until the amusement park was closed down. After that, only a handful of people came to the amusement park. Naturally, none of them returned alive.

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And the story continued until today when Mir killed him once again.

…

“Mir! Are you okay?” Raleigh was in front of her when she opened her eyes. Mir was still lying on the ground in the basement room. She looked around in confusion.

“It seems she’s okay.” Zed commented while it observed Mir carefully.

“Mir, I’ve stopped your bleeding, but I can’t restore the blood you have lost. You… we have to go to a hospital as soon as possible.” Raleigh told her. His face was pale, but he was smiling. Mir nodded softly when he told her that.

“…ah.” Mir exclaimed softly. Hearing her, both Raleigh and Zed raised their tension again.

“What’s wrong Mir!?” Zed asked in surprise.

“…nothing.” Mir shook her head. She tried to sit. Raleigh hurriedly helped her, and with his help, Mir managed to lean on a wall.

“Can you stand now?” Raleigh asked worriedly. Because of the fight against the ghost, Mir lost too much blood. He was worried that she wouldn’t be conscious after losing so much blood.

“…Raleigh…Zed.” Mir didn’t answer him. Instead, she said something that Raleigh and Zed couldn’t understand. “…wait outside.”

“Hm? Why? We should go out together. Even if the final boss is defeated, this place is still too dangerous for you to be alone!” Raleigh stopped her, but Mir shook her head. She stared at Raleigh with determined eyes.

“…important.” She said. Slightly bowing her head, Mir added, “…please.”

“…” Raleigh looked at Zed before the two of them reluctantly sighed.

“Alright, we’ll go outside first. But you have to be extremely careful, alright?” Zed answered for both Raleigh and it.

Mir nodded vehemently. “…nn.”

“Don’t do anything reckless like before, okay?” Zed added. Once again, Mir nodded.

“Alright, we are going to check on the other evil spirits…” Raleigh said after they made an agreement.

Raleigh and Zed left Mir in the basement. They made sure to check the basement, to see whether there were any stray evil spirits nearby, but they couldn't find anything. As for Mir, she closed her eyes. She didn’t tell them one thing. It was true that her body had been healed to some extent. She could move her body, it was also true. However, she was running out of her spiritual power because of the continued fight against the ghosts in the amusement park. Right now, she couldn’t even emit the light to light up the surrounding.

…though because the boss of this place had been defeated, she could use her flashlight again. The black miasma that covered the atmosphere had become thinner, so it was easier to breathe once again.

“…now then.” Mir pushed her body and she went to the second floor. Recalling Riku’s memories, she grabbed the key to the secret room. After grabbing the key, she returned to the secret room and entered it.

“…” Mir stopped as she saw a ghost was standing between her and the wardrobes at the end of the room. Only in a glance, Mir already knew that the ghost in front of her was Riku. Or at the very least, what was left of him.

Riku should have been defeated before. However, because of his willpower, because he really didn’t want anyone to find out about his secret, he had returned by using the power of the black miasma. However, he was still weak, unlike the previous one.

“…Riku.” Mir called him.

“Get out…” Riku looked desperate, even just speaking spent a lot of energy on him.

“…beautiful.” Mir said. Her word was a simple one. However, that simple word, stunned Riku and his beautiful face looked at Mir as if he had seen a ghost.

“…beautiful.” Mir repeated once again as she took a step forward. The ghost in front of her was far from beautiful. In fact, there was no trace of human left in its appearance. It looked more like a monster than a human, but Mir still said that he was beautiful.

“…you know?” Riku asked in disbelief. Mir nodded silently.

“…nn. Burn?” She asked while looking around the room. There were all kinds of ancient dresses, from the European-looking dresses wore by noble ladies there, to the ancient eastern dresses. Needless to say, they were all old, and some of them were in pieces already. However, Mir remembered that everything was once beautiful.

“…” Riku looked at Mir. It seemed he still couldn’t believe his ears. The girl in front of him was unlike the others he had met in his life before. The girl in front of him, knowing his secret, everyone would be disgusted by his hobby, yet, the girl never judged him at all. On the other hand, she even offered to help him protect his secret by burning all the evidence.

“…?” Mir looked back at Riku as he didn’t react even after Mir looked around casually. In the end, Riku closed his eyes. His body became a bit transparent, more transparent than when he was a ghost, before he completely disappeared, leaving a single word to Mir.

“…please.” That was what he said before he completely disappeared. Mir nodded, even though no one saw her.

Now, she had a promise to do, which was destroying all the evidence in this room. However, she didn’t bring anything to destroy the evidence with. If only she brought a match, she might burn the evidence.

“…ah.” Realizing something, Mir took a look at her left finger. There was a ring that could help her manipulate her spiritual energy. Mir couldn’t feel her spiritual energy. However, with the help of the ring, she could manipulate her spiritual energy just by imagining it. She could even make her spiritual energy emitted light, so they became light sources in the battle against Riku earlier.

If she could emit light by imagining it, she thought that she might transform her spiritual energy into fire… was what she was thinking. Well, she wasn’t wrong. The concept was not wrong. By nature, spiritual energy was some kind of energy. Naturally, just like any other kind of energy, it could be transformed into another form. So, from spiritual energy into heat was possible. Or transforming it into kinetic energy was also possible.

However, the problem was not in the concept itself. The problem was in the ring. Even though Raleigh said that the Ring was a treasure, but it was a low-level treasure to help apprentices like him manipulate their spiritual energy better. That was why it should be considered a low-level treasure. And that was why it was not possible to handle high-level techniques like transforming her spiritual energy into heat like she expected it to be. And the result of her trying to change her spent spiritual energy into the fire was…

“…ah.”

…it broke.