With a hint of excitement, Yumeno Jiusako, who loves dolls, reached out to touch the face of Hyakki.

“Big brother, are you a doll?”

“Indeed… such a beautiful doll!”

Tears welled up in Yumeno Jiusako’s eyes, his left pupil forming a golden circle while the right one resembled a golden star. His clumsy attempt to please did not meet any resistance from Hyakki.

Hyakki pushed his perception to the limit, trying to “see” the life flame enveloped in red light.

Is it white?

It’s a bit like… obscured from view.

Dazai frowned unhappily. “Tsk, do children have privileges now?”

He snatched Yumeno Jiusako from Hyakki’s grasp, resembling an envious older child.

“Don’t touch him, brat.”

Dazai’s careless tone held a hint of danger. “This doll belongs to me.”

…

Yumeno Jiusako remained silent, tears flowing endlessly, despairingly looking at his doll brother. Unable to discern Yumeno Jiusako’s life flame after multiple attempts, Hyakki gave up observing and coldly grabbed Yumeno Jiusako’s doll, throwing it to the ground. With swift strikes of his sword, he dismembered this doll that couldn’t even smile.

“Is the thread still unbroken?”

Hyakki sought to sever the connection between the thread and the lingering life flame outside.

Meanwhile, Dazai had already gathered the necessary intelligence. “Hyakki, this won’t work,” he said. Even though Hyakki had found the “root cause” of the issue, supernatural abilities could only be resolved by other supernatural abilities.

Without touching the doll on the ground, Dazai casually tossed Yumeno Jiusako aside. Standing upright, he gazed at Hyakki, who was still slashing at the doll, with an odd expression. Based on his assessment, Yumeno Jiusako’s ability was named “Cerebral Hell,” which would induce people into a mental illusion, exploiting the weaknesses of the mind to drive them insane.

The advantage was that the illusion would evoke memories deep within, simulating reality.

“Hyakki…”

Dazai’s fingers gradually loosened.

Once fully loosened, the effect of “No Longer Human” would disappear from Hyakki.

Hyakki suddenly grabbed him, feeling a palpable sense of impending loss.

“Dororo, what are you trying to do?!”

Dazai chuckled softly at his beastly intuition. “Don’t act like you can’t live without me. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to abandon you just yet…”

Yumeno Jiusako lifted his head in pain, remembering Dazai’s calm smile at this moment.

It was… a rational, faint tenderness.

Dazai chose to push Hyakki into the “Cerebral Hell,” just so he could catch a glimpse of the true colors of this world amidst the screams of the living hell.

Hyakki’s vision became chaotic, mixing darkness with white and red light.

The thread surged towards him.

Stiffly, he lowered his head to “see” the dismembered figure.

For the first time, his perception failed him; he couldn’t see Dororo’s figure, nor could he see the dangerous red light.

His mind momentarily drifted, as if he had returned to his time at the Transcendence Bureau, standing among a crowd of peers, all interns from the same period. They frowned as they watched the list of names appearing on the screen.

“Are these the only choices?”

“The difficulty has increased this time, eliminating characters with invincible abilities.”

“I was looking forward to dominating enemies from start to finish…”

“Forget it, as long as there’s no task to play the role of Touya’s protagonist, it’s easy to pass the assessment safely.”

“Ah… that character who suffers so much…”

The noisy voices reverberated in his head, buzzing like someone who hadn’t heard sounds for a long time suddenly hearing a multitude of voices in panic. Hyakki involuntarily crouched down, trembling as he hugged his ears.

So painful.

So painful… is this… sound…?

Where… am I… Is this the Transcendence Bureau? Have I been taken back by the Travel Department?

A strong sense of discord and discomfort overwhelmed his entire body. Just as Hyakki was about to faint from the pain, a somewhat familiar voice, but a name he couldn’t find in his memories, sounded: “■■, the male protagonist in ‘Dororo’ has a particularly long playing time, starting from birth and progressing through the storyline. The female protagonist and the young male protagonist are several years younger, and their appearances aren’t particularly beautiful. Are you sure you want to choose him?”

Hyakki had many words in his mind, but he couldn’t utter a single one; his throat was blocked.

His “friend” during this internship didn’t pay much attention to his reaction either, enviously saying, “You have such confidence, which I can’t achieve. I can only choose some supporting roles outside of the main characters. You know, all the main characters in shonen manga have to undergo some trials. The Time Travel Department won’t provide characters like Kisei for us…”

Hyakki gritted his teeth, enduring the impending collapse from receiving too much information, suddenly looking up from his head-held position.

The entire world came into view.

This was the assessment site of the Time Travel Department. The face of his “friend” was plain and ordinary, yet extremely unfamiliar. Their mouth movements were clearer than what he had dreamed of in his early dreams.

Suddenly, as Hyakki tried to identify the other person, his brain became dizzy, and the scene disappeared again.

A row of cold characters appeared as if printed by a printer.

【According to Rule ■■■ of the Internship, it is prohibited to elaborate on the Time Travel Department in detail in other worlds, to imagine Transcendence Bureau employees. You have triggered the Time Travel Department ‘s anti-leakage mode and are compelled to transform relevant thoughts into ■■■■■■■■■■■■■…】

What is this?

Before he could finish reading, Hyakki’s thoughts were filled with countless black pixels.

Immediately after, the effect of his supernatural ability was disrupted—

The scene shifted, back to the delivery room where Hyakki was born in this life. Outside, a storm raged, and in the flash of lightning and thunder, a baby’s piercing cry pierced through the hearts of those present!

Hyakki felt an indescribable resonance; this was his own voice! His own helplessness and despair!

【I can actually see the moment of my birth…】

So it was…

Before the lightning of the demon god struck, the world had already been imprinted into Hyakki’s eyes as he struggled to open them.

As tears blurred his vision, Hyakki, back in his infancy, felt a stinging pain in his eyes and vaguely saw his mother, fragile and beautiful, lying on the bed, experiencing pain and joy when giving birth to him.

“My child…”

Lady Seamstress didn’t have the chance to hold Hyakki’s hand; she gently embraced him.

Tears fell softly.

This embrace, delayed by too many years, sought to drown Hyakki in the warmth of familial love.

Even if everything were to be lost in the next moment, even if he were to barely survive the next moment… it would seem worth it.

As lightning struck, Hyakki once again lost his sight. In his perception, his mother grasped his neck with her hands, attempting to kill him. She was so fragile and pitiful, unable to protect her own child. Even after witnessing her child being turned into a human sacrifice, she didn’t have the strength to kill him.

A surge of sorrow and resentment rose in his heart.

He couldn’t control his emotions, even though he knew the one to blame was Daigo Jingguang, his father who sacrificed him. But who could endure their own mother’s attempt to strangle them without feeling any pain?

【Mother, I want to live.】

【And…】

【I have a better foster father than my biological father. He raised me, just like another mother. He did everything you didn’t do for me.】

Hyakki lay in his infant swaddle, battling against death, awaiting the outcome of being picked up by Jukai.

In the illusion of the “Cerebral Hell,” he didn’t wait for Jukai’s arrival. Lady Seamstress slowly choked him in the swaddle, and he was on the brink of losing his breath…

【I don’t want to die… I still want to see Jukai… to see Dororo…】

Death felt like a world beneath the surface of water.

Surrounded by the dying darkness with no sense of touch, sight, hearing, or smell, Hyakki fought desperately against suffocation. The pain couldn’t kill him; he refused to accept his fate. The remnants of the twelve demons’ power flickered within his soul.

With one final, difficult breath…

Something on Hyakki’s face was lifted, the suffocation disappeared, and his breathing became smooth. No longer were his mother’s hands around his neck. Instead, he felt the sensation of being reborn.

He was saved once again.

Dazai removed his mask and calmly pressed on his chest to help him breathe. Unlike others who would harm themselves in the illusion, Hyakki crouched down, trembling pitifully, like a wild animal shivering in a cave after being trapped in the “Cerebral Hell.” However, Dazai forcefully suppressed any compassion, waiting until Hyakki was suffocating before intervening to lift the supernatural ability.

“Hyakki, are you back to normal?” Dazai felt a twinge of regret for his incomplete plan, continuously reassuring him. The puppet, unaware and oblivious, gradually stopped trembling in his embrace, just as it did the last time.

【Was that… an illusion? After I was born, it seems like my mother didn’t hold me…】

When Hyakki realized it was an illusion, he felt lost and despondent, urgently clutching at “Dororo.” 【I want to see it again! That vivid world!】

Death is very painful.

But isn’t a life of struggling worse than death?

“Can you see it?” Dazai understood his meaning, his gaze suddenly fixed on the fleeing Yumeno. He softly said, “Rest for now. There will be plenty of opportunities for you to see it in the future.”

Wait in peace.

We all yearn to experience the feeling of being alive.

With a gentle expression, Dazai wrote on Hyakki’s heart: “Wait.”

The impatient and restless black-haired youth quieted down, covering the spot over his heart. He nodded sluggishly. The face with three dark voids inexplicably showed a sense of obedient contentment.

“Hiss—”

Dazai couldn’t help but find it a bit cute, but then he felt a sudden chill, his scalp tingling.

He felt like something was wrong with himself.

Was it aesthetics…

Yumeno, standing by the door, wiped away tears from being bullied, sniffing, suddenly froze and murmured, “Looks like my doll, so cute…” He lowered his head to look at the doll lying on the ground, bound with bandages, its eyes painted black, mouth sealed with thread. Well, it had been mercilessly dismembered by the other party.

“…” What the heck?

Dazai averted his gaze to look at the doll, which bore a striking resemblance. After comparing, he decisively put the mask back on Hyakki. Once again, he admired the face on the mask with appreciative eyes, deeply impressed by the master craftsman who carved it. Such skill! It could forcibly adjust his sense of aesthetics back to normal.

Damn it, his sense of aesthetics hadn’t degraded to the level of Yumeno!

【Dororo seems to be disdainful of my face…】

No need for evidence, Hyakki realized the truth in a daze.

It’s such a superficial world, judging by appearances.