The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1176
Chapter 1176
A chilling silence filled the room.
No one said a word. All the viewers blankly watched the scene unfold. There were nearly thirty thousand people watching, and yet the chat had never been so silent.
Thud, thud, thud.
A strange rattling noise echoed as a pale white hand slowly reached out from beneath the bed.
No one could make out its face, smothered in long hair.
“
Ah... Ahhh...
” Marky trembled in fear as she stood frozen, staring at the grotesque figure.
Tap. Tap.
As it slowly crawled out, revealing itself little by little, Marky panicked and screamed, “T-This is a prank, right?! Tell me it’s a prank!!”
She never thought she’d be scared of something like a ghost. Yet after seeing that creepy drawing by Evangeline, an unidentifiable terror completely overtook her.
[R-Run!!]
[Just run for now!]
The frozen chat finally erupted, spiraling into a frenzy.
The viewers, as well as Marky who had tried to connect with them while Evangeline was gone, had never expected something like that to appear.
Everyone panicked.
However, contrary to their desperate pleas, Marky couldn’t move. She was frozen in place with fear.
Ssss.
The figure finally crawled completely out from under the bed. Wearing a pure white dress, it rose grotesquely to its feet.
Its long hair still covered its face, but Marky finally saw its eyes through the strands.
“
Ah. Ahhh...
” She let out a dazed whimper before collapsing to the floor unconscious. It was a pitifully anticlimactic faint for someone who had taken down an entire United States naval fleet with ease.
The ghost stood silently, gazing down at her.
Then, as the ghost turned to face the camera, the chat that had been in a frenzy froze again.
No one had expected something like this to happen. In horror movies, such a situation would’ve ended with a news headline the next day about a girl found dead.
Step. Step.
The ghost slowly approached the unconscious Marky. Then, without a word, it reached out its pale hand.
Everyone held their breath.
Ssss.
[
Huh?
]
[What...?]
The ghost suddenly yet gently lifted her limp body into its arms.
Then, ignoring the camera entirely, she carefully laid Marky on the bed and even tucked her in.
The viewers were stunned while watching the scene. However, the ghost just stood there for a moment, staring down blankly at her.
Each action it took was inexplicable, uncanny, and disturbing.
Then, after a long silence, the ghost wandered off into the hallways, only to return moments later with a rocking chair from who-knows-where and place it beside the bed.
Creaaaak. creaaaak.
The chair began to slowly rock back and forth.
A ghost had appeared! As if that wasn’t enough, it was rocking beside the bed without a care in the world, like the whole thing was completely normal.
[Am I seeing things?]
[What the hell is going on...]
Clunk.
Just then, the door to the room creaked open. The girl who the viewers were most familiar with walked in.
[Oh no... Boss!!]
[Run boss!!]
The panicked viewers flooded the chat, fearing that Evangeline would become the second victim. However, what she said next stunned everyone.
“Anabelle, that’s enough. I think we got her good. Stop messing around and go back to normal.”
The ghost, still slowly rocking in the chair, began to change.
Color returned to its pale skin as its long hair shrank to shoulder-length in a flash.
After that, its blunt ears quickly elongated like an elf’s.
[???]
[???]
[???]
The chat practically exploded with question marks. Evangeline glanced at the unconscious Marky and gave a mischievous grin. “Thought I was done getting revenge? Not a chance.”
She let out an eerie laugh as she gently patted the head of Anabelle, who still sat in the rocking chair.
“Everyone, let me introduce you. This is Anabelle, a biological golem my dad made in the past. Her favorite pastime is dressing up like a ghost and pulling pranks on people.”
The frozen chat began flooding with disbelief and confusion at the sudden revelation.
[Boss... What is even happening right now...?]
[I don’t understand anything I’m seeing.]
Evangeline shrugged at the flustered viewers. “Anabelle is my bodyguard. Always has been, though I guess you wouldn’t have known. Honestly, I didn’t think she’d crawl under the bed like that either. Her body looks like a normal elf on the outside, but she’s actually a golem.”
The moment she said ‘golem,’ the reactions exploded.
[Can you at least signal before dropping something like this????]
[Why is this stream so hardcore all of a sudden...]
[Wait, this was part of your revenge?!]
“Of course it was! You think I got over it that easily? No way.” She scoffed with a sharp smirk. “Marky is just the easiest target, and only the start. I haven’t even touched Rinne and Yuria yet.”
[Wow... the grudge is REAL.]
[She was still holding onto that this whole time? For real?]
“What do you mean by satisfying a grudge? This is just warming up, okay? At least I’m not clingy and creepy like my dad!”
Even with her protest, the viewers remained united.
[Yep, like father like daughter.]
[She really is like the Saint through and through lol.]
Seeing the comments about her resembling her father, Evangeline went blank for a second, then suddenly grinned without realizing it.
Startled by her reaction, she slapped her own mouth. “
Hmph.
Who says I’m like him?! I seriously hate how he comes home drunk all the time!”
She forced out words she didn’t mean, but without even realizing it herself, the corners of her mouth were trembling and rising.
She hadn’t noticed it herself, but being told she resembled Davey brought her a quiet sense of relief.
Evangeline wasn’t related by blood to Davey, or to anyone else in her life for that matter. Deep down, she’d always been stressed by that fact.
Anabelle, the ‘ghost’ that had just thrown everyone into fear, continued to rock back and forth with a blank expression. The viewers tried hard to lighten the mood.
[Honestly, that scared the living hell out of me... Wait, why are my thighs wet? Did I spill my tea?]
[But seriously... It’s a golem? Like the kind I know? Has the Saint of Tionis mastered human transmutation or something?]
“
Huh?
Why are you so shocked?”
[??? You’re really asking that? It looks like a person—no, an elf!]
[Exactly. Who would ever guess that it’s a golem?]
“That’s weird. You guys have already seen a golem plenty of times, haven’t you?”
That one comment sent question marks flying across the chat.
[We’ve seen one??]
[What are you even talking about??]
[Boss, are you drunk??]
“I mean... Rinne’s a golem, too. A biological golem, and the prototype of Anabelle. Of course, Rinne has her own will-like ego, unlike Anabelle...”
That casual statement hit the viewers like a bolt of lightning.
“That aside, I still need to get back to those two. It might take a while... but it’s gonna happen whether they like it or not.”
[Mommy... I don’t want to get on the boss’s bad side anymore.]
[She’s terrifying...]
[Colder than cold lolols]
Meanwhile, the unconscious Marky’s face was still drained of all color.
Watching her in satisfaction, Evangeline reached into a box on the floor and pulled out a bag of snacks.
“Good job, Anabelle. Here, some potato sticks.”
Anabelle sprang up from the rocking chair in an instant.
She wasn’t a golem with an ego like Rinne. Still, Evangeline sometimes wondered if she really didn’t have a will of her own.
However, in the end, it didn’t matter.
The results were what mattered, and today’s results were perfect.
* * *
While Evangeline was getting revenge, driven by the trait of holding grudges she clearly got from her father, a message arrived at Heins Academy.
“Professor, this just came in from Shakuntala.”
A beautiful girl with black hair handed over a letter, and Alice gave a tired nod as she received it.
“
Haaah.
Thank you, Josiah Frances.”
“You look exhausted these days. Want me to cast a stamina recovery spell for you?”
“Believe it or not, I’m a theology professor. My holy power’s still active, and besides, isn’t your energy incompatible with mine?”
“
Oh.
That’s true.” Josiah chuckled softly.
“So what’s it about?”
“We requested some exam questions from that man at Shakuntala not long ago.”
Exam questions!
Her expression darkened.
Her alma mater was the Shakuntala Magic Academy. Even though she’d been in the failing class back then, Josiah had been a genius. Her encounter with Davey had completely overturned her life, background, and everything else.
“Shakuntala,
huh?
I kinda miss it.”
These days, she was no longer at Shakuntala. Instead, she was a graduate student at Heins Academy. Though, truthfully, her time at Heins had been far more fulfilling.
The school grew at what seemed like an exponential rate, all thanks to a suspiciously wealthy chairman backing everything behind the scenes.
It was quite funny for her.
“So? Did the professor send them?”
“Well... Yes, technically,” she murmured as she handed her a small sheet of paper. “He sent three questions for the middle school division. Want to try solving them?”
For Josiah, now an absolute vampire monarch lord and a magic genius, middle school problems were a piece of cake.
“Knowing the professor, he probably stuck to strict academic standards without doping the difficulty too much...” She trailed off mid-sentence, and her pupils shrank as she read the problems.
What she faced wasn’t simply a piece of cake. It was the entire cake with a cherry on top.
“I don’t really know magic, only know what I picked up secondhand. So I can’t say how difficult it really is...”
“Hold on, Professor.” Josiah reached into the air, and a nearby quill flew into her hand. She laid the paper on the desk and began furiously scribbling formulas on it.
Even if she had once been in the failing class, Josiah was a bona fide genius. She was on track to become a full professor at Heins Academy within five years.
Davey was just absurdly out of this world; the faculty at Heins Academy was filled with people of extraordinary backgrounds. For someone like Josiah, not being able to solve a middle school test question made no sense.
There were five problems in total, and she breezed through the first one.
Then the second.
And the third.
However, by the time she reached the fourth question, her pace had slowed drastically.
It was a long time before a deep frown formed on her face.
“This bastard seriously needs to stop wasting his talent like this!” Grinding her teeth, she slammed the desk.
“So... what did Shakuntala say?”Josiah stopped solving and turned to Alice, who was sipping her coffee.
Alice shrugged. “What do you think? They filed an official complaint, saying the middle school questions were basically unsolvable conundrums.”
They’d asked for the questions as part of an academic exchange. There was no point in giving them problems that were so hard no one could solve them, after all.
“I feel like you’re telling me this for a reason, which is making me nervous...”
“Yes, you’re right. You’ll go there yourself, solve the problems, and explain the intent behind them.”
Her face turned dark. “Wait, Professor. I’m just a grad student...”
“Right. A grad student.”
That one line clearly carried the meaning of specificity.
“That man once said that grad students are people who’d stuff an elephant into a frozen artifact the size of a golf ball if their professor told them to.”
Apparently, even the princess of the Terraria Kingdom, who had joined Baron Gorneo’s research group as a grad student, constantly complained about her life whenever the two met.
Josiah didn’t have anything to say in response.
“You’ll do it, right?” Alice smiled sweetly, and Josiah sagged her head.
In other words, to deal with the situation, she’d have to solve the absurd problems and uncover Davey’s twisted logic behind each one.
“Screw it. I need to suck some of his blood, Professor.”
With her fangs bared, Josiah stomped out of the room.
Thus began the long-standing feud between Shakuntala and Heins Academy.
Chapter 1176
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