Breaking Free: Love & Rebellion at Blackthorn Academy. - Chapter 53: TOGETHER.

Life used to be so simple,

Full of false hope and endless beliefs in one’s ability in wooing that beautiful girl.

But in a single instant,

Everything as you knew it, plummeted faster than a spoken rejection.

What is real and false can’t be determined,

As the world slowly falls into the maws of the apocalypse.

How will our simple friend respond to the call; the summons?

No matter what he chooses,

Chaos SHALL Reign!

- Description from Novelupdates

Shishio stared at the beautiful girl in front of him, and he couldn’t look away. Her waist might be the narrowest waist that he had ever seen, and he was wondering how it felt to hug that waist. Finally, he made up his mind and decided to say hello to her, but suddenly…

[Target has been found!]

«Huh?»

[Welcome to Scumbag System!]

[The more woman you have, the more rewards you will receive!]

[As a starting gift, you have received «Japanese Food Cooking Mastery»!]

[As the first target has been found, you also receive 500 million yen on your back account!]

[The journey has only been started!]

[Work hard, young man!]

«???????»

Shishio frowned and said, «I refuse!» without hesitation, but after a while…

«I refuse!.. I really refuse!.. I really try hard to refuse!.. Sorry, I can’t refuse it…»

Shishio tried really hard, but he couldn’t…

***

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Three thousand years of bowing down to the Demon Lord, I would rather be a mortal than a celestial being when looking back, but for her I will… become one who controls life and death!

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.