Help! I changed the gender of the male protagonist in the yandere game

The Skeleton Warrior was a minor boss.

However, in the graveyard battle, theoretically, as long as it wasn't killed, it would continuously generate Skeleton Soldiers.

Because it didn't die, the next powerful monster in this battle scene of the side quest, the Wraith Lord's other subordinate, 'Aratama Skeleton,' wouldn't appear, which would directly decrease the game's difficulty.

Veteran players, having played for so long, were already familiar with the game's routines.

They also figured out another function of this Skeleton Warrior as a boss: as long as they controlled it, they could stop the surrounding Skeleton Soldiers from attacking them.

In other words, turning the Skeleton Warrior into a 'Tanaka Spine Sword' was enough to put the Skeleton Soldiers, who would originally swarm in from all directions, into a stagnant mode.

"Otherwise, with my current strength, just dealing with the astonishing number of Skeleton Soldiers would exhaust all my energy."

He held the Skeleton Warrior in his hand, still roughly shaking its spine, grinding his teeth. Having lost its limbs, its resistance was just a struggle.

From the beginning, Hyakusuke didn't plan to recklessly charge through the Skeleton horde.

After all, as a player, skillfully utilizing game mechanics was what he should do.

The game flow of 'Usen Plain Graveyard' was quite simple.

According to the description in the side quest, the Wraith Lord was a descendant of the ancient Fujiwara clan, who was demoted to this place due to losing in court struggles and died in a foreign land.

During his lifetime, he loved playing the biwa and other instruments, and after his death, he often appeared nearby, harassing passersby as a wraith.

However, strictly speaking, he hadn't done anything evil. He just occupied the graveyard at night, played the biwa, or recited a few poems when he encountered passersby.

In modern society, he would only be causing noise pollution and would be reported by neighbors.

On the other hand, this Wraith Lord was timid but had troublesome abilities.

Weak exorcists couldn't defeat him, and powerful ones would be detected before they got close, so no one could do anything about him.

However, he loved playing instruments during his lifetime and had a strong competitive spirit. If he encountered another skilled musician, he would couldn't help but challenge them.

"The key to the game's flow is to have Hotaru help the player attract the opponent's attention."

In the depths of the mist, the sounds of the biwa and the kokyu were competing with each other. The two clear and passionate sounds were constantly colliding, creating ripple-like patterns in the void.

Zheng.

Zheng zheng…

In fact, according to the game's story, to attract the Wraith Lord's attention, one needed to have spiritual qualities and possess excellent musical abilities.

Because the Wraith Lord had lost to a female musician during his lifetime, he remained concerned about this even after death.

However, finding a female exorcist who wasn't weak wasn't difficult, and there were many women with spiritual power, but finding a spiritually powerful woman proficient in musical arts was somewhat troublesome.

Coincidentally, Hotaru was the most suitable candidate.

In particular, her ability to use 'Silent Assassination' to conceal her presence allowed her to hide on the outskirts of the graveyard, unaffected by the skeletons and wraiths, and quietly play music.

As mentioned before, many ghosts and monsters rely on spiritual power to sense the outside world. Skeletons have no eyeballs or hearing; wraiths are in a spiritual state, so they rely heavily on spiritual power to sense the outside world.

After using 'Silent Assassination,' Hotaru could even retract all the pores on her body, her heartbeat, blood flow, and breathing. As long as she was engaged in stealth assassination, no perception of spiritual power could detect her movements.

"Good."

Hyakusuke strode forward, the Skeleton Soldiers along the way hardly approaching him, which allowed him to move quickly.

He moved through the tide of Skeleton Soldiers like Moses parting the Red Sea. Wherever he went, the Skeleton Soldiers would automatically disperse.

"Next is to camp and deal with the second wraith boss."

Hyakusuke patted the salt container he was carrying, his eyes scanning the tombstones and stupas in the graveyard.

'I remember the locations of those three tombstones are nearby, right…'

Skeleton Soldiers, Skeleton Warriors, and Gaki Skeletons were the first wave of enemies.

In the second wave, all the Skeleton Soldiers would disappear, and a large number of Undead would appear.

The number of Undead was also enormous. They could fly and would scurry around the graveyard. Just touching them would cause one's stamina to be stolen and lost.

On the other hand, the second wave of enemies also included boss-level enemies, who were also subordinates of the Wraith Lord: the three concubine female wraiths.

These were three powerful wraiths, with strength comparable to the general 'Aratama Skeleton'—also, because wraiths are all spiritual bodies, only magic skills could be effective, so it was very difficult for the male lead, whose job was an exorcising swordsman, to fight them.

—Fortunately, Hyakusuke also had targeted strategies.

"Found them."

He followed his memories from the past game and found three tombstones.

"Next, none of you three will even think about coming out."

Hyakusuke grinned, pouring out the salt from the salt container, intending to draw a salt circle around these three tombstones.

—Salt, in the folklore of Japan, is a spiritual substance that can deal with ghosts and evil spirits.

…

Hotaru felt immense pressure.

"So strong."

From a young age, the time she had spent on the kokyu (an instrument developed from the erhu) was no less than her swordsmanship.

Because assassination work also required stealth, the best role for a woman to play was a wandering prostitute.

So, learning the kokyu, shamisen, dance, and even demeanor, dressing style, were not strange things.

Hotaru had a talent for this. Of course, her younger sister, Amai, was even more talented.

Amai was dexterous and learned everything quickly, especially the shamisen.

However, if she were to talk about her mastery of the kokyu, her most proficient instrument, she was still more skilled than her sister.

Although young, almost no one of her age could surpass her in the art of the kokyu, and even her teaching master praised her for being close to the level of a "grand master."

However, Hotaru was now feeling the power of the "wraith" playing the biwa.

That kind of skill was accumulated over a long period of time, with countless years of blood, sweat, and tears immersed in the biwa.

Hotaru believed that as long as she continued to refine her skills, she would one day be able to reach this level. However, this thing called time was the most difficult to make up for… This wasn't something that could be countered right now.

Her hand holding the bow trembled slightly. The sound of the melody also changed slightly, and the tone of the biwa became stronger at that moment.

The sound of the zither penetrated the mist, flew into the night sky, and spread through the air to every inch of the graveyard, gradually suppressing Hotaru's kokyu.

"This is bad."

Her brow furrowed.

…

"What's going on? Hotaru's kokyu is actually being suppressed by the biwa?"

This was beyond Hyakusuke's expectations.

This didn't happen in the game. Hotaru used the kokyu to resist the Wraith Lord's biwa, completely attracting the opponent's attention, allowing the male lead, Tsukigaro Yoake, to take the opportunity to sweep away the monsters in the graveyard.

Suddenly, on the three tombstones surrounded by the purifying salt scattered on the ground, clusters of ghost fire floated up.

Three ghostly figures also floated out.

"So fast?"

He had just finished sprinkling the salt from the salt container, and these three female wraiths in ancient costumes emerged from the graves.

"It wasn't this fast in the game, right?"

Hyakusuke vaguely noticed something was wrong.

These three female wraiths were all concubines of that Wraith Lord. They flew out coquettishly and flamboyantly.

Several fist-sized green flames floated up and down around these three transparent women, which was very strange.

"Living person, I smell the scent of a living person."

"Really~~ Sisters, there are living people here…"

"What fresh yang energy~~ Let me taste it."

Their gazes shifted to Hyakusuke, their eyes full of greed and evil. Wraiths could absorb the vitality and spiritual power of living people.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh!

The three female wraiths pounced over, only to crash into an invisible barrier, like insects hitting the windshield of a car.

"Salt… it's a salt circle."

"Damn it, damn it…"

"He trapped us!!!"

They screamed, their faces becoming hideous and distorted. Even so, the three female ghosts still tried to push their faces forward, intending to rush out.

"Get back."

Hyakusuke sprinkled salt on the spear and thrust it out, the spear extended. Suddenly, one of the three female wraiths felt a dark shadow shooting towards her brow.

"Ah!"

She had just let out a scream, and a plume of black smoke emanated from the position she was stabbed, between her eyebrows.

"If you don't want to suffer, stay put…"

As he spoke, he listened to the two different timbres floating in the air.

The tone of the kokyu was completely suppressed by the sound of the biwa, gradually becoming weaker, while the melody of the biwa became increasingly elevated, clearly taking the upper hand.

"This is not good."

This filled his heart with a strong sense of crisis.

Suddenly, the tone of the biwa rose another level, and the sound of the kokyu seemed to be interrupted, completely inaudible.

Buzz…

A strong wave swept over.

All the skeletons in the graveyard were crushed and disintegrated into scattered fragments under the suppression of an invisible force.

At the moment the skeletons disappeared.

The surrounding mist also flowed.

In the graveyard, in the tombstones and burial mounds distributed in all directions, clusters of phantoms struggled and crawled out of the ground.

—That was a cluster of wraiths.

"Damn it, the second wave of attacks came so fast?"

Hyakusuke knew what was going on. If he directly launched a raid without Hotaru's support, the Wraith Lord could strengthen all the units belonging to him when the second wave of wraith clusters appeared by playing the biwa.

The sound of the biwa echoed in the night air, the sound of the zither giving him goosebumps all over. At this moment, all the wraiths were close to berserk, the wind howling, and they surged like a storm from all directions.