Demons Beside You

West settled Chen Zhao with much difficulty.

For this, he even activated Quick Thinking and used all his persuasion tactics.

After he made a bunch of unreliable promises, Chen Zhao finally managed to accept.

The car parked before an abandoned two-story brick house. There was a puddle of black water before the door.

Chen Zhao got out of the car. When he"d first come to America, he"d lived in similar places.

But looking at this kind of building now, it hurt his eyes.

“It"s really here?”

“Yes.” West looked away.

There was a metal ladder on the side. They climbed up to the second floor.

The second floor was a single room divided by man-made fiberboards. The interior design was even simpler.

No. More accurately, it wasn"t even furnished.

Alright, at least it was clean.

That was probably the only good part.

West brought Chen Zhao to the largest part.i.tion—the conference room.

Even though it was crude, it had everything necessary.

There was a long office table, a dozen chairs, and an old-fas.h.i.+oned projector.

There were ten people in the room. Other than Baliya, Bir, Moore, Morid, and Jollinash, there were five more people.

But the ten didn"t look very spirited. They were either chatting amongst themselves or playing on their phones.

West coughed, but everyone ignored him.

“Quiet,” West called again.

“Everyone, look at my eyes.” Chen Zhao suddenly pointed at his forehead.

Everyone looked at Chen Zhao in confusion.

The next moment, they felt extreme heat. Their surroundings started burning and collapsing. The sky turned blood-red.

“Ah!”

“What happened?”

“Where is this? Where are we?”

Baliya ran forward in fright, but then the ground before her collapsed. It was scalding lava under it.

The terrible heatwave hit her. If she took another step, she would fall down.

The air was filled with the smell of sulfur.

“Hallucination. This is a hallucination…”

This was a hallucination, of course. It was the h.e.l.l Knell.

It was quite effective against people with lower magic abilities than Chen Zhao.

Even though it won"t cause any actual damage, the scary effect was very good.

It was easy to accidentally hurt someone though. West grabbed Chen Zhao"s hands tightly.

“President, if it"s a hallucination, please undo it for me. I can"t stand this feeling.”

“I can"t undo it. I haven"t learned how to do it yet,” Chen Zhao said. “Okay, the first meeting as president starts now.”

Chen Zhao held onto the table. It was still too hard to cast h.e.l.l Knell on so many people at once.

But if he wanted to act cool, he had to finish no matter what.

“If you want to stay in that environment forever, you can let me know. I"ll arrange an eternal package for you.”

Chen Zhao knocked on the table. “Quiet down. Do you really want the eternal package?”

The ten in the room finally quieted down. Even though they knew this was a spell, they would still be afraid of the end of the world, no matter how composed they were.

“Those five don"t need to introduce themselves. The other five, introduce yourselves.”

“President, I"m Worchester, the treasurer,” a middle-aged bald man stood up and said. His forehead was covered in sweat.

“I"m in charge of the warehouse and repairs. Patilu.”

“Arms expert, Jolag.”

“Strategy logistics, Engelite.”

“Security guard, Ados… Also, I"m the only regular person here. President, can you undo the spell for me? I think I need to change a pair of pants.”

“No, sit down.” Chen Zhao made a downward gesture.

He had to spend more magic to undo the spell.

He was very tired now, so he had to wait until his magic recovered to undo the spell.

Since he wanted to intimidate them, he would make it more memorable.

The ten members of the supernatural club were almost going crazy.

Since when did someone just cast a spell like this?

And it was such a great spell that made them think it was real.

“Worchester, report to me how much money is left.”

“Twenty-three thousand dollars.”

“So you still have $23,000? Why don"t you rent a better office?”

“President, we haven"t gotten paid this month yet.”

Chen Zhao was speechless. “When do we get more funding?”

“President, if we don"t take care of the evil spirits in Mapleville, we"ll never get the funds.”

“What department is in charge of our funds? Go send some evil spirits to their head and let them feel the significance of our existence.”

“The anti-terrorist department.”

“Okay, pretend I didn"t say anything,” Chen Zhao said. “Let"s talk about the evil spirits in Mapleville. Someone tell me the results of the previous attempts.”

“Failed, failed, failed…and failed.”

“Then, do you have any data for the specific number and abilities of the evil spirits?”

“No…”

“What do you mean "no"? Didn"t you attack them many times?”

“Yes,” West said. “But other than destroying some on the fringe, we didn"t have any other results. There are still many evil spirits inside. Every time we try to venture in, we suffer from even more intense attacks.”

“Now, make an action plan immediately,” Chen Zhao said.

“Huh?”

“Huh what? If you don"t want to do it, then whatever. I"m being the president for nothing too.”

“Then… President, what about you?”

“I"ll cooperate with you,” Chen Zhao said. “Don"t think I"ll do everything by myself. I"m the president, after all. Also, Worchester, give me the financial records. I want to check them.”

“Huh?”

“What.” Chen Zhao looked at Worchester.

Worchester lowered his eyes. “Oh.”

“Okay, dismissed.” Chen Zhao slapped the table. “Also, look at my eyes.”

Whoo—

Everyone"s h.e.l.l Knell was finally undone.

They all sprawled on the table, covered in sweat.

“President, I"m old,” Bir complained. “I can"t go through that again.”

“I"m mentally traumatized.”

Amongst them all, only Jollinash was still composed.

The others had very fragile hearts.

The h.e.l.l Knell wasn"t all-powerful. Usually, people with a stronger mind or knew about supernatural things wouldn"t put up a scene like them.

Okay, Chen Zhao would have to see about this president situation.

If he really couldn"t do it anymore, he could run off like the previous presidents.

This was the worst group of supernatural people that Chen Zhao had ever met.