The spookiness continues inside as well as outdoors. Cobwebs decorate the corners of our classroom. The lights flicker on and off, on and off. A ghostly apparition hoers behind Ms. Delphine and makes obscene gestures as she takes roll.

“Ms. Delphine—” Marie♥ begins cautiously.

“I know,” she answers. “But we have more important things to do right now. Could you all please follow me to the auditorium?”

The mandatory pre-event assembly takes place exactly on the hour. Everyone in the room is wearing a costume of some kind, whether it’s a series of cosmetic equips for their hair and eyes or something from this year’s or a previous year’s gacha.

The sphinx stands on stage, her paws resting on a podium.

“Now, you have entered the Haunted Halcyon Halloween Tower,” she intones. “When you were young, were you afraid of ghosts and ghouls? You always tried to collect the most candy, didn’t you? Embrace those memories! Become children once more! Take on the challenges that await you on the higher floors. But beware! For a spirit of death lurks at the highest point, waiting to reap your mortal soul.”

I bet that’s where we get the Reaper’s Scythe!

“Overcome the trials and purify the renegade spirits who wander the halls! Do your best, and always embrace the true meaning of Halloween!”

The cutscene comes to a close and our beloved principal heads up onto the stage. She taps her microphone with delight. “Well, students, you heard the spirit! Don’t forget your free pull from the Halloween cauldron, and as always, remember to have fun!”

This leaves me with several important questions:

1. Would there be Ghosts of Halloween Present and Future?

2. Would they also be hot?

3. Who the hell would forget about their free pull?!

I casually leaf through today’s daily quests and notice that they’re all tied to the event. “Enter the Halloween Tower wearing a seasonal equip”, “kill six ghosts”, and “climb five floors of the Halloween Tower.” I won’t be able to complete them if I sit around here wasting time!

The stairs of the school will lead up higher and higher, generating phantom levels that will disappear at the event’s conclusion.

I head up the first flight of stairs and immediately trigger an encounter. A ghost — just a person wearing a sheet, I think — jumps out and yells “Boo!” I grab my whip and crack it once. With my boosted damage, the ghost goes down immediately. I loot its corpse and come back with a single candy.

It’s slow going because the spawn rate on the lower levels is pretty high: about one ghost every few steps. As you go up higher, it takes more stamina to take a single step and the ghosts won’t appear with as much regularity. Certain items can increase the spawn rate. The Werewolf Ears in particular have the largest bonus.

On the third floor, someone catches my attention. She’s wearing ripped shorts with fur cuffs and a torn plaid shirt. I’ve seen the preview pictures. I know what this is. It’s the five-star Sexy Werewolf costume — worn by none other than Marie♥!

Of course she’d be whaling already. I have to say, I’m embarrassingly into it. As we approach each other, I notice that she’s also got the Werewolf Ears. The picture is complete. I’m in heaven!

“Яagnarok!” she exclaims when she sees me.

Oh my god, she remembered my name. I swallow my nerves and croak out a hello in return.

“You sound kind of hoarse,” Marie♥ says, her brow furrowing with worry.

With a whale like her showing sympathy to me, I can die happy.

“Thanks for noticing me.”

“What?”

“I- I mean, look out!”

She’s not fast enough! A ghost pounces, tangling her in its sheet. She thrashes wildly, trying to repel it, but she doesn’t seem to have offensive equips of any kind. As she’s pulled into combat, I wonder if I should say something. I hate being that guy when it comes to how people want to strategize, but it seems like she was caught so off-guard that she doesn’t know what to do.

“Do you have a weapon?”

“No!” she cries. “Maybe?"

There’s no choice. I reach into my inventory and pull out my prized Thief’s Dagger. It’s do-or-die, and sometimes, when it’s for the girl, you just have to do.

“Catch!”

Clumsily, blindly, she extends a hand and manages to grasp the dagger as I toss it to her. Slash! The ghost begins to take damage. It takes longer than expected for her to finish off the low-level monster, but to her credit, she does an admirable job. When she tries to hand the dagger back to me, I shake my head.

In the coolest voice I can muster, I tell her, “Please, hold onto it.”

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“I can’t let you go around in this tower without a form of defense!” I explain. “Besides, I pulled an event weapon last night, so I can afford to let it go for a little while. Hey, aren’t you gonna grab your candy?”

“My what?”

“You know, the prize for defeating the ghost?”

I point to the piece of wrapped chocolate on the floor at her feet.

“Is that what this is? I was wondering why I kept tripping over them!”

“You didn’t pick any up?”

“No, is that a bad thing?” Marie♥ picks the piece up and begins unwrapping it.

“That’s not a consumable—!”

Once she sheds its wrapper, another appears immediately.

“What’s the point if you don’t eat them?”

“They’re, you know...” I stammer. “The person who gets the most candy gets a ranking prize at the end of the event. It’s cumulative, out of all the students. First place gets the most, second place gets the next best, then third through tenth...”

Then eleventh through twentieth, twenty-first to fiftieth, and lastly, everyone else.

“Really?”

It’s almost like she’s never participated in an event before. It’s almost as if she doesn’t know how the world works. It’s almost as if she was just a really lucky newbie. But that couldn’t be the case, right? Not with her heart-shaped pupils. Not with her Valkyrie Knight uniform. Not Marie♥. I’ll give her one last test, and she’ll prove me wrong, I know it.

“Yeah. Now that the fight is over, Marie♥, um...” As much as I want to know the answer, the question is too embarrassing. “Would you like to be friends?”

“We’re not already friends?” Her face is crestfallen.

She thinks we’re friends. Goodbye, mortal plane, I’ve ascended.

“Of course we’re friends! I mean friend’s list friends. Officially.”

The dialog box hovers in the air between us as I make my request. She looks at it like an unfamiliar inconvenience.

It’s true, then. It’s all true. As the silence grows more awkward, I remember that she didn’t bring a weapon at all. Her earrings, cute as they are, give advantage against light-type monsters. Everything in the Halloween tower is dark-type. Her shoes are a cosmetic equip, not a practical one. The only reason she has a bonus to candy drops is because the Sexy Werewolf costume and Werewolf Ears are synchronizing really well.

She’s a mess. I gently guide her hand to the “yes” button and we tap it together. The air vibrates with sound.

Marie♥ yelps and stares in wide-eyed amazement at the medal that appears over her head.“Яagnarok?! What just happened?”

Has she even completed the tutorial?

I swallow hard. This could be my chance to get closer to her. My palms sweat a little bit and I manage to speak. “Do you want to climb together?”

“I’d love to!”

As we ascend to the next floor, I tap Marie♥’s shoulder to view her profile and take a peek at her permanent record. True to my suspicions, she doesn’t have any achievement nameplates selected, probably because she’s never deliberately achieved a high event rank. Her showcase items are all defaults, even after her transformation from the ordinary “Mary.” She has no personal quote. Her level doesn't match our grade at all! My infatuation turns briefly to pity, but I still can’t shake this crush.

You know what? I’m going to turn this event into one she’s gonna remember for years!

I think about my old stash of items and pull a pair of stud earrings out of my backpack inventory. They were a milestone reward from the last event of the summer, the prize for reaching 100 points. They’re only a two-star item, but since they’re event-limited, I never even put them in my closet’s storage.

“These will give you a slight resistance to dark-type damage, if you want them,” I explain as I hand them to Marie♥.

Although she takes them from me, she immediately drops them. They clatter to the ground loudly.

“That’s weird. I didn’t mean to do that.”

She picks them up again, but they slip out of her hands once more. I’ve seen this happen before, though, so while I’m shocked, I’m not surprised or confused. If she can’t hold the earrings, there are only two possibilities: she’s unable to equip the item because of her level, or her inventory is full.

"Hey, Marie♥, have you been keeping your old assignments?"

"Yes! I like keeping things around. I’m— what did my brother always call me, a completionist?"

"Assignments give you your advancement points. Reread them and you'll level up faster. It’ll also free up space in your backpack for more items."

She turns the cutest shade of red. "You're kidding!"

I politely decline to respond. She silently looks into her backpack and pulls out a stack of papers. As her eyes scan back and forth, flames disintegrate the pages one by one. I can hear a chime each time she levels up, first in rapid succession, and then spaced out at more regular intervals. Since we aren’t taking any steps forward, we’re not expending any stamina — so with each level she gains, she’s almost exponentially increasing her reserves. Soon she’ll have more stamina than my item stash will give me!

But that puts her in a very good position for the event. Even if she can’t climb as high, she’ll be able to grind candy like it’s no one’s business.

Shit! Candy! While we’re also not in danger of triggering any ghost attacks, the lack of combat means a lack of combat loot. No drops, no guts, no glory. We can’t trigger any random encounters, either. I’m not making progress in the event at all by helping Marie♥ out.

“Thank you, Яagnarok!” She beams at me. “I feel stronger already.”

I smile back. “Do you mind if I look through your backpack with you? Maybe I can help you change up your equipment.”

“I thought this was a cute outfit, though.”

“You can equip more than just outfits, Marie♥.”

“Oh! Like weapons and earrings?”

“You got it. I even have a familiar. His name’s Bruce.” I stroke the bat’s nose with a finger. It bites me so lightly that I almost don’t feel it.

“Good afternoon, Bruce!” Marie♥ beams again. “You’re very cute.”

She empties out the contents of her backpack for me and Bruce to comb through. There are a few two-star items and tons of five-star items that even I don’t recognize. And I spend a ton of time editing the school’s private wiki!

The appropriate gear we select for her is still low-level, with very little to limit-break, but she's much more optimized now.

Yes, she’s ready.