The door cracked open with a faint creak, only to stop short with a sharp metallic clank. Secured by a thin chain, it left only a tiny gap. What seeped through that narrow space was unmistakable. ’Jet-black.’
Sensing the dense, suffocating dark aura radiating from within, Simon tensed. A brief, tense standoff ensued. Suddenly, Simon nearly screamed.
An eyeball protruded directly from the wood of the door. Thick, bright red veins webbed across the bulging sclera as it frantically scanned the hallway. Startled, he instinctively stepped back. The eye vanished back into the wood.
A moment later, an entire face phased through the solid door.
[Why is the student council here?]
Simon calmed his racing heart and studied her. ’Spirit Transformation. The registry did say she was a Spirit Magic major.’ It was indeed Aurore Serum, just as she appeared in the student council’s registry. However, she looked far more haggard than her photo, with deep, bruised shadows under her eyes.
Simon kept his voice as gentle as possible to avoid startling her.
"I came because of your letter. You put this in the help box, right?"
She stared blankly at the paper before pulling her head back inside.
A moment later, footsteps padded across the floor, and her face peeked through the cracked door.
"I wrote it," she murmured.
"I’m glad I found you," Simon said. "I’m here to help."
"But who are you? Are you really from the student council?"
She was still heavily on guard. Figuring her caution was understandable, Simon gestured to himself and offered a reassuring smile.
"I gave the student representative speech during the Dark Festival. Have you seen me before?"
She quietly scanned his features before nodding in realization.
"Blue hair. Student Council President Simon Polentia."
"Yeah, that’s me. Will you let me in?"
She nodded. Simon nearly let out another startled gasp as Aurore’s arm suddenly phased straight through the wall, grabbed the latch on the outside of the door, and unhooked it. Simon, who had been entirely focused on her face, realized the oddity a second too late. ’It wasn’t locked from the inside, but from the outside?’
It was such an obvious detail, yet he hadn’t noticed. This wasn’t a prison, so why was it locked from the outside? The chain rattled as she opened the door and stepped aside. Simon entered the room, his expression tense.
"Pardon the intrusion."
The squalid conditions inside were immediately apparent. The wallpaper was yellowed with age, thick cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and hairline cracks spiderwebbed across the plaster. On the opposite side of the room, new wallpaper had been haphazardly pasted over a section of the wall. It stood out—a stark, glaring white patch amidst the dingy yellow.
"I don’t have much to offer."
Lacking even a table, she sank to the floor and set down two cups of water.
"If you don’t mind... please."
Simon sat down across from her.
"Thanks. We’re both sophomores, so there’s no need to be formal."
"Right... okay."
Simon took a sip of water and subtly surveyed the room. Aurore Serum. A person of interest. There was so much to ask that he didn’t quite know where to begin.
But rather than immediately interrogating her about Goddess Deva, he needed to ease the tension.
"This is quite an old house," Simon noted, setting down his cup. "Why are you living off-campus out here instead of the clean dormitories?"
She hesitated before answering.
"Actually... I’m from the Banshee clan."
The Banshee clan. Since Kizen gathered talented necromancers from all over the continent, the student body boasted a variety of non-human races, but the Banshee clan was a rarity even among them. There were only two in the entire school. They weren’t true undead banshees, but rather humans who shared their traits and wielded their spectral powers.
The innate strength of their bloodline meant they always had the potential to become first-rate necromancers.
"Because of that, my sleeping habits are... a bit extreme. My roommates said they absolutely couldn’t live with me anymore. The administration eventually notified me that it would be best if I moved out."
"I see."
"That’s why I came down to Rochest at the beginning of my freshman year and found an off-campus place."
She explained that her racial traits made her a hazard to anyone sharing her living space. Desperate, she had found an abandoned house on the outskirts of Rochest, begged the landlord, and started paying rent to live there.
"But you listed your race as just ’Human’ in the registry."
"Because it was a secret I wanted to keep," she murmured. "But I was immediately caught and kicked out. It was just foolish greed from when I was a freshman."
Understanding her reasoning, Simon nodded. It was time to get to the main point.
"You wrote this in your letter."
’Please save me. Goddess Deva is trying to kill me.’
She hesitated before finally speaking.
"Actually—"
At the same time.
The student council room.
Late in the evening, Dick sat at his desk, flipping through documents. His eyes were heavy with fatigue, yet a smirk played on his lips.
"This is quite a sight."
The door slid open with a clatter, and someone walked in.
"Oh, commoner?"
It was Meirin. She was rubbing her eyes, looking just as exhausted.
"What are you still doing here? Why haven’t you clocked out?"
"Can’t you tell? I’m working."
Dick chuckled and shrugged.
"Simon and I took on a serious case. Hehehe, it’s been a while since I had an investigation that actually fired me up."
Meirin snorted, entirely unimpressed.
"If you’re making this much of a fuss, it must be completely useless."
"The request was written exactly like this."
Dick reached out, grabbed the mobile whiteboard, and spun it around to show her the transcribed letter. Meirin’s dry gaze drifted over the words. She let out a short shriek and slapped a hand over her mouth.
’Please save me. Goddess Deva is trying to kill me.’
"Y-You startled me! You idiot!" she screeched, hurling a nearby cushion at his head. "Ugh, seriously! I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight because of you!"
In the Dark Alliance, this was a perfectly normal reaction. Kizen students had personally endured the Saintess incident and the fanatic Ever Kire’s rampage, amplifying their terror of holy magic. Meirin’s legs gave out, and she squatted on the floor, her face pale.
"I’m not messing around. We actually received this."
Dick pulled out the files he had compiled so far.
"Simon is at the scene right now. Once he gets back, we’ll organize the data and report it to the professors."
Meirin stood up, her expression turning dead serious, and snatched the documents from Dick’s hands.
"Are you sure this isn’t a prank by the third-years? If it is, I’m seriously not going to let it slide!"
"Hey now, even they know better than to joke about this. Simon went to check it out, so we’ll know the truth soon enough."
Meirin’s expression stiffened as she quickly skimmed the files.
"The client was kicked out of the dorms? The reason is... sleeping habits? She made her roommates’ ears bleed by screaming in her sleep? What kind of record is this?"
"She’s from the Banshee clan," Dick said with a shrug. "She hid that fact and moved into the dorms, and all hell broke loose."
"Hmm."
Her expression turned grim as she continued flipping through the papers.
"On top of that, she’s a victim of last year’s Saintess of Purification attack, and a survivor of this year’s Ever Kire incident."
"Exactly. Doesn’t that paint a clear picture?"
Dick threw his hands up.
"It’s trauma! She suffered from nightmares every night until her mental state finally gave out, and she fell into the delusion that Goddess Deva is trying to kill her! This isn’t something we can solve. We need to report it to the professors and get her psychological counseling."
Meirin let out a heavy sigh and set the documents down.
"Yeah. Once we get Aurore into counseling, this will all be over. While you’re at it, investigate my case too, commoner."
"What?"
"Your only use is gathering information anyway! You should at least make yourself useful at times like this!"
She smacked Dick on the back and shoved her own client’s letter in his face. Dick’s expression hardened strangely as he scanned the contents.
"Oho, this one is a problem in its own right."
He clicked his tongue and rubbed his chin.
"Such major incidents right when we should be focusing on finals? What should I do, I’m having too much fun. This is exactly why I can’t study."
"You talk as if you actually study when there aren’t any incidents. Rich coming from someone ranked four-hundredth."
"Happiness doesn’t depend on grades, you know."
Meirin shook her head and headed for the door.
"I’m going back to the dorms."
"Yep, bye."
The door rattled open. Meirin, who was about to step out into the hallway, froze.
The corridor was pitch-black; all the lights in the building had been turned off for the night.
The heavy silence felt incredibly eerie.
"I thought you were leaving. What are you doing? Do you need to take a dump?" Dick asked with a yawn.
Meirin looked back over her shoulder, still gripping the doorframe.
"Hey."
"What?" He snapped.
"I, um..."
Her face turned so bright red it looked ready to burst. She squeezed her eyes shut and blurted, "C-Could you maybe walk me just outside the b-building?"
A cosmic sense of satisfaction washed over Dick, and he burst into uproarious laughter.
"Bwahahahaha! Are you scared? You’re scared! Don’t tell me it’s because of what you read earlier?"
"Kyahahahahaha! Kizen’s vice president, who looks like she wouldn’t bleed a drop even if stabbed, is scared of the dark? I need to spread this to the whole school...!"
"S-Shut up! You bastard!" she shrieked, charging at him with a cushion in each hand.
Simon listened as Aurore recounted the whole story.
She explained how, during her freshman year, she had witnessed the Saintess of Purification firsthand and lost consciousness after being swept up in her holy magic. She also detailed how she had personally competed in the Valkeje Stadium where Ever Kire had hatched her fanatic plot. Aurore had even seen her hanging on the cross, self-harming in her deranged fervor.
"The memory of that fanatic is still so vivid," she whispered, clutching her head.
"The crimson cross, her eyes rolled back so only the whites showed, her stiff tongue sticking straight up to the sky... Bleeding profusely from the thorns tearing into her flesh while she screamed the Goddess’s name..."
"Alright, alright. I get it. You don’t have to say anymore."
Seeing her condition visibly worsen as she recalled the trauma, Simon quickly cut her off.
"But what does all that have to do with Goddess Deva trying to kill you?"
"Well..."
About a week after the Dark Festival ended, she had started experiencing severe sleep paralysis. Given the traits of the Banshee clan, her sleeping habits were already turbulent, but it had escalated into something far worse.
"Goddess Deva was glaring at me from the ceiling, weeping tears of blood."
Simon flinched, recalling the grotesque goddess Ever Kire had manifested. He had managed to survive the ordeal because Lethe was with him, but it was still a nightmare he never wanted to relive.
"That’s not all. She forced me to scratch and bite the walls of my room. And it wasn’t just once or twice that I woke up to find my own hands strangling my neck."
She pulled down the collar of her shirt to reveal her bare throat. Simon suppressed a gasp. Vivid, dark bruises in the unmistakable shape of fingers ringed her neck.
"I’m so scared."
Tears streamed down her face.
"Goddess Deva really exists, and she’s trying to kill me. What do I do? What should I do?"
Simon quietly closed his eyes, sitting in silence for a long moment before finally speaking.
"Is that all?"
"Huh?"
"Is that everything you have to tell me?" Simon pressed, his tone shifting into an interrogation.
She avoided his gaze and nodded. Simon held up the letter.
"Why did you send this to the student council? Realistically, you could have gotten much more help by informing your advising professor and asking the faculty."
"T-That’s..."
She nervously bit her lip.
"I thought the professors might look down on me if I admitted I was experiencing these things. I was worried it could affect my evaluations..."
"What are you talking about, Aurore?" Simon asked, his expression dead serious.
"There isn’t a single professor at Kizen who would penalize or judge a student for suffering from trauma after surviving the Saintess and Ever Kire incidents. They would help you."
"S-Still, you never know... Please don’t tell the faculty. Okay?"
Simon slowly stood up.
"Alright."
"Thanks."
"Then I’m going to start investigating now. Is that okay?"
"Huh?"
Simon strode toward the far end of the room. Aurore’s anxious gaze followed his every move. After quietly scanning the barren space for a moment, Simon placed his hand flat against the wall.
And then—
With a loud rip, he began tearing down the newly pasted white wallpaper right beside the yellowed sections.
"Wait! Hold on!"
A terrified Aurore jumped up and rushed over, but Simon had already peeled the paper away before she could reach him.
’I knew it.’
Simon looked back at her.
"What is this?"
At first, he had assumed she was covering up the damage from her self-harm, but that wasn’t it.
He had noticed the faint reddish stains bleeding through the white paper. Tearing it away revealed exactly what she had been hiding. A cross. The symbol of Goddess Deva.
And beneath it, intricate magic circles had been meticulously drawn in blood.
[Bone Armor]
As Simon thrust his arm forward, the bones concealed beneath his clothes shot out like lightning.
"W-Wait a minute!"
The bone fragments ruthlessly tore the shabby padlock off a nearby cabinet and ripped the doors open. Brass bowls and various trinkets spilled out, clattering across the floor.
"This," Simon said, grabbing the brass tray retrieved by his Bone Armor. He held it up.
"A brass tray is a ritual item. Why is this in your room? And these candles are made of old-fashioned beeswax, which is rarely used in the Dark Alliance. How did you even get these?"
"T-That’s—!"
"Aurore."
Simon let his arm drop, staring at her with chillingly calm eyes.
"Performing a sacrificial ritual to Goddess Deva in the Dark Alliance—especially right in the middle of Roc Island—is a felony."
She backed away, her face pale with panic. Simon took a slow step forward.
"As the Student Council President, I need to hear exactly what happened."

Comments

Loading...