The Nightmare of Mint and Pineapple
[Ding-ding-ding~ Good morning~ Ding-ding-ding~ Bye-bye-]
“Gyaaaaaaah!”
I let out a silent scream, fumbling around my bedside to kill the alarm. The fact that *that* specific track had played meant I must have been completely out of it. Maybe it was because I’d been tossing and turning all night, kicking my blankets in embarrassment. I needed a host... a bean sprout. I quickly cooked some up, and as I shoveled the stir-fried sprouts into my mouth, my heart finally settled. It was such a stable, reliable flavor. I devoured the dish with a satisfied nom-nom sound.
***
I headed to school a bit early because of what I’d told the class president. Even when I thought I was arriving early, the president was always there before me, cleaning the classroom. She’d been there before me last Friday, too; she really was diligent.
“Good morning, Scarlet.”
“Morning, President.”
I returned the greeting and pulled a broom from the cleaning closet to help her. We didn’t say much while we cleaned. It wasn’t because it was awkward; it was just... a comfortable atmosphere where words weren't strictly necessary. If I’d tried to force a conversation, I felt like I would’ve shattered the mood. The president seemed to think the same, as she just focused on cleaning in silence.
By the time we finished, the other students began to arrive. I nodded at the greetings from the "Window Guy" and "Shield Guy" and was tidying up my desk when the classroom, previously noisy with chatter, suddenly went quiet. It was the silence that heralded Sylvia’s arrival.
Her hair, flowing down her shoulders and back like silk, shone with a silver luster just like her name, and her brilliant blue eyes sparkled as if stars were embedded within them. With ears slightly longer and pointier than a human’s, she exuded a mysterious, fairy-like aura befitting the High Elf race. It had been a whole weekend, and seeing her again, she looked even prettier...
After that, the room went quiet again when Yoon Siwoo walked in, but who cares? Sure, he was handsome—very handsome—but he was a total chuunibyou anyway. White hair and heterochromia? The person who designed him deserved to have their head cracked open, and it would be considered self-defense.
I stared at him, thinking I’d ignore him if he said hello, but unlike usual, he just sat down without a word. His face was slightly flushed, as if he had a fever. Was he being quiet because he wasn't feeling well? I wished he’d feel unwell every day, then.
***
Eve’s class today was held in the gymnasium. The gym was massive, larger than a standard soccer field, with various students taking different lessons in different corners. In front of us, mattresses were spread out wide enough for every student to lie down, and next to Eve, who sat on a folding chair to conduct the lesson, was an empty chair.
Some senior students running nearby glanced at us and shot us looks full of pity. Eve caught them and beamed a sweet smile. The seniors’ faces turned deathly pale, and they sprinted away at top speed. What the hell was going on?
To gather the attention of the murmuring students, Eve clapped her hands together. *Clap.*
“Today’s training is Fear Overcoming Training! What you’ll be experiencing is my special Unconscious Stimulus Magic! It’s a spell that manifests the things you subconsciously dread or fear the most.”
Ah... ahhh... I remembered. This was a training session that appeared in the original novel. There was a magical creature called a ‘Boggart’ in a certain novel about a wizard with a lightning-bolt scar. These creatures hid in dark places, and when someone passed by, they would transform into that person’s greatest fear. The readers had dubbed this the ‘Boggart Training.’
Eve’s magic felt like an enhanced version of that; it was terrifying because it didn’t just create a scary entity, but constructed an entire situation that the person would find most difficult to endure. The class was designed with the idea that a hero who needed to stay calm in the worst-case scenarios should be able to overcome even the fears buried in their subconscious through sheer mental fortitude—but was that ever easy?
“This magic is quite complex, so we’ll do it one person at a time! Since it projects your own subconscious, even I don’t know what hallucinations you’re seeing, so don’t worry about your privacy! Now, let’s start with Ms. Jessie, who decided to do special training against bugs with me last time. If you hate bugs that much, I imagine you’ll see quite a lot of them, won't you?”
At Eve’s selection, the girl’s face turned blue. She was the one who had almost fainted after seeing a bug while in the same group as Yoon Siwoo during the last training. She walked over with stiff, jerky movements and sat in the chair in front of Eve. Trembling, she turned to Eve and pleaded.
“U-um, Eve-sensei? Could you... maybe go easy on me?”
Eve replied with a wide, bright smile.
“Nope, impossible!”
With a snap of Eve’s fingers, the girl’s body went rigid. A moment later, she began to shake violently, screaming as if she were having a seizure.
“Nooooo!!! Cockroaches!!! There are cockroaches everywhere!!! No, don’t touch me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was wrong, please save m—@#$#$%#%$#^&!!!!!!”
It was a death-rattle scream, like someone being dragged away by a demon from hell. The students’ faces hardened as they watched the girl foam at the mouth and pass out. Life is a comedy when viewed from a distance, but a tragedy when seen up close. Realizing that we would soon have to endure the same thing, we watched the tragedy unfold and felt that our lives were officially over. I finally understood the meaning behind the seniors’ pitying gazes and the mattresses on the floor.
Other students carried the fainted girl to the mattresses, and Eve began picking students one by one. They walked to the chair with grim expressions, like lambs being led to the slaughter. Their ends were horrific. Some fainted from the sheer shock like the girl before, some wailed with tears and snot running down their faces before collapsing, and others fell into a catatonic state of panic. Amidst the mounting casualties, a student finally overcame the magic through sheer willpower. It was the class president.
With a pained expression, she bit her lip so hard that blood dripped down her chin. Then, at some point, her expression turned resolute; she clenched her fists and opened her eyes. Wiping the blood from her chin with the back of her hand, she had the look of someone who had broken through whatever had been imprisoning her.
“Our first success is Ms. Mei! I don’t know what you saw, but overcoming it means you’ve taken a huge step forward as a hero. Good work!”
As Eve beamed and patted the president’s back, the president bowed to Eve and walked over to stand next to me. She turned her head, looked at me, and smiled.
“Thank you. It was all thanks to you.”
She looked terrifying with her chin completely stained red with blood. I trembled and nodded, caught off guard.
After the president, a few more students were sent to the mattress zone, and then it was Sylvia’s turn. She sat in front of Eve, closed her eyes, and maintained a straight posture. This was a scene briefly described in the original novel. She would likely see a hallucination of herself being used as a tool to bring fame to her family name. But the description said she possessed a strong ego that refused to show any unsightly behavior, allowing her to overcome the magic without a single tremor...
But in reality, Sylvia was furrowing her brows, wearing an unpleasant expression. It was a bit too ‘trembling’ to be called ‘without a single tremor.’ Sylvia scowled, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes with a look of pure fury. And the moment she opened them, she glared at me with a venomous look.
I was flustered. I didn’t do anything!
Sylvia clicked her tongue, stood up elegantly as if her previous appearance had been a misunderstanding, and walked back to her seat.
There had been a slightly awkward moment, but now it was Yoon Siwoo’s turn. I really remembered this part! The only thing Yoon Siwoo truly feared was losing Lucy, whom he considered his family. But even Eve, the highest-ranking illusionist, couldn’t create a hallucination that completely severed the contract-bound connection between Yoon Siwoo and Lucy. Even if she made him feel like his sword had disappeared, she couldn’t stop him from talking to Lucy, so it would just be a meaningless hallucination. Plus, he had the Radiant Holy Sword, so if he realized it was an illusion, he could break it easily. Originally, he was supposed to wake up from the hallucination effortlessly without a single change in expression.
But Yoon Siwoo had the most pained expression I’d seen on him yet. At this point, I started to wonder if I was just a total idiot who remembered the novel wrong.
Yoon Siwoo was pale enough to break into a cold sweat, his face twisted as if he were enduring something unbearable. After struggling for a while, he gritted his teeth and broke free from the magic. He looked confused for a moment, then glanced at me, his face turning as red as a tomato, and he ran back to his seat as if fleeing.
Was this a hidden camera show? Was there a mission where you had to look at me once after overcoming a hallucination?
Just as I was dumbfounded by these unexpected reactions, Eve called my name.
Sitting in the chair, I started to get nervous. My heart was pounding like I was standing on a bungee jumping platform. What would I see? As I braced myself, I heard a snap of fingers right by my ear.
***
It was a ruin. A place that had once been a city, now nothing but collapsed buildings and debris scattered across the ground. A bleak wind whistled through the broken windows of the fallen structures, creating a sharp, shrill sound. That was the only sound I could hear. A desolate, lonely landscape that had once been a city, now devoid of a single person. A city built by humans, now empty—it meant destruction.
As I thought that, I felt a sense of dissonance the moment I realized ‘I’ was there. There was no one here, so what was I? As I thought that, *pop*, my figure appeared in the middle of the ruins.
I thought for a moment about what I had been doing, and it came back to me. Right, I was in the middle of ‘Boggart Training.’ It was a bit fascinating. Was this the situation I feared the most? I had expected to see something much, much more horrific.
I decided to imagine what I would consider the most terrible thing. Perhaps a world filled with anger, hatred, and malice. A world where every single chocolate contained mint, and pineapple was always on top of every pizza.
I got goosebumps. That was a total hellscape.
Just thinking about it made cold sweat pour down my body, and my breathing grew ragged. When I came to my senses, the world was already filling up with mint chocolate and Hawaiian pizza, surging toward me.
“Gyaaaaaaah! Guwaaaaaaah!”
I lost consciousness.
***
“Scarlet, are you okay?”
When I opened my eyes, the president was looking down at me with a worried expression. ...I must have fainted.
As I sat up on the mattress, the president took my hand and helped me up. “What did you see? You looked like you were struggling a lot.”
“...Everything just went black.”
I lied to the president when she asked what I’d seen. How could I tell her I fainted because of mint chocolate and Hawaiian pizza? The president gently squeezed my hand.
“...I see. If it’s hard, tell me anytime. I’ll help you.”
Then please, get rid of mint chocolate and Hawaiian pizza from the world. I wanted to say that to the president, but I held it in. I stood up and looked around, and Yoon Siwoo was watching me with a complicated expression. What was his deal, looking at me like that?
***
After lunch, because Sylvia was broadcasting her desire for macarons, I quickly ran to the shop and bought some. Usually, her face would soften a little when she received them, but today, Sylvia kept a pouty expression even as she took them, glaring at me the whole time. I felt dejected, as if her ‘friend-corruption gauge’ hadn’t gone up at all today.
***
After school, I returned home, washed up, and changed into my pajamas. When I’m feeling down, bean sprouts are the best. I stir-fried a bit more than usual, stuffed my mouth full, and chewed. It was delicious. I love bean sprouts.
After finishing, I flopped onto my bed and decided to get to sleep quickly. I hadn’t slept well last night, so I was going to turn in early. I closed my eyes with that thought.
As I closed my eyes, the landscape I’d seen in the hallucination came back to me. A city that had become a ruin with not a single sign of life. A place filled only with the debris of collapsed buildings. And something sticking out from within that debris—something shaped like a large shield. Every time the letters A, E, G, written in a familiar handwriting, came to mind—letters I had intentionally avoided looking at—my breathing grew ragged, and I slammed the crown of my head against the wall so hard it made a thud.
My ragged breathing returned to normal. Shit, that hurt like hell.
I rubbed my head, wincing. Still, the pain was better than the alternative. I took a deep breath, and the urge to vomit subsided. Let’s sleep. If I sleep, I won’t have to think about anything.
Afraid that the landscape would return if I closed my eyes, I kept whispering to myself until I fell asleep.
Don’t think about it. Just think positive thoughts. You’ve done well so far. If you keep living like this—tomorrow, the day after, the day after that—you’ll definitely be able to survive in this world. I... I don’t want to die.