Shivers in the School Village
In the trembling school village, Hong Okrye sat through Professor Kurobe’s specialized sorcery lecture. Apart from the Taekkyon she had trained in since childhood, her awakening ability belonged to the lightning emission category, which was why she had been placed in the sorcery major. She turned her head and stole a glance at Lee Yuha.
Lee Yuha’s long silver hair, touched with a watery sheen, was neatly braided down her back. She gazed down at her textbook with quiet, almost sorrowful eyes. As the thirteenth-generation descendant of the Deoksu Yi clan’s Admiral Yi Sun-sin line, she possessed a graceful bearing, an aloof and serene character, and talent that far surpassed her peers. Before anyone realized it, she had become the object of admiration for every Korean girl at the academy.
Yet according to Baek Chulyeon, she was carrying out secret independence activities inside the school under direct orders from patriot Kim Gu. If her identity were exposed, she would eliminate anyone—even fellow Koreans—without a drop of blood or tear, a cold-blooded killing machine. What kind of classified mission could possibly require her to slaughter comrades who shared the same goal of Korean independence?
Still, having belonged to the secret society Taegukdan for a long time, Hong Okrye could understand it all too well. There were organizations structured so that even members of the same group did not know one another in order to protect secrecy. And if the orders came from Kim Gu himself… She had heard of cases where agents tasked with eliminating traitors kept their identities and missions hidden from everyone, comrades included. Baek Chulyeon and Lee Yuha must be the same. For the sake of their duty, they would remove even allies by any means necessary.
Hong Okrye recalled what Baek Chulyeon had said to her a few days earlier while she was tied up inside the warehouse beside the shrine.
Hong Okrye had nodded. Of course she remembered. He had been an ordinary instructor in charge of literature and social studies. A neat-looking man with a cheerful personality, Japanese but kind to Korean students, he had been fairly popular among the Korean girls. Then he had suddenly transferred away.
So why was Baek Chulyeon suddenly bringing him up? Still dazed, she had answered, “He was the pleasant professor who taught literature in the general department, wasn’t he? I heard he returned to Japan…”
Hong Okrye had been so shocked she nearly jumped. “What?”
“Th-that’s a lie.”
After Baek Chulyeon had released her, Hong Okrye had gone to the spot he described. His words had been true. Between the gravel beneath the temple’s stone pagoda lay scraps of decayed flesh and fragments of a suit.
It’s real…!
Hong Okrye’s face turned deathly pale. There was no longer any doubt that Lee Yuha had murdered Professor Saigane.
That concludes today’s lesson. By the next class, each of you is to prepare a summary of the influence German eugenics has exerted on the four-category classification system for awakening abilities.
Yeees…
The moment Professor Kurobe finished and left the classroom, Hong Okrye snatched up her bag and shot to her feet. From the corner of her eye she watched Lee Yuha slowly organizing her textbook and notes.
I must never get involved with Lee Yuha.
She resolved not only to avoid speaking to her, but even meeting her gaze. In fact, she would stay as far away as possible. At least for the next several days she wouldn’t have to worry about watching her back. That evening Hong Okrye was scheduled to leave the school and board a train bound for Wonsan.
After the shrine bombing failed, she had used the excuse of a shortage in the explosive raw material guncotton. The plan was for her to travel to Wonsan, its primary domestic production site, and procure more. While she was there she could also meet old comrades from the local branch.
Maybe I should just go to Wonsan and never come back.
The thought crossed her mind. Among all the Taegukdan members, she alone had met the enrollment criteria and received the mission to infiltrate Gyeongseong Hunter Academy, yet every day had been grueling. She had ended up in the notoriously demanding sorcery major and was crushed beneath an overwhelming academic load. On top of that, the Lee Yuha problem had arisen. To make matters worse, the police surveillance on awakeners in Gyeongseong was so tight that she could not properly use her powers for the independence movement. For Hong Okrye, who was forced to attend classes and suffer through studies, working with the Wonsan branch seemed far better.
The comrades there were said to socialize with local dignitaries—swimming in the sea during summer and skiing on snow-covered mountains in winter. Of course they could not truly relax, but every time she saw the photographs they sent, she could not help feeling envious.
The Gyeongwon Line train leaves at five in the afternoon. I should hurry back to the dormitory and pack…
With that thought she left the annex building and quickened her steps toward the dormitory, only to find Lee Yuha standing squarely in the middle of a path where students were scarce. Hong Okrye tried to calm her pounding heart and walk past as if nothing was wrong, but—
Lee Yuha called out to stop her.
“Wh-what is it?”
Hong Okrye froze in place and turned toward her. The face that met her gaze was ice-cold. All the blood seemed to drain from Hong Okrye’s head.
Did she find out? That I know her secret?
Lee Yuha had done nothing yet, but Hong Okrye felt such terror that she imagined the temperature of the surrounding air had dropped.
Contrary to Hong Okrye’s fears, however, the reason Lee Yuha had stopped her had nothing to do with an interrogation about secrets. The thought had first arisen because of something Yang Bok-ja had said earlier, but Lee Yuha had also overheard certain rumors while crossing the campus that day.
A male and female student entering the shrine warehouse. As far as Lee Yuha knew, the rumor could only refer to Baek Chulyeon and Hong Okrye from two days ago. At the time they had claimed they went to pray for the unconscious Professor Nakamori, but in hindsight the circumstances had been suspicious. Moreover, the way Hong Okrye was now flustered upon seeing her only deepened her doubts.
Could it be, as the girls had said, that Baek Chulyeon was truly a womanizing scoundrel? If he was that kind of man, could she continue to trust him as a friend and rely on him?
Lee Yuha shook her head.
That cannot be.
She wanted to believe in Baek Chulyeon. He had stood by her side during every difficulty since the day she enrolled. Yet all the evidence pointed toward him being a playboy, so she had steeled her resolve and decided to learn the truth by confronting Hong Okrye directly.
Lee Yuha asked once more.
At the mention of Baek Chulyeon’s name, Hong Okrye shook her head so violently her reddish-brown ponytail whipped through the air.
“N-nothing at all!”
“No, I’m not avoiding you! I’m not busy at all!”
“Huh…?”
Lee Yuha had decided that questioning the girl would only produce denials. But if she brought her before Baek Chulyeon and made them face each other, the truth would emerge naturally. Furthermore, if she visited Baek Chulyeon tonight, she could also discover exactly what improper thing he intended to do with this girl from the Yang family.
N-night? Why at night?
Yet Hong Okrye, still trapped in her misunderstanding of Lee Yuha, thought only of the danger. Why specifically at night? Was she planning to dispose of her the same way she had dealt with Professor Saigane? Overwhelmed with fear, Hong Okrye could not even mention that she was supposed to board a train that evening. Like a cow being led to slaughter, she had no choice but to follow Lee Yuha.
That same night, I crouched with Yang Bok-ja in the undergrowth beside the practice magic-beast barn, bodies hidden.
“Hehe, Shirabayashi-kun. You’re not scared, are you?”
Yang Bok-ja grinned confidently in the darkness. A large portable camera with a flash attachment—something journalists from the old days might have used—hung from her neck.
“You came thoroughly prepared.”
“Yup, yup! I ‘borrowed’ it from the Mystery Research Club! Just in case we can capture a spirit photograph!”
Too bad no ghosts will appear.
Down in the basement there were no ghosts, only a state-of-the-art computer. A vacuum-tube model, of course, but by the standards of this era it was practically over-technology. She probably would not even recognize it if she saw it with her own eyes.
We stayed hidden behind the bushes a while longer, listening to the chirping of insects and scanning our surroundings, when a smell that tickled the nose drifted over. It was a scent I had known well in my previous life, yet it carried an ominous undertone—the smell of burning corpses.
“This is… the smell of burning bodies?”
“Geez, Shirabayashi-kun. That’s the incinerator for the magic-beast barn. The beasts that die during practice are brought here to be burned.”
Ah, so that was it. Come to think of it, I had known there was an incinerator here. So that was what it was used for.
Renka and I killed quite a few, so the incinerator must be running at full capacity.
The night had deepened. Judging it was time to move, I whispered to Yang Bok-ja.
“Let’s go.”
“Okay!”
Bent low, the two of us crept toward Professor Nakamori’s private laboratory, which stood right beside the magic-beast barn and adjoined the otherworldly botanical garden. The keys to the barn should be inside.
But light was shining from the laboratory windows.
Professor Nakamori?
He was the mild-mannered, scholarly type in charge of otherworldly biology. Since he was also the caretaker of both the botanical garden and the beast barn, it made sense that he would stay overnight. I simply had not considered it.
“Um… Shirabayashi-kun, what do we do? Looks like Professor Nakamori is still here.”
Yang Bok-ja sounded flustered. Naturally, her hypnosis could only put low-intelligence creatures to sleep for a short time. She could not yet handle humans.
Then, suddenly, a middle-aged man’s voice drifted from the research building. It was not Professor Nakamori’s. It belonged to someone else.
“Shh.”
I hushed Yang Bok-ja and made her hide deeper in the bushes, then crept closer to the window to eavesdrop on the conversation inside.
“Professor Nakamori. What is the meaning of this? All of them incinerated? Weren’t the beasts that died during practice supposed to be turned over to me for research?”
“Moreover, it is suspicious. Dozens of mid-to-high-grade magic beasts dying in a single day. Is it even possible for that many beasts to perish during student practice in only one day?”
“Well… they didn’t die during practice. They died in the ‘basement.’”
“…The basement?”
“Yes. You may already know, Professor Kurobe, but beneath the school is our—”
“I have no interest in your little gatherings, but I am well aware of what lies beneath the school.”
“Furthermore, for beasts to die down there… Did someone enter the basement?”
“That is correct. From what I heard… it seems a first-year student, the young lady of the Shimazu family, entered out of curiosity and ended up slaughtering every last beast.”
“You mean Shimazu Renka.”
“Yes. Of course she is part of our plan, but she is not yet supposed to know about the basement. This has become rather troublesome…”
“I repeat, I have no interest in your plans, Professor Nakamori. However, if a large number of beasts die again, do not incinerate them without consulting me. Provide them to me instead.”
“But incineration is the established procedure…”
I returned to where Yang Bok-ja was hiding and thought, Damn it, how deeply are they entangled in this?
From the way Professor Kurobe had spoken of “your gatherings,” the vacuum-tube computer hidden beneath the school was not solely Professor Nakamori’s project. Multiple people were involved. At that scale, it would not be strange if the headmaster and the school administration knew as well.
If a mysterious computer of unknown purpose existed beneath the academy with the tacit approval of so many adults who ran the institution, how could I possibly attend classes in peace? Even if it meant taking risks, I had to uncover the truth this time.
But with both professors camped out in the research lab like that…
The magic-beast barn was right next to Professor Nakamori’s laboratory. No matter how carefully we put the beasts to sleep, we would be discovered. Besides, the barn key was inside the lab, so there was no way to proceed for now.
Yang Bok-ja whispered, “Ugh… Shirabayashi-kun, the professors are inside, right? Should we head back?”
“Give me a moment. I’m thinking. Wait.”
But no brilliant solution was going to appear simply because I thought about it. Then, from far beyond the bushes where we hid, a female student’s scream suddenly rang out.
“Hiiiiaaak! Will-o’-the-wisp! It’s a will-o’-the-wisp! Kyaaak! Sh-Shimazu ojou—mmph? Mmph!”