It Wasn't Just the Spire That Was Suspicious
The day after Kyle brought up the spire, I found myself standing in front of the Central Spire.
They had summoned me sooner than I expected. Well, given the gravity of the matter, the faculty must have wanted to check it out without delay.
"Cheongha, are you all right?"
Lydia studied my face.
"Yes. I'm fine."
"You look a little pale."
"This is just my normal face."
The truth was, yesterday's conversation still weighed on me. The fact that the spire was next on the investigation list had been known only to the survey team. Yet Kyle had mentioned it first. He claimed he had overheard the professors talking, but Lydia clearly didn't buy it. Neither did I.
Don't tell me he's actually a regressor or a transmigrator. Or does the original protagonist get some exclusive system window only he can see? Why is this game so unfriendly to anyone who isn't a hardcore gamer?
"Focus."
Selene spoke as she opened the spire door. The people joining today's investigation were almost the same as last time: Selene, Lydia, Erika, the professor in charge of mana manipulation, and Noel's three familiars. Noel's actual body was nowhere to be seen again today.
"For something like the spire, couldn't you come in person?"
When I asked, the middle familiar nodded.
"Everywhere outside my room is dangerous."
"Then how did you even get to the academy?"
The familiar's gaze slid sideways.
"Carriage."
"You must have gotten out of the carriage at some point."
"I was dragged out."
"By whom?"
"My family."
So even her enrollment hadn't been voluntary. Consistent as ever.
Erika strode through the door first.
"If there's a demon, I'm catching it this time."
"We're here to investigate. Not to fight."
Selene cut her off coldly.
"If there's one, we have to fight it."
"If you find one, report it first."
"I can catch it and then report."
Selene's temple twitched. I quietly hid behind Lydia. The most dangerous thing here today might not be a demon.
The Central Spire was one of the oldest buildings in the academy. The lower floors served as storage for administrative records and outdated textbooks, while the upper levels supposedly held an unused observation room.
Following the lines from the metal plate we had found in the underground waterway, we climbed the spiral staircase. One floor. Two floors. Three floors. There was no end in sight.
"Can't we just fly up?"
When I asked, Erika glanced back.
"You don't even have wings."
"I meant the rest of you."
"And leave you behind?"
Erika looked at me as if I had asked something absurd.
"You could go ahead and wait for me."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you'll probably find something weird again."
I couldn't argue with that. Lately I had been stumbling across strange things wherever I went, even though I never set out looking for them. Still, we couldn't keep trudging up stairs forever. Dragons were supposed to fly even without wings, right? I needed to seriously start thinking about a way to get airborne myself. I could move rain and wind—there was no reason I couldn't lift my own body.
Lydia took my hand.
"If you're tired, shall I carry you?"
"I'm fine."
"I could give you a piggyback ride."
"I'm really fine."
I could still walk. If I let her carry me here, I would truly become Baby Cheongha.
One of the familiars trailing behind us settled onto my head. It barely weighed anything, but it still annoyed me.
"Senior Noel, don't make yourself comfortable riding up when you aren't even walking yourself."
"I'm lying in my room."
"That makes it even more irritating."
The familiar curled up between my horns. I reached up to shoo it off, but Lydia lifted it first and set it on her own shoulder.
"Cheongha is having a hard enough time."
Her voice was gentle. The familiar obediently lowered its head. Even Noel was being tamed.
The place the metal plate pointed to was an empty storage room halfway up the spire. Old bookshelves. Dust-covered crates. Cracked observation instruments. There was no demon, and not even a trace of suspicious mana.
The professor cast a detection spell in the center of the room. Blue light swept across the floor and walls, but nothing reacted. Noel's familiars scattered through the warehouse. One checked the ceiling, another crawled between the crates, and the last inspected behind the bookshelves.
"There's nothing."
Noel said. Erika already looked bored.
"Maybe the metal plate was wrong?"
"I transcribed the magic circle's structure and checked it three times."
Selene unrolled the diagram. The end of the line clearly indicated this room.
"There's a chance the traces were erased."
The professor rested a hand on the wall.
"It's an old building, so residual mana is hard to distinguish."
Everyone resumed the search. I wandered the storage room pretending to be useful. Honestly, there was nothing I could do. I didn't know how to detect mana, and I couldn't read demonic script. There was a ceiling overhead and no water, so rain was out. If I stirred up wind, I would just choke on dust.
I stood by the window and cradled my Yeouiju against my chest. The window was shut tight. Outside, the sky was clear. Seeing the open sky eased my mind a little.
Then the tips of my hair tickled and stirred. At first I thought someone had walked past. No one was nearby. My hair swayed again. A very faint breeze.
I brought my hand to the window crack. No wind. Instead, a thin current of air was seeping from the opposite wall.
"What are you doing?"
Erika asked.
"The wind feels strange."
The room went quiet. There it was again. Lately, whenever I said anything offhand, everyone made that face.
"Where do you feel it?"
Selene came straight over. I pointed to one section of the wall.
"It's leaking out a little from there."
Selene rapped the wall. It gave a dull, ordinary stone sound. The professor sent mana into it, but nothing special happened.
"No concealment magic detected."
So had I imagined it? I stepped closer to the wall. It was definite. A weak breeze was flowing through a crack in the stone.
"It's here."
I pressed my palm against the wall. Nothing happened. A little embarrassment crept in. If I backed down now, everyone would decide I had been mistaken. I hated that idea. The Azure Dragon who had lifted an entire lake could not become the dragon who talked nonsense in front of a wall.
I held out my Yeouiju and felt the air in the room. I didn't need the grand currents I used to move rain clouds. Just enough to stir the dust settled on the floor.
Following my will, a gentle wind circled the room once. Dust rose.
"Cough."
I was the first to choke. My dignity took a hit, but the wind didn't stop. The dust swirling in the air gathered toward the wall I had pointed out and was sucked into a hairline gap between the stones.
This time everyone saw it clearly.
"There's an empty space behind the wall."
I said, wiping dust from the tip of my nose.
"Did you know from the start?"
Selene asked.
"I said the wind was leaking."
It wasn't a lie. Selene looked at me for a moment, then wrote something in her notebook. Why was she writing again?
"Erika."
Selene said. Erika stepped forward as if she had been waiting.
"Can I smash it?"
"As little as possible."
"Got it."
She did not look like she had understood at all. Erika drew her fist back.
"Wait—you said as little as possible."
"This is the minimum."
Her fist slammed into the wall.
Boom!
Stone dust sprayed in every direction. Lydia wrapped me in a golden barrier. When the dust settled, a large hole gaped in the middle of the wall. Beyond it lay a small room.
"So there was something."
Selene's eyes narrowed. I looked at my own hand instead of Erika. It really had been there.
The hidden room was cramped. At the far end was another narrow door—one designed to look like solid stone from the outside—that connected to the old maintenance stairs at the back of the spire. The breeze I had felt must have come through that gap.
Crystal panels hung on the walls, offering views of the academy's major buildings: the student dormitories, the training grounds, the Monster Forest, and even the Central Spire where we stood. Someone had been watching the entire academy from here.
It wasn't a simple viewing device. Dates, times, and lines that looked like student movement paths were densely etched along the edges of the panels. The routes of the practical training groups that had headed into the Monster Forest were still there. Near the lake, several lines tangled together and then cut off—exactly where I had lifted the water.
"They were watching us from the practical training onward?"
Lydia's voice dropped. Her golden eyes cooled.
"Are there any traces targeting Cheongha?"
"We can't determine that yet."
Selene answered, but Lydia's expression didn't ease. I took a step closer to the crystal panels. My name wasn't written anywhere. Still, one blue line crossing the lake was unusually thick. It overlapped too precisely with the path I had taken to dismiss as coincidence.
If the demons had marked me as a threat after the practical, that would be a problem. I had only moved a little water. The "little" part just happened to be an entire lake.
Beneath the panels sat a black metal device engraved with the same pattern as the magic circle on the lakebed. Its core, however, was already smashed to pieces.
"Step back."
At Selene's word, everyone retreated a pace from the room. The professor and Noel's familiars examined the device. Silence stretched for a while.
"It's definitely a demonic communication device."
Noel spoke first. The professor nodded.
"It appears to have transmitted information outside the academy. The core is destroyed, though, so we can't identify the receiving end."
Erika looked down at the broken device.
"Did it break a long time ago?"
"No."
One of Noel's familiars flipped a fragment with its paw. The metal cross-section was clean, free of dust.
"It broke today. At most a few hours ago."
A few hours ago. Before we arrived at the spire. Someone had entered this room ahead of us and destroyed only the most critical part before we could investigate.
"Was there anyone else who knew today's investigation site?"
Selene asked, looking at me. I almost said no, then closed my mouth. There was one person who had asked first whether we would be investigating the spire. Kyle. But I had no evidence to name him. His excuse about overhearing the professors wasn't completely impossible either. I didn't want to cast suspicion carelessly and cause an even bigger mess—especially not with Lydia listening.
"There is one person, actually."
My mouth moved first after all. Lydia's face hardened.
"Is it Student Kyle?"
I didn't answer. I didn't answer, and everyone understood anyway. Selene opened her notebook. Noel's familiar narrowed its violet eyes. Only Erika clenched her fist and asked,
"Should we go catch him?"
"Nothing is certain yet."
Selene stopped her. Thank goodness. If we unleashed Erika here, this would turn into a hunt instead of an investigation.
I stared at the shattered communication device. Don't tell me that suspicious harem master really got here first.