Chapter 38
Chapter 38
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: Academy Assault (4)
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“Busy, so busy.”
Pindenai, chattering away beside me while slinging her axe over her shoulder. She was grumbling, but the corners of her mouth curved upward.
At first, I thought she just liked the axe, but listening to her words, it was more than that.
“The souls are giving up easier than I expected?”
“...They didn’t wake up because they wanted to.”
Pindenai stopped in her tracks at my words and slowly turned her head. Her large blood-red eyes looked at me quizzically.
“What do you mean?”
“If they had truly awakened of their own will, if they had desires, it wouldn’t have ended this easily.”
“...Explain it so I can understand.”
Pindenai snapped irritably for no reason. There was no need to explain everything to her, but since there was a bit of distance to our next destination, I continued onward while organizing my thoughts.
“For the first three months I was at the academy, I had several questions while resolving the souls’ grudges and keeping the evil spirits in check.”
“Mm.”
“The biggest question was why evil spirits that should have been dormant were awake and possessed such strong power.”
It wasn’t enough to take lives, but it was strong enough to interfere substantially with the real world.
This wasn’t just about what the Setima villagers were saying—it applied to the evil spirits in the academy filled with malice and enmity.
Pindenai made a strange expression here.
“Couldn’t that just be the case? Maybe they’re evil spirits with particularly strong grudges.”
There were extremely rare cases like that.
For example, the widow I met on the carriage to Robern had such a deep grudge that she could harm the living—though it was amplified momentarily because she projected herself onto the pregnant Iluania.
Anyway.
“That absolutely cannot be.”
“It can’t?”
“Yes. I can’t explain this in detail to you, but I’m certain.”
Because it wasn’t like this in the original game. Even if there was an academy ghost story episode, it was a side branch, not a major part.
But the current situation had already gone too far. It was a main episode-level crisis, not a side branch.
“Hmm, it’s not because the master showed up, right?”
Pindenai started trying to deduce, but I shook my head.
“At that time, I was a half-baked amateur who couldn’t even properly wield necromancy. My presence wouldn’t have affected the souls at all.”
Pindenai tilted her head, pondering as she tried to find an answer, but eventually surrendered.
“You’re not telling me to find the culprit right now, are you? If it’s like you say, then there’s some black curtain separately awakening the academy’s souls and empowering the evil spirits.”
“Yes, exactly.”
The black-haired girl.
In other words, Setima’s angel had merely awakened and gained power through that black curtain.
There was no way she could have done it alone.
After all, she too was just a thought-form created by the wishes of Setima’s people.
She was the same as the bone centipede.
Like the bone centipede—a yokai from legends—that Maalks created using countless blood and corpses.
The girl called an angel was the result of the accumulated wishes of Setima’s people.
And there was an existence that granted power to that angel.
“You figured out who it is, so you’re telling me this?”
Pindenai grinned confidently, tossing the thinking to me. Right, it suited her better to swing an axe than to rack her brain clumsily.
“Yes, I figured it out.”
I hadn’t known even until arriving in Robern originally.
The incident itself had already deviated from common sense.
But I figured it out.
More precisely, the culprit revealed herself to me directly.
“But there’s no time to pursue that now. First, resolve the incident, then hear the reason.”
“Okay.”
We had arrived at the girls’ dormitory. As we climbed the stairs to the second floor, a burly man with his head split in half was waving his hands in the air in the middle of the hallway.
[Come he re]
It looked like he was trying to embrace people.
Pindenai frowned the moment she saw him.
“Isn’t this the girls’ dorm second floor where all the kids are in comas?”
“That man is the main culprit who put them into comas.”
“Hmm, so that thing is some kind of evil spirit too?”
He was a somewhat pitiful type. His intentions weren’t malicious, but the result was no different from evil deeds.
“He was a man who ran Setima’s orphanage. He must be frozen in the form of embracing and protecting the children right up to his final moments.”
It was the same as the warrior in my hand.
Like how the warrior lost consciousness trying to guard the first-floor central entrance, this soul thought he was protecting them, but in reality, he was trapping the students in their dreams.
“He’s been carrying his burden for too long and become fixated on it.”
Even as I slowly extended my sword, no sword strike came out. The warrior trembled, unwilling to harm him.
It was like he was telling me there was no malice in that man.
“That’s a different story from the gym kids. No matter the intent, putting countless female students into comas makes him an evil spirit.”
[……. ]
“If you won’t do it, I will.”
Mana gathered in my hand, wrapping it in blue flames, and only then did the warrior unleash a sword strike, cleaving the evil spirit.
[Come he re]
The shattered soul fluttered to the floor. I stood before it and calmly reached out my hand.
“Let the children go.”
[Come he re……. ]
“It’s okay to sleep. I’ll take over your role.”
Then the soul turned into a cluster of light and vanished. Like the others, he entered repose.
From some rooms came thuds as children rolled off their beds.
They had just awakened from endless dreams, so it would take time to regain their senses.
“Pindenai, take the kids outside and join the others. Some might not be able to walk on their own.”
“What about you, master?”
“I’ve put out all the urgent fires now.”
Strength entered the hand gripping the sword. I had resolved most of the incidents that existed before the barrier was created.
If it dragged on like this, it really could become dangerous.
“Now I’m going to resolve the barrier.”
“...You’ll be okay alone?”
I glanced back at Pindenai, wondering if she was worried about me, and she pulled a cigarette from her pocket, put it in her mouth, and replied.
“Next week is payday for my first month’s salary.”
“Heh.”
Whoosh!
The cigarette in Pindenai’s mouth ignited from the flame I conjured.
She hurriedly spat it out, stamped it out with her foot, and glared at me.
“Ah, damn it! That was my last one!”
“No smoking in front of me. Did you forget already, even after seeing me in so long?”
“You’re leaving now anyway! Argh, whatever! Get lost! Even if you die out there, I won’t save you.”
Leaving the grumbling Pindenai behind, I headed back to the academy’s main building.
The night had become too long.
To greet tomorrow with a little less fatigue, I needed to end it here.
* * *
The rooftop wind felt much fiercer than before.
If my memory was right, the last time I came up here was briefly drinking coffee with Erika Bright.
[You’re here?]
Just like then, a single girl awaited me on the rooftop this time too.
[Long time no see.]
The black-haired girl smiled warmly and waved at me.
I nodded back and stood calmly before her.
“Why did you escalate things this far?”
[……. ]
“Didn’t I tell you before I left? To wait quietly and prepare for repose.”
[Yeah.]
The reason I thought Setima’s remaining residents could find repose even after I left the academy was because of this child.
She was Setima’s wish.
[I thought it over carefully after you left.]
The girl slowly raised her hand, and a small soul like a will-o’-wisp popped out from within.
It soon grew larger, taking the form of a contorted woman.
The woman was posed like a saint known to have been nailed to a cross.
But what supported and bound her were the girl’s several strands of hair.
The girl’s hair wrapped around the woman’s bronze contorted body like vines.
[Is it really okay to let Setima’s people close their eyes?]
“......”
[People slaughtered without reason, dying miserably while crying out only their god’s name, seeking salvation instead of revenge.]
“......”
[People who, to the end, didn’t speak of revenge to curry favor with a goddess who never helped them.]
“......”
[People who, no matter how tortured, wept tears to their god and begged forgiveness for the kingdom’s army.]
The girl’s hair began to stretch longer. My gripped sword trembled at the fierce, threatening sight.
[Maybe they were just ignorant?]
“Even if that’s true, it’s all over now.”
[......In the end, you’re always like that.]
Her hair writhed as if angry that I wouldn’t take her side, squeezing the ground hard enough to crack the floor.
[You’ve always prioritized the living in your actions.]
“......”
[You can hear our voices, see our forms, talk and be with us! Why can’t you understand us!]
I felt her intense malice, like a tantrum trying to push me away.
[Even if the whole world doesn’t understand us vengeful spirits, shouldn’t you at least stand on our side?]
“There is a natural order to all things.”
I raised my hand to forcibly withstand her malice and replied.
“I’ve fought for you all.”
I had protected Setima’s vengeful spirits when tormented by other evil spirits.
“I’ve listened to your stories.”
There were originally far more Setima vengeful spirits, but over the three months before my dismissal, I put them one by one to rest.
“I’ve empathized deeply with you.”
Dead people usually took the form they had at death.
The reason Setima’s vengeful spirits looked grotesque on the outside was that it signified the pain they suffered right before dying.
“But precisely because I empathize with you so deeply, I must draw a clear line.”
[......!]
Blue flames of will ignited around me.
Setima’s lingering spirits, unable to depart and bearing responsibilities, came to aid me.
“As harsh as it sounds, there’s no choice. The dead must remain the dead. Do not cross into the realm of the living.”
[You......!]
“Setima’s people were foolish? They didn’t cry for revenge out of ignorance? Yes, that could be.”
In truth, most people would probably just see it as foolish.
Who could bless those who harmed them?
But.
“Even so, it’s not for us to judge right or wrong.”
[......Don’t make me laugh.]
“I don’t judge. I merely grant what the vengeful spirits wished for.”
[Shut up with that bullshit!]
“Setima’s wish, named happiness, has led to this. You’re the one who twisted, warped, and distorted it to cause this mess.”
The girl.
In other words, the thought-form called an angel had one single reason for moving.
For the wish of the nameless girl who wanted Setima’s people to be happy.
But this thought-form called an angel twisted and distorted the wish to be made happy.
To be happy, they must inflict the same pain.
To protect, they must show their power to the academy.
It was truly regrettable.
If I had been with her, the angel wouldn’t have broken this much.
Since we had once cooperated for Setima’s vengeful spirits, it was regrettable.
“Now you are an evil ghost.”
I advanced toward her with my fist clenched.
“Thus, I will exorcise you.”