Chapter 26
Chapter 26
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Who Could That Be?
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Who the heck could it be?
I tilted my head, recalling the ruby-haired girl and the honey-blonde bob-cut from the cafeteria.
If only I had Mayches's genius talent for memorizing entire books. Unfortunately, I didn't possess any such gift.
My memory was more like a jack-in-the-box—poke it, and something random might pop out... or not.
There had been a time when I'd spread out a sheet of paper and tried to jot down all the events from the original story that would happen in the future.
But only the things that came to mind once would keep resurfacing, and the more they repeated, the more it felt like I was reconstructing the events through false memories.
The minor incidents weren't important anyway. All I needed to do was prevent Mayches from turning dark, so I gave up on trying to recall the original plot (back then, I had no idea his friends were such a flashy lineup).
In any case, because of my average memory, I couldn't for the life of me remember who those two people from the cafeteria earlier had been.
It felt like something would come spilling out if I just gave it a nudge...
"Aiel?"
"Ah, yes!"
Daluh Dea held the door at the entrance to the main building and called out to me.
I'd slowed down for a moment, but I quickly slipped inside.
The corridors of Repitelips Academy's main building were refreshingly designed like a terrace, with nothing but white columns and white fences.
Magic blocked the wind to keep the indoor air warm, while light filtered in from outside, casting a pale glow on our shoulders and shoes.
Walking down the corridor felt just like a leisurely stroll—a delightful interior.
"So pretty..."
It finally hit me that I'd come outside.
This scenery, so different from the Rudelriz estate, felt like something out of a dream since it was all new to me.
I lightly rested my hand on the white fence as I walked.
The view beyond the fence shifted along with my steps.
Snow-dusted green round bushes lined the pristine white walls adorned with gold accents, a marble fountain streaked with yellow...
At the heart of Repitelips Academy's campus, where multiple walkways converged, dazzling stained glass—fit for a grand cathedral—had been laid in place of bricks on the ground...
"The buildings over there are the dorms. Right side for girls, left for boys."
Yan pointed them out one by one, revealing elegantly constructed, classical luxury dormitories in the distance.
"From now on, Mayches will be standing at the entrance to the girls' dorm twice a week."
"Yes?"
"Ahem ahem ahem, Daluh hyung."
"Yeah, I misspoke—left side."
"Okay..."
I averted my eyes from Daluh's soulless smile.
Mayches's friends continued walking me slowly through the corridors afterward, kindly explaining whenever my gaze caught something new, just like before.
Things that might pique my interest, like the party hall that only opened during festival season, club activities, or Repitelips's famous tower.
"Course registration happens before each semester starts—you check the lecture list and..."
But why were they telling me about course registration?
It was puzzling, but since I secretly harbored ambitions of enrolling here, I was grateful and nodded along attentively.
You guys might not know it, but this'll come in handy for my future!
"What subjects does Brother usually take?"
"Mostly magic courses, I think. Oh! Speaking of which, some magic professor swiped Mayches's assignment."
I was shocked hearing Bamper say that.
What? Stole his assignment? So Mayches had his research stolen?
What kind of thug...! This professor was even rougher than Mayches, who was a genius mage sticking mostly to magic electives!
"W-What did Brother say?!"
"He said it didn't matter. It was just something to kill time anyway."
Unbelievable. Mayches's pushover level was off the charts.
My Mayches... he wasn't just pretending it was fine because he was scared to complain, was he?
Bamper hurriedly explained as he looked down at me, my mouth agape in horror.
"He'd assigned something insanely difficult that no one but Mayches could solve. The professor couldn't solve it himself but wanted an excuse to borrow it for his own research, so he made it an assignment. Once Mayches turned it in, the professor used it to research with his favorite students."
"No way they published it in academic circles?"
I asked, trembling with outrage.
But these guys, who had brushed off the outrageous phrase "swiped the assignment" like it was nothing, suddenly smirked.
"Not published, but he turned it into lecture materials. Hmm... come to think of it, isn't it today?"
"Yeah. The '31 Ancient Curse Compilation Device.'"
"Pfft, the material's credited as 'Courtesy of Mayches Rudelriz, with utmost respect.' Wait, you don't think this guy's skipping class because he hates it, do you?"
"Hyung, be serious. Do you really think Mayches hyung would leave his little sister here and do that? Something unavoidable must've come up."
Listening to them one by one, I got that weird sense of déjà vu again, like when I'd seen the ruby hair and honey-blonde bob.
This innocently shocking personality... it felt familiar somehow...
I pondered deeply, then asked Bamper.
Luckily, my jack-in-the-box had coughed something up.
"By any chance, is it the ancient magic something class?"
"Oh, yeah. That's the one."
Whoa, it really was those ancient magic weirdos!
They had personalities so vividly bizarre, straight out of the original story.
The reason even unnamed side characters' traits were etched in my mind was all thanks to their mad experimental spirit.
In the original, hardly anyone took the ancient magic whatever class.
It consisted of just three brainy oddballs who truly loved magic, plus the professor.
They lived for researching whatever they wanted together, funded by the school's research grants—and since they were smart, they produced results and got plenty of funding.
Their research was conducted without restraint.
And among their many projects, restoring the 'Ancient Curse Compilation Device' was their greatest lifelong endeavor.
After devoting ages to it, they finally restored about seven curses.
Recalling up to that point, I muttered without realizing it.
"Those people needed to be handled with care..."
It was a tiny whisper, but keen-eared Calipan must have caught it.
"What was that?"
"N-No! Just talking to myself. L-Let's check out somewhere else!"
I waved it off frantically.
I couldn't very well say "I read it in a book~" and babble on, and besides, my memory was hazy anyway.
Mayches's friends and I resumed strolling slowly down the corridor.
So... what happened in the original?
Right—they gleefully activated the magic device to celebrate their research success.
It wasn't a full restoration, but that alone must have made them so proud... and so reckless...
They ended up fiddling with the control device wrong.
Curse number four, in the form of deadly poison gas, spread across all of Repitelips Academy.
"...Huh?"
My sharpening memory pointed to something far more horrific than the vague dread I'd been feeling.
Ancient curse magic combined the tangible property of gas with the intangible property of a curse, creating an entirely new kind of threat.
It was a disaster no ordinary measures could handle.
Most people near the Second Magic Lab, including the weirdos, lost their minds to acute poisoning and died without rescue.
Those farther away survived but still got addicted—other students and faculty inside the academy.
...Fortunately amid the misfortune, the poisoned elite group all had more money than they knew what to do with.
They bought up every drop of holy water from the temple at exorbitant prices for swift, sure detoxification.
As an unavoidable side effect, many who truly needed holy water suddenly suffered.
In particular, the Jedkaizer family, who absolutely required it to fight monsters, faced a very brief supply cutoff.
"..."
I glanced at Calipan's back as he walked steadily ahead.
The cutoff was truly momentary, but disasters don't wait for human convenience.
Knights from the alliance who shouldn't have died met a mass grave.
The knights guarding monster border zones 7 and 8 were wiped out.
This insane butterfly effect was the incident that first cracked the heart of Calipan, the villain of "Wrath."
Jayhan turned back at the garden entrance.
He saw a gray-haired girl stroking red petals.
Yesterday, today, tomorrow. She was crying.
"Sometimes I feel like it's a sin that I'm still alive... If only I'd been a little faster, the Jedkaizer knights wouldn't have died so pointlessly."
Jayhan blinked, watching her. Sadness. She was grieving.
"If only I'd been a little..."
Suddenly, the shoulders of the gray-haired girl, who had been sobbing, stilled.
Jayhan, who had been approaching her, also halted abruptly.