Instead, I'll Give You Some Cute Executives
The museum restroom.
The five who had asked Professor Aria for permission and entered were all washing their hands at the sinks.
Outside the restroom, at the entrance, Isolde and Morgan stood with their eyes wide open, waiting for them.
Seeing that sight, Arin, who had finished washing first and was standing by the door, spoke up.
“They look incredibly fierce… Is something really going on?”
Now that she thought about it, Aria had been acting strange since earlier, and so had Meiel, and even these two. The atmosphere was quite off.
On the surface, they seemed focused on guiding the museum tour, but they were paying far too much attention to every single movement the students made.
Of course, that was only natural for professors in charge of supervising students, but even so, it felt a little excessive.
Arin had been muttering to herself, wondering if they really were distracted by something else, just as she had suspected earlier. Surprisingly, it seemed she wasn’t the only one thinking that way.
“You’re right. Everyone does seem unusually sharp, like they’re focused on something else.”
“If even Professor Aria is acting like that, there must be something going on, right?”
Riana and Kana seemed to feel the same, murmuring quietly. At those words, Arin, who had been looking out the restroom door, turned her head toward the two who were drying their hands with towels.
“See? I wasn’t imagining it!”
“What? You felt that too? I didn’t notice at all.”
“Me neither.”
“Well, that’s because you two were just staring at the exhibits the whole time…”
Arin had raised her voice in excitement upon realizing Kana and Riana shared her thoughts, but the ones who spoke up after her were Shaty and Pina.
The two tilted their heads in confusion, as if they hadn’t noticed the conversation between Arin, Kana, and Riana at all.
But since the two mages had been completely absorbed in the museum tour until just moments ago, there was no way they could have known.
They hadn’t even spared the professors a glance, too busy sightseeing. How could they have noticed?
When Arin smiled awkwardly and explained, Shaty and Pina scratched their heads in embarrassment. Riana, who had been resting her chin on her hand in thought, finally lifted her head.
“No matter how I think about it, something is definitely going on. Should we go back and ask Professor Aria together? She might not tell one person, but if all five of us ask, she might open up.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
Arin clapped her hands at Riana’s suggestion.
Despite her cold appearance, Aria had always been weak to the children when they asked for something as a group.
If all five of them asked together, there was a good chance she would tell them. For Arin, who was dying to know what had them so on edge, it was worth trying.
Kana felt the same. Shaty and Pina didn’t seem particularly curious, but with three others already on board, they had no choice but to reluctantly join in.
“Shall we go, then?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
“Just in case, should we ask Assistant Isolde or Assistant Morgan too?”
They had finished their business and washed their hands thoroughly.
There was no reason to stay in the restroom any longer, so the five of them, including Arin, lined up and headed for the exit. At that moment, Kana, standing in the middle, offered another suggestion.
The two assistants were also weak to group requests, so Arin and Riana nodded in agreement. But the idea was immediately shot down by Pina, who had stepped out first.
Tap… tap…
“Huh? Um… Assistant Isolde and Assistant Morgan aren’t here…?”
The words came from Pina, who had exited the restroom first.
She looked left and right at the spots where Isolde and Morgan had been standing and spoke. The four who followed her burst out of the entrance in shock.
“What?”
“There’s no way those two would be gone. Weren’t they just standing right here? Maybe they went back to the professors?”
“No way. They were watching us like they’d never let us out of their sight. There’s no chance they’d leave, even for a second.”
“Riana’s right. And they were definitely here right until we came out. If they had left, we would’ve heard footsteps at least. But there weren’t any.”
The four who had rushed out couldn’t believe Pina at first, but when they realized no one was actually standing at the entrance, their eyes widened and they all spoke at once.
Kana suggested that maybe the two had returned to Aria for a moment, but both Riana and Arin shot that down.
Especially Arin, who had seen them standing there perfectly fine just a minute ago, was even more certain.
But denying Kana’s idea didn’t magically produce an answer.
If anything, the fact that the most plausible theory had been rejected only deepened the mystery. The five of them could only stare at each other with question marks floating above their heads.
“Where on earth did they go?”
“Seriously… where could they have…”
They pondered where Isolde and Morgan could have disappeared to.
But in the middle of that, only one person sensed something strange and cut everyone off.
“Everyone.”
Her tone was no different from usual, yet somehow even stiffer and more rigid than normal.
The one who spoke in that tone was Pina.
Jingle.
The divine bell on the staff Aria had given her after the kraken incident rang out. Pina’s face was just as stiff as her voice as she drew everyone’s attention.
“Pina?”
“What’s wrong? Why the serious face all of a sudden?”
“Are you feeling sick?”
“If your stomach hurts, I have some medicine…”
“No, it’s not that.”
Pina shook her head at the four who looked at her with worry.
Then, gazing at them—still unaware of the strange reality they had been hypnotized into accepting—she activated her holy magic and spoke.
Holy magic that dispels mental hypnosis and brainwashing.
“Doesn’t the museum feel… far too quiet right now?”
The holy care worked perfectly. The four, who had failed to notice anything wrong until now, suddenly jolted and began looking around in alarm.
Soon, just like Pina, they searched for what lay behind the museum’s facade and their faces filled with panic.
“There’s not a single person in the museum…?”
“There were so many people just a little while ago…?!”
“What the hell is this…?”
Before they had entered the restroom, the museum had been so crowded that they could have easily gotten lost in the sea of people. But now, aside from the five of them, there was no one else inside.
The fact that none of them—except Pina—had noticed such a massive change left only Shaty, the mage, with a guess. She turned to Pina.
“Ah, wait. Pina, is this perhaps…?”
“Yes. I think it’s exactly what you’re thinking.”
Pina nodded, confirming Shaty’s suspicion.
As a priestess, the moment she had resisted the ominous energy creeping into her mind, she had reached the same conclusion.
“Wait, what are you two talking about? Don’t keep it to yourselves—tell us too.”
“Exactly. What does ‘that’ mean?”
“We’re curious too…”
When the two mages nodded and exchanged words the others couldn’t understand, Arin, Riana, and Kana—who still hadn’t fully grasped the situation—asked for an explanation. Pina answered first.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I believe this is a barrier. As Professor Meiel taught us, magic is broadly divided into five types: attack, defense, domain, creation, and annihilation. The kind that affects the mind and transports people to what feels like an entirely different space falls under the domain category.”
“And among domain magic, it’s most likely a barrier spell that has done this to us.”
Pina explained the important parts, and Shaty followed up with the core details.
Even the three with little connection to magic could understand when explained this thoroughly, so they nodded halfway in comprehension.
Among them, Arin, who had the quickest mind for sorting out complex information, pressed her temples and asked Pina again.
“So we’re trapped inside some unknown barrier right now?”
“Yes, to put it simply.”
“Then do we at least know who cast this barrier…”
“My, my. Correct. Congratulations.”
Arin had been about to ask who the caster of the barrier was now that they knew they were trapped. But before she could finish, a sickeningly sweet voice echoed around them.
It was a woman’s voice, reverberating as if broadcast through the museum’s speakers.
The very next moment, the ordinary museum scenery began to be dyed in a deep purple hue.
“The surroundings…”
“Ugh… I feel dizzy…”
“Is this the barrier?”
The purple color spread slowly, like ink dripping onto water, devouring the scenery.
Walls, paintings, windows, exhibits—everything visible was being stained purple.
A purple curtain unfurled and swallowed their vision, completely cutting them off from the outside world.
When the curtain finally formed a perfect rectangular prism, sealing them inside, a woman rose from the purple floor along with eleven men and women.
“But unfortunately, your answer contains two mistakes.”
The woman who had risen from the floor continued the interrupted sentence while holding up two fingers.
Seeing the woman with nothing covering her face, along with the eleven others who were also bare-faced, Arin, Kana, and Pina unconsciously screamed inside their heads.
Demon race.
The pale skin and distinctive ears were too similar to the demons they remembered. Having seen demons before, the three couldn’t help but recognize them.
Whether she knew what they were thinking or not, the woman who had held up two fingers folded one of them down and spoke.
“The first mistake is that the barrier I cast is not some ordinary barrier spell.”
Perhaps she was displeased at having her barrier compared to ordinary ones, because the woman slightly furrowed her brows.
At that small movement, the five who had their hands on their weapons flinched. Fortunately, the woman did not move any further.
As if to say that if she did move, she would also reveal the second mistake, the woman folded her remaining finger and smirked, the corners of her mouth curling up.
“The second mistake is that you are not trapped inside my barrier—you have been isolated. They may look similar, but the two are subtly different.”
Having folded both fingers, the woman clutched her stomach and burst into loud laughter, as if something were incredibly funny.
To anyone watching, she was clearly toying with them, brimming with leisure and contempt. Yet none of the five could feel resentment toward her actions.
Her laughter came from absolute confidence. And in reality, even if they drew their weapons for a surprise attack or coordinated assault, none of them could imagine actually harming the woman before them.
The gap in skill between her and the five was simply that overwhelming.
That was why none of them could even frown at her laughter. Except for the man with light sky-blue hair standing beside her.
“That’s enough, Tidrop. Even though we’ve separated Lady Isolde and Lady Morgan, letting our guard down is dangerous. Let’s kill these human brats quickly and escape.”
“Haa, I told you not to order me around, Halfras.”
The woman who had been laughing—called Tidrop by the man—scrunched her face at Halfras’s words.
At that moment, the five who had only been on guard were hit by Tidrop’s overwhelming aura. Before they could even register the strangeness of Halfras’s words, they all shared the same thought.
We have to run. Right now.
At the academy, the five had learned much and grown stronger. They had accomplished things they once thought were limits and witnessed the impossible become possible.
In other words, their once narrow vision had expanded in every direction. But the stronger they became, the more they had heard one phrase drilled into their ears.
—Your life is always the top priority.
Always put your own survival first. If you encounter an enemy you cannot possibly defeat, focus everything on escaping.
Having heard this countless times, the five instinctively knew they had to flee from the demons before them.
At least… that was what they thought.
My body… won’t move…
When a crisis threatens survival, a human’s reaction is said to split into two: moving on instinct, or freezing on instinct.
Unfortunately, in front of these demons, the five chose to freeze.
The emotion of fear acted like shackles, dragging their feet heavily to the ground. So heavily that it felt like they were being sucked into the dizzying purple curtain.
Little by little, the weight grew heavier and heavier and heavier.
They knew it would only get worse the longer they stayed rooted, but they still couldn’t lift their feet. The moment when they could have moved had long since passed.
So Arin, Kana, Riana, Shaty, and Pina could only watch helplessly as Tidrop approached, tidying her disheveled hair.
“Those four over there are the ones Lady Idea told us absolutely not to touch, so I can’t lay a hand on them. That means I have to make sure to kill you five and leave.”
“It’s an order, after all,” she added, pulling out a short stick-shaped wand.
Behind her, a woman with purple hair also raised a large staff and continued after Tidrop.
“That’s right. Our orders are to kill you on sight too, so it’s a little heartbreaking, but we have no choice.”
The purple-haired woman pretended to wipe away tears. Then, a white-haired woman who had walked up beside Tidrop along with her tapped her shoulder with a sword and yawned lazily.
“Haaam… I’m tired, so let’s kill them quickly and go. Ah, but we have to evacuate those four first.”
The white-haired woman pointed at the five with the hand that had been tapping her shoulder.
Tidrop had been walking quite naturally alongside the two who had just spoken, but when the white-haired woman said the word “evacuate,” she suddenly stopped as if sensing something strange.
She turned her head back and forth, looking at both sides where the two voices had come from.
“Huh…?”
Tidrop rubbed her eyes as if she had seen something wrong.
But even after rubbing them, nothing changed.
Standing naturally beside Tidrop as she approached Arin, Kana, Riana, Shaty, and Pina were two additional women.
To put it simply—Isolde and Morgan were standing there.
The moment she clearly captured them in her vision, Tidrop muttered quietly.
“Whoa…”